Called to Follow | Jason Gore

Well, we're Chris and Laura Adair,

and we've been in this area a long time since 1994. We have four children,

um, getting older, 22 tomorrow,

two 18 year olds that we just sent off to college.

And our youngest is Hannah and she's 10.

Hannah had been, uh, not feeling well on and off for a little bit, and uh,

had gotten to the point where we decided that we needed to take her in, uh,

to get her checked out to see what was going on. And, uh,

I took her into the doctor's office and he looked at her and said, okay,

we need to do a full blood workup.

And he came back within five to 10 minutes and he walked into the room and

basically said, results like this, I call an ambulance.

So arrived at Duke, uh,

at the er and then basically they said that we need to find out now what,

what's the cause? Why is this happening?

And she never had really had any experience like this.

So they immediately started, um, uh, blood transfusions, immediately,

IVs in one arm and then IV in another arm.

And then after a little bit they said, well, she either has a, um,

a virus or she has cancer. And we were just, uh, in complete shock.

And so that day they admitted us to the picu,

the pediatric intensive care unit there.

And that kind of be began the whole journey of trying to figure out what was

going on.

There was just a lot of things that we had to figure out and decide really,

really fast. Um, I think when it really hit me, uh, the most,

I was in my car and I just, I lost it. I was irate. I was mad with God.

I couldn't understand how this could be happening to us. Um, and, uh,

I just heard this most powerful voice I have ever heard.

Hannah's cancer is not me trying you. I am not testing you,

but watch what I do Now, the, the power in that and, and,

uh, I, I can't even explain it.

It was like there was an incredible instant peace that just

came upon me. I went from crazy, angry to just,

it's gonna be okay. From that point on,

I just went through the process of the whole treatment as,

okay, let's see what God does next. And he showed up time after time,

after time after time. And it always, I always thought when I saw that,

I was like, this is him fulfilling what he said.

Um, when they started saying that they knew it was leukemia, a ML leukemia,

you just kind of go into shock. Nothing would stick. I couldn't remember names,

I couldn't remember stuff. But, um,

our friends and our small group people just rallied,

just immediately came in and we had people visiting us and coming out and, um,

we were just overwhelmed by the goodness of people and the goodness of God.

And, uh, the other thing that I think I learned from this, uh,

my daughter as she was going through the chemo,

was keenly aware of whether or not we were okay.

I was there one time and watched her and she would look over at me and smile at

me and be very sweet to me.

And then when she didn't know that I was watching her,

I could see her wincing and struggling with the chemo and with the stuff that

she was going through. But it was important to her that we were okay.

I had never had any idea how strong my daughter could be

or how strong any of us could be.

We are capable of dealing with, especially with God on our side,

far more than we ever imagined that we even know.

Just as long as you don't quit, it's a day by day, by day. It's what it was.

And the hospital, just make it through the day.

You keep on going and you're gonna be okay. You'll make it through.

God can handle all the other details.

And isn't that a great story?

I I tell you mean stories like that will give you hope. And, uh,

I'm so thankful to have a church family that we know is gonna rally around all

of us when we get in times of need. Listen, hope.

Good to be with you this weekend. Love you guys.

We are gonna be continuing in a series that we've been calling who we are.

And so we're in week three. Uh, I've mentioned a few times, uh,

over the last month or so,

I believe God's kinda given us this new identity that he wants us to step into.

Like what does it really mean to be his church?

And then for us specifically at Hope Community Church.

And what he's given us is this very clear and this very simple picture of what

that looks like. And it's this, that we would be a family that loves God,

follows Jesus and shares hope. When we kick the series off,

we talked about what does it mean to be a biblical family?

Like to recognize that, to take on our identity as sons and daughters, uh,

of the living God, that all of us, regardless of race, socioeconomic status,

background,

that all of us are actually brothers and sisters as a part of the same family.

With that means all of us have certain roles and responsibilities within the

family.

Last week we talked about what does it mean to love God to actually live into

this call, that we have to love God as the scripture says,

with all of our heart, our soul, our mind, and our strength.

