The Way of Jesus 18.0

Alright, well this morning we are continuing.

Our eternal series uncovering the Way of Jesus.

And, uh, this morning we are looking at the way of the cruciform life.

Oh, we are in for a good time friend.

So let us dive in with eager enthusiasm with hearts open

to the work of the spirit.

Amen.

All right to let us read the words of Jesus, uh, that we find here

in Luke nine verses 18 to 25.

So once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he

asked them, who do the crowds say I am.

They replied some sage on the Baptist.

Others say Elijah and still others.

That one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.

But what about you?

Jesus asked them.

Who do you say I am?

That is a very great question to ponder Church.

Who do you say I am?

Peter Answers.

God's Messiah and he said, this is Jesus.

The son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the

chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and

on the third day be raised to life.

Then he said to them all.

Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up

their cross daily and follow me.

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses

their life for me will save it.

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet lose or forfeit

their very self, their very soul?

So.

As we just let that word settle, settle, that's a cross between sit and settle.

Uh, settle and rest, uh, upon our hearts, our lives, uh, this week.

I was reading, um, a news report about a story of a family in Perth,

who you have two teenage children and this family, they're in the process

of packing up their life here in Perth, leaving family and friends and

their community to move to London.

Why are they moving to London?

Uh, because.

Interestingly, because of the new laws that are coming into play in

Australia around children under 16 and social media, who is aware of

these impending new laws that come into effect on the 10th of December?

Uh, so age restricted social media platforms will have to take reasonable

steps to prevent Australians under the age of 16 from creating or keeping an account.

Why would this cause a family to leave Australia?

So these new laws will, according to the article, um, it means losing

everything for the 14-year-old daughter.

Yep.

What is the, everything that she will be losing by the enactment of this new law?

It is her social media platform at the age of 14.

She has millions of followers on various social media platforms, and so, like

most parents, these parents, they want the good life for their child.

Uh.

But one does wonder, is this truly where the good life is found?

Um, what is the cost to a human soul when the good life is looked for

within the realm of social media?

What is the cost to a 14-year-old soul in this space?

And so, lest we get all judgy here and be tempted to mount up on our

horse called self-righteousness, um, and look down upon this family.

We must all recognize that we are all vulnerable to being deceived to the

giving over of our souls in pursuing life.

The good life in places where it is just not found.

And so we all have unholy internal narratives that go

something like if I can just have.

Do, do, do.

Then my life will be good and I'll be good.

Then I'll really have life, uh, when I have this thing, this relationship,

this job, this kind of house, this kind of holiday, these kind

of friends, a certain platform.

When I look a certain way, when this dream and this.

Desire that I have within me is satisfied when my children do fill in the blank.

When I exist in a particular state of reality, IE one where I'm in control,

maybe where I'm accepted, where I'm appreciated, one where my needs are

met, my rights are acknowledged, a life where my way and my will are

done, then I'll have the good life.

I think of teenage Dale who believed with her whole heart that her life

would only be worth living if she was skinnier and had a boyfriend,

and because she didn't have these things, she was therefore miserable.

It was inconceivable that there could be joy and meaning and peace.

And life without these things.

Poor, teenage, diluted, deceived dale.

Usually what we are anxious about will actually be a signpost that

points to what it is that we think we need in order to have.

Life and it is into this situation and reality that is very relevant for

all of us that Jesus speaks, these words that we just heard, the one who

is life himself says, come follow me.

Die to all of this.

And in that dying, you will find the life that you are truly longing

for and truly searching for.

So just a quick little bit of context before I hand it

over to Adam in Luke's gospel.

Luke's account of the good news of Jesus Christ.

He gives a narrative of Jesus' life, an orderly account for

a person called Theophilus.

We read in Luke chapter one so that Theophilus would have a certainty about

what he has been taught about Jesus.

So the first eight chapters of Luke's gospel is essentially

asking the question, who is Jesus?

Who is this at?

The Windham waves?

Obey him.

Who is this?

That forgive sin.

This question is asked throughout the first eight chapters, but here

in chapter nine there's a shift.

Peter, who do you say I am?

Peter.

Answers.

You are the Messiah.

You are the deliverer, the savior, the redeemer.

Peter sees in that moment who Jesus really is.

Peter sees that Jesus is not just another prophet or teacher.

He says, you are the Christ of God.

You are the mess.

You are the one bringing the kingdom of God, the ruling, healing power

of God back into the world, to heal, repair, all its brokenness, spiritual,

psychological, social, physical.

