Disciple: Where Your Will Meets His - Pastor Joseph Pringle

Last week we kicked off a new series which I've been very excited about, called Disciple. And Jesus in his, one of his final commands, he said in Matthew 28:19 he says, Go and make disciples. And I think that what has crept into culture is that we have thought that if we are made into a Christian, we have met the end of our journey. But I do believe that there is a further step from becoming someone who believes in Christ to someone who follows Christ beyond belief. And we can subscribe our lives to believing the Scriptures and to knowing the Scriptures and to rehearsing the Scriptures within our mind. But the application within our lives is low bearing. And there is an output within our lives that is designed around our desires without consideration of Christ's will for our life. I'm telling you, Jesus loves you. He wants to make your world as big as possible. He's not trying to minimize your life when he's saying, come and follow me. Deny yourself and pick up a cross. So last week we focused in on that first call that Jesus made to Peter and Andrew when they were standing at the boats. That was Matthew 4:19. Follow me and I will make you fishes of men. You are following something or someone. We gotta be cognizant and understand how we follow as well as who are we following. Jesus says follow me. He says that he will make you. That's the promise that when you follow Christ, he is going to make you into a purpose filled missional Christian who has an effective faith to make you fishers of men. We talked about what a disciple actually is. Someone who follows Jesus, is being formed by Jesus and increasingly lives for the mission of Jesus. And if you missed last week, I really encourage you to go back and you can find it on our podcast and on our website. You can go back and listen to that first message because this next series is going to set us up to be boiling hot Christians who are on fire for God. You know the promise is in Revelation that if we are lukewarm, we are going to be spat out of his mouth just as much as the promises are. If we follow him, he will make us. He will make you. He will make your purpose. He will make these desires within your heart after his own. He will make you a missionary in the field called the Kingdom of of God. And today I want to deal with the first two words that were said, follow me, because following sounds beautiful. Until Jesus starts walking somewhere that we wouldn't have chosen. That sound awesome. I follow Jesus, I'm led by him. And then all of a Sudden, we're led into a wilderness. We're led into a confronting situation where we're led to a place where faithfulness is tested because offense has entered into our lives. We're led into a hardship because Jesus wants to test our faith, whether we're relying on him only in the good times and not relying on him to pull us through the hardest times. It's easy to follow Jesus while his direction lines up with the direction we want in our lives. Right, God. We want blessing. God wants to bless. Wonderful. We want purpose. God's full of purpose. We want peace. Jesus is called the Prince of peace. We want freedom. Well, guess what? Christ came to set the captives free. But eventually, within our lives, every disciple reaches an intersection where what Jesus wants and what I want are no longer the same. Jesus says forgive and we want to remain offended. Jesus says commit, and we want to be fluid. Jesus says give and we want to hold. Jesus says wait, and we want it now. Jesus says reconcile and we want to run and leave. Jesus says self control and our flesh says pleasure. Jesus says serve, and our pride wants to be served. Jesus says trust me and everything within us wants to control every factor in life, right? And that's where you and I discover who we are actually following. Because lordship isn't revealed when Jesus agrees with me. Lordship is revealed when Jesus contradicts me. Jesus never hid this. He never hides this from his disciples. He never hides it from us in the Scriptures. Our main scripture today is Luke 9:23. And it says this. If anyone, anyone would come to me, I'll speak on that. But do not disqualify yourself. If anyone would come to me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. And then Jesus, he goes on and perhaps one of the most. And asks one of the most confronting questions I would say in the New Testament in 25. He says, for what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? You can get everything you want in this life. You can get everything that your heart desires in this life and lose yourself getting it. I've been there, chasing after my own selfish ambitions, living a life where I thought no boundaries, all freedom. I can make any choice I want was true freedom, when all it did was lock me up in the tightest prison I've ever lived in. And you can win according to the world and lose according to the kingdom of God. So here's the question I want hanging over everything here today. Here's the question I want us to Remember, throughout this week, here's the question I want us to ask ourselves daily. Who has the final say in my life? Who has the final say in my life? Because the greatest hindrance to becoming