I've done a lot of funerals and I've been around a lot of death
and I've seen a lot of people go through a lot of difficult
things. It's very different when it's
your family and, you know, I have empathy, I guess you would
call it. I was talking to doc this
morning and, you know, I, I, I work with these families.
I don't even know the person who died.
And I feel bad for the family because they're the ones that
are left that have to deal with it.
And you know, but it's, it's very different.
It's very different when it's you and when you're going
through those things and when you're the ones that dealing
with somebody in your own family.
I mean, you grew up together, you know, you don't expect that
you're going to be going up for a funeral and, you know, burying
your younger brother. You just don't expect it to
happen. I wanted to go 1st and let
everybody else be the ones that have to deal with that, you
know, but I'm in the same thing from my, my dad, you know, you
don't, you don't bury your kids either, you know, and I think
it's just a little bit of a shock.
But the Bible says this in Matthew chapter 6 and verse #19
God laid this message on my heart a couple days ago when I
started planning to preach it. And when I went to bed last
night, I had no idea that it was going to be exactly what I
believe God wants us to hear this morning.
I thought about changing the message, but I think this is
exactly what what God wants me to preach.
So I'm going to preach it this morning.
The Bible says this in Matthew chapter 6 and verse #19 Lay not
up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth
corrupt, and where thieves breakthrough and steal.
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where
neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do
not breakthrough nor steal. For where your treasure is,
there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the
eye. If therefore thine eye be
single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of
darkness. If therefore the light that is
in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness?
No man can serve 2 masters, for either he will hate the one and
love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the
other. You cannot serve God and mammon
verse #33 but seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his
righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
I'm not much for Facebook and I don't I don't I don't post much
on Facebook. I don't get into a lot of the
Facebook trends and everything else, but I saw this trend going
around a few years ago that really got me thinking.
It said, everyone who knows me knows that I love blank.
And I think it was meant to be kind of like a, you know, a
playful thing rather than something that's life
evaluating. But I think it's a pretty life
evaluating post if you really think about it.
If you were to ask yourself that question, everybody who knows me
knows that I love fill in the blank.
What, what would the answer to that question be?
I think for a lot of people it's pretty obvious.
Oh, that person is so into fill in the blank.
Everybody knows me, knows that I love money.
Everybody knows me, knows that I love sports.
Everybody who knows me knows that I I love my job.
Everybody who knows me knows that I love politics.
Everybody who knows me knows that I love toys, whatever it
happens to be. What would somebody say about
you? What would what would you have
to honestly say if you were the 1 to fill in that blank?
What would you say? I, I know what we would like
that blank to say, but what would it say?
I've, I like to have checklist to make sure that I get things
done. And so I have AI have a
checklist every week, one that I, I, I printed off and it's the
same. And then I add to it and I fill
up pages and everything else. I, I love to mark things off the
list number one, to make sure that I got it done And I'm not
forgetting something, but #2 I like to see that I'm getting
things done. And so as you mark them off the
list, that those things get accomplished.
And when I make that list, I have to make sure that I have
the things in that list in the right priority.
Things that, that, that matter need to be done first.
You can't. You can't put the same priority
on things that are not important.
The important things have to be done.
And that list that I print off every week has a list of all the
things that these are things that have to be done.
I have to put a message together for Sunday morning.
I have to put a message together for Sunday night.
I have to have my Sunday school lesson ready to go.
I have to have a lesson or a message ready for Wednesday
night. I have to have the bullets and I
have to have all these things. Those are things that are
priorities. Those are things that have to be
done. And then I have a list of of
other things that I've got to get done that week.
And some of them are higher priority than others.
But then I've got a little checklist that's on the side of
when I get everything finished. There's a reason that checklist
has been there for a while. But when I get everything
finished, these are things that I need to make sure that I get
done as well. These are things that are not as
high a priority, but they're things that matter and things
that need to get done. Everything would get out of
whack if I didn't put the most important tasks first, if I
didn't prioritize the things that matter the most.
And I think that's exactly what we have to do in our lives.
We have to be on guard in our lives to make sure that our
priorities are in the right order.
First, John chapter 2 and verse 15 says love not the world,
neither the things that are in the world.
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him
for all that is in the world. The lust of the flesh, the lust
of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but
is of the world. And the world passeth away in
the luster of but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.
So here's what happens. We get so involved in the world,
We get so involved in things of the world, things that just are
absolutely not going to matter in eternity.
And we allow that to pull us farther and further away from
our relationship with God. And things really get messed up
and everything gets all out of whack because we put the wrong
priorities in the wrong place. I want to ask you a lot of
questions this morning. Questions that only you are
going to know the answer to, but that'll give you a great
evaluation of where you are in your life.
Everyone who knows me knows that I love Blank.
What would I like for people to say about me and answer to that
question? You have to be honest with
yourself this morning. Oh, you can say everybody who
knows me knows that I love Jesus.
But do they really know that somebody looking at you from the
outside, can they say, I know that person loves God, that
person loves you would like them to say a lot of different things
about you. But based on the way that you
live your life, what would have to go in that blank?
That's what I'm gonna preach to you about this morning.
I want to give you 3 things, 3 priorities that we should have
in our lives. Three things that should be at
the very top of a description of me.