And the moment Jesus' identity is revealed, he immediately

begins to say to his disciples.

Follow me.

If chapters one to eight are all about who Jesus is, chapters nine to 18 are

all about what it means to follow him.

If he is who he says he is, then what does that make us?

What does it mean to follow him?

Because the key word for the next nine chapters in Luke's

gospel is this word follow.

So we are focusing on this scripture, the part of the scripture that says,

whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up

their cross daily and follow me.

We're focusing on that little part.

And so this first part says whoever wants everyone, say, wants,

wants, wants to be my disciple.

The question is, what is a disciple?

What is a disciple?

Dallas Willard said, A disciple is someone who is learning from

Jesus how to live their life as as Jesus would if he were them.

That's challenging thought, isn't it?

A disciple is a believer, yes, but it's more than just a believer.

It's an apprentice.

An apprentice who is intentionally learning from Jesus how to

live in the kingdom of God.

Now it's interesting that word kingdom, when we think about,

so I'm an, I'm an apprentice.

As a disciple, you could also say, I'm an apprentice to the kingdom of God.

So what is the kingdom of God?

That word kingdom is fascinating because it's two words, king and Dom dominion.

So it's the king having dominion.

Another way to describe it is it's the king doing the way he runs things.

It's the king running things, how he sees fit.

It's the king ruling and reigning.

It's the king doing the things how he does them.

And so to be a disciple is to say, I'm aligning my life with the way Jesus runs

things, how Jesus operates in this world.

That's what I'm trying to do.

I'm trying to, uh, mirror the way Jesus operates, the way he does things.

A disciple is a person who's decided the most important thing in their life.

It is how Jesus does things, but it is also a changed heart because disciple

means inner transformation, not just.

Outward conformity.

So in one sense you can be about all the ways externally, that Jesus does things,

but internally your heart is not changed.

So it's both.

A disciple of Christ is both an internal change primarily that then comes outwardly

to a reflective of change actions.

And so this idea of whoever wants to be my disciple, this idea of wants is

such an interesting word in that phrase.

What do you want to be?

That's the kind of question that that word poses.

Whoever wants, whoever wants to be aligned with the one who is the son of God, who

wouldn't want to be aligned with the one who says, I am Messiah, I am God.

I am the son of God, the king of all kings.

The one who gets the final word at the very end.

Who would wanna align with that with him.

So if you don't want to be Jesus' disciple, maybe it's because you

actually haven't seen who he actually is.

So if you see who he is, it's highly likely, actually I

would call it a guaranteed.

If you truly see, if you truly see who he is, mate, your motivational driver

to be a disciple is activated now.

As we ponder this, uh, dynamic, we kind of wanna shift, uh, into this next

section which says, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves

and take up their cross and follow me.

All right.

What is Jesus getting at here?

Uh, we think about what the cross represents.

Hey, cross is a place of death.

It's a place of sacrifice.

It's a place of.

Horror, really place of dying.

And Jesus says to take it up daily.

Uh, what is he getting at here?

Because these words are Jesus, while initially sounding very masochistic

in a way, very unsavory, unres alike.

This is actually an invitation into true life that is found here.

Uh, we can help form our understanding of what Jesus is saying here by going

actually to the end of chapter nine.

And so at the end of chapter nine, we find these words of

Jesus is here from, uh, verse 57.

As they were walking along the road, a man said to them, I

will follow you wherever you go.

And Jesus replies, foxes have dens, birds have nest.

But the son of man has no place to lay his head.

He says to another man, follow me.

But this man replies, Lord, first let me go and bury my father.

Jesus says to him, let the dead bury their own dead, but you go

and proclaim the kingdom of God.

Still.

Another says, I will follow you Lord.

But first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.

Jesus replies, no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit

for service in the kingdom of God.

These are some pretty full on words from Jesus, aren't they?

Uh, how do we hear these words?

How do we receive them?

So the first man says, I'll follow you wherever you go.

And Jesus says, foxes have holes, birds have nest.

Um, what is he saying here?

He says, I'm discerning something in your heart.

There is nothing wrong with what you've said, but there's

a wrong attitude beneath it.

Do you understand what kind of savior I am?

He's not a savior who triumphs through power and and popularity,

but one who saves through suffering, rejection, and death.

So he asks, are you willing to put me before your comfort,

possessions, and standard of living?

