SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad to be here, so glad to be able to open God's word with you today.
SPEAKER_00: I just wiped off some shelves in the bathroom.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do uh slop water on the sink, and I'm back here ready to teach today.
SPEAKER_00: And uh glad to be behind the scenes and in front of the scenes once in a while.
SPEAKER_00: Um actually, two years ago in 2022, my wife Lori and I bought a house here in Gehana, right on Johnstown Road.
SPEAKER_00: We decided that uh at this stage of our life, we wanted to move down here to be closer to our daughters and families that live up in Westerville.
SPEAKER_00: We have five grandkids up there, and so we scoped out churches.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, our next door neighbor told us that we should look at one church, and so we started to watch online as we did with some other churches in town here, trying to figure out exactly where we're gonna attend.
SPEAKER_00: And let me just tell you, we fell in love with Pastor Greg's teaching.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're so glad and so thankful that he teaches the Bible with such integrity, and we loved and appreciated the way that he did that.
SPEAKER_00: I thought I can really learn from this guy because his messages are deep and they're practical and they're good and they're dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: They really are.
SPEAKER_00: For reasons we're gonna see this morning as we talk about, there's more to the story.
SPEAKER_00: So I'd invite you to take your Bibles with me if you brought a physical copy with you or your electronic devices and turn to the Gospel of Matthew, the very first book of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna look at Matthew chapter 10 today.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that we put the scripture up on the screens, I know that that's always there, but there's something about having something that you can hold personally when you come to church that I think is so valuable.
SPEAKER_00: So don't ever feel weird about bringing an old-fashioned written Bible or or using your electronic device or scrolling on your phone and doing those kind of things because we want you to be in God's word every day.
SPEAKER_00: We want you to understand the truth of how it changes our lives, and we want you to realize even today in Matthew chapter 10, as we're going to look at this passage, that the New Testament really only contains snippets of about 52 days in Jesus' life.
SPEAKER_00: 52 days of the three years that he taught on this earth.
SPEAKER_00: But there's about 500 different directives that he gives, and there's a bunch of them here in Matthew chapter 10.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, in this passage, we find that Jesus had chosen 12 special followers of his, and he's gonna send them out to do ministry.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna tell them some very specific things that are gonna sound kind of confusing, but but you know the shtick here, right?
SPEAKER_00: There's more of the story, and he's gonna teach us some things in the process of this because in Matthew chapter 10, verse 1, and this is not gonna be in the screen, so that's why you should have your Bibles with you, it says Jesus called his twelve disciples together and gave them authority to cast out evil spirits and to heal every kind of disease and illness.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me just tell you that in its purest form, the word disciple in the Greek New Testament just means follower.
SPEAKER_00: It's somebody that decided they were gonna follow somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: A person who followed someone was called a disciple.
SPEAKER_00: That's a term that was used in many contexts in many different situations.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus had chosen twelve special followers that here he picks to go out and to do an incredible ministry.
SPEAKER_00: It says he gave them authority to cast out evil spirits, to heal every kind of disease and illness.
SPEAKER_00: And then it says, here are the names of the twelve apostles, because they were more than just run-of-the-mill followers.
SPEAKER_00: They were people that had this special authority to do what Jesus had called them to do.
SPEAKER_00: And here's their names.
SPEAKER_00: First, Simon, also called Peter, then Andrew, Peter's brother, James, the son of Zebedee, John, James' brother, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, the tax collector, James, the son of Alphaeus, Thaddeus, Simon, the zealot.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Pastor Greg's talked about the different kinds of Jewish people that lived at this time?
SPEAKER_00: Simon was a zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who later betrayed him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as these apostles, the ones with special authority, were given a whole bunch of commands here in chapter 10.
SPEAKER_00: We finally go down to verse 37, and we find some amazing things that Jesus says to them.
SPEAKER_00: In addition to, you know, where to sleep and what to do, and just practical details along the way.
SPEAKER_00: He says this, he says in verse 37, and this will be on the screen, if you love your father or mother more than me, you are not worthy of being mine.
SPEAKER_00: Or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you're not worthy of being mine.
SPEAKER_00: And you can imagine that as those disciples, as those apostles started to hear those words, their minds started to go, well, this is weird.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is harsh.
