The Jesus Disciple Empowered: Matthew 10 - Matthew: Kingdom of God Revolution

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

There's gonna be places where you work and things that you do where people don't like you.

They hate you.

And it's hard in America.

It's really hard in America.

We're not used to that.

We're used to being, quote unquote, a Christian nation.

And folks, it's changing.

It's changing.

It's becoming much more adversarial toward Jesus followers.

And so I think the beauty of this is it's setting us up to remind ourselves, Jesus is not surprised with where we are in our school system or where we are in a political arena or where we are in our social arena, all those different areas.

There's going to be persecution.

But don't fear.

At The Road, our mission is to empower people to change the world.

For more information on the road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

All right, well, we are in Matthew chapter 10.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

If you have your Bibles with you and it's exciting, I love this part of Matthew.

We're going through the book of Matthew, and we love going chapter by chapter and verse by verse.

Here's what I love about going chapter by chapter and verse by verse as a pastor.

The sermon's already been written for me.

I mean, God wrote the sermon.

I don't need a topic, I don't need some fancy title to anything.

If we go through the word church, it says it builds up our faith, right?

And it's living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.

And then he wrote it.

So here's my sermon.

It's right there.

It's Matthew 9 and 10.

And we were in Matthew 9 last week, and we talked about sanctified dissatisfaction and how God loves that in his disciples and in his people.

He loves people that are not satisfied with where they're at.

How many of you don't raise your hands?

How many of you are satisfied with where you're at?

Let me tell you, if you are, you're dying.

You're dying.

Your brain is dying, your mind is dying, your emotions, you're dying.

You've got to stay alive by making two choices: a choice to grow and to give.

You'll be alive until the Lord wants to take you home.

And do you realize that as a Jesus disciple, you're not going to die one moment quicker than when Jesus' time is for you to die.

He's got an appointed time for us on this earth.

So we don't have to walk in fear.

Don't work, walk in fear, walk in faith.

So the passage we're looking at here is interesting because Jesus is describing the character of the mission and the character of the missionary.

He's talking about the character of the mission.

And so he begins to give us, as a former missionary, he gives us what is a template of a strategy of how the kingdom of God revolution goes out into the world.

But then he spends the most time on where the most anointing is, and that's on the missionary.

That's on us as Jesus disciples.

And where we have a tendency to miss it in the character of the mission is to spend way too much time on the machine, on the organization, and not enough time on the organism, and that's the people.

So you see, organizations are built through leaders with vision.

It's true in the business world, it's true in the military, it's true in the church.

That it's a spirit-anointed leader called by God to begin something.

We come along and then hopefully and prayerfully we're growing other leaders around us.

You see it with schools all the time.

That's what I've loved about the charter school movement.

What's been great about the charter school movement is that you'll find, and it's usually a woman who gets a vision for educating our children.

She doesn't quite fit or believe that it fits into the public school system, so she starts a charter school.

Isn't that cool?

I mean, that's what I love about the entrepreneurial nature of kingdom disciples.

We just do weird stuff.

I mean, we get a vision, and then here's the thing: you begin to believe that in you all things are possible.

So when you do, you start to get this vision without fear, facing your fear, and by faith you step out and you start something.

And so Jesus here is talking about the character of the mission, but he's also talking about the character of the missionary, about the person.

But look how he starts it all off.

Look at, we looked at it briefly last week, but go to chapter 9, verses 37 and 38.

And I wasn't alive in 300 A.D.

But when they put titles, this is where I would have put the title on this, because I think it dovetails so well into chapter 10, then he said to his disciples, the harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labors into his harvest.

So God doesn't write the gospel on the clouds.

God doesn't send angels most of the time to get the gospel out.

He uses us.

He needs laborers.

And he's telling us, number one, there's a harvest.

There's a harvest.

There's a harvest right now in Colorado Springs, you guys.

There are people, and we're gonna see how to do this, but there's people that are right now living next to you, down the street from you, in a cubicle next to your work that is ready to hear the gospel.

They are so ready.

They are so sick of their life, they're so sick of all the stuff they've tried to do and it didn't work, they're sick of sleeping around, they're sick of doing drugs, they're sick of smoking pot.

They really want something and they don't know what it is, and guess who gets to tell them?

Not me.

It's you.

He put you there.

He put you in that company, he put you in that office, and if you'll start being sensitive to the voice of God, he'll guide you to people who are worthy to hear the gospel.

