Die to Live!

Asked Pastor Mike if he had a message, if he

had anything he wanted me to say. He said, must

have been feeling relaxed, is what he said. He said, yeah,

tell him to pay attention to the sermon. Pastor Mike

said so, and he loves y'all. Are you a disciple

of Jesus? And what does it mean to follow Jesus?

Anyway?

This morning we'll be looking into God's word for some answers.

But let's just pause for a moment and bower heads. Father,

I pray for your spirit. I pray that somehow through

all these words that what is felt will be your love.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

They trudged slowly down the path. The spring air felt chilly,

Their hearts were full of rivalry and resentment, and they

were bitterly critical of each other.

Something big was bound to happen. They were sure of that.

Jesus was leading them to Jerusalem, and the rulers there

wanted to kill him. Now, just what was going to

happen the little group wasn't sure about. But again and again,

when people had tried to do something to Jesus, something

hostile to Jesus, his power had always come through. Surely

they thought this was the time when he would start

that new kingdom that they were all thinking about so fondly.

They had tried to get him to do that before,

but never worked out, probably just perhaps not the right

time or something.

Jesus had been.

Telling them repeatedly that he was going to be killed,

but they didn't want to hear it, so they didn't understand.

In town, Jesus instructed his disciples how to prepare for

the passover. In those days, a host would refresh as

guests by arranging for someone to wash tired, dusty feet.

Of course, the host would never do the job himself.

That was a job for a slave, and it certainly

was a job for a relatively low class slave at that.

But on this evening there was no one in the room.

There was no one there except that little group. That

meant that one of them should do the job. The

disciples pretended not to notice. There was a silence, a long,

awkward silence, as Jesus waited. Then he made the move

that stunned everyone in the room. Turned with me to

John thirteen, and I invite you to go ahead and

look these up there on the slides. But if you

have a Bible on a phone or on a book

on paper, go ahead and look it up with me.

John thirteen. We're gonna be reading verses two through five.

John thirteen, two through five. And during supper, the devil

having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot,

the son of Simon, to betray him.

Jesus, knowing that.

The Father had handed all things over to him and

that he was he had come forth from God and

was going back to God, got up from supper, laid

his outer garments aside, and he took a towel and

tied it around himself. Then he poured water into a

basin and began washing the disciples feet and wiping them

with the towel which he had tied around himself.

This move by.

Jesus showed a different attitude and began to melt the

ice the hostility among the group. But then if we

fast forward a few weeks, we find the disciples in

the upper room again. So much has happened during that time,

and they seem like different people now. Before they'd been

slaves to their own bitterness. Now they were free. Before

they were rivals. Now they were a team. They'd been

praying and worshiping together. They have been humbling their hearts

to each other. In the first verses of Acts two,

we read what happens next to go ahead and turn

with me to that one.

If you will, you.

Read the first four verses of Acts chapter two. When

the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together

in one place, and suddenly a noise, like a violent,

rushing wind, came from heaven, and it filled the whole

house where they were sitting in. Tongues that looked like

fire appeared to them, distributing themselves, and a tongue rested

on each one of them, and they were all filled

with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with different tongues,

as this spirit was giving them the ability to speak out.

So that begs a question, what be the difference?

Why were they so full of joy and love for

each other where before they had been slaves of their

own bitterness and anger.

The difference, of course, was Jesus. It was Jesus.

They saw him die and unex indescribably cruel death. They

saw him die for them. They saw his love. They

saw the darkness, the lightning, and the earthquake.

And then.

They saw their risen Lord, and they had been commissioned

by him as evangelists. And through all those experiences, the

Holy Spirit had been working deep in their hearts. To

say it, very Susaint, they were converted. That kind of

change of heart was difficult and painful for the disciples.

It's never easy.

In One Corinthians fifteen thirty one, the apostle Paul wrote,

I die daily. Paul was one of the most prolific

of the inspired writers of the Bible, but still that

battle against sin and self that he described was an

everyday struggle for him. For Jesus to have victory in

our hearts, we have to lose something. We have to

lose something that we naturally love, but not something that

it is in our best interest to keep. We have

to lose our pride, our independence, our confidence in ourselves.

In one sense, we have to lose our very selves.

