Call to Sacrifice

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

We have been discussing for the last few weeks, we've been discussing how Jesus calls us in different ways at different stages. And what I wanna say, I wanna just kinda remind you, this is the description of it as we experience it, right? From our perspective, we don't hear the same call every time, it's not always the same thing. In other words, every time we pray, Jesus doesn't give us to the answering machine, right? And we hear the answering machine, that is so 1900s of me to say.

He doesn't just kick us to voicemail, where we hear the same thing every time, right? It's not like Jesus is just reading the Bible to us, right? That's not what we're talking about. And so, the way that we experience it, it feels different every time. But what I don't wanna get lost, and maybe this is just another way to say it, Jesus is unchanging, and yet, he calls us in fresh ways. Jesus doesn't change, and really his call doesn't change, but we experience it in fresh ways. We experience it in a way that we need to hear it. Because in everything that Jesus calls us toward, he's always calling us toward the same big thing, the same grand thing, right? He's inviting us into this discipling life. He's inviting us into this life where we follow him, and what he's saying to us is what he said in Mark one, it's what he said all over the New Testament. What he's saying to us, he's saying,

he's saying, repent for the kingdom of God is near. In other words, experience my kingdom right now. Follow me right now. Follow me today and walk in freedom, walk in power, walk in repentance. Do that, that's what Jesus is inviting us toward. And so when we talk about all these different kinds of calls, and what I don't, I don't wanna paint them too differently, right? They are all going toward the same thing, and like we talked about a couple weeks ago, it's like that curtain opening, right? When the curtain opens, you see a little bit of whatever's behind the curtain, and as the curtain continues to draw back, you understand more and more of what's there. What's behind the curtain does not change, but your perception of it does. You see it more fully as the curtain gets more open. And so we began a couple of weeks ago in Matthew 11, and Jesus calling and saying,

come to me all who are weary and have you laid in and I will give you rest, take my yoke upon you, that Jesus is calling us, and he kind of welcomes us in our weariness. So he says, look, you're trying to do too much on your own. Hand me your burden, and I'll give you mine. It's Jesus trades burdens with us. That was Matthew 11. In Matthew 14, the call was a little bit different. The call, there's 5,000, 10,000 people waiting, and Jesus tells his disciples, you give them something to eat. You only got two fish and five loaves of bread. You give them something to eat. And Jesus, he calls us, and it's almost, I mean, really, it doesn't take long. We start following him, and then he starts showing us where some needs are and says, look, there's somebody in need right there. Go serve them. And he's strengthening us to do that. Today, we are on the third call, and then we're gonna be in Matthew chapter 16.

We're gonna start in Matthew 16, 13, if you wanna turn there. To catch you guys up a little bit, where Jesus is with his disciples, he has not fully revealed himself to his disciples yet. Jesus in Matthew 11 and 12 and 13 and 14 and 15, there has been, Jesus has just stopped short of it. Now, he's still performed miracles. He's still walked on water. He's still controlling the wind and the waves. I mean, it's not like he's hiding it that hard, okay? But there hasn't really been something declared. There's just not, so he hadn't really kind of fully revealed himself to the disciples. But he's about to, and he does it in a really interesting way, and then there's a call that comes after it. Okay, so I wanna look at that in Matthew 16. We're gonna stay in 16 the whole time. Matthew 16, verses 13 and 14. It says, now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples,

who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. So Jesus in this question is using third person on both parts. He uses third person in the first part where he says, who do people say, right? Who do those people, who do people generally, okay? What is the pulse of the crowd, okay? What's the word on the street? So he's not asking them in first person, he's asking in third person. He's saying, what about people? And Jesus actually refers to himself in the third person too. He calls himself the Son of Man. So this is very like double removed. Jesus is asking his disciples, who do people generally say that the Son of Man is? And the disciples aren't confused. Jesus has called himself that several times, even up to this point, okay?

