I Have Decided to Follow Jesus (Luke 14:28-30) | Louis Azuma

Speaker: We are gonna be-- we're gonna start in, uh, in Luke, okay?

In Luke 14.

Um- And then we're gonna-- What we're kinda doing tonight is we're

gonna be following up on some stuff that you probably talked about

or thought about at camp, okay?

We had a great time at our summer camp a couple weeks ago.

Um, and we're gonna be kind of wrapping a bow on, on all the stuff we talked about.

But while you're turning to Luke 14, um, I don't know if

I've told you guys this story.

I don't think I have.

But one time, um, I was talking to some Mormons and, uh, they-- we both

learned that we all love soccer.

That the, the three of us, or the four of us, my friend and I, and these two

Mormon missionaries, they love soccer.

And so they were like, "Hey, we play soccer together with some guys at 6:30

on, you know, Friday mornings," and saying, "We'd love for you guys to come."

So my friend and I were like, "Great.

We love soccer.

We're gonna go play soccer with these Mormons," right?

We thought that they weren't gonna be that good at soccer,

uh, but turns out they were.

They were really good at soccer.

And I was like, "Okay.

We're, we're pretty good at soccer, too.

You know, we, we played a lot growing up, so this will be fun.

It'll be a lot-- You know, just a casual game, right?

Not a professional game or anything, you know, just, you know, no

ex-college athletes there, right?

It's not like you're showing up to play, you know, play pickup

baseball, and then, like, Mr.

Clancy walks in, and you're like, all right, dude.

Okay.

I'm like, all right.

This is, you know, as I thought, it was a friendly game of soccer.

I show up, and, you know, the Mormons are there, and we're, we're, you know,

warming up together and getting ready.

And then I realized I was getting into something that was far over my head, okay?

Um, because everyone who showed up was, like, a, a grown man.

I was in college.

And they all showed up, like, they all wore, um, either, like,

white shirts or dark shirts so they could divide teams evenly.

Like, they, like, came ready to, like, be on certain teams.

And then there was this, like, white truck with, like, ladders on the side

that pulled up, and I was like, "Uh-oh.

This might-- We might be in trouble here," um, because these people,

uh, were really good at soccer.

The-- They're these grown adults who played soccer their whole

life, and they were phenomenal.

Like, I was by far the worst soccer player on the field that morning.

And I'm not that bad at soccer.

Uh, some of you, we got to play together.

I'm not that bad.

Um, and I was definitely younger than all of the people here, for better or for

worse, and I was completely unprepared.

I was so embarrassed because these guys were legit.

They were really, really good at soccer.

Some of them, um, spoke different languages than me,

and they were phenomenal.

They were so good.

And I, I've never been more embarrassed on a soccer field in my entire life.

I've never been more embarrassed because I was just like, "I don't belong here.

I am totally out of my league.

I'm out of my depth, and, uh, totally unprepared for this moment," right?

It's one of those moments, I don't know if you've ever been like this in

a sport, maybe it's baseball or soccer, where you're just like, you don't

want the ball to come to you anymore.

You're just like, "I, I don't even want it.

I'll just run around.

I'll just…

I, I don't wanna shoot.

I don't wanna pass.

I don't want, I don't want the ball.

I just…

You guys do your thing.

I'll just run around."

And it was, it was awful.

Um- Knowing what you're getting into is really important, right?

If I had known that this was gonna be a really serious, really

intense soccer game, probably wouldn't have shown up, honestly.

I, I wasn't, wasn't in the mood to be embarrassed at 6:30 in the morning, right?

Um, knowing what you're getting into is, is really important.

And so tonight what we're gonna do is I want you to know what

you're getting into if you have decided to follow Jesus, right?

Maybe you decided to follow Jesus a few years ago.

Maybe you became a Christian, um, in middle school, or maybe you became a

Christian at a younger age, in elementary school, or when you were really little.

Maybe you became a Christian two weeks ago at camp.

Uh, maybe you're not sure if you're a Christian.

Maybe you're thinking about becoming a Christian.

Maybe you don't wanna be a Christian at all.

But I, I think what I wanna do together is for all of us to think

about, what am I getting into?

What have I already gotten myself into?

What should following Jesus be like?

'Cause I want us all to be on the same page.

But what does God say it looks like to follow Jesus?

Okay, so we're gonna be in Luke 14.

All right, 14.

We're gonna start in verse 28.

I've got it on the screen for you if you don't have your Bible.

But Luke 14:28.

Luke 14:28

So Jesus, He's talking to his, his disciples and some crowds,

and He says, "Which one of you, if you wanna build a tower," right?

So you wanna build a, a big tower.

First, what you do is you count the cost, right?

Do I have enough supplies, right?

Do I have enough bricks?

Do I have enough construction workers?

Do I have enough ladders, right?

Do I have enough stuff?

Do I have enough supplies, have enough resources to build this tower?

'Cause otherwise, verse 29, when you've laid a foundation and you're not able

to finish, or you start building a tower and you realize, "Oh, I ran out

of bricks, I can't do it," everyone who sees it is gonna make fun of you.

They're gonna mock you and say, "Ha ha, this dude, he started to build

a tower, he couldn't finish," right?

They're gonna see your half-built tower with the missing windows and,

and no door, and they're gonna be like, "This guy couldn't finish," right?

I don't want that to be you as a Christian.

I don't want you to start becoming a Christian, and you don't

wanna be that either, right?