But what we realized is what we unpacked is all of us in our lives,

we have this temptation to take these small g gods, uh,

and maybe clinging a bit more tightly to 'em than we should.

We kind of grab a hold of these idols. And so we said, man,

if we're gonna love God with everything we have,

we've gotta come to know God for who he is,

because it's only in those moments or those idols gonna pale in comparison to

who he really is. This week, uh,

we're gonna talk about something that on one hand is so incredibly simple,

but on the other hand,

I think it evades most of us for the more majority of our lives. And it's this,

our call from scripture to actually follow Jesus. And,

uh, I want you to know as we start out, I just, I have this concern for us.

And when I say for us, I really mean us. I mean like for me, for you,

for the elders within the church staff, volunteer leaders, congregation,

really anybody who would call themselves a Christian,

regardless of whether they go to hope or not.

And you could be hearing my voice today,

wherever you're listening to this and think, well,

I don't even know that I'm a Christian. That's okay. Uh,

I actually think this is a good message for you to hear,

to actually really find out what this whole thing is about.

But here's why I'm concerned, because I think in today's western world,

the term Christian is so nondescript.

Like what does it really mean? And for so many different people,

it can mean different things. For some, it could mean, well, hey, I mean,

I go to church one to two times a month.

My family grew up going to church. I grew up going to church with them.

And so I still go to church. Now, it could be, hey, I was baptized as a baby,

as a part of, of a different church.

It could be I wanna raise my kids in some type of positive environment.

Maybe you pray before meals or when you need something in life.

Or you could just say, I don't really know much. I just know that when I die,

I don't wanna go to hell. And so being a Christian seems like it's a good idea,

but my concern is this,

we can actually go through our entire lives and actually miss what

is at the heart of our faith.

Remember last week we talked about when we've gotta focus on the main things and

so we can miss what's what's at the heart of our faith, which is this,

to embrace the gospel of Jesus and to surrender our lives

and following him. I mean, that's at the root of what it means to follow Jesus.

And I'm, I'm just telling you right outta the gate,

like that's the bottom line of where we're going.

And so we're gonna kind of spend some time unpacking that.

But for the time being,

what I want all of us to do is to take all of our preconceived notions of what

it really means to be a Christian. I want us to throw him out the window. Uh,

don't leave while you do that.

'cause who knows what you do when you get outta here.

But like for the time being while we're together,

let's throw those out the window. And let's take a look at God's word together.

So embrace the gospel of Jesus and to surrender our lives

and following him, we gotta start with what is the gospel like?

What does that mean? If we're gonna embrace the gospel,

the gospel literally means the good news. So when we say the gospel of Jesus,

we're talking about the good news of Jesus. So what does it mean to embrace it?

Uh, if you have your Bibles, I wanna encourage you turn to Acts chapter two,

verse 22. We're gonna kind of walk through verse 22 through verse 40 41.

What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna read to you the first public sermon that we have

recorded from a man by the name of Peter. And, uh,

Peter was actually one of Jesus' first disciples. Back in those times,

there were rabbis, uh, rabbis taught, uh, the Jewish law, the Torah,

uh, Jewish tradition.

And then they had disciples that actually followed them that sat underneath

their teaching. So Peter was that for Jesus.

He was one of 12 guys that walked with Jesus on earth for about three years.

He sat under his teaching, he saw him heal people, he saw him cast out demons,

and he actually saw and interacted with Jesus after Jesus rose from the dead.

Okay? So he was actually an apostle. You could hear that and think,

wait a minute, somebody rose from the dead. Um, just stick with me. Uh,

we'll get to that here in just a minute, a little context for us.

So I want you to know what the audience of this sermon, uh,

which was largely a Jewish audience,

would've already known before we jump into it. So, um, they had this belief,

as do we as Christians, just to set the groundwork here.

They had this belief that God created the world and it was very good and its

original creation. The world had peace. Uh,

the word the Bible uses this shalom like this holistic peace amongst the world

like God. And man had this perfect relationship.

They walked together in the cool of the day.

Man and woman had this perfect relationship, but then Satan entered the picture.

