A Surrendered Life

Good morning, church. That’s quite an intro. All those shots me. That’s not true. Well, good morning, church.

Hope you’re doing well. I’m doing well today. And today we’re starting a new series called Built different, and we’ll get into that in just a moment. First, I want to just let you know about something. Maybe you’ve noticed some people with green lanyards on and white name tags.

What’s that about? We just had one of our Eastgater this past Friday, Our biggest Eastgater so far, and it went really well. We had great fellowship. We ate amazing food. We got to know people on a deeper level because you just got to sit down and intentionally talk with one another.

And we encourage people to take that next step of faith, whether it’s becoming how to become a Christian. I want to be baptized or serving. Which are the people with the green lanyards and the white name tags today that they signed up Friday and now they’re serving today. People made those steps. And so we have a big baptism coming up in a few weeks here.

It was amazing. So if you’re new here, if you’re wondering what is Eastgate Church all about, we have that every six weeks. So feel free to sign up, tap one of those little tags, and see what we’re all about. So that way you can take those steps with confidence that we’re a church who believes the Bible, and we take that very seriously. Not a hopefully scary fact, but a fact is that many guests make the decision whether to stay at a church or go visit another.

From the front to the kids area. That means for us that my role as preaching, very important. We want to honor God’s word, but I want to highlight the significance that every role, every gift, every volunteer serving matters, every smile, handshake, how you doing, that all matters. And so volunteering isn’t just doing. It’s being on mission for God.

He has gifted us. He has equipped us to be a loving community towards each other and a light and salt to those around us. So every role matters. If you want to get involved with the mission of God here at Eastgate, feel free to attend the eastgator or speak with myself or another staff member about what does my next step look like, and we’ll talk about that throughout the service. So we invite you to find your place in that mission.

Another thing I want to mention briefly is the Serbia mission trip. They have a table out front in the lobby that they’re able to talk with you about how you can get involved there. They’re going to Serbia, overseas to share the love of Christ and to support the work that God is already doing there. And so we don’t only want to support them with encouraging words, but we want to be supporting them with prayer and maybe other ways of support. So if you’re wanting to talk with them and learn how do we help support you on this trip, feel free to talk to them.

I’m sure they have a list of things and they have a bag of goodies that totally goes against the workout mega video we just watched. But I had one and I had to get one. I had to do it. But feel free to donate and talk with them. They’d love that.

When I was thinking of missions, I thought of William Carey, called the father of modern missions. He famously said this quote, I’ll go into the pit if you hold the rope. I mentioned this at the East Gator. What he means there is that he was going to India and he was talking about the spiritual battle that was going to happen there. Where the gospel isn’t, it’s the pit.

It is darkness. It’s not ruled by God, it’s ruled by the enemy. And he said, I’ll descend if you hold the rope. And so I like that because it gives us all a purpose. They go, we hold the rope.

We pray, we encourage, we support. So if you want to hold the rope for them, go talk to them. They’d love to speak with you. All right. And now as we begin our sermon series called Built Different.

You saw the video. Built different is kind of a common phrase, maybe slowly becoming outdated, but it’s when someone’s a beast or someone’s a chad or something epic about this person is different. There’s something different about them. And culture tends to call these people out and make them something other than normal. There’s a different mindset they have, there’s a different attitude they have a different level of devotion, a different commitment level.

And the difference between just being a workout aholic, I don’t know what you call those people, Jimbros and Christians, is that this is not out of our self effort. This is out of Christ, what He has done for us. If we are to be built different, we’re supposed to be built up on Christ. We’re supposed to be different because of Christ’s strength and Christ’s power in us, not of ourselves, all of him. And so it’s not self effort, it’s his effort.

It is a different mindset in Christ, a different attitude in Christ, a different devotion In Christ, a different commitment level in Christ. This is what we’re talking about. Attending church is great, but being a part of the church is better. And that’s what we want. We want people to be a part of the church and what God is doing through his bride.

As we sung about. So this is our series will take six weeks. And we’re taking the concepts from Romans 12:1 2. This is not our home text today. This is, this is the series text.

So our series text is Romans 12:1 2. We’ll read through the ESV throughout today. If you’re following along, it says, I appeal to you, therefore brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. And so today we’re going to hyper focus on that idea of present your bodies, your whole self to God.

