David Platt Messages
David Platt Messages is a podcast that highlights sermons from teacher, author, and pastor David Platt.
David Platt Messages
The Gospel Demands Radical Sacrifice
Have you ever come to Jesus on his terms? It seems that many professing Christians are ok with following Jesus so long as he can be thrown in the mix with other priorities rather than being the priority. In this message from Luke 14:26–35 by David Platt, we are urged to consider what it means to give Christ our supreme love and loyalty, and our very lives. Ultimately, following Christ shouldn’t be motivated by guilt or a desire to earn God’s favor—which we can’t do—but rather from a sincere and superior love for the One who gave his life for sinners like us.
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You are listening to Radical with David Platt, a weekly podcast with sermons and messages from pastor, author and teacher David Platt. If you have a Bible and I hope you do then I invite you to open with me to Luke, chapter 14. It is good to have you back after last week. I want to start by saying a couple of things based on last week. One of the questions I've heard is what is David thinking or what is David going to say? And I want to remind you from the beginning of our time together this morning that it really doesn't matter what David is thinking or what David is going to say. My responsibility before you on a week-by-week basis is not to expose what I'm thinking and what I want to say. My responsibility is to expose before you what God is thinking and what God is saying to us, and to the extent to which I do that clearly and accurately, then we've got something to listen to. If, at any point, I divert off of this word, then I have no authority to stand in front of you. So the picture is not about what David is saying or what David has to say. The question is what is God thinking? What is God saying to us, and no matter what he says, if he's saying it we obey because we're his people.
Speaker 1:I've also heard some folks especially in light of the passages we looked at last week hate your father and mother and your brother and sister and wife and your children and go sell all you have and give it to the poor. And people are asking questions like really, I'm really supposed to sell everything I have and give it to the poor? And that's a good question to ask. It's a question we need to ask. It's a question that obviously Scripture warrants that we ask. So we need to wrestle with these questions. But here's where I want to be really careful. As your pastor, I want to shepherd you, walk with you through those sorts of questions. But I want to be very careful in the way I walk with you through those sorts of questions for a couple of different reasons. Number one, because I'm asking the questions myself, heather and I and our family diving into the implications of what this Word says about the lost and what this Word says about the poor, for our lives, wrestling with that, and I will not in any way claim to have those answers for my family and much less anyone else's family. So I'm on a journey that is parallel with you. At the same time, I know Hebrews 13, 7,. I know that God has put leaders in his church to show us what the word looks like in action. And so I want I want to show you in my life and in my family's life what this word looks like in action. At the same time, I'm not perfect in that, so I invite you to pray for me as I pray for you. And that leads us to really the main picture.
Speaker 1:When we ask questions like well, what does this look like in our lives? Am I supposed to sell everything I have? Am I supposed to do this or that? And what I want to avoid doing is getting too specific in answers. That I might help you with, and here's why I want to avoid getting too specific.
Speaker 1:We have created a system of Christianity that consists in a bunch of boxes to check off, in a bunch of boxes to check off. The danger is we hear the Word and tell me what to do, what am I supposed to do? And we crave boxes that if I could just check these things off and I'd be okay, and it's not the point. It misses the point altogether. It's a Christianity that consists of external regulations, that bypasses the heart.
Speaker 1:I believe the point is for God to take this Word, to show us what His Word says and then to drive us to the Spirit of God, to drive you and me to hours and I mean hours, hours wrestling before God in prayer about how this Word applies to our lives, hours wrestling before God in prayer about how this Word applies to our lives. If all we do is talk with each other about these things and come up with checkoff boxes that, hey, this is how it looks, then we will miss God's design for us. In His Word, he desires to bring us alone with Him, with His Word, with His Spirit, and to transform our hearts and to change our hearts, to radically change us in a way that will have external ramifications, yes, but that is rooted in internal change. We will do everything we can in our Christian culture today to bypass spending the time necessary before God to experience internal change, and I don't want to rob anyone in this room of that. And so I want to challenge you, not just to hear the Word, not just to hear the Word and talk to each other. Not just to hear the Word, talk to each other and look for the practicals.
