The Twelve Luke 9:1-27

Luke chapter 9.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

In just a moment, we're going to stand in reading honor of reading God's Word, but we're going to be in Luke chapter 9.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

And the passage that we're going to read, we're going to cover the first few paragraphs of the chapter this morning, but the passage we're going to read it starts in verse 23.

So Luke chapter 9, verse 23.

Luke 9:23

You'd stand with me, please, in honor of reading God's Word.

Luke chapter 9, beginning in verse 23.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

And he was saying to them all, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, he is the one who will save it.

For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

But I say to you truthfully, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.

Would you pray with me, please?

Lord, I thank you for your word, and I thank you for the way you speak and the way you move.

I thank you for these young men and their commitment to you and our being able to testify to that conversion in baptism.

Lord, I pray that you would give us wisdom and ears to hear as you speak through your word.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

Thank you.

Please be seated.

You've been with us from the beginning of the year.

We started in the Gospel of Luke, and we're mid-October, and here we are in chapter 9.

So um so if you had any plans for the next few years, now you know what they are.

So but I wanted to take you back to the very beginning of the Gospel and just remind you of why Dr.

Luke wrote this and how it impacts what we're going to talk about this morning.

Luke chapter 1 in verse 1, it says, Inasmuch as many undertook undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those, here it is, handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the Word.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

It seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.

So just in context, this is Dr.

Luke.

He wasn't a disciple, he was a second generation, so to speak.

So you go back to Luke chapter 9, and here we have the ministry of the twelve and what they did as we begin.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

He called the twelve together, Luke chapter nine, verse one, and gave them a power and authority over all the demons to heal diseases.

And he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to perform healing.

So he's bringing the twelve that he's appointed back in chapter six.

He got them all lined up, we know who they are, and now he is bringing them together so that he can send them out.

And catch this in verse one and verse two, what he's doing.

He gives them the power and authority over all the demons and to heal diseases.

And then in verse two, he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to perform healing.

So as a follower of Jesus, what he is doing with these disciples, what he is doing with these twelve is he's sending them out to proclaim and to perform.

The proclaim, verse two, is the kingdom of God.

The perform, verse one, is so that he could they could have power to perform the healing in verse two of understanding the diseases as well as the power and authority over all the demons in terms of the spiritual realm.

You keep going in the passage and look at how he puts it together as he's going.

He said in verse three, he said to them, Take nothing for your journey, neither a staff, nor a bag, nor bread, nor money, and do not even have two tunics apiece.

Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that city.

And as for those who do not receive you, as you go out from that city, shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.

Departing, they began going out through the throughout the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere, preaching and proclaiming, proclaiming and performing, doing what they were called to do as followers of Christ.

Now, this is, and I know that I'm about to be Captain Obvious to you, but this is two thousand years ago.

This is disciples, these are disciples who are following Jesus Christ in the flesh, walking with him and watching him and learning from him.

And now he is he is on the job training saying, I want you to go out, and what I've been doing, as I've been healing, Jesus speaking to his disciples, as I've been healing, as I've had authority over the demonic, over as I have proclaimed the kingdom of God, I want you to do the same thing.

Now we're not 2,000 years ago, but we do have some principles that we can take from this and say, wait a minute, just like them, we're supposed to be preaching and performing.

We're supposed to be about the spiritual and the physical aspects of those that are around us.

So just like the disciples from so many years ago, you and I, as followers of Jesus Christ, we have the honor and the privilege of looking at every person that we meet eyeball to eyeball, and we have a double burden, first and foremost, is their spiritual condition before a holy God, because they need Jesus.

And I don't say that just as a simplistic, trite thing to say.

I mean for their eternal security, for their abundant living, for their ability to be freed from the bondage of slavery of sin, so that death can be conquered.

All of that and so much more, the gospel, they need Jesus.

And in the midst of that, he says, now, as you're proclaiming the kingdom, the number one thing, I want you to remember that they have needs.

They have physical needs.

You're gonna heal, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna do exorcisms where the demonic is gonna be taken care of.

You're gonna be used by me to do that.

Now, don't get twisted up in this.

That's not our main thing, but it is a thing.

We are going to go in just a few months, we're going to go to Atlanta and we're gonna help pack boxes because we care about the children and we want to give them things and we want them to be supported and provided for, and we care about the hungry, we care about those in need.

That's part of our mandate, that's part of who we are as believers.

But please don't get those things mixed up.

You can feed a belly for the rest of their life, but they could go to hell without Jesus Christ as Savior.

They need Jesus and they need to be taken care of physically.

Both of those things happening.