I, I think a lot of times, sometimes people are even scared to become

a Christian because they say, "I don't know if I can do it.

I don't know if God's gonna keep me saved."

Right?

W- and we're all kind of worried about this sometimes, and I

don't want that to be you.

I don't want you to be like, "Oh, camp was great.

I loved the revival.

Uh, the worship night was awesome.

Everyone was crying, and Josh's testimony was so good, and

Lewis' sermons were even better."

No, um, um And I don't want you to be like, "Oh man, I- And then a, a, a month

later you're just like, "Oh, I guess not.

Didn't work out."

All right, I want you to know what you're getting into and know what

it's really like to follow Jesus.

And this is what Jesus says to people who want to follow him.

Right before this, in the Gospel of Luke, there's people that come up to Jesus

and say, "I really wanna follow you, Jesus," and Jesus actually turns them away

because he says, "You're not ready yet."

Okay?

So I wanna make sure that all of us are on the same page about what

is it really like to follow Jesus.

So all your points tonight are expect, right?

Expect something.

So there are four things that you should expect from following Jesus.

The first one is expect to change from the heart.

Expect to change from the heart.

When you follow Jesus, your life changes.

I think we've all…

Hopefully you…

That's not news to you, right?

Hopefully it's obvious to you, okay, when I follow Jesus my life changes, right?

'Cause it used to be I was following me, and now I'm following

Jesus, so my life changes, right?

But how that change happens is sometimes confusing, right?

You don't follow Jesus and change from the outside in.

You don't just start adding stuff to your life.

You change from the inside out when you start following Jesus.

It starts with your heart.

Right?

You don't just start doing new things or going to new places.

The outward change comes first from an inward change

Did you guys ever learn about this guy when you were little?

I don't know if kids learn about this guy anymore.

I did.

I had to read books about this guy, maybe one or two books about this guy.

Um, I really don't know anything about him anymore, other than the fact that he

wears a pan on his he- or a pot on his head and doesn't wear shoes apparently.

Um, I honestly forgot everything there is about this dude.

But let's say you're, you were Johnny Appleseed, okay?

You're…

His mission apparently was to, like, plant apples everywhere, right?

Let's just…

I don't know if that's true or not.

Let's just say that's, that's his, his mission, okay?

This dude wants to grow a ton of apples, right?

There's a couple ways you could do this, right?

What if he's like, "You know what?

I love apple trees.

I want the world to be full of apple trees."

So he goes to the grocery store, buys tons and tons of apples, and just starts, like,

taping them to all the trees in the area.

Is he planting apple trees?

Is he really Johnny Appleseed?

No, right?

He's Johnny Grocery Store Apple, right?

He's not Johnny Appleseed.

What he's doing is he's trying to change all the trees into apple trees

just by putting apples on them, right?

That would not be the way to do that, right?

If you wanted to fill the world with apple trees, you don't go to the

store, buy a bunch of apples, and start taping them on trees, right?

What you do is you plant apple seeds, hence the name, right?

And then they grow into apple trees, right?

That's the type of trees that produce apples naturally

When we talk about being a Christian, right, one of the things you might

have heard, uh, uh, someone actually asked me about this at camp.

They…

We, we were having a conversation about bearing fruit.

What does it look like to, to have the fruit of the Spirit in your life?

Well, I can tell you what it doesn't look like is for you to see, oh, what are

the, what are the things Christians do?

Let me just duct tape those onto my life.

Oh, Christians go to church?

I'm gonna start doing that, too.

Oh, Christians get baptized?

I, I guess I'll do that.

Oh, Christians read the Bible?

I'll start doing that.

Christians serve.

Christians are kind to people.

I'll just duct tape all of these Christian apples to my life.

And I think sometimes that's what people try to do.

I know I tried to do that at one point.

I, I wanted to be a Christian.

I, I, I didn't wanna go to hell, and so I tried to fit in at church by taping

all the Christian apples to my life.

That's not how real Christians change.

You don't just start doing Christian things and then be like, "Okay,

well now I must be a Christian 'cause I've outwardly gotten all

the Christian apples on my tree."

What happens is God changes your heart, and then you start to grow

those, those apples, right, that fruit.

In this case, not naturally, but supernaturally, right?

That's why they're the fruit of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, right?

Supernatural power.

God changes your heart, and now you have a new heart, and it shows up in your life.

You start to see, oh yeah, I am becoming more kind.

And sometimes you have to try really hard.

Absolutely, you have to try hard to be patient with your sibling

when they're being annoying.

But the desire to be patient with them comes from your heart.

It comes from the Holy Spirit changing you.

So when we say, oh yeah, I, I'm growing, I, I see fruit in my life, right?

It, it comes from the heart.

It doesn't come from, oh, I'm just gonna take all these Christian

things that people do and s- and stick them onto my life.

It comes from within because God … Not because you found it within, but

because God, God put it there

One of the heart changes that you should see comes from, uh, we

see it in 1 John 4:7 through 12.

1 John 4:7–12

It's too big to put on the screen, but if you have your Bible, I'd encourage

you to turn there, 1 John chapter 4.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

1 John is a great book if you're not sure if you're a Christian.

In fact, at the end of 1 John it says it's written, "So that you

might know that you've believed and been changed from the heart."

What happens in, in this letter, 1 John, it's a letter to, to some,

some Christians, and what John, the author, is doing is he's saying … He,

he often gives, like, two options.

If you're one thing, this is what it's like to, to follow God, right?

To, to have a new heart.

