The Four Great Invitations: Follow Me | Part 2

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

When I was thinking about following, the one thing that came to my mind was we all follow something or someone.

In fact, if I ask you, who do you follow on social media?

You could give me some names, right?

Or who's a celebrity you follow, or is there a business person you follow?

Or who do you follow on LinkedIn?

Or who's an author that you follow?

Or maybe there's a business person or a musician or an artist that you follow them.

Now let me ask you why.

If I literally had you jot down the reasons that I follow these certain people is because let me suggest you want to be like them, you admire them, uh they've blazed a trail that you you think you could learn from them.

But everybody follows something or someone.

In fact, there's a subtle one.

Many of us follow what psychologists call a script.

A script that happened over our family of origin and our growing up years.

And the script developed where no one said you're supposed to live your life like this, but it kind of went like, in my case, uh you need to work really, really hard, never be lazy if you're sitting around something's wrong.

Uh, you need to be successful in school, so you need to work hard and get good grades.

Uh, because my father was a great athlete, you need to be athletic, which thankfully God gave me some gifts.

And then it was both my parents were educators and not just, you know, bachelors, not just masters, not just after the, you know.

And so there was this script that you, by the way, also, our family has an external reputation.

Don't ever do anything that makes us look bad.

And so, pleasing people and how you appear.

For some of you, it was a script that said, uh, you need to go to a certain college.

And if you don't go to a certain college or university, or you need to get certain grades, and there's certain professions that make you a someone, and there's certain professions that make you a nobody.

And we all have kind of this script, and some of us rebel against the script and say, I'm not gonna do that.

And others, we have this unconscious, almost invisible hands that push us in a direction, and almost without understanding it, we're following sort of a set of a vision, a value, a principle.

And it often doesn't deliver at all what we want.

And some of us don't even know why in the world am I doing what I'm doing?

Or when we rebel or when we say, I don't want to do that, we find ourselves in some activities or addictions or relationships or codependency that makes life very, very confusing.

And into all of that, Jesus says, okay, stop.

Come to me.

I'll give you rest.

And it's not just physical rest, it's not just emotional rest.

I'll give you peace in your life.

Take my yoke upon you.

Let's do life together.

You never have to be alone again.

It's light, it fits, it'll give guidance, direction.

From now on, we'll go through life together.

And I know the destination, but I also know the path.

I have a script for you that brings joy to your life, productivity, and as you follow, purpose.

And what you find in Scripture is that Jesus calls the disciples and he calls us to follow.

And the call to follow is a, you'll notice in your notes, I jotted this, it's an intentional apprenticeship.

Sometimes we think following Jesus is sort of like maybe coming to a weekend meeting, trying to be a nice person, reading the Bible a little bit, and telling someone maybe something that happened to you.

But to follow, when Jesus said to the disciples, or specifically to Peter, follow me, from a Jewish mindset, and what this means is I'm going to become an apprentice of this rabbi or teacher, and it meant three things.

Whatever he teaches, I want to master what he's saying, but second, I want to emulate his life.

So when Jesus said to them, follow me, he wasn't just saying, physically follow me, or he wasn't just saying, embrace my teaching.

It was a, I want you to learn to think the way I think, to speak the way I speak, to act the way I act.

So if you were following a rabbi, you wanted to become like him.

And Luke 6.40 says, when a disciple or a learner or a student is fully trained, he will be just like his teacher.

So the goal isn't simply that you get direction, you follow a path and you follow teaching.

It's actually that you become more and more like Jesus Himself.

And so with that, we pick up the formal story in Luke chapter 5.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

I'll put it in your notes if you don't have your Bible with you.

It begins there at verse 1 and goes through verse 11.

From the context, we know that the early disciples, first, they just started hanging out with Jesus.

So in John chapter 1, Jesus walks by, and John the Baptist says, Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.

John 1 · chapter mention

And Peter, being a good follower of John the Baptist, says, Hey, hey, where are you staying?

And Jesus says, Come see.

And so they explored.

And then we learned from the early chapters of John that this followership was kind of part-time, and they started to hang out with Jesus.

They became friends.

They went to a wedding.

He was going to take a little trip.

So he took a little time off from work and went on a little part-time trip, and they went through Samaria and he got to see a revival there.

And so what you're going to read is someone who's been exploring, who actually believes Jesus is the Messiah, he's spending time with him, he's drawn to him.

And now we're going to find this sort of official moment where he's called by Jesus to be a full-time follower, to join a band of brothers who would embrace a message, align with the cause, and desire to become like Jesus and fulfill his mission.