Now, as he's going through this, what I love is he's saying, as I'm sending you, verse one, he gave them power and authority.

He gave them the ability, the might to do what they needed to do, and he gave them the right, the authority to do what they were supposed to do.

It's the Great Commission.

Go into all the land.

Go, go and make disciples because of his authority, because of what he's telling us to do, and he's not cruel, he's not mean, he's not saying, I'm gonna tell you to do it, but I'm not gonna give you the resources to do it.

He says, I'm gonna give you both the power and the authority, the might and the right, so that you can do it according to my will for God's glory as you're reaching those around you.

Now, as he's continuing this, I love the way that this is happening because as they're preaching, as they're proclaiming, as they're telling the good news of the kingdom of God, back in verse 7, Herod the Tetrarch heard of all that was happening.

So they were preaching so they did a good job.

They were do they were preaching so much that Herod heard about it.

He was greatly perplexed, because it was said by some that John had risen from the dead, and by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the prophets of old had risen again.

Herod said, I myself had John beheaded, but who is this man about whom I hear such things?

And he kept trying to see him.

Now, if you're still alive when we finally get to the passage later in the Gospel of Luke, you're going to tongue in cheek, it's just going to be forever.

But we're going to get to a point where Herod is going to have Jesus come into his presence, and Pilate's going to send him to him, and Jesus is not going to say a word to Herod.

It's the only person in the scripture that we have that Jesus did not say one word to, and we are going to deal with that when we get to it.

But you understand, at this point, he's hearing, he's curious, he wants to know what's going on, and he still doesn't understand what's happening.

And in just a few minutes, in a few verses, Peter's going to address that as well.

You keep going in the passage, verse 12.

I mean in verse 10.

The apostles, when they returned, they gave an account to him of all that they had done, taking with them, taking them with him, he withdrew by himself to a city called Besseda.

But the crowds were aware of this and followed him, and welcoming them, he began speaking to them about the kingdom of God and curing those who had need of healing.

So they go, they come back.

When they get back, they start telling Jesus, you can almost see it like a kid who comes home with his first good report card.

They come back and they said, You won't believe what just happened.

You won't believe what we saw.

You won't believe what God did.

And as they're giving testimony and they're praising Jesus and all of that, Jesus takes them with him.

They withdraw.

The idea is that they get a little bit of rest in verse 10.

And then if you're with me in verse 11, the crowds, they saw that and they came anyway.

But Jesus, being merciful, being gracious, being loving, being the shepherd, he welcomed them in and he continued doing what he had taught his disciples to do, to proclaim the kingdom of God, heal as well as preach, curing those who had need of healing.

There's a lot in that.

You continue in verse 12.

Now the day was ending.

So they had been through all the experience of walking with Jesus, of the testimony of being used by him and seeing God work.

And if you have ever been in a circumstance where you have been an instrument in God's hands, you realize how little it has to do with you and how much it has to do with him.

And they come back, they celebrate, they've come back together, and now they're out in the middle of nowhere.

They don't have any food.

Verse 12, the day was ending.

The twelve came to him and said, Send the crowd away that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside and find lodging and get something to eat, for here we are in a desolate place.

But he said to them, hang on, he said to them, You give them something to eat.

How about that?

And they said, We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless perhaps we go and buy food for all these people.

They had literally, both metaphorically and and and physically, been used by the creator of the universe to heal diseases, to cure the sick, to cast out demons, to proclaim the kingdom of God.

And at the end of the day, I don't know if this ever happens to you, but at the end of the day, they didn't connect the dots and say, well, maybe the same God who provided yesterday might be able to provide today.

Maybe the same Jesus who has me on on the job training, teaching me and discipling me and using me back then, maybe he wants to use me now too.

Maybe he wants to be about the Father's business so that I can make an impact.

Isn't it funny?

When things get tough, we get pragmatic.

When things get rough, we start to think in just dollars and cents and calendar and time.

We don't really, we don't, we it's almost like we lose, it's a spiritual amnesia, if you will, where we we forget that we're still serving Jesus, we're still his disciple, we're still about his business, it's still about the kingdom, proclamation and performing, it's still about being in his agenda and being on mission with him.

But but when the but when the tough times come, when when things get a little complicated, when when things get a little bit out of out of whack and and relationships get messy, and people don't do what you think they ought to be doing, and and the the doctor comes back with that diagnosis or that schedule fell through or the promotion didn't happen or fill in the blank, then all of a sudden, whoa, we start wringing our hands.

What are we gonna do?

What are we gonna do when the resources don't seem to meet the need?