SPEAKER_00: What does this mean?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to cut right to the chase right now because as we talk about there being more to the story and interpreting what this passage says, I believe what Jesus is telling them and what he's telling us is that we are to have a supreme and incomparable love for him beyond any human relationship, beyond father, mother, sister, brother, son, daughter, anybody that you can think of, we are to have a supreme and incomparable love for Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he says if you love your father or mother more than me, you're not worthy of being mine.
SPEAKER_00: If you love your son or daughter more than me, you're not worthy of being mine.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a cultural assumption here, right?
SPEAKER_00: A cultural something that something that I hope is still true in many ways in our society, and that's that people did love their families.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, people loved their parents, people loved their children, people loved the people that God had brought in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: And I realize that there's some messy family situations that all of us have part of, and weird uncles in the background, and everything else.
SPEAKER_00: But let me just tell you this it's a pretty good assumption to make, and it's the ideal of what God says is his very best when a man and woman love each other, and they get married and they have kids, and amazing things happen in good, close personal families.
SPEAKER_00: I will tell you that I come from a really, really good small family in western Pennsylvania.
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a place where I could not imagine leaving home in this little tiny town north of Pittsburgh, PA.
SPEAKER_00: I loved my parents, loved my family, I loved my friends, I loved my grandparents, I had aunts and uncles, I had great aunts and uncles, I had cousins who were like brothers and sisters to me.
SPEAKER_00: And some of my closest friends were in the little church that I grew up in, back in the hills of Pennsylvania.
SPEAKER_00: And they were like family.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, small church, connected youth group.
SPEAKER_00: We camped together, we had fun together, we got in trouble together.
SPEAKER_00: And yet when God called me to ministry when I was in 10th grade, after I left high school, I went from Pennsylvania, this tiny little town in the hills of Western PA, to the big city of Chicago to Bible college, and in the back of an English class, 48 years ago, how about that, I met this little 18-year-old brunette girl with curly hair that I fell in love with.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I will tell you that it hit me hard.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, it took me a long time to convince her that she was worthy, or I was worthy of her, but I knew right away that she was the right one.
SPEAKER_00: So we started to talk in this English class and we started to pass notes back and forth.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, literally, we would, I it's hard for you to believe.
SPEAKER_00: I realize this if you're under 40, but but we would actually write things on pieces of paper and like like pass them down the aisle to each other.
SPEAKER_00: It's like prehistoric texting, something like that.
SPEAKER_00: And and and little by little we became family, and I began to love her, and I still love her more than anybody else in the entire world.
SPEAKER_00: More than my parents, more than my kids, more than my grandkids.
SPEAKER_00: And I realized it just seems like a strange comparison to look at Jesus' words and try to put it into context of a human relationship, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, because when you love somebody personally, there's there's a tangible, touchable, personal kind of attraction that comes.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's amazing things that happen.
SPEAKER_00: And when we have those kind of friendships and those kind of relationships, there's there's great things that that take place with just a reciprocation of affection.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about it.
SPEAKER_00: Best friends slap each other on the back, you know.
SPEAKER_00: We shake hands, we hug each other, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's what we do when we care about each other.
SPEAKER_00: And spouses, I mean, that's a whole other sermon, but we hug and we kiss, and we try to perfect love to an art form, and we show it as regularly as often as we can to each other, when we really are in love with each other.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Lori and I will be married 45 years this year, and and we are so thankful for that.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, Jesus says, no matter how good your best relationship is, with a friend, with family, with spouse, with kids, anybody else, we're to love Jesus more than any of those relationships.
SPEAKER_00: It's to be a supreme and incomparable love.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're tracking with this, you might have found an out already.
SPEAKER_00: Because here in Matthew chapter 10, remember it says Jesus called the twelve disciples together.
SPEAKER_00: He gave them authority to cast out evil spirits.
SPEAKER_00: These are the names of the twelve apostles, and you're saying, Phew, this is really great, because that's these guys.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, these are the guys that they name churches after.
SPEAKER_00: These are the guys that they make statues out of and put in those churches that they name after them.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not us, is it?
