[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason, and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's Word you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to Him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 8:30 or 10:30am if you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, find
[email protected] Be sure to also check out our Bible study podcast, Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies. Thanks again for stopping by.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Good morning. You know, when I was younger and we had children, one of the things that I wanted to do most was to be involved in their lives and to be a part of their daily function and the activities that they were going through. I wanted to be a volunteer in the classroom if I could. I wanted to, you know, be coach of them if they were doing any kind of sports and those kinds of things. And. And so, you know, ultimately I got the opportunity to do that.
And as my kids got older, the first sport that they kind of got into was soccer.
And I do say that with a little condescension. Soccer.
I played basketball, played baseball, understood those. I kind of looked forward to that. But when my kids decided to play soccer, I thought, well, I don't know anything about that. So when I registered them, I registered them with ayso and then I signed up as a helper again. Want to be involved, want to be active and engaged and all those kinds of things, right? So I did that.
Well, I started getting all the emails, you know, because as a helper, I was supposed to, like, go through this little safe haven, you know, thing where you make sure everybody stays safe and all that.
They had a little workshop thing where you'd come and you'd learn, like, little things that are really important to teach the kids, like how to kick the ball. Like, you don't kick it, like kickball off the toe, you kick it on the inside. You know, little things like that thought, oh, that'll be helpful. You know, I went through all those little trainings and enjoyed those things. It was great.
And I kept thinking, man, this is a lot to just be a helper, right? And I kept getting emails about different things, and they had a team selection night, and it was exciting. There was a lot of chaos everywhere, kids all over the place, adults screaming, yelling. It felt like I was at the New York stock Exchange, hey, hey, hey, hey, you know, that kind of thing. And everybody's getting these pieces of paper. And eventually I heard my name get called. So I ran up there and they handed me this little sheet of paper. And I noticed one of my kids names on it and then another list of names. And I thought, okay, cool, this is the team, obviously. That's great. And so I kept waiting to hear how we were paired up with what coaches and all those kinds of things. And, and finally I started seeing like they weren't announcing much more. And then the crowd started dissipating and I was like, okay, so I'd really like to meet the coach so we can kind of coordinate or whatever. And I walk up to the guy that handed me the piece of paper and I said, I have this piece of paper. I see the list of names on it. Who is the coach?
And they said, well, if you have the piece of paper, you're the coach. Right? Okay. So I'm now a soccer coach. Never played soccer a day in my life. In fact, the first soccer game that I ever watched start to finish was the first one I coached. And I knew absolutely nothing. The guy that you see up here on the screen is a cheerleader. He's a motivator. He gets excited. He can get the kids all fired up. But truly, that picture of me going, is it this way or this way? That was what was happening. Okay. I remember being so scared that I called Bart Graham, Bart Graham. I knew his kids had played AYSO and other soccer and I knew that he kind of knew the scoop. And so I said, bart, can you help me out? He said, I got a slideshow for you. So he sent me a PowerPoint. Yes, a PowerPoint of plays and drills and all. I looked at those things, they didn't make any sense whatsoever to me. I had no clue what, what to do as a soccer coach. I guess the point I'm making is this. You can wear the name, right, you can have a badge that says you are a certain thing, but that does not necessarily make you what it says you are.
And as I'm studying for this, this series, as we are talking about Jesus and it is calling me to do some internal evaluations, it makes me stop and ask the questions too, like, am I who I claim to be?
And I say that because it's kind of a heavy thought. And I'll be honest with you, last week, as Andrew was preaching, he left a slide up there for just a moment. And I'm going to tell you I was just where you were seeing the slide for the first time.
And the question was simple, how closely do you follow Jesus?
And on the outset, we may think, well, hey, that's not a bad question to ask. Of course I'm following Jesus. All of us want to know that we're following Jesus. We would say, I'm following Jesus.
But let that question absorb for a moment, which is what I did in the pew, and I fought it. In fact, I don't even think I heard the next two or three slides, because as I was sitting there asking myself, brandon, how closely are you following Jesus?
Does your decisions, do your words, the way you treat people, the way you go about your daily walk, when you're forced and compelled into a decision where there's a right and a wrong, does your walk with Jesus so closely resemble him that you are doing those things? I remember being asked this question in a more profound way years ago, as a college student at Faultner University.