Speaker 1:I want to challenge you to take this Word and dive into the prayer closet and be with God, belong with God and ask God, wrestle with God over how this Word applies to your life. Toward that end, let me pray for us, father. We are about to read tough words, difficult words, hard words from Jesus, words that are extremely foreign to our ears and even our understanding of Christianity. And so we pray, god, that you would expose lies and falsehoods in the way we have approached Christianity, that you would bring truth to bear on our lives and on your church, and we pray the result would be radical transformation of our lives for the glory of your name here in Birmingham and in all nations. We need your spirit to do this work in us. I need your spirit to even begin to proclaim it. All of us need your Spirit to begin to hear it, and we certainly all need your Spirit to obey it, and so I pray that you would pour out your Spirit on us as we study, as we live, and that you would transform us into the image of Jesus Christ. In Jesus' name, we pray Amen.
Speaker 1:One primary question I want to ask you this morning Are you willing to come to Jesus on his terms? Are you willing to come to Jesus on his terms? I ask this question that way because the brand of Christianity we have adopted operates on coming to Jesus on our own terms. You look at how we describe Christianity, how we encourage people to come to Christ, and you will find terms that are foreign to the New Testament. We've talked about some of these things. You follow the Roman road to Jesus. You believe these four spiritual laws? You answer these questions right? You pray this prayer? You sign this card? You raise your hand and declare your love for Jesus? Jesus told his followers to do none of these things. None of them. I want you to hear what Jesus said Luke 14, verse 26. It's what he said to the crowds who were traveling with him. This is what Jesus says from his terms.
Speaker 1:If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple, and anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Suppose one of you wants to build a tower, will he not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see if he has enough money to complete it. For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying this fellow began to build and was not able to finish. Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king? Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able, with 10,000 men, to oppose the one coming against him with 20,000? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off, and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
Speaker 1:Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile. It is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Ha, can you imagine standing in that crowd? Who does this guy think he is? I mean, really put yourself in their shoes. So I'm supposed to hate my mom and dad and brother and sister and my wife and my children? I'm supposed to pick up an instrument of torture and give up everything. I have to follow you.
Speaker 1:For most of us, jesus lost us at hello in this passage. It's almost scary for me to think of how I would have responded in the first century to these words, and some might think that such words are too hard for us to look into. Today, some might say we don't need to look at passages like this. Are we really ready to hear words like these? Are we mature enough to hear words like these? And this is just it. This is how Jesus introduced people to himself.
Speaker 1:This wasn't Jesus speaking to a mature crowd that was needing to go deeper. This was Jesus speaking to people who were initially interested in following him, and this was his initial invitation to them Hate your father and mother, pick up a cross and give up everything you've got. This is what he said. It is a stinging indictment on our brand of Christianity today to think that these words would sound so radical to us because they seem so foreign to us. This was how Jesus said. This is the elementary basic truth Jesus said of what it means to follow him. They're so foreign today. What does that say to us, no matter how far we've strayed from what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? We would even ask the question today well, can you be a believer and not a disciple? As if there are levels of Christianity one, a thin level, where it really doesn't cost you that much and those who are really interested can go deeper into a higher, deeper, greater level of Christianity.
Speaker 1:The New Testament knows nothing of this, not saying that all of us are in the same place in our spiritual maturity, or that when we initially come to Christ we know everything that we know 20 years later. But the picture is clear. Jesus says three times if you don't do these things, you can't even be my disciple. These are requirements, basic requirements for discipleship here. And I wonder, as we look at a passage where Jesus is speaking to a crowd that has been flirting with him on their terms, I can't help but think that I stand before a crowd of people today in our culture who has been flirting with Jesus on our terms, and for some, maybe many, if not most, of us need to ask the question have we ever really come to Jesus on his terms? That's an important question to ask. Have you ever come to Jesus on his terms?
Speaker 1:This is an evangelistic text. This is Jesus inviting people to follow him for the first time, really, so I want us to look at the terms and you see three different times Jesus uses this phrase. If anyone does not do this, he cannot be my disciple. If anyone does not do this, he cannot be my disciple. These are requirements, so to speak, sacrifice of Christian, and I want to invite you to hear the terms of Jesus this morning and to consider have you ever responded to Jesus on these terms? Even if you've been in church for 70 years, have you ever responded to Jesus on these terms? Term number one Jesus requires superior love. Jesus requires superior love.
