A Simple Walk

Father, it is so encouraging to hear the sweet voices of folks praying, especially praying together. And Lord, I thank you for that. I thank you for being a God that we can pray to, a God that’s always there. And I thank you for the fact that we get to do things like Vacation Bible School, which I think is the biggest event for evangelism for children that we do. And so I lift it up also. And Father, I just thank you for just being a God that is so awesome to serve. And in just a moment, Lord, I’m going to be opening your Word. And my prayer would be that they wouldn’t hear Al Smith. What they would hear is you. And so, just in my inadequacy, let them hear you and change hearts, change minds, so that when we walk out of here in just a little bit, we’ll be different and the world will see we’re different and want to know why. So Lord, we give this time to you. It’s your time. And we ask this in the name that’s above every name, the awesome name of Jesus. And all God’s people said, “Amen.” Thank you.

And just from my heart, thank you for just being my friend. You know, when we came here almost three years ago, Beth and I, you were—you just kind of grabbed us up, made us feel at home, and did some very special things in our lives. And so, this is a—it’s an honor and a privilege just to be part of a wonderful place called Sauldam Baptist Church. If you’ve got your Bibles, I’d like you to turn with me to the book of Ephesians, chapter 5. We’re going to continue the study that Pastor Jeremy Simmons has been taking us through through this wonderful book called Ephesians to a church that I find pretty amazing how it’s operating amidst all that’s around it. And so we’re going to look at that today.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed lately, it’s been a little warm in Charleston. I know. I think I was—and about a month ago was Father’s Day, and my daughter on one Monday morning decided to take me out for breakfast with the grandkids, which was entertaining at best, but it was a wonderful time, and she bought me some gifts. Now I know you guys got some gifts, but I just wanted to show you some of the things that she gave me. This is for all you Clemson people and South Carolina folks. So this was kind of nice, and I brought that especially, Michael, for you and your family. But that was one little thing. Another little thing was from the grandkids. It’s a little level, and it says “Best Papa Ever,” and it’s got two little cartoon faces of my grandkids on it. You know, a wise man once said, you know, a man’s on the level if his bubble’s in the middle. And so, this was given to—but here’s the thing that was pretty amazing to me. This is a solar and battery-powered hat to wear. Okay. As you cut the grass and do all those—I’m thinking, where’s Lee? I’m thinking Lee Cordre on the blueberry farm. This is something you need. It’s got a little button up here. I don’t know if you can hear it. It’s actually got three levels on it. Now, you’re not going to win a fashion show with this thing. I, you know, if I’m taking a walk around the neighborhood—yeah, if I’m taking a walk around the neighborhood, I don’t think I’m going to be wearing this thing. But cutting the grass is pretty awesome. And maybe after the sermon. We’ll do it after the sermon. But it has two solar panels, and it works. It works. I think a lot of you guys can get with me afterwards if you want to order such a thing. Adam wears one. Yeah, he’s got one over there. So it kind of runs in the family.

Don’t you wish the Christ life was like that? Don’t you wish that you walked through the Christian walk that whenever you hit a hard time or a hot place, and you just had the fan like that, that things were just simple? That’s kind of what we’re going to be talking about today. Because one thing I find about life, it’s a lot of things, but it’s not easy. And it’s not always comfortable, and it’s not always something that is easy to do. And so, and what Jeremy has been sharing with us is, you know, we’ve been reading things like you’re coming out of darkness, now you’re going into light. We’re putting on a new garment. When you become saved, you’re putting on almost like salvation clothes to cover this sinful body. And you’re trying how do how do we do that? How do we navigate all the things in the world? And one of the places is to try and understand why we do what we do.

Romans 8:29 has a very we’re to be more conformed to the likeness of who? The Son. That’s Jesus. As you walk through life, you’re to be more conformed. You should be more like Jesus today than you were yesterday. You should be more like Jesus this week than you were last week, this time this year than you were last year. And if you’re not, you need to re-evaluate kind of where you’re at. So, how do we do that? And the one place as I was studying this passage that it took me back to to another place in Scripture was a place in Matthew right in the middle of the book of Matthew well not in the middle but the middle of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus talks about what it’s like and He says in Matthew chapter 7 starting with verse 13 it’s just 13 and 14 He says these words enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction. And there are many who go through it. But how narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life and few find it.