Turn it through to Matthew sixteen. Jesus put it in

stark terms. We're gonna start reading in verse twenty four.

Matthew sixteen, verse twenty four, give you more to follow

me if you're looking it up. Then Jesus said to

his disciples. If anyone wants to come after me, he

must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it,

But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

For what good will it do a person if he

gains the whole world but forfeits his soul, Or what

will a person give in exchange for his soul. As

we think about these words, remember the context that they

were spoken in. That must have been jarring, especially that

part about a cross. Today Christians think of a cross

as a symbol of salvation, a symbol of Jesus and

his love for us. We put symbolic crosses in our churches.

There's one behind me this morning, and it has a

meaning to us. It did not have that meaning then

when Jesus spoke those words. Across was a ghastly tool

for torture. It was nothing more and nothing less. So

keep that in mind as you hear these words of

Jesus about taking up the cross. What's more? To carry

across was the ultimate shame. It meant that you were

going to die. It meant that you deserved to die.

It meant that you were about to hang on that

cross lead, moaning in pain and gasping for air.

Until you were dead. It was an ugly metaphor.

That Jesus is bringing out, but still Jesus called his

disciples to carry the cross. The teaching of Jesus contrasts

so starkly with what our secular world tells us today.

We hear from entertainers, from politicians, from schools, the messages

of the world. The world says, find yourself. You need

to find yourself. The world says be yourself. Jesus says

you must lose yourself. The world says follow your heart.

You've heard that phrase, haven't here that aphorism? Follow your heart,

Jesus says, follow me in sacrifice.

The world says you need to defend yourself. Look out

for number one.

Jesus says, whoever wants to save his life will lose it.

Maybe you remember what happened when Jesus was twelve years old,

Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem for his first passover.

After a few days, it was time to go home.

Joseph and Mary knew that Jesus would be among them,

and why not. He was always such a dependable child.

They started home and as they were setting up camp

that first night, they looked for him.

They looked for him, but he was not there.

That began a terrifying three day search for Jesus. As

they searched, their minds were tormented by the memory of

Herod's murderous rage twelve years earlier.

What about you and me?

You know, it's easy to forget to actively seek for

a relationship with Jesus.

We get busy, don't we. But that's when we lose him.

And it's not always obvious to us when we have

lost our relationship with Jesus. Think about these words when

Jesus was warning his disciples, and you've heard these warning

before probably, but remember that Jesus is talking about worshipers

of God. He is talking about religious people who worship God.

When he said to his disciples, he said, yet an

hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think

that he is offering a service to God. Jesus says,

people religious people would be so deceived by Satan that

they could attack the Church of God, the Bride of

Christ and somehow imagine that they were serving God. And

yet we have to recognize that level of deception can

happen to me, it can happen to you. And it's

not because we're stupid. It's because the enemy is too

strong for us alone. Yes, we have safety, but it's

not in our wisdom, it's not in our strength. Our

only safety is in connection, in relationship with Jesus. That

comes through Bible study and through earnest focused prayer, through

inviting God to live and rule in us, in the

person of the Holy Spirit. That is how we can

find safety, not by our own cleverness or wisdom, not

by our ability to analyze the arguments. And of course

we must avoid imbibing hate from others. Our society is

so full of anger, and there are voices out there

on social media and YouTube and other places, even news media.

They have messages calculated to make us angry because that

gets them views and views get them money. You know

what they are. Some of them will be teach you

to be angry against the political party that you disagree with,

or against different ethnic or racial groups, or wealthy people

or immigrants.

Or just whatever.

There's all just about any group comes in. Don't let

anyone point in your heart. Don't listen to that on

purpose Peter before his betrayal, before he betrayed Jesus, the

greatest blunder of his life. Before he did that, he

was supremely confident, But his confidence was in himself.

He said, Lord, why can I not follow you? Right now?

I will lay down my life for you? And he

meant what he said more precisely.

He meant that he was ready to lay his life

on the line in hand to hand combat, on the

field of battle, to defend his master. And he proved

that he was ready for that a few hours later

in the garden of Gosemite. But he was not ready

for the spiritual battle that faced him. He misunderstood the

nature of the conflict before him. He was ready to

battle humans, he was not ready to battle the forces

of darkness. Those conflicts we can only face in the

power and by the presence of the Holy Spirit in

our lives. Jesus, answering Peter's bluster his confidence, Jesus said.

