What Do I Have to Give Up?

0:00 And then he says, and the other commandment is just like, and just as important, love your neighbors as yourself. And that's it. Read it to Matthew. And he goes on and he says, and I ask nothing else of you. Love God and love your neighbors. There's nothing else you have to do. I don't have to sell millions of dollars of car wax. I don't have to win the prize. I don't have to win Pebble Beach. I don't have to do anything. All I have to do is love him and love my neighbors as myself. Welcome to the Ignite with Mary Maguire podcast. How would you like to have the time of your life for the rest of your life? How would you like to defeat fear effortlessly, knowing for sure God is hearing and answering your prayers and directing your steps and making everything work for good?

0:43 This is exciting. Here's the question. How would you like to ignite your life? Stay tuned. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Ignite. I want to talk today about a subject that I say all the time, particularly those that I'm sharing my faith with on a regular basis. And I would suggest that... there's a high percentage, without putting a number to it, that are just basically saying, I don't want to give up my life to be a Christian. You know, I don't want to, you know, have to, and I've got to give up this, and I've got to be pious, and I've got to be somebody else that I'm not, and, you know, and I don't want to be that person, and so I'm not ready for that.

1:36 I think if they'd look at me, they would perhaps see that it's not all bad. I don't feel too encumbered, you know what I mean? And really, the short answer to that question is you don't have to give up anything. Did you hear me? You don't have to give up anything. But it's just a little proviso. Your desires for what you do, your desires will change. And you basically lose interest in things that are not honoring God. And it's not something that you have to struggle with. It's something that just happens. It's just automatic.

2:17 I mean, there's no effort. It's effortless. Your attraction disappears for anything that is not honoring God or getting in the way of God. It may not even be something evil. It may be something good, but it's taking too much of your time and is basically serving as your God. So there's a scripture that I like a lot. It says, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he'll be a new creature. Okay? Old things pass away. Behold, all things become new. Obviously, a steeped-in-the-wool sinner will look different than a steeped-in-the-wool Christian.

3:04 So, yeah, it's interesting. First. All of us have things in our lives that are pleasing to God, like loving people and helping people. Then we have things that are pleasing to ourselves. It could be events or activities, indulgences. This is where spiritual battle comes into because it's really the flesh, what my body wants, and the spirit, what the spirit wants. And then there's the last category, I guess, where we're just doing things that are just pleasing God, and that would be, obviously, language.

3:46 Some of you have got a real problem with that. And you know that's not pleasing God. You do know that. There are indulgences that you're involved with that perhaps have too much of a control on you. And you know they're not pleasing God without preaching on it. It's not determining whether or not you go to heaven, but you get the idea of what you're focusing on. Okay. You know, I like to back to when you're one of the guys before you got married. Okay. And some of you are not married yet, but you get my point. You're one of the guys or you're one of the gals, you know, and on Friday night, you get together with the guys and you go out to the bar or whatever. But then you start a courtship.

4:28 You know? And the girlfriend, who is now the apple of your eye, doesn't want to go to the bar on Friday night. She likes to go to a nice dinner or a movie or something. And so, okay, and you want to please her. And then you're married, and you're just committed to making your wife happy, right? It's called growing up. A whole lot of folks, in fact, a whole lot of folks in the church need to grow up. Life is not static. I mean, why is it that we can exceed in all of our knowledge of the world and not in the things of God? I don't understand that.

5:13 The wonderful pastor, creator of Calvary Chapel, Chuck Smith. one of the most godly men, one of the great impactors of the Christian life, and of course because of him, we have these wonderful Calvary Chapel churches across America that are overachieving. I checked out this story one time, and when I heard I was probably maybe 25, it stuck with me. He said, you know, when my daughter was young, I'll never forget the moment when I looked over her cradle, looked down at her, and she looked up at me, and she smiled, and she said, Dada.

5:58 He said, just thrilled me. She knew my name. She knew I was Dada. It was so wonderful. I'll never forget that. But that was a while ago, and she's now a young lady, And my point is, if I walked up to her to now when she was asleep and she opened her eyes and looked up to me and smiled and said, Dad, it'd break my heart. It'd break my heart. Do you get my point? We're breaking God's heart when we, we're so wise about the world.