So what he's doing is he's showing us here how it gets done.

So if we compare now Matthew 10 to Luke 6, Jesus has spent all night in prayer.

He chooses these 12 apostles, capital A apostles, and when he had called his 12 disciples to him, he gave them power.

Ecclesia.

It means authority.

He gives them all of his power.

Every gift in this particular part that we're reading was given to the disciples.

Now that's different today.

We're given dunamis power.

Acts 1.8.

When you get filled with the Holy Spirit, when you get baptized with the Holy Spirit, you get dynamite power.

You get dunamis power.

But we don't get all of God's authority in the sense that it's directly, completely given to us in the same way as it is here.

And what I mean by that is every time, every time it appears here that the disciples in this journey were sent out, every person they prayed for got healed.

Every demon that they met was cast out.

It was just, it was every and all.

Well, I wish it was still true.

But it's not.

But what's exciting is that it's a template of what God still does today.

He gave them ecclesia over unclean spirits to cast them out, to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease.

All kinds.

Now, the names of the 12 apostles, these are the capital A Lamb's 12.

Capital A Lamb's 12 apostles are these.

Now, guys, everybody say schmoes.

This is a group of Shmoes.

That Jesus turns into a spirit-empowered army.

So if you ever doubt your own abilities, read this list and do a little bit of, do a couple Wikipedia research on each name and realize where these guys came from.

The names of the 12 apostles are, and you'll notice that they're always in pairs.

And I believe that these are the pairs that went out with the mission.

First Simon, who is called Peter, Andrew his brother, James, the son of Zebedee, John his brother, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew.

I love this.

Underline the tax collector.

Matthew's writing this.

He doesn't give anybody else his job.

He doesn't say Simon called Peter, who was a fisherman.

But he says, I was a tax collector.

And it's almost like he's proud that he was such a rugged sinner.

James, the son of Alphaeus, and Lebius, whose surname was Thaddeus, Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.

What a group.

You've got Simon, who's a terrorist.

You've got Peter, who might as well hop on one leg because he's always got one foot in his mouth, brushes his teeth with shoe polish.

You got the Sons of Thunder here, angry, mean, kind of guys.

And then you got Matthew says, I'm a tax collector.

It's almost like anybody worse than that in the group.

Does that give you hope?

He can use you.

He can use me.

Now he begins to explain the characteristics of the mission.

These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying, Do not go into the way of the Gentiles and do not enter a city of the Samaritan.

So first he says, just go to the Jews.

For this particular mission, I want you to go to the Jews.

And it's as if Jesus here, all in his ministry, and even here, he's giving the Jews the opportunity to realize that you get it first.

You get the kingdom first.

You're my priority right now.

There's no great commission yet.

There's no commission to go to the whole world yet.

He's just saying, go to the Jews.

Skip the Gentile villages right now.

Verse 6.

But go read to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and as you preach, say the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Now they can't preach the full gospel yet because the full gospel hasn't come yet.

So Jesus hasn't died on the cross yet.

Jesus has not risen from the grave yet.

And so they're preaching a kingdom of the supreme justice, the supreme power, the supreme calling of the king over Israel.

I am, first of all, Israel's king.

Let them know that.

I have power over disease.

I have power over emotions and the mental and the physical, all of that.

I'm the creator of the universe's son.

Preach the kingdom of God.

And as you go, preach the kingdom, heal the sick.

We still get to do that.

James tells us if anybody's sick, call the elders together, and don't we all pray?

Pray of faith will heal them.

Healing is still here today.

I've healed, had the privilege of being a conduit for healing.

Most of you in this room have.

You come to this church very long, you're gonna get healed of something, and it's usually not gonna be me, it's gonna be someone in the church who prayed for you and you got healed.

Cleanse the lepers.

There was a leper colony in Okinawa.

When I lived in Okinawa, it was still a lepros colony.

Very few leper colonies, but there's a few around the world.

I've never prayed over or even met some with leprosy, but let me tell you, all of us have leprosy.

You all have leprosy of the soul.

We all have this leprosy of immorality.

We all have this leprosy of lust.

We have this leprosy of jealousy.

And we see that get healed all the time.

How many have been healed of that kind of leprosy?

Because it says, it doesn't say you're gonna be healed, it says what?

You'll be cleansed.

You're cleansed of this leprosy.

