Rising Above a Shallow Christian Faith

Well, if you would, go ahead and take your Bible and turn with me to the Book of Colossians, the Book of Colossians, chapter 3. Now our primary verses out of the Book of Colossians will be just two, verses 1 and 2, although I'm going to reference quite a few other verses, several other scriptures, and I want to give you some instruction here. Don't try to follow me. I don't want you to turn here and there and everywhere and then miss what I'm trying to say and share. So I always encourage you to take notes, develop that habit.

If you're a guest here, one of our habits is to take notes, write down what the Lord shows us, pray over those as we go into the week and allow the Lord to develop fully what He wants to share with us. So if you have any questions about our notes, where we're going, I'm glad to share those with you and help you because we want to help facilitate your spiritual growth. Now as you know, this is Graduate Recognition Sunday. It's a wonderful time that we have in the life of our church and my primary target in the message this morning will obviously be our graduates. Now I'm not trying to just single them out and embarrass them.

I just want the Lord to minister through the Word to them. Now my secondary target will be our other young people. Now if you're a teenager here, maybe you're a sophomore in high school, even in junior high school, I really want you to listen. I want you to follow Brother Chris. I want you to take notes because what I'm going to share can prepare you for your years to come as well. Now after our young people, I want the message to speak to all of us this morning. Adults, you can greatly benefit from the message, especially you parents.

If parents, I would encourage you to jot these things down and pray over them for your young people no matter how old they are. So there are going to be times when I speak to different audiences. I'm going to speak to our young people, speak to you as parents, and then speak to us as adults. And I want to encourage you to follow along in the message to be attentive and to remember that we are putting ourselves under the authority of God's Word. Now you are graduates. You desperately need to see that you are on the cusp between your current familiar life and an unfamiliar chapter, a new chapter in your life.

You are stepping into your future which will come at you faster and faster and faster and faster. I see some adults nodding their heads. You will begin to experience change in your life, in your own life. You will observe change in the others around you. Those of you who are your age, this change will be slow and small at first but will become more pronounced as time moves on. Simply, you are stepping into a whole new world with a whole new set of challenges which will reveal more and more of who you truly are.

As you venture into this new chapter, this new world, you are carrying with you a form of Christianity and that Christianity will be tested and proven for what it truly is. You will see others, peers, those around you, conformed to different forms of Christianity. Hopefully this will not happen to you. Now I'll probably start up a question. Are there different forms of Christianity? There are. I want a list for you, explain that for you, help you in that. First of all, I want you to see and I want you to understand that there are some who will abandon the faith totally. Now they've never been saved. They don't have a form of Christianity.

Maybe they have a faith that they have inherited from their parents. Maybe they just tagged along all these years. But listen graduates, you are going to see maybe even some of your friends abandon the faith altogether. Some of us who are a little older, we have seen that. We've been down that road. We have experienced those disappointments. And I want you to see what the Word of God says about those. First John chapter 2 verse 19 says, "They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out." In other words, they left the church.

They left the fellowship of the believers that it might become plain that they are not of us. What is the Apostle John saying? He's saying to the church, "Listen, when those who claim to be Christians abandon the faith and they go out into the world, they are proving who they really were." Just words, a charade, hypocrisy. And you will see people abandon the faith. Second, I want you to see, graduates, that you will notice there are some who will become what I am calling "worldly Christians." What I am calling "worldly Christians." And this is in epidemic proportions today. Now let me explain what these people do.

These people will leave their homes. They will leave the authority of their parents. And they will begin to conform to the world. They will want to dress like the world. They will want to listen to the world's music. They will want worldly entertainment. They will decorate their bodies like the world. And listen, they will claim to be Christian, but they will want to relate to the world and they will live like the world in every aspect of their life other than the fact that they will carry their Bibles and they will say that they love the Lord. Actually they don't love the holy life.

Actually they don't love the deep things of the Word of God. They have a form of Christianity that they have adopted to the world. They must relate to the world. The book of Jude talks about these people. Verse 4, Jude says, "For certain people have crept in unnoticed." See, they crept in the church, "who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of God into sensuality and they deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ." These people have crept into the church and what do they do? They pervert the grace of God into a license for sin and they say they have Christian liberty.