SPEAKER_00: Well, let me just tell you this: this was not a one-off teaching of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This was something that he communicated over and over and over again because he wants us, just like he wanted the people then, to understand the importance of what he was saying.
SPEAKER_00: Over in Luke chapter 14, you can turn over there, Matthew, Mark, Luke, the third book of the New Testament, in chapter 14, verses 26 to 27, see if you can hear some of the differences here as you see the words on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: It says, A large crowd was following Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He turned around and said to them, If you want to be my disciple, if you want to be my follower, said you must by comparison hate everyone else.
SPEAKER_00: Your father, your mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, even your own life, otherwise you could not be my disciple.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to follow me, and this translation really kind of keys it up for us.
SPEAKER_00: It says, hey, by comparison, all those other things are supposed to seem like we don't even care about them.
SPEAKER_00: We hate them.
SPEAKER_00: We don't we don't like them.
SPEAKER_00: And that was a Jewish idiom that was used in different parts of literature and was part of the Jewish culture.
SPEAKER_00: They would look at love and hate as two extremes, and and they would know that they were not talking about a critical, sensorial, angry kind of hate, but that was such a comparison that writers and people would talk about with loving one child and hating the other, or or even back in a polygamous culture, loving one wife and hating the other, which that's beyond my even scope of understanding.
SPEAKER_00: I just want you to know that when I thought of this, I thought of the town that Lori and I pastored a church in for 25 years, Youngstown, Ohio.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as I meet people here at one church, I find a lot of you have connections in Youngstown.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, if you have a family member or you're from Youngstown or you spend any time there in jail, just raise raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: I love Youngstown.
SPEAKER_00: I really do.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Youngstown is not the garden spot of the world.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we admit that, right?
SPEAKER_00: But we raised our kids there.
SPEAKER_00: They went to Boardman High School, and we had Gorin's Chocolate and Handel's Ice Cream and Belleria Pizza and Wedgewood pizza.
SPEAKER_00: And oh, I wish I had a Wedgwood pizza right now.
SPEAKER_00: It's some of the best in there is, and and uh the MVR and Golden Dawn and all those great restaurants in Youngstown, and great people.
SPEAKER_00: There's also a lot of sports fans in Youngstown.
SPEAKER_00: Um matter of fact, I could run a lot of different rabbit trails with that, but there were a lot of San Francisco 49ers fans because the DeBartlow family was from Youngstown, but there were these two groups of people that really didn't like each other.
SPEAKER_00: One was called Browns fans, and one was called Steelers fans.
SPEAKER_00: See, Youngstown is just right in the middle of those two big towns, and so anytime I really wanted to get people going, I would just talk about the Browns or the Steelers, kind of like I'm doing here with you today, because those groups of people did not like each other.
SPEAKER_00: You might even say that they hated each other at different times or they hated each other's teams, but here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: If you were to Google, and I've done this yesterday and I've done it today again, you might do it when you get bored here in just a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: If you Google, why do Ravens fans hate, you know what's gonna come up?
SPEAKER_00: Ravens.
SPEAKER_00: Why do Browns fans hate Ravens is gonna be the first thing about.
SPEAKER_00: And if you Google why do Steelers fans hate the next thing that's gonna come up is Ravens, because you got it?
SPEAKER_00: Both of those teams, as much as they dislike each other, don't like the Ravens even more.
SPEAKER_00: You might even say, in comparison, they hate the Ravens.
SPEAKER_00: Now I had a guy in the second row here, first hour, that had a Ravens jersey on, and so I almost felt convicted by the Holy Spirit not to talk about that.
SPEAKER_00: But but you get the idea.
SPEAKER_00: It's a comparison, and and it's kind of relative in the whole process of this, and all of that said, that no matter who we love, by comparison, we're to love Jesus even more.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I use the terms supreme and incomparable.
SPEAKER_00: Now he's not saying we shouldn't love others, but our love for him should be so much greater, it should be more significant, it should be more spiritually intimate, it should be more fulfilling, and you say, well, that's that's weird because if if you're just kind of checking out this Christianity thing, you're probably saying, but but Jesus lived and died a long time ago.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how do you how do you love somebody that's dead?
SPEAKER_00: But that's the good news of who he is, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: We know that Jesus was not just a man who lived and died after he taught all the good things that he did.
