Make Jesus Your Life

The following is a lightly edited transcript provided by a transcription service. Please check video before quoting.

Make Jesus Your Life

So let me say from the start where all this is going tonight, a few minutes from now, I’m going to offer you a specific invitation in this arena to either begin or renew a relationship with Jesus. Specifically, I’m going to invite men all across this room to get up from where you are and to walk down to the front of this arena and to say either for the first time or for the first time in a long time, Jesus is my life.

I want you to know from the start that this invitation is for everybody. Whether you’ve grown up in church or this is the first time tonight you’ve ever been in a setting like this, it’s an invitation for people who may feel far from God right now because of your past or maybe your present. It’s an invitation for men who may have opposed God and Christianity your entire life.

And it’s also an invitation for men who may have felt close to God at some point in their life. But that was a long time ago and a lot has happened since then. It’s an invitation for men who may feel successful in their life, in marriage family, and work, and it’s also an invitation for men who may feel like they’ve failed in any of those areas.

So it doesn’t matter your past, your present, who you are, what you’ve done. This invitation is for you tonight before we do anything else over the next day and a half to get things right in your relationship with God.

So I was told that the theme of this conference is forging the future and the need for men to lead into a future of integrity and honesty and humility marriages restored women championed children saved and communities healed all throughout our nation.

But tonight, as this whole conference starts, I want to look even further into the future. As I was praying about where to go in God’s word, I thought about having a picture in my mind of an illustration that a good friend of mine used years ago with a rope.

I want to imagine with me that this rope that I’m holding onto goes down the stage here, imagine with me that it goes on forever and ever. It starts here and goes down, not just off the stage, but goes out of this arena

And keeps going on and on and on around the world and it doesn’t stop. It has no end. It goes on forever, and this rope is a picture of your life starting at a point in time and it goes on forever throughout time from that point. And this red part, if you can see it, this red part represents your life on this earth. And what is so mind-boggling, astounding really is how focused we are on this little part. How can I live it up here in this little bit?

The American Dream

And we don’t think about it here, not even just this little bit right here. The whole American dream is to go to school, go to school, go to school, work hard, work hard, work hard, save, save, save. And then right here, when you get really tired and you don’t have any energy left, then live it up. You’re like, I don’t even want to go anywhere. It is astounding, isn’t it?

This is the American dream that’s success. Why are we not thinking about this? All the way down here you live. I live in a world that’s saying live it up right here. And it’s telling us to ignore all this and we’re buying into it for little pleasures and earthly possessions. We even create a Christian spin on the American dream where we can tack Jesus on Sundays, but we actually live in this world like everybody else does.

And what I want to do tonight is I want to give you a picture of this moment that’s coming right here because it’s coming for every single one of us and it’s going to usher in a future in one of two places, and I do urge every man in this arena to know what that moment is going to look like in your life and to put some focus there in a way that gives you hope for this and transforms the way you live here. So that’s the picture

Revelation Chapter 19

I want to put it on your mind tonight. So if you have a Bible, and I hope you or somebody around you does, you can look on, I invite you to open me to Revelation chapter 19, end of the Bible, Revelation chapter 19. If you don’t have a Bible, I’m going to have it up here on the screen, hopefully, so you’ll be able to follow along.

So the good news is God loves us so much that he has given us a picture of what this moment’s going to look like right here, and he longs for us to experience joy here and here and he’s spoken to us about this. So Revelation chapter 19 gives us a vision of Jesus when he returns and it’s filled with all kinds of vivid imagery. Just listen, see this picture Revelation chapter 19 verse 11, I think it might be on the screen.

There it is, John who’s writing about this vision says, I saw heaven open and behold a white horse, the one sitting on it is called faithful and true and in righteousness, he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire and on his head are many diadems and he has a name written that no one knows but himself.

He’s clothed in a robe dipped in blood and the name by which he is called is the word of God and the armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, we’re following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations and he will rule them with a rod of iron.

