It's a plea to you to not waste your life, but instead to follow God fully. You know, there are certain times in our lives when our lives are at a crossroad. And the direction we take is absolutely critical. And you, dear young people, are at that time right now. The direction you take in the next few years will determine, for the most part, the future of your life. What school you go to, who you marry, what kind of job you get. All staple items for the rest of your journey. I just wanted to ask you one question tonight. Studying tonight, what will you do? with the rest of your life. You know, I asked that question to a man sitting next to me on an airplane two years ago. He was, he looked like he was about 70, but he told me he was 50. That surprised me. And I said, Gilmore, what are you doing? And he said, well, I'm retired. And I was, in my 50s at the time. I said, you're retired at 50. What are you going to do with the rest of your life? This is what he answered me. I'm going to golf in Florida. I said, you're what? He said, I'm going to golf in Florida. For the rest of your life? Don't you think you'll get bored?" I asked him. Well, to tell you the truth, I'm getting bored already. It's only been four months, but I might try to find something else to do to kill time. I said, what? To kill time? Time is more precious than money. What in the world do you want to kill time for? I said, Dear friend, what do you live for? He said, well, you probably don't want to hear this because I know you're a minister, but I live for myself. You live for yourself? You have a world that small and you just live for yourself? I said, my friend, I hope you don't take it as an insult. I feel sorry for you. I live for the God of the universe. You're going to kill time. You're going to spend the rest of your life golfing in Florida. I said, I'm Jane. It's vain. You feel it, don't you? What about you tonight? See, you have a choice. You have a choice tonight to look at the rest of your life and say, you know what? I'm just going to go with the stream. I'm going to be like a dead fish swimming downstream. A dead fish in a living church. I'm going to be one of those nominal Christians that warms the pew. I'm not going to rock the boat with my parents. I'll be pretty decent. Not rebellious. I'm going to do pretty good school. I'm going to be pretty popular. I'm pretty decent at sports. I've got a cool car. I've got a great girlfriend, boyfriend. My friend, if you don't have God, and God is not your life, and Jesus Christ is not the center, right now you are wasting your life. If God were to awaken you tonight, and I hope He does if you're not saved, you will look back on your 15 years, your 18 years, your 21 years, and you will say, I've wasted all those years. God began with me when I was 14. And one of the most overwhelming things to me was that I wasted 14 years of my life. And these sweet little ladies at church would come up to me and say, oh, it's so wonderful that you've been converted at the age of 14. So young. I say, young? I look him in the face and it amazes me. Young? I've wasted 14 years of my life. Why don't you waste another week? God puts you on this earth for one purpose. One purpose only. You don't have to ask. What direction shall I take? The purpose is to glorify God. And if you're not glorifying God, if God's not the center of your life, if He's not your north point, your needle compass, your guide, you're wasting your life. At best. And at worst, you're headed for hell. And I'm here to appeal to you tonight. It doesn't need to be that way. You don't have to waste your life. You don't have to waste another week. You know, when I was 14, if you looked at me at that time, if you're unsaved, you probably would say that I had everything going for me. Quite frankly, I don't say this to brag in any way. There's nothing to brag about. But I was popular at school. I had good grades. I was the best. in sports. I was... I could get pretty decent girls. You see, I could do all these things, but they were empty to me. Do you understand? And when God stopped me, I saw how vain this was. How futile. That was a waste of my life. So that's why I'm here tonight. To sit before you. A different way. I want you to go for the rest of your life the way of the minority. Not the way of the majority. And really live. Live for the purpose for which you are created. When I was 13 years old, my dad took me on. He was a carpenter. He took me on the job for the first summer. Older brothers were always working for him. The very first day on the job, he did something that I thought was really childish. He took me over to some wood, some nails, a saw and a hammer. This is what he said. He said, Tom, I want you to remember, you don't ever nail home a nail with a saw because the saw won't nail it home. Use a hammer for the nails and don't ever try to use a hammer to saw a board, you know, use a saw to saw the board." I said, forget I know that. He goes, do you know why I'm telling you this? I said, no. He said, what life is like. As long as you don't glorify God, you are trying to nail home a nail with a saw and you're trying to saw a