Now let me ask you a question. Who told them they could live like that? The Word of God does not. Listen young people, when you see people like that, they are worldly Christians and they are lost and they are without Christ and look, they have gone out and their choices and their actions prove who they really are. They are not Christians at all. And then second, I want you to see that there are some who will become what I call shallow Christians. These are true Bible Christians. They have been converted, but they are shallow in their faith.

Now within the church world, within the world of true Bible Christians, this is an epidemic problem as well. Paul dealt with this in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. There is that church there in Corinth that had so many problems. And he is writing to them and he loves them and he says, "I've got these deep wonderful truths that I want to tell you, but I can't. You're shallow." 1 Corinthians 3 verse 1, Paul says, "But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh," what does he say? "Infants in Christ." They are shallow Christians. So what am I showing you?

This morning I want to help you see that there are different types of quote-unquote Christianity out there. And this morning I want to help you avoid becoming any of these three. I want to make an important statement of explanation before I continue and listen. My categorization needs to be understood. Those who abandon the faith are not Christian. Those who are what I call worldly Christians are not Christian. And those who are shallow Christians are true Christians. They're just infants in the faith. Now, this inevitably stirs up another question. Can a Christian become worldly? We know the Scriptures teach that, but they can.

This chapter, chapter 3, 1 Corinthians, Paul is dealing with that. But their problem was they were infants in Christ. So I want us to turn over to our passage this morning, and that is the book of Colossians, Colossians chapter 3. I'm going to read just these two verses. Colossians chapter 3, Paul says, "If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God." Just to set your mind on things above, not on the things that are on earth. Now, real quickly, real simply, I want to give you some background.

I don't want to pull a passage out of its context without helping you understand the context. The Apostle Paul is writing to this church at a town called Colossae. This is not a church that Paul started. It might sound strange to you. Paul started so many. It seems that this work was begun by a man named Epapras, and we learn all about Epapras starting in chapter 1. Most Bible scholars believe that Epapras was a layman, and he was evangelized when Paul was Ephesus, and he went back to his hometown, to his own people, and he began this work. But the church had problems, major problems.

And it seems that Epapras has come to Paul, who was an apostle to the Gentiles, for help. Now, Paul's writing the letter to address the church and deal with the church problems. Now what were the problems? Chapter 2, verse 8 tells us that it appears that there were some who claimed this special spiritual knowledge. That was a problem. Chapter 2, verse 16, it appears that there were some who promoted legalistic religion. They lived by rules. And chapter 2, verse 18 says that there were some who had these spiritual, mystical experiences based in their emotions. And then in chapter 2, verse 20, it seems that he's dealing with legalism again.

These different problems within the church. But notice how Paul seems to address these. You don't have to turn there, but in chapter 2, verse 8, and verse 20, he calls these teachings. Now listen, elementary principles. And he says that this has caused them to be elementary, shallow. See? These problems in the life of the church have dawned these Christians down to shallow Christians. So we're going to divide these verses in Colossians, and when we receive some instruction that will help you and us and our graduates rise above a shallow faith.

Now at the end of the message, I'm going to call your attention to six areas of life, and I believe that if you are victorious in these verses and these six areas of life, it will allow you to rise above a shallow Christian faith. I think you've probably understood by now the title of the message, "Rising Above a Shallow Christian Faith." Here are the truths that we're going to divide right out of these two verses. The surety of conversion. The surety of conversion. Seek Christ with all your heart and set your mind on things above. Now when we get into these verses, we will see what Paul is doing.

We're going to see first that Paul is reminding, and then he is commanding. Again, he is calling these Colossian Christians to rise above a shallow Christian faith, which should become very problematic in the life of the church. So let's look at our first main truth. I want us to see the surety of conversion. The surety of conversion. That's out of the first portion of verse one, "If then you have been raised up with Christ." Now here in this portion of verse one, Paul is reminding them of who they are. He is not questioning the validity of their salvation. Some can misunderstand that.

The New American, the English Standard Version, it reads, "If but the New International Version really captures the original meaning." The New International Version reads, "Since," which is a better translation. But notice what he is reminding them of, that they have been raised up with Christ. Paul uses a similar language in chapter two, verse 12. What does he say? "Having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised up with him." Very similar language. Now there are two observations right out of this small portion of verse one I want to make.