He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. There is so much we could talk about here, but what I want to do is I want to give you a clear picture of Jesus, show you a clear picture of Jesus in Revelation 19. If I’m just convinced, if you could see Jesus for who he is, then if you do not have a relationship with him or if you wandered from him, you would be running down to the front. Tonight I want to show you specifically what on this day

Jesus is Faithful and True

Everybody in the world is going to realize about Jesus, what everybody is going to see about Jesus. If you want to write some of these things down, you can, and I’m going to show ’em to you here on the screen, so we’ll keep bringing back up the screen here and there because I don’t want, the last thing I want you to do is bank your eternity on something I’m saying I only want to speak what he is saying.

So don’t listen to anything I’m saying. If I don’t show it to you here or anybody else for that matter, they can’t show it to you in the book. So get this picture of Jesus one. Jesus is faithful and true. Did you see it as faithful with a capital F and true with a capital T, Jesus is perfectly faithful.

All that he has said he will do in history, he will do all that Jesus has ever promised will come to pass. He is faithful and completely true. There is no hint of error in Jesus. He is not counterfeit or phony. He is fully authentic and utterly perfect. You think about how different Jesus is than everyone,

Everything else. So I won’t ask for a show of hands, but can I just ask how many men in this room have ever put their trust in someone only to be let down by them? I wasn’t going to ask for a show of hands, but you did it anyway.

Just reflecting on it makes me appreciate the eagerness. Maybe it was a parent who was there for a little while and then left or who was never even there. Maybe it’s been a wife, another relationship in your life, maybe a child who’s turned their back on you, maybe friends, maybe coworkers.

Most of us know what it feels like to be let down by someone or to turn it around. And again, I won’t ask for a show of hands, but how many of you have also let someone else down?

Let’s be honest, we’re all in this boat together. I’ll be the first to admit, that as much as I love my wife, I’m not the perfect husband. I don’t always say what I should say or do what I should do or even if I was perfect, she still couldn’t always trust me because I’m not guaranteed to be here tomorrow. This is the reality of people in a fallen world and it’s not just people.

We are prone to trust in so many things, in jobs, in homes, in health, in investments, bank accounts, plans, dreams, pursuits, and positions that will constantly let us down. But open your eyes tonight and realize there is one who is perfectly faithful, one who is completely true with a capital F and a capital T, and his name is Jesus.

Jesus is Perfect

He is perfect love, perfect goodness, perfect power, perfect humility, perfect kindness, perfect gentleness, perfect strength. I could go on and on. The point is for all who put your trust in Jesus, he will never ever let you down for all of eternity forever.

I mentioned he’s perfectly just which leads to the next realization we will all come to one day. Jesus is the final judge of all. Verse 11 says he’s the righteous judge who is coming one day to make all things right. He’s coming to dispense the justice of God rightly, fairly, completely. And this is really good news.

Human Trafficking

I was listening to Sam talk about trafficking, thinking about the last time I was in remote Himalayan villages. A small group of us helicopter into about 12,000 feet and started hiking from there. A study was done about 10 years ago among children in these villages. They found that half the kids weren’t making it to their eighth birthday.

One mom we met 14 kids, two had made it to adulthood dying of things like simple cuts and infections or simple stomach, what starts as just upset stomach and leads to death, and poverty everywhere.

And one of the worst byproducts of this poverty is trafficking. Traffickers will prey on impoverished people in these villages, go into a village trafficker meet with a family, and promise their little girl a better life if she goes down with them into the city, she’ll be able to get a good job and go to school and be able to send back money to her family.

And the trafficker says, here’s a pledge of my commitment to take care of your daughter. All it takes is about a hundred dollars to convince a starving family that it’s worth letting their daughter go with this man, especially if she’s going to be better off, she can help them.

So they let her go and the traffickers picked up these little girls, one village we were in. There are hardly any little girls left in the village, 15, or 10 years old, take them down into the city where they don’t ever go to school and they don’t have a good job.

They’re put into a brothel where they’re broken and drugged and men have their way with them sometimes 10, 15, 20 customers a day and this is their life shamed and used and abused and they can’t get out of it. Police are corrupt, they’re paid by the traffickers.

Traffickers threaten that if the girls leave, the traffickers will go back and kill their families. Some of the girls are kept in the city, others are taken to other countries. We’re talking about thousands and thousands of girls and boys taken from impoverished villages like the ones we were in.