SPEAKER_00: We know that Jesus is God come in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: He took on human form.
SPEAKER_00: He came, he lived, he taught, he died, he was buried, but the Bible said he rose again, he's alive today, he offers eternal life to every one of us who believe, and that's why we can have a supreme, incomparable love for him.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, his love for us is greater than we will ever experience, even though we cannot totally comprehend it, than any other human relationship, because the Bible says greater love is no one in this than a person who laid down their life for their friends.
SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you, folks, Jesus laid down his life for us.
SPEAKER_00: He took the penalty of sin and the sin that all of us deserve punishment for upon himself.
SPEAKER_00: He died on the cross of Calvary, a horrible death.
SPEAKER_00: Like if you had cancer in your body, and somehow I could take that cancer out of your body and put it in mine and literally die in your place.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus did for the cancer of sin in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And all he tells us to do is decide that we're going to trust that he paid that penalty, to believe in him, to have faith in him.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever terms you want to use, that's the message of the good news of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: For God so loved the world, he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: And so I pray and hope that that love that Jesus has shown to you, if you've never made a response of it, that you'd consider that even today.
SPEAKER_00: To decide that you're gonna trust him, you're gonna decide you're gonna have faith in him, you're gonna say, Yes, I believe in you.
SPEAKER_00: Because for those of us that have, this passage becomes even more convicting because it tells us that we're not just to have a supreme and incomparable love for Jesus, it tells us how we show that.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna go back to Matthew chapter 10.
SPEAKER_00: It says, if you love your father or mother more than me, you're not worthy of being mine.
SPEAKER_00: If you love your son or daughter more than me, you're not worthy of being mine.
SPEAKER_00: If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine.
SPEAKER_00: You see, what this passage is telling us again to get right to the point, is that Jesus doesn't just want us to look at him as the one who is a supreme and incomparable love, but he wants to be the leader of our lives instead of guess who?
SPEAKER_00: Instead of ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wants to be the one who has authority over our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wants to be the one to tell us how to live and what to do.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wants to be the one who tells us that we are to give up ourselves as the authority of our lives, and we're to count on him being the leader.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is where this passage is so interesting to me because it would be easy for us as we read through Matthew to this point, as Christians in the 21st century, to say, well, Jesus must be talking about his cross, about somehow bearing his cross with him and going along with his sufferings and doing that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we have a phrase in our culture that talks about bearing a cross, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if things are bad at work, it's well, it's the cross I have to bear.
SPEAKER_00: If if we have an illness, sometimes we say that.
SPEAKER_00: What's kind of the cross that I have to bear?
SPEAKER_00: And I realize it's it's a perfectly good cultural phrase and assumption and metaphor, but that's not what Jesus is talking about here.
SPEAKER_00: You see, when somebody saw a person literally carrying a cross, bearing a cross, they were under the sentence of death.
SPEAKER_00: Because in the Roman Empire, that's the way the Romans punished the worst of criminals of that time.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, they weren't just on their way to literally give up their lives, but they were under the authority of the Roman government that had sentenced them to that, and that was a horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible way to die.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, in Roman culture, polite people would not even mention crosses.
SPEAKER_00: It was just too gross.
SPEAKER_00: It was too awful.
SPEAKER_00: It would be like sitting around and talking about somebody being on death row and lethal injections and gross kind of stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, people did not do that in proper polite society.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, whenever these disciples were hearing this message and Jesus' crowds were hearing that, they would also kind of get grossed out about the whole idea of somebody dying on a cross, that wicked, horrible death.
SPEAKER_00: And only a few years before that, there was a rebellion by a bunch of Jewish zealots by the name, a guy named Judas Maccabeus, who had led this rebellion to try to overthrow Rome, and it did not go well.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was squelched very quickly.
SPEAKER_00: And in punishment of those zealots, you know what the Romans did?
SPEAKER_00: They crucified over 2,000 Jewish people, some of them innocent people, along the roads in Upper Galilee and the northern part of Israel, just to show that they were the ones in authority, they were the ones who had the power, they were the ones who led that kingdom, as Greg's been talking about.