In this passage, if when I look at it, it talks about walking as the Lord would want you to walk. Now Jeremy’s already talked about the using that word walk. we see in Ephesians 4:1 it says walk worthy of the calling. Ephesians 4:17 no longer walk like the Gentiles walk. In Ephesians 5:1 the start of this very chapter He’ll say walk in love. And now He’ll say pay pay careful attention how you walk. so what we’re going to look at this morning just real quickly is this. We’re going to look at what I call think are three simple instructions that the Apostle Paul gives us on how do you walk as a Christian. How do you do that? Now, I said simple. I didn’t say easy. And there’s a big difference. So, if you’ll learn, turn with me to Ephesians 5 again, starting with verse 15, and stand with me for the reading of God’s Word in honor of it. And thank you for doing that, by the way. kind of follow along with me.

Pay careful attention then to how you live, not as unwise people, but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the very fear of Christ. Thank you. Please be seated.

First instruction, He says, “Take care.” Now, how do you do that? One of my fa favorite verses in Scripture is also goes back to the Sermon on the Mount. It’s Matthew 6:33. It says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then everything gets added unto you.” If we get the beginning right, we’ll probably get the middle and the end right. in in the New King James in the King James Version it also talks about in in this particular passage it says you know He says pay careful attention then how you live in some of your translations it probably says how you walk and they’re interchangeable words so whenever you see the word walk in Ephesians it’s the same word as live in Ephesians which I find pretty fascinating because when the Lord looks at our life it’s like a walk that we have this journey that He puts us on when we get saved And I think that’s pretty important. And He’s telling us to be careful. He and if you look at the Galatian King James Version also because it says, “Walk circumspectly.” Now, what in the world does that mean? Why would they put that in it? Circumspectly. Well, that means this that when you walk in this journey of life, you’re watching where you’re going. Now, that seems like, well, Now that makes sense. Well, sure it does. I know that, Al. Well, I’m sure you do. But how many of you do that with your life? How many are always watching around the corner to see what where evil might be coming? Where do you walking, you know, watching what you read or you allow your your mind to look at and your eyes to, you know, your eyes to see and your mind to comprehend all the things that the world is throwing in our direction and He’s sitting there saying, “Be careful.”

Apostle Paul delivers another word of warning where he says, “Stay alert. Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” That’s 1 Peter 5:8. We’re to be deliberate, vigilant, determined, and live rooted in God’s wisdom and understanding of God’s will.

So, let’s just go back to the two roads. You ever wonder why God says you got these two roads, one’s narrow, one’s [inaudible]? Why would He want us to choose a narrow road? I don’t know if you get Prime TV, but if you do, there’s a documentary on it about the Thunderbirds. You ever you know the the precision aircraft flying air, you know, aircraft that I mean they’re just precision, they’re within sometimes 18 inches of each other and when they make a move, it’s just together. It’s absolutely phenomenal to watch.

And precision flying is very different than combat flying. You know, when you’re flying combat, you’re looking around. You got everything’s in front of you. When you’re precision flying, the only guy that’s looking ahead is the guy that’s leading the group. Everybody else, especially when they get into what? Remember, have you seen the diamond formation? Okay. Where those those wings are like 18 inches apart? Well, the guy in charge who the Thunderbird leader is is actually looking forward. The rest of the pilots are looking to their right or to their left. They’re not looking in front. And the reason is they’re watching that aircraft that’s right next to them. And whatever that aircraft does, they do. And they’re trusting that.

And in 1982, something didn’t go right. Something was wrong with one of the gauges. And literally that that diamond formation made a turn and all four of those aircraft went right into the ground. So when they started training for that formation again, they said, “You know what we need to do? We need we need to train higher because if we make a mistake, we won’t be so near the ground.” And they did that for a while until they came to realize, you know what, we’re not really paying attention when we’re up in the air. What we’re doing is is we’re making we’re making good moves, but if we make a mistake, no big deal. And all a sudden they came down. He started training back on load to the ground again. Why? It made them focus.