Three things that should be at the very top of a description of
you. If somebody said everybody who
knows me knows that I love blank.
Everybody who knows me. That's the title of the message
this morning. I want to give you 3 things, but
let's pray and we'll look at those in just a few minutes.
Father, again, we thank you for your goodness to us.
So thank you for the opportunity that you've given us to be here
around your word. I pray that you give me the
strength. I preached the message this
morning. I pray that you'd help us as we
listen. God, may you, may you stir our
hearts now. You help us to be exactly what
you want us to be so that when our time comes that we're going
to stand before you, we'll have no regrets.
We'll have nothing to be ashamed of.
We won't have to hang our heads and say, I wish I had done so
much more, but we can present the crowns that we earn from
living for you. Say, it's all that I have, but
they're yours. And I'm so glad I gave my life
for Christ. May you help us this morning.
Thank you again for all you do for us in Jesus name, Amen.
Everybody who knows me knows that I love what number one, we
should love the Lord first and foremost.
You should expect that that would be the point that I was
going to give you first. If God is not first in our life,
then nothing else can be in the right place but turn over to
Matthew chapter 22. Easy to say that and a lot of
people would say, oh, everybody that looks at me would say that
I love God because I go to church.
Everybody who looks at me would say that I love, love Jesus
because. What?
Because what if all you do is go to church?
That's not proof that you love God.
Now you should go to church, right?
You should read your Bible. But is there things in your life
that make it very obvious that you love Jesus Christ more than
anything else in your life? Go back and look at your
Facebook posts and I know maybe you post a verse here and there
or something like that, but go back and look at your Facebook
posts. What is predominant on your
Facebook page? To let everybody know what you
think is the most important in your life because what you post
on Facebook is what you want everybody to know about you.
What do they see? When they look at that, do they
see a a gospel witness? Do they see a representation of
Jesus Christ? Do they see things that that let
everybody know that you're a Christian?
Or do they see things that that in the light of eternity don't
matter or maybe even on farther out than that, things that are
that are that go against God's word.
And you might say that you love God and you might say that you
love church and you might say that you're a Christian, but
your Facebook page shows nothing about that.
You cannot say that if somebody saw you and asked you that
question. Everybody that knows me knows
that I love. Fill in the blank.
Now, Facebook page is not everything.
That's not the evaluation of your life, but it's a good place
to start. Because it tells everybody what
you love. It tells everybody what you put
as your number one priority. Matthew chapter 22 and verse #34
says this. But when the Pharisees had heard
that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered
together. Then one of them, which was a
lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him and saying, Master,
which is the great commandment in the law?
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind.
And in another parallel passage, he said with all thy strength.
This is the first and great commandment.
That's the foundation of everything in Belize right
around the corner from actually right right across the canal
from where the Airbnb was that a lot of the the group that's
going to be there. And by the way, this is the 14th
anniversary service today for the church down there.
They'll be starting their service.
Actually, they're starting their service right now.
And they're, you know, they're expecting 3 or 400 people to be
there. And, and obviously the gospel is
going to go out and we're praying that souls will get
saved. But there's a couple different
churches that are there that are, that, that have taken part
in the, in, in getting out the invitations and sharing, sharing
the gospel. And they're going to be part of
the service and everything else today.
But right next to that, right right across from the the canal
from where they were staying, there's a house that's a
beautiful, beautiful White House.
It was built by a Canadian guy who came down to Belize, bought
a, bought a piece of property and had some builders come in
and build the house. I think he spent something like
$500,000 to build this house, a nice, nice house right there in
not not a great neighborhood necessarily, but right there in,
in Belize City. When you look at the house,
something really is off about it because the house is actually
sitting on the ground like this. In Belize City, everything is
sand. And if you're going to build it
the right way, which you should because it's it's of the code
and everything else, you have to drive piles down into the sand.
Big concrete pillars that go all the way down to bedrock.
And in some places I got to drive 40 feet or more per
pillar. And when they built that house,
they didn't do that. And so now this beautiful
$500,000 house made out of all concrete and brick is sitting
there unlivable because it sits at such an angle that if you lay
down on the bed, you'd probably end up on the floor because
somebody didn't build on a solid foundation.
And that's the most important thing.
You've got to build on the right foundation.
The foundation of loving God is to know Jesus Christ as your
Savior. Turn over to Mark chapter 8.
You know the, the, the, the way of salvation is, is, is very
simple. It's so simple that even a child
can understand it. But so many people are
interested in in in being dunked in a tank for baptism and
calling it salvation. Or so many people are interested
in in in repeating a prayer after somebody.
Else to say that I, I just I, I, I don't know if this is going to
work or not, but I'm going to. I might as well try it.
What does it hurt to repeat a prayer and hope I can get to
heaven someday? I forget who it was, but one of
these. Actors always the guy who, who,
who is The Who wrote the Dilbert comic comic.
And he said as he was getting ready to die, he said, well, I
don't know if this is going to do me any good or not, but I'll
become a Christian. I mean, if I if, if there's
nothing out there, I have nothing to lose, I'll go ahead
and become a Christian. That's not salvation.
That's not Christianity, that's not putting all your faith and
trust and your hope and your life in the hands of Jesus
Christ. That's counting on him.
