Laying Down Your Life

To have my wife and fellow Senior leader, Lisa Carpenter, bring the message

this morning. I hope you brought your cleanexes because first service was powerful and

an amazing message. And I want to tell you that I believe things.

The communication of things this morning got mixed up and escalated to try to get

everyone sidetracked because of this message. And I'm not just saying that because it's

my wife. It's super super important. So I just want to encourage y'all

to be attentive. So, Father, we just blessed Lisa this morning.

Lord. I asked that you would open our minds and our hearts for your

word. Lord, that as your message is brought forth, Lord, that

we would literally choose to do the first works Lord when we first came to

know you, or that you would truly truly be our first love in Jesus'

mighty name. Amen. I don't know how there. I scared myself.

I was so loud. Okay, wow, well, good morning, I

hope I this is better than how I started at nine am. I started

crying right away. So oh this thing, this thing drives me nuts.

Okay, so you'll have to bear with me. I am honored to be

back again. After the first time I taught a month or so ago.

I thought, oh, good, one and done. I never have to

do this again. Like, I am finished. I did my duty.

All is good, and then the Lord did a work in my heart.

And sorry, y'all, this just is annoying. So I decided I would

be obedient. I'd be obedient to the Lord and come back up here,

even though this is not something I really enjoy doing. So here I am,

and I am actually honored to be with you again because I do have

something heavy on my heart that I want to share. I want to talk

to you about laying down our lives and oh back, okay, let me

get this. Is this better? Is that better? Back? More?

Is this better? Okay? Now that's not going to drive me nuts?

Okay? Good? I was like, I can't, I can't pay attention.

He said, my earring was getting in the way. Okay, So

I do. I want to speak to you all tonight tonight today about laying

down our lives and what that means as a Christian to lay down our lives

for Christ. And of course the best example of that is Jesus. So

I know, living a life laid down. It's not easy. It's been

a battle I've had in my own life learning to lay down my desires,

my will, my emotions. But y'ah, it's vitally important for our walk.

So I want to start with understanding what true love really is. What

does the Bible say love is? So we can't understand laying down your life

until you understand what love is. And I'm here to tell you love is

not a feeling, it's not an emotion. Love is one hundred percent a

choice. So there are so many great scriptures on love, but the one

that I feel like the Lord highlighted to me was First John three sixteen through

eighteen. By this we know love. That he laid down his life for

us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But

if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes

his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children?

Let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and truth.

Here he's telling us that by this we know what love is. By

the act of laying down your life. Okay, it's a commitment, it

requires sacrifice, it's selfless. It's an action, and it's unconditional, and

it's enduring. The second part of this scripture, it's important because it deals

with the heart. He says that if anyone has world's goods and sees his

brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love

abide in him? Yeah, the Lord is checking your heart, your motives.

True love costs something. It's not free. True love is not an

emotion. And I'm sorry for all you young people that think that you're like

in love and you've got butterflies and this person's gonna change your life. Well,

well, I've been going on twenty five years of marriage and I love

my husband, but I'm telling you right now, he does not fulfill my

life. I know. It's a shocker. It really is a shocker.

I love him, and I am so incredibly grateful for him, but I'm

gonna be honest with y'all. The beginning of our marriage was rough. You

just made me louder, all right, I would rather hold a mic anyways.

Okay, So back to true love isn't movie. It's this matter.

Okay. So, like I was saying, the Lord is checking our heart,

He's checking our motives. True love costs something. It's impossible for the

love of God to be in someone who claims to be a Christian when they

refuse to help their fellow brothers. How many times are we too busy to

take that moment to stop to pray for someone. How many times do we

say, oh, oh, I'm so sorry, I'll pray for you.

You go on your way. You never pray for them. It's just in

word. It's just a word. We're not really living it out. Man.

That can fix me, ye'ah. As Christians, it should be our

honor, it should be our joy, it should be what we strive to

do, is to serve and love one another. It breaks my heart.

It breaks my heart when we're in a church of amazing people. And I'm

not talking about this church, of course, but any church. We can't

get people to serve, can barely get people to show up on time.

Worship's too long, worship's too loud. I don't like this. I don't

like that. Yeah, what's the motive of your heart? Is church about

what you can get? Is that what He paid for me? Me?

Me, y'all, I'm sorry, Please hear me. I'm talking to myself

as well. This has been me, This has been me and my marriage.

So I feel like I might be stepping on some toes here. If

i am, please forgive me. I hope you love me anyways, because

I love y'all, and that's why I want to talk about the hard things

today. Okay, maybe the toes need to be stepped on. I know

my toes needed to be stepped on. I needed a reality check. And

you know what gave me that reality check? The Cross. It's the Cross,

and this is why I've got my tissues. Do you realize for the

joy set before him? He endured the Cross. He made the ultimate sacrifice

for you and you and you, and guess what, he would do it

all over again if it was just one of you. Thank you, So

guys, y'all are the joy. Y'all are the joy set before him?