But he's helping them grasp something with this question. He's phrasing it a certain way to help them grasp what is going on. It's almost like he's having a meta conversation with them. He's trying to help them understand what is happening, even as they're standing just talking, right? And their response is pretty simple, right? One of the prophets. There was a very common thing in that day for somebody who was doing what Jesus was doing to be referred to as a prophet. So it wasn't insulting, but it definitely wasn't anything special. Just one of the prophets, right? That you're kind of John the Baptist come back or Elijah come back. So Jesus is opening the curtain a little wider in the next verse, 15, he says, he said to them, but who do you say that I am? Okay, Jesus went second and first person right there. Okay, I know it's been a while since English class,

but Jesus is referring to the disciples in particular. He's saying, not people generally, not what's the word on the street, but who do you say that I am? Okay, so Jesus is being very particular, very pointed with this question. So he kind of started the conversation with general third person, but now he's moving to specific, and here's the response, verses 16 and 17. Peter, it's always Peter, Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And it's not that Peter and the disciples, okay, because Peter's talking for all of them, they're all thinking what Peter's thinking. It's not that they're just discovering this in the moment. It wasn't like whenever people said, whenever, sorry, whenever Peter said,

hey, you're the Christ, you're the son of the living God, all the other disciples gasped in amazement, okay? They were all thinking it. They all knew it. And so when Peter kind of voices this, it's less that they're discovering it, and now they can talk about it freely. Now they can kind of say, okay, we understand now what's going on. So Jesus is clarifying who he is to them, okay? But now that that is established, and Jesus is trying to establish with them, like I am the Messiah, okay? He's established that with them, and now he begins, Jesus begins to freely discuss his future with them, okay? So this is just a few verses later. Look at verse 21.

It says, from that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. Okay, so from that time, Jesus began to show his disciples. That is actually a linchpin in the entire book of Matthew, and there's one just like it in the book of Mark, and there's one just like it in the book of Luke, where upon Peter's confession that Jesus is the Christ, Jesus says, okay, ollie, ollie, oxen free, I can talk about the fact that I'm gonna suffer. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna hang on a cross, right? I'm gonna do all these things, like all these bad things are gonna happen to me, and it's the same thing every time Jesus has clarified the fact that he's the son of God with them so that they understand what's coming next, and what's coming next is not great news.

What's coming next is painful, okay? And if you can imagine, if you could just take a second and put yourself in the disciples' position, right? Where, I mean, it would be like, I don't know, man, it would be like you're at your house, and then somebody starts to tell a racist joke, you know, and you're like, what just happened? Why, how are we here? What's going on? It's uncomfortable, it's weird, and they almost don't know what to do, right? Because they just had established with Jesus that he was the Christ, the son of the living God, and now he just flips and he tells him, I'm gonna go die, I'm gonna go suffer. I'm gonna be killed by these people, and then I'm gonna be raised again. This was a full freak out moment for the disciples. And so what does Peter do? Peter responds, look at verses 22 and 23. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him and say, far be it from you, Lord,

this shall never happen to you. But he turned to Peter, sorry, he turned and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan, you are a hindrance to me. You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. A strong rebuke, okay? He didn't even say this to the Pharisees, okay? A strong rebuke for Peter, he's saying, get behind me, Satan. What was going on here was that Jesus was, he was clarifying things for them, but it was also exposing some things in their heart, right? In other words, Peter, when he says, oh, you're the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Peter was talking about what was going on in his heart. He was like, yeah, this is what we've all known. This is what we've been experiencing. This is why you're walking on water. This is why you're multiplying food. This is why you're healing people. This is why you're doing miracles. All of that makes sense.

And Peter is confessing that, and he's kind of exposing, this is what we've all been thinking. And so when Jesus talks about how he's gonna die, the same thing happens. Peter exposes what he's been thinking to Jesus, because Peter had essentially added things to following Jesus. For Peter, salvation, following Jesus, had excluded pain and suffering, and dying, especially. Salvation likely, for Peter and all the disciples, salvation, it likely included political revolution.