It’s not separated from living as a living sacrifice. But we’ll talk about that more in depth next Sunday. So if you’re interested, come back, come back next Sunday. Present is to lead. It’s a sense of presenting, to put beside, to put near.

And then your bodies in this context is your physical bodies. And so we want to present ourselves to God fully. But we understand nonbeliever and believer both. We understand there’s a gap between our hearts and the desire and what we actually do. Sometimes we make promises we don’t keep, we set standards we don’t meet.

And we know what God says, yet we often choose our own way instead. We do my will, not thy will. Many people point to the hypocrisy in the church, and there are times where this is well deserved. But I think the deeper issue isn’t really hypocrisy, it’s surrender. True Christians genuinely, truly desire to do what is pleasing to God.

But we have a me problem. We have a self problem. And so what is today’s text going to answer to that? Lastly, Paul did describe this struggle. So this is a biblical struggle.

We feel a biblical tension. We feel in Romans 7. He says, I do what I do not want, but the very thing I hate. So he felt this tension. I know what I want to do.

I want to live a life pleasing to God. I want to surrender completely to God. But I do the thing I don’t want to do. I do the very thing I hate. And so we feel this tension, and yet we are compelled to completely surrender to Him.

And we pursue that not in our strength, but in his. So this is why Paul commands believers to present your bodies to God. Not a part, not just a Sunday, not just the free time. Present your all to God. In chapter nine of the Gospel of Luke.

That’s where we’ll be today. So if you want to go ahead and turn there. Gospel of Luke, chapter 9. Jesus taught that all who would come after him and must completely surrender their lives for his sake. We can completely surrender our lives for Jesus.

How can we surrender our lives for Jesus? The text today is going to give us three conditions Jesus has for how we can completely surrender our lives to Him. So here’s our home text, Luke 9. We’re going to be in verses 23 through 25, so please read along with me. And he said to all, if any would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? This is God’s word. Amen.

Amen. All right. Three conditions for completely surrendering our lives for Jesus. The first is to deny yourself. Deny yourself.

Here are these conditions. First of all, he says to all, who was all in the text in verse 23, who is the all? Mark 8 gives us a little more insight here. He called the crowds to himself and his disciples and said these three conditions. So there’s a multitude of people here, a crowd and his own disciples.

What I think we can gain from this little bit, this little context, is that there are people who will hear these commands, these conditions Jesus has for following after him. And yet some will reject these conditions and say, that’s too much, Jesus. And some will accept these conditions and abandon all for everything Christ has. And then we see the first condition. Let him deny himself.

Deny here is strong language. It’s definitely not something popular in our culture. To deny yourself is to affirm that one has no acquaintance or connection with someone. Meaning when you deny yourself, you’re like disassociating yourself with you. You deny yourself.

You forget oneself. You lose sight of your own interests and desires. This is to deny it is to, I’m not in charge. I’m not bringing anything to the table. I’m denying myself this every passion, desire, interest.

And then he says or says, jesus makes it clear. He makes it so clear to us. He makes. He’s saying that we bring nothing to the table, that if we’re coming to him. A yes to Jesus is an absolute no to ourselves.

It’s to deny every and any yes to ourselves. It’s kind of like this, having a backpack and you’re going on a trip, and I kind of want to run with this illustration throughout today’s message. You show up, here’s the tour guide, and he’s been on this road a million times. And. And you show up and you have all your goodies, and let’s just say it’s Jesus.

And you’re like, all right, Jesus, I’m ready. I brought all my stuff. And he says, no, you have to leave all of that behind if you’re going to follow me on this trail. If I’m going to fill you up with what I have to offer, you can leave no room unemptied in your backpack, so you need to empty it all if you’re going to go on this journey. So he gives this condition to deny yourself, and then he gives a destination and a consequence.

We’re going to jump down into verses 24 and 25. I think it’s helpful to see Jesus has a destination in mind. These conditions end a certain way, and there’s a consequence whether you do or do not. But as we’ll see, just because the destination is sweet does not mean people are willing to pay the cost of the journey. So he says, whoever would save his life will lose it to save.

Here, the person who is trying to save their life is to save from destruction, to keep safe from destruction. And I don’t know about any of you, but I have not been able to do this for myself. First, I’ve never died. And second, I have never raised myself from the grave. So can you save your own life from destruction?

