The following message given by Winky Prattney is
entitled, How to be religious without being a
Christian.
This morning I want to speak about how
to be religious without being a Christian.
We have a lot of books on how
to be Christian without being religious, and I
think it's high time we had some messages
on how to be religious without being a
Christian.
A lot of times you, as you go
out from door to door, will meet young
people who you could call sinners.
But those are not the ones that bother
me, and not really the ones that bother
God.
I've been to both secular universities and also
to Christian, quote-unquote, Bible colleges and colleges.
And you see, I have really had a
better time sometimes in non-Christian universities and
colleges than I have in Christian colleges.
And the reason why is this.
In a secular university you know who your
enemies are.
They all are.
I have never forgotten a young lady in
New Zealand talking with a man who was
supposed to be a deacon in the church.
And she had just given her life to
the Lord.
And she was really excited, she was really
happy.
And he said to her, how is it
with your soul?
She said, I'm so happy I can't sleep.
And he said, don't worry, you'll soon get
over it.
I thought to myself, what a tragedy.
Number one, that it should be a man
who is supposed to be a man of
God who said that.
And secondly, that all too often in so
many lives of young people who say they
have decided with Jesus it should be true.
I've spent a lot of time talking with
young people who call themselves atheists.
I've never really met an atheist yet.
I've met a lot of kids who call
themselves atheists.
I guess I could have called myself that
too some years back.
But I've spent about three hours talking to
some young people and there is one argument
I just cannot really answer for them.
I can answer for myself, I can't answer
for other people.
And that is this.
A young man said to me, Winky, I
believe what you say is true, it makes
sense here.
And you're speaking to me here.
But he said, I want to ask you
a question.
Could you show me three other people who
are living like you?
Who are living this Christian life.
He said, I have read the Bible, I
know what the Bible says.
I'm not dumb.
Growing up in a church, he said, I
can see what the scriptures say a Christian
is supposed to be like.
Show me some people who live like that.
And I think people have a right to
see that.
It is no good for us to say,
listen, don't look at me, look to Jesus.
I'm full of sin and iniquity and all
kinds of wickedness, rottenness and depravity.
But you have to look at Jesus.
The sinner has every right to say, I
can't see Jesus, I can only see you.
And if he can't help you, what makes
you think you can help me?
Our parable is told of the Lord Jesus
coming back to heaven after his resurrection.
And all the angels lined the heavenly boulevards
and their wings bowed in adoration.
And Jesus came in triumphantly, the holes in
his hands, the task completed.
And one small angel came to the Lord
and he said, Lord, who have you left
behind to carry on your work?
Jesus said, I've left eleven men.
And the angel said, what?
Eleven men?
Not those eleven men you're working with before.
Not those guys.
He said, yes, eleven men.
And this little angel nearly freaked out, if
an angel can freak out.
He said, but Lord, what say they fail
you?
You know what they were like.
What say they fail you?
What alternate plan do you have for the
evangelization of the world?
And Jesus looked at that angel with eternity
in his eyes and he said, I have
no other plan.
Just eleven men.
They must not fail.
And they didn't.
And that's why we're having a crusade here
this morning.
Listen to this letter from a young lady.
I smoke, I drink, I enjoy playing cards
for money, gamble, I pet.
I haven't gotten the limit yet, but God
only knows whether I will.
My family doesn't seem to know that I
am bad.
Of course, they don't know or won't appear
to know that I do all these things.
But are parents deaf and dumb?
You may as well know why I can't
go to church anymore.
Maybe I'm a good girl, but I sure
feel rotten.
And I certainly can't pray anymore.
Sometimes after an exceedingly wild party, I drop
on my knees and say, God, forgive us
all.
You understand, my crowd is not tough.
Just the guys and girls of the best
families I was brought up with.
What puzzles me is the old people all
saying they have faith in us.
And you preachers standing around telling us how
fine and good we are.
Sometimes I'd like to kidnap you and take
you to one of our parties.
I guess your next sermon after that would
be about sin.
And that's what we need to hear.
Here are some of my questions.
Did my mother do the things I'm doing?
Did my older sisters?
Am I wrong in thinking that I am
a rotten girl?
Is this the way of the world?
Shall I go to heaven or shall I
go to hell?
Does God care?
Do you preachers know that young people do
these things?
Please write something to quiet my mind or
I will go mad.
In the remainder of this day, we're going
to talk about four kinds of ground that
seed fell into.
And in the book of Luke and the
book of Matthew and also in the book
of Mark, you'll see a parable.
And I want you to look it up.
It's a very interesting story.
It's a story of a sower who went
forth to sow.
Now, I'll give it to you in one
gospel and you can look it up in
all these other ones.
You start in Luke and I'll start in
Matthew, all right?
Matthew chapter 13, chapter 4 of Mark, Luke
8.
A story of about a man who went
forth to sow.
People didn't do it by automation those days.
They just went out, pachow, pachow, pachow, throwing
food seed in all kinds of different places.
This man went out to sow and he
sowed some seed.
And the Bible tells us that seed fell
on four different kinds of ground.
The first kind of ground it fell on
was hard ground.