Now it happened that while the crowd was pressing around him and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the lake, Genezaret, and he saw two boats lying on the edge of the lake, but the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets.

He got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and he asked him to put out a little way from the land.

And he sat down and began to teach the people from the boat.

He could have stood, but when a rabbi was teaching with authority, he would sit down.

He's speaking for God now.

So there's thousands of people.

When he'd finished speaking, he said to Simon, Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.

Simon answered and said, Master, we've worked all night and caught nothing.

But I will do as you say and let down the nets.

I mean, I think Peter's thinking, Rabbi, you're a really great teacher and you really know God's word.

And I I you don't know much about fishing.

The reason we get up, you know, before dark and come out is they get the fish here very down deep.

When the light comes up, they come up to feed.

We've been here, we've got nothing.

This is, you don't catch fish right now.

So there's a very important moment of this is logically impossible what's about to happen.

But he says, if you say so, okay.

When they'd done this, they were enclosed by a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to break.

So they signaled to the other partners in the boat for them to come and help them.

And they came and they filled both of the boats so that they began to sink.

But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus' feet and said, Go away, or literally depart from me, for I'm a sinful man.

For amazement had seized him and all his companions, because the catch of fish that they had taken.

And so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partnering with Simon.

And Jesus said to Simon, Do not fear.

From now on you'll be catching men.

And when they brought their boats to the land, they left everything and followed him.

Couple points to observe.

You know, sometimes when we feel like following Jesus, you know, really being committed, doing everything God wants us to do, I think there's a little bit of a, I'm gonna step up, a little bit like the few, the proud, and the marines, and God always demands a lot, and it's really hard and it's really difficult, but I guess I'll be one of those people.

Or on the other side, you think that's the way it sounds.

I don't think I really want to be one of those people.

You know, I like you, Jesus, but this is a bit much.

What was it that motivated Peter to follow?

He's a fisherman.

If he was in the Silicon Valley, it wouldn't have been fish.

He'd be doing a startup.

And within under a year, he would have a multi-billion dollar company.

He spoke in his language, it was his goodness, it was his power.

He believed he was the Messiah.

He'd heard his teaching, I mean, he just heard a message, likely the Sermon on the Mount.

But it was this generosity.

It was, if, if what you really want out of life is a lot of fish, or a lot of money, or a lot of fame, or a lot of likes, or a lot of stuff, or a house here and a house there, and a house there, and to get to drive this kind of car, if if that's really what you want, Pete, watch this.

And in that moment, what he realized is you're the author of life.

My real direction, what really matters, how I was made, the script that the eternal God of the universe has for me.

And he recognized as he got close, you are not only powerful and good, but you are holy.

I am not fit, I don't belong with someone as pure and holy and loving and generous.

And he says, Don't be afraid.

And did you notice they they left everything and followed him?

I don't think he felt like he was making a big sacrificial decision.

Although what we know is he was he was a very uh, he had business partners.

He was, we know Peter, at least of all the disciples, he's the only one we at least know for sure he was married, he's got a family.

This is a big moment motivated by God's goodness and power.

And I was thinking about um following, and I'll share some of the lessons as I've learned, but I thought, what exactly?

I mean, if you could read through all the gospels and sort of have it all in front of you, Jesus wants him to follow.

What does he want him to learn?

What does he want him to follow?

And so if you'll if you'll look on your notes, what I did is I gave you a quick little Bible study.

I'm just gonna sort of give you a highlight.

But the answer is the first thing he wanted them to learn was Jesus came, by the way, not as God, like with a Superman suit underneath and human flesh and acting like he was human, but whenever things got hard, he's really God.

No, no, no.

He was fully man who lived in complete dependency on the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit, and every miracle he did, every act of righteousness he did, he did as a fully human person without sin, dependent on the Father.

So he's going to say, How I lived and how I walked and what I did is exactly how I want to model it for you.

That's what rabbis do.

And so the first lesson he wanted Peter and us to learn is dependency.

John 5.30.

He says, By myself, these are the words of Jesus, I can do nothing.

I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself, but him who sent me.

As Peter followed him, and as we follow him, there'd be a big crowd, and all of a sudden he disappears.

In Mark chapter one, it's like hours and hours of teaching and healing and people crowding on, and a great while before dawn, where's Jesus?

And they go find him, and he's out by this lonely place.

He can't do this on his own.

He's talking to the Father.

Jesus modeled a fully dependent.

I can't do this without you, Father.

I need your power, Holy Spirit.

And he wanted the disciples to understand that.

Second, he wanted them to get in on his mission.

Jesus made his mission very clear.

Luke 19, 10 says, For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which is lost.

