WESTSIDE BAPTIST CHURCH
PASTOR: TERRY VAUGHAN
SERMON TITLE: SOME OTHER WAY. IS THE LORD NOT GOOD ENOUGH?
“For God so Loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth in Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John 3:16-18
TEXT VERSE: John 10:1 “Verily, Verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.”
It seems like we’re living in a day and time when people can’t get what they want from the Lord so they start looking elsewhere. If you can’t get what you need from God, you’ll not get it from anyone else. If God can’t supply your needs tonight, there’s no other place you can go. If you can’t find God in your own life, you’ll not find him on this world. There’s people who want to go some other way. There’s Christians today that are out of church because they can’t get what they want. People seem to be living in a day and time in their life where they want change. We’re living in a changing world. We talk about how men and women used to get around on horse and buggy and we can’t fathom that in our minds. We have cars that go 120 miles an hour. People used to walk to the house of God in bare feet and even walk in the winter. We can’t even get people to come those cars. We have so many material things and people can’t find time but they want God to bless them. God don’t bless backsliders. God blesses those that are obedient to the Holy Spirit of God. So we’re living in a changing world. Christians should never change.
Malachi 3:6 “For I am the Lord, I change not...” If we’re going to follow after the Lord, we need to be like him. God won’t leave you, but you can leave God.
Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” He’s a God who don’t change. But his people always want change. The pasture is always greener on the other side. We can never get satisfied. Maybe your needs are fleshly. If that’s what it is, then you’re heading down hill instead of heading up. People are always wanting change. I haven’t found anything wrong with the old Gospel that leads sinners to repentance. The Bible says that Jesus is the way, the truth and the light. If you can’t get it from him, you’ll not get it from some big church with a tall steeple. The Bible says the kingdom of God is within you. Do you ever feel it on the outside? I do.
Proverbs 24:21 “My son fear thou the Lord and the King; and meddle not to them that are given to change.” If somebody can’t stay with God long enough to get a blessing then don’t you be hanging around them. We have to get in the word, live the word, stay in the word, read the word and receive the word. If you can’t get it from God, you’re robbing God. God’s wanting to bless you and you’re not giving him the opportunity to bless you because you’re not right there where God wants you to be because you’re off somewhere else looking for some other way. Why ain’t this way good enough for you tonight? We can not live half heartedly for the Lord. We have to give God our all. But a lot of people don’t. They come in church with a big old frown on their face and somebody will get up to sing a song and they don’t say anything. I guess their here for entertainment. The way we carry a tune around here, you aren’t going to get any entertainment. We’re up here trying to lift up the name of Jesus Christ our savior. It don’t matter if you sing good or not, if you’re singing for the Lord, keep on keeping on. God’s not in the entertaining business. He’s in the saving business.
NUMBER ONE: Christians have changed the way they love the Lord. How do we love him? 1 John 4:19 “We love him, because he first loved us”. Isn’t it amazing how we can love somebody so much that we’ve never even seen? People have changed how they love the Lord. People have quit coming to God’s house. If you love God you’ll love God’s house, God’s people, God’s creatures, God’s singers; you’ll love everything about God’s holy kingdom. Here’s how they’ve changed in their loving God. They say, “I’ll love the Lord when I feel like it.” “I’ll love the Lord when my health is in good enough condition to go to the house of God.” If their feeling bad they can’t seem to love God. If you can’t love him except when you’re feeling good, that’s false love anyway. Used to when someone was sick and not in church, people would make a bee-line over their house and fix them dinner. Now when you’re out of the house of God, they talk about you. They’ve changed the way they love God. A lot of Christians today, especially a lot of Baptist folk who think they can correct any problem in any persons life. Man don’t have any power. God has the power. How do Christians love the Lord?
Mark 12:30 “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. and with all thy strength...”With everything that’s in us, we’re supposed to love the Lord. Not just in words but also in deeds. People have changed they way they love the lord and you can tell it by the way they treat other people. When do we love the lord? On Sundays? Some of them don’t really love him on Sunday. Some of them love him only at Easter and at Christmas.
John 15:9 “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.”
NUMBER TWO: Christians have changed the way they live for the Lord.