Seed just sort of sat there like that.
Have you ever been, somebody's had a grass
lawn and people walked up and down on
it for so long it just makes a
big old pathway right through the lawn?
Solid ground.
It's really hard.
And if you throw seed on it, it
just sits on the top.
And of course, there's nothing birds like better
than seed just sitting up on top there.
So they come along and eat it, clunk.
And that's the end of that particular kind
of sowing.
That's the hard ground.
And then, Jesus told a story about another
man who went out sowing things.
And this man sowed his seed and it
fell on stony places.
Now stony places is kind of a weird
ground.
It's really all kinds of rocks and stuff
down there and it's just a little bit
thin layer of topsoil.
Just a little witty bit.
Just enough you like to cover over the
top of that rock.
And the seed falls into the ground and
it's soft and it goes down here.
It gets lodged a little bit in the
rock.
But instead of growing as it grows up,
it grows up very, very fast because you
see the topsoil is all loaded with all
kinds of nutrients in that.
But the roots are going out.
They can't go down because of the rocks
so they just go out along the top
of the ground and sucking all the moisture
out of the top of it, see?
And as long as the ground stays wet,
the plant is fine.
And that effect, it grows far faster than
the other plants.
It shoots up, boom, just like that.
It's got all these super nutrients and all
that and it's growing up real fast.
But unfortunately, the sun comes out.
And when the sun comes out, it begins
to dry up the top part of the
ground.
And the Bible says because they had no
root, they dried up and withered away.
And that plant died.
It never made it.
And then the last story was the story
of a seed that fell into ground and
the ground is pretty rich.
It must have been rich because there were
a lot of other plants growing.
But unfortunately, the plants it was growing around
happened to be weeds.
This one started off well.
But nobody took the trouble, unfortunately, to get
the weeds out which grew around it.
And the weeds strangled this plant to death.
It choked.
And that was the end of that plant.
And then the last story was the story
of some plants that fell into good ground.
They sent down roots and as the roots
went down, the shoots went up.
And they brought forth fruit.
Some thirty, some sixty, some a hundredfold.
I believe that parable repeated three times by
the Lord Jesus is a parable that tells
us about three kinds of conversion.
Three kinds of counterfeit conversion.
And one genuine.
I have called these three kinds of counterfeit
conversion the religion of fear, the in crowd,
and the carnal Christian.
Quote, unquote.
On this side of the line, number four
represents genuine Christianity.
Do you know how many people are supposed
to be saved every year in the United
States alone?
One million people.
If that is true, I wonder why this
country is going to hell faster than any
other time in its history.
And something hurts in my heart when I
see the quality of some of the young
people who call themselves by the name of
Jesus.
And they think it's high time we started
looking at what God says real Christians look
like.
We have heard so much about what the
sinner looks like, nobody knows what the counterfeit
Christian looks like because the Bible tells us
a great deal about people who seem to
love God, but are not real.
This morning we are going to talk about
the religion of fear, the hard ground.
That's why I call it how to be
religious without being a Christian.
I'm going to give you, first of all,
some wrong reason for serving God, so you
can get an idea of this.
The Bible tells us there are only, I'll
just give you a simple outline of what
genuine Christianity is like.
There are only two ultimate choices we can
make in life.
We can either live for ourselves or we
can live for God.
It is just as impossible in the Bible
to live for yourself, holy and fully, and
to live for Jesus Christ, holy and fully
at the same time, as it is for
me to walk out that door and walk
up to this blackboard at exactly the same
time because you see there are two opposite
directions.
If I'm heading this way, I'm looking that
way, I'm going that way.
If I'm heading this way, I'm going this
way, I'm looking towards that way and I
can't go there and there at the same
time.
And the whole difference between Christianity and religion
is that in religion a person is not
saved from selfishness.
But in Christianity, genuine Christianity, Jesus saves us
from sin.
The Bible calls selfishness, or we call it,
the Bible says this, all we like sheep
have gone astray, we have turned everyone to
his own way.
And you can always tell, genuine Christianity saves
people from their selfishness and brings them in
love with God.
False Christianity keeps people selfish and they never
really love anybody else except themselves.
Let me give you now some motives.
I want you to think about two kids
who have been growing up in a house.
Their dad is, well he's a rich man,
let's say.
He's got a billion, ten billion dollars, like
the man in the Volkswagen commercial.
And they all live in this house together,
him and his two sons.
One day, Dad gets real sick.
The two kids are always around him.
One kid doesn't really care very much about
his father but what he does care about
is ten billion dollars.
See, so what does he do?
He says, oh Dad, I'm so sorry to
hear that you're sick.
What can I do for you?
What can I give you?
Can I bring you lemonade in bed?
Can I give you posts and cookies?
His dad, of course, is favorably impressed.
Now, how long does this dad live?
Well, he lives about thirty years after he's
sick.
This kid is standing around there saying, hey
Dad, I'm really sorry you're sick again, and
then to himself, I really wish you'd hurry
up and die.
The other kid really does love his father.
He also brings him posts and cookies and
lemonade, but for a different reason.