He wanted Peter to know, that's why I came and I want to help you be an instrument of mine to seek and save people.

They're lost, they're hurting, they're struggling.

The third thing he wanted them was to catch his heart.

Matthew 25, he said, When you see the marginalized, when you see someone in prison, when you see someone who's poor, when you see a leper, when you see someone with AIDS, when you see someone whose life is a train wreck, I want you to feel about them the way I feel about them.

And what Jesus did, he had compassion on them.

He said, When you do it to the least of these, you're actually doing it unto me.

He wanted Peter, this hardcore blue-collar fisherman, macho guy, to understand you need to be tender, you need to care about people.

God doesn't see as man sees.

Man looks on the outward appearance, God weighs the heart.

Peter, I want you to see that.

The next thing he wanted him to learn was his motives.

John 4, 34, Jesus said, My food, my motivation, what drives me is to do the will of God and to accomplish his work.

Not what people think, not what the culture says.

Peter, I want you to know that you know, if getting a lot of fish or being famous or being rich, I gave you that, if that's what you wanted, this is even better, this is bigger, this is more important.

My food, the motivation isn't that you use me to get your world figured out.

The motivation is that you understand that God's got a purpose and a plan.

And that's your drive, that's your motivation.

And then it's very interesting, Jesus wanted Peter to learn to die well.

I think I shared earlier, we uh do a lot of ministry in the Middle East, and uh we did some training for a group that we partner with, a couple hundred of their leaders from throughout the Middle East, and a number of the people that had come were from Iran and Iraq and some of the countries with it's the only go to be a follower of Jesus.

And this huge revival is happening in Iran, it's the fastest growing church in the world right now.

And as they were going back, the report we got from this group was the last thing they ask us, like, teach us really well, because they ask us, will you teach us to die well?

They understood that there's more to life than now.

They probably won't live very long by being a follower of Christ in Iran.

And it's just, and Jesus taught the disciples, unless a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it remains by itself alone.

But if it dies, it bears for much fruit.

And so part of his journey is he trained them and he taught and then he modeled, and then about the last 18 months, the goal was to put them into training so they would learn to die.

Now he died physically and then three days later rose from the dead, but they had to die to themselves.

They were gonna have to learn to take up their cross and their agenda and follow him, and it would be very unpopular.

And so that's part of what he's teaching them.

And are you ready for this?

He actually expected them to both think and believe that they should follow him in resurrection.

Luke 22, I put it in your notes here.

This is like the very last night, and they're they're ready to go into the last Passover, and Jesus is gonna wash their feet, and we're gonna have all that exciting stuff that happens.

And but as they're going in, they have a disagreement, and they're arguing about who is the greatest.

I mean, after three years of Jesus, they're still arguing about who's number one.

And Jesus gets them together, and he doesn't, he doesn't reprove them and say, you shouldn't be so ambitious, and why do you make want to make such a big impact?

And why do you want God made us to be that way?

But he says, let me tell you, there's a different way to get there.

He says to them, if you want to be great, be a servant.

If you want to be number one, actually be a slave and serve other people.

And then he says this crazy, crazy thing.

You kind of miss it.

He says, My father has conferred a kingdom on me, and I now confer a kingdom on you.

And these men have gone through it.

He knows he's going to die, he knows he's gonna rise from the dead, he knows what they're gonna go through in the future.

He says, I confer a kingdom on you to these eleven.

And he says, And you will rule with me in the resurrection, and you will be on thrones and help judge the 12 tribes.

He actually had a mindset that following him wasn't just temporal and wasn't just now, but a mindset of a future and a resurrection and what the Bible would teach about a new heaven and a new earth, and that you were a follower for eternity.

It's like I was joking uh last week when my wife was giving me a hard time.

Like, she says, Lessons from the first 50 years, do you think you're gonna live another 50?

I said, No, but I think I'm gonna be following Jesus for another 500 million or zillion, because after this body dies, I'll be resurrected and I will still be following, I'll still be learning.

So, what I want you to see now is is Peter's experience.

Because I think this is where the lessons get, and then I'll maybe share some things that you can identify with.

Uh I think sometimes we think, at least the way I grew up, um, these apostles and quote, people that were holy, they were all in stained glass.

I remember going to church.

We had this huge A-frame, and it was all stained glass, and you kind of have some pictures, and I just thought Peter and Paul, and you know, they just lived on another planet and they just had it all together.

Of course, I had never read the New Testament, but and and I just want to show you Peter, did you notice his first steps?

He just crawled like a baby, small in faith.

It was a a crawl.

Oh, John the Baptist said this, so where are you going?

He just explored.