I was looking to go into ministry in some way or another. Word kind of bounced around about that. And one of the elders at University Church came and said, hey, do you mind if I chat with you for just a moment? And I'm like, sure, no problem. And I didn't know what it was, had no idea what was about to happen. They took me into a room. There were 11 elders sitting in chairs and a podium up front. And they had me stand up there and say, we understand that you're interested in being a youth minister. We want to know how much you know about our children and what your purpose statement is and what your vision is for our youth ministry. And they're like, what? Like, I had no idea.
And in the middle of all that, they started firing all kinds of questions at me.
But the one that hit me, the one that stung me, and even today is one that I'm finding more and more profound, was this, Brandon, how's your walk with Jesus?
I thought, well, I mean, what do you say in that moment? I mean, right in that my wheels are spinning. You know, they ask me, how's your walk with Jesus? What do you say? Do you say, hey, it's great. And you sound like you come off like a guy who thinks you've got it all figured out. Or do you say, hey, I'm a sinner like everybody else, just doing my best or whatever? And you go, oh, well, I just lost that job. What do you say in that moment when you're asked, how's your walk with Jesus? But what I'm saying to all of us is.
There's a need for us to ask that question. And as I'm preparing for this lesson, another one came up that I was just thinking about.
Do you consider yourself a Christian or a disciple?
Which of those things do you consider yourself?
I mean, when I was growing up, and maybe some of you can identify with this. I know this kind of, you know, I thought about this and kind of chuckled a little bit. When I was growing up and someone said to you, well, what are you? And they meant from a spiritual perspective. I was never to say, I'm a church of Christer.
Okay, I'm a church of Christ.
You know, because we don't like to identify like that. Right. My parents would always say to me, don't use that terminology. You are not a church of Christ. You are a part of the church of Christ. You are a Christian, Christian only.
And when people ask you what you are, you say, I'm a Christian.
And so that's the name. If you ask me, what am I, I would tell you I'm a Christian.
And so when I think about the word disciple, you know, that's one that maybe feels a little more hierarchy, maybe a little bit more archaic, maybe something that seems kind of weird. And we certainly didn't go by that. I didn't tell people I'm a disciple. You know, they're like, ooh, that sounds cultish, right? No, but as I look at the situation and as I am studying this, I have to stop for a second and ask myself, what do these words mean and how often were they used in Scripture?
Did you know that Jesus never used the term Christian? And that makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, you know, he died, was buried, was raised. You know, we don't hear about the people being added to the church until the day of Pentecost and 50 days later, after Pentecost, Passover, we don't hear it before then. And then, even then, it's not used by many people. In fact, it's only used three times in the New Testament. And so for just a second, as we think about what we call ourselves, how we refer to ourselves, you know, let's ask what this really was all about. How did that name come about? Well, in Acts, chapter 11, verse 26, I'm going to go through all three of these. First one is this. The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.
And if you know anything about Antioch, you know that it was a big and thriving multicultural city. In fact, a lot of people would suggest that it was the third Largest city in the known world at that time, behind Rome and Alexandria, and in that city made for a great place of all these different thought processes and everything. And it made a great place later for the church to be kind of a combination of Jew and Greek thinkers and how they kind of found unity together.
But in those days in Antioch, as they were looking at them, they began to think of them as maybe a sect of the Jews for a little bit. You know, maybe just another group that kind of aligned with the Jews. But it was apparent after a while that they did things a little bit differently, and the way they carried themselves was very different. And so they kind of got their own name.
So in Antioch, as they looked at it, maybe some thought maybe from a political perspective that this is like a party of people who followed after Christ. You know, they were loyalists to him. And so that maybe some people thought of it from a political standpoint, but then there were others who, you know. And in Antioch, they were notorious for giving nicknames for groups. And because, you know, the people of the way were living differently, because they were carrying themselves so differently from the Jews, they kind of started calling them, oh, those are the ones who follow the anointed one. So they would call them the. The little anointed ones or, you know, Christ ones. And it was kind of meant in condescension, meaning, you know, kind of look at those little Christians over there type thing. And so if you can imagine that as a Christian, that would have been something that you wouldn't have appreciated early on.