Says whoever would save his life, whoever would effort in his own way, by his own merits, by his own standards, to save his life will lose it. They’ll face death. And the only one who’s conquered it truly is Christ. He predicted he would, and he has. And then it says, whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

So you have to lose your life to save it. It sounds like a paradox. It sounds like a contradiction. It seems so strange to us. To lose here is to put away entirely, to abolish, to put to an end, to ruin it.

You need to lose your life for his sake, for his account, for his cause. This person described by Jesus has denied trusting in themselves. They’ve denied trusting in Themselves. Not their efforts, not their works, not their plans. They’re wholly trusting in Jesus.

Jesus says, come empty. And he says, trust me entirely. If you want me to save your life, you’ll have to give your life totally to him.

This backpack illustration. We think we bring things to God that he needs. We bring our pasts, we bring our histories, our hurts, habits, hang ups. We bring these things and we come to God in our fancy schmancy backpacks or lives. We’re like God.

I’m with you on this journey, but I have a few decades of experience and I know you’ve been running the universe since eternity passed and you created us all, but I got some pretty good stuff in here. The way I run my marriage, the way I go about marriage, parenting. I’m bringing that with me. It’s like, no. Jesus demands all of ourselves to deny all of it.

He’s going to inform us how we treat our spouses, how we treat our children. Oh, Jesus, I have these career plans and look, I’m going to make all this money and it’s going to be great and wonderful and then, you know, then I’ll give to your cause and everything isn’t that great? Jesus, he says, empty that bag. I don’t need your plans, I don’t need your strength. I don’t need your effort.

He says, deny yourself, Come empty, and trust him fully. And then he gives this statement in verse 25. If you look at it, it feels like the no brainer kind of statement. Like, oh, what should you choose? Should you choose Jesus or should you reject Jesus?

It feels like such a no brainer because he says, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? The obvious answer is that wouldn’t be very great. To profit is to be of benefit, to have an advantage, to prevail. And then to gain the world in this way is to gain everything the world has. All the riches, all the goods, all the pleasures, all the advancements.

And Jesus is saying, hey, you could profit everything the world has to offer, but if at the end of it you lose your soul, what do you have? What do you have? You have nothing. It’s the obvious answer. To forfeit is to affect damage, to receive injury, to suffer loss.

You’ll lose your life. That’s what the cost is. And to Christians in the room, it feels so obvious. Like, why would someone reject the good news? Jesus?

If this is the choice, if these are the options. But we’ll see, the destination is sweet. Following Jesus is awesome, is sweet. And I don’t mean like awesome, I mean like truly awesome. When you follow him, you’re in awe.

And then to reject him is to have nothing. And yet many people we know, many people we’ve seen say the cost is too high, the conditions are too much.

But let’s continue reading. We can prosper like no other person. But if it leads to our destruction, what good are temporary pleasures? Paul reminded the Corinthians that they too were to deny themselves in light of the Gospel. And so we might think these conditions are for non believers, Right?

But Christian in the room, there is application for you as well. We are called to continually deny ourselves, to let Jesus be first and priority in our life, and to put away our own passions and desires. In 1 Corinthians 6, 19, 20, Paul reminds the Corinthians, you are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God with your body. We deny using our own bodies the way we desire.

The condition of denying self is not only our minds, the way we think, the things we read, but it is with our own physical bodies as well. Did you know that how you treat your body and how you use your body for the mission of God glorifies God? That’s pretty awesome. That’s pretty amazing. It feels very tangible.

You know, it’s something we can really think of. We don’t have to just be Bible thumpers. That sounds awful. Like we want to take the Bible seriously. But if we take it seriously, we’re not going to be heroes only, but we’re going to be doers as well.

As James says, so we honor God with our bodies so that we bring glory to God. The context of first Corinthians was sexual immorality. That’s what Paul was addressing in there. He reminds them that they’ve been bought with a price and that means something, that they can glorify God with their bodies. Sexual immorality is prevalent today.

Fornication, sexual identity, pornography, adultery, cohabitation. These things are. Are against God’s ideal way for us to walk. These things do not highlight the relationship the church has with Christ. We’re his bride, right?

There’s a covenant made, there’s a marriage made. It’s honoring. And our bodies, even in intimate relationships, are meant to highlight this, are meant to glorify God in this. But. But if you get lost in sexual morality, Paul addresses the Corinthians and we here would address each other.

Deny that, go away from that. Let your bodies glorify God as well. Romans 14, 7, 8 says this for none of us lives for himself, and no one dies for himself. Check this out. If we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord.