Raise the dead.

Never done that.

Now that would be cool.

Like a dude's like dead.

Not mostly dead.

Like dead, dead.

Like dead for like an hour or two.

Like nothing happening there, still.

Cold.

Dead.

Boom, you pray for them.

Woo! They come up.

Anybody want to do that?

Hey man, that'd be cool.

Well, they get to do it.

Cast out demons, done that.

Freely you've received, freely give.

Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs for workers worthy of his food.

He's saying, look, do it free of charge.

He's saying, don't do it for lucre.

I mean, I have to just say, be careful with the big crusades, where they're taking that big offering, and they just keep milking it and milking it and milking it and be careful of that stuff.

I mean, give it free.

Mixed motives, right?

He's saying, look, stay pure in why it is that you're doing ministry.

And then he gives us a strategy of the mission.

And this strategy is for all time.

This strategy fits this church.

It fits when I was with Campus Crusade.

It fits with different ministries that have followed this through the years.

Whatever city or town you enter, inquire who is in it and who is worthy and stay there till you go out.

So, first of all, he's saying, target cities.

Fish where the fish are.

Cities are where people are.

Go to the cities, go to the town, preach the gospel.

And when you go into a household, that's the word oikos, greet it, greet each other.

So he's saying, go after families.

Target families.

Families, that unit is a picture of the kingdom.

Go after mom and dad.

Go after the kids.

Win the whole family to the Lord.

If the household is worthy, this is really interesting.

Let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.

And whoever will not receive you, nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet.

Assuredly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.

Really interesting.

He's saying, don't waste your time with people who are uninterested.

Go after worthy people.

I like to call it Beatitudes Oikos or Beatitudes people, people who are poor in spirit, people who are sick, they want the kingdom, they're hungering for righteousness.

And then give them the gospel.

Don't mess around with Uncle Harry.

Every family has Uncle Harry.

You know, and you're together, it's like, you mention anything about politics or religion, he gets all bent out of shape.

Man, avoid that guy like the plague.

But then over here is Aunt Susie, and she's open to the gospel.

She is.

Go after her.

She's worthy.

This is Jesus.

This is mine's in red.

So Jesus says, go after worthy people.

Don't mess around with unworthy people.

I mean, we hope and pray that someday they'll be worthy of the gospel.

But he's saying, as a missionary and as a believer in your work, people who constantly are a wall, leave them.

Move on.

And then he uses the illustration the Jews would have all understood, which was that they had a habit after going through a Gentile village as a Jew, they would, you know, sit on a rock or something and they take their sandals off and they'd brush all that Gentile dust off their sandal because they didn't want to pollute a Jewish village with Gentile dirt.

And so that's what they would do.

And he's saying, look, that's the way, that's the same way in which those that keep harassing you, they keep persecuting you, they keep countering everything you say.

Just say, fine, I love you, man.

Great, awesome.

But don't talk to him anymore.

Just move on.

You're wasting your time.

And I had Uncle Harry.

It wasn't Harry, but just using that.

But he was an uncle.

And the guy was a, you know, he was not a nice person.

And I kind of made it my mission.

How many of you have made it your mission?

You're going to change somebody.

Jesus is saying, look, you only have 24 hours in a day, 168 hours in a week, 75 to 85 years on this earth.

Use it wisely.

Go after people that have already prepared their heart, and I'll lead you to them.

And now the rest, the rest of the chapter is about the character of the Jesus disciple, the empowered disciple, and tremendous points here about how we should live our lives.

The first thing he says, look at verse 16.

He says, Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.

Therefore, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

Beware of men, for they will deliver you up to counsels and scourge you in their synagogues.

You'll be brought before governors and kings for my sake as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.

Now he's speaking, listen, guys, he's speaking directly to the Lamb's 12, the capital A apostles.

And by the way, there's never going to be any other Lamb's 12.

There was only the Lamb's 12.

And however you want to divide it up with how Paul came into that and the new disciple in Acts chapter 1.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

Doesn't matter to me.

The fact is that Judas was not, and so it's really the Lamb's 11 right now, but it's the Lamb's 12 because Judas is still there.

But the reality is they they had a unique mission.

And this is a unique mission that he's giving to them of what's going to happen.

And so it has a nearness prophetic nature to it and a distant prophetic nature because the principle here, though the specifics are different, are true for us.

Be wise as a serpent.

