James Merritt - No Fine Print - Part 2
We don't have to worry about being kidnapped from our homes or our workplace, or paraded in front of the world, either to deny our faith or to die for our faith. But at the same time, I just wanna remind all of us, that doesn't mean that maybe we should not suffer or we will not suffer some form of persecution if we choose to be different. For those of you with us for the first time, we're in a series we're calling Get Used to Different from the "Sermon on the Mount". Because I'm already nine weeks ahead. I just want you to know, I stay way ahead. And I just worked on a sermon for January. And the more I get into the "Sermon on the Mount," the more I realize, if I'm really gonna follow Jesus, if I'm really gonna love Jesus, if I'm really gonna stand for Jesus, if I'm really gonna speak up for Jesus, I have no choice. I must be different. And that's what we're talking about. Get used to different.
Now, if you were here last week, you know that I've already talked about persecution. Well, guess what? I'm gonna talk about it again. And you may sit there and say, "Wait a minute, why are you doing it? You just talked about it last week". Well, because Jesus did. This is the only one of the Beatitudes that Jesus repeats. It's the only one that he takes us back to again. It's the only one that he says twice. Now, see, if Jesus says something once, we ought to pay attention. But I think you'd agree if Jesus says it twice, that ought to get double our attention. So let me just take you back to last week. Jesus had just finished saying these words: Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. We talked about that last week. You'd think you might go on to another topic, but he didn't. He expands on it.
He says in the next verse, "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you". So if Jesus told the truth, and I believe he did, he didn't just tell the truth, he is the truth. But if Jesus told the truth, and if Jesus did not lie, then there's one thing I know for sure reading that passage. There is no way if I live for Jesus, even here in America, there is no way if you live for Jesus, even living here in America, you're going to escape some type of persecution. There's no way it can happen. There are no exemptions. There are no exclusions. There are no exceptions. He said, "You will be persecuted because of me".
But again, of all Beatitudes, this just seems strange to us because most of us have not experienced any kind of persecution. I mean, if we were to be honest, if I were to ask you the question this way, "Have you ever been reviled, slandered, mocked, scorned, criticized, isolated, or fired from a job, just because you were a Christian"? if the truth of matter be told, most of us would be going, "Nope, hadn't happened to me". Maybe that says something about you. Maybe that says something's not clicking in your Christian life. Because here's what Jesus would say. Jesus would say, if you're one of those people that'd say, "Yes, that's happened to me," you know what Jesus would say? He would say, "Well, bless your little heart". You know what Jesus would say? Congratulations. Give me a high five.
Well, how about that? He would say, "You are blessed". Because you can summarize what Jesus said in both these Beatitudes with this simple statement. It's real easy. If you stand for Jesus, you will in some ways suffer for Jesus. If you stand for Jesus, you will in some ways suffer with Jesus. If you get through this life, listen to me, if you get through this life, particularly in the culture of this current age, and you're never in any way, any shape, any form, any fashion, persecuted, it may very well be because you're not standing for Jesus. And what I'm hoping will happen to you today, and I want it to happen again to me today, I want when this message is over that you'll be so fired up and so wired up that you're willing to walk out of this church and say, "I don't care what it may cost me. I don't care what price I'm going to pay. I'm gonna stand up when I ought to stand up. I'm gonna speak up when I ought to speak up. And if I have to pay the price, so be it".
Now, when it happens, Jesus says, "Okay, let me just give you three things to remember". You can write these down. He said, number one, "Be alert to the ways you may be hurt". If you get up in the morning, guys, you go to school, you go to your high school, you go to your middle school, you go to your elementary school, and you say, "You know what? I'm not gonna be obnoxious, I'm not gonna get in people's face, but I'm gonna stand for Jesus. I'm gonna let people know with every opportunity I get, whether it's to say the blessing when I eat lunch, or whether it's to say a word about the Lord. Whatever it is, I'm gonna stand, no matter what may happen". Jesus would say, "Great, but be alert to the ways you may be hurt".