And Adam and Eve, uh, God's first two original male and female created,

they were led to believe a lie that they actually know better for themselves

than what God says is best for them.

They actually were led to believe in a garden of abundance,

that the one thing that they didn't have was actually what they needed the most.

And it, this probably sounds a little familiar to our everyday life,

but they believed that God was withholding something from them that led them to

disobeying God. And so in that moment,

sin entered the world that led to broken relationships between God and man that

led to separation. And so a curse actually fell on the earth like that peace,

that shalom completely disrupted.

God did promise in that moment that one day through their offspring,

Satan would be defeated and things once again would be made right between God

and man. Uh, throughout the years following,

God institutes a sacrificial system that showed that for the forgiveness

of sins, there had to be a shedding of blood.

That was something that had to be done over and over and over again,

in case you haven't noticed,

because man is very good at continually sinning and rebelling against God.

There's also prophecy all throughout scripture that one day a savior would come

and reinstate God's kingdom that which was disrupted in the garden.

So a savior will come,

a Messiah will come and restore this kingdom once and for all.

And then one day a baby is born in the town of Bethlehem.

The baby's name is Jesus. He grows older. And at the age of 30,

about three years prior to where this sermon begin,

not this sermon that I'm preaching,

but the sermon that we're gonna talk about three years prior to that,

Jesus begins his public ministry. And uh,

he essentially begins it as a Jewish rabbi. He begins teaching,

he begins performing miracles, casting out demons,

rebuking some of the other teachers of the law, the Pharisees.

And he makes claims that he is the son of God and not only the son of God,

but the fulfillment of those prophecies that everybody had been waiting

thousands of years for completely disrupted the religious system of the day,

ultimately led to him dying a shameful death on the cross. Okay?

So that's all that this audience would've known as Peter gets up,

they would've known more than that,

but they knew that as he got up to share this message. So with that,

we're gonna go to Acts chapter two, verse 22. I do wanna warn you,

um, in many churches, large churches,

especially like when we get up and we start to give a sermon, we work hard,

like to find an intro, like a way to kind of ease into the topic, um,

to make it palatable for you, to make it digestible. Um,

that's not really, uh, Peter's style, okay?

And so I just want to give you a heads up, like he jumps right to it. But I,

I think every now and then, like it's important for us just to take a,

a sober look at truths and see how they fit into our lives.

And so we're gonna jump right in. Acts chapter two, verse 22. He says,

men of Israel hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth,

a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God

did through him in your midst, he's saying, Jesus,

the one that you saw and heard all the things that he did,

as you yourselves know, verse 23, this,

this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and

foreknowledge of God. So he, we knew this was coming. Get ready for this.

Very gently, you crucified and killed him by the hands of lawless men.

He's saying this, Jesus, this one that you know about, you saw,

you heard the things he did, you killed him,

the Messiah that we've been waiting for all these years. You put him on a cross,

but it doesn't end there, right? That doesn't sound like good news.

This is embracing the gospel, the good news of Jesus. Verse 24,

God raised him up losing the pangs of death.

Anyone who's ever lost a loved one or a family member,

you know there is hurt as it relates to death.

It says because it was not possible for him to be held by it.

Jesus could not be held by the grave. He says,

understand why you placed him on a cross. The story doesn't end there.

He's overcome death. I'm gonna skip to verse 29. Brothers,

I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David,

that he both died and was buried and his tomb is with us to this day.

He's saying, Hey, remember King David, the patriarch of our faith,

like one of the greatest kings that we've ever had,

who by the way lived a great life, uh, and was a prophet,

but he died and he's still in his tomb. It goes on to verse 30,

but therefore a prophet speaking of David and knowing that God had sworn with

an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne,

he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ,

that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.

He's saying, listen, David is dead and he is in his tomb, but when he was alive,

he did speak of a messiah.

He prophesied about a messiah that was gonna come and be resurrected from the

dead. And so for hundreds of years, really thousands of years,

we believed that this was gonna happen.

Not only do we believe it was gonna happen,

we actually longed for this day to come. Verse 32, then Jesus,

this, Jesus God raised up

and of that we are all witnesses. He's just saying this, Jesus,

that that was crucified. He rose through the power of God. And not only that,

but we actually saw him. We interacted with him. We spent time with him.