Speaker 1:Chapter 14, verse 26, is the first. If, then, he cannot be my disciple. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Talk about strong. That's an attention grabber. What does that mean? What is Jesus saying when he says hate your father, mother, brother, sister, wife and children?
Speaker 1:So when we read this passage last week, some of you were grabber. What does that mean? What is Jesus saying when he says hate your father, mother, brother, sister, wife and children? When we read this passage last week, some of you were thinking I don't get it. I thought we were supposed to love people, and we've talked about honoring your father and mother. How do you hate them and honor them at the same time? That's a good question, isn't it? Am I really supposed to hate my wife and my kids? Question, isn't it? Am I really supposed to hate my wife and my kids? What does this mean? Jesus is saying something here. Now I want to be very careful, not only here, but in every passage we study in this series, because there is a dangerous temptation for us to try to soften Jesus' words, and what it turns out is we try to soften Jesus' words to justify the way we live turns out is we try to soften Jesus' words to justify the way we live. This is a very dangerous way to approach Christianity. Oh, he didn't really mean that. He meant this over here. We've got to take honest looks at Scripture to see exactly what Jesus meant to his original heroes. So let's hold our place here. Go back to the left with me, to Matthew, chapter 22. I want to show you two passages in Matthew that shed light on what Jesus is saying here in Luke, chapter 14.
Speaker 1:Superior love Matthew, chapter 22, is a conversation between Jesus and an expert teacher in the law. It's a passage that some of you many of you maybe are familiar with Matthew 22, verse 36. A teacher in the law asks Jesus this question Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Okay, greatest, primary, first foremost commandment in the law. Jesus replied love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is, like it, love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.
Speaker 1:First, primary commandment in our lives is to love God with some of our hearts. No, all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength. This debunks the idea that there are priorities in our affections God's first, and then family second and this person third or fourth. No, god is everything, all Primary, supreme, superior. Love Everything. All your affections belong to God, and the testimony of Scripture flows right from here. Seconds like it, love your neighbor as yourself. We know this in all the New Testament. When love for God is supreme in your life, the result is love for who, love for each other. They go together. Love for each other springs from love for who, for God, loving Him is supreme, it's superior love.
Speaker 1:Now keep turning back to the left and you'll come to Matthew, chapter 10. Matthew, chapter 10. Clearly, clearly, there is a love that supersedes all other loves Loving God, loving Christ, supersedes all other loves. Loving God, loving Christ. Then you get to Matthew, chapter 10, and you see a passage that's very familiar, very similar to what we're looking at in Luke, chapter 14. Listen to what Jesus says there, verse 37. See if this doesn't sound familiar. Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
Speaker 1:See the picture there, here, in Matthew, chapter 10,. What you've got is a strong comparison here. Your love for me is far greater than your love for mother or father, son or daughter. We bring that context into Luke, chapter 14, and we see Jesus use this word hate, obviously a strong word, even an offensive word, and we don't need to try to soften this picture. Believe what Jesus is communicating is clear. Love for him is so supreme, is intended to be so supreme among his disciples, that every other love in this world is so far less that it looks like hate compared to this kind of love You've got in your notes there.
Speaker 1:In comparison to Christ, in comparison to love for Christ, we hate the people we love. Get the wording there. It's not that we don't love them, the reality is the whole thing comes full circle. You've got next in your notes. This changes our perspective because don't miss it when love for God is supreme and love for God captivates our hearts, then what kind of love are we showing to mother and father? The love of who? Of God, of Christ in us? Same picture Marriage, wife, children.
Speaker 1:How, men, how do you play out Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 25? Love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. How do you do that if love for Christ is not supreme in your lives? You can't, it's impossible. It's not that these are mutually exclusive. They flow, one flows from the other, but it starts with a reservoir of love for the supremacy of Christ and God, our hearts conquered by, captivated by a superior affection in God.