Because Jesus said there are at least three ways you might get hurt. There are at least three ways you may be attacked for your faith. Let me give them to you. Here's the first way. If you stand for Jesus, people will say bad things to you. They will. Here's what he says. He said, "Blessed are you when people insult you". Now, that word "insult" is a strong word. It means to bite and to chew with your teeth. In fact, that word "insult" is putting it mildly. What Jesus said is, "Hey, if you stand for Jesus, I want to tell you, people will call you vicious names. They will chew you up. They'll spit you out. You will be verbally abused". In fact, I call this emotional persecution. We've got a word for it today. People call it gaslighting. You know what gaslighting is, right? I mean, it's when people say you're, they try to make you think that you're crazy.
So Jesus said, "If you stand up for me, if you speak up for me, you're gonna be ridiculed, you're gonna be mocked, you're gonna be laughed at. You know, you're gonna be some type of a phobic person". I mean, I hear it every day. You know who I am? I'm bigoted. I'm intolerant. I'm judgemental. I'm hypocritical. I'm a hater. You say, "Well, Pastor, you don't let that bother you, do you"? Of course, it bothers me. 'Cause I'm a human being. It hurts. Sticks and stones may break your bones. I got news for you. Whoever said words can never hurt you had room to run upstairs unvarnished. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can hurt you. But here's something else Jesus said. He said, "That's all right, it gets worse. Not only may people say bad things to you, they may do bad things to you". So he says, "Blessed are you when people insult you and when they persecute you".
Now, that refers to more like the physical side of persecution. They may slap you, they may beat you. They may spit in your face. And I know that doesn't happen here much in America, but it can and it does happen, and it happens in a lot of places. I don't know if I told you this story or not, but one of the most interesting, one of the most fascinating experiences I ever had when I was president of Southern Baptist Convention was I went to China. And I was in Beijing. And while I was there, they said to me, "Would you be willing to meet with two underground pastors"? And I said, "Yeah, I would love to. Where do we meet"? They said, "We're gonna come to your room". I said, "Okay. Well, what time will they come to my room"? They said they'll be there at 2:30 in the morning. And I said, "Why are they coming at 2:30 in the morning"? And they said, "Well, you'll find out".
Well, that morning, literally at 2:30, there was a knock on my door and two pastors walked in. They apologized profusely for, you know, keeping me up that late, which was all right. But they apologized. They said, "Look, the reason we're here at 2:30, we had to leave several hours before". I said, "Well, how far out of the city do you live"? They said, "Oh, we don't live far at all". I said, "Why does it take you so long to get there"? They said, "Because we have to be very careful. We have to go back roads. We have to turn. We have to make sharp turns. We have to speed up, we have to slow down. We have to be watching to make sure that nobody is following us". He said, "If they catch us here, we will either go to jail, or we will die, and you will be expelled from the country". And I thought, "I have no clue what these men experience. I have no clue what they go through because..."
And then I got into thinking 'cause I'm working on this sermon. But who knows what may happen here in America in the next 10 years for those of us to choose to stand up and say it's wrong to kill an unborn baby. Who knows what's going to happen to those of us who will stand up and say, "Marriage should only be between a man and a woman". Who knows? Who knows what's going to happen when we stand up here and say lovingly, but firmly, "The gender you were born with is the gender God intended you to have". Who knows what's going to happen. But Jesus said not only will people say bad things to you, and not only will people do bad things to you, they will also speak bad things about you. So he says, "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me".
Now, in legal terms, that's what we would call slander. It's what we would call character assassination. People are gonna say things about when you stand up for Jesus, and they're just not true. And that shouldn't surprise us because they did the same thing to Jesus. You know, that's the thing I've got to remember. When people criticize me, I've got to remember, you know what, they criticize Jesus. You know, we read things about Jesus sometimes we don't really pay attention to, but I want you to think about something. Jesus, as you know, hung out with sinners. That's who he loved to hang out with. And he would go to a party. He didn't care if prostitutes were at the party, or drunkards were at the party, or tax collectors were at the party, or robbers and thieves were at the party. He didn't care. He would go to the homes of sinners. He'd hang out with tax collectors. So you know what they said about Jesus? They said, "Here is a glutton and a drunkard".