The other thing, this is what it's like to be opposed to

God, to not have a new heart.

And so one of the things he says is in 1 John chapter 4, and, and

1 John 4 · chapter mention

you've probably heard some of the stuff from this chapter before.

In verse 7, here's how he starts.

He says, "Beloved."

Right?

He's talking to, to the people he loves, his, his church.

He says, "Let us love one another."

So that's a Christian fruit, right?

That's something Christians do, right?

Something Christians feel.

Christians feel love.

They have affection for others, right?

They, they care about other people.

But why do they do that?

Well, he says, "For love is from God."

So the reason you love other people is because God gave you that love.

He gave you that compassion, that kindness.

And then he says, "Whoever loves," right?

The person who has that, the, the fruit of, of loving people, "Has

been born of God and knows God."

So the, the loving actions, the loving thoughts, the loving feelings come

from your relationship with God.

So it's produced by a heart change

And then he says, "Anyone who does not love does not know

God because God is love."

You've probably heard that before, right?

God is love.

One of the marks of someone who has a new heart filled with the

Holy Spirit is God's love, right?

So you should see in your life, if you're a Christian, you should expect to

see God fill your heart with His love.

And so you should start to see, man, I really care about my friends in a

way I didn't care about them before.

I even care about my enemies in a way I didn't care about them before.

I even, I care about my siblings a way I didn't love them before.

I wanna put other people first.

I wanna be patient with them now.

I wanna be loyal to people.

You should start to see those type of changes, not because you

have to, but because you want to

And again, one of the ways we define love even is because of who God

is, and that's what the rest of that, that paragraph talks about.

But keep going down in 1 John to, to chapter five, okay?

We're, we're in chapter four.

Look at, look at chapter five.

He says, "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of

God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him."

Okay, so we see that, right?

If, if, if I believe that Jesus is the Messiah, He's the one,

He's the King, well, that means I've been born of God, right?

God has given me a new heart.

And he says, "If you love the Father," if you say you love God,

you're gonna love other people.

You're gonna love specifically other Christians.

That's another thing you should expect.

You should expect to love other Christians.

Maybe you don't have anything in common with them, but you should expect to

see, I, I love this person 'cause they're part of God's family, and

that means they're part of my family if I am part of God's family, too.

And then he says this, verse two, "By this we know that we love the children of God."

Maybe you're saying, "Well, I'm not sure if I love, I love God's people.

Do I?"

Well, here he says, "When we love God and obey His commandments,

for this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments."

So to love God means to obey Him, right?

I'm gonna do what He says 'cause I care about Him.

So you should expect to see that in your life.

If you're someone who really does have a new heart, you're going to

love God, and the reason you do it, look at the rest of verse three, "His

commandments are not burdensome."

You ever think about a burden, right?

Like I remember when I was in, I think it was, I don't know if it

was late elementary school or in middle school, probably middle

school, I weighed my backpack.

My backpack was 20 pounds when I was in middle school, which was

probably, like, a quarter of my body weight when I was in middle school.

Um and that's, that's a burden, right?

If you're not a Christian, following God, obeying Him feels like a burden.

It's weighing you down.

You're like, "I don't wanna do this.

I don't wanna obey my parents.

I don't wanna…

I have to be patient with that person?

They're so annoying.

Why do I have to do that?

Oh, I have to read the Bible?

I, I…

It's so hard.

I don't wanna do that."

But when you become a Christian, you have a new heart.

God's commands aren't a burden anymore.

They're not something that you have to do.

They're something you get to do.

And they're still hard.

There's times where you don't feel like doing it.

But the general picture of your life is, "I like obeying God.

I like doing the things that God wants me to do," because you

have a heart that's different.

Your heart is changed

And maybe sometimes I know when I read 1 John, I, I, I get kind of confused because

I feel like, oh, well, th- th- how much do I have to obey God to be a Christian?

Like, what if, what if I don't always obey God?

Does that mean I'm not a Christian?

'Cause you read something in 1 John, like the next verse, verse 4 of

chapter 5, "Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world."

It's like, well, am, am I really overcoming the world?

Am I really, am I really doing that?

Or you read maybe something in 1 John 3 where it, it makes it sound like

someone who really is a Christian doesn't practice sin anymore, right?

It's not a, it's not a habit in their life.

And one of the other ways that you could see has my heart really been

changed is how do I respond to my sin?

That's another great way to evaluate your heart.

You're gonna look at this passage in small groups in a little bit more

detail, but 2 Corinthians 7 talks about, um, grief, so when you're sad, right?

So basically, Paul wrote this letter to the church in Corinth, and

he, he basically called them out.

Paul was like, "You guys, you're, you're living in, in certain

types of sin," and he's like, "I gotta tell you, it's not okay.

You can't live like that anymore.

You, you should turn from that sin."

And he says, "I was happy about it, not because you guys are

sad, but because your sadness…"

Right?

He called them out on their sin.

They were like, "Oh, man, yeah, you're right.

I am really sad that I- I'm a sinner, and I've, I've been sinning and,

and dishonoring God in this way.

Your sadness, it turned into repentance.

You didn't just say, oh, wow, I, I'm such a sinner.

I'm horrible at this."

They said, "I, yeah, I am a sinner.

I, I am really bad at this.

I have been disobeying God.

I'm gonna turn from that, and I'm gonna repent He says, "For

you felt a godly grief so that you suffered no loss through us."

So godly grief is that you're sad about your sin.

It produces repentance.