board with a hammer. Because you're missing the purpose for which God put you here on earth. You are failing in everything. You can have straight A's in school and a straight F with God. Don't waste your life. You see, here's the point. If God is the living God, and every one of you in your conscience know He is, and the Bible is true, and I hope that everyone in your conscience knows it is, then it's worth everything. Isn't it? If God made you and you have to stand before him on the Judgment Day, then he's worth living for, he's worth dying for, then your relationship with God and through him your relationship with others is everything. If God isn't God, if the Bible's not true, then the whole thing's a sham. But it's one or the other. And I assure you, I assure you, it's not a sham. I've had the privilege of speaking in my lifetime, certainly, to well over a million Christians. And I've never met a Christian in my life who has ever said to me, I'm sorry I spent so much of my life serving the Lord. I'm sorry I put so much time and energy to this empty thing we call prayer that's just a sham. But I tell you, I've met many, many seniors who've said to me, if only I hadn't wasted my life. If only when I was young, I had sought and served the Lord with all my heart. What are you doing right now in your own mind, in your own life? Can you say it before God? Lord, You know that I feel my own sin. I don't serve You so heartily as I desire to, but You know my desire. You know all things. You know I love You. You know I want to serve You. You know I don't want to waste my life. You want to grow with God. You want to have real meaning in life, real joy, real purpose. Then, by the grace of God, say today, God helping me for the rest of my life, I will seek Him, serve Him, love Him, center on Him, bow down on Him, glorify Him, end in Him, live to Him. Search His Word. I will really live. That's my goal. I don't want to waste my life. Now, what I want to do this evening is I want to pursue this theme through this amazing story about Caelum. Caelum is an amazing man. He followed God fully. If you look with me at verse 24 of Numbers 14, a little bit beyond what we read, you read this amazing statement, that my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully, him will I bring into the land where unto he went, and his seed shall possess it. Caleb, you remember, was one of two spies who brought a minority report. about the land of Canaan. You remember, Charles Spies was sent on a scouting mission into Canaan. And you remember what happened. The Spies came back, and they all agreed on two things. They all said, the land is amazing. And they all said, the land is filled with giants. The sons of Adak, eight foot six, are there. They're giant warriors. Now, the Ten looked at those facts and said, you know what? We cannot go into the land. We must stay out. We cannot follow God. We cannot follow His promises. He told us to go into the land. We can't do that. They looked at the circumstances around them and they said, the Giants are too big. We're just little grasshoppers. We, six million strong, cannot fight the giants of Anak. The two, Joshua and Caleb, said, same thoughts. We must spear into the land, because God has promised if we go into the land, we will get the victory. He will give us the land. And we will live for him on that land and glorify him as a people set apart for his praise. And they are bread for us. That is, we will surely get the victory because God has promised it. We must go in at once. Not wait a day. We must move fully for the Lord today. That's the point. So Caleb was a man, a man of God, who followed God fully. Not half-heartedly, but fully. And that is what God demands of each one of us. This is the only way to live. Don't live half-heartedly. God hates fiend living, fake living. He hates lukewarmness. He says to the church on the way out at sea, if you're lukewarm, I feel like spewing you present-day language, spitting you out of my mouth. I detest it. Am I not worth living for? If I'm worth living for, I'm worth living for with your whole life. So that raises the question, what does it mean to live fully for God? What does it smell like? What does it look like? It doesn't mean that all the guys are supposed to become ministers, and all the girls are supposed to become ministers. What? It means, rather, that we are to follow God, whatever line of work we pursue, whatever providence lays in our path, in obedience and a fulsome way, always asking, Lord, what do you want me to do? Now, to follow God fully, therefore, is a way of life. It's a way of thinking. It's a way of getting up in the morning and saying, I get to live for the Lord today. Isn't that exciting? It's a way of going through the day, praying your way from one event to another. Lord, help me here. Lord, help me there. Help me to glorify thee in this situation. Bring someone across my path, Lord, today, so I can speak a good word for you. You see, it's a way of life. It's a way of life that begins when you get born again. Just like Saul, on the way to Nepal, named Saul then, on the way to Nazareth. You know what happened. The