Well, for those of you who I've not met, my name is Mike and I'm
one of the pastors here at Redemption.
And we have been so so a couple weeks ago we started this, this
sermon series on the miracles of Jesus.
And, and we see this in chapters 8 and, and 9, which lists off
several miracles of Jesus. But right here in the middle of
chapter 8, Jesus takes a moment to step out of demonstrating
these miracles. And he teaches us something.
He gives, he gives us 2. I think you could call them
challenges. They're kind of like if you,
when you drive down the road and you see the, the sign on the
side of the road that says, you know, rough road or, or Rd.
narrows. It's, it's very important
information for something coming ahead that we should be aware
of. And he gives that to us right
here in, in, in this in this passage in Matthew 8 chapters,
excuse me, verses 18 to 22 is where we're going to be today.
So if you have your Bible, you can join us there.
I'll have most of the the passages up here on the on the
screen. But here's what it says in
Matthew 818 through 22. Now when Jesus saw a crowd
around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side.
And a scribe came up and said to him, Teacher, I will follow you
wherever you go. And Jesus said to him, foxes
have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man
has nowhere to lay his head. Another of the disciples said to
him, Lord, let me first go and bury my father.
And Jesus said to him, Follow me and leave the dead to bury their
own dead. So in our in our first verse
here, we see that Jesus is is he's very popular.
We've seen this for a couple weeks now that he has developed
a, a large following because of the miracles that he's done back
in verse one, it said that great crowds followed him.
And then last week in verse 16, we read that evening, they
brought to him many who were oppressed by demons and he cast
out the spirits. And we can we could certainly
bet that in that day and age when multitudes, right, lots and
lots of people, sick and broken people were being healed, that
kind of that kind of news would spread fast, right?
Because there was so many people in need.
And so knowing about this, this, this news would spread from
village to village and town to town very, very quickly.
Many people would be fans of Jesus and might even call
themselves followers of him. But what we see this week in our
passage is that Jesus already knows us.
And he takes a moment to make it clear to people what following
him actually looks like. And so, as we'll see today,
being a Christian isn't easy. That's the thing I think that
the world gets wrong about Christianity is that they seem
to think that it's it's full of people who hypocritically claim
to be perfect and that we teach that we'll have simple stress
free lives. Neither of those is at all true.
Simultaneously in this passage, we see that Jesus is also
calling out those who've recognized him as King of Kings
and yet fail to treat him that way in their own lives.
For 2000 years there have been Christ followers who who fail to
go all in for Jesus. Truth be told, at one point or
another, that's been every Christian, right?
Each and every single one of us in this room, including myself.
So the main idea here is that Jesus wants us to really
understand what following him entails, how hard it will be.
And then he tells us to follow him with our whole hearts
anyway. So I'm going to get right to our
first point here today, which is having zeal without counting the
cost. And and so the first part of our
passage, verses 18 through through 20 says now when Jesus
saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other
side and a scribe came up and said to him, Teacher, I will
follow you wherever you go. And Jesus said to him, foxes
have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man
has nowhere to lay his head. So scribes, the scribes were
like the official interpreters. They were the the documenters,
the ones who who maintained documents and interpreted them.
And they were the experts on civil law, kind of like the the
lawyers of their of the time. Whereas the Pharisees were a
religious sect that focused on the practical application of
civil and religious law. And so these, these groups were
distinct from each other in their duties, though they're
often mentioned together in scripture as civil law and
religious law were often intertwined in that culture.
But this particular scribe, after witnessing these miracles
and sitting for the teachings of Jesus, he's, he's eager to go.
He wants to be part of this movement, right?
After all, Jesus is a a powerful speaker, sharing wisdom and, and
even offering perfect clarification on the things that
this guy, this scribe was supposed to be the recognized
expert in. So he definitely admires Jesus
here. So, so when, when he's there and
Jesus called the disciples to go across the lake, he sees them
being told to get on the boat and, and to go to whatever it is
that Jesus is planning on doing next.
And the scribe says, Hey, I, I want, I want to be in, I want
to, I want to be a part of whatever's going on next.
And the passage doesn't tell us how the scribe responded to
Jesus, which means that it's what Jesus said that we should
focus on. And Jesus response is he
explains some some pretty important facts, like the fact
that he's homeless, right? This means that Jesus probably
has almost no earthly possession.
So we can infer from this that Jesus is telling this guy that
that following him means a life of very little luxury.