Verse 36,

let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him

both Lord and Christ. This Jesus, here it comes again,

whom you crucified.

You ever been like in an argument with someone maybe around the house and you do

something wrong and they kind of constantly remind you of it maybe one or two

more times than you think that they should? It feels a little bit like,

that's what's going on here. We get it? Alright, we crucified 'em.

Peter's saying this again. He said, we've known as a people for years and years.

This is gonna happen. We've longed for it. We've sought God for it.

God sent us the one who was gonna rescue us to put all this brokenness back,

all this brokenness back together again. Our rescuer, our redeemer, our savior,

the one who was gonna finally restore back into place the kingdom of God.

The one who was gonna finally restore is we would say the family of God.

And he went to a cross and he was resurrected.

What I want you to understand though, when Peter continually says, um,

you put him on the cross,

it'd be easy for us to like kind of miss our place in the story because he's

obviously talking to a largely Jewish audience who was there,

and they actually did have some implication in why he was on the cross instead

of someone else. But I think we gotta realize, like the reason I Kat, you know,

shared this is what they would've known is because each and every one of us

actually do play a part in why Jesus was on the cross.

The truth is,

each and every one of us have sinned and rebellion in our lives.

And make no mistake, like the Bible is clear, the wages of sin is death.

And for the forgiveness of sins, there has to be shedding of blood.

And so Jesus was on the cross in part because of us.

Um, the good news in all of that is while he was on the cross,

what he was doing was paying the penalty that we deserved. I mean,

this is just a real sober, straightforward,

what does it mean to embrace the gospel? This is the good news.

Jesus went to a cross to pay a penalty that we deserved, went into a tomb.

Three days later, rose from the grave. You get to verse 37. Now,

when they heard this, they were cut to the heart

and said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles Brothers, what shall we do?

So they heard this and they were cut to the heart.

Like they had this moment, this moment of reckoning.

And my hope is that every single one of us that can hear my voice,

like when we're faced with this truth, we recognize, man,

we have to do something.

This is not a truth that we can face and not recognize.

We have to make a decision.

So my hope is that we're in a place saying, what should we do?

You look at verse 38, and Peter said to them,

repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus

Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Which by the way,

the moment that we make a decision to trust in Jesus is our Lord and savior,

God's spirit comes into our lives. Verse 39,

for the promise of this is for you and your children and for all who are far

off. There's not one who's too far away for this to be true of them.

Everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. Um,

so this is taking place in Acts, um, Matthew, mark, Luke,

and John are what's known as the gospels.

They actually tell the account of Jesus' life.

And the book of Matthew near the end, just before Jesus leaves Matthew 28,

19 and 20, Jesus says to his disciples, of which Peter was one of them.

And and this is kind of known inside, uh, the Christian faith is, um, the, the,

the great commission. He says to them,

go therefore into the world and make disciples.

So as you've been a disciple following me,

go into the world and make other disciples,

teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you and baptize them in the

name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Baptism is us saying, Hey,

we're dead to our old way of life,

and now we're stepping into this new way of life following Jesus.

And that's what Peter's doing.

He's actually taking action on the command that Jesus gave to him before he

left. So he says, repent. Uh, this word repent.

It literally means like do a 180. So he's saying, Hey,

like we're walking this way,

walking in rebellion away from God as far and as fast as we can.

And he's saying, Hey, repent. Turn from your sin and turn back to Jesus.

Follow him and be baptized. That's the call.

Verse 40. And with many other words,

he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying,

save yourselves from this crooked generation.

Verse 41 said, those who received his word were baptized. Listen.

And they were added that day, about 3000 souls,

3000 people. Um,

Peter gets up no worship band,

no side screens, no wheelbarrow, full of props.

And he gets up and he tells him the brokenness in this world that we are

responsible for, which by the way seems incredibly important for us. I mean,

he says it over and over again. Take,

take ownership of this thing that we're responsible for. God dealt with it.

