That music, that is good stuff.
If you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to Luke chapter 12.
Luke chapter 12, I'm going to get there in just a few moments.
I want to begin with a confession.
I've got a confession to make, some of it from a long time ago.
I had a youth minister that banned us from listening to secular music.
And it was in the last days of vinyl.
There's a revival of that now.
And soon to be the last days of cassette tapes
before the arrival of the CD.
And young people, if you don't know what any of those things are,
this is how we listen to music before the Internet.
And I know that's a mind twister for you,
that there was a day before the Internet.
But anyway, I did what he told us to do.
I got rid of my cassettes.
I was going to purify myself by throwing them away.
And one of my demented brothers said, hey, I'll take them instead.
So I gave them to him.
And so Hank Williams Jr. and Duran Duran and men at work were handed over,
and he laughed at me.
In college, my neighbor blasted Hank, and I blasted the cathedrals.
And however, before that music revival,
I was exposed by my sorry brothers to the fine music of the mid-'80s.
And my confession is that some time ago, I backslid into the secular.
I adhered to country music with some 80s thrown in,
along with southern gospel and worship music.
And so now my streaming service has a Daniel station that I listen to.
And that's a combo of country, Christian, southern gospel, and 80s.
And I'll be honest, it's pretty good.
But there are some songs that their algorithms are thrown off.
They throw songs in there that I don't like.
And I skip through those songs.
My wife said, you're like your daughter.
You skip through those songs.
But some of them don't apply.
And one came up the other day, and I was going to hit the button,
but I was curious.
And I was in it before I meant to be.
And I listened to it, and I just shook my head.
Now, before I read these lyrics, I want you to understand something.
I want you to keep in mind, there are a lot of people that get some of their theology from country music.
And the reason why I know that is because I do funerals.
And I know what they play at the gravesides.
And so they get a lot of their theology from country music.
And I want you to listen to the lyrics of this song.
Daddy's been a back row Baptist with his share of front row sin.
With Saturday night still on his breath every Sunday when he walks in.
He never led the benediction.
He never sang in the choir.
But he's an angel with no halo and one wing in the fire.
He goes on to say,
I'd trade a thousand prayers if just one prayer would come true, Lord.
But please believe in him like I believe in you.
Now, I've got some things to say about that.
Particularly four things.
One is, we don't trade prayers in God's economy.
Okay?
Number two, it's not about God believing in us.
It's about us believing in God.
That's what it comes back to.
Number three, don't get your theology from a country song.
And number four, I just want to tell you what daddy's problem was.
Daddy's problem was, he was lost.
Daddy is lost.
There's no wings.
There's no halo.
He's lost.
And I know that daddy followed mama to church to get her off his back.
And I also know it had no impact on his life.
And when Christ enters people's lives, Christ changes lives.
So if there's no fruit there, you've got to check the vine.
You've got to see what it's hooked to.
And if it's not hooked to Christ, it's not bearing fruit.
If it is hooked to Christ, it's bearing fruit.
And a man's half-hearted attendance will not help him.
As a matter of fact, in his own mind, it may sanctify him by just being in attendance.
It is sadly a lost opportunity.
And it made me reflect on other lost opportunities that I see that Jesus points out to us.
Some in relationships and one in a story that he told.
He shows us three good kinds of people that can easily be lost.
And what I mean by lost is this, folks.
We are born into a world of sin.
And then by choice, we each sin against God.
We do things that displease God.
We do things that separate us from God.
And Scripture, I didn't make it up.
Scripture says that man is lost without Christ.
Hopeless, separated from Christ.
Hopeless unless he comes to Christ.
But Christ came to the cross and died for our sins so that we could be forgiven and could be made right with the Lord.
And when that happens, we're saved and changed.
And if we've never submitted our life to Christ, never surrendered our life to Christ,
then, friend, we're lost.
No matter who's been in our family, no matter how many times we've darkened the doors of the church,
even if we're there on Father's Day, if we haven't given our heart and life to the Lord,
we're in a lost condition.
Three good kinds of people that can easily be lost.
One is a person with good money.
A person with good money.
Luke chapter 12, 16 through 21.
Jesus says,
And he told them a parable, saying,
The land of a rich man produced plentiful.
And he thought to himself,
What shall I do?
For I have nowhere to store my crops.
And he said,
I'll do this.
I'll tear down my barns and build larger ones.
And there I'll store all my grain and my goods.
And I'll say to my soul,
Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years.
Relax, eat, drink, be merry.
But God said to him,
Fool, this night your soul is required of you.