We just say, Well, we're just gonna have to take out a loan.

We're just gonna have to go borrow some more money.

We're just gonna have to figure out how to do.

Obviously, God, the creator of the universe, can take care of everything.

We move and breathe and have our very existence because of his will and by his grace, but we're gonna have to go in debt because obviously he doesn't know about this issue, he doesn't know about this need, he doesn't care about this.

Be real careful about learning the discipleship from the disciples and following everything they did.

Because you're at a point now where Jesus, he's looking at them and saying, Hey, um you take care of this, you feed them, you give them something to eat.

As he after he says that in verse 13, they said, We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless perhaps we go and buy food for all these people.

For there were about five thousand men.

That's just the men, not counting the the wives, the children, the family members.

And with just a few loaves and a few fish, do you want us to feed all of these people?

That's that's not possible.

So we're sent out to proclaim and to perform.

And by perform, I don't mean the negative, the critical where we're just an act.

I mean we are used by God as his instrument, but we're also sent out to receive and to give.

You see, the beauty of the gospel is that Jesus doesn't ever send you somewhere where he doesn't equip you along the way.

He doesn't ask you to give something that he hasn't already given to you first.

He doesn't ask you to love your brother because until and after he has loved you first.

He doesn't ask you to give of the kingdom of God and the proclamation and the healing until he has helped you first.

And so what he's doing here, he's saying, I'm gonna show you how this works.

This once again, on-the-job training.

They had the same power, they had the same authority, but now in the midst of all this, in the in the face of real physical hunger, he says, I'm gonna show you how this works.

You continue in verse 14.

He said to his disciples, have them sit down and in to eat in groups of about 50 each.

Now, I unfortunately have spent way too much thinking about this, okay?

And I don't mean that I I've spent time studying, but then I got to I got to just I got to contemplating.

I have way too much time on my hands, obviously, but I got to thinking, okay, so I'm a disciple, and I've got just a handful of bread and a handful of fish, and I'm pretty sure that I could eat all of this just by myself.

And he wants me to take these thousands of people and put them in groups of 50.

And I'm thinking, maybe a few crumbs for the first group, but that's it.

That's all we got.

So you want me to be cruel to the especially the people on the other side of the of the of the plain, the in the desolate place on the other side of the mountain.

You've got those people over there, and they could see us, they're gonna see us passing this out, and they're gonna know by the time we get to them, sorry, too little, too late.

You were on the wrong side of the mountain.

You should have been closer to Jesus.

I told you to sit up front.

You always sit in the back.

You should have sat up front.

Anyway, we we're gonna disappoint these people, they're gonna get mad at me.

Jesus is gonna make fun of.

I can't, this is terrible, and there's there, I that's that was all my imagination.

I have no idea what they really thought.

But come back to the real truth.

Here's the passage.

He tells them, after giving them something to eat, having them sit down in groups about 58, 50 each, in verse 15, they did so and had them all sit down.

I can't even imagine.

Then he took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up in heaven, he blessed them and broke them and kept giving them to the disciples to set before the people.

How about that?

It wasn't Jesus, you got it.

It'll take you some time, but please pass out the bread.

I mean, this is your miracle.

It's all coming from you.

To God be the glory.

You take that bread and you take that fish.

It's gonna take you a little bit of time to get around to 5,000 people plus their family.

But that's okay because everybody will give you the credit and you'll be glorified.

That's not what the scripture says.

He brings everything right here.

He takes that bread, that fish, and he says, What's going to happen is I'm going to provide.

Do you see where this is going?

I hope.

I hope, please, I hope you see where this is going.

I'm going to provide, and I want you to be my distributors.

I want you to be the ones who tell them, to give them, to provide for them.

And you know, and I know, and you better tell them along the way, that isn't your pocketbook, it isn't your bread, it isn't you the one that has provided all of this.

It's God.

And so what happens is in the economy of God, in the wonder of his plan, you and I actually get to be in on miracle after miracle after miracle.

We get to receive so that we can give.

And that means just like we're dependent upon his power and authority, we're also dependent upon his resources.

You see, you have to trust him every step of the way.

You can't give what you haven't received.

And if you have a lot of responsibilities, a lot of a lot of expectations, and you're low on resources, you've got to realize that before this even happened, Jesus already had the problem solved.

Before it even came on the radar, before you even considered the idea, how are we going to feed all these people?

He already knew the answer to that.

He had already provided for the answer for that.

Okay, keep going in the passage.

Luke chapter 9, pick it up in verse 18.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

He's going to teach them a few other things.

It happened while that while he was praying alone, the disciples were with him.