And I was on a radio interview when I got back and somebody asked me, how do you believe in God? How do you believe in Jesus when you see things like that in the world? And I said, how to do I not? I talk with my friends who don’t believe in God, who say there is no God, which means in the end there is no justice, that we’re all products of chance and we all just die.

Justice is Coming

And no matter what we did right and what we did wrong doesn’t matter in the end. Some people get lucky, some people don’t. That’s it. No, what a hopeless worldview and untrue. It matters what we do in this world and we know instinctively it matters and we all want it to matter. We all have a thirst for justice in us.

This is not an accident because we’re wired by a just God to want to see evil not be the end of the story. And the good news of Jesus Christ is that evil will not have the last word. Justice is coming, it’s coming. But here’s the deal. It’s not just traffickers that Jesus is coming to judge, it’s you and me. And herein lies the problem because we think, wow, those people are evil and I’m not as bad as them.

So I’m okay, but where in the world did we get the idea that the standard by which we are compared before a holy God is the most evil in the world, brothers, the standard by which we are compared before a holy God is a holy God and all of us, every single one of us in this room has rebelled against him.

How Have We Defied Him?

Every single one of us has defied him, said Our ways are better than your ways. Sure it looks different in each one of our lives, but in all of our hearts, we have all turned aside from God. We are all sinners and we see, we feel the effects of sin in our lives, our relationships, and the world around us and hurt and our heartache and loneliness and emptiness and insecurity and disappointment and distress.

All these things that we’re familiar with, but none of which were a part of God’s or original design for us, and not just seeing these things in our own lives around the world, whether it’s trafficking like we’ve heard tonight or war in Ukraine or suffering in Afghanistan or starvation in Yemen. None of these things are God’s good design for us. We live in a fallen world and we are fallen men in it.

Just walk out the doors of this arena into these streets and see human sinfulness on display and ways that we are actually attracted to that which will destroy us. And it’s not just this or that person on the street, it’s you and me, which leads to the third realization about Jesus. One day we will realize Jesus sees and knows all his eyes are like a flame of fire.

The whole picture here as he can see and on his head is many dead. He has a name written that no one knows but himself, he knows all. So the imagery here is describing how Jesus sees everything in the world and everything in our lives, the things that you or I would like to hide.

Imagine on these big screens in this arena, a movie of everything you’ve ever thought said that nobody else knows about. It’s a horrifying thought in front of all of these people and you think it’s hidden. We think it’s hidden, it’s not hidden. Jesus sees all and knows all. Everything we think is hidden. Now Jesus sees and knows every bit of it, which leads right into verse 13.

He’s clothed in a robe dipped in blood and the name by which he is called is the word of God. The bad news is we are sinners before the holy God. The good news is Jesus has come to God in the flesh, the word of God, that word means revelation. He is the revelation of God. This is the greatest news in the world. God has not left us alone in a world of sin.

God has come to us himself and this is what makes Jesus and Christianity revolutionary because you have all kinds of religions in the world that are built around how we give back to God. How do we overcome the evil and the hurt and the suffering and death we experience in this world?

How Do Religions Differ?

And a lot of people look at different religions and think, well, they’re all pretty much the same, maybe just different in small ways. I think about a conversation one day I had in a country in Southeast Asia outside of a temple to another religion.

It was two guys from two different religions and I was having a conversation and I was listening to them and basically, they were talking about how all our religions are fundamentally the same, just kind of superficially different. And they kept talking and talking and talking about this.

And finally, I said, it’s almost like you guys picture God or whatever you want to call him at the top of a mountain and we’re all at the bottom of a mountain and you may take this path up and I may take this path up, but in the end, we’ll all be in the same place.

And they smiled and they said, exactly, you understand? I said, well, lemme ask you a question. I said, what would you think if I told you that the God at the top of the mountain didn’t wait for us to find our way up to him, but he actually came down the mountain to meet us where we are? They said, “That would be great. I said, let me introduce you to Jesus.

God has not left us alone in this world of sin and suffering, nothing. He has come to us. Got to tell you this story. Remember another recent conversation I had. I was flying out of town early one morning around 5:00 AM the airport I was flying out of and metro DC was about an hour from my house, which meant I needed to get in an Uber about 3:00 AM which I was not thrilled about.