Plus a lot of other things. Romans chapter 3 and verse 23
says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
We're all sinners. And because we're sinners we
cannot get into heaven. Sin cannot enter heaven because
God is just and God is holy and God is absolutely righteous, but
He didn't leave us without any hope.
Romans 6 verse 23 says for the wages of sin is death, but the
gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
He came and died on the cross to pay for your sins, to pay for my
sins. He took the debt that we owed
that we could never pay, and He paid the debt that He did not
owe. He gave his life in my place and
he was whipped and he was beaten and He was sacrificed there on
the cross. Romans chapter 5 and verse 8
says, But God commendeth His love toward us in that while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
While He was on the cross, I was on His mind.
He knew that I was going to come along someday.
He knew that I was going to be a Sinner and that I was going to
be in need of a Savior and the blood.
Of Jesus Christ is so powerful that it covers all of my sins,
past, present, and future. Covers the sins of the entire
world, past, present and future. And everybody must come to
Christ the same way. Come to him in faith, believing
that I'm a Sinner and that I cannot get to heaven on my own,
and come in repentance and say God, I've been running towards
sin. I'm running the opposite
direction. And you don't stop sinning in
order to be saved, but you stop sinning because you are saved
and you put Jesus Christ as the priority in your life.
Romans chapter 10 and verse 9 for says that if thou shalt
confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thy
heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be
saved. For with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness. With the mouth confession is
made into salvation. So many people want to make it
about the mouth. I prayed a prayer somewhere
along the lines though it's it's a belief in the heart.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 8
makes it very clear that that that they're not getting to
heaven through the Catholic Church.
You're not getting to heaven through most churches, you're
not getting to heaven through any church, You're getting to
heaven through Jesus Christ. But a lot of these churches try
to tell you that you got to do all these things and.
You got to be a good person, and you got to do all these
sacraments and you got to do all these ordinances, and you got to
follow everything that our church tells you that you have
to do if you have any hope of finally getting to heaven
someday. That's not in the Bible.
In fact, the opposite is found in the Bible.
For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast.
I'm not going to get to heaven because of all the good things
that I've done. I'm going to get to heaven
because of what Jesus Christ did for me.
And only when I put all of my faith and all of my trust in Him
will He mark across the page of my sins justified.
And when God looks at me, he doesn't see me with all of my
sins. He sees only the blood of Jesus
Christ covering my sins. And that's how I'm going to get
into heaven. I'm thankful that my brother
knew Jesus Christ as his Savior. My mom's already there.
I'm a little jealous because he's the first one that got to
see her. I'll be there soon, I hope.
But Mark chapter 8 and verse #36 the Bible says, for what shall
it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own
soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
There's a lot, a lot of people who want to talk about God, a
lot of people who say that they believe in Jesus and even that
he died on the cross, but they don't know Jesus Christ as their
personal Savior. They've never been to the foot
of the cross. They've never dropped their
burden down at the at the foot of the cross and.
Giving it all. Over to him.
It's all lip service. Oh, oh, people know that I love
Jesus. How?
How do they know that? Is that the priority in your
life? Is that what is that what
predominates or what dominates everything that you have in your
life? Is everything about living for
Christ or do you have a lot of other things that you put as
other priorities in your life, other things that you've allowed
to slip in there? You have to work.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't have a job.
You should have a job, but that job is not your life.
That job is not your priority. If you died today, they would
replace you tomorrow. And there'll be a couple of
people who might be sad that you're gone, and there might be
a few people who miss you, but give it 10/15/20 years and
they're not even going to remember your name.
And yet you gave your entire life to that job.
You gave your entire life to making money.
You gave your entire life to a political system that's going to
be gone someday. It's not going to count for
anything. You gave your life to having all
the toys that you can have in this life.
They're going to be gone and. They're not going to count for
anything. Only thing that's going to count
is what you've done for Christ. And I want to stay.
I want to be able to stand before Christ and say I did what
I had to do to stay alive. I did what I had to do.
I made the money that I had to make and the money that you gave
me, I used it for you. But here's everything that I'm
giving back because you can't take it with you, but you can
pass it on ahead. And what most people are living
their life for things that are going to die right here with
them. Oh, somebody else is going to
spend that money. Somebody else is going to live
in your house or they're going to sell it.
The second you die. Somebody else is going to drive
your car. Somebody else is going to have
your job. Somebody else will replace you
when that political system is not in power anymore.
When that political system is gone, it's all going to be gone.
Everything's going to be gone. Where's your priorities?
Does everyone who know you know that you love Jesus Christ first
and foremost? For those who have accepted
Christ as their Savior, I want to ask you a few questions to
see if He really is first place in your life.
Turn over to Deuteronomy chapter 6.
I want to ask you this question. Do you love Him?
Do you love him? I know that you would say yes.
I know you would say yes because you know that that's the right
answer. Yes, I love him.
Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse #5 And this is what I just read
the verse back in Matthew chapter 22.
But Jesus was referencing Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse
#5 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart,
with all thy soul, and with all But I might.
I know everybody would say, Oh yes, I love Jesus.
But do you really love him? Turn over to John chapter 14.