That’s powerful. All of our mind, all of our heart, soul and strength is to be for the Lord’s sake, because he is our life. Self denial is easier when you recognize that everything we produce ultimately leads to our death. Everything we can produce in our own power, in our own strength, every plan we can make, no matter, well, how thought out, leads to our death, leads to our destruction. When you realize that denying yourself, I think it’s a little perspective change.

He is life, he is the goal. Everything he produces leads to eternal life if we trust in him. And where does this lead us? He leads us to become like him. Philippians 2, 3, 5 says this.

Do not do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourself. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus.

To gain something, you must deny something. As we saw the epic intro Muscle man video. To gain muscles, you have to deny some things. You have to deny cheez its as good as cheez its are. You have to deny them.

And you have to take up protein powder and other things like that to gain good grades in school. Students, youth, maybe you’re in college. To gain good grades, you need to deny some things. You need to deny hanging out with friends, playing video games, wasting your time. You got to deny these things.

You got to say no to some things to gain something. Adults in the room. If you want to gain sleep, you need to not binge watch your favorite show again. The Office Friends. I don’t know what your favorite show is, but you know, you go to sleep with it and you’re watching it and you’re like, alright, one more episode, one more episode, one more episode.

And if you value the sleep, then you need to deny that.

We follow Christ because he has something of value. He has something of value. What are you willing to lay down to gain what Christ has to offer? He says, if you want eternal life, you need to lay down your life. To gain something, you must deny something.

There’s a real danger in our culture that pushes a false identity of self. This is what a man is. This is what a woman is. Your sexual identity. That’s all of who you are.

Now we deny this and we say, what does God say? What Does His Word say we pick that up and deny it? Who are you meant to be? Is who you are meant to be, who you are made to be in Christ? That’s who you’re meant to be.

Our bodies are not our own. They are a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. Our minds are for God. We cannot trust in our effort, our strength, our possessions. The only thing holding us back from following Jesus, from living completely surrendered to Jesus is the person who looks at you in the mirror.

It’s yourself, it’s me. The person who keeps me from following Jesus totally is myself. Self denial is counting all of our gain as loss. It’s resisting our desires and passions and seeking what is pleasing to God. We deny our plans for his plans.

At times we practice the discipline of fasting. You might say, well, food’s not necessarily a bad thing because it’s total self denial. Sometimes we deny food. We deny physical sustenance to open our minds and our ears to hear what God has to say in prayer. You see this?

Do you see this self denial, this call for it, this condition to be his disciple. By obeying the condition of self denial, we open ourselves to complete allegiance to Jesus Christ and to having a completely surrendered life for him. So now let’s look at the second condition given for living a completely surrendered life to Jesus. It is to take up your cross daily. Take up your cross daily.

Today the cross is jewelry. It’s on signs and it’s up in churches. We have one in the back. That’s not a bad thing. It’s a symbol of, for a reminder.

But back then, to take up your cross daily would have been quite the condition. So to take up is to raise, to lift up. And we’re asking the question, what does this daily self death look like? To be on a cross was a particular thing. A cross was a well known instrument most cruel, a most cruel punishment reserved for the guiltiest criminals, the basest of slaves, robbers and insurrectionists.

To bear a cross was to be mocked, despised, shamed, to be an outcast of society, and ultimately to be put to death in view of anyone who passes by. Take up your cross daily. This is the condition Jesus gives commitment unto death. A determination made daily in Luke’s Gospel. Luke believes that the Christian life is dying daily to self.

To take up one’s cross would have been a command of intentional self sacrifice. To take up one’s cross is to know your destination and there aren’t any detours. Where did Jesus take his cross to, to his death? Where does He Invite us to take ours to to our deaths. It’s the end of us.

To die to self is to live in Christ. He says, take up your cross daily. The death of ourselves on public display in the manner of Jesus for the glory of God. People like their comfort. And I’m not just talking.

We Americans, Americans and American Christianity get dogged on quite a lot. Some of it’s valid, but everyone likes their comforts. Every society, every culture, every has what they consider to be civil and what they consider to be shameful. And Jesus invites us into what we would often consider shameful to take up our crosses daily. The call of Christ is to willingly bear with the persecutions, troubles and the distress of living sacrificially for his sake.

In Acts 20:24 it says this here’s quite the mindset. I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself. If only I may finish my course and the ministry that I have received from the Lord Jesus to testify of the gospel, of the grace of God, to finish my course, you know, strikes me, finish my course. Christians, we need to remember this is not a sprint, this is a marathon. We’re in it for the long haul.