In the beginning of Acts one, when Jesus is talking to his disciples, they ask him straight up, like, are you going to take over now? Is now when you're gonna take over politically? Is now whenever you're gonna kick Rome out of Jerusalem, and we're finally gonna have this Israel that we always wanted to have? So salvation, at this point for Peter, and really all the disciples, it included political revolution. It included Jesus ushering in an external kingdom, a kingdom that they could see, a kingdom where people were cheering for them, a kingdom where the enemies were just crushed, because who was gonna stand up to Jesus? And Peter likely, and this is just now, we're just in the realm of conjecture, Peter probably thought that he would be some kind of general, or some kind of high up in that new regime, okay? So I really want you to kind of get there, because for Peter, when he hears Jesus

begin to talk about suffering and dying and being handed over to the authorities, all of that salvation comes crashing down for him. He had all of this built up, and now he feels like the rug is being pulled out from underneath him. And you might say, you might say, as you're reading this, you might not have a whole lot of empathy for Peter, and you'd be like, silly Peter, that is crazy talk, right? Why are you trying to tell Jesus what he can and cannot do?

But let me just ask you, have you ever had a moment in your own life where you felt like something that Jesus did was unfair? I want you to think about that. Did you ever have a moment in your own life where you felt like Jesus did something unfair, and not a little unfair, not like you went to speed limit but still got the red light, that's not what, I mean really unfair. Where maybe in your head, like you had added things to following Jesus, you kind of added things to salvation in your own mind, where you were like, you know what? If I'm following Jesus, then I shouldn't struggle with anxiety and depression. If I'm following Jesus, then really, you know, being a part of a church should be better than this. If I'm following Jesus, my spouse is not supposed to be this difficult. If I'm following Jesus, my spouse is not supposed to leave me. If I'm following Jesus, my kids are supposed

to be good kids, right? If I'm following Jesus, I don't need, this is, that is a way around financial hardship, right? Look, those things get added to salvation all the time. By you, by me, by everybody that you know that follows Jesus, it's inevitable because in our heads, we start thinking, okay, I'm doing this religious thing, I'm doing this thing for Jesus, I'm doing this thing with Jesus, and we might not even say it out loud, but in the back of our minds, we're thinking, we're gonna have a better life than somebody who isn't. Maybe we just put it in those terms. Life's not supposed to be this hard. My marriage, my career, my finances are not supposed to be this hard, and besides, I'm following Jesus, so things should be better for me than this knucklehead at work who is not doing anything to follow Jesus, but keeps getting promotion after promotion. What's up with that?

Or you get the diagnosis, right, and you see somebody else, and they're fine, they got a clean bill of health, okay? There's nothing wrong with them, but there's everything wrong with you and your health, and it's not fair, and you gotta pay all that money, and you gotta run all those tests, and these other people who haven't sacrificed for the Lord, who haven't been part of a church, who haven't been reading their Bible, who haven't been praying, who don't care about God at all, they're doing fine, they're on vacation in Cabo, and their health is perfectly intact.

Have you ever felt like something in your life was unfair? We're gonna return to this in just a minute. We're gonna keep reading with what happens next, because it's kind of, we're still in the freak out moment where Jesus has said he's gonna die, Peter said, far be it from you, Lord, and Jesus has rebuked Peter. Look at what happens next. This is verse 24 through 26.

It says, then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and tick up his cross and follow me, for whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? This is Jesus' third call. This is the call that we're talking about today right here, in verses 24 through 26.

And Jesus has asked the disciples the question, who do you say that I am? He's made kind of double sure, like you get this, right? You understand that I'm the Son of God, right? You understand that following me means something different, and though they answered it correctly, they said, you're the Christ, the Son of the living God. They answered it correctly, they still added to salvation. They still had other things, and so now Jesus is cutting through that. He's clarifying even further, and he's saying to them, there is two ways to live. You can either follow me or you can not. You can follow me or you can turn away. And I wanna look carefully at how Jesus describes each of these. These are very familiar verses for us, but there's a lot here. So I don't wanna leave a lot of meat on the bone. I really wanna look at what Jesus is calling us to, and we're just gonna call it the first way and the second way.

