All In // Nick Serban IV

All In __ Nick Serban IV

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

jesus, god, love, lord, disciple, life, hate, read, follow, people, relationship, talk, cost, verse, log cabin, surrender, give, living sacrifice, die, followers

But if you had your Bible, turn with me to Luke chapter 14, if you follow us on social media at full life ag on Instagram or Facebook, you kind of saw I already talked about this a little bit and Luke chapter 14, don't throw it up yet because I don't throw it up yet. But I want to kind of look at this really tough passage of scripture. That many times when we read it, we've actually I've actually seen a lot of unbelievers use this passage of Scripture to say that, that Jesus is an I'm loving God. Or I've seen I've seen this passage of Scripture use in a way that says, Oh, well, the Bible contradicts itself. This this is this is something that is used on the offense many times, but today, I really want to give you the context. And I really want to give you some some deeper like Greek and Hebrew on what the scripture really means. So that when you read it sometimes in English, it's it we jack it up. All right, the English language is is really messed up compared to other languages. There's all these weird meetings. Yeah. All my Spanish speakers in the house. Amen. It's it's, it's rough, right? But again, I wish I wish every Sunday was a follow your dreams, you know, Sunday, like, dude, do everything God's called you to do whoo hoo, like and pump you up. But this, this may not be that Sunday. My prayer is that we get to the end, and there's a decision that each of us have to make you already, Luke chapter 14, Jesus is traveling right now, from Jericho to Jerusalem. And starting in Luke chapter nine. I'm going to be in Luke 14 today. But in starting in Luke chapter nine, is really when when Jesus starts traveling, and he's got not just his 12 disciples, but he's got 1000s of people following him. It's like this huge caravan of people. And it's crazy when you actually go to Israel, it's interesting to see where Jesus actually preached different messages was very strategic, to the geography of where he was, he would stand in a place where people could hear him better, he would either stand at the bottom of a hill and talk UPS was voice would reverberate, or he would stand near water. So his voice would also be a little bit louder in places, it's very strategic, when it's one rabbi, talking to 1000s of people, right? But it's kind of funny, because if you compare it to this day and age, like, he's, he's got a big Instagram following Jesus, right? He's got a lot of people like, like, putting likes and comments and stuff on everything. He's saying, like he's sharing his parables with people like, this is awesome. I don't know what he's saying. But this is really good. You know, it's like, people are following him in a really cool way. But then Jesus, I mean, in marketing one on one, you know, you really want to, in a way you want to pander to the people that are following you, right? You want to hype up your people, you want to get them excited, because then they get more followers and you grow your business and that sort of thing. But Jesus is not about this. He's like, you know, I don't care about the followers. I care about disciples. So I'm gonna say amen here today. And so he goes into this, this kind of rant in a way and it's incredibly offensive. He says in Luke chapter 14, verse 25, to 29, and verse 33, he says, Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned, and he said to them, and again, he's saying this in a, in a loud voice, so that everybody can hear him. He says, If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father, and mother and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. It's rough. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the costs, whether he has enough to complete it. Otherwise, when he's laid down a foundation, it's not able, he's not able to finish all who see it begin to mock him. And then jumping down to verse 33. It says, so therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has, cannot be my disciple. God I pray you bless this word today, though that you would open up our hearts that you would keep us focused on you through every single word that is shared every story that is shared Lord, when your word comes forth, let it be life giving to us today, God let it challenge us to grow and Jesus mighty name we pray, amen. A min Have you ever, ever been overcharged for something? Is there anybody here in the room like when you go to a restaurant you're like checking the bill like for every single line item like you say you charge me twice for this one drink refills are free, buddy. Like, Has that ever happened? And is anybody like that today? Okay, cool. How many of you have ever like you've ordered guacamole and they forgot to charge it on the receipt and you're kinda like, ooh, hay fever ain't fair right? Anybody here in this place? Maybe it's just me All right, when they when they don't charge for the cheese dip. I'm like, Yes, Lord, You are real hallelujah. But it's kind of crazy right now because like inflation, you know is sort of messing with us. And then you're probably tired of hearing about it. But we've got high gas prices, houses, cars, phones, groceries, all the things I read a stat the other day, actually said that the average household right now pays 70% More money on groceries than they did three years ago. Isn't that crazy? I love that's kind of funny. You see the memes of like, this is what $100 bought me at the grocery store today. And then this is what about me five years ago, and it's just like, it looks like times two, right? I'm kind of excited for Levi to get potty trained and out of diapers, because I'm going to be loaded. Once I stopped paying for diapers, like, I'm just, I'm so ready. It's gonna be amazing. But in this day and age, you know, we need to make be making wise decisions, right? Our ability to count the cost in every financial choice that we make. And every choice we make with our time, we need to be wise in that. And Jesus actually says this is a part of maturing, you know, even in our relationship with Him. And Jesus challenges all these willing, devoted followers. They again, they're literally really following Him. Jesus is the he's the celebrity of the day. He's the new cool, hit rabbi. It's like, Man, this guy's awesome. You know, he's got long hair. He just walks around with all these other cool guys like this is this dude is awesome. And he's saying things that other rabbis aren't saying. And he's actually taking off all the other rabbis. So like, This guy's