Can you see it as possible for thirty
long years, for people to hold up and
do exactly the same things for two totally
different reasons, and the core of one would
be totally wrong and the other one would
be totally right.
God talks about the whole of mankind in
one of those two categories.
And there are some people who serve God
for the wrong reasons.
And I'm going to give you some of
those reasons today.
I've heard so many young people talk about
on the streets that we witness to, who
say, I don't want to serve Jesus, Christianity
is a crutch.
And I wonder why they got that idea.
I wonder why they got the idea that
Christianity was a crutch.
Is it possible that maybe people who call
themselves Christians presented Christianity as that?
Because in the Bible it is not a
crutch.
It never has been.
It is the absolute necessity, just like life
comes from breathing and eating and sleeping.
No crutch.
Here are the two motives that are not
Christian.
It is possible to live by both of
these, and we're going to talk about, The
first one is serving God for the good
things that Jesus can do for you.
And here's the first one.
A new trip to try.
I have never ever go out witnessing like
this and say, listen, you've tried everything else,
why don't you try Jesus?
He's a wonderful trip, man.
He'll do these things for you, make you
feel good, he'll make you feel groovy, he'll
really turn you on, he'll blow your head,
and he'll do all these things.
It is possible that Jesus will do all
those things, but that better not be the
reason why a man gives his life to
God.
You must understand that Jesus is not a
new trip to try.
I don't know where we got the idea
of try Jesus.
He is not on trial.
He never has been on trial.
I don't see God going around saying, oh,
I wish that somebody would try me.
I really do.
You know, I'm standing here on the wings,
rubbing my fingers saying, oh, if only somebody
would try me, I'd really do all these
cool things.
I see a hurt God who holds the
universe together, and men in rebellion against him,
and God in great kindness and great mercy
continually putting aside the rightful anger, he feels,
of a bunch of rebels who've broken his
heart.
Can a man come up and say, all
right, I'll try you, Jesus.
That might be a cool thing to do.
And if you don't work fine, I'll go
back to the Galak and Leeks of Egypt.
All the Israelites knew how to do that.
Oh, Moses is going to take us out.
Praise God, glory, and let's go to Egypt.
Out of Dubai, near your Egyptian feet.
And then suddenly the Red Sea, and here
come the Egyptians with the tanks and bazookas
and everything over the fence.
Oh, well, we didn't really want to go.
It was Moses' fault.
This guy was him.
I'm coming back.
Hi, Joe.
I remember you.
You know, I used to live with you.
Put that bazooka down.
What a dumb thing.
I have, so many kids have said this,
that kids are beginning to believe it.
So you know what they do?
They try Jesus.
And Jesus is not interested in being tried.
He wants surrender or nothing.
You can't come to God and say, listen,
I'll try you out for a little while.
You can say, the real Christianity, the Bible
is this.
Oh, God, I've had it unless you can
help me.
Jesus is not a new trip to try.
He is not on trial.
And then there's another thing too, the prosperity,
the prospect of prosperity.
And that goes up very well today in
a materialistic society.
And this idea, Jesus is a marvelous person
to help you get rich quick.
If you really want, you're poor, right?
Well, here's a cool thing you can do.
Give your life to Jesus, and he will
make you rich.
Be a millionaire for Jesus.
See, this is the cool thing.
That would be awfully fun to do in
the Bible.
I hear so much of this.
You give Jesus one dollar, and he'll give
you ten back.
God is not a bank.
He never has been.
This prosperity prospect, David Ravenhill told us this
story once, of this little old lady who
was sitting in the front row of a
businessmen's meeting, and they were preaching, one guy
was preaching about how he first, he only
had a dollar, and he gave his dollar
away, and to the Lord's work, and he
only kept ten cents of it.
And the Lord gave him three hundred dollars,
and then he gave away two hundred ninety
-nine dollars, and kept only one dollar.
And the Lord poured in five thousand dollars,
and then he gave four thousand five hundred
away, and you know, he just kept this
five hundred, and God gave him a million
dollars.
And then he's done this, you know, and
now he's a billionaire, and he's standing there
preaching away.
And I gave away my other million dollars,
and then God has given me six billion
more, and he's building all this thing up.
And this little lady sitting right in the
front was not very impressed.
And then he talked about the last fantastic
thing he gave away.
The little lady in the front, and now
he says, Now, praise the Lord, I'm a
billionaire for Jesus.
And the little lady said, I dare you
to do it again.
I'll tell you what God wants.
He wants your heart, and if he can't
get your heart through your money, he wants
you to throw your money away.
There was a young man who came to
Jesus, who had everything he needed, except he
didn't have eternal life.
And he knew he wanted something like that,
so he came to Jesus.
And he was rich, and he was young,
and he was a ruler.
He came to Jesus and he said, Good
master, what good thing must I do to
inherit eternal life?
That tells me he was something else too.
He was a goody-goody.
You ever met those kind of people?
They always do the right thing when you
do the wrong thing.
Always wear the right clothes when you wear
the wrong ones.
He always did the right, you know, he
was a goody-goody.
What good thing must I good do to
do, have eternal life?
Good master.