And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?
So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.
I want to be clear about something.
There's nothing wrong with having money.
The problem is when money has you.
When the insatiable desire for just a little bit more.
John D. Rockefeller was worth $1.4 billion in 1934.
That at the time was 1.5% of the gross domestic product of the United States.
And it was the equivalent of today.
And these equivalents sometimes go nuts.
But the equivalent, what I read, was $24 billion.
Some estimate up to $400 billion.
And he was asked one day,
How much is enough?
And John D. said,
Just a little bit more.
We can become so caught up in our money,
are so caught up in the lack of it,
that it becomes a God to us.
I mean, it gets us up in the morning.
We slave ourselves in the day to make it grow.
And it puts us to bed every night.
And Jesus met a rich man one time
who wanted to know how to have eternal life.
And Jesus told him to sell all that he had and give it to the poor.
And he left and went away very sad
because he had a lot of money.
Now I want to be clear about something.
We never see anywhere else in Scripture
where Jesus tells somebody to do that.
Tells somebody to sell everything they got
and give it to the poor.
He never says that in any other point of Scripture.
The reason he said that to that man
is because he knew that that man's money meant too much to him.
It wasn't that the man had money.
It was the money had the man.
There was an older man that lived in a previous community that I lived in.
His family was filled with carnal, hard-hearted children.
And maybe some of them were without the Lord.
I don't know them.
I had a burden for him.
His dear wife had been a member of my church
and she was horribly struggling with dementia.
And I went to see them.
And he told me how he had made his money.
He told me how good he was at business
and told me how hard that he worked.
And then he took me out to his workshop
and he showed me his tools.
He showed me how he meticulously aligned those tools along the wall.
Wrenches from huge three-foot-long ones
to little bitty ones all in a core.
He showed me the boxes, dovetailed boxes that he had made
to hold screws and bolts and nuts and nails.
Classic tools that have been replaced now by modern gadgets.
But he then told me that he never had time to go to church
because he was too busy working
and told me how hard he worked.
And I asked him if he knew the Lord.
And he told me God knew how hard he worked.
And I told him he could never work hard enough
to earn his way to heaven.
I never witnessed any fruit in that man's life
that showed salvation.
I never did.
I'm not a judge of his soul.
I just call it as I see it.
They auctioned off all his treasures
for a dime on the dollar
and his kids fought over what was left.
Mark 8 verse 36 says,
For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world
and forfeit his soul?
I'm afraid he's in hell today.
But I hope I'm wrong.
Matthew 6 24 says,
No one can serve two masters.
Jesus said it.
No one can serve two masters
for either he'll hate the one and love the other
or he'll be devoted to the one and despise the other.
You can't serve God and money.
There's a lot of good lost men
with good money.
There can also be lost people with good morals.
A person with good morals.
It's natural for us to assume
that somebody must be Christian
when they're so nice
or because he does so much for the community.
I mean, upstanding people.
People people think the world of.
But I want to be clear about something.
You can glad hand and smile your way
all the way to an eternity without Christ
if you're not careful.
That rich man that came to Jesus
and left sad because he had a lot of money
was a mighty good guy.
I want you to listen to the first part
of the conversation that he had with Jesus.
It's in Mark chapter 10 verse 17
and it says this.
As he was setting out on his journey
a man ran up and knelt before Christ
and asked him,
Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
And Jesus said,
Why do you call me good?
And Jesus,
and he said,
Why do you call me good?
And no one is good except God alone.
You know the commandments.
Do not murder.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not steal.
Do not bear witness.
Do not defraud.
Honor your father and mother.
And he said,
Teacher, listen to this.
All these I have kept from my youth.
The man had never lied.
The man had never defrauded.
The man had never took anything.
He didn't sleep around.
He didn't do anything.
He's a good guy.
You could trust him.
He was good to his mom and daddy.
He had good morals.
But even with all of that,
it wasn't good enough.
So let me be honest with you.
It will never be good enough.
We'll never be good enough.
If you've got your idea that there in eternity,
there's a scale of eternity
where you weigh the good in your life
versus the bad in your life,
I got news for you.
Those scales don't exist.
Without the blood of Christ
and without our surrender to him,
we are hopelessly in debt
that we cannot pay back
and hopelessly separate it
from eternity with God.
It's not about whether you do more good than bad.
Sometimes it's over an impression.
Oh, boy, he's a good guy.
He's a good guy.
It's amazing to me
how everyone always speaks of heaven
when a decent person dies.