Now last week, we know from the passages that we read, we know
that his disciple Peter had a home, but Peter and his brother
Andrew, as well as James and John had all just walked off
their jobs. We read that back in chapter 4
of the same, of the same book. So he's saying this is a this is
a transient lifestyle that offers little in the way of
tangible security, at least in the way that the people think of
it, right? A house and, and money and a
pantry full of food that lasts for, you know, weeks and months
and a career with a pension plan and all that.
And, and although this passage doesn't speak to it elsewhere in
Scripture, we know that there is even a danger that accompanies
following Jesus. Many of the, of the, the, the
original 12 disciples, if not all of them were martyred for
their faith. And, and then history, of
course, tells us of the atrocities that the Christians
face in the 1st century. What we get, excuse me, what we
get from his response, is that the scribe is looking at a
humble life ahead if he follows Jesus.
In fact, the phrase that Jesus uses to refer to himself, Son of
Man in our in our passage is in itself a proclamation of
humility because Jesus is fully God.
He isn't simply the Son of God, and he isn't simply a man who
lives a good life and attains godhood.
He is the eternal embodiment of God here on earth.
Theological term for that is hypostatic union.
And that just simply means that Jesus exists in one person with
two distinct natures, without confusion, without change,
without division or separation. So Jesus is telling the scribe
not to make a hasty decision about following him or not,
because if God in the flesh lives a humble, transient,
dangerous life, then his followers should expect that as
well. And he wants, he wants this
scribe to know that being a Christ follower isn't the easy
life here on earth. And Jesus knows what's coming
for himself, right? He knows that.
That although He is God in the flesh and lives without sin, He
knows that. That one day He will be falsely
arrested and flogged and beaten. He knows that people will mock
Him and spit on Him before they nail him to the cross and murder
Him because of the sins that we commit.
And since He knows that that is what awaits Him, He wants us to
know that we must also consider what following Him will cost us.
Now, as I said a few minutes ago, Jesus has has at this point
become very popular for his teachings and his miracles in
our next chapter as we continue on with the the miracles in
Matthew 9 in verse 26, it says in the in the report of this,
these miracles, the report of this went through all that
district and a few verses later still in that same chapter, it
says, but they went away and spread his fame through all that
district. So his he, he was, he was
gathering a large following, but in true human fashion, many of
those peoples are many of those people are, are following him
because they want what he has here and now, right?
They, they want food. He's he's, you know, on, on
several occasions Jesus has fed them.
He, they want to be healed. They've seen and heard of these
miracles. And so they want what he has
here and now. They are missing the big picture
of what being a Christ follower is all about.
But Jesus wants them to really think about this.
And in a in in the Gospel of Luke, we see a very similar kind
of a dynamic that that Jesus walks us through.
It says For which of you desiring to build a tower does
not first sit down and count the cost whether he has enough to
complete it. Otherwise, when he has laid a
foundation and is not able to finish, all who see all who see
it begin to mock him, saying this man began to build and was
not able to finish. Or what king going out to
encounter another king in war will not sit down 1st and
deliberate whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him who
comes against him with 20,000? And if not, while the still the
other is is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation to ask for
terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who
does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
Now Jesus never tells us to remove logic from our decision,
but we should be careful about making a decision based on
emotion. In Proverbs 19 verse 2, it says
desire without knowledge is not good and whoever makes haste
with his feet misses his way. So in fact, he's urging us to
understand logically that the decision to put our faith solely
in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins and
therefore the gift of of eternal life is free.
But it comes with a transfer of ownership.
That means recognizing and agreeing to some terms first.
That's why we see this in the midst of these miracles, these
these miracles that are getting people excited and they're like,
I want to be a part of that. So he's telling us about that.
And it's not hidden in the fine print either.
Jesus is, is telling them plainly, we cannot follow him
and the world's way at the same time, the world's ways are
about, you know, me, me, me. It's it's about making a name
for ourselves, about getting paid, about climbing the
corporate or the OR the social ladders.
But in following Jesus, we may suffer the loss of some of our
relationships. We might lose customers at our
business and therefore we would have less money and less
materialism. Guys, we might be put to death
for our beliefs as Christians. And that's not hyperbole.
That's what we're promised in Galatians 524.
Whether we're we're put to death or not for our faith, one thing
is for certain, our our sinful ways will be put to death.