First of all notice, this verse, Paul's approach, presupposes that there was death. He presupposes that there was death. What does he say? "And if you have been raised up with Christ?" So what is he saying? "There was a day when you were not raised up with Christ." Paul is saying that they were once dead. And we see Paul teach man spiritual death all through the New Testament. I'll give you two examples in Ephesians chapter two verse one. What does he say to that Ephesian church, those Ephesian believers? "And you were dead in the trespasses and your sins." In other words, you were dead and you weren't raised.

And then probably the best verse that describes this condition is Romans 5-12. What does he say to the Roman church? "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man," who's that one man? That's Adam. "Just as sin came into the world through Adam and death through sin." Oh, there's the death. "And so death spread to all men because all men have sinned." Now if you understand the magnitude of what Romans chapter five verse twelve teaches, it is as if Paul is saying that mankind is double damned. They're damned because of the sin of Adam and they're damned because of their own sin. But what does this help us see?

That men without Christ are dead. And Paul presupposes death here. Then if you have been raised up with Christ, prior to that, they were dead. Second, this verse supposes new life. Paul is saying that they have been raised up in new life. If then or since then you have been raised up with Christ, we know Christ is alive. When these men and women, these people are with Christ and they are raised up in new life. If one is dead and he's been raised up, well, that's a new life. Paul teaches this in second Corinthians chapter five verse seventeen. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ," what does he say? He is a new creation. The old has passed away.

That's the dead man. Behold, the new has come. That's the new life. That's the one who is raised up in Christ. And then the third observation is, notice that this is centered in Christ. Since then you have been raised up with Christ. Christ is the center of it all. Paul is saying, "With Christ." You are in union with Christ. He is saying that you are raised in Christ, raised with Christ. Paul is saying that those who are truly Bible Christians are in union with Christ in his death and in his new life.

I go back to second Corinthians or excuse me Colossians 2.12, "Having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised up with him through life, through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead." So here we see Paul is reminding them of their conversion. He is reminding them of their conversion. He is sure of their conversion. This is not a commitment that they made to Christ. No, that's not what they did. This is not praying to receive Christ. No, that is not what these Colossian Christians did. They did not ABC into a new life. No, that is not what took place.

This is a supernatural work of God by which they were dead and now they are spiritually living. They needed reminding of this because it was their primary motive for receiving the commands that he is going to give. They were once dead but they received not just life, a new life in Christ. They became one with Christ. Now in application I want to ask two questions. First to our graduates, have you been raised into a new life with Christ? This is Bible Christianity young people. All through the scriptures you find language just like this.

I know that I have cut against the grain of lots of cultural Christianity praying to receive Christ, the ABCs, making a commitment to Christ. You don't find any of that language in the scriptures. I preach and teach like this regularly. But my question for you young people is have you been raised to a new life in Christ? I am not asking if you have made a profession of faith. I am not asking if you have prayed to receive Christ. Listen, I am asking is if you have experienced a supernatural work that could not have happened unless God did that. You were raised. I want to speak to you as parents as well. I don't want to let you off the hook.

Has this happened to you? Whether your children are in the first grade or graduating from high school right now, the kind of parent you need to be is a parent who has been raised with Christ. We are inundated with cultural Christianity. We are inundated with professions of faith. We are inundated with the come down front, take the preacher by the hand, pray this prayer and listen, so many people have done that in our culture and you know what I know, they do not have a changed life. I am talking about a miracle upon miracles where a dead man was made alive again. Mom and Dad, has that happened to you? God has you here to ask this question.

Now second question is do you and I need to be reminded that we were once dead? Listen, true Christian, this has happened to you. Are you like these Colossians? You just need a fresh reminder of the fact that you were an enemy against God. You were a rebel against everything good and honorable and noble. You were a rebel against the word of God and you were headed straight to a devil's hell and you deserved it but yet God intersected in your life and He saved you and praise God. You went from being dead to raised to a new life.