I can assure you Jesus was not a glutton, 'cause gluttony is a sin. I don't use that word on Thanksgiving Day, but I'm telling you, gluttony is a sin. And he certainly was not a drunkard. No way was he a drunkard. But that's what they said. He's a glutton and he's a drunkard. And you know what I find interesting about Jesus? He never defended himself. He never said, "No, I'm not. No, I'm not. That's not true". But you see, this may be the most difficult type of persecution to face, and I'll tell you why: because people are willing to believe a lie before they will even give you a chance to defend yourself. I mean, think about this.
How in the world did the only perfect man who ever lived get himself crucified? How in the world did that happen? Do you know what got Jesus crucified? People who lied about Jesus. People who falsely accused Jesus. People who stood up in a court of law and said, "I swear to tell the whole truth," and lied like a dog. They're the ones that crucified Jesus, because they said things that he never said, and they said he did things that he never did. And so, again, people today are gonna say about people like me and people like you, "Oh, I know who you Christians are. You hate people". Read my lips. I don't hate anybody except the devil, and I hate sin. They're gonna say, "You're extremist". Read my lips. I'm not extreme. Maybe about the Georgia Bulldogs. I'm a little bit extreme. But no, I'm not extreme. Oh, you're just a fanatic. I am a fanatic, but not the way you think. You're dangerous. I'm anything but dangerous.
But people who are watching me right now who know what I stand for and what I believe, they didn't believe one word I said. They don't care what you say, care how you live. That's exactly what they're going to say. The truth of the matter is, ladies and gentlemen, they lied about Jesus, they're going to lie about us. So just be alert to the ways you may be hurt. So let me just say this to you. It goes with the territory if you choose to live in the territory. It goes with the territory if you choose to live in the territory. So Jesus said, number one, "Be alert to the ways you may be hurt". And then Jesus said this: Be aware of why you'll be hated. Be aware of why you'll be hated.
Now, this again is something that's so counterintuitive to me. Because common sense would say to me, if I were to teach my boys growing up again, now, boys, you just be like Jesus. Don't worry. Just be like Jesus. And here's why I want you to be like Jesus. Because I want everybody to like you. I want everybody to love you. I want everybody to get along with you. I want you to be the president of your class. I want you to be the captain of your team. I want you to be the homecoming queen and the homecoming king. And I want you to be the most popular person in your class. I want you to be voted the most likely to succeed. I want you to live just like Jesus. You would think that if you're gonna be the kind that Jesus talks about in all these Beatitudes, you would think if you're broken, if you're humble, if you're meek, if you wanna do the right thing, you wanna be the right person, you're merciful, you're pure in heart, you wanna be a pacemaker, you would think you would never face persecution. You would think you'd be riding in a parade. You would think, "I won't be persecuted. I'm going to be praised".
And yet Jesus says one thing in this verse that ought to tell us that's just not true. Because let me tell you at the end of the day why you will be hated. Not maybe, you will be. You'll be hated. But I don't want anybody to hate me. Sorry, that ship has sailed. I want everybody to like me. Jesus said, "Woe be unto you if all men speak well of you". Not gonna happen. Well, Pastor, why will I be hated? The reason's gonna shock you. You ready? "But blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you," now watch this, "because of". Say that real loud. Me. Say, what does he mean? Not only is this the real reason we should be persecuted and will expect persecution, again, it may tell us why we're not. Because here's what Jesus just told us. The true reason why you'll be persecuted is not because of how you live, but because of how I lived. You know why the world hates people like me? They hated Jesus.