Did you catch that?

Praying alone, and the disciples were with him.

And he questioned them, saying, Who did the people say that I am?

Now, just a few verses earlier, we we rushed through, and I'm going to hit it again next week.

We rushed through Herod's questions, and look at how that the answer is going to be very similar.

They answered and said, John the Baptist, and others say Elijah, but others that one of the prophets of old has risen again.

But here's the question, verse 20.

He said to them, But who do you say that I am?

You've seen the miracles, you've seen, you've seen what I've accomplished, you've seen, you've heard the sermons, you've you've heard the kingdom of God, you've seen the dead raised, you've seen the lame walk, you've seen the blind be able to see, you've seen all that I've done, you've seen what I've proclaimed.

Now I'm going to ask you point blank, verse 20, who do you say that I am?

That's a really good question.

And Peter has a really good answer.

The Christ of God.

And then in verse 21, he warned them and instructed them not to tell this to anyone, saying, The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised up on the third day.

He was sent out, we are sent out to question and to answer.

So you understand what he what he's doing here.

He says, I want you to have this main thing, the main thing, who he is, Christ of God.

He is the Son of God and the Messiah.

And as you understand that, and you focus on that, you understand who he is and what he is about, then others are going to have their opinions.

Others are going to have their ideas.

But you and I, as followers of Jesus, we're dependent upon that one question, that one answer.

We are dependent upon his purpose for their lives.

So this is where I'm taking this.

So hang on for just a second, and let me see if I can wrap this up real quick.

Have you ever been in a conversation?

I feel like Jeff Foxworthy when I do that.

Do you know a breathneck?

But anyway, have you ever been in a conversation with someone?

And they have some great information, but the question you have, they're not even close to answering.

I mean, you could you could go on and on and on, and you can try to get to the root of what they what you want to know from them, and you ask them question after question after question, and they are a fount of information, but you have no clue if they're even close to answering the question you have.

And so what Jesus does when he brings his disciples closer in, when they're in the inner circle and they're spending time in prayer and in worship and trying to kind of rest a little bit from what all's happened the last few weeks, last through a few months, he brings them in and says, Okay, I want you to tell me what people are thinking.

I want you to be culturally aware.

Think about where this is going.

It's not just me and mine and my own, and let me just stay in my own little circle and do my own little thing.

You actually have to be in a relationship with people outside.

The kingdom of God to know where they're coming from.

I'm not saying agree with them.

I'm not saying live life like they're living life.

I'm not saying live like the world.

What I'm saying is if you don't know the needs and the concerns and the opinions of the people around you, your family members and your friends, your co-workers, fellow students, how on earth is God going to use you with the truth of the Messiah to come and meet them where they are?

You are responsible for the questions and the answers.

And sometimes we spend so much time getting the perfect answer, we forget that's not their question.

Be sure, this is where he I think he's going with this, be sure that you know and love them well enough to get a sense of how you can address their needs.

That's the beauty of walking with Christ, by the way, just one of many reasons that he has so much to offer us as followers of him, that oftentimes a need right now will be a different need in a week or a month or a year, but he takes care of each of us at different phases, at different stages, in different seasons.

He takes care of us by his grace, in his provision, giving us what we need in the moment so that we can grow more and more for him and in his glory and his image.

He tells them in verse 21 and 22 not to tell anyone.

They're looking for a conquering hero.

Yes, he is, but not the way they think.

He is coming back.

He is going to deal with this, but not the way they want him to right now.

They want someone to deal with the Romans.

He's here to deal with sin.

They want someone to take care of the Gentiles, to be a political independence for Israel to be great again in what he wants, and what he has come for is to seek and save the lost.

To proclaim the kingdom of God, to be the Messiah, to be the Redeemer, to be the one who will be sacrificed for our sins in just a very short time from chapter 9 moving forward.

All right, one more.

Luke chapter 9, verse 23.

Luke 9:23

Passage I read just a moment ago.

And he was saying to them all, If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

We're sent out to proclaim the kingdom of God.

We're sent out to receive and give.

We're also sent out to repent and believe.

Let me tell you why I say this, tell you why it fits under this.

You see, the message of trusting in Jesus, to trust him, the kingdom of God has come among you.

That hasn't changed.

And as we go as his followers, we're supposed to keep preaching that.

We're supposed to keep teaching that, and we're supposed to keep applying that to ourselves.

The repentance and faith, trusting in Jesus, turning from our sins.

We do that to enter into the kingdom of God.

By grace you've been saved through faith.

We do that as we confess who we are and our need for a savior, as demonstrated in the Baptistry just a few minutes ago.