a rebel, like this guy's cool. Like, this is the person you want to be following on Instagram, right? It's so cool to see all the things he says, Every time someone, you know, every time Jesus posts something, you know, people are commenting, like, amen, you know, in the comments and all that. And it's just really cool. Some people are saying, you know, that's my guy, that's my rabbi, you know, I'm a follower of Jesus, I'm gonna follow you to the end. You know, this guy, he might be the Messiah or Jesus. He reminds me of Elijah, he speaks this truth, like, like Moses, and all these different things and people are getting, they're saying all these things about Jesus. And then there's some people that are just kind of following him. You know, kicking the tires, I'm not really sure about this guy about this Jesus, you know, I'm pretty into this other rabbi, but, you know, we've got influencers and stuff on social media today, with millions of followers. And honestly, I don't really know, you know, what an influencer is, I mean, I'm an influencer, right? We're all influencers. You've got you've got followers, you got friends, right? We're all influencers. But again, Jesus is like this, this cool guy. But oftentimes today, I think, when somebody that we're following like, says something that we don't like, I mean, you can do one of two things you can like, cancel them, right? And you make like, nasty comments, or whatever, or you just unfollow them, right? It's very easy to do. I love unfollowing people, I really, it's, it's my joy. It's my joy to go through and unfriend and unfollow people. If I've unfriended you, it's I'm sorry, I might have muted you. Maybe I'm not hearing what you said, No, I'm just teasing. But you know, sometimes we, we have this relation, we think we have this relationship with the people we follow. And when they do something that, you know, gets us upset, we'll comment and be like, I'm so disappointed. You know that you said this. And really, oftentimes that person is like, who are you? Like, you're so disappointed, and I don't even know who you are. You're just following me? Right? We can like we're friends. You know, we're we're best buddies. You know, you've been following me for all these years, but we've never actually met. So again, you've got 1000s of followers of Jesus, and some of them never actually met Jesus. Right? They're just in the caravan. Like, they love it. When Jesus feeds, you know, he's got the bread and the fish, right? Free food Jesus is by and he's like, this is awesome, right? We we follow Him because of what he gives us. Or, you know, we love the things he says, because it makes us feel something special, right? You know, just because you follow someone online doesn't mean that you know them. And it doesn't mean that you're an intimate and intimate fellowship with them, right? We all know this, right? And that's what's happening with Jesus, he's in this massive crowd. People are attaching themselves to him. And they're saying, Oh, this is my guy. I claim Jesus, you know, as my rabbi, but Jesus turns to the crowd. And he's going out of his way, almost to lose followers. And again, there's a couple of things that I want us to see from this. The first thing is this. Jesus, as he's sharing this, he's saying, you know, you don't need to hate. You know, let me say this. It's kind of funny when we read that scripture, and it's talking about hate, right? He's like, I need you to hate your mom, like text your mom right now and say, I hate you. Jesus told me to tell you this, right? No, that's not what he's saying at all. He's saying Jesus, above everything. That's point number one. If you're taking notes here today. I gotta be over everything. Everyone is you're gonna lock with me. I have to be first again Luke 1425 Great crowd. accompanying him in verse 26. He says, If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and even his own life, he can't be my disciple. But I think oftentimes, especially in this culture today, you know, we associate Jesus with love. Right? He's the love guy, right? Jesus, he's not about hate. You know, he doesn't want us to, to hate people, right? We're supposed to love everybody. It's supposed to be this cool, awesome disco with Jesus of love. Right? And then all of a sudden, he's turning around and telling everybody, no, you need to hate all these people. And again, like I said, before, so many people use this scripture to contradict the character of Jesus, to contradict the character of our God. No, Your God is a God of hate. It says so right here in Luke 14. supposed to hate my parents hate my kids hate myself. But I thought I was supposed to love others. Again, there. Everyone's claiming Jesus, but Jesus is saying you can't claim me if you don't claim me correctly. I'm not I'm not just this Lovey Dovey, Jesus, there's, there's more to it. I have to be above everything else in your life. And I gotta say this, too. I love this so much, Jesus, or God really is only called Love twice in the Bible. Read it, only twice, and it's in two verses next to each other. In First John 473. It says, Beloved, let us love one another for God is love. How many of us know this verse, right? God is love. And so many of us this is like the crux of our theology. God is love. Right? And really, that's, that's what we point to so many times, but then when we see suffering in the world, how can we say that God is love? But really, what's even more interesting is God is described as holy, over 400 times throughout Scripture. I think I think the Lord is more concerned about being seen as holy and sovereign over all things than love. He's more concerned about being above all, than being seen as the Lovey Dovey, huggy God, right? Not that he isn't love. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that today. He is love. But he is holy. Above all. Again, the most difficult part of this text is the word hate. Because, hey, we always say it's the opposite of love. Right? And you can you can, you know, people have different debates and ideas on all of that, but really, in English, we screw it up. It's a word again, we try not to use you know, you can hate your vegetables. It's I say to my kids, you can't hate someone. But you can hate your vegetables, right? You can hate cats. And you can hate Alabama football. Amen. Somebody come on. Just kidding. Sorry, y'all. I don't care. I don't care about the balls. I just want them to be Bama. But it's didn't happen this year. But what's interesting, Jesus, you know, he's preaching in Hebrew and, and Aramaic, and all these different things. But in Hebrew, the word hate actually means Sunny. What do you say sunny. And again, Jesus he preached in, in Hebrew, but then Luke, he writes his gospel in Greek. And the word in Greek is missio, are missio. And once they miss you, you just learned a Hebrew and Greek word today, praise the Lord. But what's really interesting is these words have deeper meaning than just hate. And both of these words in Hebrew and Greek, they mean almost the exact same thing. The first the first definition is the hate, disdain to despise. But then the second definition is this. To love less. To love second than another. So when Jesus is is saying, Sunday, he's saying to to love less, he's not saying, you know, I hate you. He say, No, I love you less. I must be number one. And everyone else must be loved less than me. And we've got a great you know, a great show of this in Proverbs. This is a kind of a famous verse proverbs 1324 You guys can probably finish this. Whoever spares the rod. spoil the child, right? It's like a Southern southern verse. You know, don't spoil your child you know, spank your kids, you know, discipline your kids. But what's interesting is you have if you actually read the real translation are it really what it says in Scripture? It doesn't say spoil. It says whoever spares the rod hates his son. And that word hate is Sani. Whoever hates his son, whoever loves his son less spares the rod. And again, it's one of those things even as a parent that I'm realizing like, it's such a, it hurts my heart every time I have to discipline my kids. But there's been a few moments where I'm disciplining them, and they're crying, and I'm crying. And it's like this. I don't want to do this, but I have to, or you're gonna be a brat. You know, if I don't, if I didn't love you, I would let you do whatever you want. Really, if I didn't care about you, then there wouldn't be any point like, why does it matter? But I care about who my child is going to be in the world. And so I discipline them, right? I have boundaries that I I've set up for them. It's because I love them. If I loved them less if I saw made my kids, then I wouldn't discipline them. All the parents just say amen in the house right now. Again, no, no loving parent would say that they hate their kid. I mean, sometimes, but you know, it's when they annoy me. No, I'm just kidding. Again, if you don't discipline your children, you don't fully love them. Or let me just say this, Aren't you grateful that you have a God who loves you enough to let you go through some stuff. Because it's when you go through disciplines and through difficult seasons, that you become better that you become who God has destined you to be. Amen. And I just gotta say, some of y'all need to stop sparing the rod with your kids. If you love your kids will be kids. And some of y'all need a weapon to you know, that's just how it goes, Jesus, come. But here's, here's what's so cool. Jesus is, is saying all of this, if you're going to follow me, then everything else has to be less if you're going to be my disciple, which is so key here. If you're gonna be my disciple, you know, you can follow me, let me let me say this, you can follow me on Instagram, like you can, you can, from a distance. Follow me like all these other people are, but if you want to be my disciple, if you want to be in relationship with me, you have to absolutely and unashamedly love me more than your father, your mother, your family, your upbringing, your race, your nationality, your background, and your culture. You gotta love me above your spouse, and your kids, your friends, your financial goals, your vacation, your planning, and all your ambitions and, and the team that surrounds you, you gotta love me more than the life you're trying to build for yourself. If you're gonna follow me, and love me, you gotta love me more than your own self and your own life. Now, that looks like, you gotta love me more than your feelings. You gotta love me more than your impulses, your desires, your beliefs, the religious thinking that you may have that will that you grew up with the way that you you think maybe you were you were born this way, this is just who I am. You have to love him more than all of these things that you feel about yourself. If you're going to follow me, you don't get the privilege. You don't get the privilege of saying God knows my heart. So I'm just going to do X, Y and Z. Yeah, he knows your heart. Exactly. 100%, God knows your heart. So if you're gonna follow him, I'm first or it's nothing. We can't live in this place of compromise with the Lord and expect to have real true relationship with him. And I think this is a struggle for a lot of people in the church, a lot of followers of Jesus, they see the salvation they see this gospel as free, but they don't look at the cost of what it's going to take in their lives to fully live it out. Again, the Bible says, you know, we work out our, our salvation with with fear and trembling. And we go through these, these difficult things. Again, if you if you don't put Jesus first, then you can't be his disciple. It's not gray. It's not a gray area. It's black and white. It's cut and dry. Amen. And again, I love Jesus. He's not this rule monger. He's not like you got to follow these 60 steps, and then you can be my disciple. It's just one thing. It's one thing I have to be first, everything else is second. You again, 1000s of people are following them in close proximity. But that doesn't make them disciples. Coming to church does not make you disciple following all of the really cool preachers and churches on social media does not make you a disciple listening to all the podcasts, and all of the Bible studies all it does not make you a disciple, it's Jesus first and everything else is second. Again, you don't just believe that he's real. You go all in with him the title, my message. It's all or nothing with him. Again, this is what Jesus is trying to compel us to do. If you don't love me over everybody, even yourself, you're just a fan. You're just a follower. But you're not a disciple. I'm gonna say it like 510 more times in different ways. So just hear me today. And again, this is this is this is counterintuitive to what we think and what how we live in our world today. It's that be your best self, be your but live your best life now, you know, treat yourself given to your feelings. You were born this way you were made this way. Do whatever makes you happy, right? And Jesus is like, what? No, because there's a lot of the things that make us happy, that make Jesus second in our lives. There's so much in this world that can give us this, this this very, you know, this, this quick fix, or this quick moment of happiness, this this quick amount of joy, we feel this euphoria, whatever it is, but