Then he explored some more, and then he listened, and then he followed him around, and then he hung out with him, then he went to a wedding, and then he heard him teach, and then he realized you are the Messiah, and he came to personal faith.

And then it was, you know, part-time trying to take time off from work to be more and more around Jesus, and then now his crawl becomes a bit of a walk.

Okay, I'm going to leave my business, I'm going to leave my family for a season, and I'm going to join this band of brothers to go into training to fulfill this mission and become just like this rabbi.

And so he leaves his boats.

And he's making really good progress.

And then a little bit later, remember, he stands in the ministry.

Someone in the midst of it says, uh, Jesus says to his disciples, Okay, I'm doing all these miracles, all these teachings.

Who do people say that I am?

Remember this?

And they say, Oh, some think John the Baptist raised from the dead, others an Old Testament prophet.

And Jesus says, No, no, no, no.

Who do you say that I am?

And Peter says, You're the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

And he goes, Peter, that's not from you.

The Father revealed that to you.

So I mean, he's declaring, he's getting it.

And what's interesting is right after some of our biggest sort of great moments are often some of our lowest moments.

Maybe some of you understand.

Remember what happened next?

Shortly after Jesus talked about, now I'm gonna go.

It's getting near the end of the ministry, I'm gonna die, you know, three days later.

And Peter takes him aside, may it never be.

You know, you can't die.

See, Peter's got this picture of you're gonna take down Rome, you're gonna clean up the Jewish system, there's gonna be 12 thrones, I'm gonna be one of your right hand guys.

I mean, you're the Messiah, you're the king, you're gonna make everything right, and you're gonna do it right now.

And Jesus, remember his words get behind me.

Satan.

And do you remember his explanation?

Because you have the things of man on your mind instead of the things of God.

In other words, here's here's what here's what Peter had in mind.

And it's so subtle, and boy, I've been so guilty of it personally.

What Peter, I mean, he's sincere, right?

He's got the right doctrine, he believes.

He's already made a huge sacrifice.

I mean, he left family, left his business, how much more committed?

And yet, what he wanted was the crown without the cross.

What he wanted was, I want Jesus, and I want to be a part of his team, but I want him to make my world work out the way I want it.

But this crazy talk about you dying and all that, that's and I don't know about you, but I get that way.

In fact, I think it's happened much in this country and some places around the world where we actually think that Jesus came and died, paid the price for our sin, rose from the dead, and we believe and trust in him.

And if we'll kind of do what's right, his whole goal is to make us happy and work things out for us.

So we'll follow him.

And if we follow him, then we won't get sick, and he'll give us money, and our marriages will be great, and our kids will all turn out right.

And and he never said, he said, no, no, no, no.

I want you to follow me, and I want you to fulfill my agenda.

And Peter blew it on this one, and then he went from stumbling where he fell.

He betrayed him, right?

Everyone else will, I'll never, I'll never.

I mean, flat on his face.

And then he crawls again.

It's interesting that the scripture is really clear that after the resurrection, remember, he appears to Mary, and then the text says in 1 Corinthians 15 that he appeared to the twelve, but he appeared to Peter privately.

I think he basically just said, Peter, I forgive you.

And I don't know about you, but I've done some things that I know are so wrong, so bad, the opposite of what I knew God wanted me to do.

And I've gone through Christ and I've prayed and asked for forgiveness, and I've known I've been forgiven, but I don't feel very much like I'm worth anything or God could ever do much with my life.

And so after he crawls back in forgiveness, he begins to walk where Jesus restores him.

John chapter 21.

John 21 · chapter mention

He builds a fire.

Peter goes back to fishing.

He comes in and he asks those three questions.

Peter, do you love me?

Peter, do you love me?

Peter, do you love me?

And he reinstates him, feed my lambs, feed my lambs, feed my sheep.

And he did it in such a way where he wanted Peter to own, yes, you blew it.

You you you were confident in yourself and you messed up.

That doesn't mean I've given up on you.

And then you find where Peter starts to run.

He preaches the first message, he becomes one of the great leaders of the church.

And that's the that's the pattern.

And so I I've just encourage you if uh if you look up these verses maybe this week, do a little study.

And then I encourage you to think about your own life.

Where when did I start crawling?

And when have I walked and when have I stumbled?

And and so I told you, you know, last time that I came to Jesus at that fellowship of Christian Athletes Camp.

I didn't really know much, but he said, He's standing at the door of my heart.

If I would open the door and put my faith in him, he would come into my life, forgive my sin, take up residence.

He did.

And uh my my desires started to change, and I had a joy that I'd never, never experienced.