a disciple isn't unbelief. It's not just this unbelieving. It's self rule. It's self rule. It's the ruling of myself. I looked at a study where they looked at 100,000 people over 66 different countries. And can I get a little statistic nerdy right now? Is that okay? 100,000 people over 66 countries. And they found that this contentedness in life came from three different qualities, which was autonomy. It was competence. And it was connectiveness. So connected to a community. Community. It was. What did I say? Autonomy. And what was the second one again? Competence. Like I feel competent in doing something. And of all of these, it was this, this pursuit. Now, autonomy is not a bad thing, okay? Autonomy means that you and I have a will. Autonomy means that you and I have a choice to make within this world. But I would say this, that somewhere along the line, autonomy within our world, and especially in the wealth of a great nation like usa, like America, the great bald eagle nation, okay? Like the wealth that we have, no matter what situation you're in, like, this is a great country, okay? In all of this, somewhere along the line, autonomy has become sovereignty of self. And so autonomy is not a bad thing. Autonomy gives you the choice to submit and surrender my life to. To Christ. And that's the challenge that you and I face. That self rule, this self sovereignty, this independence that we have. We need to come back continually. Luke writes it, such as daily we need to come back and surrender. I might go to bed and lay my cross next to the bed, but I got to pick it up every. Every single morning. And so we're going to be talking about surrender here today. And the title of today's message is where your will meets his. When your will meets his. Dear God, I thank you for today. Holy and everlasting God that rules over this whole world. Thank you. That we submit to you here today. Thank you, Lord. That you would sharpen us with your word. Sharpen us to be effective tools in your kingdom. Sharpen us that we would be discerning in the spirit between what is true and what is a lie. The devil is a liar. You are the author of truth. So we come to you here today. I speak against every lie that has been seated in minds where anxiety has sprouted. We speak hope. Where there is Depression. We speak peace. Where there is addiction, we claim freedom. In the name of Jesus here today, I speak against every spirit of deception. You leave right now. In the name of Jesus. Just as we sang before, we speak Jesus over every situation. In your mighty name, Holy Spirit, fill each and every one of us here today. Fill every one of your words here today. In the mighty name of Jesus. I pray that we're not just hot balloons, but we are filled with substance, Father. Filled with the substance of your word. We are passionate about your word. We believe in your word. We rely on your spirit and not our own strength. In the mighty name of Jesus, we all said amen. Amen. Amen. Point one here today is surrender the right to rule yourself. Surrender the right to rule yourself. If anyone would come after me, Jesus says, let him deny himself. We need to understand what Jesus is saying here. He's not teaching self hatred. He's not saying you have no worth. He's not calling you to erase your personality. And some people, I mean, they're so fun. And then they come to the faith and they think, oh, I've got a suit and tie, my personality, you know, like, oh, I've got to, I've got to stand upright and I have to now use words like sanctification and like there's a change. God's not asking you to change your personality. He designs you uniquely. Okay, he's not. Or pretend that you don't have desires or dreams within your heart. He put them there for a reason. Self denial is not the denial of your value. It is the denial of your sovereignty. It's deciding that I am no longer the highest authority within my life. And the battle is as old as humanity goes back to Adam and Eve. This is where it all began. This is where it was all birthed from. The serpent's temptation was not just eat some fruit. It was this. You will be like God, knowing good and evil. Evil. In other words, you determine what is good. In other words, you determine what is evil. In other words, you determine what is right for you. The fundamental temptation all the way back then was self rule. And we still struggle with it today. We're still eating from the same true offering, the same fruit to us that Adamic nature. And this is if you've ever wondered why the virgin birth was so important, was so important that the lion came from a divine impregnation, okay, was because he was the second Adam, not an heir of Adam. Does this make sense? Because you and I, we come from that Adamic nature. We come from the line of Adam. And so there is a self ingrained individualism that we have to fight against within us. But here's the good news, because when we deny ourself, which is saying, I am going to put my own desires, my own thoughts, the ways that I think are right to the side and we think like, oh, I'm putting it to death. Here's the good news, is that when Jesus carried his cross, hung on that cross, when he died, he resurrected again. So what you put to bed, what you put on the cross