You say, "I'm sad about my sin, I'm gonna turn from it.

I'm not gonna do it anymore."

Worldly grief, right, 'cause there's, there's reasons people are sad

about their sin that are selfish.

I think a great picture of this is Peter and Judas, right?

Peter and Judas both betrayed Jesus.

Judas was really sad.

He was really sad.

He felt terrible about it, but w- did he turn from that?

No.

Right?

Judas stayed in his sin.

He didn't come back to Jesus.

Peter, he came back, right?

And then you have that scene on the beach, "Do you love me?

Feed my sheep."

And then Peter goes and turns from that and, and goes to honor God for

the rest of his life and follow Jesus.

So just because you're sad about your sin, just 'cause you're grieved, just 'cause

you're like, "Oh, I am, I feel really bad, you know, that sermon at camp was so

convicting or that conversation with my parents was so convicting," that could be

good, but how do you respond to your sin?

Right?

When, when you get called out from your, by your parents or your leader

or, or s- your friend by your, for your sin, how do you respond to that?

Right.

The next verse, verse 11, talks about that.

"What earnestness has this godly grief produced in you, and what

eagerness to clear yourselves."

You got…

There's the- these are all strong emotions, earnestness, eagerness,

indignation, fear, longing, zeal, right?

They're all very strong feelings.

When, when you sin, if you're a Christian, you've got that new heart,

you, you don't wanna stay there.

You're like, "I don't wanna keep dishonoring the Lord.

I'm doing something that, that makes Him look bad," right?

"I'm doing something that He doesn't like, and I love Him, and so I'm not wanna,

I don't wanna keep doing that anymore."

And you, you turn from that sin, but you feel strongly about it.

You're like, "I don't wanna keep doing this.

It bothers me."

So a great way to evaluate your heart is, is how do I respond to my sin?

Do you cover it up?

Do you forget it?

What do you do with your sin?

I, uh, used to like miso soup a lot, and then I figured out what was in it.

Um, especially the kind that my family grew up with.

It was literally just like this like orange paste from these

packets, and my dad would pour like hot water in it and stir it.

And as soon as I saw that, I was like, "I'm out.

Sorry, Dad.

Can't…

It's not my thing anymore."

It started to taste worse to me, even though it was like

the same the whole time.

I was just like, "I can't do it.

I can't, can't drink it anymore."

It tastes worse now that I really know what it is, right?

And then I realized, oh yeah, it's like based on seaweed,

and I don't like seaweed.

And so it was this whole thing, which, yeah, I'm like the

worst Japanese person ever.

I don't like sushi.

I don't like seaweed.

I'm terrible at ping pong.

Anyway, um, so

I re- one, once I realized what it really was, I was like, "Oh,

that's, that's not for me."

That's kinda like what happens when you become a Christian.

You see your sin for what it really is.

You're like, "Oh man, that really is…"

Like anxiety really does tell God I don't trust you, or anger really does, does

mean I'm taking justice into my own hands.

Or impure thoughts really are bad, right?

They really are gross and disgusting.

And once you realize, once you see your sin the wa- for what it really is, y-

you're like, "Oh, that doesn't sit well.

I don't want it.

It's gross.

I don't like it."

And so how you respond to your sin is a really great way to see, right?

When you become a Christian, your new heart gives you, like, different

spiritual taste buds, right?

Jeremiah has a good picture of this.

He says, "Your words," talking to God, "were found and I ate them,

and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart."

Right?

I started enjoying to hear from God.

It wasn't a chore anymore.

It was, oh, I, I, I like this.

This is good.

So if you're a Christian, you should expect change from the heart.

You should feel differently about the things that maybe used to be boring.

And the reason that happens is because your life isn't about you anymore, right?

This is a great couple verses here about what happens when you become a Christian.

The love of Christ controls us, this is what Paul says, because we've

concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died.

So, right, I've…

When you, when you become a Christian, your old you is dead, new you is alive.

He's gonna say in verse 17 that if you're in Christ, you're a new creation, right?

You're a, you're a different person than you were because

you have a new heart, right?

God's love has taken over your life.

You're not you anymore.

You have new desires, new ambitions, new pursuits, new goals, new feelings

And the reason, or the result of that, of God's love controlling your

heart, is, well, I don't live for myself anymore, but I live for Him.

I live for God.

My life is totally different now.

It's not for me.

The goal of my life is not to, to make me look good or it's for me to be happy.

It's for God.

I want His honor and His glory.

And so a second thing you should expect from following Jesus is expect

to, to undo yourself, which I know is kind of a weird way to put it

Essentially, maybe this might make more sense to you, but

Following Jesus is the opposite of being selfish, right?

Selfishness and following Jesus are, are incompatible because

you're not about you anymore.

And this creates a lot of tension in your life because naturally we

all want to be about ourselves.

We all naturally wanna put ourselves first, right?

You don't have to teach anyone how to be selfish.

That's just the way we're wired.

And so following Jesus is really the opposite of everything

that, that you think should…

how life should go.

It's so easy for us to think about ourselves and to think about

what we need and what we want, and following Jesus undoes that.

And it takes time.

You don't just all of a sudden become the most unselfish person in the world.

But what, what's gonna happen as you follow Jesus is, is expect it to really

grate against your natural selfishness.

Expect that tension to be there of, oh, I am, I'm starting to give away myself

here, and I'm starting to live for God

Um, this happened to me very recently.

Um, I was playing basketball.