And the Lord said to him this, Why
do you call me good?
There is one good and that is God.
Man, when Jesus said that, this is his
implication.
If you call me good, I must be
God.
Are you willing to follow through with that?
If you call me good, I must be
God.
He said, If you'd enter into life, keep
the commandments.
The guy said, Which one?
And that tells you another thing about him.
He was smart.
Jesus gave him a list of commandments.
The commandments are broken approximately 3-7 or
4-6, depending on where you put the
Sabbath.
You can put it out here.
This lot are man to God, and this
lot are man to man.
These ones concern our relationships to each other.
These ones concern our relationships to God.
Jesus left out all of these, and he
left out the Sabbath, and he left out
this last little one here.
And the last one was a little commandment
that starts with, Thou shalt not covet.
If you're a little Jewish kid, that's the
first commandment you ever saw, because you see,
they used to do them on the pillars
of the house, all the way down, see,
to the bottom.
So when you're a little kid, the very
first commandment you see is the bottom one,
see.
And as you get, that's, you know, the
Jewish really know about this commandment, because they,
you know, they grow up, as they get
bigger, they learn the other one.
This rich young ruler said, Which commandments do
I have to keep?
The Lord said to him, Alright, you don't
steal, you don't lie.
You honor your father and your mother.
You don't commit adultery.
You stay sexually clean, in other words.
He said, you do all these things, and
he laid it all out.
And he left out the last one.
And that kid was thinking to himself, I
wonder why he left that last one.
Have you ever come home, and you've done
something wrong, and your mother knew you'd done
it, and you knew that she knew?
Do you ever happen to, you come home,
and when you come in the door, you're
dreading what's going to happen to you, and
your mother says to you, Hello?
You say, Hello?
She says, You have a nice day at
school?
And you say, Yes.
She says, Lovely day, isn't it?
And you say, Alright, get a level with
it.
I wonder what this character felt, when Jesus
went all the way down the line, and
then missed that last one out.
That sort of feeling, And listen, some of
our witnessing plans would never work on the
rich young ruler.
One of them goes like this.
How many lives does it take to make
one liar?
And you hold a finger on his nose.
The character sees a finger sticking up, tells
him, One.
Oh, yes.
One, see?
Tells him.
And then you say, Alright, how many sins
does it take to make a sinner?
One, he says.
And then you ask him this question, Have
you ever told a lie?
And then he says, Yes, of course.
And then you say, Aha, then you're a
sinner.
And then you get on with the business
of getting him to say it.
You try that on the rich young ruler.
Jesus said, Don't bear false witness.
He said, Oh, He said, I kept from
my youth up.
You can't understand.
How many lives does it take to make
a liar?
One.
How many sins does it take to make
a sinner?
One.
Have you ever told a lie?
No.
What?
You must have told a lie.
That must be a lie.
I told a lie.
You've got to trust me.
Jesus didn't contradict this young man.
He was a very moral type of character,
but understand, he was religious, but not Christian.
He knew how to be religious, but he
didn't know how to be a Christian.
And he said, All these things have I
kept from my youth up, but what lack
I yet?
And Jesus looked into his eyes, and Jesus
said, If you'd enter into life, give up
your God.
Sell what you have.
This young girl is now self-serving.
What is he talking about?
This must be some new kind of gospel
I've heard of.
I only want to be a Christian.
I want to sell what I have.
Listen, man, you only have to accept Jesus.
They told me that down the road.
If I come up and I accept Jesus,
that's fine, that's cool.
What is he talking about?
But Jesus himself is preaching here, and he
doesn't make mistakes.
And Jesus said, Sell what you have.
And suddenly in the back of his mind,
it clicked.
Got it.
Of course.
What is the use of taking my gold
-plated surfboard around Nazareth?
They've got lousy beaches there.
That's dumb, of course.
I sell all I have.
I turn it into assets.
I take my Mastercard, my Bank of Jerusalem
card, and I use all these things.
And for goodness sake, very simple.
And I know, of course, I just buy
what I need.
That's a brilliant idea.
Of course.
They had me worried for a second.
And these things in the back of his
mind.
And I know, I'm going to be Jesus'
treasurer.
Christian crusades incorporated.
Rich young ruler, treasurer.
I just see it in boards in his
mind.
And then he's sitting there smiling.
And then Jesus says, and give it away
to the poor.
Oh, you've got to be kidding.
Listen, I have a friend, and he joined
a church down the road, and they said,
Oh, we've been looking for you.
We've needed a treasurer for a long time
to get our church out of the holes
line and the dotted line, baby.
I'll tell you something, friends.
Jesus is a lot more honest than some
preachers I know.
He knows that if he does not get
your heart, he's not getting you.
And he's not interested in your money, and
he's not interested in your possessions.
He's interested in your heart.
And if he can't get your heart, if
it's down something else, then he wants you
to say goodbye, and I want you to
know that.
Serving Jesus is not a prosperity trip, and
if you believe that, you go to Red
China and preach it.
It's easy to preach that here.
Go behind the curtain to Romania and preach
it there.
Preach on how Jesus can make you prosperous,
as long as you're a Christian.