But in reality, the more that that got used, the more it changed the way they felt about things.
I'm reminded of the second example of this is in Acts, chapter 26, where Agrippa and Paul are having this exchange, and Paul is preaching to him and telling him about what he needs to do. And you remember, can y' all turn the slide for me?
King Agrippa is in that conversation, and he says to him, he says, almost, are you going to persuade me to be a Christian? And he says it kind of condescendingly.
So again, that condescension that looking down upon Christians, that idea that you're kind of this little group over here and kind of making fun of them would be something that wouldn't have been flattering to begin with.
But would you know that the Christians of that time began to sort of embrace the idea?
In fact, they sort of wore it as a badge of honor. Like, okay, think about this. They're persecuting us. They're making fun of Us. Do you remember when Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount, you know, blessed are you and men shall persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my name's sake. They began to hold onto that a little bit and go, okay, so if we're going to be persecuted, okay, bring it on, bring it on. So I want you to understand something.
When they understood what Christian meant, they began to take it on and say, absolutely, I belong to Jesus Christ. And so they felt it was necessary for them to hold onto that name. You can say it however you want to. You can say it condescending, it does not matter. We are going to embrace that. Why? Because they understood some things. Look at this passage in First Peter. This is the third example where Christian is used, let. If anyone suffers as a Christian, there's the word, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.
Wow. So that's a different thing altogether. So when you think about it, the first century Christians kind of understood that along with that name and that condescension and all those things was something that they held onto because it represented the truth that they would do what Jesus said, that you're gonna suffer many things for my name's sake.
And so they were happy to wear it. My question is for all of us, and it begs this question is when we say I'm a Christian, do we mean it in the same way that they meant it?
Do we hold onto it saying, no, I'm happy. If that means I have to suffer, I'm okay with the fact that I'm not going to be everybody's best friend. I'm okay that I'm not going to be the most popular person, I'm going to be okay that the struggles are coming my way as a Christian.
So that's the idea of Christian.
But on the other hand, whenever there was talk about Jesus followers, disciple was often used most for that.
So what does disciple mean? You may remember back to our kingdom minded series. The last lesson of that was talking about making disciples, going out and making disciples as they went about their way.
And so we asked the question, well, what does that mean, make disciples? And if you look at it, it's sort of a nuanced definition. It's the idea of someone who follows along with someone closely. It's like a 247 just full absorbed lifestyle where you walk along the side of a rabbi and you listen to everything that they say, you watch everything that they do. In all of the different circumstances that they find themselves in no matter what it is they do, you begin to mirror that.
You walk alongside them, you become more like them, and you do what they did.
And it was meant to be something that was kind of transformational, something that would take you from where you were to become an imitator of those ways. So it wasn't just that you were hearing things, it was that you were seeing things, and then you were turning around and applying those things to your own life.
Well, here in America, we've taken Christianity and we've done something to it.
This is a collection of a couple of research projects, one by Barna, Research that we know does a lot of research about Christianity and how it's impacting our country and what we can learn from and how we can do better kinds of things. And one of the results is here that there's really two out of three people in our nation will say that they are a part, in some way or another, an affiliate of Christianity.
Okay? And it's really hard, as you can imagine, to determine what it is that makes a person, like, really faithful, someone who is really devoted. That's a hard thing to define because it seems kind of like, are they doing all these things or what have you? But to the best of their ability, they tried to find a way to.
To ask the question so they could get a little bit better idea of what the commitment level was for people. And so the questions came out, and ultimately what they find out is that of those two thirds, 63%, okay, 63 of the 67%, say they love Jesus. They believe in Jesus, they love his teachings.
Then there's like a small percentage, 4%, people who take it to the next level and say, my life has never been the same because of Jesus.
I am a disciple. I have been transformed. I live for him every day. He guides all of my decisions. My choices are made based on what I know he says about things.
And so when you look at this situation, that's kind of a different way to understand Christian from the perspective as we understood it, the way they understood it.