will be resurrected in the right form that Jesus has designed you. In our culture, it's almost sacramentalized the self. Follow your ways. How do you feel? Just follow your emotions and feelings. Do you? Do you boo? No, don't. Do you boo? Don't. Do Jesus Follow Jesus? Oh, this offense. You know, you know, when I came to Christ and I was a drug addict, and when I came to Christ, there was one simple thing that kept me from going insane. Yes, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and all of this. But there was a fundamental truth I cannot afford in the budget of my life, self justified anger. So no one, whether you come to wound me and it's justifiable that I hold anger towards you, I cannot afford that in my life. I cannot afford to hold it, house it, use it as a couch to dream about it, to think about it, to stew on it. So instead, with offence, we are now called to, I have to deny myself and pick up what Jesus says. So instead I'm going to confront a situation. I'm going to speak to a situation. I want to bring truth and clarity into a situation. I'm telling you this because. Because what we put to rest within our lives, what we hang up on that cross will be resurrected in a new form. And it's the best life you can ever live. And Jesus stands in the middle of all of this. Self sacramentalization, that's a big word. Self sacramentalization. That's fun to say in the midst of all of that, trust yourself, follow your feelings, all of that. Jesus says something that is so controversial and it should cut us to a core, which is saying deny yourself. Why? Because God has a radically different understanding of the human heart. Proverbs 14:12 says there is a way that what? It seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. That's scary. It's terrifying for me because there is a way that seems right. It doesn't look wrong. It's presenting itself as the shiny apple here. You know what's good and evil like here. There are things that can feel completely right to me and still lead me in the completely wrong direction. Jeremiah 17:19 warns us of the same thing. It says the heart can deceive us and then goes on. And it says the heart is desperately sick. With a desperately sick situation, you grab it every remedy you can, right? When there is desperation in there, it's kind of like I'm just. I'm grasping at everything. I'm so stressed out, I don't know what to do. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do. And we have an impulsive nature that begins to drive us down wrong ways. Desperate sickness will lead us to reach for false remedies instead of grasping onto the truth. So Christianity cannot be Jesus confirmed what I already feel. Discipleship becomes Jesus. Tell me what is true, even when it confronts what I feel. And let me just speak as your pastor here today. God's truth lives in the person sitting next to you. And I would far rather be called to account from my wife or Edgar or Sean or Josh Sippen than I would be waiting to be called to account in front of God. So God has placed wisdom next to you. And when you open yourself up to be a receiver of truth, which can feel a little bit like, oh, gosh, that's. That's hard to digest. And when it's presented in love, a lot of people present truth with no love. You gotta love, but you can't just love without truth. And so the person sitting next to you, man. And there is so much wisdom in this church. I see the Neelys. I see the Feldmans. I see Christine, the Ochoas, Natalie. I see all of these. I see Brian and Kevin over here and Amanda. Their stories are incredible. That would lead people out of a wilderness if. But we would just ask, what do I do in this situation? And then let me say this carefully. And I've said it before, do not be an asshole, okay? Don't be someone who asks questions to 55 different people to try and find the answer that you want. Keep counsel under one hand. I got five people and they pray with me. They know me. They know my shortcomings. They know my weaknesses. And when they speak into my life because I ask them to, not waiting because I asked them to. I received that truth and I begin to apply it, no matter how hard it is. So who has the final say in your life when your sexuality and scripture disagree? Who has the final say when my financial priorities and Jesus teaching disagree? Who has the final say when I'm offended. But Jesus commands me to forgive and to reconcile. Who has the final say when my ambition wants one thing, but my obedience requires something else? Who has the final say when everyone around me tells me that I am justified with my actions, justified with my anger, but the Holy Spirit convicts me? Who has the final say? This is lordship. This is surrender. This is saying man, I will deny myself. And it's radical because this world so wants to cling to the control of self. Surrender to Jesus. We got to understand this. Surrendering to Jesus is not surrendering control to someone who's less trustworthy than us or someone who is worse than us. It's giving authority back to the one who sees what you cannot see. Psalm 139. He says he knows you're sitting down and rising up. He discerns your thoughts from afar. So from a long distance off, he can already see what you're going to