Making Your Life Count For God
James 4:13-15
Sing the song Wasted Years
Only One Life,
Will Soon Be Past,
Only What's Done For Christ
Will Last!
I. The Problem of an unhappy life.
A. Tell The story of the children in the candy shop with only one penny to spend.
B. Do you feel like you are stuck in neutral, that life is meaningless, hopeless. Do you feel like you are missing out on the joy life ought to have?
C. True joy and contentment is not in things or circumstances, but in the one that controls the things and the circumstances.
D. The verses of our text show there is really no lasting joy or pleasure in fulfilling our plans, getting rich, or going to new places. Real, lasting joy and pleasure is in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
E. Satan (the world, advertising) promises joy in:
1. When a child: being the bully, tough (if you're a boy); being very popular, pretty, and dazzling (if you're a girl).
2. Later, you may pick up the habits of smoking (using tobacco) and drinking alcohol to show how "adult" you are, then go on to smoking majuarina, then on to harder and stronger drugs.
3. Illicit sex comes into play, but instead of life becoming more enjoyable, it becomes less enjoyable.
F. The problem is that you are doing it all wrong.
1. If you keep trying to find the meaning of life in what you are doing, and you seem to be getting farther and farther away from the truth, try something different.
2. If you are driving nails and keep hitting your thumb, how many times will you hit your thumb with the hammer until you decide you need to change what you are doing?
3. If the ways of Satan hasn't given you any peace, why not try God's ways?
II. Salvation is the beginning. Must have a time of being lost, and a time of being saved.
A. It is not what you did that counts, it is what God did.
B. Tell the story of Linda Chapman not having a time that she remembered she was saved, she just knew she believed in Christ. After she was saved, she knew there was a time she was lost, and then was saved.
III. Scriptural Baptism is the next step.
A. Must have proper authority.
1. Exercised by the local church.
2. Immersion of believers only.
3. This allows you to be a member of that local church.
B. Must be after salvation.
1. Tell the story of Annie Geurin who was saved after she was "put under the water".
C. A saved person will never grow properly until they are a member of a local church.
1. There is a difference in being a member of a local church and a part of that same local church.
2. If you have your name on our church roll, that doesn't necessarily mean you are a part of our church.
3. Those members that don't attend church cannot really be a part of the everyday life of the church and its members.
4. Those members that habitually show up late, or that stand back waiting for others to include them, cannot really be a part of the church.
IV. Service.
A. The only way to true service is through one of the Lord's Local churches.
B. An explanation as to what true service and worship is.
1. Being a part of the congregation: this is more than being a member.
2. Faithful in church attendance. It is not enough to know what is going on in the church, you must be a part of other members life, and the beginning of this is when you are faithful in church attendance.
3. Worship God at home and in the church. If you don't worship God at home, it is very unlikely you will be ready for worship when you come to church services.
4. Home worship includes personal prayer (talking to God) and personal Bible readings (letting God talk to you).
C. Do you have trouble witnessing?
1. This is because you must "shift gears" into "religious mode".
2. Our lives should be so close to God and our thoughts so on His word and will, that we will "automatically" speak about God's business without thinking about it.
D. Know what the will of God is.
1. Eph. 5:17 - If you satisfy yourself with ignorance of God's will for your life, you are indeed ignorant.
2. The verse before us tells us very plainly that we can know what God's will is.
3. God doesn't want us to wonder, or doubt what He wants us to do.
4. See my track on the Will of God for a fuller description of what God's will is.