Lord shuts him down, right? At night. And then, what does he say? Lord! As soon as he gets struck down and his conscience is tender, he says, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? You see, that is to live fully for God. What do you want me to do, God? I want to be in your way. I want to be in your circle. I want to be in your favor. I want to walk in the ways of God. Now, here's something. I wish I could write this with an iron pen in your heart. You never forget it. To walk in the favor of God in a poor, Poor cottage is a much happier life than to walk without the favor of God in a palace. Some of you know I had a niece in this area named Victoria who got mauled by dogs. It's a miracle she's alive. It's a miracle she's alive. She's five years old, sweet as can be. We love her. She said to her mom a couple weeks ago, and she's recuperating. She's got the marks all over her legs. Her legs will never be right. She said, Mommy, I'd rather have all these owies and have God and have no owies and not have God. You understand that God is everything. David said, Thy favor, O God, is more than life. More than life. It's everything. So to follow God fully, first of all, you need to be born again. You see that in this verse tonight. There was another spirit within him. Within Caleb. Caleb had the Holy Spirit guiding him, rather than just his own human spirit. The Holy Spirit of faith, rather than the human spirit of unbelief. And that Holy Spirit is available to everyone who asks for it, of God. That's what the Bible says. You too can have that Holy Spirit. And that Holy Spirit can give you the grace you need to repent of your sin and to believe the Gospel, to hate sin and wilderness and to love the Savior, to lose your own righteousness and find it all, all your righteousness in Jesus Christ. So if you're not a Christian, that's where you need to begin. Repentance, okay. What began with predestination and other things like that? George Whitefield said, you need to go to the Grammar School of Repentance and Faith before you go to the University of Predestination. That will come later. Right now, your business is to get on your face before God, repent of your sin, and believe in His Son alone for salvation, and you begin to live. The Holy Spirit can do that for you. He's more willing to do it than you are to have it done. So you can't begin to follow God without conversion, much less following Him fully. But that raises the question then, how does a Christian, someone who is born again, who has repented and believed the gospel, how does he follow God fully, or she? Because, you see, sad to say, many Christians today aren't following God fully, and they're living far below the level that God wants them to live. I'm sure the crowd decides there's some backsliding Christians sitting here tonight. What a tragedy! To be a Christian, to be backsliding. You're not living fully for God. It's like you're alive and you're not alive. It's like you're alive but you're half dead. Your life isn't a vibrant testimony. Your life's not a light on a hill and sand on the earth. You see, the message just doesn't come down to it. It comes to believers. This is the way to live. Follow God fully. Don't waste your life. So again, how do you do that? Well, I have four things I want to say about that. The first is this. To follow God fully means to follow God consistently. There are many people today who Follow God, one 19th century writer called it, in fits and starts. You know what it's like. You're in church on Sunday. Minister seems to have a very good day. Gets two good sermons into you. Impresses you. You go home and you say, wow, this is the way to live. Tuesday night, you're out with your friends. A few of them are drinking. We're listening to music that really isn't helpful for your mind. But they're doing something that is risqué, maybe it's not terrible. But your impressions are gone. And you're living like the world. You're again like one of those dead fish just going with the stream. You don't even tell your friend, you know, can you turn that down? Can you turn it off? No, you just go along with the flow. It's like a roller coaster. You're up and you're down. You're up and you're down. And your life doesn't have clear-cut direction. Life isn't like Jonathan Edwards said. A Christian shouldn't have blinders on. You're like a horse who just goes in one direction. Glory of God! Glory of God! Glory of God! Your life isn't that way. You're not following God consistently. Some days, maybe. You say, well, it's not easy. It's hard. Well, of course it's hard. God never said the Christian life is easy. He said the Christian life is blessed. Every setup is easy. In fact, the more you follow God fully, the more challenging life becomes. Now, it wasn't easy for Caleb either. You think to live for 40 years in the wilderness from the time you're 45 years old to the time you're 85 years old, surrounded by 6 million unbelieving, for the most part, Israelites who are murmuring every day, You think it's easy to live in that atmosphere? It's tough. But Caleb followed God fully when he was 85 years of age. Joshua, Joshua 14, comes