Speaker 1:We know so little of this kind of love. You hear the way we talk. Supposed Christians talk. We say I know I need to be in church. I know I need to take my kids to church. I know I need to pray. I know I need to study the Bible, church. I know I need to pray, I know I need to study the Bible. This is not Christianity, ladies and gentlemen. It's not Christianity at all.
Speaker 1:Christianity does not consist of begrudging obedience to Christ. We know this on a human level. If I come home from work and I greet Heather at the door, and when I get there I give her a big kiss on the lips, she steps back and she says what's that for? Not that I don't normally do that, but let's just assume. She steps back and says that I'll tell you what. My response does not need to be at that point. Well, it says here on page 54 of the marriage manual that this is what I should do when I come home. At this point she is taking the marriage manual and stuffing it down my throat. That's what's happening. That's no way to love.
Speaker 1:Where did we get the idea that Christianity is begrudging obedience? That Christianity and this is the way we think about it? Well, we let go of all the things in this world we love and we do the things that we really don't want to do we need to do them to save our own skin? Not Christianity, not biblical Christianity. Biblical Christianity sees the supremacy of Christ and is so infatuated by Him, so drawn toward Him, that our love for him drives everything we do. It's a superior love that changes our perspective on everything in this world. And so the question before you in light of this verse verse 26 in Luke, chapter 14, is do you love Christ? Do you want Christ? Do you love him with all your heart, your soul and your mind? I'm not asking you to go to church. I'm not asking you if you read your Bible or if you pray, or if you teach, or you do this or that or you're raising your kids.
Speaker 1:Good Rubbish, get through the rubbish. Do you want Christ? Do you love Christ? Love Christ, see the reason why you live, one for whom your heart beats and your affections are driven. This is the picture Superior love. It makes any other love look like hate.
Speaker 1:I want to be careful here, but I am convinced that in our culture today, we idolize our children and our marriages and sex and relationships, parents, families and friends, to the point where Jesus Christ gets the leftovers from our affections, and it's unchristian. You can't even be a disciple of Jesus. If that's the case, you forsake all relationships in favor of an intimate relationship with him. This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. You want to know how this looks practically? I would point you to John Bunyan.
Speaker 1:John Bunyan lived in a time when it was not easy to be a follower of Christ, especially not easier to be a preacher of the gospel of Christ. And he preached, and he was told that if you don't stop preaching, bunyan, then you will be imprisoned. He and his family were not well off as it was. His wife and his children, one of whom was blind, barely had enough to eat and live on. Well, he was free. He knew that if he was imprisoned it would bring great harm upon his family. So what does he do? What do you do? What do you do when faced with that decision? Do you keep preaching? John Bunyan said absolutely, you keep preaching. And he was imprisoned and he wrote from his jail cell.
Speaker 1:The parting with my wife and poor children has often been to me in this place as the pulling of flesh from my bones, and that not only because I am fond of these great mercies talking about his family's children, but also because I have often brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries and wants that my poor family is likely to be meeting with, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer to my heart than all I have besides. Oh, the thought of the hardship I have thought my blind one might go under would break my heart to pieces. But yet Bunyan said. Yet from a prison cell he writes I must venture all with God. Oh, I have seen in this condition I am like a man pulling down his house upon the head of his wife and children. Yet, thought I, I must do it. I must do it.
Speaker 1:Jesus requires superior love. Does he have it from you? If not, cannot be his disciple, jesus says. Second term Jesus outlines verse 27,. Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Second term Jesus requires superior love and exclusive loyalty. Exclusive loyalty Carry his cross. This term, this phrase, may be one of the most misunderstood and misapplied phrases or terms in the New Testament.
Speaker 1:People talk today about carrying crosses and oftentimes they'll be sharing just kind of their faith journey and people will say, well, I'm going through this illness or this disease or this struggle, I'm in this bad relationship or in this bad marriage, or in these bad circumstances, and this is just the cross I bear. It's not what Jesus is talking about here, and this is. It's not what Jesus is talking about here, and this is the whole point of what Jesus is talking about here. It's not what the hearers in the first century heard when Jesus said this, and it's not what we need to hear today. We need to put ourselves in their shoes and realize that Jesus just said anyone who does not carry his cross Now a cross.