If you love Jesus, the world's gonna hate you. I'm telling you right now. If you love Jesus, the world's gonna hate you. And they're gonna hate you because they hated him. And here's why. See, the reason why the world has so much hatred is this: The world doesn't know God because they don't know Jesus. And whatever a person is ignorant of, he suspects. And whatever a person suspects, he fears. And whatever he fears, he attacks. So think about this. If the world can only come to know God through Jesus, but they don't come to Jesus, and then they don't know God, and they're ignorant of God, if they're ignorant of God, they'll suspect God. If they suspect God, they fear what they suspect. And what they fear, they attack.
Let me give you an illustration. When I was finishing this message, I don't think I told you this story or not. I'll be super brief. But when the Civic Center over here was dedicated back in 1999, I prayed the invocation over there. They asked me to pray the dedicatory prayer. And all I did, I prayed. And I thought I prayed a really nice prayer, and I just prayed in the name of Jesus. That's all I did. I just closed in the name of Jesus. Man, I had this lawyer. It was a Jewish layer. God loved him. He came up to me. His face was red, he was hot. He was almost spitting, he was so mad. And, I mean, he unloaded his clip. He told me how insensitive I was, how arrogant I was, how stubborn I was, how arrogant I was, what a hateful man I was to pray in the name of Jesus. And it bothered me at first, but as he walked out, it hit me all of a sudden. His problem's not with me. His problem was with Jesus. 'Cause I'm not used to you.
I'm gonna tell you something that will shock you. 'Cause you won't think this at Christmas. We're about to go into the Christmas season. And you would think from Christmas, you know, everybody loves Jesus. Everybody loves gentle Jesus, meek and mild, away in a manger. Oh, little town of Bethlehem. Oh, holy night. You just thought, "Oh, everybody loves Jesus". I got news for you: the world does not love Jesus. They hate Jesus. No, wait a minute. No, they don't hate the baby Jesus in the manger. They love that baby Jesus. They don't hate the baby Jesus that just was cooing and cuddling and wetting his diapers, just being like we all are. They love that Jesus. And they don't hate the Jesus that fed the hungry and healed the sick. They don't hate the Jesus that hung out with sinners and tax collectors. They don't hate the Jesus that walked on water and raised the dead and fed the multitudes. Everybody loves that Jesus.
Muslims love that Jesus. Hindus love that Jesus. Atheists love that Jesus. Agnostics love that Jesus. Democrats love that Jesus. Republicans love that Jesus. Liberals love that Jesus. Conservatives love that Jesus. Everybody loves that Jesus. But the world hates the Jesus who said, "Repent, or you'll perish". The world hates the Jesus who said, "Go, you're forgiven, but don't sin anymore". They hate the Jesus that said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: and no one will come to the father except through me". They hate the Jesus that is against abortion and pornography and adultery and fornication and is an absolute proponent of marriage between a man and a woman. I love the way somebody put it. You know who the world loves? They love Jesus Light. They don't love the real Jesus.
Anybody ever used to drink Coke Light or Pepsi Light? That's not the real thing. And this Jesus that the world says they love, that's not the real Jesus. Yeah, he's meek and mild, but he is a holy God. And he's coming back on a white horse one of these days, and he's not coming to take sides. He's coming to take over. And he's coming to divide the lost from the saved and the sheep from the goats. And they don't like that Jesus. So all we've gotta do, it's real easy, just tolerate evil. Don't speak against sin. Approve what the world approves. And you know what? The world will love you for it. They'll put you in their parades. They will give you their trophies. They will give you their prizes. They will give you their golden watch. They will approve us. There's only one problem. If the world approves you, Jesus does not. If the world approves you, Jesus does not.
So let me give you a great example. I decide beginning today I'm gonna preach one message every single Sunday. This is gonna be my message. I'm gonna say it different ways, and I'll use different passages, and I'll use different outlines, and I'll use different illustrations, but basically, I'm gonna be saying only one thing. Here's what I'm gonna say. Every Sunday. God loves you just the way you are. I will get standing ovations everywhere I go. I'll get onto talk shows. I'll be tweeted out. I'll be Facebooked. People will want my autograph. But I get up one Sunday and say, "God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to let you stay that way". I just got canceled. I just got waxed. I just got unfollowed. I just got defriended. That's just the way it works. That's when the fire-breathing dragons come out.