Jesus came, he was crucified. He rose from the dead, believe,

repent and be baptized.

And 3000 were added that day to the family of God immediately after that.

So this, we just stopped in Acts two, uh, 41 in Acts 2 42.

The very next verse, uh,

we unpacked in week one when we talked about what it means to be a part of a

healthy family of God, what a healthy family of God does.

So you see things like breaking bread together, praying together,

living lives of radical generosity and service to other people that are devoted

to the apostles teaching and following Jesus together. But it starts,

all of this starts with embracing the gospel,

following Jesus starts with that decision. And um,

I think it would be a miss for me to not stop and ask you a question.

Have you ever made that decision?

And I am not asking like, do you try to be a good person?

Because that's not what it's talking about.

I'm not asking if you're pro-life or if you care for the poor. Uh,

I I I'm not asking if you,

if you were grew up Catholic and were baptized as a baby,

I'm asking have you come to terms with this truth? And,

and I know that we live in a world that that doesn't really want to lean into

anything that sounds like objective truth.

But have you ever sat in the moment of accepting that your sin and my sin,

and I, look, I wanna be like gentle with this. I wanna say our sin.

The reality is like Peter's really clear,

we have to take personal ownership of this.

And so I'm just gonna ask you with strength and with confidence and with the

boldness that I see in scripture and say,

have you ever accepted that your sin put Jesus on a cross

and that his death paid the penalty for our sins and that he rose from the grave

overcoming sin and death so that we could be restored into the family of God?

That's the gospel, that's the good news. It's nothing that we could earn.

It's something that Jesus did for us. We have to receive it.

We have to embrace it. Have you embraced it?

Have you repented? Have you been baptized?

If not, um,

my prayer for you is that you would be cut to the heart

Like what we read about in, in the Book of Acts. Um, I,

I pray that the Holy Spirit would help you understand, man,

that that God sized void in your life where you know you're missing out on

something,

it's only going to be met by stepping into a relationship with Jesus and being

restored to the family of God. And so I I was thinking about this this week,

probably, definitely too late in the week, man, I,

I wish we had baptisms set up across all of our campuses this weekend where we

could just say, Hey, listen, if you've never made that decision and you want to,

as Peter said, repent and be baptized, man, let's go to work. Let's,

let's get to dunking and uh, we'll leave when everybody's done.

We're not gonna do that. We will have the opportunity to do that at some point.

I'm committed to making sure that we can do that across all of our campuses.

We are gonna be celebrating baptisms across all of our campuses next week.

I know our mobile campuses have some restrictions on what they can do in their

schools. And so I want to tell you, if you're in this place and you're like,

you know what? I've never made that decision to like publicly declare my faith.

This could be your time.

And so what I want you to do across all of your campuses, when we're done,

I'm not gonna have you stand up or anything like that right now.

I want you to go talk to somebody that you see up on the stage. Uh,

maybe it's your campus host, your campus pastor, somebody in the worship band.

Go to next steps and let 'em know, Hey,

I wanna make a decision to follow after Jesus. Um, we've also got another way.

So you can text the word follow to 7 2 9 8 9 and say, Hey,

I wanna make a decision to follow Jesus. I wanna be baptized.

You can text follow to 7 2 9 8 9.

I did it this morning just to make sure it works. Um, you're gonna have to flip,

press enter like two or three more times than you think that you probably should

just go with it, okay? By the time you get to the end, uh,

you'll get a prompt sent to your email. And um,

actually one of our associate pastors from the Garner campus followed up with me

and told me he was incredibly excited that I made a decision to finally start

following Jesus. So, uh, you will hear from somebody. So listen,

we gotta embrace the gospel. We gotta embrace the good news.

That's the first part. The second is to surrender a life of following Jesus.

How much time I got? Okay,

we don't have a ton of time for me to unpack what this really looks

like. I, as I was kind of working on this message, um,

I thought I realized about halfway through the week that um, this would,

I found this out a lot recently. Like I get these big ideas. It's like, Hey,

this would be a great sermon series. Uh,

this is gonna be tough to put into one 30 minute message,

but you wrestle was like a pastor was wanting to teach the whole council of God

on what it means to follow Jesus and discipleship,

but you don't have a ton of time.