In Galatians 524 says this, it says and, and those who belong
to Christ and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified
the flesh with its passions and desires.
And let's be honest, for some people, for some Christians,
this is scarier than death because sometimes we hold on to
our secret sin and we even, we even protect it, although we
might be ashamed of it and, and wish that we could be rid of it.
The idea of it being removed from us is hard and it's, it's
scary. Jesus, though, isn't saying this
to scare us, but to make sure that we aren't just zealous
about being part of an exciting movement without considering the
totality of what is involved. As we said, it's a transfer of
ownership. And when we think that we're
following him because we, you know, go to church somewhat
regularly or or, you know, because we have a cross around
our neck or something, but we don't fully surrender to him and
come to this with wisdom. In James 1/6, it says that we'll
be like a, a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the
wind. In other words, zeal without
knowledge of the cost is dead. In the synoptic gospels and
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, excuse me, Matthew, Mark and
Luke, Jesus tells the parable of the soils.
Many of you guys are probably familiar with that, but it's a,
it's an image lesson of, of scattering seeds right on on the
ground and, and it's representing people responding
to the gospel or or not. And, and some take root and, and
others are, you know, snatched up by, by the birds.
And when he speaks of the rocky soil, he says that the seeds
sown in it sprout quickly, but when the sun comes up, they are
scorched. Their roots are not established
properly, right? And so they die.
He's talking about people who get excited about new faith, but
it was never real. And I think we still see this
kind of thing happening today. In fact, I think that we see
churches and ministries that sometimes thrive on this,
whether it's intentional or not. And I think, I think often it is
many preachers and, and ministries offer up a powerful
sermon or an impassioned evangelism or, or an amazing
piece of music that engenders the heart to this crescendo of,
of feeling. And then they lead them through
a version of the the sinner's prayer that that person repeats,
but with no real understanding of what it means to be a Christ
follower. Now.
Billy Graham Billy Graham was a a famous evangelist and he held
revivals all over the world. And and they say that during all
of these revivals that he held that there was upwards of 215
million people who heard the gospel at those events.
And according to his staff, more than 3.2 million people have
responded to the invitation at Billy Graham Crusades to accept
Jesus Christ as their personal savior.
Amazingly though, Billy Graham himself often said that he
estimated that roughly 1/4 of those of those people who went
forward and thought they were becoming followers of Jesus
actually came to saving faith. That was Billy Graham's
estimation of of that. So now on one hand we can
celebrate that based off of that math 800,000 people came to know
Jesus personally, but what about the other 2.4 million people who
thought they were Christian? But we're not now this is not
something we should take lightly.
I think it was a couple weeks ago we read this passage in
Matthew 7 verses 21 through 23. This is not everyone who says to
me, Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but the one
who does the will of my Father who is in heaven on that day.
Many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in your name
and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your
name? And then will I declare to them,
I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
Guys, it is, it is crucial that people know what it means to be
a Christ follower. Every one of us in this room has
family and friends that believes that they are followers of
Jesus, but they don't actually know what it entails.
We need to sit on that for a minute.
We should contemplate that. But in our passage in our
passage here, though, it isn't just the zealous follower that
that doesn't fully know what he's getting into that Jesus
cautions, but also those who are counting the cost, but with no
zeal. That's our second point here
today. And as we continue into the the
next part of the of our of our main passage here in verses 21
through 22, it says another of the disciples said to him, Lord,
let me first go and bury my father and Jesus said to him,
follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead.
Well, what does that mean? To leave, Leave the dead to bury
their own dead? Well, this is a a paradox that
doesn't make sense at face value per SE, but Jesus uses it
masterfully so. But in order to understand what
he's getting at here, we need to look at Paul's letter to the
Ephesians to get some context. And in chapter 2 of Ephesians,
the 1st 2 verses, it says and you were dead in your trespasses
and sins. In which you once walked
following the course of this world.
See left alone in our sin, we are spiritually dead.
We are eternally dead. If you've ever heard the action,
the acronym of Tulip, it's Tulip or of of the OR referred to as
the Doctrines of grace. This concept would be the the T
in that acronym for total depravity.
Now the the the doctrine of total depravity is an
acknowledgement that the that the Bible teaches that as a
result of the fall of man that we read about in in Genesis 3,
every part of man, his his mind, his will, his his emotions and
his flesh have been corrupted by sin.