How do you know? How do you know if you really
love him or not? How do you know if you really
love Christ? Well, we have a pretty good
answer right there in John chapter 14 and verse #15 Jesus
made it very plain. If you love me, keep my
commandments. OK, prove that you love me.
Do what I say, follow me, obey me.
I gave you everything that you need to know in in my word.
Are you obeying it or are you living your life the way that
you want to live your life? That's what a lot of people do.
Oh, I love Jesus. But I can do all these other
things. I can drink, I can smoke, I can
go to parties, I can, I can hang out in places that I shouldn't
be. I can watch whatever I want to
watch. I can listen to whatever I want
to listen to. Oh, but I love Jesus.
OK, Jelly roll, Right. That's not Christianity.
And I know. Oh, well, I'm a, I'm a baby
Christian. I'm just learning these things.
You know what's right? That's why you're making that
excuse. And so do most Christians.
They know what's right. Most of these things are basic
things about Christianity. And I know that we'll spend a
lifetime digging through God's Word and finding things out as
we study out his Word and as we as we find things that God wants
us to do. We'll never be perfect.
And we're never going to get to that point where we've finally
arrived at everything we should constantly be studying to try to
get closer to God. But most of these things are
basic Christianity. And most Christians don't even
follow basic Christianity. And they make all the excuses in
the world for why they can't and why they don't and why they
won't. If you love me, keep my
commandments. Start with the 10 commandments.
How about that? Thou shalt have no other gods
before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image. Thou shalt not bear false
witness against thy neighbor. That's only three of them.
Thou shalt not commit adultery. If any man look at a woman in it
to lust after her in his heart, he hath committed adultery with
her already in his heart. Let's just start with the 10
commandments that everybody thinks they know and see if we
can start there with obeying him.
There's 1000 and I think there's something like 1300
commandments. In God's word.
Let's just start with the 1st 10 and see if we can prove that we
love him. Bye.
Keeping his commandments turn over to Luke Chapter 12.
One of the marks of love is giving.
How do you prove you love somebody?
Give. Give them money, give them your
time, give them yourself. That's how you prove that you
love. Somebody and it's the same thing
that that God is expecting from us, right?
How do you prove that you love God?
You give. You give to his work, you give
to missions, you give to the things that he's.
That that that he's trying to accomplish through His church.
You give him your time. That's how you prove what you
love. You give your time to the things
that you love, right? If it's sports, then guess what
you're going to do and be glued to that television.
You're going to be spending all your time figuring out the stats
of all these players, and you're going to figure out who got
traded here and there, and you're going to know who's
playing for this team and that team.
You know everything about it. You're giving your time because
you love it. There's a lot of other things
that we do the same thing with. But what about Christ?
If you love him, you're going to give him your time.
You'll be here when we have an opportunity to share the gospel.
You'll be here when we have church.
You'll be here when we're doing things that that that, that are
centered around the gospel. Luke chapter 12 and verse #34
makes it very clear. For where your treasure is,
there will your heart be also. The things that you give your
money to, the things that you give your time to, the things
that you give your life to are the things that are really
important to you. So everybody who knows me knows
that I love blank because this is what I give my money and my
time and my life to. What is it?
What do you, what do you have to put in that blank?
What do you have to put there? If you're being honest with
yourself, what do you have to put there?
Can you honestly put? Everybody who knows me knows
that I love God. Everybody who knows me knows
that I love Christ because I give my time and my money and
myself to him. You know, I would argue that
your time is, is far more valuable than your money.
Now, giving is a principle in God's word.
You ought to, you ought to be given your money, all right. 10%
of it automatically belongs to God.
And then there's giving on top of tithing.
But you know, the billionaire whose health is failing would
give up every penny that he has for another five years.
You can be in good health and not have a lot of money and
still have a good life. Time is more valuable than
money. Your health is more valuable
than money. So what you give your time and
your life to and your money are the things that you have as
priorities in your life. Do you love him?
Let me ask you this because this goes right along with that.
Do you serve him? Does God know that you're a
servant or do you have to remind him from time to time?
Hey, by the way, I'm, I'm, I'm your servant because he never
sees you showing up to serve that.
You're part of a body. What are you doing in that body
to serve Christ? That's why it's important that
you join a church. Get plugged in, become a member,
serve Him. That's what He expects out of
us. You should never get so busy in
the work of the Lord that you forget your relationship with
Him. Never get so busy serving the
King that you forget who the king is.
That's a word of caution because there's a lot of people who jump
in and do everything and they neglect their relationship with
Christ. But that's, that's, that's not
usually what happens. Most people have all of their
other things that they've got going on and they neglect their
relationship with Christ. They neglect their opportunity
to serve. Turn over to Philippians chapter
1. Do you love Him?
Do you serve Him, but also do you witness for Him?
That's how you prove that you love him.
That's how you prove that that He is everything to you.
Philippians chapter 1 and verse #20 Paul said this according to
my earnest expectation and my hope that in nothing I shall be
ashamed, but that with all boldness as always.
So now also Christ. Christ should be magnified in my
body, whether it be by life or by death.