And I'll tell you something, Jesus sometimes strips
everything a person has and leaves them with
nothing but himself and God to get his
heart.
And Jesus is not a prosperity prospect.
If you want to become a very, very
rich person, then write a book on how
to spend God and you'll make a million
dollars overnight.
Everybody wants to spend God, but God is
not interested in people spending him.
He wants to spend them.
There is another one, we'll just throw it
on the end for you to think about.
I call the benefits of heavenly insurance.
And the heavenly insurance policy goes something like
this.
You know, it must be a pretty rotten
thing to live a life not knowing that
everything's taken care of in the next world.
It really is a rotten thing, see?
After all, you've got your health taken care
of, you've got your car insurance taken care
of, you've got your medical insurance, you've got
all these different things taken care of.
But just think about the next world.
You haven't got good insurance in there.
You know what you need to do is
give your life to Jesus.
And if you do, man, then it's all
set up.
I thank God for the astronaut that was
a Christian.
They said to him, did you, what did
you think about God when you were up
there?
Did your thoughts turn back to God when
you got in an emergency?
He said, I have made my peace with
Micah a long time ago.
My religion is not a fire escape.
Thank God for men who like that.
Listen, this is a weird thing.
But, uh, the great God is not to
be peddled as some celestial Santa Claus who
we come to and say, oh dear Santa,
I need a yacht, I need a this,
I need a that, and I thank you
that you'll give me all these cool things.
Goodness.
And you know what God says?
You ask and you receive not, because you
ask and you miss.
You might receive, you spend it on your
own selfishness, on your own lust.
Please turn the tape over for the remainder
of Winky Prattney's message.
This is side two of Winky Prattney's message,
How to Be Religious Without Being a Christian.
Just as much as hope, and I think
us preachers are to blame, all too often
we have laid out this, do you want
peace?
Do you want happiness?
Do you want joy?
Do you want to have a cool life
and come to Jesus?
That's not what Jesus said.
He said, do you want death?
Do you want to be stripped of everything
you have in order that you may find
true treasure?
Do you want to, do you want to
know that you are really breaking God's heart?
Do you really want to know what my
cost is?
All kinds of people, they followed Jesus, listened
to him, great multitudes went after him, and
the bigger the crowd got, the more he
said, listen, if any man come after me
and hate not his father, his mother, his
brothers, his sisters, his own life also, he
cannot be my disciple.
And many went back and walked no more
than they said, this is too hard of
Christianity, forget it.
But that was God's time, and he had
real Christians.
Heavenly insurance is another lot of things to
think about.
Christianity is not a thing of fear.
Now Jonathan Edwards preached one sermon like this,
that scared people silly.
He preached about the great God who dreadfully
abhors you, who dangles you much as you
would dangle a spider over a candle flame.
And then when he finished preaching, people screamed
out and grabbed chandeliers and they thought the
floor was going to open up and swallow
them.
And Jonathan Edwards only preached that sermon.
He didn't preach very many others like that,
because Jonathan Edwards was not really a fantastic
preacher.
He was a great man of God.
He spent about eight hours a day in
study.
But see, he just read a sermon like
this.
And he's a little cross-eyed.
And he read them in a monotone.
But see, that happened to be a kind
of message that people needed in those days.
It scared them silly, really did.
Scared them skinny.
I know God has sometimes used fear to
awaken people to his claims.
The Bible tells us Noah was moved by
fear.
He built an ark.
But listen, God doesn't save people by scaring
them into heaven.
Never has.
I know a girl who came to me.
She was being flippant.
I said, young lady, I want you to
make a choice.
You give your life to God or you
stay with your mouth.
I'm finished.
She said, ah, let me think about it
a little bit.
She went out and got in a bug,
drove away.
I got a call at two in the
morning.
She said, well, I was driving on the
freeway and a wind hit my bug and
it somersaulted.
I turned about five times over, smashed total
right off it.
I'm still all right.
And she was shaking.
She said, I need to give my life
to God.
That's cool.
But, I do not believe that God scares
people into heaven.
And I do not serve Jesus and neither
does any Christian in here.
Because if we don't, he'll send us to
hell.
There are other reasons for serving God.
Now, it is true, if you don't follow
Jesus, then there is fire.
The Bible is very clear about that.
But that's not the reason why a man
ought to serve God.
Not for you.
Here's another one.
Um, the, the fire escape.
When the earthquake came here, man, boy, there
was a lot of Christians who became Christians
within 15 seconds.
I've been here all the time.
God says, Oh, really?
I was listening to the radio.
I thought it was so funny.
After the earthquake, the crime went down like
this.
And, uh, the commentator said it was probably
because we had more policemen out and not
through any change of heart on behalf of
the criminals.
But I said, I bet a lot of
the crooks were scared on 6 o'clock
in the morning.
Ah!
And then the last one.
See, there's all kinds of cool things you
can, I've got all kinds of men come
up to me and open their services and
I say, Oh, when I was in the
war, the bombs were falling and I said,
Oh, God, save me and I'll do anything
you want.
And I said, what are you doing now?
smashed out of their minds.