I could not put the Bible down.

I hid it under my pillow.

And then within a couple months, I went away to college.

And I went away to college mostly to play basketball and maybe get an education on the side.

And uh I thought, you know, I didn't have, I didn't really know what a Christian was because I'd rejected religion and my church experience.

And so I had one small little poster that I can't remember the picture, but it said to the glory of God.

I thought, I didn't know what that meant exactly, but but I put that one poster up and I and I put my Bible, I put it on my dresser, and it's those old school rooms where you know two people roomed.

I thought, I don't know what my roommate is, where he's coming from, but you know, I've this is who I am, and I'm not ashamed of being a Christian.

And so uh as a guy walked by and it was an athletic dorm, and he kind of knocked on the door and said, Hey, what's up?

And he was the fullback on the football team.

And he saw my little poster, he said, You a Christian?

And I it's like my first time, I said, Well, yeah.

I didn't know one was, but yeah, you know, and he goes, Well, hey, you're coming with me tonight, we're gonna go to a Bible study.

So we uh so it was a tiny, tiny little town where you could you could walk, and it had just one bar and a little red church and a little white church.

I mean, tiny area in West Virginia, but a beautiful, kind of beautiful campus up on this big hill, and uh three or four or five thousand students, something like that, but a lot of commuters, and and so we walk uptown and we meet Dave the bricklayer.

And um, I'd never been to a Bible study before, and it was me and the fullback and two other guys, and I didn't know what to expect.

All I can tell you was it was pretty boring.

Uh the guy, the bricklayer was like, you know, some people were really charismatic.

He was very non-charismatic.

Um, he had a high school education.

Um, down to earth would be an understatement.

Uh and I thought, well, you know, this is interesting.

And so I, you know, I went back because the fullback said I should, and he was really big, so I obeyed him.

And and and and I remember Dave said, Hey, would you like to learn to study the Bible?

And I I didn't, wasn't really attracted to the guy, but it, you know, it's kind of like it's like saying I'm a swimmer and someone says, Would you like to learn to swim?

You sort of feel obligated.

And so I said, Oh, sure.

You know, so he on Tuesday mornings would come at seven o'clock and he would come and um teach me how to study the Bible.

There was a little kitchenette on the floor, and we'd go there and he'd open the Bible.

And again, it was not dynamic, it was not exciting.

He would just open, we'd read a little bit, he'd ask me a few questions, and you know, I didn't I'd never prayed out loud before.

And so, like he would pray and I would sort of mumble a couple things, and um and and so I was crawling, and then I was starting to walk, and then basketball season started, and you know, background history here.

I went this school, it had a great dental hygienist program.

So, what that created was a huge demand for for mostly women.

So there were four girls to every guy on our campus, which is really amazing.

In uh the mid-1970s, in the at the peak of the sexual revolution.

So, I mean, everybody was sleeping with everyone.

You could be ugly and get lots of dates, you know.

So um I was in, you know, this is a great place to be.

And now I have these new basketball friends, and you know, you you want to kind of make the traveling teams a freshman and you want them to like you.

And so, you know, I'm playing a lot of basketball and working out really hard, and there's little things like going to class.

And so I was starting sort of to crawl, to walk.

I took a stand, and then then I'm starting to stumble.

And I go on Thursday night, and pretty soon they have they called it a rally, and there was maybe 20, 30 kids and you know, sitting on the floor and playing the guitar and singing and saying Jesus out loud, and it's just like, you know, where am I?

You know, this is like the outer limits, but something there's a real sense of God's presence, and you know, that that bricklayer would get up and kind of read a little bit from the Bible, and I would heard these different people in their lives and how they'd come to Jesus and they they cared, they loved, and and and something was just drew me to it.

And and then that was Thursday night, and then Friday the guys on the team said, Hey, we're going down to Wheeling, gonna hit a few bars, and you're coming.

Yeah, you know, so you know, I'm in the car with the guys, and because my father was an alcoholic, at least I didn't drink just because I saw what that did, but I had the people skills, so I would be the guy that introduces to all the cute girls and all the bars, and we'd bar hop, and you know, I'd get home at you know two or three in the morning and Friday and Saturday night, and sometimes you know, I made it to church maybe once a month, and then I'd go to Bible study and get all fired up, and then I'd go hit the bars on Friday and Saturday, and and then I, you know, all I can tell you was my life was like I was schizophrenic, and I couldn't have been more sincere, and Dave would come and knock on my door, and it'd be like, I'd pretend I was asleep, like I do not want to meet with that bricklayer.