The first way is trying to save your own life, trying to save your own life, okay? So if you look at verse 25, it says, for whoever would save his life will lose it. So these are people who would save their life, okay? And so what does it mean to save your own life? What does it look like to try to save your own life? Well, later in those verses, in verse 26, he talks about if you gain the whole world and lose your soul, and so he's talking about it in terms of gaining worldly things, right? That if you're going to try to save your own life, part and parcel with that is you wanna stock up with good things from this life, right? Things that feel good and are comfortable. There's nothing wrong with things that feel good and are comfortable. However, there's a difference between experiencing comfort and then chasing it, right? Building your life on it. So this first way of trying to save your own life,

it feels very good, it looks very comfortable. And actually, not many people are gonna bother you as you are trying to do this. Not many people are gonna get upset with you. They're not gonna, you're not really gonna wanna rock the boat, why? Why do that? You're already there, you're socially accepted. Sometimes you're even celebrated. Sometimes they throw you a retirement party, right? It feels good, it's very comfortable. And you are chasing after, and people that are doing this, following the first way, they're chasing after what seems to be important. Things that seem to be important. So that would be like a good career. Good kids, good retirement, be a good neighbor. You have a car that works, you're in good health. You know, it's everything we have insurance on, okay? You wanna make that list? It's everything we have insurance on, right? We want all of those things to be good.

And look, I understand, I'm listing these things out, and I hope you don't hear me say like, hey, if you have health insurance, you're a sinner going to hell. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying there's a difference between those things being in your life and then you building your life on them. You chasing after them, right? And what it will look and feel like, both to you and to people looking at you, it will look and feel like you are saving your life. It will look and feel like you are saving your life. This is why it is so difficult, later in, or earlier in Matthew, this is why it's so difficult, whenever Jesus says it's difficult for a rich man or impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. This is why, though, it's because the false sense of security will blind you to your own need. Nobody is harder to convince that they are in need,

spiritual or otherwise, than people who feel comfortable, than people who feel like they have everything they need at their fingertips, right? When you are trying to save your own life and you are comfortable and you are good and you have these good things that you've built up in your own power, right? And it will feel like you are saving your life, but it is a false sense of security and will blind you to your need. And here's how you can tell. Here's how you can tell you're trying to save your own life. I'll give you kind of a diagnostic. Unfortunately, you only know that you're building your life on these things when they don't come through for you. You only know that you are trying to save your own life when these things that you're pursuing do not come through for you. They don't deliver on what they promised, right? So it's like when you chase a good career,

but then you get fired, maybe unceremoniously, maybe for no reason, how do you respond? When you do everything in your power to raise your kids right and you've taken a church, you teach them right from wrong, you set up good rules for them, you put them on the path and they still resent you. They still screw up their own lives. They still metaphorically just head right off the bridge into the ravine.

And their lives are a dumpster fire. And maybe, also, if you're trying to spend your money wisely, if you're trying to be smart about it, and then you fall on some pretty difficult financial times, maybe some financial ruin, maybe some bankruptcy, maybe some things that you can never, you feel like you can never recover from. And maybe in this life you won't. When you pursue these things and they do not come through for you, you will feel like you have been tricked. The level of frustration and anger that will well up in your heart is satanic. It will eat you alive. Because you had the deal worked out with God, right? I'm gonna do all these good things, I'm gonna get good kids. I've kept my end of the bargain. God, you keep your end of the bargain. What have you done? You've added to salvation. You've tried to act like because the Lord saved you that you've got him over a barrel,

that he owes you one. Because what a great person you are. Or how much you've avoided catastrophe. Or how much you sacrificed. If you feel like Jesus is not holding up his end of the bargain, if you feel like that you have been tricked somehow, then I would tell you that you probably are trying to save your own life. And Jesus tells us that when you have lived this way, when you have built your life on social acceptance, looking good, seeming good, just trying to follow all the rules, right? You've done it just right. When you do that, what you have actually done is forfeited your own soul. You have forfeited your own soul. You have chased the wrong thing. And ironically, and it's sad irony, you will lose all that you thought you were building. You will find out that everything that you had kind of built and led up to was hollow. It wouldn't satisfy. This happened to us in life sometimes before the end of life.