Listen, you can't make fire escape promises to
God.
Let me tell you a really strange thing.
I would be happy in hell if Jesus
sent me there.
One, I deserve it.
Thoroughly deserve it.
Know that.
Know that for sure.
Secondly, I am not serving Jesus so I
can get to heaven.
I don't know much about heaven.
I've read a bit in the Bible about
it.
I'm sure it's not a place where people
play hearts and stuff.
The Bible doesn't tell us a great deal
about it.
Which tells me something about Jesus and it's
that, that's not the reason why we ought
to serve him.
And I'll tell you some people in the
Bible that were willing to go to hell
if it could mean that others could be
saved.
And one of them's name was Moses.
God had worked so long with Moses' people
and God said, I'm going to destroy this
people.
Moses, stand out of the way.
I'm going to take you and I'm going
to make you a great nation.
I'm just going to wipe this people off
the face of the earth.
And you know what Moses said?
Oh God, if you can't spare them, take
my name out of the book of life
you've written.
Blot my name out of your book.
He said this, my soul for theirs.
I'll go to hell in their place.
If you, if you can't spare them, send
me to hell too.
That was his love for his people.
He said, oh God, take my name out
of your book.
And you know what God said?
Moses, send me to sin against the Himalaya.
Take out of my book.
Moses is ready to give his soul.
And I'll tell you something, he's going out
witnessing.
You love the kids enough to die for
them.
And you'll see some results.
The world is not impressed with feelings.
It is impressed with a genuine love that
comes from the heart of the man who's
in love with Jesus Christ and he loves
people and loves God more than he loves
himself.
And Paul, remember the apostle Paul?
I wish that I'd be a curse for
my brethren's sake.
Paul said, if I can go to hell,
for them I would go.
God could take me and say, Paul, I'll
tell you what, if you will take these
people's punishment in hell, then I will save
them.
Paul said, send me, I'll go.
That is real salvation.
I have a funny feeling today that most
young people who say they really serve God,
put in a tight corner would say, well,
that's not fair of you, God.
Look, you took away my murder card.
I'm not going to serve you anymore.
I'm finished.
I've had it.
I thought you were going to be cool
and now look what's happened.
Some kids don't need to be sent to
hell.
They just need one little sneer from somebody.
You kiss me.
You know?
I don't know what you're talking about.
Kiss me.
I know some girls, their boyfriend leaves them.
I've got it.
I'm going to be a Christian and I'm
going to be a junkie.
I'm going to be a prostitute and I'm
going to shoot up now just because you
took my boyfriend away from me.
Goodness me.
What kind of Christianity is that?
God should be disappointed if things happen to
you.
But if you say you love Jesus and
you put him first, put your money where
your mouth is.
Now friends, I'm going to give you a
basis of why we ought to serve God
and then I'm going to give you briefly
some signs of a lady who married her
husband out of hopeful fear but she didn't
really love him.
Happiness comes as a sort of a byproduct
of getting what you originally set out to
get.
Now let me give you an illustration.
Say my goal in life was to make
$10,000.
Now I can work towards that thing.
This is my goal.
I work towards it and when I get
the $10,000 I'm happy.
Yay!
I got my $10,000.
See that's the thing.
But on the other hand, if I wanted
to buy a $10,000 automobile and I
get $10,000 I still haven't got what
I'm working towards.
See?
So that's kind of only a side thing.
I'm saying yay I got it but I
still haven't got my car.
When I get the car, when I get
the goal that I've been aiming for then
the happiness comes.
Now listen.
There's one thing you can't use this thing
on and that is with God.
Some people want happiness.
So they try to use God in order
to get happiness.
But what is happiness?
Happiness is just if you don't have an
object of happiness happiness is just like the
pot of gold in a rainbow.
Some idiot told me when I was a
kid there was a pot of gold at
the end of the rainbow.
So I was waiting for a rainbow.
Yay!
Rush across and the rainbow moved on.
You just keep on moving around.
And I said I'll go around the other
side of the field and get that rainbow
man and rush around and it still moves
away.
A sneaky rainbow.
I never did find that pot of gold.
And happiness is just like that.
If you search for happiness and try to
use God in order to find it you'll
never find it.
It just keeps moving away and moving away
and moving away.
And some kids do not really serve God.
They serve happiness and they are trying to
use God in order to do it.
And you know what God says?
Then you shall find me if you search
and seek for me with all your heart.
God must be loved for his own sake.
Not for what he can do.
God is interested in you.
He loves you for your own sake.
Not simply for what you can do.
And so it must come back and return.
God must be loved for his own sake.
If God is our goal.
If God really is the thing we are
aiming towards or the person that we move
towards.
When we have God we have everything we
want.
But if something else other than God popularity,
pleasure, happiness, peace.
If that is our goal we will never
find God who said you must seek me.
Set our hearts on God and all those
things come as side benefits.
Set our hearts on the side benefits and
we will not find God or those side
benefits.
How many kids do you know now who
know how to be religious without being Christian?
Now let's talk about value for a second
so you'll see why God has said trust
me.
And what is the real basis of a
man serving God?
Now most of you girls wore some things
today.