We do that to come into the kingdom of God.

But understand, as a disciple, we never stop repenting and believing.

Not for salvation, but for daily living.

Not to get into heaven, not to have that relationship, but to continue and to thrive and to flourish in that relationship.

You always need to repent and believe.

You always need to trust him day by day.

And what he's doing here, starting in verse 23, he's going to flesh this out for us for just a little bit.

He says, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself all that self-interest, all that self-fulfillment, all the things that are of this world that you're trying to do on your own, come back to Jesus.

Let his will be your will.

Pray the prayer.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

Deny yourself, but also take up your cross.

To suffer, to be willing to suffer, to be even to the point of martyrdom, to be able to say, This Jesus means more to me than anything or anyone else, to follow him.

Back just a few chapters, he talked about no one taking offense at the name his name.

This is about trusting and obeying.

Years ago, if you're familiar with the history, Diedrich Bonhoeffer and what he has written, let me just give you a little bit of one of his works.

He talked about this in the cost of discipleship.

He said the cross is laid on every Christian.

The first Christ suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world.

It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ.

As we embark upon discipleship, we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death.

We give over our lives to death.

Thus it begins.

The cross is not the terrible end to an over otherwise God fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our commitment with Christ.

When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther's, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world, but it is the same death every time, death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call.

Luther speaking of which he said, God creates out of nothing.

Therefore, until a man is nothing, God can make nothing of him.

There was an evangelist years ago he used to used to say that remember the cross is not primarily an instrument of discomfort or heartbreak.

The cross has death as its object.

Jesus calls us to embrace the death of our self-seeking, comfort-loving, consumer-driven selves.

Tozer has made three observations about someone on a cross.

A man on a cross is facing only one direction.

He's not going back, and he has no plans of his own.

Just think about that for a second.

A man on a cross is facing only one direction.

He's not going back, and he has no plans of his own.

Come back to the passage, Luke chapter 9.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

He's going to elaborate on this just a little bit in verse 24.

He says, forever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, he is the one who will save it.

There's the paradox.

There's the die to live.

And if we think we're living by doing it our way, we are going to die.

But if we are die so that we can live his way, that's eternal life.

But the thing is, do you see that?

Do you receive that?

Do you agree with that?

It doesn't make it right or wrong or real or not.

It's still truth, whether you understand it or not.

But my my point is when we live like we can get everything out of this world and do things our way and not concern ourselves with Jesus, that's not discipleship.

That's not what he has called us to.

The passage continues in verse 25.

For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

But I say to you, truthfully, there are some of those standing here, some here that are who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.

You have an option of whether you disown him or you acknowledge him, whether or not you you receive him or you reject him, a gatherer or a scatterer.

But as he's doing this, he's saying that there is this option, verse 2026.

You could be ashamed of me.

You could be ashamed of the message, you could be ashamed of the truth, but you can't have it both ways.

You've got to live either for the glory of God or your own glory.

C.S.

Lewis talked about this years ago in one of his writings.

He talked about the end result is the phrase, Thy will be done.

The only question is, is it going to be God's will or your will?

And if it is your will, that is going to be eternity separated from God.

But if it's God's will, then it is you spending eternity with him for his glory.

That little phrase there at verse 27, I say to you truthfully, there are some of those standing here who will who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God, still talking about his glory, still talking about how it's being proclaimed and the healing and all that's taking place with that, but in the midst of it, understanding that things are going to start happening.

This is real.

This isn't some mythology, this isn't some fiction, this isn't some pretend made-up story to make us feel better about dying because we don't know what happens next.

This is real.

This is more real.

The scripture even talks about this.

This is even more real than the real that we think is real.

How about that?

Get my head all sorts of twisted up here.

When we think that we understand what reality is, we go to the scripture and see that this, what we feel and experience, the physical realm, is only a shadow of what is reality.

And as we come to passages like this, Jesus starts to talk about the glory of God, and we think, well, okay, wait a minute.

What's he referring to?

I know in the Old Testament you have the Shekinah glory, you had the tent, you had the glory of the Lord filling the tabernacle and then the temple.

You had Ezekiel and whoa, Ezekiel and all the visions with the glory of God and all that was encompassed.

Is it the same glory?

Yeah.

Okay, well, what is he is he talking about?

A heaviness, a weight?

Is he talking about worship?

What is he referring to?

And why does that matter for you and for me?

Because this is what we're after.

The purpose of man is to glorify God and to joy and enjoy him forever.

What we are about is to seek him, to be with him.

Now, I don't know specifically who and what he is referring to in verse 27.