it's not what Jesus called us to again, notice. Notice all of this about it. Stay here with me for a second. Just take a moment to evaluate your heart. Look at your life. Look at the decisions you've made. Look at where you are. In this season, the stage of your life is is Jesus first does His Word, His will and His ways take first position in your life or not? Does he take first position when it comes to forgiveness? Or your attitude? Does he take first position in giving? When it comes to your money, your budget your finances? Is Jesus first? Or is everything else? First? Your calendar your time, your energy, your relationships, your marriage, even your sex life? Your political parties, the the sports teams and all the things that you're involved in your future, your career, your decisions? Is? Is Jesus even in the mix of all of those things? Or is it an afterthought? Is he an afterthought? And here's the thing, let me just say it's okay, right now if he is you're in a safe place, you can have a moment you can you can encounter Jesus right now. And things can shift you can repent and you can get back on the right track. I'm not trying to beat you over the head with the Word of God here today. But he's calling his people today from just being a fan or a follower to being a true disciple. A true follower of Jesus. I actually I hope and I pray that this word in this text would offend your flesh into deeper relationship with the Lord. Because it's your flesh and your desires that so often keeps you from being where the Lord has called you to be. It's when you want it's your desires. It's it's all these it's my platform, right? It's what I think and then I'll ask God about it or I'm gonna ask all these other men and women of God what they think and then I'm gonna ask the Lord right. Jesus doesn't want to be an afterthought. He wants to be first here today. Amen. Again, it's follow the leader. And the leader is Jesus. We can't lead and Jesus follow is just he's just saying it plain plain and simple. That's just not how this is going to work. Again, Jesus loves you so much. He's got so many plans for your life. So many desires for you so many doors that he's ready to to open for you but he's but he's looking at you saying, Am I going to be first when you walk through this door? If I open this up for you, am I just gonna fall to the wayside? Once you get what you want, am I really it's like the, you know, I tease all the time with certain people. It's like, Lord God, I want to win the lottery. I can I'm gonna do all the things for you. Right? Come on, and I I've said it to so I'm just I'm just I've talked to lots people about this, I think it's so fun. It's like, Lord, if you could just give me the numbers in a dream. You know, this is actually a thing in Thailand, when we lived in Thailand, like the lottery is huge. In Thailand, like on the side of the road, people ride around on bicycles with lottery tickets, that people and you'll be driving on the road, and people will see a number in a tree, and they're just like, oh, it's the number seven. Like, it's gonna be seven, and all these different things. And everyone goes, Oh, I can help so many people, if you would just bless me with this, right? But why? Why aren't you helping people now? Without it? Somebody? Again, disciples are true disciples are fanatics. They're sold out, they will follow to the end. Again, in order for these plans to become reality, we have to change from just being a fan, to being disciples, and because Jesus loves us so much, are we willing to die? For him, are we willing to die to ourselves and our own desires, I'm willing to completely change my life in order to be his disciple. Because he got an order for me to be truly in relationship with him, I have to go where he goes, I have to do what he says. My desires, and my plans are no more I have to die. Again, Luke 1427, says, whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple. We have to live dead. Is what he's saying. Again, in this in this, in this time, the Jewish people are, are under Roman rule, like being crucified on the cross was not something specific to Jesus. It was a common way of killing and torturing rebels, who were against the Roman Empire. It was a common way of, of torturing people and subduing the people, what they would do is that when they crucified criminals, or rebels or people that they didn't like they would, they wouldn't just kill them up on a hill, somewhere, they would kill them and put the cross on the side of the road, the Roman road, the main road, that all the people walked on, it was a way to intimidate all these people. So when Jesus is saying you have to bear your cross, all the people know what's going on. But Jesus hasn't died yet. You know, it's not like this thing. Oh, you were crucified. So yeah, we have to be crucified. No, they're looking around and they see crosses, everywhere they go, showing them that the Romans are in charge. And so when he says this, you have to bear your own cross, that you have to die on this cross. They're thinking humiliation. Just like all these criminals were humiliated on the cross. They're thinking submission and being being under this, this Roman rule, these dictators that they're thinking all of these things when he says this, it's offensive. We have to we have to understand this. He's He's calling them to be to be brutally humiliated in their life, if you're gonna follow me, you have to be willing to humble yourself, is what he's saying. Humble yourself to death on the cross. We have to submit our lives to God. Yet some of us have, some of us have stopped growing in Jesus, like some of us have, have hit a point, because we've decided it's a decision, we've decided to just be fans. We've decided that we're only going to follow Jesus to a certain point and not be fully disciples and not die to ourselves. And again, you cannot follow your plan and submit to His plan simultaneously, or you're gonna stall out. And I, I saw this on I saw this on Instagram. And so I really want to do it. I think it's super cool. We got this ladder here. I think a lot of us, we think about our relationship with the Lord. Like this ladder where we're constantly taking steps forward in our lives to go higher and closer to the Lord with every step we take. Can you get you guys understand that you feel that? Like there's there's milestones in our lives there's that I gave my heart to Jesus and I saw someone get healed. And you know, God has taken me so deep in his word. I just feel like every time he speaks, I can I can hear him we have these moments and we're just climbing higher and higher and higher on this on this ladder right now. But what's