Um, me and, me and Jake were on a team, and what I realized very quickly about

this basketball game is that the less shots I take, the better our team will do.

The less, the less I contribute to this game, uh, the, the

better this'll go for us, right?

The, uh, maybe you wanna say the less me is, is good for the team, right?

Maybe we could say maybe more Jake, less me, right?

He must increase, I must decrease, right?

Something like that, right?

Uh, and we, we dominated the game.

Uh, I think I only took, like, one or two shots.

Um, and that's why we did really well, because I didn't take very many shots.

I just said, "Jake, you take the ball, and y- I'll just run around

and, and occupy one of the defenders."

Um, and then Jake can, can go do his thing, and Jake scored,

like, 95% of our points.

It was great.

Um, but I realized, right, for this, for us to win, I, I can't be about me, right?

If I'm coming to this game trying to get my shots up, trying to get my

highlight reel, trying to do my things, it's not gonna go very well, right?

I am by far the worst basketball player of the, of the four of us who were playing.

I- it's not gonna go well, right?

When you follow Jesus, right, part of it is saying, "You know what?

The more of me I put into this, like the more I look out for me,

the more selfishness I bring to the table, the worse it's gonna go."

Because more me is bad for this team.

Because we're here to, to make much of God.

We're here to make God look good

And so following Jesus is, is really about, uh, it's really gonna come in

conflict with your natural selfish tendencies, and that's a good thing.

We, we see this in, in Luke 9.

You've probably heard this verse before.

Um, Jesus said to everyone, "If you're gonna come after me, you're

gonna follow me, deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow me.

For whoever would save his life would lose it."

Right?

If you, if you're in this to make your…

To keep what's precious to you, to make your life for you, to hold

onto the things that, that you love, it's not gonna work out.

It's incompatible.

But whoever loses his life, you give your life away for Jesus,

you say, "Jesus, my life is yours.

I wanna be used for you.

I wanna live for you today.

I wanna make the friends that you want me to make.

I wanna go to the school that you want me to go to.

I wanna use my time the way you want me to use it."

You give your life away, and you gain everything because you get Jesus

And so the, the more you hold onto yourself and your plans, your

ambitions, your desires the harder it's gonna be for you to follow Jesus

Maybe you're thinking, well, does this mean, like, my personality,

my individuality is gone?

Um, Jesus doesn't want clones, right?

He's, he's created each person with unique skill sets and personality

and, and talents and gifts, right?

There's still diversity and, and individuality in the sense of, like,

uniqueness and, and that type of thing.

But there is a sense in which we're all, we're all background singers, right?

Jesus is the star.

We're not, we're not gonna go out there and, and try to push him off the stage.

Right?

We're not gonna go out there and try to get our own solo.

Right?

This is about, about him.

And so we're not so worried about, well, what's in it for me?

Or how, how am I gonna deal with this?

Or what's gonna happen?

'Cause we say, "God's gonna take care of me.

A- and my job is to worry about him."

So this is a process, right, of undoing yourself, of putting yourself aside.

So you take up your cross daily and follow me, right?

It's a, a daily commitment to say, "Jesus, I'm about you today.

I'm not, I'm not going into this day thinking what's in it for me.

I'm going to this day thinking, how can I serve you?"

But there's also a definitive thing that happens to you, right?

Old you is gone, new you is here.

Romans 6:6 says, "We know that our old self was crucified with him in

Romans 6:6

order that the body of sin," right, my, like my sinful flesh, my sinful

desires, my sinful ambitions, those are, "brought to nothing, so that we

would no longer be enslaved to sin."

There's also a definitive old you is gone, new you is here.

So there's a gradual take up your cross daily and put yourself

aside and follow Jesus, but there's also a definitive, right?

Maybe, maybe you can say this.

There's big R repentance, right, of I turned from f- from living for myself

to living for God, and then there's day-by-day repentance of turning

from sin and following Jesus, right?

But there is a definitive, yeah, that's not me anymore.

That's not who I was, and there was a moment in, in life where God changed me

And when you follow Jesus, y- that, that's what happens.

Old you is dead and new you is alive.

Similar thing happens, we see that in Galatians 5:24.

Galatians 5:24

But expect to undo yourself if you follow Jesus.

And the reason you're undoing yourself, right, is because you're

part of something bigger, right?

You're part of something that is, is not just about you anymore.

And because of that, you're … And, and even if you're not following

Jesus, you're actually also part of something bigger because the whole

world, it, it is really, there's only two sides to this thing, right?

There's not God's side and then every individual person's side.

There's God and there's his enemies.

There's only two sides.

So if you're, if you're not following God, you're opposing him.

You're working against him.

And so if you do go from God's enemy to God's friend, well guess what?

God's enemies are gonna come after you.

So if you wanna follow Jesus, expect opposition from your enemies

Expect opposition from your enemies.

There's gonna be people, there's gonna be things, there's gonna be situations

that you should encounter hostility from.

If you really are following God, there will be people, things,

situations, ideas that are opposed to you because they're opposed to

God, and you're on God's team now

Um, I used to live in Kansas City, and, um, something that I appreciated about

Chiefs fans, um, I didn't become one, but something I appreciated about them

is that they're very, like, positive.

Um, Chiefs fans generally aren't like, "Oh, your team stinks."

They're just like, "The Chiefs are amazing, and they're so good," and, and

they just, like, nauseate you with, like, Chiefs propaganda and how amazing Patrick

Mahomes is, and no one in the history of sports has ever thrown a no-look

pass, ever, um, before Patrick Mahomes.