I got a couple of guesses.

I'll give them to you real quick, no extra charge.

It could be, it could be that the destruction of Jerusalem in just a few decades later, he could be referring to that.

He could be, he could be referring to the ascension, but I think you just glance down a few verses what we're gonna talk about next week.

I think he might be talking about the glory of the transfiguration when the inner three are going to see him with Moses and Elijah.

But either way, they're gonna see it.

And either way, we're gonna see it.

But here's here's the dependence.

All of this is dependent upon his death and life.

Sent out to repent and believe, and that's dependent upon his death and his life.

Jesus Christ, the gospel says, Jesus Christ had to come in the flesh, Emmanuel God with us.

He had to live a perfect life as a sacrifice.

And because of his life, he lived, he died on a cross, was buried, and rose again three days later.

That's the gospel.

And in the midst of that, understanding that God created us, we're under his authority, that we are accountable to him, but in our rebellion and sin, we have turned away from him.

So Jesus, God Himself, God in the flesh, the Word of God, came to us to offer that sacrifice, to be the redeemer, to be the buying back, to be the Passover lamb, so that we could be with him.

And the issue, whenever we say, well, God so loved the world, but not the whole world is going to heaven, is because there's this response that the Bible dictates when the kingdom of God is proclaimed of repentance and faith.

And so as we repent of our sins and we trust in him as our Savior, it's because of his death and his life.

It's not just the cross, very important.

And it's not just the resurrection, very important.

It's both in.

Because you and I need both of these.

We need both, his dying and conquering death and his rising again so that we can know him personally, so that we can be in union with him.

So what I wanted to do is I wanted to finish with this passage.

If you'll turn with me, please, to the book of Philippians.

And I'll show you what he's doing here.

Philippians chapter 3.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

If you're in the Gospel of Luke, turn right.

You go to you go through uh R.

C.

cola, Romans and the 2 Corinthians.

Then you get to to uh Gentiles eat pork chops.

And so the P of the pork chops is is Philippians.

Sorry.

There's more, but we'll save it for later.

Um Philippians chapter 3.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

Verse 7.

But whatever things were given to me, Paul talking about his background, his his biography, his experience, whatever things were given to me, those things I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish, so that I may gain Christ and may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering, being conformed to his death, in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I've already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.

Now, I don't know how familiar you are with this passage.

My guess is some of you have never read it, some of you have it memorized, and all sorts of in between.

But if you'll bear with me for just a minute, I want to finish with this because I want you to see what Paul is saying.

I'll go quick, but I think this is important.

Back up in verse 7.

Whatever things were gained to me, the things of this world, the things that I would invest my time and my energy and my priorities, my time, my talent, my treasures, those things aren't anything compared to Jesus.

Verse 8.

As a matter of fact, I think about all that I have in Jesus, all that he has given me, and this temporary suffering, this storm and a tea kettle, this this little bit of a little bit compared to the grandeur and the wonder of eternity.

It's nothing.

I count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.

Verse 9.

And I may be found in him.

You see, that's that's it.

That you and I can be in union with Jesus.

And he's not gonna, he's not gonna make any meaning, he's not gonna hedge, he's gonna be very clear.

He's saying, not having a righteousness of my own, derived from being obedient to the law, from following the law, but that which here it is, through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.

Once again, we are saved by grace through faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death.

We need both his death and his life.

And as we abide in him, as we are in union with him, we want to know him and be with him, verse 11, in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

And not that, verse 12, not that I've already gotten there.

I haven't, you haven't, we haven't, but it's coming, and I'm gonna press on so that I want you to catch this, so that I may lay hold for which he has already laid hold of me.

See what he's doing?

I want to celebrate what Jesus has already done for me.

I want to hang on, and just like a little toddler, I'm gonna hang on to my daddy's hand.

But honestly, my daddy had him had me in his hand long before I started grabbing his.

I want to be with him.

And the part of me, the part of us that reads passages like this, that has kind of a standoffish, well, that's kind of out there.

I'm not really sure about that.

This is the point where you and I get to spend some time asking the Lord, wake us up, help me, help me to see my need to be with Jesus, to be on the job training, to receive so that I can give, so to be dependent upon him so that I can be used by him, to be an instrument in the Redeemer's hand.

Help us as the body of Christ to be on his agenda, his timetable, his priorities, so that we can glorify him, totally dependent upon him so that we can know him better.

And if that is good times great, bad times great, because suffering, times of prosperity, well-fed, hungry, doesn't matter.

The point is, we're with Jesus.

We are with Jesus.