So I groggily got into this car within about five minutes of conversation with this man from the Middle East who was driving. He asked me what I do. I told him I was a pastor, and he said, I cannot believe this. He said I need to tell you a story. And he starts telling me, so this is a Muslim man who thinks that Muslims believe that the idea that God would be born as a baby is blasphemous. T

Then he started telling me, he said, I had a vision one night of a little baby who was talking as clearly as an adult and the baby looked me in the eye and said, do not question or underestimate what God can do. And he looks back at me through the rearview mirror and says, do you know what this vision means?

Jesus Came to Save Us

And I was like, yeah, I do. I don’t normally interpret dreams but my middle name is actually Joseph. So anyway, I said, man, I know exactly what this dream means. God. It means God loves you and God has done the unthinkable. God has come to you and to me to save us from our sins by dying on the cross for us. Keep in mind, Muslims also don’t believe Jesus died on the cross. I said, Jesus is God in the flesh and he has died.

He’s come to you to die for you to make it possible for you to have a relationship with God. He starts tearing up, he’s crying as he’s driving, and he’s apologizing. I’m like, no apology necessary man. I’m crying back here and I’m thinking I’m not in an Uber anymore. It’s like an Ethiopian chariot. We got to start looking for water on the side of the road and he’s like, this is unreal. I’m like, this is unreal.

We start talking. I said, by the time we got to the airport I said, do you believe this? Do you believe Jesus is God in the flesh who came to die for your sins and are you willing to follow him starting today in your life? And he looked back at me to those tears and he said, yes, I believe this. I want to follow Jesus. This is

Jesus is God in the Flesh

The most extraordinary miracle in the world. Jesus is God in the flesh. Come to us and why has he come to us? I’m glad you asked. It’s the fourth thing we’ll realize about Jesus on that day that he is the Savior, the only savior who has died for our sins. Did you see it?

He is clothed in a robe. Dipped in what? In blood. What’s that about? Well, the payment for our sin against a holy God is death to every one of us because of our sin against God that separates us from God. If we die in this state of sin before God, we will spend an eternity separated from him and judgment does our sin.

But this is why Jesus came. He came to live the life we could not live a life of no sin. And then even though he had no sin for which to die, he chose to die on a cross.

He chose to shed his blood to pay the price for our sin, for the sin of anyone who will trust in him. Did you hear that? Maybe for the first time tonight, you’re hearing that or maybe you’ve heard this before, but hopefully, it’s clicking tonight.

No matter who you are, no matter what you have done, if you put your trust in Jesus, his blood will cover all of your sins and the good news keeps getting better because Jesus didn’t just die for your sins. Jesus rose from the grave. So this is the last thing we’ll realize about Jesus.

One day we’ll realize he’s not only the only savior who died for our sins, but he is the risen king and Lord overall, there’s so much we could talk about here, but just get the picture in Revelation 19, the armies of heaven, a raid in Finland and white and pure, were following him on white horses.

From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty on his robe and on his thy, he has a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. This is a man who died but he’s not dead anymore.

That can become almost commonplace to us. But just imagine going through a funeral tomorrow you see a man’s body put in a grave, dirt poured over that grave. You walk away and this time next week that guy comes up to you on the street and says hello. It’s crazy. It’s crazy good. It’s the greatest news in the world. Death has been defeated.

Jesus is Not Dead

Jesus is not dead. He is alive and he is going to bring in his kingdom on this earth and all the kings of this earth, lords of this earth from all the nations will bow down to him. Every one of them, President Biden and the United States, Vladimir Putin and Russia Zelensky in Ukraine, the Aya Kamini in Iran.

I could keep going one day every single one of them is going to bow at the feet of King Jesus and not just them, you, and me. To quote from Philippians two 10 through 11, at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Oh, hear this. The question is not are you going to call Jesus Lord? That’s not a question.

Somebody says I’ve decided to make Jesus the Lord of my life. Well, the reality is you didn’t have a choice in the matter. The question is will you bow the need to Jesus’s Lord now or will you bow the need to Jesus when it’s too late, which leads right into the next chapter in Revelation. Revelation 20 talks about the day when every one of us will stand before God. It’s what’s going to happen to all of us at the end of this rope, this part of the rope, the Bible says Revelation chapter 20, verse 11, and I saw a great white throne in him who is seated on it from his presence earth and sky fled away and no place was found for them.

