Why Should I Live My Life God’s Way?

Introduction

You know, we face a lot of challenges as God’s people as we go out and try to tell other people about Jesus. And I think one of the greatest challenges in that mission is the challenge to correct and overcome the warped perceptions that people often have of what it means to be a Christian and what it means to live the Christian life. Think for a moment with me about somebody that you know that doesn’t go to church on Sunday, that doesn’t even own a Bible, much less read it very regularly, that this morning is either sleeping off a hangover or planning to sleep it off after tonight. What perception do people like that have of what it means to be a Christian and to live your life by the principles that are found in the Bible?

I fear that many are convinced that if they choose to live life God’s way, that they are condemning themselves to a difficult and miserable and unpleasant existence for all of their life in the hope that, well, maybe they’ll get to go to a better place after they die. I fear that a lot of people had the perception that if you choose to be a Christian, you’re choosing to give up on the good life. In fact, I’m convinced that’s why a lot of people, especially when they’re younger, want to put off any interest in God and the Bible and going to church, put that off until I’m old, because I wouldn’t want to miss out on the good life now. And after I’ve lived it up and enjoyed my fill of what this world has to offer, and when I’m getting old and getting close to death, well, then I’ll settle down and think more about spiritual things.

I fear that there are a lot of people who believe that to choose to live life God’s way means you’re going to miss out on all the fun. You’re giving up a life of happiness and pleasure to do that. Why do people think that way? I suppose there are a lot of answers to that question. I think some people think that way because of bad religious experiences when they were growing up. And I think maybe in some cases, that’s what people had instilled with them as children about religion. Well, if you follow God, it’s just about a bunch of unpleasant rules that you’ve got to put up with so you can go to heaven when you die. I think some people have the impression because they’ve been watching some of us.

And to be honest with you, they’ve looked at some Christians and they don’t seem like very happy people. And it does seem like at times they’re just trudging through life miserably and not enjoying it very much. Hardly the light that we’re to be that Jesus describes in Matthew 5 and verse 14, when he said of Christians, you’re a light to the world, and then went on to say in verse 16, let your light so shine before men in such a way that they should see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. The Christian life ought to be a drawing light to the lost in the world. And yet that some would look at us and see us as miserable and unhappy as everyone else and say, I don’t want any part of that.

What’s attractive about that? But ultimately, I think people have this perception of the Christian life because they’ve been deceived by the Christian.

Brethren, the devil is out there trying to define to an unbelieving world what it is to be a Christian. And the picture he paints, though far from accurate, is one that has been largely accepted by our world. And so we have a challenge when we try to go out and convince people to follow Jesus. We’ve been talking on Sunday nights for a couple of months now about some of the questions we’re likely to face as we go out and try to talk to other people about Jesus. I want to continue that series in the lesson this morning because I have a little something different I want to do this evening. Now, don’t get nervous when I say that. That doesn’t mean we’re going to go until 8 o’clock tonight.

I know how some of the folks here think. Just a little something different in the service tonight. But I want to continue the series this morning, and I want us to think about this question a little bit that I think is on the minds of some of the people, maybe a lot of the people, that we’re trying to reach in the lost world. And that is why should I live my life God’s way? I want to address this question that I fear underlies the reluctance that a lot of people have in committing their lives to following Jesus. The suspicion that if they do that, they’re committing themselves to an unhappy existence only with the hope of something better later on. Brethren, people have been deceived on this point by the devil.

And if we’re going to be successful in winning souls, we can’t let our enemy define who we are and what we’re about. We need to be emphatically saying to a lost world around us that there’s more to being a Christian than just the retirement benefits. There’s more to being a Christian than just the promise of heaven, although indeed that is significant. We need to be saying to a lost world that living your life God’s way is the most fulfilling, enriching, and rewarding way that one can live life here on this earth. I think Christians teach that lesson two ways. Yes, we teach it in what we say, but equally important, we teach it by the pattern of our lives as they are observed by an unbelieving world.

1. A Life That Is Genuinely Meaningful

Well, let’s think about that a little bit this morning. This question that’s on the mind of our friends and neighbors we’re trying to reach. Why should I live my life God’s way? What is the advantage in this life in being a Christian and following the Bible and living by the principles of God’s word? I want you to notice four advantages with me this morning. Four things about the life that God offers that makes it better and more rewarding and more meaningful right here on earth and then heaven when we die. Well, first of all, what is it about this life that God offers to us? I’d suggest, first of all, that what makes God’s way better is that God offers to us a life that is genuinely meaningful, a life with a real sense of purpose.