Like you don't understand how loved and worthy you are, and you honestly don't

understand the true cost of the cross, because if you did, you would

live a laid down life. If you truly understood, you would live a

laid down life. What's hard is, as Christians don't get mad at me,

we can barely stand to endure staying married. We don't want to lay

down our offenses. We don't want to forgive because we're justified in our own

minds. That's a lie. I'm going to tell you right now, we're

justified. I do want to take a little side note here because I'm going

to talk about forgiveness and unforgiveness and laying down your life. I want you

to know that we do not believe if you're in an abusive marriage, that

you're supposed to just be a doormat and take that. That's not the lord.

Okay, that is very important, and forgiveness, you absolutely need to

forgive. Forgiveness is for you, but that forgiveness does not mean then you

bring that person. That person doesn't have to be back in your daily life.

You can love and forgive with boundaries. Okay, you need to know

that. I would never tell someone to forgive and just bring someone back in

their life is going to abuse you and take advantage of you. No love

them, forgive them from a distance. So that's important for you to know.

But this is why you have to forgive. Matthew six fourteen through fifteen

teaches for if you forgive others their truspasses. Your heavenly father will also forgive

you. But if you do not forgive others their truspasses, neither will your

father forgive your truspasses. Let that sink in holding on to unforgiveness. It

hinders your relationship with the Father and others. We have to let go of

our offenses. We have to let go and forgive. And I say have

to, not that I'm gonna sit there and be like check the boxes.

It's a heart thing. You have to. I'm saying this as a mom

that I would say to my boys, you have to because if you want

to live an abundant life, if you want to have all that the Lord

has for you, then you you have to forgive. I can't imagine having

unforgiveness in my heart and standing before the Father, because guys, every single

one of you will stand before him and go to him and say, oh,

oh, I didn't forgive that person. I held onto that because I

believe that I have the right to be right now. You don't. We

don't, and that was hard for me. You can ask justin a you

know, I thought early on in our marriage it was my job to show

him how right I was yeah, the Lord was like no. So I

feel like in order to truly understand the cost of the cross and how great

his love is for us and how we can live a laid down life,

then we have to understand truly what true love is, Biblical love, because

it's not that feeling. It's not those butterflies. So if you take notes,

there's five that I'm going to focus on today about true love. The

first one, it's selfless. Biblical love is selfless. It's putting others before

oneself Philippians two three through four. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,

but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you

look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

True humility is not thinking less of yourself. Hear this. Humility is

not going, oh I'm terrible, you know, thinking less about yourself.

It's thinking about yourself less. Do y'all get that. It's about putting other

people's needs before your own. It's about dying to self. It's about dying

to what I want. In finding out how I can love my husband,

what is it that he needs? And vice versa. So Two, it's

sacrificial. This is a hard one for the modern church. True love involves

sacrifice, It costs something. John fifteen twelve through fourteen says, this is

my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love

has no one than this. That someone laid down his life for his friends.

You are my friends. If you do what I command you did,

you get that you are his friend. If Wow, sacrifice is a key

to biblical love, y'all. It's demonstrating a willingness to give up personal gain

for the benefit of others. Third, it's unconditional. God's love is unconditional.

It's not dependent on our actions, y'all. In the midst of your

worst possible sin, your worst possible action, he would still die for you

because it has nothing to do about what you can do for him. One

Corinthians thirteen says, oh wait no. Romans five to eight declares, but

God shows his love for us in that, while we are still sinners,

Christ died for us. This unconditional love means loving others regardless of their response

or behavior. Yeah, that's not easy. I have to pick on justin

so I love and adore my husband and I am so grateful. We're going

on twenty five years of marriage, but I'm gonna tell you thank you.

Yeah. I literally did not know if I would make it that long.

And the Lord he didn't work in my heart. He was like, oh,

okay, so you're gonna choose not to love him because of how he

acts or this or that. He was like, go tell your nana.

My nana, my grandmother who passed away. She was like my spiritual mother.

She was so pure, holy, loved the Lord. And the Lord

was like, if you think you're justified, go tell her. I was

like, ooh, okay, yep, nope, I don't have any justification.

I need to learn how to love and lay down my life to do

that. So number four enduring, this goes back to this laying down your

life and enduring. Biblical love endures through the challenges and hardships. First Corinthians

thirteen seven states that love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all

things, endures all things. So I highly suggest that you read all of

First Corinthians thirteen, study it, apply it to your life, apply it

to your marriage. Learn what true love is. The fifth one is active.

True love is demonstrated through actions, not in words. First John I'm

three eighteen encourages believers too, not love in word or talk, but indeed

and in truth. Love is shown through by what we do, not just

what we say. And please forgive me. Married couples, I'm picking on

marriage today. I'm sorry, but it's on my heart and this was me.