And I saw the dead great and small standing before the throne and books were opened that another book was open, which is the book of life and the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done and the sea gave up the dead who were in its death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them and they were judged each one of them according to what they had done.

Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, a lake of fire and if anyone’s name was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

The Critical Question

Every single one of us will one day stand before God to face judgment. What did it say? The dead are great and small. All of us will stand before God’s throne and books will be opened. These books in verse 12 are records of what we have done. All of our lives are laid completely bare before a holy God.

Every single thing we have done and most people I talk with are banking their eternity on the scales weighing heavier on the side of good deeds than bad deeds. On that day I was just writing another Uber with a guy who said, I think I’ll be okay.

I’ve done enough good. Many if not most people I meet have put their hope forever in the good outweighing the bad in the end. The problem is that is not what God says determines your eternity or my eternity. Instead, one critical question on that day will determine your eternity. Please listen closely. The critical question that will determine your and my eternity on that day is did you trust in Jesus as your life?

You see two books here in Revelation. You have these books which contain your deeds and then you have this other book, the Book of Life. When you look back, we don’t have time tonight, Revelation chapter 13 verse eight. You see this is the book of life of the Lamb who was slain for our sin, the book of life of the one who paid the price for our sin.

This book contains the names of anyone and everyone who trusts in Jesus as savior and Lord of their lives is said before, God, I know I have sinned against you. I know I can’t earn my way to you. So I’m turning from my sin and myself all that I want and I’m trusting Jesus to save me from my sin and to lead me as Lord of my life. That’s why I use the language trust in Jesus as your life because this is not merely a decision to believe something about Jesus.

Do you Trust in Jesus as Your Life?

In your mind, there are a lot of people who believe a lot of things about Jesus. I’m not asking if you have an intellectual belief in Jesus. Almost every intoxicated person I’ve ever met on the street says they believe in Jesus big deal. Even demons believe in Jesus. The critical question is, do you trust in Jesus as your life?

Remember, you have these other books here that describe the deeds we’ve done and the point is not that our deeds, our works earn our way into heaven. The point is our deeds, our works, our lives show that Jesus was our life.

I mentioned earlier we’ve created a whole version of Christianity where people say they believe in Jesus, then live like everybody else in the world, but it’s not biblical Christianity, it’s cultural Christianity and it kills all kinds of men claiming to follow Jesus but not loving their wives like Jesus would call us to lead their kids to love Jesus instead living our lives for all kinds of stuff in this world, brothers, it is time to be passed, time to be finished and done with fake faith that gives lip service to Jesus.

While we live in this world, it’s time to trust in Jesus as our life. That’s the invitation tonight to receive a new life, to receive a life that’s no longer enslaved to sin, but that’s free and empowered to live according to God’s good design for our lives to receive a life that’s no longer caught up in the futile quest for pleasure in the endless possessions and pursuits of this world, but a life that finds pleasure, eternal pleasure in the enjoyment of God.

That’s the point. Don’t miss it because this critical question and how it is answered will lead to one of two potential destinations and eternity. Every single one of us on this day will either go to everlasting torment and I totally realize that’s not a politically correct word to use torment.

I try to think of other ways to put this, but the reason I’m going to use that word is because that’s the word God uses. Verse 15, did you see it says if anyone’s name was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

And if you look back in chapter 28, verse 10, you see the lake of fire is a place where people are what? Tormented day and night forever and ever a lake of fire sulfur. Like people hear that language and say, well, is that literal like hell a place of literal fire and torment? Or is that just symbolic?

What is Fiery Torment?

Well, let’s assume for a moment, what if it is symbolic? If that’s true, then what is fiery torment? A symbol for a winter retreat, a nice summer vacation like no fire, and torment are symbols for a terrifying place to be.

The whole purpose of a symbol is to express in words that which cannot be put into words. It should bring no consolation to think that maybe this is symbolic language and it will last forever and ever think about that phrase forever and ever and ever adds nothing to the meaning. Why do we have those two words?