And I believe sometimes why God wants us to follow a narrow road rather than a big road is He wants us to focus. He wants us to see what’s all around us. He wants us to see the landmines that the world throws in our direction. Because so many times we’re just flying up here and we’re that broad road and we’re going over here and we’re going over here and we’re not watching and we’re letting the world and Satan influence us. And he can never possess you as a Christian, but he can sure influence you. We need to be aware of our surroundings, our life. It can be a minefield.

Leads us to the second instruction. Look what He says. Make wise choices. making and He gives us some things to do. Make the most of your time. Don’t be foolish. Don’t get drunk with wine. He gives us some things that we’re to be.

Wisdom usually comes with age and experience. You know, a lot of things. I know a lot of young teenagers, gifted teenagers, teenagers with potential, children with potential, you know, got all kind of ability. But I’ve met very few wise children or wise young people because they just don’t have life experience. That’s why it’s important that we surround ourselves with a mentor. I mean, I’m 69 years old and I I’ I still got mentors in my life. for 14 years. I and two other pastors met with another kind of mentor pastor and let Him disciple us and we met every every week at his church and then he retired. Then we started meeting in our homes. My thing is find an accountability partner. I want to throw up a definition of biblical wisdom. Here’s what it said. Biblical wisdom is this: the ability to judge correctly and to follow the best course of action. But it’s based on knowledge and understanding. It is the skill in living according to God’s way of life. If you want to be wise, you live according to the way God wants you to live.

Ladies and gentlemen, days are evil. I mean, He says it here. He says, “Make the most of your time.” I’m—I’m—Look, I’m 69. I’m kind of going, “Where’d they go?” I’m looking at my two grandchildren. I’m up here and you’re praying over me and my little granddaughter is hugging my leg. Five years old. I’m going, “Where’d the five years go?” We need to make the most of our time. The days are evil.

I want to share something with you. Sin controls this world. Now, God allows everything to happen. But if you don’t think sin controls this, you are sadly mistaken, and will control this world until one day when He comes again and settles everything. But until then, we’re to stay vigilant. We’re to make wise choices. Sin’s powerful, and we need to be careful.

So, how do you do that? Well, again, we’ll make wives. We’re to seek God’s will. So, that’s the—what’s the million-dollar question? How do you do that? How do you seek God’s will? Well, let me reassure you number one that God’s not trying to hide His will. He is not a cosmic genie or a cosmic Easter bunny waiting for you to go around find—looking under every tree or bush trying to find Him. God’s will wants to be very clear and direct for every one of your lives.

Number one, God’s will is sovereign. That means His ultimate plan governs all creation and it’s going to be—and you can’t thwart it. God is always moral. He commands every one of us to live a perfect, holy life, obey His word, and ultimately follow Christ. When you get up in the morning, that WWJD stuff, what would Jesus do, folks? That works. I mean, we got little rings that say it, little braces. WWJD. If you don’t have, you might want to get one. Basically, that’s what it is. It works. What would Jesus do? It’s moral.

And here’s the other thing. It’s personal. God is personal with us. I’m thinking that the God of this universe who the creator who sustains all of life, keeps everything going, cares enough about Al Smith that He says, “I want to have a personal daily ongoing relationship with me and now with you.” Do you understand that the creator of the universe wants a personal relationship with you?

So, I found three things in my life. Let me just kind of go through them very quickly. One is how it works. Usually there’s a prompting of the Holy Spirit. Some folks call that a conscience. Some—some weird feeling. I don’t know how it works with you. I know when the Holy Spirit talks to me because it makes a whole lot more sense than anything I could ever come up with. And I’ve had feelings and all of a sudden scriptures come to my mind or I’m about to do something very stupid and all of a sudden, you know, the Holy Spirit just prompts me and says, “You may not want to do that.” Or a sudden scripture comes to me or some song. Well, that doesn’t come from Al Smith. That comes from something deep within me.