what's interesting is this ladder is on a platform, my platform where I'm I'm already at, really the ladders here and I'm here, this is my way. This is my desires. These are my thoughts, my hopes, my dreams, what I want to see done, and I'm just going to, I'm just going to stand on what I want. And I'm what God wants. Right? This is, this is me. This may be this is my sin that I'm stuck in. It's, it's pride. It's arrogance. There's, there's areas of my heart in my life, that I'm unwilling to surrender to the Lord. But you know, I'm still going to church. Still read my Bible. I'm climbing the ladder, right? But I can't, I can't go any higher. Unless I get off my platform. Like, I'm stuck here. This is it for me. And so many of us are frustrated in our faith right now. Because this is where we're living. And God is saying, Hey, I just need you to let go to stop standing on your own platform and completely surrendered to me because I, as soon as you let go, I'm going to take you to places you've never been, I'm going to give you a perspective that you've never seen before. I'm gonna do things that you could only imagine greater things than you could ever imagine. But you have to, you have to let go. And what's so cool is it's kind of hard to get down, back. Once you take that step. Man, once you're once you're sold out, you're gonna have to jump out to get away from the Lord. And I think some of us are afraid that if they step away, that they're gonna, they're gonna lose something they're gonna lose. Yeah, you are. That's what he's called you to do. Again, salvation, salvation is free. He says, Come to me, give your give your heart and your life to me. Let me live inside of you. But I, I want to be I don't just want you to be a fan of me. I don't just want you to be this follower off in the distance and hear my teachings here and there. But I want to take you to higher places and deeper places in relationship. Again, many of us, we spend so much of our time or energy or money on things that aren't Jesus or Kingdom related. Or we box Jesus out of our lives, again, saying we're living our best life, and then we add Jesus in later. But then we wonder why we're not living life to the fullest and Christ. We feel like we've hit a ceiling. But really, we've hit a decision. It's a decision to go all in. Now not turning back. Or to just live in this place of constant frustration. God is calling us today to die to ourselves, to put Jesus above everything. And again, some of us, I think, I think some of us here right now, we're squirming a little bit. Like I'm squirming just saying all this stuff. I'm just like, oh, Jesus above my personal hangout time on Netflix, like, you know, like, like, like Jesus above my, like, my pride and my history. Like I've been doing this a long time. Like, really, Lord, you want me to humble myself in this area? You know? In my job in my career, like I'm not gonna do that, Lord, because it's beneath me. Right? Or this is gonna be a little humiliating this is gonna be a little humbling. This is gonna be is gonna hurt. This isn't gonna look good. Yeah. Neither did hanging on a cross naked, in front of everybody. And again, this is what Jesus is calling us to. If you're not willing to carry, carry out your own death to self every day. It's not just one decision. It's every single day. You can't be my disciple, and this is God's call for everyone. Paul said it like this and Romans 12 verse one and two, I appeal to you, therefore brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living, sacrifice. So good, 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. This is how we obey God, I love how it says a living sacrifice. Again, in the Old Testament, they didn't bring a living sacrifice to the altar, they they slit its throat, and then it went on to the altar, right? Because a living sacrifice if they had taken a lamb, they had taken whatever it is every second, and they brought it up unto the altar, and they saw the blood of all the other animals that have been sacrificed, that would have freaked these things out, right. It's not in their nature to walk to their death, it's not in our nature, to die to ourselves and, and discipline our flesh. Especially when we look around and we see all the other people who have gone before us and they've done it, they've been hurt and humiliated, and people have slandered them and hurt them. And we go, I can't. I see the blood and I don't want it to be my blood. The Paul says it's a living sacrifice. It's a willing sacrifice that he's called. Again, this is how we obey. This is how we die to ambition. This is how we can give up whatever God asks us to give up. This is how we actually receive full life. It's full life. Again, some of us are living in half life. Half over here, half over there. But we go to full life, so must have full life. Again, all of us have areas of our lives that we're not letting die all of us we do. We all have areas. This isn't just a message for you know, the the horrible sinners and this is a message for the church. They're all all of us have areas in our lives that need to die. Love this Dietrich Bonhoeffer said when God calls a man to himself, he calls that person to die to themselves, to find life in Christ. It's only when we die, that we find life in him. That's why we baptize people. Right? Here, you go down to the water, you die. But you come up new. John 1125 says I am the resurrection. And the life he who believes in me though he may die, he shall live. You know, the only way for us to truly live and enjoy this life that God has given us is for him to be in charge. Or else we're constantly gonna be frustrated. How many of us have have been in a working relationship where you've got two people like kind of working in the same job working in the same position? You got like two managers, right? It doesn't work. If you've seen the office, it doesn't work with two managers. All right. When you've got when you got Michael over here, and Jim over here, as a co manager, they're just constantly fighting each other all the time. And that's how it often works with God hear you got God. He's like, I've been the boss all this time. And here you come trying to tell me what to do. And it's just not going to work. Paul says off your bodies a living sacrifice. That's wholly unacceptable. That this is your spiritual worship. Don't be conformed to this world be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Anything you give up anything you give up to follow Christ, it's worth it. It's worth it. I've been able to do more see more experience more in my relationship with the Lord than I ever have doing my own thing. Second Corinthians 517 says, Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old has passed away Behold, the new has come. And let me just say this too. Now I feel like I've already said it, but I just need to hit this home. dying to self and living sacrificial is not what saves you. Okay, don't get it twisted. This isn't this faith versus works thing. We said yes to Jesus. When we invite them into our lives and said, Look, you're gonna be my Lord. You're gonna be my master. You're my savior. He saves us in that moment. He he paid a price for each and every one of us. Okay? But now Jesus, he turns around and says, Great, now it's time to die. Again, you can't live the life from your platform and be able to climb the ladder and climb where God has called you to and go where God has called you to, from where you out there's, there's an area where really you need to, you need to humble yourself and get down on his level to get you where you need to go. It's again, it's because he saved you that we get to live this full life, it's because that he saved us that we get to live in full devotion. It's because he saved us that we now get to become a living sacrifice. For him. We were bought out of price. We are not our own. In first Corinthians 619 It says, or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, you are not your own. Verse 20, you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. The price I pay the cost, I pay to follow Jesus says I'm going to do whatever He tells me to do. I'm going to be all in. We want to follow Christ and DO what He asks us to do. And that's, that's what living is. That's what living with the Lord is. It's not it's not this religious experience. where I get to live out my relationship with Jesus through someone else's social media. But God has called us to be in relationship with Him. In fully live the life He's called us to live. Number three, count the cost. I really, I really want us to evaluate our hearts today. I really want us to come to a place where we are honest with the Lord. Because I think sometimes we can we can get into His presence and we can not necessarily lie to the Lord. But we can say a lot of really nice things and never actually sit and listen to him. Like we can talk a lot when we pray and share all of our woes. And God's saying, Yeah, I already already know. Now you're ready to listen. Are you ready to let me search your heart? Are you ready to let me go deeper? Are we are we ready to evaluate the cost? What it really costs us to be in relationship with the Lord? Are you ready to give your whole life to Jesus? Again, everything we buy everything we pay for. It all has a benefit or a consequence. And that consequence and the benefit again, it all has a cost. Some of us some of us said yes to some of us said yes to Jesus. Like I said yes. To go to a timeshare meeting at Bass Pro Shop one day I was walking around Bass Pro, one of the greatest stores in the world. love it so much. Walking around Bass Pro one day and I was just in a happy mood. I was just happy go lucky. It was like deer. It was getting into deer season and the camo is all over the place. And I'm just getting excited. It's like yeah, I can't wait to go hunting. And this very nice gentleman walks up to me. And he's like, Hey, you hey there. You look like you can use a trip to a log cabin. I'm just like, Yes, sir. I would love I would love that. I'm just like, I'm just like dreaming as he's saying this, oh man, I can go to a log cabin in Gatlinburg with my wife for the weekend. Like, oh, man, this could be great. Like, we're gonna we're gonna hang out and we're gonna it's gonna be up in the mountains, all this stuff. And he's like, give me the brochure. And you know, I'm looking at it like, Man, this is this is great. This is cool. This is something and of course, you know, I'm all hyped up because it's like, whoo, log cabin, right. But I didn't really read the fine print. I just signed up. So embarrassing. I just signed my name. I'm just like, yeah, I want to go again with my, my, my information. And I was like, this is Basspro like, this isn't gonna be great. I gave my credit card information and like, Oh, God, what am I doing? No, no. And then it comes time to go to this log cabin. I'm just like, I'm hyping it up to my wife. Like this is gonna be great. It's gonna be so cool. And we show up. And they're just like, yeah, all the log cabins are full right now. I was like, Oh, really? Like Yeah. Did you read the brochure? Like we reserve the right to move you to a different place for this this weekend excursion deal. It was like, Oh, I didn't I didn't read to read any of this. I just read loud kava, and I'm just like I'm in, right. So we got put in a really crummy bleached out as a bleached out. I've just walked in the room and it just hits you in the face. You know, when bleach cleaner just like just stays in. This has been there every time they clean the room. It's just bleach, bleach, bleach, even the sheets smelled like bleach on his bed, and it just hits you in the face when you walk in the room. And immediately, my wife and I were just like, nope, like, No, this, this is not it. So we go down, you know, we complain to the hotel, whatever. And they moved us up to a higher floor. Apparently we were too low that they were saying we were smelling the pool. I was like, Oh, the pool has bleaching it and like I can't wait to go swimming. We're hanging out. And honestly, like the highlight of the trip was getting to go to Waffle House and talking to a waitress about Star Wars for like two hours. It was it was just an amazing trip just because of that she saved the day. I'd love to find her again someday and thank her. But you know, you have to go to the timeshare presentation as well. You know it's not free, right? You think free log cabin. But no, you have to go sit for three hours, possibly five hours. In a it was five hours. I think it was four and a half hours for us. This guy he was selling us so hard on this timeshare. And the dude was almost in tears trying to sell it to us. Like it was it was rough. If you're in a timeshare. God bless you. I'm not harping on that at all, but just the sales tactics were just, it broke my heart because Britney like Just sign it. Just Just sign it. And I you know, I finally said no, and I'm just like, you know, get us I said no, probably 10 times. And it was just like, let me try this. Let me try this. And it was just, it was just rough. It was it was difficult. It was not at all what I expected, or what I wanted at all, but I just read free log cabin excursion, and I'm just like, Sign me up. But how many of us are like that in our walk with the Lord? Sign me up. miracles, signs wonders. I don't