I want you to know this was me. So there's no judgment here,

there's no condemnation. But it drives me crazy now because I know what

true love is and I know that love is a choice. When somebody comes

into our office and says, I just don't feel like I'm in love anymore.

I don't feel like I love my spouse, you don't get the option.

It's a choice. It's an action, it's a doing. It's endure,

it's unconditional. Your feelings can lie to you. Love is a choice.

The scriptures don't speak about love being a feeling or an emotion. Like

I said, it's an action. It requires sacrifice. And I hate to

say this, but I'm gonna say something else. The modern day Christians,

we look at the cost of the Cross like it was a cheap gift.

We skim over it. Like what he sacrificed for us was so that what

can we get for ourselves? What can God do for me? How can

he bless me? How can he prosper me? How can he take away

my problem? Me? Me, Me, So I want to take a

moment and I want to dig into the cost of the cross, and it's

not going to be easy. And I'm going to read some from this book.

It's called the Life of Jesus Arrest and Crucifixion by doctor Ron Charles.

So. This book recalls the historical accounts written by non biblical writers. These

accounts were written by Roman historians, court scribes. We're going to focus on

two vital Roman governmental scribes who were also eyewitnesses to the flogging and crucifixion.

Their names are Syrillius and Presidious. These are hard names. Yeah, there

eyewitnesses account it's gruesome. The Bible, the Gospels don't go into it.

These were non biblical writers, governmental scribes. They had to take note of

everything they were accountable for, watching in writing it all of it down.

This book is hard. It took me a lot to get through this and

I highly suggest if you want to truly understand what your salvation costs. You

get it and read it. Okay, I want to give you just a

little background. I'm not going to read this part. But the flogging of

Jesus more than likely took place, was enacted by four champion gladiators. They

were slaves. They were the best of the best in the arenas, and

if they could kill who they were flogging, they would get paid their weight

in gold that would last them for probably about ten years. They would be

able to buy their freedom and get paid enough to last them a very long

time. So they did everything they could to try to kill those that they

were flogging. All right, fifty strikes were given to Jesus's back. He

was then turned over and fifty more were given to his front. Presidious knowes

that Jesus's face and sexual organs were completely gone. Internal organs were exposed,

and that Jesus was totally unrecognizable as a man. Syrelius says of the more

than two hundred floggings that he had witnessed, Jesus was mutilated and disfigured more

than any so after this flogging. His face ripped to shreds, his organs

his body ripped to pieces. To keep him alive. They dunk him in

salt water. I'm sharing this with you today not to guilt you, not

to shame you. You've got to understand and know the cost of this cross,

that he died and paid it all for you. This is why I'm

sharing this. We don't talk about this in church. This is why this

was heavy on my heart. This is not something that is easy, but

you need to know what he paid for you. They spat on him.

They beat his head that contained the crown of thorns that covered the entire scalp,

with a wooden staff, driving the two inch long thorns deep into the

scalp, causing severe bleeding and headache. They ripped his beard by the handfuls

out of the mass of torn flesh that used to be his face, exposing

his jawbone and teeth. Without yet, Throughout this whole ordeal, Jesus did

not say a word. He didn't cry out to his father saying this is

enough. Father helped me, and the father would have helped him. But

Jesus said nothing. He didn't open his mouth once because he knew that his

sacrifice that we would gain life, that we would gain everything that he paid

for. We were the joy set before him. So, because of his

love for us, he said nothing, absorbing the pain and the agony and

silence. He saw all of us across the centuries and felt our pain,

suffering an anxiety as a result of sickness, disease, and injury, and

knew that in order for us to have a chance for healing, respite,

and restoration, he had to remain silent. There is no greater love than

his. He endured the stripes for us and remained silent for us because of

his matchless and unparalleled love for us, You and me, That's what he

paid for your freedom. Y'all. This is hard, but I've got to

bring you the truth and I've got to challenge you. Are you living a

life worthy of that sacrifice? I asked myself this. Every day we get

a chance to live a life worthy of what he paid for us. As

a mom, I want my children, I want all of you to live

a life that is worthy. My prayer is that not a single one of

you leave this church not knowing him. And if you know him but you

haven't really truly been living for him, then it's time. We don't have

an excuse, Guys, you're promised today, you're not promised tomorrow. That's

it. And if I'm making some of y'all uncomfortable, I'm sorry, but

I'm telling you you need to hear that Jesus says in Matthew ten thirty eight

through thirty nine. And whoever does not take up his cross and follow me

is not worthy of me. For whoever finds his life will lose it,

and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. If you became

a Christian, for you so that your life is protected, blessed, anointed,

so that you can save your life and get out of hell free ticket.