Are you willing to lose all those things for me?

And so the second, third, man, they've got different concerns.

One says, let me bury my father.

Another says, let me go back, say goodbye to my family.

There's nothing wrong with these requests in themselves.

Funerals and family goodbyes.

They're good things.

But again, Jesus sees the heart that's going on here.

Both say, Lord, first let me, Jesus' Response shows that there can.

No Lord, but first for the follower of Jesus, he must come first.

He is not truly Lord until he comes first in all things in our lives.

He says, no one who puts hand to the plow and looks back is fit

for service in the kingdom of God.

What does the word fit here mean?

It doesn't mean qualified.

No one qualifies for God's kingdom by effort.

We know that.

What it means is useful.

Unless your relationship with Jesus is your top priority above money,

career, power, family, you will not be a useful vehicle of his

kingdom's healing power in the world.

When Jesus says that they're dead bury, they're dead.

He's not forbidding funerals.

He's saying that those who don't put him first are spiritually dead, blind,

and deaf to spiritual realities.

To say, I'll follow Jesus later, is to reveal that you really

don't understand who he is.

If you've got it, you wouldn't delay.

If you understood who he was, we would not delay.

If you say, I'll put him first Sunday, you won't because you

haven't truly seen who he is.

All right.

He then goes on and says, whoever wants to save their life will lose

it, but whoever wants to lose their life for me, don't forget that for me.

Whoever wants to lose their life for me will save it.

Now, the, the word life is used a lot there, and it's not

talking about physical life.

Uh, Greek is the word bias.

The actual word used.

There is, uh, psyche actually, which refers to the self, the inner self.

Jesus is talking about identity.

He says, your old way of finding identity, that getting that sense of

self, that's the place that must die.

Through me, you'll find a whole new life.

We think about, um, the world we live in.

We've got the east and the west.

The east actually finds peace that they lose themselves, they individual

self as they merge into the whole.

That's one way of thinking about the east, the west, we're all part of that.

The way to peace is to find yourself, and the way you find yourself is

you're going after your desires and you're trying to fulfill them.

So one thing way of describing this east posture is you are not, you're

not called to dissolve into like have a dissolved in identity into, uh, another.

You're actually.

And you're not exclusively trying to prize your identity.

We're not called to diss, I suppose it's, that's the phrase, we're not called to

dissolve personal identity, and we're not called to exclusively prize it.

Jesus actually deconstructs and rejects both of those methods of finding identity.

He says, you must lose yourself for my sake.

And in doing so, you find yourself.

This is fascinating.

He, he says, you'll never get your true self by trying to find one.

You only find yourself as a byproduct of finding Christ and serving him.

See, we are postured by this, gaining the world mentality.

That's what we're saturated in, in achievement, wealth, status, family,

and those things are actually unstable.

What do I mean by that?

Second Corinthians four 18 says, whatever is seen.

Physically is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

So you can go and establish your identity on achievement

things that are physically seen.

The problem with that is those things are only temporary.

Those things are only a passing mist.

They're not actually rock solid.

They're not actually gonna last forever.

And so when Jesus is discussing this here, he's saying to be my dis disciple

is actually to set a new priority, Jesus first and everything else.

Second, it means daily taking up your cross, dying to self,

which, so dying to self.

Let me reframe that for you.

Dying to self is, I'm dying.

I'm giving up my way, my rights, my wants, my desires.

Does anyone wanna leave now because this is challenging stuff.

Seriously.

So the life of Christ might be resurrected in you.

So what I'm trying to say here is no death, no resurrection.

So the pattern we see in the kingdom of God is promise, death, resurrection.

That's the pattern.

You see it all throughout scripture.

Promise, death, resurrection, and no resurrection, no power.

So the power of the kingdom is demonstrated and made real experientially

in your heart through what is described as resurrection power.

Now you're a follower of Jesus.

Yes.

Have you been raised with him in heavenly places?

Yes, but now, 'cause like for instance, we're all sitting on earth right now.

If God wanted you with him right now, as soon as you said yes to

Jesus, you would've been zapped up to be with him forever.

But he left you here.

Why?

So that you would be a demonstration of the kingdom of God in the here and now.

Bringing heaven to earth.

You're a conduit to do just that, and you're not gonna be

able to do that by yourself.

So you need his power.

His power is defined by resurrection power.

The only way to access it, to demonstrate it is by this process

of following this pattern.

Death, resurrection, power.