Secondly, circumstances of life that point you in a direction. You’ll have people all of a sudden say things to you or—or all of a sudden an—an opening will come up in your life and something happens at the job or a neighbor says something or somebody in your family something happens in your life that makes you take notice.

And then the last thing is this. It’s always validated by scripture. God will never ask you to go against anything that’s in this book. And I don’t think it’s one or two of the three. I think it’s all three. If you want to know God’s will for your life, that tells you what I need to be in scripture. I need to be in prayer. I need to be watching and listening to see what God wants me to do with my life.

And then the last thing it says this, be controlled by the Holy Spirit. You know, it’s interesting that He says this, don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled with the spirit. You ever thought, why in the world did He throw that in there?

What’s it in the world? What’s He talking about? If you know anything about Ephesus, it was wine country in Galatia. So, they were very familiar with wine. And if you know anything about some of the the the idol worship and the practices went on at the temple of Artemis or Diana, you know that alcohol was a was a big part of that. And and he’s just sitting there saying, “Don’t let that get.” Now, that’s a whole different sermon. Al Smith, I’m I’m one of them tea totling guys, okay? I don’t see people get drunk that never started. You know, when I when I I’ve seen too many of people when I was either in college or and just in life, military that I’ve seen hug too many commodes and and trash cans and and I’m thinking, man, I I don’t want any part of that.

I mean, the word, look what it says, be be what? Filled with the spirit. Do you know what the word means in the original language? It means to be influenced. And I know folks that are influenced by alcohol. And what does it do? It influences your senses. It influences your memory. It influences your speech, your movement, your reactions. I mean, everything that you need to make a decision. And I’m not saying I’m sitting there saying just be careful when you do that. Is that what you want to be influencing your life? Well, let’s look at now the jobs of the Holy Spirit. How does the Holy Spirit want to influence you? Well, He wants to comfort your heart. He wants to convict you of sin. He always points you to Jesus. He brings you back to the word of God. He’ll even take when you can’t pray, He’ll take your prayers to the father. Now, what do you want to be influenced by? And Paul very clearly is sitting there. What do you want to influence? This is what I’m saying you need to to have influencing your life.

We have two natures in us now. Makes what was once easy more confusing and harder. In the last chapter, our pastor talked about how God almost puts like a a a different garment on us when we get saved. We now look different. We’re now to feel different. The problem is it’s saying on the same old sin corruptible body and what was it not even a a thought that about sin and and the things that of evil that you you had in your life before you didn’t even think twice about doing it. You now have a conflict because there’s now someone in you called the Holy Spirit sitting there and saying you really shouldn’t do that or the word of God saying this is the direction God wants you to go and there’s conflict and like I said Wednesday night it Paul wouldn’t be writing this if there wasn’t an issue and I think he’s walking to every church in the world today.