Speaker 1:The only time you would carry a cross is if you were a convicted criminal punished to die. A cross beam was hoisted onto your back to carry through the town in public humiliation on the way to your death. This is repugnant to Jesus' ears. We've got to feel the weight of this. We wear crosses everywhere. We see crosses everywhere. This is repugnant to Jesus' ears. We've got to feel the weight of this. We wear crosses everywhere. We see crosses everywhere. This is the equivalent of try to bring it into present day. This is the equivalent of my saying to you if you do not pick up your electric chair, you cannot follow Jesus. Doesn't that sound repugnant, brash? Even that, though, would be insufficient, because the cross involves so much more cruelty and torture than even an electric chair would.
Speaker 1:The reality is, if you're carrying a cross, you're like a dead man walking. You have no more dreams, no more plans for your life, no more ideas for what you're going to do in your life. Everything is over for you. You have no more pride, no more honor, nothing. You're walking through public humiliation on the way to a place where that cross you will be hoisted onto and you will die there. You are a dead man walking and this is the picture that Jesus gives to describe what it means to follow him. Any takers, this is strong. What Jesus is saying is that through the cross of Christ, we die to the life we live. We die to the life we live. We die to the life we live.
Speaker 1:Ladies and gentlemen, if you are a Christian according to Scripture, not according to contemporary definitions of Christian watered down If you're a Christian according to Scripture, you are dead. You're dead. You're dead to yourself. You're dead to your dreams, you're dead to your hopes. You're dead to your plans, to your ideas for what is going to happen in your life. You're dead. You've died to all of those things. That's why, right before this, at the end of verse 26, he said hate not only these people, yes, hate even his own life. He cannot be my disciple. You do not live based on what you desire, what you dream, what you plan, what you hope for, what you want. Those things are gone. They're gone. You're dead to them. Dead to them, and this is Galatians 2.20.
Speaker 1:I've been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. You say David, we're not dead, we're breathing in here. So how do we live? We live in Christ. I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet, not I, but Christ lives in me. This is the picture we're dead to ourself and we're alive to Christ. We are dead to self-esteem thinking. We are dead to self-saturated desiring. We are dead to self-centered planning for our lives. We are dead to self-comforting life, dead to it all. We are alive to Christ-esteem thinking and Christ-honoring and Christ honoring and Christ desiring, planning and Christ-centered living. Dead to ourselves and alive to Christ, and our entire identity is wrapped up in who he is. We are dead to all of these things and alive to him.
Speaker 1:Now. This changes not just our perspective. This changes our priorities, because now the life of Christ determines everything about us. You do not determine where you live. Christ determines where you live. You don't determine what kind of house you have. That is Christ's call. You do not determine the kind of car you drive. That is Christ's decision. You do not determine the clothes you wear. You do not determine the things you buy. You do not determine the plans you make. You do not determine anything. Christ now determines everything. You've died to the life you make. You do not determine anything. Christ now determines everything. You've died to the life you live. You don't determine anything about your life anymore. Christ determines it all. This is a huge claim to authority over your life, my life.
Speaker 1:And he uses two illustrations, starting in verse 28 down to verse 30. Illustration number one and 31 and 32. Illustration number two he says first he says we are workers constructing a building. Don't miss this. Jesus says estimate the cost. A builder will estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it.
Speaker 1:Jesus is warning here against making hasty emotional decisions to follow him. He said you better realize the cost. This is so radically different. We talked about this a little bit last week. You take an evangelist today who has a sinner Somebody's just lost. Evangelist says do you know you're a sinner? Do you believe that Jesus died on the cross? You answer yes to those questions. Well then, welcome to the kingdom. Only problem is, the devil can answer yes to both of those questions and Jesus, meanwhile, is pleading. Count the cost, count the cost. Count the cost. Before you do anything, count the cost. There's a cost here that needs to be considered before you take one step forward. So what does it cost you? Does it cost you everything?