If that's happened to you, you need to be reminded and I think we need to be broken to the very core of our being so that we would be motivated by a great love for Him to obey the commands that He would give us, no matter what. So what do we see? The surety of conversion. Let's move on. Second main truth, I want us to move on to the second portion of what Paul is doing here. Now here Paul moves from the reminder and he moves to some commands. Now this is the first of two parallel commands and they're back to back. Now these are not synonymous, meaning they are not the same.

These are two commands that deal with two different aspects of a man's being. So number two, I want us to see out of the second portion of verse two, seek Christ with your heart. Let's go back to the verse. Since then you have been raised up with Christ. There's that conversion, the miraculous work of God. Here's the command, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Now you will notice that this word heart, which I'm using is not mentioned here. There's an inference here from Bible translators. You'll run across this if you do some study.

The new international version uses the word heart and that is not inaccurate. Now what is the case here? Bible translators, Bible commentators believe that Paul was speaking to the affections of the Christians mind and heart and life. And what he's saying is with your heart, with your love, with your affections, I command you to keep seeking the things which are above. Three observations real quickly here. First, I want you to see that this verb communicates a continuous seeking. The new American has it right because it says keep seeking these things.

The construction of the language means Paul was saying keep seeking and keep seeking and keep seeking. Do it on Monday, do it on Tuesday, do it on Wednesday, do it when you feel good, do it when you don't feel good. Keep on seeking if it's difficult or if it's easy. So he says keep on seeking. Third, notice that Christ is at the center here. Since then you've been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated. Christ is the center of this action. Paul says this is where Christ is. And then third, notice that Christ is in a position of authority because what does it say?

Keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Christ is seated at the right hand of God, all power and authority has been given to Him. So notice what Paul is commanding right here. It seems he is speaking to the heart of these truly converted people. He is stirring up their affections for Christ and he is commanding them to seek the things above where Christ is seated with all power and authority. Now let me give you a warning here. You cannot do this unless you do it with a heart motivated by love. And you can't have a heart motivated by love unless you're converted. Now a question. What are these things?

That has to be answered. Keep seeking the things above. What are they? I'm going to attempt to answer that question and maybe this list is incomplete. I think it's fairly thorough because these things are with Christ. So if they are heavenly things, these things must be eternal things because they are with Christ. First, I believe what Paul is talking of is seeking the Word of God. The Word of God is eternal people. Books that men write come and go, but the Word of God is eternal. Second, I want us to see, I believe that he is talking about kingdom work, true kingdom work, which is the work of the church.

I say this repeatedly in the life of our church. If you want to find the center of God's activity on earth, you find a Bible believing, Bible believing church. A lot of churches claim to be Bible believing, but the church is the center of God's activity on earth. That's kingdom work and it is with Christ in heaven as well. And the third thing I want you to see that I believe he's talking about is good deeds. Did you know that your good deeds are stored up in glory and you'll be rewarded for the deeds done in the body?

As a matter of fact, 1 Corinthians 2 says that the fire will be put to your life and those things that are of the flesh, those things that you do on your own, they're wood, hay, and stubble, they'll be burned up. But eternal works, kingdom works, good deeds according to the scriptures will live forever. And then fourth, this one might surprise you, but the prayers of the saints. Revelation chapter 5 says that there is a bowl in heaven that is a sweet aroma to the Lord and it is the prayers of the saints. So what am I showing you? Christ is the center of it all. He is saying keep seeking.

Paul is saying I command you to seek morning, noon, and night. Seek these heavenly things and he's saying seek the word of God, seek the kingdom of God, which is the work of the church here in this day and time. Seek true Christian deeds and pray and seek to learn how to pray. Paul is commanding them and with all of their heart, all of their affections, and all of their love, he says seek after heavenly things and Christ is the center of it all. Now an application, graduates, I want to say this to you. If you are truly converted, there is something right now within you that desires these things.

As brother Chris has been going through these things, if you are truly converted, your heart swells within you, maybe there are tears that come to your eyes and you are saying within you, yes, yes, I want those things. There is a spiritual desire within you that says I need it, I want it, I like it. But if you're not converted, you can't. You must with all your heart seek the word of God, the work of the church, Christian deeds and prayer. You have heavenly things. Now moms, dads, adults, where do you stand in this? As I've been going through this list, what is the spirit of God done within your heart?