You know, I suspect that that is exactly what most people want out of life. If you’d be turning in your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 2, I want to look at a text there in just a minute. But I think that’s exactly what most people want out of their life. To be able to look back on their existence here on earth and to say, you know, with my life, I did something that was genuinely important. I was significant. I made a difference. Don’t we want to say that about our lives? The problem is that most people are beginning to discover that there’s just not a lot of meaning in the typical pursuits to which people give themselves. Remember studying with a lady several years ago. Very successful lady.

She had an excellent education. She had a great career. She worked for the local utility there in the Chicago area. She was an executive with a bright future, just one of their shining upcoming stars in the company’s estimation. She had all of the perks that went with that position. She made a lot of money and they drove fine cars and lived in a fine home. She had a wonderful family. I guess by the world standards, she just had all you could ever want. And I came to study with her right after she had quit her job and left her career behind because she said, I got everything I ever thought I would want in my life, and there was still something missing. And she’d begun, I think, to look in the right direction, to look at her relationship or the lack of a relationship with Jesus Christ.

But you know, people aren’t finding meaning in the typical pursuits. Some people give themselves to education. If I could just learn more than all of my peers, then I really would have done something that mattered. Some people look to business success. If I could start at the ground floor and build a profitable business, really make a success of myself, I will have done something that mattered. Or if you could just make a lot of money. If I could just make millions of dollars so that I could buy all the possessions I could ever want, live in the finest home, drive the finest cars, boy, if I could drive a Dodge Viper, I will have made it. Or if I could just do something that’d make me famous.

If I could discover the cure for AIDS, if I could become a famous entertainer or musician, so that everyone in my community or in my country, or maybe everyone in the world knew who I was and recognized my name, then I will have done something. Would we?

And whatever you accumulated, you won’t take it, will you? We’ll leave it all behind to someone else. And then everybody will forget about us. You know, at the end of the year, they always have these programs. Maybe you’ve seen some of them. Where they rehearse the previous year, go through the great news stories of the last year. I’ve seen some of those last couple days. And always, as part of those, they’ll go through the names of all the people who’ve died, who’ve passed. Seen some of those. You know, there’s some people that died I didn’t know about. I didn’t know Tom Landry had died. And being a Texas boy, I can’t believe I missed that. And you know, they did the same thing last year. How many of you remembered who died that they talked about in 1999?

Do you remember any names? Guess what? A hundred years from now, no one will even care. Solomon was frustrated with that in Ecclesiastes chapter 2, verse 18. He said, Thus I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun, for I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool, yet he will have control over all of the fruit of my labor for which I have labored by acting wisely under the sun. This too is vanity. I love that passage. It expresses the author’s deep frustration at life’s reality. He said, I’ve worked my whole life using great wisdom to do all the things that I’ve done.

And he said, What’s going to happen? I’m going to die. And someone else is going to get all this stuff, and my luck will be he’ll be an idiot and squander it. I wonder if he had already saw the signs in Rhea Boam, because that’s exactly what happened.

The interesting thing is that most of us spend our lives in frustration. Because we never get to the top. We don’t build the business, we don’t make millions of dollars. Most of us, most of us aren’t known beyond our little circle of friends, and we just think we’ve missed it. We’ve not done the things that would make our life meaningful. But you know what’s fascinating? All those people who have, they’re as miserable and unhappy as we are. Amazingly, some of the most unhappy people on the face of this earth are the people who have the most. Isn’t that amazing? What’s the point? Well, I tell you, folks, if you want to live life without God, the picture’s pretty bleak. And that’s what the book of Ecclesiastes is all about.

You take God out of the picture, Solomon says, it’s worthless. And that’s right. I’m here to tell you this morning, folks, that Jesus Christ offers us something better than that. Maybe living for Christ means escaping some sinful pleasures that the world indulges in, but I tell you what he offers is so much better. Because he gives us a life that has meaning. I tell you one of the great things about being a Christian. We know why we’re here. And what we’re supposed to do with ourselves. In Ecclesiastes chapter 12 and verse 13, Solomon would get to the end of his book, and he would say this about life. He would say, the conclusion when all has been heard. He says, accumulate all the evidence about what life is all about, and it all comes down to this.