Some dresses of some description.
Now you came along dressed in the particular
dress that you dressed in today because you
figured this is the most valuable thing I
can wear for the particular crusade.
Now when we mean value we don't mean
all expensive.
You guys are going to clean a car
you probably wouldn't put on a tuxedo to
do it.
You may, you may be different but you
know you probably think that the most valuable
thing I'd wear to clean a car is
the oldest thing I have so you'd wear
that.
But on the other hand if you go
into some special function you probably wouldn't wear
your overall and canic suit and stuff like
that.
Of course you may be different again but
can you see that every decision you make
in life is based on what you believe
is the most valuable thing for that situation.
Now some of you ate breakfast this morning
because you figured I've got to eat something
I'll die of a stomachache.
So you, other people didn't eat breakfast because
you said if I eat breakfast I'll go
to sleep.
So you didn't do that.
All of you make decisions.
You sat on a seat some of you
sat here because you figured it's more valuable
to sit here.
And some of you sat in the back
because you figured there's no other room to
get in and I can breathe outside the
door anyway.
Valuable, you all make that decision.
Alright.
Imagine now that you've been sent out to
buy some crowns for a king.
I want you to see that it is
the value of the crown that obligates you
to buy it.
It is the value of that thing that
says to you buy me instead of the
other one.
Alright.
That simple.
Two crowns.
One looks ugly.
See.
And the other one looks, stars coming out
of it.
And you look at it and you say
I like that one.
And the value of that crown says buy
me, buy me, taste me, taste me.
You know what it says.
Do you see this thing?
Now, let's say this looks very beautiful, very
well done, but you find this is only
made of cardboard.
And this is really, really gold.
It's kind of battered up in that, but
you figure, what would you buy then if
it was only two crowns?
Well, you'd buy the gold one.
You figure it's better to buy an expensive
crown and get it beaten back into shape
than this thing which is only cardboard for
the same price.
See, the, the change of looks now, but
you know one more thing about this crown.
You know it's more valuable because it's made
of a better kind of substance.
All right?
Can you see again the value obligates you
to buy this and not just the outward
appearances of it?
Now, what say a king had sent you
to buy the crown?
And he had told you what to do.
He said, buy me a crown.
That's a command.
Here's your king.
Buy me a crown, he says.
Buy the best one that you see.
And he gives you a thousand dollars.
Can you see that you will still choose
the crown on the basis of how valuable
it is even though the king has commanded
you to do that?
Now, listen.
God commands us to love him.
He makes it a command because it is
absolutely necessary.
But the reason why we ought to serve
God is not because he gave us a
command to do that.
Any more that I could say this to
you, you will love me now in the
next five seconds.
Hurry up!
Nobody can command, can command something unless behind
that there is that sense of value.
And listen, God must be loved for his
own sake.
He has said, choose me, put me first.
But he has said that because he really
is the most valuable person in the universe.
He has said it because he really is
the one single being in the universe who
is most lovely and most valuable.
And the Bible tells us what the kingdom
of heaven is like.
It's like a merchant man who goes looking
for pearls and he comes across a pearl
that he has never seen before, anything like
this.
It is a pearl of great price.
It is the purest pearl.
It is a pearl without price.
And he sells all this other stuff that
he has collected to get that one pearl.
Why do you surrender your life to Jesus
Christ?
Because you see he is the most valuable,
lovely being in the universe.
And he is worth serving above all other
gods.
The man who came and found the treasure
hidden in a field and it might have
been an ugly looking field full of weeds
but he found the treasure and when he
found the treasure he said, I am going
to sell everything I've got.
The Bible tells me something about repentance.
It says that goodness of God leads you
to it.
Why do I love Jesus?
Because he broke my heart with his love.
Is he the most valuable person in the
universe?
You say, I don't think so.
I think God is actually selfish.
I really do.
After all, what is a person going around
ordering people to love him and stuff unless
he's selfish?
You say that God wants us to serve
him, right?
Right.
You say that God wants people to be
unselfish, right?
Right.
Then God asks us to serve and love
him.
Therefore God is selfish, right?
Wrong.
Why does God ask you to serve him?
Simply because he is the, no, because he
knows he's the most valuable being in the
universe.
Look, here is God's being.
He upholds this whole universe that you're a
part of.
He holds the whole thing together.
Observe.
Now, the reason why my hand didn't go
through this chair, one, because my karate is
not very good, and two, not because a
solid hand collided with a solid chair, but
the energies that bind me together bound that
chair together.
And what you actually saw was a collision
of two energies.
And who is the person who holds the
energies together?
The Bible tells you who that is in
Colossians.
He is before all things, and by him
all things consist, and that word means all
together.
God holds together the very structure of the
universe that you're a part of.
He pulled away his chair from the universe
that had fallen apart, and God looks at
our whole universe of which you and I
are a part of.
He looks at all this universe.
He looks at his own being, and he
sees the most single, important, and valuable thing
in the universe is his own being.
And God chooses unselfishly his own because on
the basis of value, he must choose that
which is best.
God sees he is the most valuable being
in the universe, so he unselfishly chooses his
own being.