Will you lay down your life for me? Truly?

Truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow

before you deny me.

Three times.

Later that night, in the garden of Gosemine, Jesus urged

his disciples to pray.

He knew how badly they needed.

That time of focused, earnest prayer in order to get

through the struggles, the spiritual conflict before them. Then he

left them so that he could agonize with God alone.

When he came back, he found them sleeping. He spoke

directly to self confident Peter, and he said, so, h

men could not keep watching from me with one hour,

keep watching and praying so that you will not come

into temptation. This spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Okay,

that was an extraordinary moment in the history of the world,

a pivotal moment in the.

History of the world. But what about our everyday life.

Where do we find those unexpectedly spiritual conflicts. I'd like

to suggest that often those conflicts come to us over

issues of forgiveness. If we've been wronged, or if we

think we've been wronged, we can find ourselves imprisoned in

bitterness against the person who did the action. But that bitterness,

that hate, is a violation of the law of God.

You see, Jesus taught that the law. God's law at

its very core, is that we should love We must

love Him, and we need to love each other. The

Bible reveals the character of God and of his love,

and it faithfully records the tragedy that follows when that

principle is violated. God's love is the kind of love

he wants to see in each of us. Of course,

we know that in our human hearts. Our human hearts

will never hold the vastness of God's love for us.

We're not great in that way. It would be an

insult to him to even suggest that. But when we

are conver his love will be reflected in our hearts

and purity. That kind of love will be in us.

In Matthew eighteen, Jesus tells a story of a servant

who owed his king ten thousand talents. Sounds like a

big number. How much is ten thousand talents worth? Well,

you little perspective. In those days, a denarius was a

silver Roman silver coin. A denarius was a daily wage

of a laborer. A talent was worth six thousand of those. Okay,

now that means that. Just imagine that if you lived

in the time of Christ you had a colossal construction

project that you wanted to do in Jerusalem. That meant

that you would have enough money to hire more than

one hundred and ninety two thousand people for a six

day work week for a year. Of course, he still

wouldn't be able to hire that many because Jerusalem, the

entire population of Jerusalem at the time was only eighty thousand.

So to say all that in very.

Simple terms, this dude owed some big bucks and he

was in serious trouble.

Okay, he was over his head.

The king called him to account, and the man begged

the king for more time. He promised to pay everything.

The king knew how much he owed, He knew how

hopeless that promise was. It was impossible, It wasn't even

it wasn't even plausible. And yet he wanted to be

kind to his servant. So rather than giving him more time,

rather than throwing him into prison, which he deserved, he

just forgave the debt.

He was free. It must have been a huge relief.

So what was his response. He went out. He found

a man who owed him one hundred denari.

Now, let's be fair to this guy, one hundred of

those silver coins. That was some serious money too, one

hundred single days wage. It would take months to earn

that much money. And if you assume that someone is

earning a denarius every day and using part of it

to feed his family. I could imagine it would take

years to pay off one hundred denary. This was not

a trivial debt, and yet the king had just forgiven

six hundred thousand times that much. The forgiven servant grabbed

the man by the throat, insisting on being paid immediately.

The man begged for more time. He promised to pay everything,

but instead he was thrown into prison. Turn with me

to Matthew eighteen. We're gonna start in verse thirty one,

and I'm gonna let Jesus finish the story in his

own words Matthew eighteen thirty one through thirty five, starting

in verse thirty one. When his fellow slaves saw what

had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported

to their master all that had happened.

Then summoning him, his master.

Said, you, wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt

because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have

had mercy on your fellow slave the same way I

had mercy on you. And his master moved with anger,

handed him over to the tortures until he would repay

all that was owed him my heavenly father, Jesus said,

my heavenly Father will also do the same to you,

if each of you does not forgive his brother from

his heart. Now does that mean God loves to torture us?

I think not tortures. Resentment is its own torture. Hate

is its own torture. It destroys the person who holds it.

We have been forgiven a vast debt of rebellion against

the monarch of all the galaxies, against our very creator.

It was our sins that put Jesus on the cross.

I know, I know. Some people have suffered terrible abuse.

Some people have experienced crimes almost too dark to think about.

