verses 21 through 26 will read responsibly and I'll read the first verse and if you'll join me on the next Matthew 16 verse 21 from that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go into Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day then Peter took him and began to rebuke him saying Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan. Thou art an offense unto me, for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? And let's bow for prayer. Our Father, we thank you this morning for the privilege of reading the wonderful story of your love. Father, thank you that your love sent you to the cross and that, Lord, you're not on a cross, you're not in the grave, Lord, but you've risen from the dead and you ever lived to make intercession for the saints, those who call you their father, the children of God. We pray that you'd just bless us now as we hear the Word of God, that we might apply it to our lives. and that you'd bless our preacher and that you'd Father help us to have hearts to hear and we just love you Lord and we're thankful for the privilege of being here together with God's people in Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. Long ago in Bethlehem, this holy night Earth received her morning star on a winter night Long ago in Bethlehem, Christ fulfilled God's plan In a lowly manger bed God became a man Can it be this, baby? Will for sin atone? Can it be this measure that the God is from? Long time ago He came to Bethlehem Long ago in Galilee, midst a stormy chill, Jesus, Lord of blessed me, whispered, He'd be still. Long ago in Galilee, Blind were made to see, Same were made to walk again, Sinners were set free. So the Prince of Heaven Left his throne above, Mortal flesh rejected Him and sown in love Long time ago, He came to Galilee Long ago on Calvary Love and sorrow met When the spotless Lamb of God Paid the sinner's debt Long ago on Calvary Heaven bore my pain, when upon a cruel dream Jesus Christ was slain. Once for all He suffered, Never more to die Now in heaven's majesty Christ reigns on high Long time ago He came to Calvary She'll look with and die for me Thank you ladies. Beautiful. Sure do appreciate that. Lord, help us now as we turn to thy book. Help our hearts to be open. And may we have spiritual ears to hear and spiritual eyes to see the truth from the Word of God today. And Lord, everyone is here for a purpose. I pray that you give me the words to say that would help. us to be more than we are currently. We leave here closer to Thee, better for Thee, that we may bring Thee more glory. Teach us Your book, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Before we jump in the Scriptures, of course, getting down to Christmastime. I love Christmastime. The next couple of weeks we're going to be talking more about the Christmas story, and more than just historical talk, but how the Christmas story applies to us and lessons that we can learn from it. In every message here at Curtis Corner Baptist Church, we try to give you something from the Word of God you can take with you to make you more like the Lord, make you more like Jesus. That's His plan for us. And I pray that's true. I was meditating this week on the fact that most people don't have a problem with Christmas. Now there are people who do have a problem with Christmas. Every year you've got the atheists coming out trying to stop Christmas and taking out ads and stirring up things here and there. Even our governor has been in the news lately. and the national news. Just about every week I turn it on, I see Governor Chafee's picture somewhere. And God bless him. He's doing his best, I think. But even afraid to call the tree the Christmas tree. And one of the ironic things is Christmas is a federal holiday. You understand that, don't you? People get off work. federal holiday, but people are afraid to call it a Christmas tree. And just interesting to me, I think that that speaks more to the culture of America and the political correctness of, and make no mistake about it, political correctness is becoming the undoing of our country, where people are simply afraid to speak the truth. and you have to try to massage everything that you say into some way that it won't offend anybody. They don't mind offending the Lord. They don't mind offending you as Christians. You just can't offend anybody. That's where my mind was going in meditation. It's amazing that even the people that love Christmas and they fight for Christmas, they don't mind a baby Jesus, but some of those same people that enjoy the baby Jesus want to reject the adult Jesus. You understand there's many people that will have a Christmas tree. They'll even talk about the Lord. They may even go to church on Sunday morning on Christmas. But you know, there are states in America where it's illegal to pray before the state parliament or the state congress in Jesus name. There's a huge battle raging right now. They'll ask preachers to come and say a prayer before they do their business, and they're making stipulations that you can pray in anybody's name, but you can't pray in Jesus' name. You can pray in the name of Buddha, in the name of Allah, in the name of Hare Krishna, in the name of whoever, in the name of Charlie Brown. Just don't mention Jesus Christ. And that speaks to the power of the Lord Jesus. In the next couple of weeks, we're going to be focusing on the baby Jesus and why that virgin birth is so important, how it applies to us. But before we get into the baby Jesus, I want to talk about the grown-up Jesus. I want to talk about the King of kings and Lord of lords. I want to talk not about the baby that's in the manger, helpless and protected by Mary and Joseph and His heavenly Father, but I want to talk about the Jesus that walked around Galilee healing the sick and raising the dead, making the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the lame to talk, the one that said, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men. The one that said, if any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. And that the message of the Jesus that we are going to discuss today is oh so important. The importance of the baby Jesus cannot be understated, because if Jesus Christ was not born of a virgin, then He cannot be who He said He is. You understand that? But at the same time, let's not focus