He says, Fear God. Have an awesome respect for the one who made you. And keep his commandments. Do what he said. The old King James says, for this is the whole duty of man. It’s what it’s all about to be a human being. We know why we’re here. Matthew 5 and verse 16. We read that passage just a minute ago. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. In 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 20, Paul would say, We’ve been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your bodies. We know why we’re here. Our purpose for existing. We bring glory to our Father. We use our lives so that God will be glorified.

And the wonderful thing is that everything God asks us to do are things that are genuinely significant. God uses us when we listen to him in ways that really do matter. Listen, folks, when we nurture our relationship with our spouse and spiritually strengthen each other. When I bring my children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, Ephesians 6 4. When I stimulate my brethren to love the Lord more and to serve him more, Hebrews 10 24. When I help some Christian who’s weak and struggling along the way, 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 14. When I go out here and I talk to some lost soul and help him find his way to Jesus, I’m doing things that in the grand scheme of things really do matter.

You realize that? Strengthening a struggling brother, training children to know the Lord. Those are things that make a difference in where people spend eternity, folks, that matters. My kids used to listen to a song, a kid’s song. That talked about this man that went to heaven. And when he got to heaven, he started meeting all these people who were there because of some small contribution in part that he had made. Some person from over in a foreign country who had come to hear the gospel because even when he didn’t have it, he dug deep into his pockets and given some money to support a preacher to go. Some little kid he’d had in Bible class that had listened and come to know and to love and serve the Lord because of his teaching.

You know that’ll never get you named in the newspaper. But brethren, that is the stuff of eternity. That’s what really matters. And that’s what God asks us to do. Not waste our time on cheap tinsel. That’s lost in the end. But do stuff that really has meaning.

But there are a lot of Christians that don’t have any meaning in their lives. Because we’ve been following the path that the world takes. We’ve been wasting our time and energy on the worthless stuff that they go after. And so our lives don’t see any more meaningful than theirs. And all our energy has been used up on those things so that we no longer have any left to devote to the things that really do matter. Listen, folks, if you want to feel like your life matters, go find someone who doesn’t know about Jesus and tell them.

2. True Happiness

Take some brother or sister in this congregation who is struggling in their faith and strengthen them. Roll up your sleeve. And go teach a class full of three-year-olds. Take one of these young people under your wing and help them through their struggles. And you’ll be making a difference. That’s one of the great things about being a Christian. Is we’re able to look at our lives and see that God is using us in ways that really do matter. Life just isn’t even worth living without having the sense of meaning that is only found in living life God’s mind. But that’s not all. What is the benefit of the life that God offers to us? What’s the advantage of being a Christian? Well, I’d say, secondly, true happiness.

In fact, I would submit to you this morning that the only way of life that anyone is ever going to experience real happiness is living their life in connection with God. And maybe some people in the world will listen to that and say, oh, come on, you’ve got to be kidding. And maybe some Christians would have their doubts about that too. Do we really think of being a Christian and living life that way as being fun? I think some have the opposite notion. As we said in the beginning, some see it as giving up the good life, giving up the pleasures. So that, well, you can go to heaven when you die. I remember growing up, I had some friends that felt that way. We used to sit and talk about it in the cafeteria, and they really felt sorry for me.

Because they’d talk about some of the sinful stuff that they were going to do. Man, you can’t, you’re not going to go out and get drunk and sit and watch football with your dad and drink beer and have champagne at your wedding. What kind of life is that?

I wonder some Christians feel that way. When I hear Christians say things, boy, if I wasn’t a Christian, what I would be doing. What? Do you mean we really think that that’s the good stuff that we’ve given up? Folks, I want you to understand that’s not the life Jesus offers to it at all at all. And if our lives as Christians are miserable and unhappy, something’s wrong. It’s not what he intended. In fact, the truth is just the opposite. Jesus doesn’t offer us a life of misery. I want to suggest to you, he offers us the only way to live life in a way that’s genuinely happy. We need to understand, folks, that God does not forbid his children even one legitimate pleasure. I want you to think about that real hard this morning.