So Jesus is not looking for converts to Christianity, but more so he's looking for people who will be apprentices in the kingdom. When he told them to go into all the world and make disciples, he was saying, bring people along that are going to come and they're going to be with me and they're going to become like me, and they're going to do the things that I do.
That's what discipleship means, and that's what Apprenticeship means.
So I'm going to ask a question, and this is hard.
It's hard because of what I do for a living.
But it's hard because I think it kind of stung me a little bit as I was thinking about this.
Is it possible that we have jailed down the Gospel in these consumable bites and focused on truths, but have left out key and important components of what it means to follow Jesus Christ?
Is it possible that we have gelled it down to things like, hey, you're a sinner, we're all a sinner, all sin. You know, people have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and because of sin separating us from God, you're in danger of hell. You're lost.
But the good news is that God loves you and that he loves you so much that he would send Jesus to come and die for you and to pay the price for your sins. And I tell you what, if you will just be baptized and have your sins washed away, then you will go to heaven as well. Is it possible that we have jailed it down to those kinds of things? And by the way, all of those things can be found in Scripture, not saying that those things aren't biblical, but with that, let me ask you a question. Where is the component that says, I'm going to give my life to him and I'm going to do what he did? I'm going to change the way I walk, I'm going to change the way I live, I'm going to look at everything that I do in life. I'm going to evaluate that and filter it through, what does Jesus say about that thing? And that's going to change me. I'm going to live for him. I guess what I'm saying is it feels sometimes that maybe we have been guilty of shrinking this down to a quick little plan, but we've not done enough to challenge people to put their effort in, in following the man.
And I think we may have been guilty of that over time. And I say that because I don't want to be guilty of that, because I think it leaves that part out that is so important, which is the transforming part that takes place.
And all of us put this chart up here. I don't even know what this chart is about, to be honest with you.
I just know that somehow in this life we've gotten into a pattern of thinking that there are entry levels to things. And then if I want to take the next step, I just pour a little bit more in and I get all of these Extra benefits. And then if I'll just go to the next level, I just get this thing. So it makes church life okay. Us and our practices here be more like, hey, I'll be baptized into Christ. I'll have my sins washed away. I'll get my check mark. I'm certified, stamped and approved for heaven.
And then there's a second tier. If I wanted to, like, I don't know, be a chaperone at a youth retreat or teach a Bible class, well, that's another tier. And I invest in that. I pour out a little bit more and I get more as a result of that. And we kind of think in terms of this entry level approach. And I'm telling you, I want to warn us against that kind of mentality that says, hey, wherever the bare bones minimum is, that's where I want to keep my life. I want to get in and say, hey, a little bit of heaven is just plenty enough for me. You know, like that phrase that's uttered in Job by the skin of my teeth, okay? And that's thin, by the way, the skin of my teeth. I just want to get into heaven. And if I get a little heaven, that's okay. I don't need the big heaven package. I just need the entry level. And then we find ourselves satisfied in that spot because, hey, a little heaven is just as good as a lot of heaven.
This is just a challenge for us to ask, how do I view my Christian walk with Jesus?
So sin's an issue.
We know that sin separates us from God. It puts us in a bad situation. We know that that sin has to be relieved. And so if we think about sin as missing the mark, then we have to start and think, okay, well, it makes sense. If my sin has the thing that has taken me outside of Christ, then obviously the best thing I can do is just be baptized and that will wash away my sins.
And while the Bible does say that baptism, a sincere response to God, you know, washes away our sins, I want you to understand, I believe that. I think we teach that repetitively over and over.
But while that is true, is that really what is being said here about sin? Like, what is the mark?
If we're missing the mark, what is the mark? Is the mark, you know, like my moral perfection, like my ability to do all things good, to just be a good person, make good decisions, not disrupt anything? Is it me not missing out on any of the commandments, just making sure I check those things off and that I don't do the bad things or or is it, you know, the fact that I just do a lot of great things? Is that what the mark is that we're shooting for? What if. And I just want to challenge us to think differently.
What if the mark is actually becoming like Jesus, where the sin is not taking him on, the sin is not allowing him to transform us from within.
The separation is because we refuse to have that union with him, Walking alongside him, learning from him, doing what he does.
What if that's the mark that we're missing?