And then I'd go on Thursday night, and God would speak to me, and I'd remember where I was and what a phony I used to be, and now he'd see me start to play some of those games again, and then with Christian friends, I put on this face, and then in the basketball guys, I put on this face, and with girls, I put on this face, and and I found myself reverting back to a lot of the old, and it was um it was stumble, stumble, stumble.

And I was miserable.

And I just had one foot, honestly, with the Lord and one foot in the world, and I felt like there was a horse pulling me in both directions, and I just felt guilty a great majority of the time.

And then internally, when I wasn't doing things that I knew were wrong, I was just uh we all have our issues.

I I just uh I just felt like lust was something I just couldn't overcome.

I mean, I know I was supposed to have pure thoughts, and um we'd sit as a basketball team.

There was a cafeteria on the bottom floor of uh the freshman girls' dorm, and it had like six levels, and so they would come in to get their food, and we were just crass, you know, 3.2, 8.9, right every girl very specifically, and it was just ugly and crude, and and I'd feel guilty, and then I would pray, and then I'd ask God to forgive me, and I would I just remember get on my nose.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll never do that again, I'll never do that again, I'll never do that again until the next day when I did it again.

And and finally I went from stumble to uh to fall, and I just decided I I guess I can't live this life.

And I'm you know, I grew up a bunch of hypocrites, and I'm now one.

And so I um I took my Bible and I opened a drawer and I put it in the drawer and I took down my little poster, and literally it was almost this formal.

Dear God, it's Chip again.

Thanks for everything you did.

I really do believe in you, but I can't hack it.

I'm done.

I quit.

I'm not a Christian anymore.

I'm not gonna read the Bible, I'm not gonna try and be good, I'm not gonna go to Bible study.

I just want to officially resign.

Um I didn't know.

I didn't know, you know, if you could do that or not, but I did it.

And um, and so I went about my day and got up the next day, and you know, I lusted like normal, and I did the same thing with the same, and then I still I felt guilty and I felt this conviction.

And it was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I just went, Michael, Gabriel, can you get the message up?

I'm done.

I'm out.

I don't and I remember talking to an older guy, and he goes, Uh, so you quit, huh?

I said, Yeah, but how come God keeps messing with me?

I mean, I'm done.

I can't, I can't live this life.

I'm I'm a failure.

And um he said, Well, can I ask you something?

I said, sure.

He said, when before you were a Christian, you you you sinned, obviously, like we all do, yes.

And we he named a few very specific sins we were both familiar with.

They said, Did you enjoy that?

I said, Absolutely.

He said, Did you feel guilty afterwards?

I said, a little, not much.

I thought actually he's a pretty good guy.

I always compare myself to other people who are like axe murderers and stuff.

And I thought, you know, I'm no Billy Graham, but you know, I'm not an axe murderer, so you know.

And um, he said, Well, well, when you sin now, and we were pretty specific, he said, Um, how do you feel?

I said, Well, while I'm sinning, I feel pretty good.

But afterwards, it's terrible.

It's just a weight of guilt.

And and and he says, Well, that's really good news.

I said, Why is that?

He says, Because when the Spirit of God comes into your life and seals you, he's a jealous God.

You're his son.

And then he took me to this passage in um in 2 Timothy.

It says, this is a trustworthy statement.

If we died with him, we'll also live with him.

If we endure with him, we'll also reign with him.

If we disown him, he'll disown us.

In other words, I've said, you know, God, I forget it.

Then okay, no blessing.

If we are faithless, he remains faithful because he cannot deny himself.

He said, Chip, do you remember when you prayed and he's standing at the door and he died for your sins and said if you would open the door, he would come into your life?

And you said yes, yeah.

Who else said yes?

I said, Jesus.

He said, He keeps his commitments.

So, Chip, that's why there's a lot of verses about God's discipline.

He doesn't throw people out of the family, he brings the velvet vice of discipline.

You're going to be miserable.

And if if your misery doesn't get you to turn around and get on the right path, then he'll allow you to be more miserable.

And I thought, oh, come on.

And and my God was basketball.

I didn't realize it was really me.

Basketball was just the cover.

But I had this, I'm going to be this great player, and you know, someday I had the Peter, you know, oh, it'd be 25 points a game, and afterwards I thought, it's all Jesus.

It's all Jesus, you know.

You know, I wanted Jesus to make my life work out so I could be a great someone.

Basketball was just my idol.

And so freshman year, uh gosh, made the traveling team, uh, started to get into the rotation as a freshman and stress fracture in my foot.

There goes that year.

Next year, it's my year.

I'm gonna be a sophomore, I'm really gonna do it.

And I played baseball as well.