If I have to die in order for Christ to be lifted up, I will
gladly do it. If I have to live for him in
order for Christ to be lifted up and Christ to be magnified in my
life, I will gladly do it. Very few people can fit into
that category. Very few people say I want
Christ to be magnified in my life, no matter how it has to
happen if I have to die. For it to happen, then great.
If I have to live in a different way for that to happen, then
great. I just want Christ to be
magnified by my life. Is is everybody.
Around you know that when they see you, you're going to try to
give them the gospel. I think a great mark of whether
or not you are a true witness is sometimes people go the opposite
direction because they know that you're going to give them the
gospel. I would rather have that happen.
I would rather have it that somebody walks the other way and
tries to avoid me because they know what I'm going to say than
for them to be my best friend and not even know that I'm a
Christian. But that's how most Christians
live their lives. Your priority is not Jesus
Christ. If you're not sharing the
gospel. Boldly sharing the gospel.
Oh, you'll throw a plug in here and there.
Oh, yeah, I go to church, I'm a Christian.
That's not that's not boldly sharing the gospel, especially
in America. How hard is it to tell people
that you're a Christian in America?
Everybody is. It's not hard.
Sharing the gospel is hard because that's where you get
down to the, to the to the, to the meat of it.
And that's difficult because most people don't want to hear
it. They don't have any problem
hearing about God. They don't want to hear about
Jesus. They don't want to hear about
their sin. They don't want to hear what
they have to do in order to be saved because they've heard
religion and they know everything that they have to
know because they've been baptized or because they've been
going to church here and there on and off for the last 10
years. And that's their salvation
experience. And they don't want anything
else because somebody along the line told them that that's what
they have to do to get to heaven.
And they're OK with that. And then we come along.
We say that's. Not what the Bible says and they
don't want to hear it. Are you a witness for Christ?
That's how you prove if if that's your number one priority,
The Bohemian reformer. And you probably heard of the
name John Huss, but he was a man who believed that the Scripture
was infallible. There was a lot of people during
that time that didn't believe that, but that that he believed
that the Bible was the the supreme authority in in every
matter. He died at the stake for that
belief in Constance Germany on his 42nd birthday.
And I gave him an opportunity before he died to renounce his
faith one more time. And he wouldn't do it as he was
being burned at the stake. These were his last words.
But I taught with my lips, I seal with my blood.
That's Christianity lived out. We have a testimony to uphold to
a lost and dying world. A commentator by the name of
Robert P Lightner said this. Paul's concern was not what
would happen to him, but what testimony would be left for his
Lord. Released from prison would allow
him to continue preaching Christ, but martyrdom would also
advance the cause of Christ. So know also Christ shall be
magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death.
The story maybe you've heard of it before, about 40 martyrs in
Russia. And these forty soldiers, all
Christians were members of, I'm sorry, not Russia, the Rome, it
was in Rome. But they were all members of
what was, what was a famed 12th legion, Rome's 12th legion.
And the emperor made a decree. Emperor Lucienius had sent out
an edict that all soldiers were supposed to make a, an offering
or make it to make a sacrifice to the Pagan gods to prove that
they were soldiers of Rome. But these Christians, 40 of them
said, you can have our armor and you can have our bodies, but we
are not going to deny our allegiance to Jesus Christ.
Our hearts belong to Him. And so this was in the midwinter
of AD 320, and the captain had marched these forty soldiers out
onto a frozen lake. They stripped them of their
clothes and said that they would either die or denounce Christ.
You're going to be out here on this frozen lake either until
you're dead or until you come walking back and tell me that
you're denouncing Christ. And those forty soldiers, they,
they sat out there and they, they, they sang together, same
way that Paul and Silas sang in the prison.
But slowly the chorus grew quieter as one by one those
soldiers passed away from the exposure to the cold.
Finally, when there was 1 soldier left, he lost his
courage and he stumbled over to the shore.
He renounced Christ. The officer of the guards had
been watching all of that, and he had been given a witness of
the gospel already. So he was aware of the gospel of
Christ. And as he watched these forty
soldiers one by one lose their life, lives, he became, he came
closer and closer to realizing that he needed to accept Christ
as his Savior because there was something to this Christianity.
There was something real about it.
So as this lone soldier made his way back to the shore to
denounce Christ, that soldier dropped his armor, shed his
clothes, and walked out there onto that ice.
By the time they came to collect the bodies, there were forty
soldiers who had given their lives for Christ.
We can prove our love for God by standing for him, by being a
bold witness for him. That's that's how you prove that
you love him. No, it's not hard in this
Facebook age, in this Instagram age, you can put a post on it
anytime you want telling people who you are, but most people are
afraid of what their followers are going to think about them.
Most people are afraid of who might be offended if I put this
post out there on Facebook. You can give without loving, but
you can never love without giving.
And that's what Christ demands of us.
Someone would ask about your life.
When they say, now there's a man, there's a woman who loves
the Lord. Everyone who knows me knows that
I love. Fill in the blank.
We should love the Lord first and foremost, but #2 we should
love our family. Turn over to Luke chapter 14.
You might be asking how we can put our family second.
Isn't the family that God gave me the most important thing in
my life? It is.
But in order to love our family the way that we should, that a
love for God has to be first. The more we love God and the
more our relationship with God is right, the more we're going
to love our family and the more our relationship with our family
is going to be right. You want to know why?