Kind of gelled it down. Is it possible that we've created a culture that says, I can be a Christian without being an apprentice of Christ?
That's incredibly hard to ask and incredibly hard for us to decide.
But I think ultimately he's wanting us to find that alongside. Approach.
Did you know In Isaiah, chapter 35, there's a prophecy? It's actually connected to what the people of Israel were going through. They had been off in captivity, they've been taken away.
And there's like 34 chapters of Isaiah that are punishment, fear, rejection, penalty, all these things. And it's really, really heavy. And then all of a sudden, in chapter 35, it starts getting a little bit more hopeful. And it gets to this point where it says, and a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the way of holiness, and unclean shall not pass over it, and it shall belong to those who walk on the way. What I want us to capture is that so long ago, well before Christ even came, there was this way of holiness, the way we go about our life that was projected out here, prophesied about that Jesus would come and be the fulfillment of it. And in this way to walk would be a way of holiness and capture what it says. It belongs to the people who walk along that way. In other words, it's not for people who veer off and run off another place. No, it's for the people who belong on that, who walk on that way. They own it. And it goes on to say, if you read a little bit further, that there are lines and all kinds of things that may try to attack it, but while a person is on that way of holiness, that they are protected from the devil. And doesn't that make sense? Like, when you think about it, the devil is represented as a line, right? Of someone looking and seeking whom he may devour.
And what the prophecy is saying there is, when we walk in this way, when we are allowing Jesus to inform our decisions, we are allowing him to shape the way we think about things. And our Practices become His practices, or his practices become our practices. As we are walking all the way, we are shielded and protected from the attacks of the enemy. Oh, he's coming.
But if we're walking in that way of holiness, God is saying, hey, you don't have to fear that because what's taking place inside of you makes you so strong that you can withstand against that.
Charles Spurgeon said this. He said engineering is done much to tunnel mountains and bridge abysses.
But the greatest triumph of engineering is that which made a way from sin to holiness, from death to life, from condemnation to perfection.
Who could make a road over the mountains of our iniquities but Almighty God?
None but the Lord of love would have wished it. None but the God of wisdom could have devised it.
None but the God of power could have carried it out.
Do you understand Jesus Way? Long ago it was prophesied that he would come and that he would bring this new way of life.
So he says, John 14:6, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
Andrew mentioned this last week that the way is metaphorically used in a sense of what it means to be an apprentice, a follower of Jesus, a person who gives their life fully to him.
So if we kind of take Jesus words and we refashion it a little bit, basically what it's saying is his way, voiced with his truth, would lead us to the life that he offers.
And what is that life?
Well, that life is a life of love and mercy.
It's a life of grace.
It's a life that causes us to look at other people and to see their value beyond what we know about them. It helps us to look deeper into who they are.
It gives us a life where we begin to care for other people like Jesus did. And when people come and they have insults because we've been with Jesus, we understand how to accept those things and, and to move beyond them, to not let those things overpower us.
When we see disappointment in our life and hurts and storms and difficulties, then because we've been with Jesus and we've seen what he's endured, it gives us the inner strength to be able to handle those things.
It causes us to be stronger in God. And what happens is, over time is we become more and more like him, to the point where the things that are happening outside in the world, they don't affect us as much. We don't get all up in arms about every little thing that's going on because Jesus is helping us navigate all of those things. There's a greater Purpose for our life.
That's the life that he offers.
And he says so in Matthew chapter 7 as he is coming toward the end of his Sermon on the Mount. There are several things that he says, and we'll hit a few of them here, but the first one is this. Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy. That leads to destruction.
Define that.
That way is the way you see everybody else going. It's the common trend. It's the world as we understand it. It's what we see in sinfulness and pursuit of self and self gratification and all those kinds of things. It's clicks and monitors and all those kinds of things. It's feeding the masses.
When you see the masses going in a direction, it's likely not the place you need to be going.
He says, that way is easy. It's good. You're surrounded by people, you're having fun. You're doing all kinds of things that give you pleasure here in this life.
But here, understand this.
That way of life leads to destruction.
And it's so cleverly disguised by the devil.
But that way leads to destruction.
But then he says in verse 14, for the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life. And those that find it are few.