Maybe there's been a big dividing line and you are realizing, wait a minute, I don't hunger after those things. I don't want those things. If you don't have a desire for those things, you might not be converted. I love you enough to tell you that. It does not matter if you're 19, 39 or 99, if you do not have a desire for these things, the word of God, the work of the church and true Christian deeds and prayer. Because listen, if you don't desire prayer, how can you be one with Christ? I'll go back to Paul's command.

We need commanding by an act of our will and with the help of the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, we must as true born again Christians decide to love these things above all. Let's move on. I want us to notice the third main truth. I want us to notice that Paul says set your mind on things above. Keep seeking the things with your heart where Christ is seated at the right end of God. Well verse 2, set your mind on the things above, not on the things of earth. Here you notice in this verse, the word mind is used. The word mind is actually part of the command in the original language.

Here Paul is moving away from the affections of the believers to their thinking. This is more than a simplistic way of thinking. This includes one's values as well as one's affections. One Bible commentator that I ran across said that this can be translated delight in the things that are above. But notice something different here in this second command. Paul strikes a contrast that he did not mention before. He contrasts the things above with the things of earth. So first what do we see? The things that are above.

The things that are within Christ and glory, the word of God, the work of the church, which is true kingdom work, the prayer of the saints. What do we see? That list that we have gone over. These are eternal things with Christ. And he says dwell on those things. Think on those things. Not just seek after them. And then second, these earthly things. What are these earthly things? I want to break this down into two areas of life. First sins of the flesh. Paul gives us that answer. If we skip on ahead in the scriptures, we see this in chapter 5, Colossians chapter 5 verse 3. What does he tell these same people?

He says put to death therefore what is earthly in you? See there's the earthly things. Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and covetousness, which is idolatry. Paul is saying these sinful things of the mind and of the flesh that are in your life, put these things to death. Die to those things. Second, I believe that Paul is talking about this evil world system that we live in. The apostle John shows us this in 1 John chapter 2 verse 15. And John says do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

This is referring to this evil world system which is governed by Satan and his demonic forces. John says don't love this evil place. And so what do we see? Paul is teaching, Paul is commanding them that they were to set their thinking, their mental energies on heavenly things and not on the things of earth. In essence they were to divorce and stay divorced from the things of earth. They were to think and love and seek after and dwell on heavenly things. Now graduates, teenagers, look at me. Look at Brother Chris. You need a good old fashioned black and white divorce from the things of the world. You need more than legal separation.

You need to divorce yourself from the world system and you need to divorce yourself purposefully from your evil desires. You need to evaluate your life, where you spend your time, how you look at movies and television and music and friends, how you relate to the opposite sex. Listen, you need to evaluate how you even look at the American dream. American dream says go out and get a good job, get all you can and when you get too old, sit on it. Do we really see that in the scriptures? We don't. Now listen graduates, I challenge you here. I'm not against retirement and I'm not against possessions.

The scripture says that Abraham had all things but the difference was all things didn't have Abraham. And look, you need to examine your life because you need to divorce yourself from your physical, sensual desires. That sinful flesh that will, if you let it run loose, it will destroy you. You hear me? Moms and dads, some of you with a little more gray hair than me, you're nodding your heads up and down because you know it. Now adults, parents, are you living your life this way? Or are we, what kind of example are we studying for our young people? I had a dear friend say it like this, what our parents do in moderation, we do in excess.

Do you want your teenagers, do you want your children to take the way you live and live it in excess? Now in conclusion, I'm stepping away from the message, from the text that we see Paul, he is using, he's calling these truly converted people out of a shallow faith. He's saying all this bad stuff is just weak in your faith and he's calling them out. He is reminding them that they were once dead and now they are raised with Christ. What great motivation. And now he commands them to set their hearts affections on Christ and on heavenly things.

He adds a layer and he commands them to set their thinking, their delights on eternal things and not on earthly things. Now as I said earlier in the message, I want to address six areas in your life. I want to move away from the scripture, the message within the scripture and I want to move into six areas of your life. Where we have the motivation to the command and if we implement what Paul teaches us here in these verses and specifically apply this approach, this Colossians verses one and two out of chapter three.