And then you've got this other thing like as a shepherd, uh,

at Hope Community Church over God's people that have called hope home.

Like what are the most important things that God has for our people?

And I really do believe this idea of surrender can get lost to us.

Like it's so easy in today's world to miss what this is about.

And so what I wanna do, um, very briefly,

I wanna tell you three stories of three people in the New Testament,

in the gospels that actually came to a place where they had to make a decision.

Am I going to follow Jesus? Am I gonna surrender my life? Um,

two of them make a decision to do so. One of them does it.

And so the first is this guy by the name of Simon, who was also called Peter.

Uh, this is in Matthew four 18 through 22. Uh,

I'm just gonna kinda tell the story.

Turns out it's the same Peter that you actually heard a sermon from.

It's just three years prior. So he's fishing on a boat and this guy,

Jesus that has a following shows up and he says to Peter, listen,

the people are pressing in. I'd like to get in on your boat.

I know you're done fishing for the day 'cause you're cleaning your nets,

but can I get on your boat and us kind of push out so I can teach?

So he does that. They go out and he tells Peter, he says, Hey,

drop your nets in the boat and, and from the boat and catch some fish.

And Peter's like, Hey, so I'm a fisherman. Um, seems like you're a teacher.

Uh, I've been fishing all day and there's no fish here,

but because you told me to do it, I'm gonna do it. Just,

just a slight note there,

worth noting that like when it comes to following Jesus,

sometimes doing things that don't necessarily make sense to us,

but we know he's called us into is a part of following Jesus.

He drops his nets in the water, and I mean, the catch is so big,

they have to bring other boats out to help them get all their fish in the water.

About three in, into the boat. About three years ago, my son,

myself and my dad went deep sea fishing.

And we had like a day for the ages. We, we call it all the fish.

Um, I, I had to explain to my son kind of while we were coming back in. I said,

son, I need you to understand something. When you fish,

sometimes you have good days, some days you have bad days.

Um, every now and then you have a day of a biblically proportional like miracle.

And that's what today was. But like,

that's kind of what I have no idea why I just told you that story.

This is not about me, this is about Peter. So they catch this fish,

but Peter knows man, something is different about this guy, right?

And so they get back to the, to the shore and Jesus says to him, listen, um,

I want you to follow me and I'm gonna make you a fisher of men.

This idea that all the stuff that I'm calling people into,

I want you to follow me and we're gonna go call other people into this.

And scriptures say that Peter left everything and went and followed

Jesus.

And I want you to know that when we make a decision to follow Jesus,

there's things from our past that we have to leave behind

that's just a part of surrendering to Jesus.

There's another guy by the name of Zacchaeus. Uh, Zacchaeus was a tax collector.

Uh, tax collectors were hated, uh, by the Jews, uh,

specifically because they were Jews,

but they were collecting taxes that actually went to the evil Roman empire that

believed by some was actually a part of what was limiting God's kingdom from

being re uh, restored. But not only did they tax them,

the way that they got paid was they would overtax them. Alright?

So they're hated, they, but their own people don't like them.

But this guy was intrigued by Jesus. And so, uh,

the Bible says that he was a a we man, um, small in stature,

I think is the translation. And, but he knew Jesus was coming.

So he runs out in front of the crowd, climbs up into a tree so he can see him.

And then as Jesus is coming by, he sees him and he says, Zia, come down.

I wanna go to your house and I wanna hang out with you. Point of notice.

This was a guy that society hated,

that Jesus saw and wanted to go spend time with.

Very different than the religious traditions of the day following.

Jesus sometimes leads you in different directions than religious tradition.

So he goes and sits down with him, shares with him.

And Zacchaeus gets to a point where he says, listen,

I'm gonna sell half of what I own and I'm gonna give it away.

And then everybody that I've overtaxed,

I'm actually going to go and make it right. And Jesus says,

surely salvation will come to your house today, but look,

to follow Jesus, it cost Zia something.