And they'll say something like
you'll hear in a country song.
You know, he gained his wings.
Or God needed another rose in his garden.
Please don't tell me that stuff.
Please don't.
So and so was waiting on him.
I know that those who go on
to be with the Lord are in heaven.
And I know that when we get to heaven,
there'll be a great reunion.
But let me tell you
what the greatness of heaven will be.
Seeing the Lord Jesus Christ face to face.
That's the greatness of heaven.
Let me just be clear.
The majority of people that die today
die without the Lord.
And it's always been that way.
Most of them won't go
and follow the Lord.
That's why Jesus said
there's a wide road
that many follow.
And there's a narrow road
that only some follow.
Good intentions.
Many people lean on good intentions.
Oh, he meant well.
To quote another country song,
I hear tell the road to hell
is paved with good intentions.
Actually acknowledging the good in yourself
and in somebody else
can actually be,
can have an adverse effect.
Because you think you're good enough.
It can make somebody think
that there's no need for salvation.
But the reality is
we're all sinners
and that sin has separated us from God.
So instead of assuming
that your neighbor
or your co-worker
or your daddy
or your granddaddy
is saved,
if you don't see any fruit in their life,
you assume they're lost
and then ask them if they're saved.
If you ask somebody,
how did you come to Christ
and they're offended by that,
that's a red flag.
That's a red flag.
If they look at you
and tell you,
well, I was baptized
at the First Baptist Church
30 years ago,
that ain't the answer
to the question you just asked them.
I baptized these children
a couple of weeks ago.
I told them before they got up there.
I tell it every time.
I said,
when somebody talks to you
about
when you got saved
or when you became a Christian,
don't tell them about this baptism.
Don't talk about that.
You talk about
when you surrendered your life
to the Lord Jesus.
And I told them about it.
There are two examples.
How you got up
in the middle of the night
and gave your heart and life
to the Lord Jesus.
And after we'd had
this conversation together,
you went home
and had that conversation
with your parents
and you gave your heart and life
to the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's what you talk about.
Then you can tell them.
And then after I did that,
I was baptized before my church
and everybody saw what happened.
But don't get those two mixed up, folks.
Don't get them out of order
and don't get them mixed up.
You ask somebody,
how did you come to Christ?
That's not an offensive question.
And if it is,
they need Christ.
I met a man on a doorstep one time
and I asked him
if he knew the Lord.
He was one of my heroes.
I didn't even know him.
He's one of my heroes
because he's part
of the greatest generation.
He was a World War II veteran
and had fought for our country.
And he told me
he committed his life.
I'll have to clean this up a little bit.
I'm not going to tell you
everything he said.
But anyway,
he said he committed his life
to the Lord in a foxhole.
He said,
Lord,
if you'll let me out of here alive,
I'll live for you.
And I said,
did you mean it?
And he just said,
I don't know, preacher.
I was scared.
I said,
I appreciate your honesty.
I asked him this
and I asked you this.
If you were to stand
before God today
and he were to ask you,
why should I let you
into my heaven?
What do you think
you'd say?
That old fellow
looked at me and said,
I think I'd say,
please.
I shared Christ
with that man that day.
I don't know
if he really ever got saved,
quite honestly.
But
a man with
good money
can easily be lost.
Jesus said in Matthew 29,
excuse me,
Matthew 19, verse 24,
it is easier
for a camel
to go through
the eye of a needle
than for a rich man
to enter the kingdom of God.
That sense
of self-sufficiency
will ruin a man
for all of eternity.
A man with good morals
can easily remain lost
because he thinks
he's good enough,
but he's not.
But there's also
the person
that has
the good opportunity.
A good opportunity
but misses out.
I've often been
bewildered
by some questions.
How can a man
literally walk
with Jesus
for over three years
and never surrender
his life to the Lord?
How can he do that?
That's hard for me
to grasp.
And it also
makes me wonder,
and I want you to hear
the passion of my heart
this morning.
It also makes me wonder
about many men
that I've known
over the years
that God's allowed
me to pastor
in every church
that I've pastored
that never really
showed the fruit
of being a child
of God.
It wasn't that
they wasn't in church.
I saw them here.
They burdened my heart.
I prayed for them.
But they never
really appeared
to be connected
to the vine
of the Lord.
You can easily
follow your spouse
or your family
to church
to keep peace
at home
or to just
endure the hour
or to leave
after years
of faithfulness
as lost
as you've ever
been.