The goal is Christ. He’s coming back again. But we need to be steadfast about this. The truth is that taking up your cross daily might mean you’re accepting some things that you won’t want to do. Taking up your cross, that’s a heavy burden.

But in order to live like Christ, we are pushed out of our comfort zones. Even if it makes us seem odd to the world’s standards to share the Gospel, to invite others to church, to live the Christian life, we’ll seem a little odd, we’ll be a little different. But if we’re built on Christ, then we’ll be like him. Luke 22:42 saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. This is Jesus.

Let’s see his example nevertheless. Not my will, but yours be done. Look what he gave up for our salvation. Look at the cross he bore, and look at the fruit it yielded. Look around the room, it’s you and I and churches and Christians all around.

For us it looks like being obedient to God. Like Jesus in the garden, we too live self sacrificially. Luke also wrote of Jesus describing the true cost of bearing a cross. Later in Luke, he gives these three things describing what it means to bear a cross. He says, if anyone would be my disciple, he must hate his mother, brother, father, sister, even his own life.

That’s the condition Jesus. Now is he saying, literally hate them, like, I’m going to seek the destruction of these people? No, to hate here is to favor Christ above all others. And many have described it just for terms sake as the comparison of how much I love Jesus. It’s going to be as if I hate all others.

But truly we’re meant to love others. But this is the call of Christ to favor and prioritize him over all others.

He goes on in this illustration to talk about a man who builds a tower. It’s like, I want to build a tower, I want to follow Jesus. But he starts building. He gets halfway through, can’t finish it, and then society mocks him. He’s like, ah, look at this guy.

Couldn’t even finish a tower. He didn’t count the cost. He also describes a king who has an army of 10,000 men. Cool. And he’s going to fight another King who has 20,000 men.

Not so cool. And so he gets with his council and he’s saying, can we win? Can we win? The answer no. Because if it’s no, what’s the king supposed to do?

He seeks peace with the other king. Let’s figure this out, because we’re going to get destroyed otherwise.

And he says this in that passage, whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. So bearing our cross means we put no one else before Jesus. No one else. But my kid’s going to be an all star athlete. No.

Prioritize Christ, prioritize church, prioritize the work of God. But if I share my faith, I’ll lose everything.

You’re going to read take up your cross and not sacrifice everything.

It means to count the cost of difficulty and danger before committing to him. No one else takes priority. It is him. If you desire to be his disciple, you must consider his conditions for our commitment to take up your cross daily. And now that we’ve denied ourselves, what do you need to pick up to live completely for Jesus?

I’m going to be playing off the idea of taking up things. But taking up our cross is following the example of Christ. It’s the end of ourselves. So what are things we can take up to live like Christ? First, every day you could say I’m going to wake up and make the deliberate decision to take up my cross for the sake of Christ.

Today I woke up to die to myself and to live for Christ. Does anyone, any relationship, take priority over Jesus, take up the commands of Christ and prioritize him. Does Any status you have keep you from taking up your cross. Take up humility. Look at the humility of Christ when he took up the cross.

Take up humility to live underneath King Jesus, who humbled himself for our sakes. Does wealth, does money, does gain keep you? Take up a generous life that puts the needs of others before yourself, as Jesus did. He gave up his own life to obey God, to glorify God and to save his people. Does a career path.

Will you set boundaries in your life to say no to the worldly gain in order to say yes to the gain that never perishes, to the things that don’t perish? Eternal life in Christ. And what about your own life? I already kind of mentioned this. We don’t really face persecution that leads to our literal death here in America.

We can be very thankful to God for that. But many Christians around the world do. Many Christians are facing death for believing in Jesus, probably right now, and they will tomorrow and the next day if it came to it. Are you willing to take up your cross and follow Jesus even to the end? That’s his call, to take up and pick up our crosses daily.

The third condition given for living a completely surrendered life to Jesus is to follow Jesus. Follow Jesus. Now follow me is just to follow the one who’s preceding you. To join as his attendants, to accompany him, to be his disciple, to become a disciple. Follow him, follow Jesus.

Now, this point at first might seem like a, well, duh, Jesus. You said, anyone who would come after me, and then this, this follow me. It’s like, didn’t you just say that? You already said, come after him, follow me seems a little redundant, but I think if we look at this a little closely, we’ll see there’s a Christian distinctive here that no one else has. A lot of people deny themselves.