SPEAKER_00: So when Jesus talks to his disciples about picking up their cross, what he's saying is that we need to give up ourselves as the authority of our lives, and we need to decide that he's gonna be the authority of our life, that we need to take up the cross of his authority, we need to decide that we are gonna follow him, and he actually mentions that word in just a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Before we go there, let's be honest.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, most of us don't like people telling us what to do, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know that from working in the parking lot out here at One Church.
SPEAKER_00: Ha ha, gotcha.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like to be told what to do here.
SPEAKER_00: I was telling, I was talking to my son-in-law and daughter that were here at the first hour, and they said, matter of fact, they ignored the parking lot attendant when they came in.
SPEAKER_00: The guy said, go here, and they went there because they wanted to park someplace else.
SPEAKER_00: In any case, all that said, we really like to be the people who control our own lives.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the guy named John Ortberg wrote a book called Soulkeeping, and he says this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the world says if you're empty, you need to fill yourself.
SPEAKER_00: If you're stressed, you need to learn how to care for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: If you're on a job interview, you have to believe in yourself.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in a tattoo parlor, you must learn to express yourself.
SPEAKER_00: If someone dares to criticize you, you have to love yourself.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not getting your own way, you have to stand up for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And in itself, those are not awful things to do, are they?
SPEAKER_00: They're not bad things to do.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is if we only exist for ourselves and we want to be the leaders of our lives, we're gonna miss out on the depth and the joy and everything else that Jesus has for us.
SPEAKER_00: Because he doesn't want us just to be curious about what's going on in life.
SPEAKER_00: He wants us to be committed to him.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want us just to be part of the crowd that goes on and says, hey, I'll go along with what everybody else says.
SPEAKER_00: He wants us to listen to his spirit, follow his leadership, obey his commands, and realize that as he says all of this, only he will ultimately satisfy the deep hunger of our lives and the thirst of our souls.
SPEAKER_00: It sounds pretty biblical, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, he says this if you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you're not worthy of being mine.
SPEAKER_00: The phrase follow me there is a military term.
SPEAKER_00: It just comes right down to it.
SPEAKER_00: It's a military term where a commanding officer says to somebody else, I want you to do this, you must obey me, you must follow me.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've been in the military, you know whenever you get a command from your commanding officer, you don't sit around and go, Well, let me think about that for a while, right?
SPEAKER_00: Or how about I pray about that before I get on with this?
SPEAKER_00: Let me let me just see whether I should obey that command or not.
SPEAKER_00: That's not how we live our lives, and yet again, you might say, but this is to the twelve, this is to the apostles, these are the super saints.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's why we take our Bibles and we turn over to Luke chapter 9, because there's even more conviction that comes from this.
SPEAKER_00: And there's there's actually more specificity because actually, in every one of the gospels, in several different places, Jesus gives this command to people.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying we're to have a supreme and incomparable love for him.
SPEAKER_00: He says that we are to give up ourselves as the authority of our lives, and we're to submit to his authority.
SPEAKER_00: And here in Luke chapter 9, verse 23, it gets really good.
SPEAKER_00: Listen very carefully, and watch the words.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Then he said to the crowd, if any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way.
SPEAKER_00: Up your cross, how often?
SPEAKER_00: Daily.
SPEAKER_00: And follow me.
SPEAKER_00: How about that for practical conviction, eh?
SPEAKER_00: How about how about just can be clearer when Jesus says, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough to be just curious.
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough just to be part of the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to submit to my authority every day if you really want to find the depth of relationship.
SPEAKER_00: And it shouldn't surprise us, in the book of John, that I won't turn there to right now, in John 6, verse 66, it says, At this point, many of his disciples turned away and deserted him.
SPEAKER_00: And not the twelve, not the twelve apostles, and not those who were truly committed, but but those who decided that they'd had enough and this was too hard for them to do.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about it.
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't it have been fun to hang around Jesus when he was doing his miracles?
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't it have been great to be around him when he was healing diseases and casting out spirits and turning water into wine and passing out bread and fish and feeding people?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, wouldn't it be great to be with him while all that performance was taking place?
SPEAKER_00: But what about when the teaching got tough?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when the show's over and he starts talking about loving people in less comparison to himself?