So I just wanna correct something that I used to think for a while and some of you probably still think. I've heard people say this. You know, if you become like Jesus, people will be attracted to you like metal to a magnet. And that can be true to a point. But upon further review, this is the truth. The more you really become like Jesus, the more you truly live like Jesus, I mean, you are sincerely like Jesus, the more you'll be hated by the world. They do not want that kind of Jesus. The closer you get to Jesus, the closer you get to the fire and the heat and the bullets and the arrows.
So I'm gonna ask you one more time. I asked you this last week, I'm gonna ask you again: Do you really wanna be godly? Do you really wanna follow Jesus so closely in your life you could reach out and touch him? Do you really wanna be identified with the Lord? Do you really wanna live like Jesus and look like Jesus and love like Jesus? If the answer to that is yes, God makes a promise, and he never breaks it, and I'm gonna repeat it. He said, "Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Jesus Christ will be persecuted". So I'm not gonna bait and switch. I'm not gonna overpromise and underdeliver. I'm telling these young guys sitting on this front row right down here, some of you old people sitting back there. You stand for Jesus, you speak for Jesus, you walk with Jesus, you talk with Jesus, you love Jesus, you will be persecuted. No, you may not always drive the nice car and live in the nice house, and you may not get that promotion at work. You will be persecuted.
Now, somebody might say, "Good gosh, you're almost trying to talk me out of following Jesus". I am, because Jesus did. It's funny. Jesus said, "If you follow me, you can't go bury your dead". Don't even say goodbye. I mean, it's pretty tough. So well, then, okay, you've kind of given the price to pay, the cost to incur. Is there any word of encouragement? Brother, is there ever. 'Cause here's the last thing Jesus said: Be affirmed by whom you will be honored. Be affirmed by whom you will be honored. Be aware of ways you may be hurt. Be alert to ways you may be hurt. Be aware of how you may be persecuted. He says this: Be affirmed by whom you will be honored.
Now, at this point, you're watching right now, you're sitting in this room, you're not a believer or not a follower of Jesus. You're not a Christian, and I wouldn't really blame you. Really, I'm gonna be honest. I'm not being judgmental. I'm gonna be kind of on your side. I really, in a way, can't blame you for saying, "Yeah, that's not for me. I don't wanna sign up for that. No, life's too short. I only get to go around one time. I don't think I wanna do that. I mean, that's so discouraging. It's so depressing to think that if I really put it all out there for Jesus, I'll be persecuted. That's kind of discouraging". Well, again, Jesus is gonna surprise you. You think Jesus will come up, show a little sympathy to you, right, and say, "Well, bless your little heart. Let's see if we can work this out some other way. Let's see if I can kind of get you a detour that nobody knows about".
You know what Jesus would say to you if you're kind of having a pity party? I'm not sure if I really wanna follow Jesus or not. You know what Jesus would say? Wipe that frown off your face and get a smile on your face. What do you mean? Get used to different. Because he said, "This is how you ought to respond. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you". In the same way they did it to them. So you know what? Pastor's gotta make a decision today. Band player's gotta make a decision today. Praise team's gotta make a decision today. Small group leader's gotta make a decision today. Deacon's gotta make a decision today. Attenders of churches, you need to make a decision today. What you gonna do? You're gonna do one of two things, 'cause you can't straddle the fence. What you gonna do? You're gonna run? You're gonna retreat?