In just a few moments, I'm gonna have you turn in your hymn book and I'm gonna have you sing a hymn while we spend some time in invitation.

As you're transitioning into that and and considering that, I want to show you something.

This this will take just a second, but I want I want to show it to you.

And if if you'll bear with me.

I've had the privilege of teaching this great group for the last few weeks during the Sunday school hour of uh Discovery class, what it means to be a part of the church, what it means to be a part of the body of Christ, what it means to be a part of our denomination.

And I I had the privilege this morning of talking a little bit about the Baptist Faith and Message.

Now, if you're not familiar with that, we have plenty of copies.

You can look it up online, spc.net, Baptist, Faith and Message, but this is what brings us together.

And it occurred to me as I was studying this for my class this morning.

I need to share this with you too.

So if you'll you just hang on, this is all connected, but hang on.

Let me show you some of the articles.

I'm gonna show you three.

They're really they're quick, they're only a paragraph each.

Don't worry, you don't have to you don't have to brace yourself.

We're not gonna be here another 20 minutes.

Just hang on.

I just want you to see this.

Article 7, Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

What we just did this morning.

I want to show you this.

This is what we believe.

This is our our our our our confession of faith, our like faith.

Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

It is an act of obedience, symbolizing the believer's faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior.

The believer's death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus.

That's what we witnessed.

It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead.

Being a church ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord's Supper.

And then next week we're going to do the Lord's Supper.

And the article says the Lord's Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the church, through partaking of the bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer, anticipate his second coming.

And then all those verses and so many more are used to build that argument, to build that article.

That's what we are.

That's what we're doing.

Then I got to thinking, okay, so baptism today, Lord's Supper next week, this is who we are as disciples of Christ.

We're following him, and the baptism represents his death and his resurrection and who we are in him.

The Lord's Supper moralizes or celebrates the fact that the penalty of sin has been paid for, the power of sin has been broken, and the presence of sin will be abolished to the glory.

And all of that's happening with the Lord's Supper next week.

Then I got to think, wait a minute.

Tuesday night, Tuesday night, we're gonna be having an associational meeting with all these other churches in our area coming together.

And usually we don't pay attention to this, but our Baptist faith and message talks about that too.

So here you go.

Cooperation number 14.

I told you three, this is a second.

In cooperation, Christ's people should, as occasion requires, organize such associations and conventions as they as may best secure cooperation for the great objects of the kingdom of God.

Such organizations have no authority over one another or over the churches.

They are voluntary and advisory bodies designed to elicit, combine, and direct the energies of our people in the most effective manner.

Members of New Testament churches should cooperate with one another in carrying forward the missionary, educational, and benevolent ministries for the extension of Christ's kingdom.

Christian unity in the New Testament sense is spiritual harmony and voluntary cooperation for common ends by various groups of Christ's people.

Cooperation is desirable between the various Christian denominations when the end to be attained is itself justified, and when such cooperation involves no violation of conscience or compromise of loyalty to Christ and his word, as revealed in the New Testament.

We're not just having a meeting Tuesday night, we're celebrating that we are in this together, that we as sisters and brothers, sister churches, are coming together and we are involved as disciples.

They're in different buildings, they meet at different times, but they all follow the same Jesus.

So Tuesday night is very much a family reunion.

We get together and we get to sing praises and worship Jesus, and we're celebrating the retirement of our director of missions after 33 years here.

It's a good thing.

Come Tuesday night, 6 o'clock.

Be here or be rectangular.

Okay, but there's one more.

There's one more.

Christian and social order.

All Christians are under obligation to seek to make the will of Christ supreme in our own lives and in human society.

Means and methods used for the improvement of society and the establishment of righteousness among men can be truly and permanently helpful only when they are rooted in the regeneration of the individual by the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ.

In the Spirit of Christ, Christians should oppose racism, every form of greed.

Selfishness and vice and all forms of sexual immorality, including adultery, homosexuality, and pornography.

We should work to provide for the orphaned, the needy, the abused, the aged, the helpless, and the sick.

We should speak on behalf of the unborn and contend for the sanctity of all human life, from conception to natural death.

Every Christian should seek to bring industry, government, and society as a whole under the sway of the principles of righteousness, truth, and brotherly love.

In order to promote these ends, Christians should be ready to work with all men of goodwill in any good cause, always being careful to act in the spirit of love without compromising their loyalty to Christ and his truth.

Could you back that slide up just two or three?

I'm going to point something out.

One more.

Means and methods used for the improvement of society and the establishment of righteousness.

It is an epidemic right now that in our churches across this country we aren't voting.

Brothers and sisters, I'm not telling you who to vote for.