In back in the late 1980s, I was taking a a group of youth to Atlanta to Six Flags over Georgia. Every every every youth guy does either Six Flags or Carowinds, he goes to those and we would leave. We were in Charlotte. So, we would go to Six Flags and we’d get up at leaving five in the morning and I put I put 27 of them on the bus with my chaperons and we headed and I was driving the bus and we’re heading to Atlanta. And I’ll never forget we we’re on the way. Everything’s going great. We’re going to get there when they open. They’re going to be there from like 10 to 6. I’m going to line them back up at 6:00. And by midnight, I’ll probably have them home. And it hits about 9, 9:30. We’re we’re going to get there right on time when they open. And all of a sudden, the this church bus I think all church buses are built either on Friday or Monday. I promise you. And this thing just quits. And we just start easing and we’re on 285 in North Atlanta. You know what 9:00 on 285 in North Atlanta is like? You don’t want to be there. I got 27 kids and I tell you how tell God worked. All of a sudden, a car pulls in right behind us. He sees us go over and a boy scout troop leader gets out with his son. Say, “Y’all need some help?” I said, “Yes, sir. That’d be great.” Next exit is a is a Ford dealership that just works on trucks, big trucks and buses and that kind of thing. It was a Ford bus, so it worked out great. They came and towed it. I got my kids to Atlanta, I mean to to Six Flags, and I stayed with the bus, and I told them this: “You fix this thing, I’ll be back here about 4 in the afternoon, pick it up to go pick up my kids.” And here’s the deal. I got back there about 4:00, took a taxi from Six Flags. I get in the bus, everything’s working. They’ve replaced the fuel filter, checked all the hoses, the fuel hoses. They’ve been checked, all those kind of things. And so everything was good. I get in it, it cranks up. I get two miles down the road and the same thing happens. I’m not a happy camper. I got to jog two miles back up the interstate, get there, and I go in and I say, “Guys, got to go get it. It’s not fixed.” We had to put our kids up. But here’s the deal. They thought they’d fixed everything. This bus had two tanks in it. And what happened is the front tank had gas in it. The back tank, they were both filled. And when this one ran out of gas, it would flip to this one, and the back tank gas would start to flow. And here’s what we found was wrong with it: as the gas kind of came through and went around that front tank that was now empty, it would get in front of it, and the vacuum of being an empty tank would suck the gas right back in, and it would never get to the engine. Tell me that’s not how Satan works. You’ve got the Holy Spirit ready to take you full of gas, ready to take you different places. And I want to tell you, what we had to do is we had to cut that tank apart. And unless you take the sins of the world, you know, the influence of the world, the flesh and the devil, and cut them out of your life, as long as they’re part of your life and an influence, they will suck everything that God wants to take to your life right back. You need to be careful.

And then the last thing is, here’s the last thing on this: speak to each other as if you were singing a hymn to the Lord. Now, I don’t need to tell you how much personal preference the area of music is tearing up churches all across our country. I don’t. In this passage, it’s neat where it says, “Speak to one another in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs.” Three different types of music. Three different types of melodies. But we’re just speaking to each other that way. And I want to tell you, Baptist history, now you can check me out on this thing, too, has an interesting history. When Baptist churches first started, there was no singing in Baptist churches. None. Then they said, “Well, we need to have some kind of music.” I mean, they got a book in the Bible called the Psalms, so we’ll let the pastor do it. Thank heaven, any church that I ever pastored never let me sing. You want to empty out a church quickly. But then they said, “Well, if the pastor can sing, maybe the congregation can sing.” Well, that was good. But the problem was there was never any music. And you can still go to Mennonite churches down near Blackville, South Carolina, and there are Mennonite churches that they’ll sing, but there’s no musical instruments. And then God gave us, you know, holy instruments, and we brought those in, and now we’re kind of fighting over different other kinds of instruments and that kind of thing.

