Good and Lost

That music, that is good stuff.

If you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to Luke chapter 12.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 12, I'm going to get there in just a few moments.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

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.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

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.

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,

Mark 8:36

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

Mark 10:17

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,

Matthew 19:24

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.