6:46 and give no attention to him. At the risk of offending some, I have these great car guy friends, and they're great friends, and they're wonderful people, they're the most kind, generous, they're soulmates with me in so many ways, I love them to death. and they know I'm a Christian, and they know I'm speaking all over, and they know the joy of the Lord's in me, and they know me really well. They don't go to church. They're at rallies on Sundays, or their cars. And I sit with them in a group, and they're just in the minutiae of the history of these cars, and I love it.

7:29 I'm a car guy, I love the legacy of the cars. I don't mean I don't love that stuff, I do. But that's all they talk about. You go through a weekend, that's all they talk about. And everyone wants to think, how does God enter into all this? There's just no joy. The cars become their God. So I want to get back to the point of, what do you have to give up? What do you have to do? And what can't you do to please God? That's the simple question.

8:10 And quite frankly, the only thing he calls us to do, he says, God, of all the laws, the Ten Commandments, what's the most important? What is it that I have to do? You know what he said? Love me. Just love me. Oh, but love me more than your cars. Love me more than your wife and your kids and your grandkids. Love me more than your job and your boat and your fortune and your name on buildings and whatever things. Love God, all I ask. God's only asking one thing of you. Love him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And then he says, and the other commandment is just like, and just as important, love your neighbors as yourself.

8:53 And that's it. Read it. It's in Matthew. And he goes on, he says, and I ask nothing else of you. Love God. And love your neighbors. There's nothing else you have to do. I don't have to sell millions of dollars of car wax. I don't have to win the prize. I don't have to win Pebble Beach. I don't have to do anything. I just love him and love my neighbors as myself. And when I do that, you see, that's when everything changes. Because if I love my neighbor as myself, I was concerned for their salvation as I am my own salvation.

9:34 And so the things I'm doing that don't honor God, that are being a stumbling block and pulling my friends down around me, I don't want to do anymore. But it's not rules. It's not legalism. It's not that I'm being forced into a box. He doesn't do that to us. It's freedom. I still enjoy cars. Nobody enjoys cars more than me. I'm a beach bum. I love boats. I love the water. I love swimming. I love salt air. I love sand on my feet. I love great meals. I'm a real guy. You know, I don't have to give up anything. But I just focus on the things that bring glory to him and lead people to him.

10:16 I see life on earth as a boot camp, quite frankly. It's just our boot camp. He gives us enough time on earth to figure out who he is that everyone of you have heard who he is. You can't exist in America without hearing the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ died for you. You've heard that message. And the starting line is what the church calls the finish line. The church is trying to get you saved. Like that's the finish line. Get you saved and then they go on to somebody else. They just want those hands raised. No, no, no. Getting you saved is the start line. In racing we call it the start-finish line.

10:57 It is both. You finish living for yourself and now you're starting to live for God. And then you join his team. You're on his team. And then you're living for his purpose. To see if he can save the lost. Yeah. And I can tell you, I love the joy of seeing several truckloads of car wax going down the road. You know how that makes me feel? First time that started happening, I looked at how many bottles of car wax they rode in those trucks, and they're all going to one customer. They go to a lot of customers, but you've got several going to 13 truckloads.

11:42 Do you know what that does to me? Man, all that work, and it works, and people love our products. I mean, I go to Pebble Beach, the biggest car show, the most famous car show in the world. I've had a car on the lawn twice. I've never won the trophy. Imagine winning best of show, Pebble Beach. I don't care what the attribute is. Have your name on the trophy, be honored on the Capitol steps, whatever it is. It's gone in 60 seconds. Gone. Forever. Means nothing. The moment you die, it's important that a man wants to die and then the judgment.

12:25 That is over. You're focusing, folks, on things that are meaningless. I don't mean don't enjoy them. I enjoy them all. But they're temporal. And they're just a tiny little thing. I'm talking about eternity. I'm talking about spending eternity with God and eternity with our friends. The only thing that's eternal is accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior and our Lord. I say there's two things in our life that are important. One, making that decision. I pray you'll make that decision now before it's too late. We're going to run out of time, folks. There's a clock ticking.

13:06 We don't know what tomorrow holds. Make that decision today. Go to seekinggod.org. Can I advertise that right quick? If you haven't accepted it yet, go to seekinggod.org. Accept Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior. And the second is likened to it. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. It is love God, receive his gifts of eternal life. Take as many people to heaven as possible with you before we run out of time. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please let us know. Subscribe now to continue receiving my podcast and add your comments to help us attract more viewers. See you next time on the Ignite with Barry McGuire podcast.