How we talk to each other is important. It is. I wrote this down in my Bible years ago. I want to throw it up there for you. Watch your thoughts because they’ll become your words. Watch your words. They’ll become your actions. Watch your actions. They’ll become your habits. Watch your habits. They’ll become your character. And watch your character because it’ll end up being your destiny. Tell me that’s not true. Starts with a thought and ends with how you’re going to spend the rest of your life. And the Lord is saying to the Apostle Paul here, here’s how you need to speak to each other. See, here’s the deal. I found this from Bob Utley. I love Bob. He is a former pastor, seminary professor, Bible scholar. How we hand—I’m gonna write this in the back of my Bible, too. How We handle what we don’t like in church is a better thermometer of our relationship with Jesus than how we handle what we do like. Does that make sense? Sure it does. And then He says this, have an attitude of gratitude, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father. Now, I want to tell you, I struggle with that. And I’m sure there are some of you that struggle with that. How do you give thanks for everything? Well, Lord, You don’t understand my feelings on that. Lord, this happened to me. This person passed away. Lord, I I just got the word I got cancer. How do I yet thank the Lord for everything? I don’t know. All I know is He says, “Do that because I know this. I want to be around people that are grateful.” Do you ever have you ever hang around a person that just seems to be grateful about life and to the Lord? I want to hang around those folks. They’re usually happier. They got they enjoy more of life. Don’t you want to be that person? And then He says this, “Submit to one another in the fear of Christ.” Well, He says, He’s Oh, what in the world does that mean? Because I know this, most of us don’t we don’t like that word submit, do we? And yet He says as we as Christians, we’re to look at each other, brother and sister in Christ. Look to people who are are leaders in our church. Look to folks that are that are heads of committees and different things. But also just through a love relationship, just say, “I I’m going to submit to you.” See, we think submission makes us weak, less of a person. But in the Greek language here, it’s a it’s a present middle participle. And all that means is this, it is intensified as a subject in the body whose head is Christ. Basically, what He is saying is this. When you submit to to one another like Jesus would have you do it, you’re more like Jesus. You’re more Christlike. And what does Christ likeness means? Well, I came up with a found a definition for that. It means this. It’s not always my idea. It’s not always my suggestion. I don’t have to have it always my way or be, you know, or or or be, you know, in a lost world, you know, or be in charge. I I’m looking at Jesus’s life and Jesus even How many times did Jesus say, “Not my will, Father, but Yours.” How many times as a little boy did that He’d submit to an earthly mom and an earthly dad? Now, if Jesus can do it, don’t you think sometimes me and you can do that? Sure. Paul uses this word 23 times in the New Testament and it’s always in relationship to personal relationships. Problem is money gets in the way, longevity gets in the way, position gets in the way. Let’s add to the list. I want to end with this. I want to tell you a story that I heard about a month ago in a sermon. I want to make sure I give the guy who said it all the credit. It was told by a guy named Dr. Steven Rummage. Dr. Rummage is the executive director of the Florida Baptist Convention and he was preaching at a church that Beth and I were at and he told this story about a guy named Todd Craighead. Now, like a lot of pastors, when the when the service is over, you know, we’ll stand up place, we’ll stand up here, we’ll be at the back, you know, talking to folks as they go out and that kind of thing. And he would do the same thing. And he says, “If you’re ever around me, you notice there was a guy off to my side.” And normally, here’s the deal. You would notice something about him, but there were certain things that you might not notice about him. I mean, you would notice that well, he had thick glasses. Well, a lot of people got thick glasses, so you probably wouldn’t notice that. You would notice that he walked with a limp, but a lot of us got limps. And so, you probably wouldn’t notice that so much. He was a little shorter than a lot of guys. That’s not a big deal. But here’s what you would notice. That his arms literally came out at about 45 degree angles and then came in and they were cupped. One was cupped up, one was cupped down. And that’s how he walked. And he couldn’t move them. He it was he had very limited movement with him. And that’s how he was. He just, I mean, his whole life he had been that way. And the reason he was like that is that is that his his there was not enough movement inside of his mom when he was born. In fact, when he was born, the doctors and the nurses looked at his mother and said these words: “He’s probably not going to last 24 hours. We hate to break that news.” Name it was Todd Craighead. Well, Todd lasted over 24 hours. Then they said, “Well, he might last 20, but he’s probably not going to last very long.” Well, he lasted longer than any of them could have ever imagined. “Well, he’s not going to be like every other kid.” Well, he did. In fact, these are his words. He says, “I never felt limited in any way.” In fact, he would go to a workshop of his dad’s and his and his dad would give him something to do, but his dad couldn’t tell him how to do it because he he he didn’t know how Todd was going to end up doing it with his arms like this. But Todd would figure it out some way.

And then Todd wanted to go to college. Well, Todd went to Oklahoma State University where he wanted to be Cbrook. He wanted to be a park ranger. Well, he graduated a degree in forestry and after he got his degree in forestry, they shipped him out west where he was at a at a park out there. He was out there for a couple years and Oklahoma kind of wanted him back. So, he kind of came back to the Oklahoma Wildlife Department where for years he hosted a TV show where on TV he would tell people about the outdoors and hunting and fishing and all those. In fact, he had an SUV he had to climb up into. Took it all over the state of Oklahoma.