I heard his story about the cinder block.

Anyone know what a cinder block is?

I was like, that's probably a more of a US phrasing of it.

Um, it's, it's probably like a construction block.

And I wanna just quickly tell you, this is not a cinder block.

This is not a construction block.

This is a solid block.

Okay.

In 1889, a guy called Harman s Palmer in the US patented the

solid concrete block machine to put it, spit out these things, right?

Uh, these blocks were heavy.

They were difficult to use.

They were difficult to create in a high volume construction.

This is back in 1889, right?

10 years later in 1899, Palmer patent in machines specifically

to create a hollow concrete block.

Launching the modern era of the hollow block production.

Palmers Hollow Blocks offered advantages over the solid blocks, lighter weight.

Improved insulation, ease of manufacture and placement, and reduced material use.

In the same way that Jesus teaches in Luke 9 24, life becomes purposeful,

not when we are full of self, but we are emptied for his sake.

You are catching this.

Yeah, li So what seems like a loss?

What seems like a hollowing out actually allows strength, capacity, usefulness

to increase a self protected light may appear solid but proves burdensome.

While a surrendered life becomes fit for the master builder's work, Ephesians two,

we are the workmanship of God created in Christ Jesus to do good works that

he prepared in advance for us to do.

Built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Christ Jesus

himself, being the cornerstone in him.

The whole building your hollow block.

Life is being built up, being built together, and rises to

become a holy temple in the Lord.

That's a picture of Mr. Palmer.

I saw that this week and thought, that's fascinating.

Here's the path to the higher life.

This is a quote by Andrew Murray Before Dale speaks next, here's

the path to a higher life down.

Lower down.

Just as water always seeks to find the lowest place.

So the moment guy, God finds men are based and empty.

His glory and power flow in to exalt and to bless.

That's a powerful quote.

The way of cruciform what, what's this word?

Cruciform Dale.

I was actually gonna skip this bit 'cause I'm a bit worried about time.

Um, what is cruciform Dale?

Well, I do just wanna say this 'cause I think this is a really helpful quote.

Um, you don't lose a seed when you plant it.

Though it seems dead and buried.

Instead, you set the seed free to be what it was always intended to be or that we

would think about our lives this way.

Hey, so when we embrace Jesus' call to take up our cross, daily to die

to ourselves daily, we are ultimately setting ourselves free to be what

we were always intended to be.

And it is the only way, uh, like Adam said, resurrection

life only comes through death.

Oh, get behind me.

Satan gotta fly up here.

Um, she wasn't talking to you.

It's okay.

All right.

Yeah, no.

Uh, so one way, so Adam used this word cruciform.

Um, so I'll just quickly touch on this is 'cause it's one way that we

can describe this life that we're called to live in this cruciform life.

And you think about cruciform is just the shape of a cross, right?

But how do we live our whole lives?

In the, in the shape of the cross, cross shaped living, uh, it is

essentially to live in the way of Jesus.

This is, Jesus lived a cruciform life.

He didn't just live a cruciform life.

The moment he went to a cross, his whole way of living was cruciform.

It was a continual laying down of his life for the good of others.

It is a life of sacrificial obedience to the will of God.

A life of laying down one's own will, uh, that the will of God

would be raised to life in them.

So I think these, the ultimate moment of that is Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane,

you know, not my will, but your will and as daily laying down our will.

Our wants, our rights, our way, our desires, picking up

gods and trusting that life.

Everything that we need, everything we are longing for, we won't miss out.

Uh, we will actually find everything our hearts deeply desire as we

seek to learn to live this way.

And I phrase that intentionally seek to learn this, live this way because none

of us have perfectly arrived in this.

It is a learning, a maturing, a deepening of having christlikeness

formed us a, a desire.

To desire what God wants and that our desires would align with God's heart.

Um, not that we'd have to be this conscious volitional choice every day.

Oh, I'm putting that down and I'm picking this up, but I really want this.

I don't really want God's way, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

'cause that's what good Christians do know.

What we want is the very desires of Christ formed in us so that we

are more and more naturally just wanting the things that God wants.

Um, and obedience just becomes this natural fruit of our lives,

something that we are growing in.

And so just I guess to, uh, maybe put some flesh on what we're talking about here.

Um.

You know, just to think about the things that Adam and I personally just

testimonies in our life where we have had to sacrifice in obedience to Jesus.

Um, and these places we're actually seeing life come when we have obeyed God.