Listen, if there was a God bigger than
God, that God needed, God would say, worship
him, not me.
But there is no bigger, no greater one
than the God that put this universe together.
So he says, choose me.
Now, do you see this?
Do you understand why we say that serving
Jesus is not a religion of fear?
It's when the love of God, God shows
himself to you, he breaks your heart with
his love.
You see, he is lovely and I am
rotten.
He is valuable and I have ruined everything
I have and he cares about me and
I don't deserve that.
And if he is that kind of God,
I'll serve him and follow him and love
him and worship him for the rest of
my life.
That's Christianity.
Not of hope, not of fear, but love.
Not serving him so dad can give me
a billion dollars when he dies, but because
I really care about him, he is worth
serving.
Therefore, the Christian, when he witnesses, does not
witness because that's the thing to do if
you're Christian.
If you don't do it, you're pretty miserable
for a Christian.
He does it because he enjoys it.
I can tell if you've been in love.
I really can.
And I can tell when a girl loves
God, or a guy loves God, I love
to talk about him.
Sit down.
You say, do you have to witness all
the time?
What is this religious thing, man?
You can go out and go bowling.
Do you have to go Christian bowling?
It's like saying, oh, baseball, you have to
talk about baseball.
He's excited about baseball.
He's thrilled about baseball.
And everything you talk about if it's bananas,
it'll turn into baseball.
Christian loves Jesus Christ.
He can't help talking about him.
Sit down and say, listen, how'd you like
to go out?
Yeah, that'll be a cool thing.
You know what Jesus said to me today?
Oh, this is a religious fanatic.
Right.
I love Jesus Christ.
I don't do what I do because somebody
told me, you've got to do that, otherwise
you're not a very cool Christian.
I read the Bible, I know what Jesus
wants me to do, and I know how
lovely he is.
And I do that because I know he's
worth serving.
He's a beautiful person, the greatest beautiful person
in the universe.
And looking at the whole rest of the
churches, they say, that's not very popular anymore,
this is a thing we intend to do,
and I know what God has said, I'll
do that.
Who cares about the consequences?
Set your heart, if you're going to serve
God and love him, then you go right
against the rest of the world that crucified
him.
But faith is not a religion of fear.
God brought this to me so beautifully.
I had hurt God earlier in my Christian
life, I really wanted to serve him, and
then I cheated on a test, and so
I thought, I might as well give up.
I was on my knees, I said, this
is no good, can't do this, this Christian
life is, you know, really, I'm going to
give up, I was about to, you know,
throw this sponge in.
And I was praying, and nothing seemed real
anymore, and I was on my knees and
I was praying, and I saw in my
mind a guy running, he was running in
a race, and he was running way out
in front, and he had a shoelace undone.
And he stood on his shoelace and he
went smack, right on his face in the
mud, just bang, as hard as he could
see.
And around the corner of all these people,
And so, they sent him out.
They were going to send him out to
play there.
And the day before this, this kid's dad
died.
His father was the only one in the
house.
And the coach came in and he said,
I'm sorry son.
He said, I heard your father died and
I'm sorry.
This was the only game that we had
for you.
And he said, I'm really sorry you weren't
able to make it.
And the kid said, listen, coach, I want
to play.
I want to play tomorrow.
He said, I never wanted to play any
other time like I want to play tomorrow.
And the coach couldn't believe it.
He says, what do you mean?
He says, don't you want to go to
your father's funeral?
He said, yeah, but I want to play.
I want to play first.
And the coach, he said, alright son.
Put this kid on.
He played.
Like lights went on inside him, see.
And then he played so good that at
the end of the game, that actually drawn
with those guys with the eyes in the
middle of their head.
They actually threw even with them.
And his mates in the team lifted him
up on the shelf.
They cheered him right off the field.
They never seen him play anything like that.
And the coach said to him, I can't
understand it son.
He said, how did you become a light
on that football field?
What happened to you?
He says, well, I never could get excited.
He said, I think there's other boys that
have their dad there cheering them on and
that.
And my mother has been dead for a
long time.
She said, my dad is a Christian.
He never came to any football game.
The coach said, was that against his religious
convictions?
He said, no coach, he was blind.
But today, for the first time, my father
watched me play.
And listen, you're the kind of man who
kneels alone, or the kind of woman who
kneels alone with God.
Father sees.
Let's close in prayer.
Heavenly Father, so many young people are serving
you because they feel I have to.
I feel if they don't, they're going to
get into trouble from heaven.
Or they're serving you for what they can
get out of you.
But I ask you'll give every young person
in this place a real picture of who
you are.
Of just the kind of person you really
are.
So that we'll not have religiousness without Christianity.
You have never been a crutch.
But you really love men.
And you really love women.
And I pray that today we look deeper
into your book and find out what genuine
Christianity is all about.
You'll give us a hunger in our hearts
to know you and to make you know
us.
As we go out, kids shift out during
the week into different places.
I pray they'll understand and know who you
are.
They won't do things simply because their friends
do them, but because you see, you watch,
you know them, and you love them.
This message is a good blessing in Jesus'
name.