It’s like God is saying, don’t miss the point forever and ever. It will never ever end. We say things like that, a hell of a song, hell of a game. We had a hell of a time. We have no clue what we are saying.

We’re talking about what Jonathan Edwards called the torment of burning like a livid cold. Not for an instant or for a day, but for millions and millions of ages at the end of which we will realize that we are no closer to the end than when we first began. And we will never ever be delivered from that place.

And people say, how can God be loving and this be true? The answer is, that God loves us so much that he made a way for us to be saved from this. And he loves us so much to tell us this. He loves you so much to bring you tonight to hear this.

It’s not an accident. You’re here. God loves you to hear this good news that there is a way to avoid this and it’s not by doing a laundry list of good works and hoping that in the end your good outweighs your bad. No, don’t put your hope there.

What is Sin?

You’re a sinner. One sin keeps you from eternal life with a holy God. But this holy God loves you so much. He has made a way for you to be safe from all your sins, not based on what you do, but by trusting his love for you, by trusting him to be your life.

God desires for you to experience not everlasting torment but everlasting joy. I’ll just read it. Revelation 21, I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more.

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall every morning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away.

No, when you picture heaven, don’t just picture it like we have this picture. I’m going to have this mansion and all this stuff. No, don’t picture heaven. God is not up in heaven trying to compete with our Western models of prosperity.

We have. We’ve not been saved. We have more stuff for eternity. We’ve been saved so we can be with God for eternity and we will experience a joy, him pleasure in him that will put all the possessions and pleasures of this world to pale in comparison, everlasting joy, God has created you to come to this point and though you have sinned against him and deserve to be separated from him, God has made a way for you to be safe on this day through trust in Jesus as your life on this earth. And I’m urging you to be ready for that day. Lemme tell you a story.

A Personal Story Through Sports

So I know there’s a football thing going on here tonight and I was never big enough to play football, so baseball was my chosen sport and I was on the high school baseball team, which might make you think I was a good baseball player.

The problem was our high school baseball team was just really bad and that’s why I got to be on the team. And so I remember my senior year, we could not win a game. We were so bad. We got to the end of the season and we were playing another really bad team. This was a close game between two bad teams.

And I remember we got down to the last inning and we were out in the field and we kept them from scoring and it was all tied up. We kept them from scoring. So we came off the field and the coach met us out in front of the dugout. He would do this whenever he wanted to give us a pep talk. Never worked. But he met us out in front of the dugout and he said, guys, we’ve actually got a chance to win a game.

And he said we don’t need to let it go into extra innings because what will happen if we do? And we were like, we’ll lose. He’s like, that’s right, we’ll lose, and said this is where it needs to happen. This is our chance. So we put his finger in my face, he said, David, you’re up first. We need you to get to first base.

Once you get to first, we’re going to steal you over to second. And once you get to second, all we need is one hit you round. Third, come home, we win the game. I’m thinking, yeah, right one, we win the game never happens coach. It’s dependent on me.

Getting to first base also does not happen. But all the guys were like, come on David, just get to first base. So I went in, I grabbed my helmet, my bat, I started walking out there and I’m just praying, how do you pray on the field, right?

God, I know you love everybody. Would you just grant me an extra measure of grace at this moment? Would you use this for their sanctification? God, just help me get to first base. Please help me get to first.

So I step into the batter’s box and by the grace of Almighty God, I draw a walk. So apparently it was too much to, I mean get a hit. It’s just like not throwing him a strike. So I walk down to the first base, I get to first I look over to the third base coach and he’s giving me the steel signal. I’m like, oh man, I like the walking thing better. Now I got to run.

So I take my lead off first, pitcher, winds, and throws. I turn and I start running as hard as I can toward second base. And I get a few feet away. I start this headfirst slide, guy catches it, and tags me. What do you think? Safe or out?

Who said out over here? That was safe bro. Alright, I got wheels. All right. So I was safe. So besides the story would be horrible if it ended at that point. So anyway, I’m on second base, next guy up to bat strikes out Big Loser, who didn’t walk like I did. So now what that means is you got one out. If you know anything about baseball, this is when it needs to happen.