If we take that and apply it to these areas of our life, I believe you and I and graduates you will rise above a shallow Christian faith. And I want you to write these down. Adults, mom's dads, especially you graduates. The first area, develop a strong prayer life. Turn off the television, throw away the video games, get up early, stay up late, develop a prayer life, go outside in the woods, get up in the attic, get in the car and drive down to a vacant lot. Do whatever you got to do. If you love the Lord and you've been converted, develop a prayer life. Listen you in the life of this church, you can walk with God on our coattails.

But listen young people, develop a prayer life. Do whatever you have to do. Lock yourself away, get in the closet and say, "Lord, I can pray five minutes but I'm going to stay here until you teach me how to pray." Listen, you will never be worth a plug nickel in the spiritual things and in the world in which you're going into unless you can pray. Now prayer is our communion with God and prayer is when God speaks back to us and prayer is that supernatural, mystical, wonderful thing by which He changes our hearts. I'll give you a good example. I've used this before in my youth ministry days. I had some young people who did love God.

I would always get calls from time to time from parents and I got a call from my mom one time and she thanked me. She said, "Brother Chris, thank you for this and that and thank you for how you've ministered to my son." She said, "I need some help here." I said, "Yes, ma'am." She said, "Every Saturday we have yard day.

We have a nice yard and home and all of us have to pitch in and our son's job is to get up early and weed eat as well as other things." She said, "I hesitate to say this but it's gotten to where he comes later and later and we ask him when is he going to come and he says he is spending time with the Lord." She said, "Normally we meet at eight." She said, "It gets later and later and later." She said, "I'm not against him praying and spending time with God but could you try to help me so that he can do his fair share of work around the house?" I said, "Yes, ma'am, I sure will." What was he doing? Developing that prayer life.

And listen, that prayer life is one of the greatest things that molded him into a great man of God today. Develop your prayer life. Take it area of your life, might sound strange to some, but seek after a Paul in your life. Seek after a Paul in your life. Now what was Paul? Paul was a great man of God who molded other men of God. Specifically, there were two that stand out in scripture. Two of the best that he had, Timothy Titus. What did he do with Timothy? He took Timothy and he stuck him off in a bad church and had a lot of problems and said, "Fix them," and he left. He put Titus on an island called Crete.

Most Bible commentators think there were multiple churches. He said, "Fix them." But what did he do? The great Paul replicated himself in other men. Now listen, graduates. Find a Paul and stick to them like glue. Find a man of God who walks with God head and shoulders above everybody else around you and identify with that man and lock up with that man until you get all you can get out of his life. Because without a Paul, where would any of us be? Now I want to give you a warning here. This is a trap that many Christians fall into today. You cannot have a Paul who is a celebrity Christian or a celebrity pastor or a celebrity preacher.

When you're having difficulties in your late end of the night and you don't know what you're going to do, is that celebrity preacher going to drive over to your house and get on his knees with you and pray with you? Does that celebrity preacher know you and know your habits, know your strengths and know your weaknesses? Is that celebrity preacher speaking to your life? Is that celebrity preacher God appointed to walk by you in your life? No. Those things are supplementary. Those are good things. But they're not the main thing. Now I want to address you. Adults, do you have a Paul in your life?

For some of you, not having a Paul in your life is what's hindering you right now. Maybe God's put a Paul in your life and you are just three or four or five steps away and you shouldn't be. The third area of your life is be committed, commit your life totally to the church. Now I have to say this with a little warning, not just any church. There are a lot of man centered churches. There are a lot of churches that I'm telling you I wouldn't walk across the street to go in the door and I hate to sound arrogant. You be real careful here. You find a church, maybe you move away, you examine the spiritual leaders of the church.

Let me tell you something. If the spiritual leaders are not men of God, it's like getting in a Cadillac with a drunk. They're going to hit the ditch eventually. I'm serious and you're going to get hurt. Find a church that's governed by men of God who love God and they will lay their life down for the church according to the word of God. And you examine what they preach. Do they preach the word of God? You examine how they deal with conversion because if they leave people down these little trivial tricks that people do where the numbers just go higher and higher, they are sending people to hell.