Jesus says, "No, y'all, rejoice and be glad". And that is so antiseptic in English. But because the word for be glad isn't a word that just means to smile or laugh or anything like that. It means to jump for joy. It means to be overjoyed. It means to skip and jump. You're so happy, you're so excited. Because if Jesus is telling the truth, he says, "Look, persecution is not a burden of pain that you have to carry. It's a badge of honor you get to bear. It is something to be happy about. It is something to be joyful about". Because after all, at least you're in great company, right? I mean, do you know that God's hall of fame is filled with people who are persecuted? Let me just give you a small list. Moses was persecuted, Joseph was persecuted, Nehemiah was persecuted, Jeremiah was persecuted. Peter was persecuted, Paul was persecuted, James was persecuted, John was persecuted, and, of course, last but not least, Jesus is persecuted.
My dad used to tell me, growing up, "Son, you'll always be known by the company you keep". That is mighty good company. Can I get an amen to that? That's mighty good company. You know, if I've got a choice between either a Donald Trump or a Joe Biden. I'm not being political, I'm being honest. If I got a choice between either Donald Trump or a Joe Biden, whoever it may be, if I got a choice between a governor or a baseball player or a football player or some Hollywood celebrity, I'm gonna be keeping company with guys like that. I'm going with them. I'm choosing them. That's who I wanna be with. That's who I wanna be known as. That's who I wanna spend eternity with. That is pretty good company. And then Jesus goes on to say, "Oh, by the way, great is your reward in heaven".
Now, here's what frustrates me about that. She's a better Bible teacher than I am. I'm so glad she takes notes and she listens to me. She takes note on what I preach, and then she doesn't know I preach what she teaches. So it's kind of a two-way street. But what frustrates me about that is he says, "Great is your reward in heaven," and I wanna go, "Well, what is it"? I believe you, but what is it? And it hit me. You know why Jesus doesn't go ahead and tell us what it is? The reason he didn't is because he couldn't. And why couldn't he? Because he says, "Eye has not seen, ear has not heard. Neither can the mind of man conceive what God has in store for those who love him".
This is not even close to putting it the way I want to put it, but whatever heaven is, it is going to make Disney World look like a swamp full of alligators. Pun intended, Richard. A swamp full of alligators. It's gonna make Disney World look like a dump. It's gonna make Disney World look like the projects. He said, "You love me, you stand for me, you stand with me, you suffer for me. I'm telling you, the most far-seeing eye that's ever been, and the greatest mind that's ever lived, and all the computers and artificial intelligence you can put together cannot even come within a country mile of what I'm gonna have in store for you if you'll stand with me". So I don't cook much, and the world is better off for it. But some of you do.
So some of you know what a pressure cooker is. Now, I've seen one. I've never used it. I like watching them. I don't understand them. But I did my homework. So a pressure cooker is a sealed chamber, and it traps the steam generated as food is heated. And as the steam rises, the pressure increases. That increased pressure raises the boiling part of the water. So the food that you put in there cooks a lot more quickly because of the higher temperature and the pressure cooker's ability to force that moisture into the food. Now, here's what I've learned. That pressure cooker can do one of two things. It can take a piece of meat and, almost in no time, turn it into a melt-in-your-mouth chuck roast. Or it can take a banana and turn it into mush. Just a pressure cooker. So what's that got to do with you and me? Just read your newspaper. Just go on the internet. Go onto Instagram, go to Facebook, go to Twitter. People who love Jesus today, we are in a pressure cooker. Do you believe me?
We are in a pressure cooker. We're being told in every quarter, from the public schools to the White House, "Sit down and shut up. Keep your faith to yourself. We don't wanna hear it. We have no use for you. The church is irrelevant. Christ is no more than anybody else, no better than anybody else. And if you're not with the LBGTQ crowd, we have nothing that you say that we want to hear". We're in a pressure cooker. We're viewed more negatively than we ever have in my lifetime. We are under more criticism, some of it justified, than we've ever been before. We face more hostility, more hatred than I've ever seen before. And I'm not crying, I'm not whining.