back and says of Caleb, he followed God fully all the days of his life. 40 years surrounded by murderers, and he didn't cave in to the peer pressure. What a hero of faith. Well, it begins, you see, with this conviction. I'm going to follow God fully, no matter what the cost. I'm going to follow Him consistently, by the grace of God. Secondly, to follow God fully means to follow God sincerely. Sincerely. It means following Him with all your heart. Because He is holy, and beautiful, and lovable, and worthy to be served. This means to be willing to sacrifice all for Him, to suffer through anything for Him. That's what Caleb did. And that's what you would do for someone you really love. If you've got a girlfriend or boyfriend that you really love a lot, or maybe you're newly married and just love your spouse, or maybe you're married, some of you, 30, 40, 50 years, and you love your spouse more and more and more. And you say, I'd do anything for her. Recently, it was a couple in our congregation, and the woman became very, very ill. The man had to give the rest of his life to care for his wife. I mentioned to him several times, now his wife is gone. The care he gave her was absolutely unbelievable. I mean, I'm talking about 24-7. Just love, love, love. This man loved his wife so much. He'd do anything for her. Anytime you'd say, well, it's really wonderful how you care for your wife. Oh, it's nothing. He'd say, absolutely nothing. It's an honor. It's a privilege. I cut off my joy to care for her. She's done so much for me. That's what he'd say. And you see, that's what a Christian says about God. I don't need credit for living completely forgotten. Oh, that's nothing. It's nothing. God has done so much for me. A thousand times more for me than I can ever do for him. I just want to throw in my widow's might into the treasury of the church and the kingdom of God on earth and just do what I can. See, that's what it means to follow God sincerely. You've got this wholehearted commitment, which gives you no credit at all because, well, of course, What other way is there to live? It's the only way. When I was young, my dad used to always say to us five kids, that was a really beautiful thing because he was respecting our mother. He said, you know, children, you can never repay your entire life what your mother has done for you. My dad died 19 years ago on the pulpit. He fell over and had a heart attack and was gone instantly. But my mother died only a few months ago. She was 92. And it fell to the lot of us children to care for the last years of his life. And my two sisters live in Kalamazoo, where my mother was. My sisters just waited on my mother day and night. And there's 17 people in the family that rotated to care for him, but she didn't want to go to nursing home, care for her 24-7 all the way until her death. She died in her own bed. There were a lot of people that came up to me and said, man, it's so beautiful, the way your family did this in the altar. And we said, as a family, we said, what? This is nothing. We had all kinds of help, and people just rotated, and there was nothing to do for our mother. I mean, my mother spent two hours a day, on an average, my dad told me, praying in secret for us. This has nothing to do for her. And so, yeah, my family consistently, sincerely took care of my mother. It would be crazy not to. He's so selfish. But you see, it's crazy not to live to the God who gave you everything. My mother gave me a lot, but God gives me a lot more. You know, you're looking at me right now. God gave you your eyes. Do you know that in your eyes there's billions, I'm sorry, millions of parts? Do you know that there's, I can't explain it, but there's ten million little parts, somehow, behind your eye, that live together in such a way that you can see color? Who gave that to you? Of course God did. Who's going to ask you what you did with your eyes on the Day of Judgment? Of course God is. How could you use your eyes to imagine sin, when God gave this to you? This beautiful thing of color, and you can see. And why would you? Why would you want to live in a dull, gray, black and white, kind of grayish, boring world that just loves sin, instead of the exciting, glorious, colorful world of serving the great, glorious God of the universe? Follow Him sincerely. Follow Him with all your heart. He's the reason. I was a young man. I was in the very last year in the United States where they had a lottery system. And if you got a low number, you had to go into the Army before the draft was voluntary. And I got a low number. So I quickly signed up for the Army Reserves, spent my six months in the Reserves. I came out, went to meetings for some years. But when I left the Reserves, the day I left, my boss came to me. And he said, well, son, he's just a big, big black man, very kind of fatherly figure. And he just kind of wrapped his arms around me and said, son, I hope the Lord, I hope, no, he said, I hope you make it out there. That's what he said, I hope you make it out there. And I go, what do you mean, sir? He goes, well, it's a bad world out there, you know. And we got Uncle Sam here to protect