Has anybody in here ever killed a snake?

Alright, a few of you have.

And they're wise that you don't see snakes very often.

I have one experience with a snake.

So I was 12 years old.

My dad had given me a 12-gauge, a 20-gauge shotgun for Christmas, and we had these lakes.

We were living in a cabin in South Carolina on my granddaddy's ranch, and I was out shooting turtles.

So I had my six shot, my four-shot, 20-gauge, and I was shooting turtles because they eat fish.

And I was a bass fisherman, and so I didn't like turtles, so I was shooting turtles.

And I shot three turtles with two shots, and they were laid out on this little island, and the island on this pond had a bridge.

So I crossed the bridge, I went and looked at my job, you know, well done and everything.

And then I turn around, and there's a water moccasin, which you know you guys know is very deadly, very poisonous, stretched out across the bridge on this sunny day in South Carolina.

So I go boom, boom, boom, four.

Shots in probably less than 30 seconds.

That's a single barrel.

So Dad hears it, runs out, what's going on?

Dad, I shot two turtles, and I shot a water moxin, and I want the skin.

And he goes, stay right where you are.

So he comes around and there's the snake, and there's a little bit of blood, but he goes, I don't think you hit this thing.

And I'm talking about almost point-blank range.

All right.

I was very animated and excited with a water moccasin right there.

He threw a stick, it spun around, hit the stick, and then dad came up with one shot and took it out.

That's a wise serpent.

Avoiding four shots from a 12-year-old with a 20-gauge, six-shot or four-shot shotgun shell with pellets coming out, it was spinning around and letting itself get missed.

So, guys, be wise like a serpent, like that.

But be loving.

Be peaceful.

He speaks of it as a sheep against wolves.

We're not supposed to be wolves.

Another reason to watch out with the news.

You're not supposed to be a wolf.

We're supposed to be sheep.

But really smart sheep.

I'm always telling my kids, you know, be smart.

Keep growing.

Use your head.

Be strategic in the way you think.

Most people aren't.

And if you're just a little bit strategic, you're way ahead of the pack.

So there's gonna be people that are out to get you.

Right?

If you haven't been stabbed in the back, it's coming.

Somebody's gonna rip you off, somebody's gonna steal your money, somebody's gonna try to steal your job.

It's just the way it is out there.

But you can be wise, loving, caring, gentle, not a fighter sheep.

Not a killer rabbit.

But be an innocent sheep.

But don't be dumb.

Everybody say, don't be dumb.

Don't be dumb.

Serpents are smart.

For some of you.

But when they deliver you up, do not worry about what you should speak, for it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak.

For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.

Now let me just say something, you guys.

If he's saying that the disciples, and maybe even us in the latter days, are going to be brought before councils and scourged in the name of Jesus.

And then he says, Do not worry that somehow, I guess I figured it out.

I'm not real smart, but if you got this little virus that's going around, that a few thousand people have been contracted, and what do we got?

Two people or three people in Colorado that have.

I think you would say, Don't worry.

You're not getting scourged by the governor.

You're not getting scourged by city council here in Colorado Springs.

Don't worry.

Because, here's why he says don't worry, is because I'll show you what you're supposed to say when you're in those kind of positions, in that situation.

I'll show you what don't even work on a sermon.

Don't even work on how well you're gonna present yourself.

God will give you the power to know how to present yourself when you're there.

Now listen, God can't put in what you left out.

God's not going to put in what you left out.

If you're not reading God's word, then there's no word to bring up.

If you're not memorizing and getting to know God's word, then when you come before situations where you don't know what to say, God doesn't have anything to work with.

So fill your heart, fill your mind with God's Word.

In other words, build a library in your heart through God's word so he has something to bring up.

And he'll show you how to speak.

Verse 21 Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father even his own child and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death.

And you'll be hated by all for my name's sake, but he who endures to the end will be saved.

So there's going to be family persecution.

I mean, when I got saved in the organization and the ministry that I got saved in at the University of Georgia, my parents thought it was a cult.

They weren't sure if it was a cult or not.

I know Liz had the same experience with hers.

Here's what's hilarious about this is that you can go out and get drunk, you can do drugs, you can beat your brother, you can cheat on your wife, but then when you get saved, they think something's wrong with you.

You quit doing all that, and they're like, well, I don't know what happened to him.

He's really gotten weird.

That's how the devil works.

Right?