Remember we said last week, what does it mean to love God with our heart,

our soul, our mind, our strength? It says that, man,

we go all in with our intellect, our will, our resources, our time, our talent,

our treasure. It cost him something.

Third guy, we don't know his name. Uh,

the Bible describes him as a rich young ruler. I don't know about you.

Those are three characteristics that sound like they'd be nice to have rich

plenty of money. Young who doesn't want to feel a little bit more young. Uh,

ruler had power, success, like it sounds like this guy has everything together.

Sounds like he has everything you need. Yet he goes to Jesus and say, Hey,

what must I do to inherit this thing that I just can't seem to get my

hands on? Some translations say,

what must I do to inherit the kingdom of heaven?

This thing that Jesus is talking about. Some say,

what must I do to inherit eternal life?

And Jesus is kind of playing games with him a little bit.

He starts rattling off some of the 10 commandments, and the ritual rule says,

Hey, I've been doing all those things since I was a kid. And she says, okay,

well how about this? Go and sell everything that you have,

give it to the poor, and then you'll find what it is that you're looking for.

And it says that the rich young ruler turned and walked away

and was sad. Now,

did he tell him that because money is bad? No, he didn't. Um,

there's nothing innately wrong with money, but I'm telling you,

when it comes to Jesus,

he has a way of knowing those little things in our lives that we just don't want

to give up on. Again, we talked last week, what does it mean to love God?

We have these small G gods, these little idols that we hold onto,

and Jesus just has a way of saying, I know the thing that it is.

And if we're really gonna love God, if we're really gonna follow Jesus,

we're gonna get to places in our lives where he's gonna ask us to lay down those

things.

Some people you can hear the story about the rich young rule and be like, man,

I can't believe that guy had a firsthand encounter with Jesus.

Jesus told him what to do and he didn't do it.

I actually have a level of respect for this guy, and here's why.

Because he counted the cost and he was honest with himself and said, man,

I just, I just don't know if I can do it. And um,

clay Burgess, one of our pastors here, he says, sometimes you gotta be careful,

man, sometimes you gotta move from, from preaching to medland.

And I'm gonna kind of go from preaching to Medland here,

but I I think it's highly likely that our churches across the world are filled

with thousands and thousands and thousands of men and women and students who

aren't necessarily being honest with themselves about if they've

really surrendered to a life of following Jesus.

And it's so easy to show up in churches and come in, come out and leave,

and maybe we check a box and we feel good about ourselves. But man,

if we throw everything out the window and just look at what the Bible says,

man, without embracing the gospel of Jesus and without saying,

we are going to surrender our lives to following him,

no one is gonna cost us something. Matthew 1624 through 26,

then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me,

let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

That's, that means we're continually going back to the gospel.

The gospel is not just a one time transformation thing that happens in our

lives, and then we don't ever need to go back to it. I'm telling you,

for me and my life, every single day,

I have to go back to things that I'm constantly struggling with. And I'm like,

I'm 45 years old. When is this gonna change?

Verse 25, for whoever would save his life will lose it. See,

the rich young ruler, he thought his finances,

his resources were gonna be what was gonna save him,

but it says he went away sad. So you can, you can decide not to follow,

but that thing that you know,

and you could be that rich young ruler where you feel like you got everything

that you should have, but for some reason you're still missing something

is because we try to save our lives. Jesus says, but we'll lose it.

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

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?

And I wanna be really clear,

I'm not saying in this that that requires perfection.

Uh.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I mean,

you start out hitting hard with a message, Hey, here's the application.

Repent and be baptized. It's like, okay, um, the truth is,

this guy Peter, like he was a fisherman, which meant, um,

he had a trade already,

which means all the other rabbis had already passed this guy over.

Like he wasn't the best of the best, but Jesus said, Hey,

follow me. I ain't gonna work with you.

And then the gospels are filled with accounts of Peter getting the

thing wrong. I'm not kidding. There's a scene where like,

the people are coming to arrest Jesus. Jesus knows this is what it is.

He's told them this is what's gotta happen. Peter pulls out a knife,

cuts the guy's ear off. Jesus is like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on, hold on.

Let me, let me go put this back. Play. Peter, calm down. Stand down please.