People can go to church today and it takes everything they have to sit through a forty-five minute message. A man of God will be up filled with the power and the spirit of God and people will be ready to jump up and praise God and there will be one person on the side with the biggest frown on their face and they aren’t getting anything. It’s not God’s fault. It’s your fault and it’s because of the way you’re living. people think they can live for the Lord when they want to. Let me tell you what makes me sick. This past year I know of three churches that have split up because there were so many personal family members in the church. They figured since their family was the majority, they could run the church how they felt. Let me tell you something. People do not run the church. But God does put people in certain positions to help run the church. People have changed because they have begun to think that they tell God what to do and God doesn’t tell them what to do. Listen, you won’t do anything and get a blessing from God unless God told you to do it. I can almost guarantee you that at least ten people in this church will go home tonight and they won’t open their Bible again until they come back to church. I say that because the Bible says you will know a tree by the fruit it bears and some of you aren’t bearing much good fruit. A lot of Christians aren’t growing spiritually. Not only will they not pick up their Bible, but they won’t even think about God. If you have God in your heart, you’ll have God in your mind. That’s why he said to love him with all your heart and mind and strength. People don’t do that because He’s not in their hearts. The all of a sudden they’ll remember that tomorrow is Sunday and they’ll pick up their Bible. You have a preacher and his wife or a Deacon and his wife or just a husband and wife and if one of them isn’t reading their Bible or praying, they will spilt up. I’m glad my wife understands. I’m glad she’s saved by the grace of God. She knows why we’re in this thing. So do my children. I wish you could come live with me for about a week. You know who you’d be talking to most of the time? My wife and children. Because while she’s taking care of the house, I’m on my knees, studying the Bible, calling the sick, visiting members and non members. I go up and down Calvary’s hill many times. But if I’m going to Pastor, that’s where I have to stay. Most Christians don’t pick up their Bible because they feel like they get what they need through the preached word and they feel like it’s good enough to last them through Easter. Then you can ask them what the preached preached on and they don’t even remember. Their backslid. I know a preacher who Pastored a church and he had a Deacon who taught the Sunday School class. That deacon stood up and said, “Turn your Bible to the book of 1st Corinthians.” The Pastor was sitting on the front row and you could see the Pastor looking in the front of the Bible to see where 1st Corinthians was. That’s a shame. If a Pastor don’t know the books of the Bible he’s starting off on the right foot. I’ve seen many members who if a friend called them and said they were having a Barbacue on Sunday they’d go. Then when the Pastor calls them on Monday they say they were sick. Their sick all right. Sin sick. This is for the members and not the visitors here today. If you try to run this church from the parking lot or from your work and then not bother to come to Sunday school or Wednesday night service....I’ll sit you down. This is not a play thing. This is a real thing. God is real. Church is real. people come up with all kinds of ideas on how they want the church to go and then they can’t even come to Sunday school. Next time you call me and do that, I’ll hang up and not listen. People won’t even carry their kids to Sunday School. Then they wonder why their kids are into all these bad things. I see a six month old baby out there. You say preacher, she’s too young to know what’s going on. How do you know? How do you know God don’t talk to her? God’s a miracle worker.
2nd Corinthians 5:15 “In that he died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him which died for them and arose again.” That’s who we’re supposed to live for.
Galatians 2:20 “I’m crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet not I but Christ who liveth in me. The life that I now live in the flesh I now live by the faith in the son of God. who loved me and gave himself for me.”
You know what Paul did before he got saved? He persecuted Christians. He killed them and locked them up. He told them to stop preaching the gospel and to stop naming the name of Jesus. One day on the road to Damascus, Jesus appeared to him. After that instead of persecuting the gospel...he preached the gospel.
Philippians 1:21 “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” The only opportunity we’ll have to live for Christ is here on this earth. When we get to heaven, we’re going to be worshipping him.
NUMBER THREE: People have changed the way they labor for the Lord.
Jesus said that the Harvest is great but the laborers are few. Theirs a lot of souls to be saved and not a lot of people reaching out to them. Theirs a lot of people that need to be visited but few are doing it. Theirs a lot of people who need prayer but theirs not a lot of people who are praying for them. Isaiah said, “Lord, here am I send me.” He didn’t tell the when to send him or where to send him. he just said send me and I’ll go. If God choose you to just greet visitors as they come in then that’s what you ought to do. Your rewards would be great. He gives everybody gifts. He expects you to use them. if you don’t use them, God will take them away. People will call me up and they’ll say Pastor we need to get that carpet laid and it’s going to take us about four days. Then they won’t show up. Needless to say It took longer than four days to lay the carpet. The I’ve got members who call me and tell me they went and visited three people this week and I’m going to let that be my tithe and offerings. Listen your service that you owe God can never take the place of your tithes and offerings. We have a visitation program and one or two people will show up. You have a free hot dog or hamburger dinner and the whole church comes. I’m telling you the truth. What’s the matter? People have changed the way they labor for the lord. The church gives me a love offering every month and they’ve tried to give me a raise but it never works out but I get a bigger blessing out of somebody calling me on the phone encouraging me. We do not labor on Sundays. People have gotten it mixed up. They come in church on Sunday and feel like they’ve done their part. Sunday is a day of rest from the labor. Your labor comes during the week and your blessings come on Sunday. Some of you aren’t getting too blessed on Sundays. Could it be you aren’t laboring the rest of the week?
1st Timothy 5:17 “Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, , especially they who labor in the word and doctrine.” He didn’t say those who labor on the church building. he said they who labor in the word and doctrine. As long as their isn’t water coming through the roof, I am not in any hurry to work on this building. I know theirs things that need to be done but their are lost people out there that are dying and going to hell as I speak. We must be about the fathers business and not about our own business.
1st Corinthians 15:58 “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the lord.”
If you are laboring for the lord, it will not be in vain.
Jeremiah 2:11 “Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.”
LET US PRAY: Father I have not loved you and your children as I should. Nor have I lived for you like I should and I have not labored enough for you. Lord, I’ve spent most of my time loving you but not enough. I give you only half of myself when I should give you all. I put myself before you and I need to get self out of the way. I pray Lord that you will give me the desire to read my Bible and to pray for those that are lost. Help me to remember to wake each day and witness to those that do not know you. help me to find the time to do the things for you that I should. In Jesus Name Amen.