God does not deprive us of even one legitimate pleasure. God doesn’t say no to anything that is legitimately good for us. Why would he? 1 John chapter 4 and verse 8 says that God is love. And love in that context means that God always desires what’s best, always desires what’s good for us. God doesn’t ever want anything that’s bad for you. Only what’s our good. If there’s some legitimate pleasure out here that will bring me joy and happiness, why would God say no to that? Do you have this image of God that he’s up in heaven and say, well, I think they’d have a pretty good time doing that. No, you can’t do it. Why would he? Someone says, But David, I read the Bible. And there’s a lot of stuff in there God says not to do, and that’s right.

There are a lot of things that he forbids, yes. A lot of stuff he says not to do that people in the world do, and they seem to be having a good time. Yeah, that’s true. Do you notice that every time I talked about fun and pleasure, I use the word legitimate? God does not deprive us of any legitimate pleasure, but I tell you what he does. He lovingly steers us away from things that harm us that only masquerade as legitimate pleasure. See, God’s sort of like a parent, I think. When my kids were little, they never could understand why they couldn’t play in the street. I think sometimes they’re still working on that one. But there would be this big paved, flat surface out in front of the house, great for riding tripes, kicking the ball, wide open space, and my little three-year-olds would look at that and they’d say, Why can’t we play out there?

And they just could not believe that here they’d go running out into this great play area, and mom and dad would go ballistic and come out there and they’d swat them on the backside and drag them back in the yard. Don’t you ever go in the street again? They’re like, what’s the problem? Kids don’t see a danger in playing in the street, do they? But we do. We see what they can’t see. And we teach our children that, and we discipline them when they don’t get the message because we don’t want them to get hurt. And that’s how the God of heaven is. Fact is, folks, God’s just a whole lot wiser than we are. And at times he sees problems with things that we don’t see.

And his instructions are designed to steer us away from things that are going to hurt us. He’s like a loving parent sitting up there in heaven, knowing the dangers, and trying to protect us. God’s commands, yes, even the things, the times when he says no, are not designed to be burdensome. They are actually our keys to happiness. I don’t want you to misunderstand that. When I say that God offers to us a life of happiness, I don’t want to leave you with the impression that that doesn’t mean it’s never hard to be a Christian. I don’t want to leave you with the impression that God never challenges us to do things that at the moment are difficult and even unpleasant. Sometimes he does.

But let’s suppose you do. What’s the temptation? What are you tempted to do when you get that big fat check? You could spend the whole thing at Walmart, couldn’t you? One day. The temptation is to take it out and spin it all up and live it up. Would that be fun? Sure. Until June rolls around and the transmission goes out on the car, and you sure wish you had that money then. The harder thing to do would be to take the check and sit and stick it in the bank and hang on to it. And save it for when you need it. But you know, when June rolls around and you get that bill for the transmission, you’re sure glad you had that money. And see, sometimes at the moment, God asks us to do things that are that are difficult.

It’s tough when you’re 16 years old and all your buddies are having a beer, and you got to stand up and say, No, I’m not going to do that. But you’re so glad later on that you didn’t start down that road in your life. Yes, at the moment, sometimes it’s tough and challenging to be a Christian. And God demands that we do difficult things, but it’s because in the end we’ll be so glad we did. Tragically, some Christians miss that blessing. They do so because they don’t trust that God’s wisdom is best. And they wind up doing some of those things God’s tried to tell us not to do. And they do them to their own heart and suffer the pain and misery that come with bad choices.

You know, folks, we just need to learn to trust our God more. That anytime he says no, it’s for a good reason. It’s for our ultimate happiness. Proverbs 3, I’ll leave you with this passage in verse 5. It says, trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean in your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Folks, the idea that people living apart from God are having all the fun is a satanic delusion. That’s what the devil wants us to think. It’s just not so. And if we would look deeper at the sadness and unhappiness that lies beyond the momentary flickers of joy that we sometimes see, the momentary pleasure that comes from sin, and see the deeper unhappiness, sadness that it produces in their lives, we would see the true picture.

3. A Life With Direction

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. That’s the life to which Jesus calls us. The way to really be happy. But there’s more to it than that. It’s not only that we’re really going to have a life that’s meaningful and that we’ll have genuine happiness, true happiness, but God gives us something else. He gives us life with some direction. Now, the problem with that point is that not everyone has reached a point in their life where they realize how much they need that. Sometimes we think we’ve kind of got the world by the tail, and we know how to make our own decisions, and we’re going to do things our own way, and we’ve figured out this business of how to live life. I used to think that way until I had children.