So you're fine as long as you're just doing drugs and having sex illicitly and uh and having affairs, that's fine.

But then you get saved and you're like, he's something weird's happening to him.

I don't know what it is.

So if you haven't been persecuted by your family, fantastic.

Some of us have.

Verse 23, when they persecute you in this city, flee to another.

For surely I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

So this is gonna continue until the feet of Jesus are on the Mount of Olives.

You that are going to Israel with us in June, we're gonna see the Mount of Olives.

We're gonna see where Jesus is going to come down to the Mount of Olives.

He says again, he said, look, look for trustworthy people.

They're not trustworthy, don't mess with them.

Flee.

If they're persecuting in this place, then flee.

Don't mess around with people who are not interested.

A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.

It is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher and a servant like his master.

If they have called the master of the house Beelzebubul, which is like Lord of the Flies, they call me Lord of the Flies, how much more will they call those of his own household, which is us?

We're his household, you guys.

Therefore do not fear them, for there is nothing covered that will not be revealed and hidden that will not be known.

So be a servant.

He's saying, Be a servant, be a servant to me, be a slave to me, and expect there's gonna be places where you work and things that you do where people don't like you.

They hate you, they're gonna persecute you.

They treated me that way, and I'm your master.

Don't think that they're not gonna treat you in a similar way.

And it's hard in America.

It's really hard in America.

We're not used to that.

We're used to being, quote unquote, a Christian nation.

And folks, it's changing.

It's changing, it's becoming much more adversarial toward Jesus followers.

And so I think the the beauty of this is it's it's setting us up to remind ourselves Jesus is not surprised with where we are in our school system or where we are in our political arena or where we are in our social arena, all those different areas.

There's going to be persecution.

But don't fear.

Look for worthy people.

Every place there's persecution, somebody in there is worthy.

Somebody in there is going, hmm.

I wonder what if what he's saying is true.

I wonder if that might be true.

And God will show you.

I think as we're open to the Lord, as we seek him, he'll lead us to people like that.

No fear.

Be a servant.

27.

Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light.

And what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops.

Do not fear.

How many times do they say, Don't be afraid, do not fear, do not fear, do not fear, do not fear.

All of you that are online and you're possibly not at church because of fear.

Do not fear.

Do not fear.

It's right here.

It's right there.

Okay?

But wash your hands a lot.

Is enough for a disciple that he'd be like his teacher and a servant like his master if they called you the master of the house?

Do not fear them.

Verse 26, verse 27.

Preach on the house tops.

Verse 28, do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.

So the devil can kill the hardware.

But he can't kill, well, I say he.

It can't kill the software.

Jesus has the software.

I'm ready to go.

It's way better up there than down here.

I read about something about heaven in this book.

It's a lot better up there than here.

I'm ready to go anytime.

If my time's today, man, I gave it all I had wholeheartedly until the day it was the appointed time from the Lord.

He says, Don't fear the devil, don't fear all these fears.

Don't fear fear.

Who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul?

But rather fear him who is who is able to destroy both soul and body.

In hell.

Now, if you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, if you're not sure where you stand with the Lord, you should be fearful.

Because your destiny is hell.

Your destiny is separation from God.

You're separated from God right now.

You may be doing church stuff, but you're still separated from God because you've not, by faith, become justified and sanctified in Him.

So do it today.

Be smart.

Be wise as a serpent, innocent as a dove.

Give yourself to Christ, truly follow him.

Some of you have been in the church your whole life, you still don't know the Lord.

Because you signed up to a religious dogma rather than a personal, intimate relationship.

Well, do it today.

It's not hard.

Best decision of your life.

Be smart.

Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin?

So some people ate sparrows back then, and the poor did.

And so he's giving what it would cost.

Two sparrows for a copper coin.

I think that's one eighth of a denarii.

And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your father's will.

But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Now, for some of you, that's not hard.

Do not fear, therefore, you're more valuable than any sparrows.

Now he's not saying that he counts your hairs, he's numbered them, and I think the average is 145,000.

That's what I read.

145,000 hairs and a head.

Okay.

Now some of you don't have nearly that amount.

And then some of you got way more.

But his point is this that's how valuable you are to him.

Isn't that cool?

That he actually has a number for each one of those hairs that you keep losing in the shower.

And then he says, do not fear.

He said he's I think five times he mentions, don't be afraid or do not fear.