Athletes deny themselves certain comforts in order to perform well. Soldiers deny themselves safety in order to protect what they love and what they care for. Monks deny themselves certain pleasures. Other religions deny themselves, some would argue better than Christians, deny themselves on the regular. So what’s the point?

What question? The question is not whether you’re sacrificing something. The question is, who are you sacrificing for? Is it yourself and your own gain? Is it others and their gain?

That sounds nice. But Christ calls us to sacrifice for him to live, for him to follow him. He’s not calling his disciples to suffer for suffering’s sake, because that sounds fun. He’s calling us to himself. If Jesus is in the suffering, where will He Lead us.

He’ll lead us into the suffering. If Jesus has risen from the grave and promises eternal life, then that’s where we’ll meet him. We’ll follow him into eternity, into eternal life. Wherever Jesus is, I’m going to follow him. It might look scary, but I trust him.

Do you trust him to follow him?

In another sense, discipleship is not aimless. But we have a true North Star. We know where we’re aiming. We’re aiming straight at Jesus. When you go to the side, when you’re feeling discouraged and you realize I’ve lost focus, what is your call?

It is to go back and follow him. Just continue. Place your focus on Jesus.

Has anyone seen the movie Captain Winter Soldier? Little head, nose. Okay, great movie. Best MCU movie. Feel free to fight me after.

If you disagree, you’re wrong. But there’s this great line in it. They’re talking politically. What’s up with the Avengers? Should they intervene when danger is there?

Or should they have to wait for a government to give them permission to intervene? Big conflict. Actually, I think I’m confusing that with Captain Civil War. I said that the first service. I gave false information.

I’m sorry, no. Well, Winter Soldier, there’s this line in it, Sam Wilson is asked his opinion on the situation. He’s like Captain America’s sidekick. And Sam Wilson points at Captain America and he’s like, don’t look at me. I do what he does, just slower.

Captain America is a super soldier who can do all these crazy things. And so when Sam Wilson’s asked his opinion, he says, don’t look at me. I. I do what he does, just slower. That’s us following Jesus. That’s us following him.

He does all the hard work. He put the path in front of us. He blazed the trails. We do what he does. Sometimes just a little slower.

First Peter 2:21 says this for to this you have been called because Christ also suffered you for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. You know, it’s hard to say you’re following someone if you don’t walk and talk like them. Our culture definitely has confused two things being what it means to be a disciple and to follow someone, and what it means to be a fan of someone. There’s a lot of people who are fans of Jesus Christ, but there are fewer who are truly disciples of Jesus. Jesus Christ, who follow after him.

What you do, you do. Where you go, I go. What you say? I’ll say, let’s follow him. I don’t Want to be a fan?

I want to be a disciple. Luke 9:61 62 says this, yet another said, I will follow you Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home. Jesus said to him, no one who puts his hand to to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. In front of this person stands the Messiah, God in the flesh, offering eternal life. And what he tells us, man, it’s like, oh, let me just go tell people back home that I’m, you know, I’m about to go on this journey and everything.

And it sounds harsh. Maybe to you, Jesus instruction. But before you stands this man. And you’re concerned with the other duties, the other things. He takes priority.

He takes precedent. He says, follow me. Drop it all and follow me. Let people ask what happened to so and so? Well, they’re living for Jesus.

Let that be our testimony. Jesus knows exactly where you need to step. Maybe following him sounds scary. It can be intimidating. Was recently invited to indoor rock wall climbing.

Have you all heard of this? It’s very cool. It’s very intimidating. These dudes are insane. And there are ladies there too.

They are climbing up these walls like Spider Man. They got these weird little packs of chalk. They put it on their hands, a little chalky cloud appears and they’re just crawling up these things. They’re hanging upside down. Impressive.

So my friend invited me there and because he’s been doing it for a while, he knew what I couldn’t do. There was a little baby boo hoo beginner section. And he was like, all right, Josh, that’s where you start. You gotta start in a little baby section. I was like, alright.

Not literally babies, but you know what I’m saying, the beginner section. And so I do that. I was like, easy peasy, man. I do the next section. He’s like, yeah, you can do this one.

I do it. I’m like, yeah, that was good. That was good. Next section. I’m like, that wasn’t too bad.