us, Uncle Sam being the governor. So we got a good stable living here. I got the God of the Universe. He's much bigger than I am, sir. To protect me, I'll be okay, sir. But thank you for your concern. You see, when you live to God with all your heart, sincerely, you know you're in the palm of His hand, you know He's not going to let you go, and you can wake up every morning with security. If everything's going to be alright, even the worst things, because all things work together for good to them that love God. And you believe that, if you live sincerely to God. You believe His own word. So that's what Caleb believed. So he's going to follow God no matter what. And you notice in these last verses that were read to you tonight. People were so upset with Caleb because, you see, the masses of the people are always going to believe the majority report rather than the minority report, especially if the minority report stands up for God. They get so angry that they're picking up stones to stone Caleb to death. I sometimes wonder, what would I do in that situation? You're facing a whole row of stoners, and to be stoned to death Not out of the question in those days. I mean, they did that to people sometimes. Maybe I would have said, hey guys, let's sit down at a table and talk about this problem. Maybe we can compromise a tab. Don't do this right away. Let's talk about this. I'll tell you what, maybe we can go in two weeks. We're going to Canaan in two weeks, okay? Two weeks. Give me some time. We'll talk about it. I'll try to persuade you, or you can try to persuade me, but let's just, you know, Postpone the appointment for a couple of weeks? No, no. Let's go in at once. We will follow God fully. Postponement is unbelief. The way, the road to hell, said Martin Luther, is paved with good intentions. If you leave this place tonight, you say, well, next week I'm going to seek God. It doesn't work. Next week, you're postponed again. Just like Felix. He said, go your way, Paul. When I have a convenient season, I'll call for you. Never came. Felix, by the way, historical sources tell us, ended up committing suicide in the mountains of Italy. He never, never truly responded to the gospel. You and I must follow God so sincerely that we would rather die than disobey. That's why Caleb did not flinch in the face of stones. That's why Daniel kept on praying when he knew that his enemies would see him praying and throw him in the lion's den. He'd rather die than disobey. To follow God fully, certainly, means to follow God holistically. Holistically. See, Caleb did pick and choose which commands of God he felt like doing. But he did whatever the Lord told him to do. This is a holistic, complete obedience. Now think of a pie for a moment, cut into eight pieces. One section, let's say it's the pie of your life. One section is your Sunday worship. One section is your friendships. One section is your hobbies. One section is the way you spend your free time. One section is school. One section is work and so on. You see, what Caleb is saying is I'm going to follow God fully in every single section. There's nothing in my life that's going to be outside of the purview of what it means to be a Christian. Everywhere I go, whatever I do, I'm doing as a Christian, to the glory of God. I have an old elder. Well, he retired from the eldership now. But he, every year, when I take a one-week vacation with my family, He'd come beside me and say goodbye. The last night shaking hands with the elders, he leaned forward. I don't know if the elders ever thought of it, but he leaned forward and he always whispered something in my ear. He always whispered the same thing every year. He said, remember, don't go incognito. Don't go incognito. What was he saying? He said, God is a Christian. or even on vacation as a Christian. See, whatever you do, there's only one life worth living, that is, as a Christian. And you see, what I'm saying to you tonight, and I hope you're grasping this, is that the only way to enjoy life is to enjoy it as a Christian. The road to happiness is not ever by seeking for happiness. Happiness is always a byproduct of holiness. The road to happiness is down holiness lane, living in obedience to God. That makes sense, doesn't it? How can you be happy when you're living for another purpose? How can I be happy when I'm trying to saw a board with a hammer? So you need a holistic view. Every area of my life I surrender, not 10%, not a tithe, but 100% to God. And I ask the Lord, how can I use my leisure time most for Thy glory? How can I relate to my friends most for Your glory? How can I live 24-7 for Your glory? I want to live every moment of my life for the glory of God. I use every gift I have, the few gifts I have, for that glory. Some of you know that seven or eight years ago, I was in Latvia, lecturing in systematic theology. It wasn't a big class, 20 students maybe from 10 or 11 different countries. They had all these headsets on. They were listening in seven different languages, simultaneous translations. And I went back to my room one night and opened the door. Before I could lock it, I had to lock it from the inside. Two