Speaker 1:John Stott, one of my favorite authors, preachers, wrote. He said the Christian landscape is strewn with the wreckage of derelict, half-built towers, the ruins of those who began to build and were unable to finish. For thousands of people still ignore Christ's warning and undertake to follow Him without first pausing to reflect on the cost of doing so. The result is the great scandal of Christendom, today so-called nominal Christianity. In countries to which Christian civilization has spread, large numbers of people have covered themselves with a decent but thin veneer of Christianity. They have allowed themselves to become somewhat involved, enough to be respectable, but not enough to be uncomfortable. Their religion is a great soft cushion. It protects them from the hard, unpleasantness of life while changing its place and shape to suit their convenience. No wonder the cynics speak of hypocrites in the church and dismiss religion as escapism. This is contemporary Christianity, isn't it? Half-built towers I didn't realize them in everything. Consider the cost.
Speaker 1:Jesus says we're workers constructing a building. And then he uses a second illustration we are warriors fighting a battle. Talks about going to war as a king. There's this picture that we see all throughout the New Testament fighting a good fight, spiritual battle going on. Now I want to be careful here. I want to be very careful.
Speaker 1:This is not, nor is anywhere in the New Testament, talking about a holy war, like we often hear on the news associated with radical Islam. This is not in any way talking about a war on terror. This is not a war that is fought with guns and bombs. It's a war that's fought with the gospel, with prayer, with sacrificial love. The New Testament is clear that there is a spiritual battle that encompasses the Christian life. There's a spiritual battle for holiness in our lives and there's a spiritual battle waging for the souls of men, women and children all across this planet, who will go to either an eternal heaven or an eternal hell. The stakes are much higher in this war than any earthly war has ever had. Jesus says you consider, before you go into battle, what's at stake and what's involved. You know, I was looking over this imagery as I was studying this passage this week and I couldn't help but to think Our version of Christianity today really doesn't look at the Christian life as a wartime faith.
Speaker 1:We have more of a peacetime faith, don't we? There's a stark difference between the two. In wartime, I'm always asking the question how can I sacrifice to advance the cause? How can I spend every resource I have? How can I best contribute to accomplishing the mission? We're making sacrifices. We're not indulging in pleasantries. We're trying to figure out how best to accomplish the mission. Sacrifice're making sacrifices. We're not indulging in pleasantries. We're trying to figure out how best to accomplish the mission. Sacrifice everything toward that. Peacetime pleasantries is the name of the game. We ask questions like how can we be more comfortable and how can we have more fun and how can we try new pleasures that we never have experienced before? There's a wartime and a peacetime way to approach life and Christianity. See the difference between the two.
Speaker 1:And this ship? It's now docked in the harbor of Long Beach, california, called the Queen Mary. It was built earlier in the 20th century as a luxury liner with a whole array of indulgences designed to entice wealthy patrons Could fit up to 3,000 wealthy patrons on it at one time Larger, more massive than even the Titanic. What's interesting is, though, for six years, during World War II, when the country was in a state of national emergency, they took this same ship and they called upon the ship to help with transporting troops, and all of a sudden, the ship was transformed from a luxury liner into a source of transport for troops. Whereas 3,000 people could get on it before, now, it could transport 15,000 soldiers. At one time. The whole ship was completely turned upside down to accommodate for accomplishing a mission, instead of accommodating pleasures for wealthy patrons. You go today to this ship it's now a museum, basically to its history and what you can see is in some places they have it designed for troop transport and they see eight bunks high where people would sleep. Everything, every detail, was used to accomplish mission. And then you can look in another room and you can see it designed as a luxury liner for people to enjoy the pleasures of the ship.
Speaker 1:I would ask you which image better describes Christianity in our context today, in our lives, in our families, in and our homes and in this church and I would put before us. Let's consider the cost. Ladies and gentlemen, what would happen if we looked square in the face of 4.5 billion plus people on this planet who are headed to a crisis eternity? And we looked square in the face of 30,000 children today who are dying from either hunger or preventable diseases and we said we're not going to use this ship anymore. Our lives, our families, this church. We're not going to use it to indulge our pleasures and sit by the pool and ask for more hors d'oeuvres to be delivered to us. Instead, we're going to transform everything to say how can we give our lives for the sake of accomplishing this mission? We hope you've enjoyed this week's episode of Radical with David Platt. For more resources from David Platt, we invite you to visit radicalnet.