You've missed the point. You've missed the point, y'all, being a

part of Christ. Are you blessed? Are you protected? Do you get

an abundant life? Absolutely? And it is amazing and it is glorious.

So yes, that is a part of it. But if that is the

motive of your heart, then you lost it, because then all you're doing

is grasping to save your life. Yeah, when you choose Christ, you

lose your right to be right, you lose your right to be offended,

you lose your right to not forgive your life is no longer your own.

He paid for it, He paid the ultimate price for it. And without

Jesus, without Jesus, you're living. But you're dead Ephesians two. And

you were dead, and the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following

the course of the this world. But God, being rich and mercy because

of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead,

and our trespasses, made us alive. Together with Christ. By grace,

you have been saved. He didn't come to make your dreams come true.

Does he want to make your dreams come true? Sure? Because he

loves you, we are here to fulfill his dreams, his will, not

ours. We are a selfish people. And I'm saying this because that was

also me. And I know I'm harping on this, but I want you

to understand. I want you to get this. Jesus never invited anyone to

follow him so that they would have prosperity or success. He didn't entice anyone

with blessings to come to him and follow him. He actually said it was

a narrow, narrow road. There is only one way for entering the Kingdom

of Heaven, and it is through the cross in his sacrifice for us.

One way, one road. If someone tells you that all these roads can

come to Jesus, come to heaven, they're lying to you. I want

to look at the rich young ruler in Mark ten, So, as Jesus

was starting out on his way to Jerusalem, a man came running up to

him, knelt down and asked, good, teacher, what must I do

to inherit eternal life? Why do you call me good? Jesus asked,

Only God is truly good. But to answer your question, you know the

commandments. You must not murder, you must not commit adultery, you must

not steal, you must not testify falsely. You must not cheat anyone.

Honor your father and mother. Teacher. The man replied, I've obeyed all

these commandments since I was young. Looking at the man, Jesus felt genuine

love for him. There is still one thing you haven't done. He told

him. Go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor,

and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me. And

at this the man's face fell and he went away sad, for he had

many possessions. Jesus, looking around, said to these disciples how hard it

is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God. This amazed them,

but Jesus said again, dear children, it is very hard to enter the

Kingdom of God. In fact, it is easier for a camel to go

through the eye of a needle than for the rich person to enter the Kingdom

of God. Now, I want everybody that has wealth and finances take a

deep breath. He's not telling you that you can't have wealth and salvation.

Okay, do you hear me there, That's not what he was talking about.

Jesus knew the man's heart and that his focus was on money. His

focus was on his position, his possessions. He thought. The rich young

ruler thought, well, I can be a good person. I keep the

commandments, I go to church. I've done this, I've done all these

things since i was little, so I've got it made. Jesus said,

no, why, Because he was checking the motives of his heart. He

had an idol. His idol was his possessions. His idol was his wealth.

His idol was his position, and he was unwilling to give that up

for a savior. You know, we all have that choice, every single

one of us. Has something in our lives that we're unwilling to let go

of. That something becomes an idol. That idol keeps you from the kingdom

of heaven. The Lord said, there will be no name above his name.

There's no idol above him. One of my favorite songs. Micah introduced

it to me. He was like, Mom, you've got to come listen

to this song. And it wrecked me. And so I dug into the

song and I found the song was in response to these missionaries. So back

in the seventeen hundreds, there was a group of missionaries, the Merivians.

They were so sold out to God that they sold themselves into slavery to reach

a people group in the Caribbean. I was wrecked. How many of us

will barely, like, I don't know, sell a car to help someone,

or sell whatever whatever it is. These people were selling their lives into

slavery to go out and reach this people group. So it was nineteen thirty

two the first two Merivian missionaries boarded a Dutch ship heading to Saint Thomas,

and as the ship was leaving, they lifted up a cry yelling, may

the lamb that was slain receive his reward for his suffering. Your life is

his reward. The body of Christ is his reward. Are we living a

life worthy of that? Y'all? I'm talking to myself here. We're gonna

take a moment and I want to play this song, and I'm gonna ask

if you're on the prayer teams to come on up, because they're are people

in here. I want you to take this moment with the Lord. I

want you to search your heart. I want you to search your heart and

if there's something that you're holding onto that is keeping you from living a life

worthy of the Lamb that I'm going to ask you to get with him and

lay it down. What is it that you're holding onto? What's your idol?

Is it unforgiveness? Is it offense? Is it? You? Name

it? Only you and the Lord know what it is. I'm not here

to tell you. So we're gonna cueue up this song and then I want

those that might not know the Lord. You're not promised tomorrow. Yeah,

he paid a huge price for you for your life. Don't leave today without

knowing. Kim Michael, thank you for listening. For more messages and other

resources, please subscribe to this podcast or go to our website at www dot

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