That hurts when that happens. It wounds a person to

the core. And I don't want to trivialize that one bit.

And yet, and yet, ye, we can try to compare

our worst experiences to what Jesus suffered for us, But

there is no comparison. Yes, the harm someone has done

us might loom large, like the one hundred silver coins,

but it will never compare to the infinite, vastness of

what our sins did to Jesus. Now we're talking about forgiveness,

and I feel a need to clarify two points that

sometimes confuse people about forgiveness. First, forgiveness is not the

same thing as trust. Occasionally someone will they are there

stories of someone who's wrong somebody and will demand that

you trust them because Jesus wanted you to forgive. I

know a Christian woman who is abused by her father

when she was a child. The Holy Spirit works deeply

in this woman's heart, and she forgave her father. She

found freedom from resentment, from the hatred that might have

ruined might have blighted her entire life. She treated him

with respect and honor. She lovingly cared for him in

her home through the last days of his life. But

that does not mean that she allowed him too babysit

her children. That's a difference between forgiveness and trust. Trust

is conditional. Trust is earned, but kindness and respect if

we follow the example of Jesus. If we following Jesus,

kindness and respect are unconditional. A second point I want

to clarify is that forgiveness does not mean we always

feel good about what happened or about the person. Sometimes

memories come back and haunt us Forgiveness.

Is a choice, not a feeling.

It's a choice to treat someone with respect and kindness.

It's a choice to let go of any supposed right

to pay back to revenge, and it is a choice

not to cling to feelings of anger. We can't always

choose how we feel, but we can choose what feelings

we're going to embrace and hold on to do is

that difference? Does that distinction make sense? Forgiveness gives us

great freedom, but sometimes unpleasant feelings still come. When that happens,

we can still act on the principle of love. I'd

like to share with you a story that taught me

about forgiveness.

It was a small island nation.

The people there were horrified at a crime committed by

one of their own. Around the world, people felt numbness, anger,

even rage. The crime was all the more shocking because

the victims were such a kind, loving Christian family. In

nineteen eighty six, I arrived at Betty in Colombia. I

was young, I was single and had little experience in business.

My job was to manage a computer center at the

Adventist University in the city. It was there that I

met doctors Itamar and Ruth. They were a beautiful, loving

couple from Brazil. They had four sons. The oldest of

their sons was very close to my age. His name

was Ruemar. Ruth invited me to use her washing machine.

It was from their home.

That I made my first phone call to a lovely

American woman. She's now my wife. The whole family abounded

with kindness, but somehow, Ruth especially seems to have a

knack for making young people feel loved, as if they

were one of her own kids. Time passed and I

returned to the United States. I got married and went

off with life, but I never forgot that dear family.

I never forgot the love that they always showed me.

It was at the end of two thousand and three

when a crime tore that precious family apart. Ruemar was

living on the island of Palau with his wife, Margaret,

and the two children, Larison and Melissa. He was working

as a missionary pastor. It was their fifteenth wedding anniversary.

They never celebrated.

Around three o'clock in the morning, a man named Justin

was high on crystal meth. He invaded their home through

a kitchen window. He beat and stabbed rem Margaret and

their son Larson to death. He took ten year old

Melissa with him as his own personal property. Later, he

tried to kill her and left her for dead in

a ravine. Yes, it was an outrageous crime. I can

only imagine the horror that Ruth and Itamar must have felt.

The very day they heard the news, Ruth was on

an airplane heading for Palau.

Itamar followed shortly after.

There were logistical things that held him back momentarily, but

it didn't take him long to get on the road either.

News spread quickly.

The stunned people of Palau gave the family a state funeral.

Even the Queen sat on the floor in mourning. Ruth

had an opportunity to speak at the funeral. She invited

Justin's mother to join her on the platform in front

of the group for prayer. She asked the people not

to hold the crime against that mother or her family. Later,

talking about that moment, she said, here we are two mothers.

I'm sure the mother of Justin has prayed so many

times for her son, and i am sure her heart

hurts terribly. I just want to take bud Justin's mother

and let her know we are praying for her and

for Justin. Ruth with a group who visited Justin in prison,

she offered him forgiveness.

She prayed for him.

Years later, Melissa herself went back to Palau as a

young woman with her husband, this time as a missionary herself.