Not that he not that he actively sins 100% of the time, but that
it that all parts of him have been corrupted.
In other words, sin effects all areas of our being in including
who we are and what we do. So the first dead in our passage
is talking about non believers. Those who are who are separated
from God's goodness because of because of their their sin and
have not placed their faith in in Jesus.
But the second dead is talking about the things of the world.
The example here that that he uses in this or that we see in
here in this passage is basically having a funeral for
the man's dead and the man's dad.
Jesus really swings for the fence here.
He gets right at it and he makes his point.
Going right at something that we would generally say is a is a
high priority, a healthy priority in our lives to honor a
loved one who has died. That seems like a pretty good
thing to do to honor your father and your mother, but it's not.
Now Jesus isn't saying that funerals are bad or or that we
shouldn't participate in and that's not what it is.
He's he's saying that nothing of the world should be of a higher
concern to us than worshipping and following him.
In Colossians chapter 3 verses one and two, it says if then you
have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that
are on earth. Jesus is reminding this disciple
of of a critical fact. You are not part of them
anymore. Stop clinging into that dead
world and the things that the dead world thinks are valuable.
So in the first part of our passage today, we saw a scribe
that was too quick to want to follow Jesus without knowing
what all that entailed. But here now we see a disciple.
So so then someone who is already following Jesus, who
lacks the passion to prioritize Jesus above all else.
So in the middle of this chapter, telling us all about
these amazing miracles that he was doing.
It didn't say anything about the one Eric just did with catching
that thing was fell off the off the the thing.
I sort of saw that from my seat. But but but right here in the in
the middle of this, Jesus reminds us that that that some
people love what he says, but they don't realize all that the
Christian life entails. And then there are those who
believe in Jesus but fail to recognize him as king of their
life above everything else. There is no passion or zeal in
their relationship with Him in in having been saved from the
clutches of hell. Now I was reading this article
from Ligonier Ministries and it said the substitutionary
atonement of Jesus Christ is not only something to affirm and
defend, but it should be something in which we rejoice.
Yes, zeal without knowledge is dead, but knowledge without deep
affection is just as lifeless. See if you guys were here with
us not too long ago, couple months ago at Christmas time, we
read a passage from Isaiah 9. That one was verse 6.
You've heard it before at Christmas time a lot it says or
to us, a child is born to us a son is given right?
But but right before that, in the passage in verses 2 and
three, it says the people who walked in darkness have seen a
great light. Those who dwelt in a land of
deep darkness on them has light shone.
You have multiplied the nation. You have increased its joy.
They rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest as they are
glad when they divide the spoil. So back in the Old Testament,
the thought of a of a coming Messiah was something that was a
light in the darkness like like like we see there.
It was an amazing blessing that brought joy and gladness to the
oppressed, and it should do the same to those of us who have
become followers of that Messiah.
It isn't just business as usual. We should be excited to to to
follow Him, to be counted amongst the disciples.
We should be joyous that we are no longer eternally dead.
Romans 611 says so. You must also consider
yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ.
Our our full faith in Jesus moves us not only from a place
of of eternal death, but into a place of eternal life and
eternal joy. Jesus called us to an exciting,
passionate, radical faith that that means that you're going to
have to choose between the the things that are good and the
things that are great. He says, compared to me, you're
going to need to hate those good worldly things that you love.
That article that I mentioned from Ligonier, it continues on
and it says it should be obvious to script.
It should be obvious that Scripture calls us to be a
people who feel what we believe, who not only know truth but
experience it. There is an order to this.
Our feelings and emotions must be governed and guided by truth.
We are to fear the Lord, hate evil, love the truth, mourn over
sin and injustice, and rejoice in our in our sufferings.
These are not naked commands, but precepts given by God in
light of who He is and what He has done.
We are supposed to feel the weight and power of the truth
revealed in Scripture, but what does that look like to be
zealous for our faith? To be excited and passionate
about this radical relationship with and love for Jesus?
What does it look like to leave the spiritually dead non
believers to worry about worldly things?
Well, as if the idea of of targeting A beloved father's
funeral wasn't hard enough for us to consider, in the Gospel of
Luke, Jesus cuts to the bone even more in chapter 14, verses
25 through 27. I think it is says now great
crowds accompanied him and he turned and said to them, if
anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother
and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and
even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot
be my disciple. OK, let's just pause for a
second here and and and digest this idea that in order for us
to have a proper attitude about following Jesus that we would
hate our parents and our spouses and our children.