Um, no, but they're just very overwhelmingly positive.

And so I got to go to one Chiefs game when I was in Kansas City at Arrowhead.

Um, this is for you, Weston.

It was this game, your favorite game.

Um, so this guy … So see, they're fourth quarter, less than two minutes left.

They're losing by four, guaranteed win, drops the ball.

Um, that was, that was solely just to torture Weston is

why I put this picture here.

Um, I was at this game.

It was, it was pretty hype.

But what happened, um, was I got to see two fan bases that

are very opposite in action.

So the, the, the Chiefs, very positive, generally speaking, very just like,

"Oh yeah, the Chiefs are great.

We love our team.

They're the best.

Awesome."

Uh, the Eagles fans, they just hate everyone.

They hate everything, right?

They are the definition of opposition, right?

They have, they … You know, I don't know if you guys know this.

The Eagles fans, uh, a long time ago, they threw snowballs at Santa.

Uh, Santa was at a Eagles game, and they started throwing snowballs at him because

they were just like, "We don't like Santa.

Get out of here."

And so they started throwing snowballs at Santa.

Um- So the, I was at this game with my mom and, um, I was

nervous to wear Chiefs stuff.

Even though this was a Chiefs home game, I was nervous 'cause I was

like, if I put the Chiefs gear on, the Eagles fans are gonna come after me.

And I'm here, I gotta protect my mom, right?

I, I, I hope any of you guys, young men would feel this way.

I gotta protect my mom, right?

I'm bringing her into this environment.

Even though it's a Chiefs home game, there's gonna be Eagles fans there, and I

don't know what they're gonna do, right?

If, if the, if the Chiefs win this game, I don't know what the

Eagles fans are gonna do, right?

Um, oh, I forgot I have pictures, right?

This is, I feel like Chiefs fan, right, generally speaking.

Very excited about the Chiefs.

Eagles fans, very not excited, right?

Well, they're excited, but in a bad way, right?

These people, I didn't want them to hurt my mom, so I was nervous

to put on the jersey, right?

The opposing team's jersey.

Um, see, if you're a Christian, you're putting on, right, Team Jesus's jersey,

and there will be people from the opposing team that are gonna come after you, right?

There will be people or systems or institutions or ideas that are going

to attack you and be opposed to you.

The, the whole world actually is, is set up against God.

Maybe you've never thought about that before, but the whole world is opposed to

God, and it shouldn't be a surprise to us.

Jesus says this, John 15: "If the world hates you," he's talking to

his disciples, right, if you're gonna follow me, "know that it's hated

me before it has hated you," right?

What did the world do to Jesus?

The world killed Jesus.

The world said, "We don't want you.

We don't like you.

You're bothering us."

Because, like we talked about in our last point, Jesus calls us to die to ourselves.

He's the star.

But the world says, "No, no, no, we want the spotlight."

And so the world hates that about Jesus.

If you were of the world, right, if, if you were on the world's

team, the world would love you.

The world would be like, "Yeah, you're, you're part of our team.

You're part of our group."

But because you're not of the world, because you're on God's team, you've put

the, the jersey on, I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

You should expect that.

Don't be surprised when your friends make fun of you for following Jesus.

Don't be surprised if you go to a college that teaches, actively

teaches that God doesn't exist.

Right?

Don't be surprised if a gender studies class is part of your major,

and you have to learn about all 87 different genders there are.

Right?

Don't be surprised when things like that happen And that's not even a joke, right?

My, my wife took a gender studies class at her school, um, unwillingly.

But see, John says it very simply right here, "Don't be surprised,

brothers, that the world hates you."

Don't be surprised, right?

With- if you lose friends because you're a Christian, you should expect that.

You shouldn't be shocked when people say, "I don't wanna do that.

I don't wanna be…

I don't wanna talk to you anymore because you love Jesus."

Right?

"I don't wanna, I don't, I don't wanna be associated with you."

I, I…

They might unfollow you.

They might not invite you to, to the, to the hangouts anymore.

You might miss out on spots on a team.

You might get worse grades

And I know Shay, in her class, she had to b- either lie and get the answer

right or say something that was actually true and that's the wrong answer, right?

When gender is a, in definition, she put the right, the, the,

the God's answer, lost points.

It's a real thing, and this was, what, four years ago

So

You will have consequences for following Jesus from the world because

the world is opposed to Jesus, right?

You'll lose friends.

You'll, you'll lose…

Maybe you even can't do certain careers because the world is set up in a way

that prevents you from following Jesus

But also, sometimes the most active enemy is actually you.

Galatians 5 says, "I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not

gratify the desires of the flesh.

For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit

are against the flesh, for those, for these are opposed to each other, to keep

you from doing the things you want to do."

You have an enemy inside the gates, so to speak.

Right?

Your flesh, your, your sinful, the sinful remains of, of your old

life are opposing your new life.

Right?

The Holy Spirit has changed your heart if you're a Christian, but you're

still stuck in your sinful body.

You still have sinful desires One person, the way they put it is you have

new software but old hardware, right?

You've got a new iOS but a old ph- kinda like, so my phone is horrific right now.

If, if any of you text me a long video, my phone will just die.

Um, I'm running out of storage because the new iOS is, like, too big for my phone.

Um, my phone hasn't been backed up in, like, 375 weeks or something.

Um, I don't know if that's true.

It's a lot of weeks though.

At least 150.

Um, my phone is, is struggling, right?

Because I have new software and old hardware, right?