Jesus saying, this is not the easy road, it's the difficult road.
Last year I let some knuckleheads talk me into climbing up Mount Leconte.
I'm looking at them over there. Yeah, it was great. It was a great plan, right? Eight miles up, eight miles down, something like that, straight up, pretty much a difficult path. A lot of rocks you gotta step over some things, you gotta keep from falling off the mountain. All those kinds of things, right?
And for weeks I trained a little bit. I got. In my neighborhood, we got some hills in the neighborhood. I was running up and down those hills, getting in better shape. And then I got a kidney stone. And then I had a follow up infection after that and I ended up on my back for about three weeks. And I got. Well about three days before we left for that trip.
Well, how do you think that went for me?
They'll laugh about it. I had like full body cramps when I got to the top of that mountain. They were laughing hysterically at me while the brother was dying over there.
But let me tell you what, that path was difficult, it was challenging, it was hard. But you know what I got as a result of it?
Great Christian fellowship.
The joy of being with my brothers in Christ. Talking about things that were Deep. Yeah, we had some silly moments, but digging into things, scriptural truths, challenging each other, talking about our families and how we wanted to do better job like accountability.
And you get up to the top of that mountain and you see all those views and it was so hard.
But everything I experienced was wonderful and spiritually valuable.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Jesus is saying, maybe the things that are worth the most are the things that cost you that kind of effort, that require of you to realize the substance of what you're doing and putting the effort into it. It seems like we are afraid to put effort in. Like, we don't. We want whatever the easiest thing is, and we don't push ourselves to do more.
So when Jesus said, deny yourself, take your cross and follow me, he wasn't saying, just believe and have peace in that.
No, he was leading us off that familiar path and taking us to a place, a way that would be much more difficult.
So when I read some of these things, I know there may be some of you that go, I don't know if I like the way you say that, but try to understand where I'm coming from with these statements here.
Apprenticeship to Jesus needs to look a little bit differently, maybe in our minds than it's looked before.
First of all, it's less about you getting into heaven. That seems very transactional. Like, I do these things. I get this right. That requires nothing more about me and my life and my development and my growth and my spiritual pursuits and those kinds of things. So it's less about just getting to that spot. Obviously, all of us want to be in heaven someday. That's our goal. That's our ultimate goal.
But it's less about that and more about heaven, God, his influences, Jesus and his life pouring into our hearts and helping us transform.
It's less about becoming him, becoming like us. Meaning we talk a lot about Jesus leaving heaven and putting on flesh and coming down and being one of us that we could identify with. And that's wonderful, but it's more about us becoming like him, like watching him, imitating him. It's less about that transaction and more about transformation. It's less about what we've done and more about what he will do in us and through us and the efforts that we give.
So it seems to me that even in our life, we've maybe stepped back some of those requirements for ourselves. We've given up on effort.
And yet I see this text in Matthew, chapter seven, as Jesus talks about the wise man. He says, whoever listens to my teachings and follows. It will be like a wise man who builds his house on solid rock.
Now think about this. After this story, he says, hey, the winds come, the rains come, the floods come, all those things happen. But that house, the thing that he's built it upon, stands.
So he says this, and I want to be clear about it. It's not just about a wise man and building his house. He's saying, those who hear my words and do those things, put those things into practice, is like a wise man.
Do you capture what he's saying?
What he says has to shape the way we live our life.
So discipleship, being his apprentice, means that we have to confront a reality about our devotion to him. Like, what is our commitment level?
I'm wrestling with this one, and I feel like maybe some of you are as well.
But listen to the words of Matthew 7.
Jesus says this, not everyone who says to me, lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he says, on that day, many will say to me, lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name, do all these mighty works in your name?
And then Jesus and I visualize this. I see Jesus walking, going, where have you been?
Walking in the dust of the rabbi means that you're right here with him, walking alongside him, that he's shaping the way you live your life. And Jesus is going to look around and say, hey, you said all these things. You did some great things. But I never knew who you were. You weren't right here learning from me. You were having some other idea about what that might be. But you weren't right here with me.
He says, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
So with Jesus, our words mean less than the evidence of our life's practices.