And sometimes these are moments in time when, these are moments in time when for us, this is the Lord's grace. I was talking with a guy once. This guy was in high school and he was a runner. And he was a really good runner. He was a fast runner. He was a track star kind of guy, right? And for him, he came to faith when he got injured his senior year of high school. He got injured and he couldn't compete and he couldn't run. But for him, it was so frustrating because he was his fastest, right? He was gonna post the best times. He was gonna break all the county records. He was gonna, right? He was gonna be the best. And he had kind of built his life on being the best runner by the time he was a senior in high school. And when ironically, when he was a senior high school, he could not run. And in that moment when he couldn't run, he saw how hollow it all was. He saw that people cheered just fine for the next guy.

Right? Nobody in the stands was like, man, where's our buddy? Where's Rafael? Where's, you know, why isn't he running? He's supposed to be the fastest. Like nobody was asking that question, right? And it wasn't that people treated him like dirt. It was just that he saw it wasn't what he thought it was. Friends, there will be times in your life, big and small, that will continue to happen as you continue to try to build a life, as you make decisions, as you were trying to build a marriage, as you're trying to build a career, or as you're trying to enjoy retirement, whatever you're trying to do, you will come across those things that are supremely disappointing. You thought it was gonna be one thing, it is not. You thought you were gonna have instant success with something, and it is a slog. It is toil, and you might never figure it out.

At that point, the Lord Jesus Christ wants to come to you and say, hey, I've got something better than that to live for. I've got a kingdom that is way better than whatever successful career you thought you were gonna have. I've got something in store that feels better and more fulfilling than children who do right by you, which feels pretty good, but it feels better than that. So he talks about the second way, right? First way is trying to save your own life. Here's the second way, it's losing your life for Jesus. So he says, whoever loses his life for my sake will find it, right? And we see this, excuse me, in verse 24, it includes denying yourself and taking up your cross. In other words, this is slow motion, lifelong torture.

I mean, who's ready, right? Who's ready for some slow motion, lifelong torture? That's exactly what Jesus was saying here, right? This isn't, I'm not making him say something he didn't say. He said, pick up your cross, which is a torture device. It's like saying, pick up your electric chair, okay? And then follow me. And this is what Romans 12:1 talks about when it says to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, living sacrifice. You know the irony there? Usually sacrifices die. You know how they sacrifice something? They burned it. Being a living sacrifice, being burned your whole life. Jesus is talking about nothing less, nothing less than torture. In a worldly sense, he is trying to just be as clear as possible with these disciples. Whoever loses his life, whoever denies himself, whoever takes up his cross and follow me, that's how to save your life. Let me just describe it in a couple of different ways.

This is self-denial all the way down, all the way through. This is being misunderstood. This is being maligned. This is having your motives questioned at best. You will miss out on friends. You will miss out on trends. You will lose particular hopes and dreams that fall short. You will lose your privacy. You will lose your security. You will lose your leisure time. You will, more than that, you will shoulder other people's burdens and you will cry with them because you hurt with them. You will sacrifice your money and your time to disciple other people.

It is not living for yourself. It is very, in that way, very jolting for Americans. It is a life that is laid on the altar and we say Jesus, you can do whatever you want with that. And Jesus says, great, get ready for a lot of pain and a lot of suffering and a lot of frustration and a lot of things that won't go your way. And in every aspect, it will look and it will feel like you are losing your life. This is what Jesus means when he says, if you lose your life for my sake, right? People around you will openly wonder what you're doing with your life. They will be genuinely confused that you are spending your money this way. They will be, you know, they might be,

you know, they might say something out loud and they might wonder openly. Like why, why you treat your children that way? Why do you deny those things to your children? It doesn't make any sense. Why do you give money away like that? Where does your generosity come from? Don't you have any time for yourself? It will look and it will feel like losing your life. But here's what Jesus says and here's the promise, right? The jokes on them. Because in that process, you will find true life. Losing our life for his sake, we will find it. In fact, it's the only way to find it.