And then I realized I didn’t know anything at all. You know, the problem with life is that sometimes we think we’ve got it all squared away, and then all of a sudden we hit this crossroads, this intersection. You ever been there? That intersection where you’ve got to go this way or that way, and you don’t know. Where you’ve got to make difficult choices and you’re not sure. We bring these kids into the world and then face these challenging questions about how are we going to raise them? And we’re faced with this problem in the life. What do we do? What are we telling them? What guidance do we give? Sometimes our life reaches those intersection moments where we don’t know what to do. Bible told us that was going to be the case.

Long ago, the prophet Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 10 and verse 23, I know, O Lord, that a man’s way is not in himself. It is not in man who walks to direct his steps. It’s just not in us to know where to go. The wise men in Proverbs said it another way. In Proverbs 14 and verse 12, he says there’s a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. Have you read that passage? That scares me to death. Doesn’t it, you? I hope it does. Because the wise man says that there is a course that we can decide in our minds is the right course. We can be convinced that we know what to do, and it’d be completely the wrong thing.

You know, when people without God reach those crossroad moments in their lives, they are left to their own devices to figure out what to do. They’re left to their own falsy, incomplete human wisdom to try to decide what’s right. And as a result, they wind up making bad choices and often not discovering that they’re bad choices until it’s too late. There are a lot of people for a long time who’ve been listening to popular psychology about how to raise children. A lot of people who’ve been told what a horrible thing you’re going to do if you don’t discipline your children. Don’t ever spank them because that will teach them to be violent acts murderers. And the amazing thing is, if you want to know who’s turning into the little monsters, it’s not the parents who spank their children, it’s the other ones.

And many of them aren’t discovering that until the kids have already grown up rebellious and resistant to their authority, and then it’s too late. Where you’re left without God is stumbling around in life, dependent on fallible human wisdom and just stumbling along every step of the way, not sure where to go. Folks, I am sure glad that Jesus gave us something better than that, aren’t you?

Jesus offers to us a life with direction so that we can know the right way to go. In 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 16, I know it’s a familiar passage to many. I hope it’s marked in your Bible. We need to remember. In 2 Timothy 3 16, Paul would say that all scriptures inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for approval, for correction, for training and righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good word. There are just two things I like to say about that verse this morning. First of all, I just want you to remember that the scriptures are inspired by God, and that’s telling us something that’s awesome. It’s telling us that the wisdom contained within this book is divine wisdom, not man’s.

This isn’t what Paul thought about it. It’s God’s word. And what that means is that God’s word is absolutely perfect in the direction that it gives us. Folks, you will never go wrong by following the Bible. Follow Dr. Spock and you’re going to be in trouble. But listen to what God says. I don’t care what it’s about. If you find it in the Bible and that’s what you do and that’s what you follow, it will never be the wrong thing. There isn’t another book like that on the face of the earth. I don’t care what area you’re dealing with, whether it’s a book on finance or marriage or raising kids or whatever. There is not another book that you can go to and say, for every generation of all men of all time, if you’ll do what that book says every time, it’ll be right, but you can say it about this one.

Every time, if you’ll listen to it and follow its instruction, it will be the right thing. Isn’t that awesome? It’s amazing we don’t study the Bible more than we do. But I want you to notice secondly. That it is a complete guide, and that’s one of the things Paul’s trying to tell us in this context. Everything you need, it’s in there. There will be no situation that we encounter, no problem that comes up that we must face, no decision to be made for which we will not either find an express statement of scripture or a principle that’ll tell us the right thing to do. I don’t care if we’re making career choices or training our children or fixing a messed up marriage or trying to set the right priorities, whatever issue we’ve got to deal with in our life, there’s wisdom there, even in statement or principle that will tell us the right thing to do.

And you know the amazing thing? Is not only is the unbelieving world deprived of that wisdom, but a lot of us are too. We’re deprived of it because we don’t ever read it. As I said a minute ago, when you think about what’s in the Bible and the direction that it offers, it’s amazing that Christians don’t read the Bible more faithfully.

Or if we do, that we lack that direction because we don’t listen.