think. So when we come and say, God, oh, lead me not in this way, lead me in your way. Isaiah 46 says this. He declares the end from the beginning. You and I, we know a fraction of our story. We know just. But like a little breath of our story, he knows the whole thing. He knows your whole story. So for you and I, there is ultimate freedom in finally admitting God. I am not qualified to be God. I don't need to carry that burden of sovereignty anymore. You are the Lord of my life. If you want that here today, I want you to say that. I want you to say, jesus, you are the Lord of my life. Point number two, he moves on. He says, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and what? Take up his cross daily. Point number two, take up your cross daily. I got really creative with that title. Firstly, let me tell you something. He says this. Take up his cross daily. Take up little H, not a big H. You have a cross that you have to pick up. My wife cannot carry my cross for me. I cannot carry Christine's cross for her. It doesn't mean that people can't help you along the journey. Carry your cross. Even Jesus had help carrying his cross to Calvary. Okay, so that should tell you and I something. You cannot carry the cross alone on this journey of life. But ultimately, this is you deciding that this call that God has placed in front of me. I'm not waiting for a perfect moment. I'm not waiting for the stars to align. I'm not waiting for the day that I feel strong enough to carry it. I'm not Kicking my feet, picking the lint out of my belly button for when the right time comes around, faffing about in this life and just waiting for this perfect moment to come. No, the time is now. The daily we would pick up our cross, and I'm telling you this, that there is a weight to the cross. There is a weight and a burden, which is why you need to pray, which is why you need community standing next to you, lifting up your arms, lifting up the cross with you. Come on, man. We're gonna get through this. I know that this is a hard season. I know that this last year was tough, but we're gonna pick up the cross together. We're gonna journey through this together. We're gonna war in prayer together. We're gonna learn the word together. We're gonna speak and declare promises over our lives. We've heard this phrase so much. And you gotta understand that when cross came thinking of symbolism within the church, they weren't thinking jewelry around the neck. The cross was a symbol of Roman torturous death. So when Jesus said cross, nobody in the crowd thought jewelry. Does that make sense? Like it meant death. If you saw someone carrying a cross through the Roman city, there was no questioning where that person was going. They were marching towards death. And when Jesus says, take up your cross, he's saying, there are things that you cannot, that cannot accompany you where you were going. Paul later describes Discipleship in Galatians 2:20, one of my favorite scriptures. I pray this so often within my life. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Not Christ has been added to my life. Jesus is not your branding on Instagram. I've seen too many Instagram profiles where it says jesus is my Lord, and then provocative pictures all along their feet. Jesus is really your Lord. I've seen too much of this display of this is what I believe, but this is who I follow me, that the thing I am picking up is not a cross, but it's something comfortable for me. So it's not Christ has been added to my life, but instead my life now belongs to Christ. And there will be people who look at you and mock you for carrying the cross. There are going to be people who would laugh at you for carrying the cross because it is known as a symbol of death. And people as you're following, they say, why do you serve like that? Why do you give like that? Why do you worship like that? Why do you get up so early to pray? Why do you Read the Scriptures. Why do you have that good attitude? Why do you work so hard for the boss that is treating you terribly? Why do you lift yourself up even though I know that you're walking through hell? There'll be people who ask all of these questions. But I want to remind you again that in carrying that cross and crucifying his flesh, Jesus rose from the grave. That in carrying your cross, whatever it is, whatever the hardness, the bitterness, the offense is when you nail it to the cross and you say, I'm a dead man living for Christ, I'm a dead woman living for Christ, my flesh and all of these desires. There is a resurrection in your life. There is new hope, there is new purpose, there is new faith that begins to see what God has for your life. In the Scriptures it says daily, daily surrender isn't just a decision that you made 10 years ago. It's not just a decision you made two weeks ago to say, jesus, I surrender to you. There was a surrender yesterday. There should have been a surrender this morning, and there will be another one tomorrow. Because every day my will has the possibility of crossing his will. And at that intersection, I have to ask myself that question. Who has the final say in my life? Who has that final say? Romans 12:1 says this. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. The fight that we have to be willing to fight is that the sacrifices of the Old Testament, for the most part, were dead sacrifices. They were placed on the altar and they were burnt up. But a living sacrifice has a sneaky habit of wanting to. It's like on the altar and then it starts crawling off the altar, starts just getting off the altar. Oh, I want to tap my toe on the dirt. Oh, I just want to get over here just a little. Oh, I'll put. If I keep my finger on the altar, I'm still. I'm still kind of attached. But that's the. That's the fight we have to be willing to fight is that we say, I'm not just going to put a finger on the altar. No, I'm going to place my whole life that I would surrender in a daily motion, surrendering my will, surrendering my ways, surrendering my thoughts, surrendering my promises to myself, surrendering my doubts and my deceitful thinking to the word of God, to God himself. We've got to be willing to fight that and say, not my will, but yours. So becoming a disciple involves continually presenting ourselves again on the altar. Sacrifice. My body is yours, my mind is yours, my future, my Marriage, my money, my gifts, my talents, my reputation, my plans. They are all yours, Father. And this is why surrender is not weakness. So many, maybe especially men, think that surrender is a weakness in this life. Surrender requires an enormous amount of strength. It's so big that you need the strength of the Holy Spirit to do it continually. Even Jesus himself in the garden of Gethsemane, struggled with holding onto the will and plan that was laid out before him. 26:39. In Matthew, it says this, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. That's it. That is the perfect picture of surrender. Jesus doesn't pretend. He wants the suffering. Okay? And you and I should be encouraged by this. God incarnate was in the garden of Gethsemane and said, if this cup could pass. You're not alone in your suffering. Jesus has experienced every point of human suffering that you and I have to face. Jesus, at the most terrifying point of his call, comes to God asking if there's another way, doesn't deny how he feels. He brings his desire honestly before the Father. But then he says something that should be written across our chest. Nevertheless, that word may contain the greatest picture of discipleship in Scripture, saying this, I have a will, I have a desire. I have an emotion, I have a way. Nevertheless, your will and your word have the final say. That is surrender. Maybe some of us need a nevertheless again in our faith. Maybe some of us need to consider there is a nevertheless moment that we have been hanging on to, saying, God, take this cup. Take it away. Take it. Change this. Change this situation. Nevertheless, I will still serve your mission. We may not understand it. Nevertheless, we may not have chosen it. Nevertheless, everything within my flesh wants to run. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours. Jesus, not the way humans forgive, but your style of forgiveness. Jesus, not the way the world prioritizes comfort, but your call. Jesus, not the defensiveness of insecurity, but the confidence of Christ working all things for good within our life. Amen. That is you and I taking up the cross daily. Who has the final say? Point number three here today. Trust what Jesus is leading you into. You gotta trust that Jesus is leading you to a good place. In Luke 9:24, he says, for whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. It's the great paradox of discipleship. Everything in us thinks that surrender is loss. Right? It's lost. We think of a battlefield, we think of the enemy who surrenders. They lost in the battlefield. But Jesus tells us that we're looking at it backwards. The life you desperately protect from Christ, from him is the life that we will eventually lose if we're hanging onto it so tightly. The life you surrender to Christ is the life you finally discover. And don't think that ends with salvation. Don't think that ends with just, oh, you are the Lord of my heart. It is a daily endeavor of picking up the cross that I am losing my life, I'm losing my proclivities and I am picking up the cross. The glory of picking up the cross is you've got to drop other things that you've been hanging on to. You can't carry the cross and keep all the baggage going. So when, so when we lose our life for his sake, we are finding a life that we would never find otherwise because it requires a death and a resurrection of our flesh. He goes on in 25 and it says, for what does a man profit if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? I want everyone to close their eyes or everyone to close their eyes. And I want you to imagine that just in this moment, you gain the whole world that you want. All the dreams, all the desires, even as far fetched as they may feel right now. You get everything you wanted. The money, the success, the job, the house, the relationship, the recognition, the awards, the freedom, the success, the experiences like you've, you have one life by your measure. I want you to see that. I want you to think of that. This is what Jesus is asking. What if you got everything you wanted and became someone you were never meant to be? What if the greatest tragedy isn't failing to get the life that you wanted? What if it's getting it without Jesus? This is why surrender is our ultimate, is an ultimate showing of our trust in Christ. John 10:10 says this. You can open your eyes. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. The one asking you to surrender your life is the one who created life itself. Jesus isn't trying to make your world smaller. He's rescuing you from the smallest of a life that is built entirely around you. You got to think about Peter. He had nets, he had a family business he was going to inherit. He had a family that was growing, a profession, a predictable future. And Jesus said to him, follow me. Peter could have protected his life. He could have said, no, but I'm going to live within the confines of what I have. I'm going to get this business, I'm going to keep Fishing. I'm going to make a living. I'm going to raise this family. Instead, he surrendered the life he understood to Jesus. And Jesus took an impulsive fisherman and formed him into a preacher of the Gospel, a shepherd of the church, a man who would stand at the Pentecost and proclaim the risen Christ. Peter couldn't see Pentecost from the boat, though. He couldn't see Acts 2. He couldn't see this huge formation that was about to come. He couldn't see the thousands who responded to the Gospel. All he could see was Jesus saying, follow me. Sometimes Jesus will ask you to surrender something before he shows you what your surrender is making room for. And this is my plea and has been my prayer for you this week, is that you would understand and see that. Surrendering the thing that maybe you feel entitled to hold on to, surrendering the thing that feels like man, I just don't want to do that. I just don't want to. I'm too tired. I'm doing all of these things, and I just don't want to feel discomfort in this area. I'm asking you to make room for him because he will fill the room that you give him. And when we come to a place as a disciple and say, I surrender to you, Father. Not just once a week, on a Sunday, but he says, daily, I will lift up my cross. And I'll tell you this, that if there is a group, a church, who would stand together, united in the cause, I will pick up my cross and I will help my brother and I will help my sister pick up their cross. There is an unstoppable move, a revival, a renewal and awakening that would happen in the midst of Orange county and beyond. Just because there was a revival here in the 60s or 70s does not mean there cannot be a revival today. And what it takes is a people who. Who would say, I will pick up my cross. Revival is not just a random thing. It is when hearts say, there is nothing more important. There is nothing over my priority than Christ being the risen Lord of my life and displaying it. That is revival and man. Revival starts within our hearts and man. If we could just get that. If we could just say, God, revive my heart, that which is dead within me, man, ignite this faith. How do I do that? If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily. So I want us to ask that question. Let's all stand up here today. Who has the final say in your life? Not theoretically, but actually. Who has the final say? With your will, with your autonomy, with your choice, who has truly the final say, who wins. Maybe today it's an offense and you've justified it. You've rehearsed what happened. You're convinced in yourself that withholding forgiveness is reasonable. But Jesus is calling you to forgive. I'm telling you, there's no question about that. Jesus calls us all to forgive. Maybe it's a relationship. Maybe it's serving. Or maybe it's pride. Maybe it's something the Holy Spirit has been speaking to you about for months, and you keep asking him to give you another answer. Jesus is saying, if anyone would come after me, Anyone. And that is such a brilliant invitation because no one in this room is disqualified. No matter what lie might be in your mind right now. Disqualifying, calling you, oh, that's not for me. It is for you. His promises stand forever. His word is everlasting. It never fades and it never withers. It is for you here today. And Jesus is not asking you to take up something that he did not first take up himself. He took up the cross for you standing here today, that there would be true liberty found in your life. And listen, I know that the Holy Spirit, this has been my prayer all week, is bringing to mind some things that you need to let go of to pick up the cross. There are things that you need to turn away from to embrace the call that God has placed within your life. He did it for me this week. Even as I was preparing, I was down on my knees, repenting and saying, God, weed out that which I cannot see within my own heart. Hidden prides, hidden agendas. Anything that is not of you, weed it out. Bring it to the surface that I would give it to you, deny myself and lay down my life for you. Hey, thanks for tuning in. There's a bunch of different ways that we connect throughout the week, including Sunday mornings, and we would love to see you there. You can check out all the details. [email protected].

Matthew 28:19 Matthew 4:19 Luke 9:23 Proverbs 14:12 Jeremiah 17:19 Galatians 2:20 Romans 12:1 Luke 9:24 John 10:10