That wasn’t too bad. Then I got it in my head. I was like, dude, I can handle the big leagues. I’m Spider Man. I can do the upside down wall climb.

And that didn’t work out so well. He knew it. He let me fall. Luckily to have padded grounding, so 10ft. Felt like he just fell and was like, oh, okay.

But that’s like following Jesus. Jesus knows exactly what steps you need to make. And when you first walk with Christ, you’re going to look around, you’re going to See the terrain he’s about to take you on? You’re going to say, man, I don’t know if I can do this. Remember the first condition.

Jesus knows you can’t do it. That’s why he said, deny yourself. Just follow me. And when we start getting a little egotistical, we can start making steps that Jesus didn’t tell us to make and we get in trouble. But Jesus is better than my friend.

Not a diss against him, just Jesus is truly better. The kind of leader he is is a perfect one, a loving one, a gracious one, a truthful one who will look at you when you’ve fallen on your back and say, yep, you tried that without me. Didn’t work out so well. Hey, follow me. Get back up.

He won’t abandon you. Keep Jesus as your guiding light. He is the way, the truth and the life and the resurrection. When Jesus commanded these three conditions, it wasn’t simply to put things to death. It was to bring us to life.

Do you consider where you’re headed? If you don’t know where you’re headed, then you’re. I’ll tell you who you’re following. You’re following yourself. And you just don’t know where you’re going because you’re blind.

Who are you following? Who are you following? Where are you headed? That answers that question. Where are you headed?

That’s who you’re following. Let’s follow Jesus. Following him means being like him, being his hands and feet. How he loved, will love. He said, love one another as I have loved you.

I shared this with the east gator. There’s over 100 one another commands in scripture and you can’t obey one of them without one another. So love one another. Be in community group. Get connected.

Plug in. Jesus gave them life. Will you give your time to them? How Jesus gave. Will you give how he prayed?

Will you pray? Jesus prayed for his apostles who would share the message with others and who would believe in that message. Hey, guess what? If you believe in Jesus, Jesus prayed for you. He prayed for you that you would come to faith in him, that the message would be powerful for you to come to him.

He prayed for how he prayed. You pray how he lived and you live. And as we start wrapping up here, every destination has a journey. And the cost needs to be worth whatever the reward is. The cost needs to be worth it.

The reward must exceed the cost of the journey. We know eternal life. That’s sweet. That’s a good reward. That’s a good goal.

That’s a good destination. But have you counted the cost? These are the conditions Jesus gives. Will you obey him? Will you reject him?

I think it would be good for us to look one more time at verses 24 and 25 in our home text. Luke 9 says, for whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? If we are to be built different in Christ, built on Christ, through him, by him, then let’s meet these conditions to live completely surrendered to him. Will you completely surrender your life for Jesus by denying yourself, taking up your cross daily and following him?

Church let’s pray.

Father, I want to thank you for this time. I want to thank you for your word. The cost can seem heavy, but we understand you have such value to us. You have something to offer. That’s yourself.

That’s the eternal presence of God. That’s righteousness. That’s eternal life. And Lord, I pray that we would take these conditions seriously, even those who are believers in the room. That we would put our eyes on you, Lord.

We would pursue you. We would come after you, and you’d alone. That we would restructure our lives if we’ve found that things are out of place, that there are things in our life we’ve not been putting away in order to take up what you’ve given us. Lord, I pray that each and every believer in here would do so. And that if anyone has not received Christ, that they would recognize who you are.

You are God in the flesh. You are the Savior of our sins. You went to the cross. You lived the life we couldn’t live, died the death we deserved. And you rose from the grave.

So we know our destination. If we trust in you, we too will have eternal life. And so, Lord, if there’s anyone in this room who wants to trust in you, they can feel free to pray along with me. God, I’m a sinner. I have worked for my own destruction.

I cannot save my own life. But you say that if I believe in Jesus, that I will live. So, Lord, I confess that Jesus is Lord. And I believe in my heart that God raised him from the dead. And you promised me that I am saved.

So now I can follow you. If you prayed that prayer, know that no prayer saves you. It is Christ Jesus who saves you. It is God who saves you. But we do that to confess and to give an opportunity to respond.

Lord, I pray that everyone in here would respond in some way. I pray we would respond the biblical way. That we would be your disciples. That we would live lives completely surrendered to you. You are such a good God.

All we have to do is look into your example to know it’s worth it. So in Jesus name I pray. Amen.