have to go to hell. Like come on. Where do I sign? And then we get into it and then we actually read the book. We read the Bible. And I like what I have to die to myself what I have to change my life. I thought I just had to say yes to Jesus and he was gonna like magically transform my heart in life and now I'm good. I thought I could stand on my own platform here and then like you're just gonna take me higher to higher things higher places, right? And gods like no, you gotta read the fine print like you were you were bought with a price Yep, there's signs there's wonders there's miracles. God has has greater dreams and plans for you than you could ever imagine exceedingly abundantly above all you could ever ask for an imagined he has it for each and every one of us. But there's a cost. There's a price that will say this at the end of this timeshare presentation, we got a free cruise and I was very excited about that. And it was actually free Praise God. It was great. I didn't know that we're getting that. I didn't. We walked out the door and I said here's your pamphlet for a free cruise. And I was like, is it action and then I read the fine print. It was free. It cost me anything. I did upgrade us to some points and stuff. But it was it was great. It was free. And again sometimes there's those moments where it's like you said yes to the Lord and there's some there's some really cool things that can happen along the way in that relationship with him. Yeah, there's a lot of dying to yourself there's a lot of sacrifice. But man it's so good to live in relationship with the God of the universe. It's so good to know that he's got peace that can cover me in my moments of chaos that he's got love that that washes my sins away when I when I when I drift off or when I when I fall into bad habits the Lord just says come home son come home to me again, I I heard free I heard fun I heard easy and it turned out to be expensive, uncomfortable and hard this is a great sales pitch for becoming a believer him alright. But again, we have to count the cost and Luke 1428 says For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost whether he even has enough to complete it or we are even with willing to let go of these areas in our lives that Jesus is calling us to let go of. And I think this is funny too, I think some of us were, again, we're still in this place where we think that we just give God the minimum. And it's gonna come out as the maximum with the Lord. If I give God just a little bit because we read the verse, If I have faith, like a mustard seed, mustard seeds really small, right? If I just have enough for the Lord, he'll do all of these great and grandiose things, but we twist it into this sort of mentality where it's like, God, give me the dream. Like, give me the baby without the birthing pains. Right? Give me Give me the money, Lord, but without me having to do all the work. Right? It's give me the house, in the car, but without the monthly payment. transformed my heart, God. But don't make me change my life. God, tell me what to do. But don't make me do that. Again, I'm another office reference. It's like, it's like that Ryan saying, like, lead me, right? Don't tell me what to do. Just lead me. Well, I'm gonna tell you what to do, or else you're not gonna know what where to go. Again, we want it fast, cheap, and high quality. In the business world, we I hear that as a contractor, sometimes it's like, I want it fast. When it really fast. I want to, I want it cheap, really inexpensive, and I want it high quality all the time. And I go, you can have two of those things. Right? You can't have all three, but you can have two of them. If it's going to be fast, it's going to be cheap. If you want to fast and high, we're sorry. If you want it fast and high quality, it's gonna be really cheap. If you wanted a cheap and high quality, it's gonna be done really fast. You know all these different things. But are you and I willing to pay the price to follow Jesus? Are you willing to say no to your flesh to follow Jesus? Are you willing to say yes to God's word to follow Jesus? Are you willing to lay down your life to follow Jesus? Are you willing, like John the Baptist, to say, He must increase and I must decrease? And as we're evaluating ourselves today, as the worship team comes, are you in a position where you can honestly say this? That this part of my life is fully surrendered to Jesus? Again, Dietrich Bonhoeffer just wrote an amazing book called The cost, cost of discipleship. Any any kind of parallels, these two thoughts and ideas, where you have cheap grace and costly grace. And cheap grace is this here today? cheap grace is is just grace. It's preaching the forgiveness, the grace of God, but without the requirement of repentance. It's it's baptism into the church without discipline by the church. Its communion, without confession of sin. cheap grace is Grace without discipleship. It's, you are perfect. Just the Way You Are grace. I love you just the way you are. Right. I hear I hear this like this, this thing all the time or with the dating culture today where they say things like, if you can't love me at my worst, he doesn't deserve me at my best, right? All the ladies say amen. Right? You better love me at my worst. You don't deserve me at my best. But I think we take this attitude sometimes even even with the Lord. I mean, it's funny because even with my wife, my beautiful wife, Brittany, who I love so dearly. I love her at her worst. But dang she better grow she better get better. I'm gonna love her through it. But I know God has called her to grow and become better. And again, it's because i It's because I love her. It's because she's first in our in our marriage and in our lives. You know, obviously Jesus first, but I don't hate her. I don't sign a I don't necessarily sign a her in her life and put her in this place. swear, I love who she is, and she doesn't need to change. I'm going somewhere with this. But just like the Lord disciplines his children is like I, like I don't hate you. And because I don't hate you, I'm calling you higher. Jesus is saying it to us today. I love you. And because I love you, I'm calling you out, I'm calling you higher, I'm calling you deeper, I'm calling you to greater things. Just Sunday, everything else put me first and I'm gonna take you there. I love you too much for you to stay where you been. And that doesn't mean that his love leaves. That doesn't mean that if you if you just if you choose, it's okay. If you choose to stay in this place and say, Lord Jesus, you're my heart, you're my life, but I'm going to do my own thing. That's your choice. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna push you one way or the other. I mean, it'd be really great if you, if you stepped up here. It'd be really great if you went to, to greater places, but don't don't stay in this place. Where we expect God to do all of these things in our lives. Like we're up here, when really we're down here. Stop, stop playing this, this this game of frustration, where you're in the middle, you're unwilling to surrender because it's like God, if you can't love me, at my worst, and with my plans with my stuff, then you don't deserve me, Lord up here. Because man, sometimes that's how it is. Sometimes that's how we talk to the Lord, maybe not out loud. But in our hearts and lives. We make these decisions like this. Like God just loved me just the way I am. He does. But he loves you so much. He loves you so much, that he wants you to come up here. I love my wife so much, that I'm not going to let her stay here. Again, that's that cheap grace. It's the cross of Jesus without Jesus living inside of us. But then you got costly grace. This is what costly grace is Dietrich Bonhoeffer is talking about. That's the hidden treasure in the field. When a man discovers that treasure, he sells everything in order to go and buy that field so that he can have that treasure that's that Jesus, that's the Jesus that's inviting us today. To walk in costly grace. A life living all for him to be all in. If Jesus, if Jesus were in the room today, and he said these exact same words, you gotta hate your mama, you gotta hate your daddy, you gotta hate your kids, you gotta hate yourself. You gotta love them less than you love me. What would we do? Unless you're willing to put every relationship second to me and renounce even your own self and put your life second to me and your feelings and your history and everything. Second, only then can you be my disciple? If you heard those words, what would you do? What would change? My hope is that we wouldn't just hear these words today. But we would hear these words every day that we would make room for the Holy Spirit to come and speak to us and say, Are you going to make Are you going to make room for me today? Am I going to be the am I going to be first today? Yeah, I know you got responsibilities. I know you got a job. I know you got all these other but am I going to be at the front of your mind and your heart in everything you do? And all the decisions you make? You know, some of you You did really good. You've done great, you stayed pure. You've been great and you're in your sex life maybe in your tithing. But man, you're struggling to forgive. You're struggling to forgive that person that hurts you. And you've not surrendered that to the Lord. Or maybe maybe you've got this forgiveness stuff down. Right you've You're quick to forgive. You figured out your finances but you just struggle with with hatred with the news media and other political parties and all this stuff and it just like it just it's at the front of your mind now Every single day, it just, it just wrecks you and you haven't surrendered it to Jesus. You know, maybe you don't gossip. Maybe maybe that that's something that you've just taken on in your life. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna sign I'm not going to talk bad about, I'm only going to be life giving, right? You're not insane. You're serving God, you serve His church, all these things, but you second guessed God. And you have to go and ask everybody else their opinion before you fully listen to the Lord. And you got to put him first. Or maybe you're disappointed because God hasn't met all your expectations. And you're frustrated. Because you're living, you're living here. And God's just waiting for you to step up. And let go and put aside all of the things and make me first, we have to make him first. We got to live dead, we got to count the cost. And this is a daily thing. Jesus needs to be first for the rest of our lives. And this is what God's gonna challenge us with every single day. And watch this, watch this with me. If you would take each morning, each day, just five minutes, 10 minutes with just you and the Lord and just say God, how can I make you first today in all that I'm doing? Just ask the question. It's practical. It doesn't need to be this big, like theological deal is big encounter that you have to have it Lord, it's a conversation. Just take 10 seconds to say, Lord, what can I do today to make you first in my life and then just sit there for four minutes and 50 seconds. And let the Lord speak to you. You know what your schedule is, you know what you got going on that day? Let the Lord lead in those moments. And I guarantee you, God's gonna show up in ways that you never could have imagined or thought God's gonna divinely connect you with people that need to know Him. God's gonna bring you to a place of forgiveness and loving your neighbors and your brothers and the people that you see as your enemies would you humble yourself? I just want to invite you right now in this moment to wrestle with this because it's not it's not it's not Jesus getting up and trying to beat us down and trick us into doing something that we don't need to be doing. It's Jesus saying hey, you may have made a choice to follow me. But I didn't I didn't say come and be my fan. I said come on be my disciple. And that looks different than a free log cabin it's it's more it's a free cruise. Somebody's saying that I want to take this moment would you stand with me right now? We're gonna we're gonna take a moment we're going to worship but I want you to know this, this altar is open. It's a place to come die. It's a place to come and humble yourself. It's a place to fully surrender to Jesus. And I believe the Lord is inviting us to do that right now that we can we can just take a moment we can just ask the Lord God is that where can I make you first in my life? What is an area of my life that I've been holding on to that I've been frustrated in, but you're calling me to higher things, Lord God, what? What is it that I that I need to do? What is it that I need to surrender to You, Lord, to just take me to a whole new level God. And as I was, as I was praying this week, I heard I heard the Lord say, someone in this room today is going to hear the Lord say, I've been waiting for you to ask me this. I've been waiting. So let's just take a moment right now before before we worship before we sing. Let's just take a moment and say, Lord, would you would you speak to us today God, would you show us that your Holy Spirit come and show us an area in our heart that we need to surrender to you that needs To be shaken up that needs to be shifted and change God God show me where I can make room