Why marriages struggle? Because one or both don't really
love the Lord their God the way that they should.
You want to know why families are dysfunctional?
Because one or both or all of the people in the family don't
love the Lord their God the way that they should.
If you love the Lord supremely and you love him most and you
love him best, then you're going to love your wife the way that
you should love your wife. You're going to love your
husband the way that you should love your husband.
You're going to love your kids the way that you should love
your kids. You're going to love your
parents the way that you should love your.
Parents, because when you love God, everything works the way
that it's supposed to. Luke chapter 14 and verse #26
The Bible says, if any man come to me and hate not his father
and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yeah,
and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
Oh, so that means I got to hate everybody?
No, it just means that your love for God should be so.
Great that the love that you have for everything else looks
like hate in compared in comparison to your love for God,
including your own life. God would have to be first in
everything I do so that out of an overflow of my relationship
with God, it passes down to my relationship with my wife, it
passes down to my relationship with my children and so on.
I've given you this illustration before, but if you picture a
triangle and, and God is at the top of the triangle and the
husband and wife are at the bottom of of that triangle.
The closer you get to God, the closer you're going to be drawn
to each other. But you think about when you
have a husband who is, who is trying to become closer to
Christ and the wife has no interest in it.
You're not going to get closer together.
That relationship is not going to be is not going to be built
the way that needs to be built. It's not going to be built on
the right foundation. Both of you have to be.
Moving in the direction together, Both of you have to
make Christ a priority. Both of you have to make your
relationship with God the priority in your life.
And what you're going to find is that your relationship together
is going to become so strong when you put Christ in the
position that he belongs in in your family.
It's not hard for a wife to submit to her husband if she's
submitted to Christ. It's not hard for a husband to
love his wife if he's submitted to Christ.
It's not hard for a dad to bring up his children in the nurture
and the admonition of the Lord if he's submitted to Christ.
It's not hard for children to obey their parents in the Lord
if they're submitted to Christ. Everything works when you put
God first. But you ought to love your
family. Husbands ought to love their
wives. And I'm not going to take the
time to read through Ephesians chapter 5, but it says that very
plainly. Husbands, love your wives even
as Christ also. Loved the church and gave
himself for it. That's a strong love, Jesus
Christ, love for the church. The way that we prove our love
for God is the same way that we prove our love for the family,
for our family, and vice versa. The way that we prove that we
love our family is the same way that we prove our love for God,
by giving, by serving, by loving.
By the way, they ought to know that too.
Your wife ought to know that you love her because you tell her.
Your husband ought to know that you love him because you tell
him. Your kids ought to know that you
love them because you tell them. A wife asked her husband one
day. She said, honey, we've been
married 10 years and you never tell me that you love me.
You do things for me and I know that you love me, but you never
tell me that you love me. They said.
I told you on the day that I married you that I loved you.
And if I ever changed my mind, I'll let you know.
That's not the way that love is supposed to.
Work. That's a that's a humorous
story, but that's not enough. Your wife needs to hear that you
love her. Your husband needs to hear that
you love him. Your kids need to hear that you
love them. Don't just assume that they know
because you take care of them or because you do things for them
every once in a while above the things that you're expected to
do. Tell your parents that you love
them if you still have the opportunity, because one day
that opportunity is going to be gone.
I can't tell my mom that I love her.
She's not here to tell her. I can't tell my brother that I
love him because he's not here to tell him anymore.
I know you've lost people that you can't tell you love them
anymore because they're gone. They're not here to tell them.
Use the opportunities that you have while you still have that
opportunity because one day you're just going to, you're
going to wish that that's all you could do.
Just talk to him one more time. Just tell him one more time and
the opportunity is going to be gone.
Don't miss the opportunity. Well, you still have it.
If someone were to ask you about your life, what they say now
there's a man, there's a woman that loves his family.
Turn over to Acts chapter 20 and I'm going to give you the last
point and then we'll be done. Everyone who knows me knows that
I love God. That should be your first
priority. Everybody who knows me knows
that I love my family. Your second priority #3 we
should love our church. The church is so very close to
the heart of Jesus Christ. He gave his life, the Bible
says, for the church. Husbands, love your wives, even
as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it.
Acts chapter 20 and verse #28 Take heed, therefore unto
yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy
Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which
He hath purchased with His own blood.
That's so much Jesus Christ loved the Church.
It was so important to him that Jesus gave His life for it.
Don't you think it's important enough for us to be a part of
it? And if it was so important to
Christ that he died for it, if it was so important to Christ
that he purchased it with his own blood, don't you think
that's something that we ought to make a priority in our lives?
Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 25. Not forsaking the assembling of
ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting
one another. And so much the more as you see
the day approaching, most churches are going less.
And their church services. Oh, it used to be that, that
almost every church had a Sunday school and a Sunday morning and
a Sunday night and Wednesday night and special services
during the week, and everybody would drop everything to be
there. But isn't it amazing that as our
lives have gotten busy and as we put other things in the place
that that the church belongs in, that we've replaced the church
to the point where now most churches have a Sunday morning
service? And that's it.
You can't even find a church that has a Sunday night service.
Can't even find a church that has a Wednesday night service.