I came out of the batter's box in in uh fall baseball, getting ready, and pulled uh my quad from the top all the way out.

There goes year number two, uh, year number three.

I I it was literally uh, it was literally like the vice of okay, as long as you know you're gonna think that basketball is your God, with uh this girlfriend or so on the side, in his kindness, he just kept.

And I remember uh my great lordship moment, I would love to say, was um, you know, this deep, I really want to respond in ways.

And I remember coming to the point where I realized um God loves me so much that He will not let me have my own way.

And I can keep going the way I am, and I suppose I can harden my heart, the Bible talks about getting to where you can actually sear your conscience.

And I just remember saying, Okay, Lord, I all I know is in my strength, in my power, with my willpower, with my best efforts, I can't live this Christian life.

I can't have pure thoughts.

Um I'm a hypocrite and I know it, and I'm in desperate need of help.

And that hitting bottom was the turning point in my life.

I can't do it.

What I would learn a little bit later was how to abide, that we'll talk about next week, and how God gives us power to live the life because no one can.

In fact, you might jot this down if you haven't taken any notes.

You can just write this down.

The Christian life is not hard.

Somemicolon.

It's impossible.

The only one that could live it is Jesus.

And the Christian life is not seeing how Jesus lived or what he said and trying hard to be like that.

The Christian life is being connected to him by the power of the Holy Spirit, undergirded by the Word of God in the context of deep, authentic community, where the life of Christ is actually produced inside of you and is lived out through you and your personality and your gifts and your world.

In fact, there's a there's a picture when I was in the midst of all of this, and the guy told me, Well, the good news is that you feel such conviction, you really are a believer.

And he said, The bad news is that you're going about it all wrong and you're trying to fake it.

And so he uh the next picture is um he said, This is just a little picture.

He said, This is a journey.

In fact, what I hope you get is in Peter's life, did you notice he crawled, he walked, he stumbled, he fell, he crawled.

As you follow Jesus with all your heart, you know, it's it's a patchwork affair.

There's there's no one's life is up and to the right.

You're not gonna meet someone somewhere, somewhere that just has got it all together and loves God and is in his word and is caring and has Christ-like character and doesn't, everybody has issues.

Everyone came, are you ready from a dysfunctional family?

Except for Adam and Eve.

And after chapter three, they got dysfunctional in a hurry and passed it on to all of us.

And he said, Here's the deal, Chip.

He says, Well, I'll help you.

But Christ doesn't want to be like a part of your life to help you get your stuff done.

You do understand he is at the center of the universe.

He is the Lord of Lord and the King of kings, and every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess.

He spoke the galaxies into existence.

By his word, all things hold together.

He is the icon or the image of the invisible God.

It was his pleasure that all the fullness dwells in Jesus.

Jesus is at the peak, the preeminence of all things, and he has to have the same place in your heart that he has in the universe.

So that's where we begin.

But the way that happens isn't just by trying hard.

He's giving us his word.

Man shan't live by bread alone, but by every word.

His word is powerful.

It's not about you read the little Bible and, you know, I read three chapters today.

It's the written word becoming the living word that's sharper than a two-edged sword and piercing the vision of soul and spirit and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of your heart and can bring about change.

And then he wants you to talk to him, not just read little prayers like you used to, but I mean be authentic.

He's near to the broken heart and those who say who are crushed in spirit.

He wants you to be real.

The moment you're real, no matter where you're at and you're really honest, he'll rush to meet you.

And then he said, like this fellowship, no one can do this.

Chip, you're struggling.

Guess what?

Every Christian you meet, if they got honest for three minutes, you would all say, I'm struggling here, you're struggling there, we're struggling here.

It's a fallen world.

And we have the enemy, we have our own distorted desires, and we have a world system that's positioned to pull us away from our first love.

So you desperately need these people.

It'sn't about coming to meetings.

It's not about just being in a Bible study, it's about this connection from the heart.

Where in desperation you pull back the masks and you allow the Spirit of God and the Word of God, an authentic community to birth this life and this strength.

And then what happens is that that flows.

You don't have to go try and tell everybody about this or that.

When your life is changing like that, people will begin to ask you about the hope that's in you.

And this outer circle is for the rest of your life.

As you hear God's voice from a prompting, from his word, through the words of someone, then you you learn to obey.

And you say, I can't.

And you say, Okay, so Lord, I'm gonna trust your promise.

I'm going to take this step.

And actually, all next week we're gonna talk about what it means and how you abide so this operates in our life.

See, the invitation that he gave Peter, now he gives to us.

He invites you and me to follow him.