Therefore, whoever confesses me before men, him I will also confess before my Father who is in heaven.

But whoever denies me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.

Now, Peter is hearing this.

Matthew, the tax collector, is hearing this.

Remember, they don't have the Holy Spirit yet.

Jesus has the Holy Spirit.

These apostles at this point do not have the Holy Spirit yet.

And they're going to deny him.

I was studying the resurrection this week with Liz.

We were looking at all the different aspects and all the different versions of the resurrection.

And what's fascinating to me is how faithful the women were and how unfaithful the men were.

Yay, women.

Yeah.

No, I'm serious, man.

You guys are way better at this most of the time than us men.

We need you.

We really do.

And um, and so Mary Magdalene had seven demons cast out of her.

She's the first one who sees Jesus and listen and believes.

I mean, it's immediate.

She sees him, she believes.

She puts her, she knows that he's risen from the grave.

She runs back to tell the disciples, they still don't believe.

There's two guys on the road to Emmaus, and they spend hours with him.

I mean, I don't know how long it took to go from Moses all the way through the prophets, but it says he did that.

He went through all of the Old Testament explaining how the Messiah, Jesus, must die, and it's Jesus telling them.

And they still don't get it until there's food.

When there's food, they get it.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Men.

That's the reason we go to Ponderosa for our wholehearted bands is they have really good food.

Okay.

But the women are there, the women are believing.

And they're trusting.

And he's saying, if you'll do that, I'll confess you before my Father.

And here's what's exciting is every one of these disciples who heard this did deny him, and yet he forgave them.

So if you've denied him in your work or in your family, start over.

It's okay.

Just confess that.

And now begin a new walk with God.

Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth.

I did not come to bring peace but a sword.

For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

Now I thought that was always true, but anyway.

And a man's enemies will be those of his own household.

So again, he's emphasizing how don't look, you're to Phileo, listen, he who loves father and mother, phileo, the word for love here, more than me, is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

He's saying, Phileo love, you can agape them, you sacrificially love them.

But the question is, are we following our family or are we following Jesus?

And sometimes that's the great divide.

Sometimes you have to leave your family.

Sometimes you can't agree with everything in your family, but you're going to go after Jesus.

He told us that was going to happen in our lives.

So be a Jesus disciple, not your family's disciple.

And this is the essence, I think, of what he's saying in all of this.

After, and he who does not take up his cross and follow after him.

Remember, this is before the cross.

They don't know what he's talking about.

What do you mean, take up your cross?

They don't know that Jesus is going to go to the cross.

He's saying, take up your cross after me is not worthy of me.

He who finds his life will lose it.

He who loses his life for my sake will find it.

Really interesting.

So he hasn't gone to the cross yet.

So all they have is a picture of crucified criminals who had to carry their cross when they were convicted of a crime, and they and probably they had seen this before.

They dragged that cross or they dragged that cross beam, it might have been laced over their shoulders to the place where they're going to be crucified.

He said, You're going to be like that.

You're going to carry your cross if you choose to follow me.

And yet, if you turn around, you see in the church here, we have up here in the back, we have a cross.

And up here we have a cross.

But it would be like Jesus saying, Will you go to the electric chair for me?

Will you take a lethal injection for me?

And we've made it obviously kind of a romantic thing to have a cross around her neck, but it's it's different.

And they would have understood that.

How about singing the old rugged electric chair?

There is room in the gas chamber for you.

The lethal injection before me.

The world behind me.

That's what he's saying.

Here's what he's saying.

He's saying this to all of us.

Denial of self.

Not self-denial, but denial of self.

Martial arts is self-denial.

Jenny Craig is self-denial.

Working out and getting in shape is self-denial.

He's saying, no, I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about you deny you.

Deny yourself.

Fascinating.

The ways of Jesus.

I'm losing it.

Pastor, I'm losing it.

I've heard that many times.

And my answer is always the same.

Keep losing it.

Just lose it all.

Don't lose a little bit.

Lose every bit of it.

Get sick of you.

And go after Jesus.

And when you go after Jesus, you'll find your life.

That's where life is found is Jesus.

Lastly, he who receives you, receives me.

He who receives me, receives him who sent me.

He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward.

And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward.

And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward.

Lastly, be spirits-billed.

Don't just be spirit-filled, be spirits-billed.

Give your life away, and you'll be rewarded.

Isn't that exciting?

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