And so, you know, and I've talked about this one before, I think my

very first time of truly experiencing the word of God saying to me.

Crucify this in your life, lay it down, die to it.

I was very early on in my walk with Jesus and it had, you know, as many

of you if you know our story, we were in a very dysfunctional relationship

before we both came to know Jesus.

And so this was the first thing that God asked me to lay down.

Was this relationship.

And for me, that relationship had met life.

I had clung to that relationship.

This is where, who am I without this?

Who am I if I don't have this relationship?

And it was brutal, let me tell you, because it just, all my fears

of being alone, um, death to a dream and all of that, and Jesus

die to it, walk away from it.

Bury it, kill it dead in a way.

And it was so not, not me, just so you know, not me.

Literally, no.

Clearly you've not been resurrected again, but the relationship

had to be put to death.

But God, in his gracious kindness, brought it to life.

Now, be really careful as you hear what I've, that story I've just

said, this is not a formula, right?

You can't just be going, oh, that's how I'm gonna get what I want.

Right by, okay, if I put it to death, then Jesus is gonna give me

how I want it, in the way I want it, in the timeline I want it.

Yeah.

No, no, no.

This all has to be very, very spirit led.

That was a spirit led moment in my life and another.

Life defining moment for me in this was my call to preach and teach the word of God.

That desire was birthed in me.

The night I was saved.

It was years before I actually got to step into that calling, and it had to

die in me and thank the good Lord that it did or it would've corrupted me.

I would've been serving it to meet my own ends and my own purposes.

So it was God's kindness that I had to sit in the wa wasteland wilderness,

wondering if I would ever get to step into this dream and into this calling,

and I had to lay it down completely.

It had to fully die in me before Jesus could raise it to life again.

It's really important to know that the comment that Dale said about the

formula says whoever wants to be my recycle must deny themselves and take

up their cross daily and follow me.

Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever wants to lose,

whoever loses their life for me.

So that formula pattern where you gotta be, we wary of that, is if

you lose your, if you lose your life for you, you won't find it.

Does that make sense?

So you're losing your life for him.

Uh, and you will find it.

It's an important, it's an important attribute.

Don't miss that.

Um, like where to start?

Um, I wanna say one thing is you don't realize how tricky it is to be married and

do this senior minister thing together.

You, when I say Unity's better than being right or actually Unity does

not feel better than being right.

Feel being right feels much better than.

Being unified, right to the flesh?

Yes, to so many times.

So we are two firstborns, right?

Highly opinionated, very different.

So I'm more of an apostolic shepherd heart.

She's more of a teacher prophetic heart.

So we're just clashing on all fronts.

So it's regularly, I have to be ascertaining whether, uh, this is a

personal preference, dynamic or whether this is, uh, what God is wanting.

I'm sure most married people here can testify to this reality.

Absolutely.

Comment in some way, shapely.

I just, I sense it.

I don't know.

It just feels, I suppose anybody got the perfect marriage here where you are

perfectly submitted one to another and perfectly have laid down, welcome your

will and service to the will of the other.

I remember when we first started Red Door, um, I was, I'm an accountant

by background, so I had to have, I have a qualification called Chartered

Accountant and I had it for, for many years and I was kind of maintaining it.

Uh, the way you maintain it is you pay your sub, your 400 bucks

kind of a year, and you get your subscription and you keep it.

And then, um, I remember the Lord just putting his finger on it and

going, Hey, that's a plan B. I reckon you should get rid of that.

And I was like, no, I don't want to.

It's my safety.

And uh, then I was like, you just get prodding away.

And I had to like, I had to lay it down.

Um, where you see that come to life is, it's almost like you

until you lay it down, you.

Don't know that it's pulling you down.

Does that make sense?

Mm-hmm.

Until you get rid of it, you then suddenly only experience at that juncture, well,

there's, there's more room in my lungs.

You know, you actually feel more alive because you, you haven't got these other

attachments, I think is the right word.

Um, so that was certainly an experience for me.

Um.

I just remember when we first started Red Door.

So this here was a campus of Riverview, and I remember in the time of it being

started as red door, there was a moment where, uh, I had a choice to leave.

We had a choice to leave here as the campus pastors of Riverview, and they

asked me to go back and be the media director at the, at the Burswood campus.

And I remember just feeling like someone was taking a limb like.

You can't ask me to do that.

It's, it's gonna like, it killed me.

It really, oh, it did.