Slow motion, lifelong torture is the only path to true joy, to true hope, to love, to patience. And I wanna just, I wanna really kind of sink in right here. The reason that the second way is actually finding your life because it doesn't sound very fun on the front end, right? It doesn't sound like, hey, sign me up for slow motion torture, that's cool. The reason that actually is finding life and not just eternal life, right? Not eternal life, not life once we get to heaven, but eternal life starting now, right? Abundant life, this life that Jesus calls to now is because in that process, in this process of giving your life over to the Lord Jesus day by day, decision by decision, morning by morning, in that process, your soul actually becomes full for the first time. You actually have a joy in knowing the Lord Jesus, an actual joy, something that gives you real hope,

not just a fake thing, not just something you sort of get excited about, not just the next election, not just the next season premiere, not just the things that kind of are fleeting, not the next fashion or the next trend. There's a joy, a deep abiding joy, a lifelong enduring joy that comes in knowing Jesus. There is a comfort, a real gritty, realistic comfort that comes from the Holy Spirit. You will sleep better because your basic needs, and I don't mean food, shelter, water, I mean things like hope, your basic needs, your most basic needs are gonna be met like never before. You will have purpose that are, your purpose will be more vivid and fulfilling than you had ever dreamed. And look, I understand some of you might be sitting here and you say, look, I've been following the Lord for a couple of decades now, you know, like this, I maybe vaguely remember

kind of what you're talking about, Drew, but here's what I would tell you. I would tell you that if you read scripture, there's no expiration date on the joy that the Lord brings. There's no expiration date on the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. There's no expiration date on the peace that is inside. Man, a spiritual family, I mean, look, just think about this, a spiritual family committed, committed to your spiritual benefit for no other reason than that they love you. That's a church. Man, what a treasure, what a joy, right? What a thing that is impossible to find anywhere else. It's not perfect, it's not far from it, but it is good and it's wildly different than any other kind of community where the reason that I, George, the reason I love you, buddy, is because I have the Lord Jesus and you have the Lord Jesus and the Jesus in me loves the Jesus in you, okay?

That's actually an old song, I love that song. The Jesus in me loves the Jesus in you. You're so easy, easy to love. I love that and the reason that's true, the reason that we can do that is because the same, it's the same spirit that lives in both of us and we can have community that way. Man, what a joy, what a treasure. Do you have that at work? Probably not. Lastly, Jesus kinda hits on this idea of profit or gain, right, true gain.

Jesus says, you know, what will it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul? And it's funny that he says that, it's funny that he says it that way because it says, what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world? In other words, Jesus asks the question, what good is it actually? What profit are you making? Where are your margins? Show me the value, right? And this is why Jesus in Matthew 6, way earlier whenever he's doing the Sermon on the Mount, and he says, don't store your treasure on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves can come in and steal it. Why? Why does he say, don't store up your treasure on earth because treasure's bad? No. He says, don't store your treasure on earth not because treasure's bad but because on earth the treasure wastes away. See, treasure's good, there's actual gain to be had, but if you store it up on earth, it just rots.

If you store treasure in heaven, see, treasure is still good. Gain is still what the Lord Jesus is pushing you toward. The Lord Jesus is still pushing you toward gain, it's just not a gain in your IRA necessarily. It's not a gain in social status. That's not the gain that the Lord Jesus Christ is telling you to stack up. The gain that he's telling you to stack up

is treasure that lasts. It's sacrificing for another person. It's making time to disciple other people. It's bearing other people's burdens. It's serving somebody that can't serve you back. All of these things are things that we see in scripture that the Lord Jesus tells us that we will reap a treasure, we will reap a benefit from. We don't see it now, but we will see it later. No pain, no sacrifice, no amount of torture is going to compare to this treasure. In the end, Jesus closes with verse 27 in Matthew 16.