And if you're
one of those people,
men,
I want you to know
I preached this message
on Father's Day
for you today
so God will
wake you up
and help you realize
that you need
to make the greatest
decision you've ever
made in your life
and you're going
to have to drop
your pride
to do that.
You've got to leave
it at the door
and truly surrender
your life
to the Lord Jesus Christ.
The best way
you can be a great
father is to commit
your life to Christ.
The only way
a father is great
is if he's leading
his family to Christ
and you can't do
that without Christ.
Judas walked
with Christ.
He heard sermons
of Christ.
He watched people
get saved.
He watched people
get healed.
He watched people
come back to life
and the whole time
he was stealing
from the money bag
of the Lord.
John 12, 6
tells us that.
The whole time.
And as lost
as a dime
dropped
in the depths
of the ocean.
You say,
well how do you know
he was never saved?
I know he was never saved
because Jesus said
in Matthew 26, 24
it would have been better
had he never been born.
And that's true
for the man
that dies without Christ.
A lost man would be better
to have never been born
and that's what Jesus died.
That's why Jesus died
to save you.
A life committed to Christ
is far better
than good money.
It's far better
than good morals.
Hey, you can have
all that by the way.
And a world of difference
from play acting
in church
while missing
the greatest opportunities
in Christ.
So I ask you today,
do you know
the Lord Jesus?
Has there ever been
a time in your life
when you surrender
your life
to the Lord Jesus Christ
and give him control
of your life?
I want you to know
if that's never been the case
that today's the day
of salvation.
That Christ will save you today.
He'll meet you
where you are.
He'll change your life.
He'll empower you
with the spirit of God
and allow you
the strength
to live
in a way
that pleases him
even if you're sitting there
thinking there ain't
no way in the world
I could live up to that.
You're right.
You couldn't.
Neither can I.
Neither can any of us.
But thank God
in Christ
with the power
of the Holy Spirit
of God
living within us
he enables us
to live a life
of faithfulness
for him.
Maybe you're here
and you have
accepted the Lord.
You know you're
a Christian today
but the reality is
the reality is
you know you've got
people around you
that need Jesus.
Isn't it interesting
and I want you
to think about this.
isn't it interesting
that we will not
dare have a conversation
about the Lord
with a friend
because we don't
want to lose
our friendship.
Ain't that fascinating?
I mean think about that
and if you really
think about it
you'll understand
that that is actually
a satanic strategy.
that actually Satan
will convince us
to make sure
that we don't have
gospel conversations
with folks
because we might
offend them
and if nobody
has a gospel
conversation with them
they'll never know
the gospel.
So will you commit
today Christian?
Lord will you lay
somebody on my heart
that needs you
that I just need
to ask
has there ever been
a time in your life
when you've come
to the Lord Jesus?
God will you
help me
to have the strength
to do that very thing?
Will you lead
that conversation?
And I'm just
going to tell you
having had many
of those conversations
over the years
I promise you
that if you'll
step out
and start the conversation
God will take over
and take care of it.
You'll be saying stuff
you don't even know
where it came from.
I'll tell you
where it came from.
It didn't come from you.
It came from the Holy Spirit
of God leading you.
Now listen
if you don't know
the Lord today
we're going to stand
and we're going to sing
in just a moment
you come down
and say preacher
I need to give my life
to Christ.
I'd love to guide you
in that.
Maybe you do know
the Lord today
but you ain't bearing
enough fruit in your life.
I mean the reality is
you're not bearing
fruit in your life.
There's not evidence
in your life.
There may be some people
in this building
wondering if you even
know the Lord.
Today will you commit
your life
to follow God
more faithfully?
Lord I want to make
a difference for you
in a world of compromise
in a nation
that's slippery down
a slope
of sinfulness
and need
men of God
to stand up
to live it out
to speak it
to be bold
what are you afraid of?
You got God
on your side
you're always
a majority
you can rest in that.
I just want you
to walk through
the doors God opens
and I want you
to be sensitive
to see Him.
If that means
God's leading you
to be a part
of this church
then you come
I'd love to guide you
in that process.
If you've acknowledged
Christ in your heart
but you've never
made that public
through baptism
you come
you do that.
I don't know
what God's saying
to you
I know what He
said to me
but I just want
you to be obedient
today as He speaks
to your heart
and life.
Let's pray together.
Lord Jesus I love you
and I thank you Lord
for your word.
Thank you Lord
for the examples
that you give us
to learn from
and I pray dear God
that it will make
a difference
in our lives.
Lead us right now
I pray.
Give us boldness
beyond ourselves
in Jesus name.
Amen.