How we live means much more than what we profess with our mouth.
So here's another question for us to absorb and take to heart.
Are we right when we say, you don't have to do anything? Jesus has done it all for you.
Now, let's just take this for a moment. It is true Jesus paid for your salvation.
It is true he left heaven. It is true he came down. He lived a sinless life. He became the only perfect sacrificial lamb that could take away the sins of the world. It's true, all that. You can't do it on your own. You can't earn your way to heaven. You can't do enough good things to merit your own salvation. It is because of the grace and mercy of God. That's what Ephesians 2, 8, 9 tells us. Not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
But understand this does not mean that there's not effort on our part. I think we get scared of finding a works based salvation that we step completely away from and go, hey, you don't have to do anything. Jesus done it all for you.
But that would be missing out on the call to be his disciple, to step out there in faith and to speak on his behalf, to rejoice in what he's done for you. Let it overflow so other people begin to see the change that's taking place in your life.
This research shows us that in America at least, the term Christianity or Christian has this kind of consumer mentality about means. I come here, I receive, I hear the messages, I'm moved by them, I love them, I think it's truth, all those things. I enjoy being around all my Christian family. But it's the kind of thing that could get dangerous because we say to people, hey, you need to come to church with me. We have a lot to offer your family, which we do here at Madison. There's lots of ministry, there's lots of things that your family will be benefiting from because that's the nature of being a part of God's family.
But if all we teach and train people to do and all that we ourselves begin to absorb is that I am here for me, then we're missing out on the challenge to be his disciple out there.
And so while there's a lot going on that we enjoy here, the heart of this is God calling us to live for Jesus, to be with him, to become like him and to do what he does.
Remember the words of that foolish man.
It says here, anyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice, it's like a foolish man who builds his house on the sand.
And it goes on to say that the winds and the waves and the rains come and great was the crash or the fall of that house.
So let's summarize these two things together.
You know, the wise man listens and obeys. Foolish man hears it, but maybe has another way about doing things. Thinks maybe he's got a better way that suits his personality or the way he thinks about things. So he chooses to do something besides what he was told.
One builds his house on the rock just as he was told. The other. One builds it on something different that's not as sustainable.
Both of them Catch this. Both of them experience the storms of life.
They have winds, they have rains, they have floods. They're coming.
But the difference is.
And hear this, brothers and sisters, when you do go through the storms, if your foundation is built on the word of God, living like Jesus, putting those things into practice, living your life, being shaped by who he is, if you. If that is who you are, then when those storms come, guess what? You endure it, you fight through it. And on the other side, you say, God is great.
But if, however, you have ignored what he said and you experience those storms, it's going to tear the foundation right out from under you and you're going to struggle.
Jesus says, it's whoever.
I love this.
These rabbis of their time, they had, like, exclusive people that they would grab and follow them. And it was kind of, you know, you had to be invitation only here. And this is invitation, too. But the invitation is for anyone. Anyone can come and give themselves to Christ to follow. And anyone can be around him and be changed by him and be moved by Him. Anyone can do it.
He says, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.
This week, what I want to challenge all of us to do is read John, chapter three.
Specifically, I want you to look at that section about Nicodemus. But you can read all the way through the end of the chapter. I think these things are in both parts of it.
But I want you to not just think about what he says. We all know that there's the passage there where he says, hey, you must be born again of water and spirit to enter the kingdom of heaven. We understand that. We know what that is.
But what I want you to see as you read through, that it is not just about some kind of ritual thing to do.
If you read closely, you'll find out that Jesus is talking about a transformation, that our life changes forever.
And I want you to read it carefully, slowly, and make note of what Jesus is saying to Nicodemus.
So today, Jesus invites all of you to be his apprentice, to be with him, to become like him and to do what he did.
And I know what we've talked about this morning is hard. It's difficult.
It's really hard for those of us who get up to preach it, because we know we struggle in the same way.
But it may just be that you're tired of playing the games and trying to find a way to live this life here and a different life somewhere else, and you're tired of that and that you want Jesus to come in and renovate you because You've lived with him, you've learned from him, and you're doing what he's asked you to do.
If you have that desire this morning, please come. Don't wait while we stand and sing.