That's … If you're a Christian, that's you.

You have new software.

You have new desires.

"Oh, I, I want to love God.

I want to be in His Word.

I want to be with His people."

But you have your old hardware, your flesh, that says you don't wanna do that.

You wanna be selfish.

You don't … "That's too hard.

That's not worth it."

And so if you're a Christian, you should see, you should see this

struggle, this, these battling desires.

If you don't see a battle of desires in your heart, it's probably because there's,

there's not actually a battle happening.

It's just your flesh.

So there should be some tension in your life.

Maybe you thought being a Christian, "Oh, it'll all go away."

Unfortunately, that's usually not the case.

Sometimes it may, right?

And you pray for that.

But you should see battle in your life.

You should see this, this desire war happening.

If you don't see that, that's probably a bigger problem.

You should see this, this struggle happening, right?

There's, there's wins and there's losses, right, individually, but you should

see also that you're progressively starting to win more than you lose.

You should start to see the Holy Spirit and your flesh, even though

they're fighting, you should see, "Oh, yeah, I, I see that the Holy

Spirit is, is starting to win.

I'm starting to love the things that God loves.

I'm starting to hate the things that God hates."

So you should expect opposition from your enemies.

But following Jesus isn't just about doing hard things and, and denying yourself.

It's a big part of it, I don't want you to miss that.

Um, but it also is It's, it's, there's a reason we call it eternal life, right?

It's not eternal life just in terms of quantity, number of days.

You don't just get to live forever numerically.

Um, but it's eternal in the sense of it's full, right?

Eternal life is the best way to live.

We talk about this in Proverbs, right?

God's way of living is real life.

It's the good life because it's what you're made for.

You're made to live God's way.

And so if you're a Christian, you should expect to see life God's way.

You should expect to start seeing the world the way God sees the world.

You should start to, to see your life and see yourself and see your

friends, see your relationships, see money, see jobs, see school God's way.

You should start to see your car.

How does, how does God see my car, right?

How does, how does God see my friendships?

How does God see my money?

How does God see my grades?

See, before you became a Christian

You were like this, right?

This is, this is, this is all of our, if, if you're a Christian, this is your

self-portrait before you were saved.

You were dead.

Which by the way, this is a crazy sentence because there's only one

person in the history of the world who was dead, past tense, right?

No one else has ever past tense been dead

Everyone either is dead or will be dead, right?

Future or present.

There's no past tense dead people physically except Jesus.

But spiritually, there's a lot of past tense dead people, right?

You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, right?

This used to characterize your life, right?

The path of your life was filled with disobeying God, dishonoring Him,

living for yourself, making much of you, you being the star of the show.

You were following the course of the world, right?

You, you bought into the world's values.

You were on the wrong team, right?

You loved the things the world loved.

You, you followed the things the world promoted.

The world says, "Oh, yeah, you need, y- you need to, to buy into all of these

different ideas about your, your school and your friendships and how you should

look and what you should wear and what you should say and how you should talk

and what you should think is funny."

You were following that.

Following, in fact, Satan.

We didn't talk about this opposition.

Pastor BJ talked about this in 1 Peter chapter 5, right?

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

You have an a- an adversary, the devil, prowling around like a roaring lion,

seeking someone to devour, right?

The three opponents of Christians are yourself, right, your flesh,

um, the world, and the devil, right?

Satan is opposing you if you're a Christian.

He's prowling around like a roaring lion.

I heard someone say the reason Satan is roaring is because he's, he's

actually conquering some people, right?

Lions don't roar to sneak up on people, right?

Lions roar to assert their dominance.

And Satan is trying to do that

And maybe this is hard for you to admit, but you were on Satan's

team before you were a Christian.

If you aren't a Christian, that's you right now.

This is, this is you present tense.

If you're not a Christian, you are dead.

You might feel like you're alive, but you're, you're really dead.

Spiritually, you are not experiencing the, the life that, that God has to

offer you, and you're following Satan, the prince of the power of the air.

And we all lived in the passions of our flesh, right?

We just did whatever we wanted to do.

Didn't matter what God said.

I wanna do it.

I'm gonna do it.

I feel like this.

That's just who I am.

Carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and we're

by nature children of wrath.

We talked about this at camp, right?

Under God's wrath.

I'm under His just judgment like the rest of mankind.

Right.

This is everyone's situation before coming to Christ, before following Jesus

But then when you become a Christian, this changes.

You're not following the course of the world anymore.

You're following God's system, right?

You see things the way God sees things, and it's hard to explain

to someone who's not a Christian.

I don't know if you've ever tried to explain a video game to your parents.

Yes.

It's kinda like that, right?

I remember trying to explain, uh, Lego Star Wars to my grandpa.

Uh, my grandpa, most, like, epic dude ever.

Uh, brigadier general in the Air Force.

Um, li- he flew Korea and Vietnam.

He basically lived Top Gun.

He flew off aircraft carriers and shot down planes, like,

actually did it in real life.

Um, and here I am, you know, eight-year-old me trying to explain how

to play Lego Star Wars to this guy, right?

We're, like, flying through the Death Star to, like … And he's

like, "Okay, I, I did this in real life but with, like, real missiles."

Anyway.

Um, it's hard to explain it, right?

Because you haven't experienced it, right?

If you're not a Christian.

It, it's hard to ex- explain this is what, this is what it is

to … Uh, Psalm 34 says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good."

If you are a Christian, you should, you should expect that.