As a matter of fact, I am pumped. I'm excited. I'm not a hero. I'm not a he-man. You know, I'm not a mega guy. It's not that at all. I'm just telling you, I pray every day that I'll be so full of Jesus, I don't run from the guns, I run through the guns. I wanna be somebody that's known. That guy speaks, that guy stands up, that guy is up for Christ. Because if we don't stand for truth, and we don't stand for the gospel, and we don't stand for righteousness, and we don't stand for Jesus, our fruit that this world desperately needs to taste is going to turn into mush. But I'm not gonna let that happen to me. And I don't want it to happen to our church. And I don't want it to happen to you. And I don't want it to happen to your family. I walked onto a campus at the University of Georgia yesterday going to a football game, and I'm not thinking about the football game. I'm thinking about all those students at University of Georgia that are so deceived.
So lost, so don't get it. Don't have a spiritual clue. And so many of them, to be blunt and honest, Richard, I'm being super serious here, what I really wish could have happened last night, I would much rather have lost that game and see 93,000 people come to Jesus than to see 92,000 who probably don't know Jesus win a ball game. 'Cause that's where we are today in our society. So I wanna go back. I wanna revisit those brave Christians who were beheaded one more time. I told you, 21 men were crucified. I mean, they were beheaded. And they were members of the Coptic Church, and they were released by the Coptic Church. But there were 21 men who were executed.
You see, of those 21 men who were executed, 20 men were Coptic. They were Egyptian. But the 21st victim was neither Egyptian nor Coptic. He was African. And he was simply a Christian. Not a Catholic, just a Christian. His name was Matthew Ayariga. He was from Ghana. So this is his picture on the bench. And it is amazing that this man's picture was shown. The last one that was shown. Why? Because when they interviewed all these men and they found out he was not a Coptic, and they found out he was not Egyptian, they just assumed he wasn't a Christian. So they were going to release him. And that's all he had to say. I'm not a Coptic, and I'm not an Egyptian. And he would've gone free. Would you like to know what his last words were? I am a Christian, and I am just like them. I am a Christian, and I'm just like him. And by all accounts, he said it with a joy in his heart and a smile on his face.
So I told you last week, and I'm telling you one more time, you don't probably ever look at the title of my sermons. It's one of those four times I titled two sermons the same title. Part one, part two. I said to you last week, there's no fine print in the contract. If you follow Jesus, you truly follow Jesus, you sincerely follow Jesus, you go all in and follow Jesus, there's a price you're gonna have to pay. There's a cost you are gonna have to incur. But it cannot compare to the benefit, to the blessing, to the reward that will be waiting for those of us who stand strong and just simply say what those men said before they died. My Lord Jesus. So where are you gonna be today? Where are you right now? One of two things is true. He's your Lord, or he is not. He's your savior, he is not. You have put him in your heart, or you have not. I'm not talking about your head, I'm talking about your heart. The Bible says if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be safe.
Adrian Rogers used to say, "A lot of people are gonna miss heaven by 10 inches, the distance from their head to their heart". I'm not asking you, do you believe Jesus in your head? I'm not asking you, do you believe in that baby in the manger? I'm not asking you, do you believe he died on the cross? I'm not asking you, do you believe he walked on water? I'm asking you this question. Have you ever come to a point where a lot of those murderers and rapists and child molesters and sex offenders and bank robbers did? Have you ever come to a point in your life where you realize, "I'm a sinner, I need a savior. I cannot save myself, but Jesus is that savior. He died for me. He came back from the grave. He is alive right now, and I need to give him my life"? And some of you're being honest and have to say, "No, I'm not. I've never done that".
And as one man said to me Friday, "Been in here a long time, preacher. But I'd rather be in here with Jesus than out there without him". So I wonder who today will swallow your pride, quit putting off the decision, and today do something you know you've been needing to do for a long time. Forget this religious business. Forget the fact you got wet when you were a nine-year-old kid. Forget the fact that you pay your taxes or you come to church. I wonder who here today needs to do business with God. Who here today needs to repent of their sins? You need to give Jesus everything you are. And if that's you right now, you can just be looking at me and doing it, and nobody will know it but you and God. But you could do what I did. Nine-year-old boy. Changed my life. I just said something like this: Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. I can't save myself.