SPEAKER_00: What he talks about, a commitment of leadership to the point of death, and all that as he talked to his followers, what about us, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what about when following him isn't that easy?
SPEAKER_00: What about whenever he says that we are to obey him in some way that we know is hard and goes against our will?
SPEAKER_00: What about whenever he hasn't answered that prayer yet?
SPEAKER_00: Or what about even worse when he says no to the things that you and I feel like we want to do or we want to have, and he says, no, that's not my will for you.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's where it gets tough for us, right?
SPEAKER_00: And that's where it comes down to the fact that as Pastor Greg and I were talking about this passage, he said, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: He said, many of us wear a cross, but isn't it amazing that Jesus said instead of wearing a cross, we're to be bearing a cross.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: We're to bear the cross of his authority.
SPEAKER_00: We're to be the people who aren't just curious, aren't part of the crowd, but are committed.
SPEAKER_00: And the question is, which one are you?
SPEAKER_00: And which one am I, right?
SPEAKER_00: And that's why coming to one church is a dangerous thing.
SPEAKER_00: It really is.
SPEAKER_00: Because Greg teaches us from the Bible, and because his messages are clear, and because there's always specific marching orders after he communicates truth, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: We're responsible to obey that.
SPEAKER_00: As followers of Jesus, as people who say we love him, and I'm talking to a specific group here, people that have already made a commitment of trust, people who said, I do believe in who he is and what he's done for me, we are to decide that we have to live our lives accountable to Jesus' truth.
SPEAKER_00: We have to decide that since he is our Savior, he is also the Lord of our lives, and we've got to decide that if we love Jesus, then really, daily, we're to give up ourselves as the ultimate authority of our lives, and we're to decide that we're to submit to him.
SPEAKER_00: We're to learn and to listen, we're to grow and to do the things that he calls us to do.
SPEAKER_00: And sure, as we're loving people, we are to be the kind of loving people that are more committed to what he says and what our culture says or what our mother-in-law says, or what our boss says, or what our friends say, or what anybody tells us.
SPEAKER_00: Now, for me personally, I will tell you that this has been a practice for much of my life.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I told you that I was called to ministry when I was in tenth grade, and it was a wrestle for me as a high school kid because there was something I wanted to do, and yet there was something I felt God was calling me to do, and I had to submit to doing that.
SPEAKER_00: When Lori and I were in that English class back in Bible college, it means seriously, I mean, she was not too interested in me.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it took me a long time to convince her that I was worthy of her time.
SPEAKER_00: And it finally was in that next summer that I went home after I had tried my best to get this woman to fall for me, that I finally said, Lord, you know, whatever you want, I submit to your will.
SPEAKER_00: I do what you want.
SPEAKER_00: And we came back that fall and fell in love.
SPEAKER_00: I'll also tell you that that's been very true of the places that we have gone and served, because there have been times where we've said, Lord, we'd love to do this, and God says, I'd rather you do this.
SPEAKER_00: There have been times that we've said, we would love to go this direction, and God says, No, this is my path for you, and we've had to be obedient for that.
SPEAKER_00: And and I will tell you that in some sense, that's why I'm here today, because I wasn't even going to apply for a job at one church, and and the Spirit said, You need to do that, and I did.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll also tell you, though, as good as those stories have turned out, there have also been some really sleepless nights, and there have been some lost friendships, and there have been times where saying yes to God have been really hard because I would say no to some other things.
SPEAKER_00: But I will tell you this without going into some of those details now.
SPEAKER_00: When I try, I often fail.
SPEAKER_00: But when I trust, God always succeeds.
SPEAKER_00: Is that true for you?
SPEAKER_00: When you try, you will sometimes fail, you will sometimes succeed.
SPEAKER_00: But when we trust, he always succeeds because that's the incredible journey that God has for us, who are trusting Jesus as our Savior, and decide that we're gonna show that incomparable, supreme love for him by saying, we're gonna give up ourselves as the authority of our lives, we're gonna let him be the one who leads us.