Can't find a church with a Sunday school because 10:30 to
12:00 is enough, isn't it? No, he says so much the more as
you see the day approaching. The day is approaching.
Would you agree with me on that? Jesus Christ is coming back and
it could be today. Everything is in place for
Christ to come back today and I hope He does.
But if he doesn't, I hope he finds me in church.
I hope, hope that's where I'm at when he comes and we're here
enough that there's a good possibility that he that he will
come when we're in church. But ain't going to happen if
you're laying out because you're doing this or doing that or
putting all the things that are that are that you have made
priorities in your life in the place of church and.
When you really stop to think about it, what's more important,
Your relationship with Christ or your relationship with your
money or your job or politics or sports?
Or. Anything else that you want to
put in the blank? What's more important?
Not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together for sports
games, but so much the more as you see the day approaching.
Is that what he said? No, not forsaking the assembling
of yourselves together for political events.
Not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together for for your
job. Does he say that?
No, he doesn't say that, because those things don't matter in
eternity. He didn't give his life for your
job, He gave his life for the church.
He didn't give his life for sports.
He gave his life to the church. That's what he places the
priority on and that's what we should be placing the priority
on as well. Not forsaking means to be at
church when you have the opportunity.
And I'm not trying to make you feel guilty, but I am trying to
stress to you. The important is that you must
place on being in church if you want to grow in your
relationship with God, especially if you're a weak
Christian. It's funny to me how that works.
The weak Christians are always the ones that lay out of church
the most. And yet they're the ones who
need it the most. We all need it.
We all need it, But especially if you're a younger Christian or
a weak Christian and you know it, you ought to put church at
the top of your list. Tell me when the doors are going
to be open so I can be there. I want to know how I should grow
in my relationship with Christ. I want to know what He wants me
to know. I'll be honest with you.
People that come into my office all the time that want, want my
advice. Tell me what I need to do.
Tell me how I should do this. Tell me to well, if you'd have
just been here at church on Sunday night last week, you
would have heard exactly what I think you should do because I
preached a message on it. Or a month ago I just preached
on that, and now you're sitting in the office asking me what you
should do. Sit in church and listen.
Almost everything that you need to know about how to live your
life is in church, in messages from God's.
Word. We don't.
Have to waste either one of our time because we already went
over it. You dismissed it.
Church ought to be a priority for you.
If you want to grow in your relationship with Christ.
It ought to be number. One, when it comes to those
things, you might say that you love your church.
There may not be people who could disagree with you, but we
could say that that someone loves sports when we can't pull
them away from the television, when you can't pull them off the
field. A kid who loves basketball is
always going to be in the gym. A guy who loves football is
always going to, you know, he's going to follow it religiously
and he's going to know everybody's stats and he's going
to know all the, the different teams and everything else.
And he's going to have a television and on every time his
team is playing. And then if his team is playing
on a Sunday night during church, he's going to miss church to be
there watching the television. Because sports is his God,
right? The same thing could be said
only could be said about you and about your love for the church
if you follow it in the same way.
I can't get enough of it. You don't want to miss a minute
of the singing. I don't want to miss a minute of
the preaching. I don't want to miss a minute of
the fellowship. I've got to be there.
Something's happening at church and I got to be there.
I don't want to miss the singing.
I don't want to miss the fellowship.
I don't want to miss what God has for me.
And I'm telling you, I never, I never preach a message with one
person in mind because the minute I preach a message with
one person in mind, that person is not going to be there.
But I tell you what, God knows your heart, and God knows what
you're dealing with in your life.
And God knows exactly what you're going through, and God
knows exactly what you need. And God puts things on my heart
to preach because he knows that you need it.
And when you miss the opportunity to be in church, you
might be missing the very thing that God wants you to get.
That message might be just for you.
I don't know. Many times when I preach and I I
know the things that a lot of people are going through their
in in their lives. And I know a lot of things that
people are dealing with. And I know what people are
struggling with. It's my job as a pastor to know
those things. And if all I ever did was preach
on the love of God, great subject, but it's not helping
you grow in your relationship with Christ.
I preach on the things that I know that we all need to work
on. But I don't preach a message for
one person. And if you feel singled out in
the message, the Holy Spirit did that, not me.
But what if you're not here? What if you're not here to hear
it? And the Holy Spirit wanted to
single you out, but you weren't there for him to single out.
And now what you needed to take that next step in your Christian
life is missing. And now you hear something else
later on, but you missed that step, and now things don't
really make sense. And now I'm struggling with this
because I don't. Because you missed.
You missed what God had for you because you decided to skip
church for whatever reason. I give my parents a lot of
credit for this, but I could literally count on one hand the
number of times that I've missed church from the time that I was
born until today. And I could probably count on
one hand if I was missing 3 fingers, how many times I've
missed church. We didn't miss growing up, and I
can't say that I've ever missed church after I grew up because
it's a priority. There's no question of whether
I'm going to be at church tonight or not.
Now I have to be here because I got to preach.
But I could easily say, you know what?
Not feeling great today. Hey, brother Matt, you want to
preach for me tonight? All right, You preach.
I'm skipping today. And everybody would give me a
pass because, well, things are difficult.