men burst through the door. The first man hit me here, knocked me off balance. The other man was brandishing a knife. They were yelling stuff in Russian, which I didn't understand. All I could understand was mafia, mafia, mafia. And I'd been told all day, the day before, that if you're ever in the hands of the Mafia, you're a dead man. And I was a dead man. That's how I felt. They forced me on the ground. They tied me up on my back very, very tightly. My wrists, my feet, my eyes gagged me. And there I was on the floor facedown. Stood on my butt. They kept running a knife up and down my back and kept slapping my side of my face for the night. I want to tell you something at that moment. I was in that position for 45 minutes. I didn't realize it was a third man. And they were waiting on him because he took the key. They took the keys out of my pocket. They passed it down to the third man who was waiting outside. And he went over into the seminary and stripped the entire seminary of all of its computers. And he sent them all from the black market that very night. Of course, they took all my stuff as well, which was nothing. When I lay on that ground, I cannot tell you what happened to me. But promise after promise after promise about the blood of Christ cleansing all my sins flowed through my mind. More promises than I could quote to you right now. And an overwhelming sense of peace filled me. entire being that my soul was safe because, and only because, of the precious blood of Jesus Christ. And it was a peace that passed all understanding. In fact, in that 45 minutes, I dozed off to sleep once or twice. It was so peaceful. But there was a few moments where I started thinking about my family. And my hands, I said, were tied tightly behind my back. As soon as I started thinking about my family, and I started thinking, I want to be with my children longer, I want to be with my wife longer, I think, I started fearing a little bit, a numbness went up my... I thought it was a miracle at the time, later on the doctors explained this is perfectly natural when you get fear, fearful. Numbness would go up my hands, both of them equally, right up to my elbows. I said to myself, you fool, focus on Jesus Christ. And I look to Christ, and I commend my family to God, my seminary to God, my ministry to God. My life's work is over. Praise be to God. He's been gracious to me. He's given me the privilege of serving Him. He's washed me with His blood. I commend myself into Thy hands, Lord. I look forward to glory. It's ready to die. And when I was in that mode of fame, the numbness would just go right back down. Right off the end of my fingers. I was at peace. And then they left. And they left me in that condition. And I didn't know what to do, because I couldn't hardly move. And I did the lecture until 11 o'clock the following morning. I was all by myself. Nobody could hear me. I couldn't get the gag out of my mouth. I'm going to die here. I'm going to die here, not from them, but just because I can't move. So I worked on my wrists as hard as I could. And that really hurt myself more than they hurt me. And I finally got my wrists straight. And then, of course, I loosened myself. When I loosened myself and I suddenly realized, you've got to be kidding me. The whole time I was down on the ground, I didn't even plan to live. I was so sure I was going to die. But when I was alive and I stood up, I thought, I am alive. And at that moment, something so special happened to me, I can never forget it. It's as if God came to me. It's almost like He spoke verbally to me. I know He didn't. And I vowed at that moment, in sweet communion with God, to give every minute of the rest of my life to His glory. I wasn't like that. That wasn't my purpose before. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't like I was troubled at that moment. I mean, I've got enough sins in my life to repent my life long. Oh yes, just like you. But at that moment, it was special. And God showed me my purpose in glorifying Him in my life, is to bring Reformed experiential preaching through the seminary, through my church, through conferences, through books, through my family, to bring it everywhere around this globe that I'm able to bring it. That's my purpose for living to the glory of God. That would be different than your purpose. You need to find your own way here. How can God best use you? And at that moment, Vowed to God I would do this until my dying breath that he would grant it to me. And so when I wake up in the morning, I don't have to ask, what's the direction of my life? I know it. Today I live for the glory of God. Today I must promote, reform the experience of truth around the globe in one way or another. And so everything I do, you see, focuses on that one goal. And what I'm saying to you is this, when you live holistically this way, And your life isn't checkered, bouncing around. To the world, back to God. World, back to God. But you waste your life. And even the devotion you show to God is so checkered, so weak, so feeble, that you don't get much drive for it. You're just constantly, well, as one person put it, I've got enough religion