And when he came back to Oklahoma, he decided he was going to get back into church because he got apparently saved at a young age, but he was never really involved in church. He had missed it and he didn’t really know anything about the Bible. So he met a young man by the name of Jeff Goodwin and they picked up a friendship and they started meeting every week at a restaurant. And Jeff would teach him about the Bible. And Todd would teach Jeff about hunting and fishing. And then one day Todd as looked at Jeff and he said, “Jeff, I know that you pray a lot. And I know some that God somehow answers you. And I I can’t explain it. I want you to ask God a question for me. Here’s the question. I want you to ask God why He made me like this.” Didn’t say it out of anger. Didn’t say it out of bitterness because he’d already said, you know, “I’ve really been able to accomplish just everything I pretty much wanted to do in life, but would you ask God why He made me like this?” He said, “Sure, I’ll do that.”

Week later, they meet at the restaurant. Jeff looked at Todd right in the eyes. He said, “Todd, I think God gave me a reason why He made you like that.” Ty goes, “Okay, I’ve been asking you for 20 years.” He tells you, “In a week,” okay? But he said, “Before I ask you, I want to ask you two questions. Here’s the first question. You’re outside, you’re at a strip mall or you’re in a park or you’re in somewhere and and someone comes and walks up to you and then all of a sudden they go, ‘Oh, excuse me. I I thought you were somebody else.’ Has that ever happened to you?” Todd goes, “No, that’s never happened to me. In fact, just the opposite has happened to me.” He says, “They they used to come up and they recognized me right away because of what what I’ve got. In fact, I never, you know, they they’ve never met anybody like me. In fact, I never met anybody like me till I was 16.” He says, “Okay, that’s what I thought.”

Second question, same scenario. You’re at a strip mall, you’re in a park, you’re somewhere, and all a sudden someone comes up to you and you remember them, but they don’t remember you. Has that ever happened to you? And he shook his head and said, “No, no, that’s never happened.” In fact, again, just the opposite. I mean, someone comes up to me and and they’ll say, “Well, I saw you on TV or or I saw you speaking to a men’s group or and and they’ll remember me, but for some reason, I just can’t remember them.” And Jeff looked Todd straight in the eyes and he said, “Here’s what God told me.” Todd, God made you two ways. He made you unmistakable and He made you unforgettable. And I want to tell everybody in this room, God made you unmistakable and God made you unforgettable.

Now, you can be unmistakable or you can be unforgettable for all the wrong reasons or you can be unmistakable or unforgettable for all the right reasons. And that’s up to you. God’s given us a walk. It’s narrow. You got to pay attention. He He It’s It’s It can be simple, but I didn’t say it was going to be easy. But God has made us unmistakable and unfor God has made Sauldam Baptist Church, listen to me, unmistakable and unforgettable.

I think God’s got something coming on this direction that is going to be unbelievable. You can be part of that. And this church I can I believe is going to be unmistakable and unforgettable for the cause of Christ. But that’s up to us.

Now, I want to ask you this as I close. Tell me about your life. How unmistakable or unforgettable is it for Jesus? And maybe it’s unmistakable or unforgettable for all the wrong reasons. Or it’s just you’re just living life, not doing much with it, got no direction, and God’s got, I made you the way you are for a reason. Don’t you want to plug into that?

And in a moment, Jeremy’s going to be right down front. If you want to come up here and talk to Him, pray with Him, get with Him afterwards, whatever you want to do, you need to do that because if you just want to drift through life, well, there’s nothing big about me or or or I’m I’m different than folks. Yeah, God made you that way. Unmistakable, unforgettable.

Let’s pray. Father, this morning we’ve got a choice to make. We need to take care. We need to make the right choice and we need to develop character. Most important thing is we need to submit to You. What You did on the cross was unmistakable and unforgettable. And You did that for us because in Your heart, in Your mind, to You were unmistakable and unforgettable, Lord. Help us not to forget that. Help us to realize that that’s how much You love us and You love this church and You love everybody in it. And You just do things for us that is is is amazing. I I I don’t understand all that. Of course, I’m not You. But somehow, Lord, draw me closer. Help me live on that narrow road that leads to You rather than on a large road that leads to destruction. Help us make the decision this morning we need to make.

And all God’s people said, “Amen.”