How is that? How is that OK?
How do we sort of reconcile that?
What Jesus is telling us is that that by comparison, our love for
him and our unquestionable prioritization of him and of his
will would then make our love for our family and those good
things in in, in our life that we that we love look like hate.
He should be so clearly in the top spot of things that we care
about that everything else is left behind.
Now, guys, we know from other places in scripture that he is
not telling us to, to hate people, right?
So we can know then that what he is calling us to do is to be
passionate, in fact, more passionate about our
relationship with him. And, and honestly, why wouldn't
we be? Why wouldn't we be more
passionate about that in our, in our passage when he says leave
the dead to bury their own dead, he has articulated that there is
a difference between US and the spiritually dead.
So, so just like we said a minute ago, you are not part of,
of, of them out there anymore. Stop clinging to that dead world
and the things that the that the dead world thinks are valuable.
You who who have placed your faith in Jesus Christ alone are
spiritually alive. You have been rescued from
eternal death. Think about this.
If you were, you know, lost at sea, You're, you're, you're
drifting out to, to sea and you, you've lost your oars or your
motor or whatever it is, and you're drifting out to, to sea.
You are, you know that you are facing certain death, right?
There is no way you're going to last getting all the way to the
other side of of the ocean. And then I'll if a, if a ship
came along and rescued you, you would be ecstatic.
You'd try tears of joy every time you thought about what you
were rescued from the pain and the, and the worry and the, the,
the, the terror of drifting out to sea and to your to your
certain death. Well, that's who we are.
We are the rescued. Why wouldn't we be in the
business of of passionately sharing our story with other
people? Why wouldn't we be excited to
tell them how they can also be rescued as well?
So we must consider these these two challenges that Jesus gives
us and find out how to apply the lessons in our lives today.
My friends, that means that Jesus needs to be he needs to be
your first love period, end of story.
Nothing else. Nothing else should transcend
that He needs to be the most important thing in your life.
But what does that look like? It looks like just that
prioritizing him, reading him right, reading his word.
This is a priority in your life. How many of us this is?
I don't, I'm not trying to point fingers or anything like this,
but how many of us aren't getting into our our our Bibles
on a regular day at at home? And I mean, we don't even take
them to church, right? We don't even hold the pastor
accountable to, to making sure that, that, that, that we are
honoring God by being in this with our church family and
making sure that what is spoken from, from this stage is
accurate to what, what he said. We need to prioritize reading
him and knowing what's in here so we know what to share with
those lost people out there. We need to be able to recognize
that when when somebody gives us something else that is
counterintuitive to this, counter to the truth of this,
that we could speak back to it. So we need to prioritize him by
reading his word and taking it seriously that this is a gift
that he gave us and he miraculously has maintained for
us to this day. We need to be talking to him.
That's our prayer life again. How many times, and I'm just
speaking to myself right now, how many times have we stepped
away from our even our own habits of, you know, pray at
this time in the morning and I and I pray for how I dedicate
this much time to him or whatever.
But on this day, I just wasn't feeling it.
And then the next day wasn't feeling it again today, but I'll
get back to it. How many times have we done
that? I've done it a million times.
We need to talk to him. It's a relationship with him.
We wouldn't, we wouldn't go without talking to our spouse
about them. The big things in life and the
small things. God deserves to be the the, the,
the recipient of the big things you talk about and the small
things that you that you talk about.
It means seeking him. It means wanting to know more
about his heart right by getting into his word and seeing what he
says about himself. It means worshipping him John
did a great job this morning of walking us through what worship
is as a spiritual discipline and I it was it was great as he was
saying that a couple different times I had these light bulbs
going off of man. I really could I could really
grow in that area or with that part of my just my attitude
towards it. But but in worshipping him, in
committing to being an active participant, participant in his
in his body here, right the, the, the church in serving
sacrificially, in giving sacrificially, in loving
sacrificially. You know, back in the 1st
century, when we look at the 1st century church, they were
meeting together in each other's homes every single day.
And we struggle to make it to to make church a priority
sometimes. What about being a part of a
small group study, a Bible study with other believers?
We have to prioritize that. What about meeting with another
person to invest in their messy life?
Guys, I'll let me tell you this. I get one of the blessings of my
position is that I get to be involved in your messy lives, in
your chaos, right? And you could be involved in
mine and it is a gift. It's not, it's not a chore.