Jesus.

Tells Peter like, Hey, you're gonna deny me three times.

He said, no, no, no. I'll never deny you. Never deny you.

Jesus is arrested, crucified.

He's someone sees Peter and says, Hey, wait a minute.

You're the guy that knows Jesus. Now the one that they thought was gonna save,

uh, restore God's kingdom and now been crucified was dead.

Peter says, no, I didn't know him. He's scared, he's fearful,

denies him three times. And Jesus raises from the dead.

He finds him, has a conversation with him, says, alright,

we're gonna get you moving on the right track. In fact,

I think you're gonna be a huge part of building my church.

So it,

it's recognizing like it's a daily struggle that we've gotta recognize

that we've gotta be willing to lay down our lives, surrender them to Jesus.

If our church was filled with thousands of men and women and students who

embraced the gospel and live lives fully surrendered to Jesus, I'm telling you,

our our families would look differently,

our communities would look differently. Um,

I'll tell you what would look differently.

Our ministry teams on our weekends at our campuses, they would look different.

I'm gonna meddle again. You know,

we have to close classrooms every single weekend at some of our campuses for

Kid City because we don't have enough folks that are part of the family of God

that have said, Hey, I'm gonna step into a role and responsibility. Um,

there's, there's actually no really good reason why 600 to 700 men,

women, and students, um, fill all the,

the serving roles that are required for 6,000 of us to show up on the

weekend. This is a huge family of God. We all have roles and responsibilities.

If we love God,

we're willing to give everything that we have and bring it all to the table.

If we're willing to follow Jesus, he's gonna call us to surrender some things.

I'll tell you another thing that will look differently. Um,

the giving here at hope would look differently financially.

Um, there's no reason why 15 to 20% of those who call Hope Home

actually fund the ministry and the mission and vision for the other 80%.

And mean, I just would challenge us, like I,

I don't know what area it is for in your life that you need to take a step.

And I don't really have enough time to like kind of give you a list of all the

things that I thought about. But the truth is, I'll bet, you know,

And I just wanna encourage you, like,

we don't get a lot of time to get this right

and Jesus is saying, Hey, follow me.

My prayer is that we would be a church that,

that embraces the gospel and is willing to live lives of surrender

following after him. And I know that if we were as a church man,

we would be sharing hope with the community and the world around us in ways like

we've never imagined. That's what we're gonna talk about next week. Um,

lemme pray for us. Father, thank you so much, um, for your word. Um,

thank you for the clarity and the boldness that, um,

Peter had when he got up and said, Hey, listen, we gotta be really, really,

really clear. The savior of the world came and because of our sins,

he was put on a cross. But it doesn't stop there. The grave couldn't hold him.

And through the power of God, he raised him from the dead,

overcoming sin and death. Lord,

I pray right now that in every man and woman and student's heart that can hear

my voice right now, if they have never made a decision to follow you,

they would find themselves in the place that we saw those people in that sermon

and that they would just be cut to the heart. Father,

I pray that they would recognize that the gospel of Jesus,

the good news of Jesus is made available to them.

And I pray that they would take that step. The hard words repenting,

making a decision to trust in you as the Lord and Savior and to be baptized.

And Lord, for anyone else who's made that decision, God,

I pray that we would be honest with ourselves about what surrender looks like in

our lives. Lord, I know for me personally,

you've got some things that I've not been willing to deal with.

Lord,

I thank you for the areas of my life where you've given me the boldness to be

able to take that step. Even when I didn't want to Lord.

And I pray as a church congregation, as a church family,

we would experience the freedom and the joy and the abundant life that comes

from saying, yes, we will follow you, we will surrender to you. We love you,

and we pray these things in Jesus name. Everyone said, amen.

Come on church, let's respond.

Let's.

Tell ourselves the gospel story

when

the

began.

What sacrifice.

Come on, we're gonna save this for all of eternity, all king. Jesus.

Jesus.

Alright.

Church, come on. There was a moment.

Jesus come,

Jesus,

Jesus king.

Singing.

Singing. Cry out.

Cry out.

All creation. We