And he was saying to them all and to us, if anyone wishes to come after me, listen, he must deny himself, take up his cross how often?

Daily, and follow me.

And then he here he gives the reason.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it.

But whoever will lose his life for my sake, he will save it.

For what will it profit if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

And and the context here is not even so much about eternity.

He's talking to people about being disciples.

I wanted to use Jesus to make me this quote somebody so people would like me, that was all my family script, to get Jesus and use him so I could be a someone to make me happy and successful and all the rest.

And Jesus said, You have to die to that.

You have to die to thinking the next job, the startup, the girl, the marriage, the kids if we can finally have them, the house, whatever it is, you have to die to that.

Deny yourself, take up your cross and say, You love me and you know what's Best.

You're the way.

I want to follow you on this path.

And what matters most is you.

And what he promises is when you do that, and as we do that, all these other things seek first his kingdom, his agenda, and his righteousness.

And all the other things will be added to you.

But it's but you really gotta have first things in first place.

And what I what I found out was uh little by little, I uh I actually found out that bricklayer wasn't so uncool.

I I share that he he just went to be with the Lord this last year, and maybe his wife will get to hear it.

Um I I share how uncool and how undynamic is because I think we're living in a world that's so about flash and not substance.

So much about facade and fame and and you know you know what he did?

He wouldn't give up on me.

An older guy told him, you know, Ingram is a loser, he's a flake.

Dave, you're wasting your time.

But Dave wouldn't quit.

He just kept coming on Tuesday morning.

And it wasn't like he wanted me in a Bible study or want to be some Christian goody two shoes.

And he he invited me up, and I found myself a couple times a week at times eating around his table.

And I came from a dysfunctional family from about 13 to 17.

My dad was gone.

Thank God for coaches.

He was just gone.

I didn't know what a man was.

And I sat around Dave's table and I watched, what do families do?

They eat meals together like this.

And then I watched him come down smelling with all this cologne with a tie on.

I mean, this is a blue-collar hardcore guy.

His hands were so rough, it was like shaking hands with a lobster from from laying this brick.

And he was this manly man and he had a tie on the coat.

What are you doing?

He goes, I'm going on a date.

I said, with who?

He said, Who do you think, Polly, my wife?

And what a man goes on a date with his wife?

I watched my parents for 20 years.

I I didn't see them ever go on a date.

I I rarely saw them hug.

I rarely saw, I mean, what what is this?

And then I watched him with his kids.

I watched him with me.

And then I worked part-time with him and I saw how he treated people.

Then I remember being in the truck with him, and someone was broke down, it's pouring rain, and he pulls over and he gets on his clothes underneath his things and fix this guy's car.

And I just, he showed when I got done with my three or four years around Dave, this uncool guy had this impact on me.

I wanted to be a man like Dave someday.

I wanted to be a Christian like Dave.

I wanted to be, I wanted instead of my life and how I was living it, with oh, how many people could you date?

I wanted someday, somehow, to have a poly, and God gave me it when I said no to the junk and yes to that.

And then I wanted to, I wanted to have the kind of marriage that he had.

I wanted to be the kind of dad that he was.

I wanted to be the kind of person that cared the way he cared.

It was just so attractive.

And he wasn't cool, and it wasn't external.

It was the beauty coming out from inside of him.

And he was this just down-to-earth guy that read his Bible and loved people and cared about me.

And from that little group of three or four, we grew to about 250 in Bible study in the next two or three years.

And I could tell you of people like myself and others and every continent around the world, that we take our spiritual lineage back to a bricklayer with a high school education who just followed Jesus and basically never said it out loud, but just follow Jesus the way I do.

And I will tell you, there's not enough money, there's not enough fame, there's not enough likes, there's not enough esteem, there's not enough success in all the world that will ever deliver the invitation that Jesus delivers.

Follow me, and I will make you a fisher of men.

To discover why you're on this earth, to crawl and walk and stumble and fall and mess up and get back up and allow God to even take the worst things you've done and reorient them around his grace to love the people and see him work through you the way Dave did in me.

I will tell you there's nothing better.

Nothing more glorious.

Next week we'll learn how do you abide, how do you stay connected so this happens?

Lord, thank you for Dave, for Jesus, for Peter, for awakening.

Thank you that you uh that you invite us to follow you.

And that you create something beautiful in us and through us, and that you're patient with us.

As we close out, could you just ask Jesus very personally right where you're sitting, Lord Jesus, would you show me just the next baby step in my personal life?

Will you show me what it looks like to follow you?

Just today.

What would the what the next baby step look like?

And as you say yes, God will meet you and he'll show you, and he'll empower you.

Amen.

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