She too joined a group that visited Justin in prison.

Her words revealed that she understands the story that Jesus

told about the forgiven but unforgiving servant. Through her tears,

she said, Justin, we are all the same in God's sight.

We are no better than you are. We are all

in need of God's saving grace in our lives. I

want to see you in heaven. One day with my

parents and my brother found forgiveness from the family that

he had so deeply violated and wronged. But he also

found forgiveness of God.

From God.

Yes, he'll spend the rest of his life in prison,

but now he is a free man in Christ, free

from the prison of sin, of shame, and of guilt.

He has been baptized in prison, and in that prison

he has become a worker for Christ and has led

others to Jesus. And Ruth and Melissa themselves remained free.

They'd been terribly violated, of course, by Justin's crime.

They could have hated Justin. That hatred, that.

Bitterness could have poisoned their entire lives. It might have

plunged them into a dungeon far darker and more terrible

than the prison that holds Justin. Then, after having lived

miserable lives in this earth, they would have lost out

on an eternity with Jesus, an eternity where love is

the law, and where that law of love is honored perfectly.

What I have been describing here is a life and

death struggle with our sinful nature. We all have it.

We cannot have Jesus while clinging to what the apostle

Paul called the old man, our proud, unselfish, unconverted selves

Galatians two, verse twenty. In that verse, the apostle Paul

describes it this way. He says, I have been crucified

with Christ, and it is no longer I who live,

but Christ lives in me. And the life which I

now live in the flesh. I live by faith in

the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself

up for me. Not as he said, I am crucified,

but he did not say I crucify myself. Sadly, sometimes

people in this earth die by suicide. That has happened

twice in a mile neighborhood in recent years, in cases

that I'm aware of. And yet no one has ever

in all the history of the world crucified themselves. It's

simply not possible. In the same way, no one ever

in the history of the whole world has converted themselves,

has changed their own hearts, has changed their own nature

into what God wants it to be. It's simply not possible.

Only the Holy Spirit can do that. For us, Jesus

described two gates. One gate is a narrow and it

leads to a constricted and difficult path. That path requires effort,

it requires self surrender. In fact, Paul and Jesus both

compared that experience to dying. And yet paradoxically, that is

the path that offers forgiveness, It offers fulfillment, and it

offers a life of genuine freedom, and in the end

it leads to eternal life. The other is a broad highway,

and the gate is wide. It doesn't take any special

effort to find the gate or to walk the path.

That path, though.

It's easy to enter. It offers us guilt, it offers

us anger, it offers us It's a fragile pride mingled

with moments of shame, and it ends in the second death.

But it's easy to get in. Tragically, sadly, most people

on this earth are traveling that path. Dear friends, which

path are you on? Maybe you're on the path to

life reaching out to God, asking him to daily to

rule your life. If you are, I want to encourage

you to double down on your commitment to a relationship

with Jesus, to spending time in the Bible.

And in prayer.

Maybe you're on that path, but you're struggling with discouragement.

That happens sometimes. I've been there. Let me assure you

God can and will let you get you through. It's

not up to your strength and power to get to

the end of the path.

Yet.

It's difficult, but it's God who will get us through.

Our job is to stay on the path. Our job

is to stay connected with Him. Believing right doctrines is

not enough. Attending church is not enough. Supporting the church

financially and in practical ways is not enough. All of

these are good They're all important, but we need more.

We need to be transformed by the grace of God.

We don't need to.

Be improved, we need supernatural transformation. We need to die

with Christ and be raised in newness of life. We

need to be transformed as completely as a caterpillar becoming

a butterfly, and we cannot do that for ourselves. Only

God can do. My appeal to you today is call

on God to do for you what none of us,

none of us can ever do for ourselves, but is

so essential. Heavenly Father. Each one of us needs a

work done in our heart that we cannot do. There's

no exceptions. We're all sinners before you. We're all broken,

and we can't fix ourselves. Heavenly Father, I pray Lord

that your Holy Spirit will work deep in our hearts.

We're all in different places along the path. You know

what each one of us needs to experience in order

to be drawn nearer to THEE. We just pray that,

in the power of your Holy Spirit, you will do

that for us. In Jesus' name, Amen.

You may be seated or dismissed. Happy Sabbath.