4. A Life With Hope

Do you ever feel like that your life has just been wandering from one mess to the next? Does it ever seem like that just before you’re about to wrap up one crisis, there’s another crisis on the horizon? Does your life just seem to be that way? Maybe it’s time to start letting God plot the course. Letting His Word be our guide. That’s so much better than what the world has to offer. Well, let me say one more thing to you this morning that I think is significant about what Jesus offers to us. And that is that he offers to us a life with hope. Now, I know that I said in the beginning that I wanted to talk to you about the benefits of living life God’s way right now.

That there are advantages in this life to letting God guide and direct us. But you know, folks, certainly we not cannot fail to mention the hope that God gives us. Because much of our ability to be happy and content now is dependent on our ability to come to terms with our future. And when I talk about the future, I’m not talking about ten years from now. I’m not talking about retirement. I’m talking about ultimate retirement when we die. If we’re going to be happy and contented day to day now, we’re going to have to come to grips with our mortality. See, a lot of people have no future. Death for them is the ultimate tragedy. That’s what people try to keep out of their minds, but we never do it with any great deal of success.

People who have not come to grips with their mortality must daily live with the nagging reminders that life ultimately ends for all of us. And what’s going to happen to me after that? Brethren, that concern torments people who are living without Jesus. And there is no solution for it without it. That’s one of the great privileges of being Christian. That we don’t have to live with those nagging worries and that uncertainty about the future. 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 3. Peter writes, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope. You know why our hope is living? He says, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, because it’s based on a living Savior.

Verse 4, to obtain an inheritance. As child, as God’s child, you and I have a right to claim the inheritance that comes to his children. What is it? One which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you. God’s children can face death with confidence, with hope. Because we know there’s something wonderful that awaits us after this life. But tragically, some people don’t live with that hope. Some people don’t live with that hope because they’ve never become God’s children. Some don’t live with that hope because once they accepted God’s offer to be his child, but then rejected. Some have done that because they believe that life without Jesus offers something better. Two years ago, I was preaching for a church in Texas.

In fact, we had sort of grown up together. We didn’t live in the same town, but we had some mutual friends, and we kind of, when we were together or in that same town, ran around together. We were we were friends from back, way back. But we lost touch with each other after we graduated. I came down to school in Tampa and she went off somewhere else, and sadly, she went off into a life where she really rejected following Jesus.

Conclusion

She tried out everything the world had to offer. And when she came forward, she handed me this little note. I want to read it to you. She said, I’d like to repent of my sins. I’ve spent many years living a life that was not that of a Christian. Because you see, the world thinks that’s got so much more to offer. She says, those of you who think you are missing something, trust me, you’re not. Life without God is lonely. There’s someone who tried it. There’s someone who bought a satanic lie that maybe life apart from Jesus has something better. She says, I’ve been there. I’ve done that. And it’s lonely. You’re not missing anything. In fact, folks, let’s boil it down to this. If you choose to live life God’s way, you have the benefit of a life that’s meaningful, a life where you’re going to find real happiness, a life that’ll direct you through the through the rough spots that come along, and life that give you hope beyond this life.

And then after all of that, after the best life you could live on this earth, heaven. Isn’t that great? If you’re God’s child this morning. That’s yours. That’s what you have. But if we reject God, if we choose to live life some other way and reject his course, let me tell you what you have. Misery now. We’re not going to be able to do anything in life that really matters. We’re going to be deluded into doing sinful things that bring moments of joy and long-term misery. We’re going to lack direction. We’re going to be stumbling around in the dark, trying to figure out what’s right and not finding it until it’s too late. And without any hope for the future. And after a life like that, hell.

Honestly. Is the question really why should I live life God’s way? I think the question would be, what possible reason would anyone have for wanting to live another way. When boiled down to its basic truth, there is no other choice. And so I’d ask you this morning, is there anyone in this audience who’s not living life God’s way? Maybe someone who has never committed their life to serving Jesus Christ. We want you to know this morning that if you believe He is the Savior, and you’re ready to commit your life to serving Him, and you’re ready to submit as He instructs us to do to baptism in water. There’s a baptism back here right now. The water’s warm, which may be particularly important this morning. And today you can commit your life to serving Jesus Christ.

You can have all the better things and leave behind the life of misery that goes with sin. Or maybe there’s someone in this audience that once made that commitment to Jesus, but you’ve been deluded by the devil and you thought the world had something better to offer, and maybe in your heart this morning, you’ve learned better, and you know that’s not the case. And today’s the day to rededicate yourself to Him. We want to appeal to you if you’re subject to His invitation. Come right now, while together and while we sing.