And it was a, it was so interesting because as I sort of surrendered to that

process and I actually realized that I placed my identity based on the competence

and description of doing a particular job.

And it wasn't until I saw that that took a while by the way.

Saw that and went, Lord, can you forgive me?

I've put the job, the competence, the role on the throne of my heart,

and you are not there anymore.

'cause that thing's there.

And I asked for forgiveness and then there was this wonderful

moment of exchange that fell off.

I died to that and then Jesus came back on and then five days later, seriously,

I'm gonna tell you about it more later.

The church goes, oh, we're thinking of releasing the

campus to become its own thing.

Do you want you and Dale wanna lead this thing?

And that was 13 years ago.

It was a, it was probably my finest example of seeing this pattern.

Um, promise God's intention was always for me to be a minister in some way.

Yeah.

Death will you let it go?

Resurrection.

Suddenly, 13 years later, here, here we are still doing this.

Now I'm not saying we're gonna do this forever.

What I'm saying though is this is the pattern.

The question for all of us is, will you die?

And what a horrible, horrible thought it would've been if we had a stepped

into leading red door and had not gone through that death process again.

There would've been all sorts of unholiness.

Uh, messed into what we were doing.

Um, so yeah, we need not be afraid of these places of

dying that Jesus calls us into.

There is such liberating freedom to be able to say yes to the call,

to step into pastoring here with such a free heart, knowing we

didn't, we could've walked away.

Uh, we didn't need it 'cause we died to it.

We were able to take it up freely and that is such a joy.

To not have to do something because your life depends on it.

Uh, so let us just for a moment, because I think this is, this story in

scripture, even though it's in the Old Testament, gives us such a powerful

perspective of this way of living.

And it's a story of Abraham and you might be going, well, Abraham's Old Testament.

What has he got to show us about the way of Jesus and the way of the cross?

Um, we gotta remember.

God is the same yesterday, today, forever.

Uh, Jesus came not to abolish everything in the Old Testament, but to fulfill it.

So there are types and shadows everywhere throughout the Old Testament.

And as our good friends at the Bible Project say, the Bible is one

unified story that leads to Jesus, uh, in case you were wondering.

And so in Genesis 22, we have this.

Brutal, brutal story, which is a little bit hard for us

to fit in our heads sometimes.

And so in verses one and two, in Genesis 22, it says this, after these things, God

tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham.

Abraham says, here I am.

God says, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love.

Go to the land of Mariah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the

mountains, of which I should tell you.

This is, this is a very hard story.

How do we understand God through this story?

Well, that's probably a whole other message, but let's just stick to

the main theme for this morning that started that, um, passage there.

Use this phrase after these things, after what things?

Well, essentially what it's saying is after a life of faith.

We're talking about Abraham's whole life here.

Abraham was a person who had listened to God, who obeyed with

his life, certainly not perfectly 'cause we'd seen what a horrible

thing he'd done to his wife twice.

Um, and if you're not sure what I'm talking about, go back and read the

previous chapters from Genesis 22.

Um, but overall, his life was a life that was marked by continual leaving of

his life and following God in obedience.

Abraham has always been called to leave.

Leave this place.

Go there, leave that place.

Go there.

Eugene Peterson frames it this way.

The life of um, Abraham was a life that had been formed by the continual

relinquishment of acquisitions.

A life of getting was slowly but surely replaced by a life of receiving.

It was a life transform from self sovereignty to God Sovereignty.

Relinquishment is a prerequisite to fulfillment.

Letting go of a cramped self will opens us up to an expansive God willed life.

A sacrificial life is the means, and it is the only means by

which a life of faith matures.

Sacrifice is to faith.

What eating is to nutrition sacrifice is a readiness to interrupt whatever

we're doing and build an altar to bind whatever we happen to be carrying with

us at the moment to place it on the altar and see what God wills to do with it.

Faith repeatedly tested by sacrifice became the way of life for Abraham.

Each sacrifice left him with less of self, more of God.

Each sacrifice abandoned something of self on an altar from which he

traveled onward with more vision, more promise, and more presence.

So in the command to leave.

Abraham had abandoned his past, but now he is asked to sacrifice his future.

Through his son.

Now he has by now, by this point, when God has asked him to do this, he's lived

a history in which God has provided for him in unanticipated and unexpected ways.

Maybe by now he's used to living trustingly in the seemingly absurd that

which he could not anticipate, that which is beyond imagining, which this.