Oh, man, I, I, I start to love, like

Yeah, maybe the Bible is hard to understand, but what

I do understand, I love it.

It's great.

Right?

I used to think singing to God was weird, and it was … And only

weird people put their hands up.

But man, now I, I love getting to worship the Lord.

Right?

I used to not understand how people could pray and just talk and

But I, I love talking to my savior, my friend, King Jesus, right?

It is so good to follow, and you should, you should feel

that if you're a Christian.

You should feel that, oh, this is, this is the way it's supposed to be.

I'm walking with the Lord, walking by the Spirit.

So you should see God, God's way, right?

It changes how you see God.

He's not boring anymore or oppressive, but He's good, and He's, He's your Father.

Um, but also it changes how you see others, right?

This, we saw this in 1 John.

This is a little bit later in 1 John 4, "We love because He first loved us."

But check out this out in verse 20, "If anyone says, 'I love God,' and

hates his brother, he's a liar."

1 John 4, right there, not pulling any punches.

Because if you don't love your brother, there's no way that you love God

If you're saying, "Oh, I love God, but my siblings are just too annoying, I

can't love them," then you don't really know what it means to be loved by God.

Saying, "Oh, I, I love God, I'm a Christian, but I just really hate all

these people at my school, they're just, or my coworkers, they're just

so frustrating," then you really don't know what it means to be loved by God.

Because God, right, when, when He loves us, it changes us.

And so you start to see people differently, right?

People aren't obstacles to overcome.

People aren't opportunities to benefit from, right?

People are, are people to love.

That's how God sees people, right?

And so if you say, "Oh yeah, I love God," you should see love

for others in your own life.

You should see that compassion and, and, and gentleness and kindness

and patience in your own life.

And then also, you see the world differently.

James says, uh, he says, "If you love the world," basically, he

says, "you're cheating on God.

You adulterous people, if you love the world.

Don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity,"

it's like hostility, "with God?

Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes

himself an enemy of God."

Right?

If, if you're trying to hold onto the approval of the world

and to live the world's way and follow Jesus, not gonna work out.

Right?

James says you're opposing God if you try to do that.

So your whole value system changes when you follow Jesus

The best way I could explain it, your whole value system changes.

Uh, I thought of a scene from an excellent movie.

I don't know if you know what, what movie this is from.

Matt does.

Um, shout out Team Batman.

Um, this is a giant pile of money, and basically what happens in this

movie is, uh, the Joker, he sa- so he, he like takes control of the mob,

and he uses them to, to get all this money, and then he basically says,

"I don't really care about money."

Most criminals, right, they're just like, "Oh, yeah, I wanna rob the

banks and get all the money," right?

And the Joker, what he does is he pours gasoline on this and burns all of this

cash 'cause to him, doesn't matter.

He has a totally different value system than everyone else, right?

Every single other character in this scene is like, "This is, this is it right here.

This is…"

Like, think about all this stuff, right?

People say, "Oh, money can't buy you happiness," but you know what?

It can buy me things that make me happy, right?

Think about all the things you could buy that would make you happy with

this giant pile of cash, right?

And then the Joker burns it all 'cause his value system is totally

diff- To him, this is useless.

This is worthless.

This isn't g- this isn't gonna get him anything.

It's not gonna get him what he wants, right?

He wants something totally different.

Right, when…

As a Christian, when you look at the world and all the things the world has

to offer you, right, the world looks at, at, at the world and, and the things

the world has to offer and sees money.

Right?

Oh, that's great.

Like, that could fill me up.

That could make me so happy.

When Christians look at the world, right, they, they don't

see it the same way anymore.

Right?

Your value system is totally different.

So I hope this gave you a good picture of what to expect for following Jesus.

I hope for some of you who are following Jesus that it, it was like

looking into a mirror, and you were like, "Yep, I, I see that in my life."

And maybe it gave you some things, you're like, "You know what?

I need to grow in that.

Maybe I'm not taking the opposition in my life as seriously as I need to," or,

"Maybe I'm not ready to, to deny myself as, as much as Jesus would have me do."

Or maybe for some of you, you weren't sure if you're a Christian.

I hope this was clarifying for you to see, okay, I do see that in my life.

I don't see that in my life.

That's okay.

Right?

I don't want you to pretend to be a Christian.

Uh, that, that doesn't do anyone any good if you're pretending to be a Christian.

Right?

Maybe you thought you became a Christian at camp and you didn't, and that's okay.

Pretending to be a Christian does not help anyone.

Doesn't help you, doesn't help your parents, doesn't help

your leaders, doesn't help God.

God already knows.

It's okay.

Um, and, and maybe for some of you, you, you say, "I'm not a Christian,"

and hopefully this gives you a picture of, of the life that could be yours if

you would trust Jesus and follow Him.

So let's pray, and I'll let you get to small groups.

God, we are grateful that you give us your word to show us, uh,

everything we need about ourselves, about you, about your commands.

And, uh, we're grateful that you, God, are an expert on us.

You know us better than we do.

You know exactly who we are and, and why we feel the way we

feel and, and what we're like.

And so I pray that you help us to, um, see into ourselves the, the way that

we really are, and I pray that you use your word to show us things about

ourselves we might not have known.

But I also pray that you help us not to look too much at ourselves, but to look

10 times more at you, at how amazing you are, at how great it is to follow you.

And I pray that we would, uh, for those of us who are saved, that

we would run our race looking to Jesus and the joy that he offers us.

We pray this in Jesus' name, amen