It's not a chore to, to love on the person that's down the, the,
the, the road from you right now.
It's not a chore to go into their home when their kids are
screaming or when they're talking about marital problems
or when they're coming to you yet again with, Hey, I'm not
getting any traction in my my spiritual life.
And you know, it's because they, they, they're not open on the
Bible. They're not being a part of the
church body, whatever. These are blessings for us to be
able to to, to do, to be all in this way, to sell out to Jesus
and make him the priority of us of our lives.
When we do this, we have we have the time in our lives to do
this. And don't let anybody convince
you that you're so busy that you can't do that.
In fact, let me take a second and just call some call the men
out here for a second, because here's the here's the thing.
I believe with my whole heart. If, if, if men followed Jesus
properly and LED their families properly, our world would be a
different place. We used to be a Society of, of,
of, of overworking men, right? Guys that would, that would work
70 hours a week. They weren't home, but now we
have more time. Some of us work from home or we
have opportunities to work from home or, or to handle some of
these, these sort of add on projects over the computer, over
text messages or, or you know, whatever it is we have more time
with and for our families than ever.
But are we using that time appropriately for God?
How many of us guys, how many of us spend more time on our
hobbies than on promoting Christ in our homes?
All of us, men and women, have room to improve in our zeal for
following Jesus. And I'll tell you what, when you
do that, you'll be a better spouse, you'll be a better
father, you'll be a better mom, you'll be, you'll be better at
your job, you'll be a better boss because he's going to be
changing you from the inside out.
And the people around you will be impacted by these changes.
I know several of you know I'm talking to you right now because
we've had these conversations and these changes you're
building in your life. You don't necessarily think
you're impacting people, but you are.
They're watching you and they're learning something about, about
God because you talk about them and you share these things that
you're passionate about. So let this change you and, and
watch how it changes the, the, the people around you.
This doesn't mean guys, that life gets easier, that you're,
you know, you're not going to be rich.
And honestly, I can't imagine you guys could look any better.
But but God might call you to leave your job and go into the
mission field. He might prompt you to give more
at church and vacation less. You might lose friendships.
When, when, when this change happens inside you and your
behavior changes and you're not interested in living the same
lifestyle that that you once cherished, you know you'll find
yourself, you are less comfortable living amongst the
worldly. I promise you, you'll face
persecution in some way. Rather than tell you again why,
why that's all a good thing, Let's end this with something
that Paul wrote to the church at Rome in Romans 8, verses 18 and
19, he says. For I consider that the
sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the
glory that is about to be revealed to us.
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing
of the sons of God. All of creation stands waiting
with braided with bated breath to see how God, in His infinite
love and mercy, promises to pour out blessings on His beloved.
You guys pray with me Lord God. I've, I think I've been both of
these men in this, in this passage at different times in
life. In fact, I know that I have and,
and each of us here can probably very much relate to this.
Either we, we get excited about hearing a sermon and, and the
things that we read in, in the Bible and we, we want to be a
part of that because it's exciting and it's new and it's
got good advice and all that. But we don't really take into
context what all of that means. The hard, the hardness of the
Christian life, the things that will be difficult for us, the
cutting away of sin that the changing of our ways and, and
the, the, the loss of friendships and new friendships.
And so, Lord, for those people here in the room, I would ask
that you would help them to really understand what they're
they're looking at here and to make a solid profession of faith
that they would really, truly would, would be they would
understand that that it is only through your life, death and
resurrection that they have an opportunity at, at participating
in your glory forever and not facing eternal death.
But Lord, for those of us who who are believers, and yet we
lack, for whatever reason that we've justified, we lack some
level of passion about being the church, about being your hands
and feet. We, we lack a willingness to put
you as the top priority in our life.
Lord, I just ask that you would wreck us over that, Lord.
If there are, if there are things in my life that I am
prioritizing or over you, Lord, you can you destroy them for me,
Lord, and, and, and take them away from me so that you are
clearly in that top position. I don't want to have anything
that stands between between me and you, Lord, you are the King
of Kings and I just ask that you would help all of us to to do
that and that that through that change, we would be a people who
come to you with contrite, humble hearts and that recognize
you really truly where you belong on the throne as King of
Kings and Lord of Lords. Lord, we love you and we thank
you. Say this in Jesus name, Amen.
Amen. Would you stand and sing a
response for this?