He's probably sick. I could make excuses in this
church just the same way that you can make excuses in this
church. And sometimes the excuses for
missing church are so lame, you might as well just say, well,
you know, I decided that the the cat needed more milk.
It's the same thing. It doesn't.
The excuses are the same, right? I mean, we can come up with
anything we want to come up with if we just don't want to be in
church, right? But if you don't give yourself a
way out, if you don't give yourself an excuse, church is
going on tonight. I can't miss.
I'm going to be there. I don't want to miss what God
has for me. I don't want to.
I don't want to miss the singing.
I don't. I don't want to.
I don't want them to not have me there as part of the fellowship.
I don't want them to not have me there as part of the choir.
I don't want them to not have me there as part of the
Congregational. Singing I want to be part of
all. Of it because.
Everybody who knows me knows that I love my church.
I'm not going to miss it for anything.
We should love the people in our church, and we ought to be loyal
to our church and to the pastor if he's following the Word of
God. I'm sure there are other things
that we could be appropriately putting on that list of
priorities, but those are the things that ought to be first in
our lives. Everybody who knows me knows
that I love the Lord first and foremost.
Everybody who knows me knows that I love my family.
Everybody who knows me knows that I love my church.
Can people say that about you? An umpire by the name of Babe
Pinelli once called out Babe Ruth on strikes.
It's a lot of people named Babe back then.
I haven't heard anybody called Babe in a long time.
But he called Babe Ruth out on strikes.
And when the crowd started booing, Babe Ruth turned around
to the umpire and he said, you see that 40,000 people disagree
with your call. An empire turned to Babe Ruth.
And he said, yeah, 40,000 people may disagree with my call, but
mine is the only opinion that matters.
And isn't that exactly the way that it is when it comes to a
relationship with Christ? We need to realize that God's
opinion is the only one that counts.
Doesn't matter if you've moved your way all the way up to the
top of the ladder and everybody loves you and we can't do this
job without you and everybody thinks you're the greatest thing
that ever walked on the earth. If that's not the same opinion
that God has, then theirs doesn't count.
I've had to come to that realization.
There's there's in, in, in what I do with the police,
especially, there's opportunities to be the one
that's out there in the front to be the one that everybody is
looking to. And you know what it's it's,
it's flattering, but it's not worth it.
Is what good is it going to do me an eternity If I was the one
that was the face of my organization, Henrico Police
Chaplain Steve Boots, face of the organization for what?
If I don't lead anybody to Christ, who cares?
If I'm, if I'm spending all my time doing all of that and not
spending any time with my family, who cares?
If it's if it's pulling me out of church all the time, who
cares? There's none of those things
that are going to count in eternity.
The only thing that's going to count is what I've done for
Christ. And I want my priorities to be
in the right place. I want people to be able to look
at me and say, there's a man who loves the Lord, There's a man
who loves his family, there's a man that loves his church.
And when I stand before God someday, and I don't mean this
in a cliche way, I want to hear him say, well done, thou good
and faithful servant I was been faithful over a few things.
I'll make you rule there over many things.
Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.
Most people are going to have to hang their head and say, yeah,
stuff that I gave my life to was awesome down here.
But now I can see that it doesn't really count for much up
here. It's like playing with Monopoly
money. You're the king of the board,
got all the money in the world. You can buy anything you want to
long as you have the board. You go out and try to spend it.
And they say this doesn't count for anything here.
One of these days we're going to stand before God.
You might be the king of the board down here.
You might have all the money to do anything you want.
You control the whole board. You take all that up to heaven
and God says don't count for anything here.
And you wasted all of your time gathering all of that money and
all of those houses and all the properties and everything else
for something that counts for nothing in eternity.
What's your honest answer? What's your honest answer this
morning? Everybody knows me, knows that I
love. What do you have to honestly put
in the blank? Because if it's not one of those
three things that we talked about this morning, I think you
need to make some changes. Your love for the Lord needs to
be first and foremost. People need to know that you
love your family and they need to know that you love your
church because this, this institution right here, this
little building up above Broad Street is a place that Jesus
Christ gave his life for. He bought this congregation with
his blood. He puts a priority on it.
And I hope you will too, need to make a conscious effort to set
those things as priorities. Everybody that knows you knows
that you love what Let's pray. Father, again, we thank you so
much for your goodness to us. We thank you for the opportunity
that we have to be here this morning.
God, we pray that you'd help us all to have our priorities in
the right place, that you help us to love you first and
foremost. May you help us to love our
families and may you help us to love the church that you gave
your life for. And may you help us to love
souls enough to share the gospel with them where we need to make
changes this morning. God, I pray that you'd help us
to do that. Thank you again for all that you
do for us in Jesus name, Amen. You would stand at your seats
with your heads about and your eyes closed.
I hope you've done some serious life evaluation this morning.
Nobody knows the answer to that question but you.
Nobody knows. I mean, we can look at it from
the outside and we can, we could all feeling like we can go
around and we could have a a time trying to fill in the blank
for everybody else. And that might be very eye
opening for a lot of us. But I'm asking you this morning,
what do you know about yourself that people would have to put it
in that blank? Everybody who knows me knows
that I love what God spoken to your heart this morning, and I
hope you'll make the changes that He wants you to make as the
piano plays. Invitations open, you come.