You find a church that's governed by men of God and look, we will help you there. And here along in this line, listen, this commitment to the life of the church, don't be quick to give up on the Old Baptist Church. You might not have a lot of the bells and the whistles, but we've got many things right. And I am so thankful and I'm going to tell you it took many years to get to where we are today for me. The fourth area is the area of friendships. Now I'm going to be honest with you here, young people. Graduates run from shallow friends.

If you hang around friends and all they do is play video games and all they do is chase hobbies and all they do is chase the things of this world, you know what you're going to be? Just like they are. What does the Scripture say in Corinthians? Bad company corrupt good morals. See we always think that means don't hang out with those who drink and smoke and chew. Don't hang out with those because they'll corrupt your morals. No, you can be corrupted. That's what happened to the Colossian church. This junk came in and corrupted them and it diluted their faith. Young people.

Find friends who love God and they want to seek God exactly like what I've talked about. You might look around and be all alone. I watched someone in my family experience this recently. Young man who loves the Lord, walks with God, does many of these things I'm talking about very well. And I watched him. He got ready to go off to college and some of his church friends were getting an apartment. He went, looked at the apartment, talked with them, began to pray about it. He said no, I can't do that.

And he came back later and he talked about how they were shallow Christians and he stayed at home in that little room that he lived in and what did he do? Pray and sought the Lord all alone. Watch out for shallow, superficial friends. The fifth area that I want to speak to is the area of sexual purity. I wish I had more time to speak to this, but listen to me. You got one shot to do this right. You get one shot at marriage. This is a slippery slope that if you put one foot on, you're going to go head first down and it's going to crash and burn. Keep yourself pure at all costs.

And let me tell you, whether you call it dating or courtship, it really doesn't matter what you call it. It matters how you do it. It does. Listen, it matters. No, but you can be involved in a courtship relationship and you can be inflamed with lust and you know what that'll do? Destroy you. Listen to Brother Chris. You pray and you walk with God and you get on your knees before God and you say, "God, I want a mate, but I only want a mate that loves you." And you wait. Even if you have to wait year after year after year, you get one chance to do it right. You know, one of the difficult things that me and Ms.

Christie have to deal with is those students that we had years ago having to counsel them through the difficult marriages that they're in now because they didn't do this right. The sixth area is your career. Now, graduates, you're looking at your career face first. Some of you think, "I don't know what I'm going to do. That's okay." Here's what I challenge you to do. When you find that secret place, I challenge you to go and close the door and get on your knees and look to heaven and say, "God, you've given me health. You've given me intelligence. You've given me opportunity. You've given me youth." I give it all back.

I challenge you to look to heaven and say, "Lord, whether I drive a garbage truck or a space shuttle, I want to do it because you called me to do it." It doesn't matter if you're rich. It doesn't matter if you're poor as Job's turkey. If you're doing what God's called you to do, you'll be used for the kingdom of God. And we need young people who will go out into the world and not say, "What can the world do for me?" But who will go out into the world and say, "What can I do in the world for Christ?" So look at these six areas. Develop a prayer life. Seek a Paul in your own life. Commit your life to the church.

Run from shallow friendships that will just envelop you. Remain sexually pure until God gives you the mate that He has for you. And then have a career that God's called you to and burn up for Jesus. And let me tell you, when you get to the end of it all and you're breathing your life's last, you'll look up and say, "God, I did it right." Now adults, some of you need to examine these areas of your life. I used to work with a fella and he had some interesting sayings and he said it like this, "When you throw a rock in the dog pen, the dog that hollers is the one that got hit." I think some of you adults got hit this morning.

You might say, "Preacher, it's too late. It's never too late." You might suffer the ramifications of doing some of this wrong, but it's never too late. Now what are we looking at? Rising above a shallow Christian faith. Now I'm going to close by being personal. Corbin, Wiggins, Melanies, and I are here. I say that to her. All of you young people from first grade all the way up. God's brought Brother Chris here, Miss Christie here, Brother Keith, Miss Teresa. God's brought you a godly, strong church and we're here for you. We're here for you and we want to see you do it right. Let's pray.