and enough world both to make me unhappy. Because I'm sort of hanging in between. Sort of like the crowd in 1 Kings 18, right? When Elijah said, choose you this day whom you will serve. If God be God, follow Him freely. If Baal be God, then follow Him. But of course, Baal is not God. But the word that Elijah used in Hebrew is the written word for a bird in a tree that hops from branch to branch to branch to branch to branch aimlessly. Elijah is saying, get direction in your life. And you see, that's, if you're just a bird hopping from branch to branch, I mean, you've watched birds do that, you know, it's like you really have a purpose, right? Hop to the other branch, there's really something important to do. They sit there for a second, then they hop to the other one, they're just hopping all around, they're doing nothing. That's the way a lot of people live. That's what you call killing time. for no good purpose. They don't even know why they're doing what they're doing. They're just filling it up with things, hoping for some fun somehow along the way. I'll tell you what real fun is. Real fun is serving the Lord with all your heart. There's a joy in that that the world doesn't know anything of. When you do it holistically, when your whole life, when your whole life is designed for the glory of God, you'll have joy unspeakable. Fourthly, To follow God fully is to follow God exclusively. That is, to follow God fully means you can't follow anyone else. You know, have you ever heard about Paul? Paul was one of the most educated men in the world. He sat under the feet of Gamaliel, the number one teacher of his day. And Paul had tremendous talents and he had everything going for him. He was of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. And he said, I've come in everything but loss and dung that I may win Christ and know Him and the power of His resurrection. He said to the Corinthians, I've determined to know nothing among you, so Jesus Christ and Him crucify. Oh, but Paul, you could go off into philosophy. You could learn something. Paul, you've got so many capabilities. I mean it all in. I've got one goal, I'm going to spend the best energy of my life, the thrust of my life, to bring to you Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You see, Paul was exclusive in his devotion. And that's what our text says too tonight. Caleb is my servant, the text says. His whole life is, the Greek word for it is doulos, it's actually a willing slave. His whole life is slavishly, in a good sense, in a positive sense, devoted to me, surrendered, consecrated to me, soulless Christmas, Christ alone. This is my drive, this is my goal. I want to be an exclusive follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. Before I close, I want you to turn with me now to Joshua 14, verse 14. Will you do that, please? Joshua 14, verse 14. Caleb is now an old man. He's in his eighties. Joshua 14, 14 rewards him and says, it does so because He wholly followed the Lord, the God of Israel. Wouldn't it be neat, wouldn't it be wonderful, if when you are 85, you could look back and you could say, at the time I was 10, maybe some of you 5, maybe some of you don't even remember, because you always hated sin and loved Christ. Praise be to God for that. But wouldn't it be wonderful If some of you who don't love the Lord now could point back to this night and say, from that night to the end of my life, for the next 65 years, by the grace of God, I followed God fully. It was like a living fish swimming against a stream, not a dead fish floating with the stream. God changed my life. And what a joy it's been. to serve Him all my life. Don't wait. Don't waste your life. Caleb is blessed. And you know what? God also fulfilled His promises. Our text says in Proverbs 14, 24, "...him where I bring him to the land, whereunto he went, and his seed shall possess it." God preserved Caleb's life. The other people all died. I did the math for him. Did you know that Caleb saw 40 funerals on an average day? People dying like flies around him in the wilderness. 40 a day. But he kept living. He lived through the whole thing because God promised him. He preserved Caleb's life. He gave him the promise inheritance. He went into the land of Canaan. And he may give his children to follow in his steps in the promised land. That's a beautiful thing to see. If you follow God fully, there's a whole lot better chance, humanly speaking, God knows everything, that your children will follow God too. Because I see your example, and God will often use parents to bless children. So do you want a life that's really fulfilling? Really live to the glory of God? And to see your spouse and your children follow in the ways of the Lord? There's no better way than to follow God fully, by the grace of God, for yourself. And now, turn over one page, Joshua 15, verse 14. Joshua 15, verse 14. This is amazing. It's so amazing, it almost seems humorous in a way, ironic. Joshua 15, 14 tells us that it was Caleb who, with his sons, went into the land of Canaan. After 40 years, he's 85 years old, and he and his sons single-handedly defeat the giants. Imagine that! People