It says, for the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. When we read those words, I think it's a pretty simple eye test, right? Are you nervous when you read that or are you comforted? Here's the truth of the gospel. The truth of the gospel is that it says when he will repay each person according to what he has done. Do you know what I've done?

What I've done is placed my faith in Jesus, and all of his work, all the things that he did, his perfect life, all of that counts toward me. So whenever, whenever we are looking at, whenever the Son of Man comes in the glory of his Father with all the angels, and we kind of have this judgment seat, whenever we're all kind of looking at life and like what's happened, you know what's gonna come up on my film reel? You know what's gonna come up on the video of my life, the summary of my life? Jesus's work. Jesus's work on my behalf.

That's what's gonna come up. That's why I can have hope. That's why I can face a judgment and not bat an eye. Not because I've been righteous. I haven't, I'm not. I've actually been kind of sick the last two days. I'm sure I have been terrible, okay? And you guys get really annoying when you're sick? Yeah, you know it, yeah, oh yeah. Kenneth, some altar call right now. Okay.

I've been super terrible, I'm sure, the last couple of days, and not even because I'm trying to be, just I'm sure. Look, I don't measure up, you don't measure up, right? What are you gonna do when the Son of Man returns and looks at the landscape and judges us for what we've done? Because if you have not had a moment where you've said, Jesus, I wanna follow you, I wanna trade my burden for yours, I want your life to be my life, my life is hidden with Christ in God, that's, if that's not you, then it's gonna be your life on display. And let me just spoil the ending. It won't cut it. It won't.

Whenever Jesus is saying, you either follow me or you don't, you either are losing your life for my sake, or you are trying to save your own life, here's the reality. Most of us, most of the time, feel like we're between those two. Most of us, most of the time, feel like we're between those two. But the difference, sorry, the way to make improvement, the way to gain ground on that is not to try harder, it's not to somehow stack up burdens on yourself, and like, oh, you know, so here's kind of some practical application for you. It's not that we need to all rush out of here and try to give away as much money as we have, and try to overcommit ourselves, and have this huge burden, and just be like, oh, I'm just suffering for the Lord. We just whip ourselves just for good measure, okay? That's not what Jesus calls us to do, that's not what he's saying right here.

What is he saying? He's saying serve, sacrifice, care for other people, be a part of a church family, follow me in communing with me, talking with me, praying, reading scripture. Jesus wants a relationship with us, and it's in that relationship where we learn to let go of what we need to let go of, and to take hold of what we need to take hold of. But in that process, it's gonna feel like torture sometimes. It's not gonna make sense to people looking at the outside, but this is what Jesus calls us to, to gain our lives by losing it for his sake. Jesus calls us to live in the self-denial of the future, future salvation, salvation is coming, live in self-denial now in light of eternity. So I think what I just wanna leave you with, and just as we sing here in just a second, I just want you to consider, what is Jesus calling you to let go of? Sometimes when we read that call,

we don't really understand that it might be one thing. But remember, Jesus calls us a little bit at a time. So it's not like you've gotta give it all up and sell everything you have and move to the desert, that's not the call. The call is, okay, what's next? What's the next step for you? What do you need to trust Jesus with next? That's what I want you to pray about. That's what I want you to think about. Maybe you even talk to your friend, your spouse, your family member about it. You say like, what? This is what I feel like Jesus is calling me to give up next. Here's what I feel like the next step for me is. I think that as you do that, you'll find that you'll gain some life. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for this morning. I pray that you would help us to just find ways that you're calling us to lose our lives. Find ways that you want us to take a step into your glory, your kingdom life.

Help us to do that with joy, knowing that pain is coming. That's your name that we pray, amen. Would you stay in this place? Stay in this place.