I'm telling you what to vote for.

Read it again.

Truly and permanently helpful only when they are rooted in the regeneration of the individual by the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ.

Keep going, please.

In the spirit of Christ.

If you've got a candidate who is in favor of racism, don't vote for them.

If they're in favor of greed, don't vote for them.

Sexual immorality, don't vote for them.

Adultery, homosexuality, pornography.

We should work to provide for the orphaned, the needy, the abused, the aged, the helpless, and the sick.

We should speak on behalf of the unborn and contend for the sanctity of all human life.

This is why we vote pro-life.

From conception to natural death.

Every Christian should seek to bring industry, government, and society as a whole under the sway of the principles of righteousness, truth, and brotherly love.

Brothers and sisters, we can't quit.

And part of us being disciples of Jesus Christ is not to make America a Christian, is not to make it so that it is a church that we have government with.

Those are two spheres, two realms, two different and distinct bodies.

What I'm suggesting from the scripture, from discipleship, from the Baptist, faith, and message is that you and I have a responsibility to seek his righteousness in our world.

And coming to the voters' booth, that's one of the minimal things that we can do to be involved in that.

So, okay, so you've got all three.

Are you with me?

You've got baptism and Lord's Supper.

You've got cooperation, Christian and social order.

I give you all of that to ask.

Are you a follower of Jesus Christ?

I'm asking if you followed him in New Testament baptism.

The Bible says to do that.

I'm asking you if you can come to the table next week in good conscience.

The Bible tells you to do that.

I'm asking if you are in cooperation with your brothers and sisters in Christ around the world.

The Bible tells you to do that.

I'm asking if you are going to be a citizen that God uses to spread his light in a dark world.

The Bible tells us to do that.

That's our burden.

That's our responsibility.

That's our privilege.

If you've got those little red hymn books, they are red, aren't they?

I always get that makes a sense.

All right.

They're not black.

The lighter of the two books.

Turn to page 294.

You don't have to use it if you don't want to.

We're not going to put words on the screen.

What's going to happen over the next few moments is after I pray, I'm going to pray.

So after I pray, we're going to stand and we're going to sing 294, have thine own way.

We're going to sing a couple of verses.

Unless there is movement that we need to keep going, and that's fine.

We're going to sing a couple of verses.

And this is the time for you to get some things right with your Savior.

It might be that right where you are, you don't even want to stand with the rest of us, and that is so okay.

You don't have to.

You might want to come to the altar, you might want to come and speak with or pray with a pastor or a deacon.

This is not a strong arm.

This is not a manipulation.

This is an open opportunity.

It could be that as you stand and you sing, have thine own way, God has convicted you about baptism or Lord's Supper or or whatever, in terms of receiving from Him so that we may be instruments in the Redeemer's hand, whatever it is.

But these next few moments, they're for you.

They're for us so that we can spend time with Him.

I'm also going to say, just as before I pray, I'm going to ask that the two candidates that were baptized, if they've come down as well, and we're going to introduce them, and we're going to give you a minute to come and greet them after we close, after the end of the service.

Would you pray with me, please?

Lord, I thank you that we get to be followers of you, that you get to show us so many things in so many ways of how to be obedient, how to be used, how to be dependent.

Lord, I just can't imagine the many, the many scenarios that are represented in this room, of needs, of burdens, of responsibilities, and each and every one of them, you know the way.

You already know the answers.

And we want to come to you and say, Lord, have thine own way.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

Would you stand with me, please?

Search me and try me to pay.

If you'd remain standing, please.

Pastor Adam, if you're making your way as you're making your way up, um, could we have the two that were baptized?

Can you come forward?

We're gonna your absolute favorite part of being embarrassed in front of everybody.

Um, would you mind that we we've got quilts that the quilting ministry has made for you?

And after Pastor Adam dismisses us, I'm gonna just ask you guys would stay up here and uh let folks come greet you and welcome you.

Exactly like that was perfect, Miss Sharon.

Exactly like that.

Brother Sean, come forward for just a second.

Um October is Pastor Appreciation Month.

If you have not been able or thought to contribute to that and the Lord is feeling or leading you to do so, please uh get those in quickly.

It is next week that we will be presenting our pastors uh with our gifts of appreciation.

We certainly thank them and we'll spend a few moments next week in the service to recognize uh what they do for us.

Thank you.

I'd like to leave you with a benediction and then after with a benediction please come forward and welcome these two young brothers with their right hand of fellowship.

Shake their hand.

From Jude, now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with rejoicing.

To the only wise God our Savior be glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and forever.

Amen.