Command of God is beyond imagining, isn't it?

So if we arrive at Mount Mariah without having prayerfully and imaginatively

participated in the decades of Abraham's testings that have come before God

seems to us to behave outrageously here, outer character, but not to Abraham.

Because Abraham has the promise of God.

God has made a promise and he knows his life is found in this promise and in

the presence of God and not in Isaac.

He is by now a veteran in the way of faith that is at the same

time, the way of the faithful God.

He is not nearly as surprised as we are when we read this story.

It certainly occupied a prominent place in Paul's mind when he

assured all of us who walk in the way of Jesus in one Corinthians 10.

No testing has overtaken you.

That is not common to everyone.

God is faithful and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength.

But with the testing, he will also provide the way out so that you

may be able to endure it, which is exactly what he provided for Abraham.

Right.

So the question that Jesus asked, he says to his disciples, who do you say I am?

Who do you say he is?

I was wondering that question.

It's interesting if you watch the chosen, there's a moment where, uh,

there's a time travel moment and Jesus is now suddenly in the, uh, in

this moment with Abraham and Isaac.

It's not in scripture this time travel by the way, but it's a reflection.

And I wonder about that question, like what would Abraham say?

Abraham, who do you say he is?

Who do you say he is?

And in this question where Abraham I think answers it in his

actions, we are faced with it.

'cause Jesus is the true and better Abraham.

He answered the call of God.

Leave left all the comfortable and familiar to go out into the

void, not knowing whether he would create a new people of God.

God had promised nations to Abraham.

Jesus is a true and better Isaac, who was not just offered up by his father on the

Mount, but was truly sacrificed for us.

When God said to Abraham, now I know you love me because you did

not withhold your son, your only son whom you, whom you love from me.

Now we can look at God taking his son to the mountain and sacrificing him and

say, now we know that you love us because you did not withhold your son, your

only son from whom, from who you love.

You did not withhold him from us.

And so the question for all of us is, what are you clinging to for

life that actually isn't life?

Please hear me.

We're talking about following the way of Jesus.

We're talking about being a disciple of Jesus.

This dying to self experience is not done in order to get God to love you.

No, no, quite the opposite.

Jesus has died for you to reveal his love and devotion towards you.

The question is, will you respond with a life?

Of sacrifice, of submission, of surrender, of dying to self.

We're gonna spend a little bit of time just in silence right now, not

too long, and I just want you to reflect on these little prompts.

This is not an exhaustive list, but we need time to reflect.

Maybe it's a dream that you're clinging to.

On the other side of the coin, it may be.

Someone has hurt you and offended, offended, hard, you're holding onto.

Maybe there's a plan B. Maybe it's comfort.

Maybe it's finances.

Maybe it's a preference to having things done your way or you being right.

But maybe it's a calling, uh, a relationship.

What might it be that the Holy Spirit is leading you into?

I was just really led to, uh, the story of Esau and Jacob

in Genesis 25 during worship.

I think this is a really powerful picture of what we're talking about here.

Um, in this story, Jacob's cooking some stew.

You know, Jacob and Esau, they're twins.

Um, Esau is the first born though.

And, uh, Esau comes in, Jacob's cooking.

He says, let me have some of that stew.

I'm famished.

And Jacob says, first, sell me your birthright.

Jacob is a piece of work, man.

We should all take great courage that God uses pieces of work.

Um.

And Esau says, look, I'm about to die.

Esau said, what good is a birthright?

But Jacob says, swear to me first.

So he swore an oath selling him his birthright.

Then Jacob gave Esau some bread, and Stu, he ate and drank.

So Esau despised his birthright.

Why do I think this is relevant for what we're talking about this morning?

Because when we clinging to the stew, we deny our inheritance.

And our inheritance is found in the life of Christ, which we

can only apprehend when we die.

And so the things that we clinging to are the equivalent of this stew.

We look at Esau and go, you numpty aren't, you Give up your birthright

as the firstborn for a plate of stew.

But that's the equivalent of the things we hold to in this life.

It, they're just a plate of stew.

We deny our birthright, our inheritance as firstborn when we do this, when we

give into this temptation, this hunger, this desire to have to grasp now.

'cause we think we need now, it was not gonna drop dead

from starvation in this moment.

And often we can behave that same way with these things that we think we have to

have and we deny our birthright, our place in the life of Christ when we do that.

That's good.

Let's just take a few moments just to reflect.

If you need to close your eyes, feel free.