SPEAKER_00: The old timers used to call it the exchanged life from Galatians 2.20, where it says, I've been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
SPEAKER_00: And the life I live in this flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why over and over again, friends, we want to get to the point in our lives as followers of Jesus where we're not just trusting him as one who sacrificed himself for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: That's where it starts.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe it starts with a one-time commitment and it continues on from there.
SPEAKER_00: But as we trust in him for our salvation, we want to make sure that we continue with really solid biblical discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: Discipleship that comes to this place is, okay, Lord, what are you gonna teach me?
SPEAKER_00: Not just how good is it gonna feel, or am I gonna see my friends, but how am I gonna learn to be obedient because of the teaching of your word?
SPEAKER_00: How am I gonna follow you?
SPEAKER_00: How am I gonna put into practice what you're saying?
SPEAKER_00: And then taking that truth and living it out through the week and spending more time in God's word and realizing that that biblical discipleship, biblical followship of Jesus is something that has to happen by you daily, saying, I'm gonna give up myself as the authority of life.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, I want you to be the one who leads me.
SPEAKER_00: Have you?
SPEAKER_00: Are you?
SPEAKER_00: Are you willing?
SPEAKER_00: Might you even start that today?
SPEAKER_00: Somebody wrote, a man walked up to the teacher and said, Give me a little Jesus, please.
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: Responded the authority.
SPEAKER_00: A little Jesus, please.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, the man said, just a little Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You see, I don't want enough of him to love my enemies or even my next door neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: I just want a little Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want enough to talk about him to strangers, leave my family well, or even love my wife unconditionally.
SPEAKER_00: I just want a little Jesus, please.
SPEAKER_00: Enough to make me happy, enough people, enough to make people think I'm a good person.
SPEAKER_00: Enough to get me into heaven someday, certainly, but not enough to change my life now.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to change my prejudices, give up my habits, or take away my lustful thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: I just want a little Jesus, please.
SPEAKER_00: Enough to fix my problem, enough to help me cope, enough to help me just get by.
SPEAKER_00: So, like I said, sir, just give me a little Jesus, please.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus wept.
SPEAKER_00: Because all too often that's all we want.
SPEAKER_00: And the question this morning is, what does he want for your life today?
SPEAKER_00: You see, our message series is called There's More of the Story, but There's More to Your Story Too.
SPEAKER_00: If you, as a follower of Jesus, decide you're gonna commit your life to him every day, asking him to be the authority of your life.
SPEAKER_00: And that's how we want to end our service today.
SPEAKER_00: Because as you stand with me and we prepare to pray and leave this place, we're gonna invite those who are available every week to pray with you to come forward.
SPEAKER_00: And today, maybe the Holy Spirit's just speaking to you and saying, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I want to trust in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I want to decide that I'm gonna make a decision to say yes to him, that I believe in him, that I know he died for my sins, that I want to accept that today, accept him as the one who loves you more than anybody else ever could.
SPEAKER_00: Or it may very well be that you've already done that and you've done it a number of times, but but today the Spirit's just saying, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Give up yourself as the authority of life.
SPEAKER_00: Decide you're gonna follow him.
SPEAKER_00: I can guarantee you, it's gonna be an incredible journey.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be an amazing time.
SPEAKER_00: Because when we have a supreme and incomparable love for Jesus and we give up ourselves as the authority, try it every day this week.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be amazing to see what God wants to do.
SPEAKER_00: Let's bow our heads in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that anybody who's here today that doesn't know Jesus would want to and decide that they want to accept that free gift of salvation that only you can give.
SPEAKER_00: Your spirit is speaking to people right now, Lord, and I pray that they will respond in obedience and say yes to you.
SPEAKER_00: And for the rest of us who have already done that, Lord, I pray that there would be hundreds of us this week that just even out of commitment and out of obedience to your word would wake up in the morning and be able to say, Lord, before I get out of bed, I'm gonna give up myself as the authority of my life.
SPEAKER_00: I want to submit to you.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray, Lord, you would do it exceedingly an abundant in each of their lives because of that commitment.
SPEAKER_00: I pray today, Father, that as you continue to speak to us, as you give opportunity to pray and to fellowship and to put your word into practice, that you would continue to tell us of your love for us.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray, Father, that even as we leave this place, people would see Jesus in our lives, for it's in his name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: And all in agreement said.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.