always talk about people 65 or 70 getting to be over the hill. I'll tell you, Caleb wasn't over the hill. The Bible says when he was 85 he had the strength of a man of 30. Now that strength was primarily spiritual, no doubt. But there was also a physical element about it. Caleb was so strong in the Lord that he went in with zeal with his sons and did what 6 million people said could not be done. My dear young person, God can do great things with your life when you follow Him fully. Things that you never dreamed of when you were young, He can do it. And you've got to be willing to follow Him, not to follow people. You've got to be willing to lead rather than to be led. You've got to be willing to stand up for the name of God. You've got to be willing to be a Caleb. And where are those millions who murmured, no! Their corpses are rotting in the wilderness, and Caleb is camped and catered, serving God with his family, his children and grandchildren, with joy and with peace. That's the way to live. There's an old saying, you know it, only one life, only one life, twelve soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last. That's the only way to live. You know, every December 31, we all take spiritual inventory of our lives, don't we? We gather in church, a New Year's Eve sermon, and we take spiritual inventory. And I'll tell you how I do that. I look back over my year and I just say, did I have communion with Jesus Christ this year? Did I grow in my conviction to follow Christ fully this year? Do I love Christ more? Do I hate sin more? You see, it's all about Christ. If my relationship with Christ is flawed, I say it's a failed year. It's a bad year. It's all about this. This is the only thing that's worthwhile. To live for Christ. To die for Christ. To serve Christ. To follow Christ. To live a Christ-centered life. Well, I'm closing now with this illustration. I really will close now. I'm sure you've all heard of David Livingstone. The great missionary, explorer, and traveled all over Africa. When he was a young boy, he had a close friend at school. The two of them spent a lot of time together. And they went to Sunday school, I guess we would call it, or Bible class together. And they parted ways as young teenagers because his friend said to him, I don't think this is the way to live. I'm going to go out and go into business and make me lots of money. And live a good life. Maybe later. Maybe later I'll serve the Lord. Then when it came time for David Livingstone to die. He died, you know, in the heart of Africa. And he was so loved. I mean, this is kind of gross, but it shows you the love of the people there. He was so loved that he requested his body would be sent back to London. And they wanted to give it a Westminster Abbey honorary funeral. But the friends in Africa felt so knit to him that they actually cut out his physical heart and kept it in Africa. Did you know that? Because they didn't want to send everything of David Livingston away. They loved him so much. It wasn't mystical. It wasn't superstitious. It's just love. He was a loved man. He gave his life for the natives there. But when his body came by in the hearse going down to Westminster Abbey, There were thousands and thousands of people lined up on both sides of the street. And there was a man kind of shabbily dressed, with a minister standing behind him. And as the herrscher went by, the shabbily dressed man just kept saying, muttering, kind of, you were right, Davey, you were right, Davey, you were right, Davey. The herrscher went by, the minister, curiosity got the best of him, and he said, he said to the man, what do you mean? And the man said, well, you see, David Livingstone and I grew up in the Sunday school together. And he told me the only way to live is to live fully for the Lord. And I said, no, I want to live fully for the world. And then I'll come back to the Lord. Well, I never came back to the Lord. But David lived his whole life for the Lord. And now, too late. I know he's right. Don't waste your life. Live fully for the Lord. Now, let's pray. Great God of heaven, we ask thy blessing upon this time and this talk. I just pray, Lord, that every young person sitting here tonight has really heard this talk. will take it to heart, take it to the inner chamber, that those who are Thy children will ask themselves, how can I live more fully for the Lord? And that those who aren't will begin to really live by the grace of Thy Holy Spirit. And Lord, we know that the world is very powerful. The enticements of Satan in the flesh are very strong. We know, Lord Jesus, that Thou art stronger. And so help us in all our weakness to appeal to Thee, Lord Jesus. and be Thou our strength. Cure us of this deadly disease of selfishness and pride and worldliness that all works together in an anti-God way to destroy the purpose for which You put us here on this earth. Lord, we wait for Thee. Please come. Please work mightily in the hearts of these dear young people and older friends as well, gathered with us. And let every one of us, by the grace of God, simply, humbly, fully. So be it. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.