They get a second out. They don’t really have to worry about me as a runner. This is the moment when it needs to happen. So the pitcher, winds, throws, the guy hits the ball in between the third base from the shortstop and I turn and I watch the ball go in front of me in the left field and I start running toward third base. And I look up and I see the third base coach.

Does anybody know what he’s doing? And he’s doing this all the way down the line faster than I ever could. I’m like, why don’t you do this coach? So he’s giving me the go sign. And so I step on third and I look up and 90 feet in front of me is a dude who’s much bigger than I am and he’s got his mask off, his equipment on.

He’s standing over the plate just waiting for me. And I just decided this is my moment. So I start running as hard as I can. All the guys were out of the dugout jumping up and down, screaming all the fans going nuts. It was only three people there, but they were going nuts. I’m telling you, we were so bad. Not even our parents would come to watch us play. We were so bad. But anyway, I’m running as hard as I can.

I got a few feet away again and I started this headfirst slide and it was like a movie. My hand brushes past the plate as this guy catches it and puts the tag down on my shoulder. We look up in the dust of the umpire. I’m not going to ask you what you think he said. He yells safe. Safe. The guys go nuts.

They come running out of the dugout, they jump on top of you, top of me. You’d think we’d won the World Series, we’d won a game and it was one of the most, actually, it was the only glorious moment of my entire sports career. And it’s pure joy like reliving it in this moment. So lemme ask you a question though. Lemme ask you a question.

What would you think of me if when I was rounding third base, I thought I’m kind of hungry right now and I just went running over to get a hot dog instead of going home and playing, what would you think of me if I was rounding third base? And I look up and I see for some unknown reason, a high school girl has come to watch our team play and I think, huh, she looks better than he does and I just run over to her.

Or what would you think of me if I was rounding third base? I look up, I see the coach passionately going down the line and I would think, I’ve not spent a lot of time with the coach recently, just stop and put my arm on his shoulder and coach, how are you?

How’s your soul? You’d say, well of course you can’t win a game. Why? Because when it came down to what mattered most in the end, you missed the whole point. I am urging you tonight based on the authority of God himself, not to live your life and miss the whole point in the end.

So here’s the moment I told you this was all headed toward an opportunity for you right where you are sitting to either begin or renew a relationship with Jesus tonight for you in just a moment to walk down to the front of this arena in front of all these men.

And by so doing to say either for the first time or for the first time in a long time, Jesus is my life. Again, this might be your first time in a church setting or you may have spent all your life in church, maybe even called yourself a Christian. But truth be told, if you were standing before God right now, it would be clear Jesus is not your life.

You believe certain things about Jesus, but he’s not your life. And for many of you, you have excuses for not making Jesus your life. You say, well, the church has too many hypocrites, but with all due respect, that has nothing to do with it.

There is Room for Everyone

The medical profession has some crazy people out there too. But you don’t ignore all medicine. Somebody else’s hypocrisy has nothing to do with you. And besides you’ve probably had your own hypocritical moments, be glad Jesus loves hypocrites. There’s room for you as well.

That’s the point. Jesus didn’t come for the perfect, none of us are. He came for the imperfect qualifications of every single one of us. Others of you might say, I’m going to do this later. I want to warn you, that there may not be a letter.

We’ve said this already. I’ll say it again. Not one person in this room is guaranteed tomorrow. At any moment you could be at that point. Don’t make excuses. Today’s excuses will be tomorrow’s regrets. Tonight is the night to trust in Jesus as your life. Some of you’re thinking, what will others think? If I walk down there, what impression will they have?

What will people think about me? Brother, if you’re thinking that I say this in love, you’re missing the point. You don’t understand Christianity at all. We have men in Afghanistan and we’re getting their heads cut off for following Jesus. You can walk down a room and a room where people will cheer you on.

They already are in this place. So here’s the deal. Let’s all stand up together. Let’s all stand up. And if tonight, God is speaking to your heart and saying it’s time for you to make a public statement, either for the first time or for the first time in a long time, to say, Jesus is my life.

You start making your way down here. Join with all these other men who are already down here. Let’s fill up this place with people saying Jesus is our life. And as people come, let’s cheer them on. Let’s let them know they are not alone.