so much on the baby Jesus that we forget why He came. And He came. And we have a wonderful opportunity here to be His disciple. And we read there with Brother Pasch there in Matthew chapter 16 about, if any man will come after me. And Jesus is interested in finding people that will follow Him. people that will follow Him. Now, we discussed Wednesday night, and we're in a great series on Wednesday night. If you can get away for Wednesday night Bible study, 7 o'clock y'all ought to come, because we're in a series called Mountainside Discipleship. And Jesus would take His disciples away on the mountainside often and teach them wonderful things. And we're talking about the Sermon on the Mount and all kinds of wonderful truths that every Christian ought to know. There are two segments of believers the Bible teaches very clearly. There are those who believe in Jesus, and thank God for those that believe in Jesus. Thank God for those that are willing to say, I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I believe He died on the cross to pay for our sin. He was buried and rose again the third day. I believe that, and I'm asking Jesus Christ to save me and forgive me of my sin. That's wonderful. And by the way, the Bible calls that being born again. John chapter 3, Jesus told a very religious man, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Religiosity is not going to get you into heaven. Under any form or fashion, a relationship with Jesus Christ is what opens the doors of heaven to us. And so we understand that. And there are believers, and thank God for believers. In the Scripture on Wednesday night, we looked at different times in the Bible where the multitudes believed, or many believed, but then He had a smaller group of disciples. And what Jesus was trying to say to all these people that believed in Him was, I'm thankful that you believe in Me. I'm glad you believe in Me. That'll forgive your sins. It'll open the doors of Heaven to you. We'll get to live forever in Heaven. But there's more to it than that. There's a wonderful life God wants to give to every believer, and so many people believe in Jesus Christ and stop there. And believing in Jesus isn't the end of Christianity. It's the very beginning of Christianity. That's what the Bible calls us, babes in Christ. When we're born again, we become like a little baby that gets to grow in faith and knowledge. And just like I've got three children at home. Sometimes it feels like thirty, but I've got three. And boy, the boundless energy they have. It's a wonderful thing as a parent to watch your children grow. They come out, and I was talking with my son. this week and we were reliving him being born. And I don't remember what started the conversation, but we were talking about how he was born. He was like, tell me about it. And so my little eight year old wanted to revisit that. And we were talking about it and told him when he... came out of his mommy's belly, and oh, it was so exciting. And when they had him on the table there doing all the testing, I told him how we've been buddies from the first day he was born. Within minutes that he was born, we were buddies and best friends. And I taught him how he's just laying there and he couldn't move his head and he couldn't talk. He's like, I couldn't talk. I said, no, you couldn't talk. I said, you couldn't walk. You couldn't even roll over. He said, what can I do? I said, you couldn't do nothing but eat and other things we won't talk about. And so that's all they could do, literally just helpless. I told him how I reached over and touched his little hand, just minutes old, and he grabbed ahold of Daddy's finger and he held onto my finger. And we were buddies from that very day. He's like, wow! That's great! But he was surprised at himself that he couldn't do anything. You're useless, son. You were useless. But imagine that's how we are as babes in Christ. Man, we can barely get ourselves to church. We can barely open up the Bible and try to get anything out of it. But a process of growth takes place, and before you know it, you're rolling over, and then they're crawling, and then they're walking, and then they're running. You know, after you have one child, it's like, oh, crawl as soon as you can. And then, oh, let's see how quickly my kid was walking at four months old. You know, having competitions. And I'd be like, praise God. My kid's two years old. I'm still trying to hold him back a little bit. Because after you get that first kid crawling, it's amazing how much faster they can crawl than they can roll around. And the chase begins. And then we'd have people after that first child on the second child, oh, we almost got your child to crawl. Don't. Please, don't get them to crawl yet. And the first step, stop! Because then they go from scooting around to running across the room. God wants us to grow. It's amazing how many babies in Christ, they're born and they never learn to crawl. They never learn to walk. They never learn to talk spiritually. If I had a child, or if you had a child, and praise God, these little children are important, but sometimes there are issues that come up and we have special needs children that come up. And boy, some of the sweetest, most precious people I've ever met have been special needs people. Just precious people. But we all look at that and say, That's not normal. But I'm afraid in Christianity that has gotten to be the norm. It's gotten to be the norm for someone to believe, and that's it. I knew a young man that was a dwarf. And he's a little guy. And I didn't know him well, but people looked at that and immediately you could tell that something had gone wrong. And jolly, jolly person. But spiritually, God doesn't want us to be spiritual, special needs people. You understand what I'm saying? Boy, God wants us to learn how to talk, and to grow, and to learn. And this is why Jesus pushed the concept of discipleship. There are so many things that you will never get to experience spiritually if all you do is believe in Jesus Christ and that's it. Now, there's people in here this morning, perhaps you've never believed in Jesus, and that's a step you need to take. But if you have believed in Jesus, I'm going to show you this morning how Jesus sets the bar a little higher. And He says, listen, once you believe, I'm going to help you grow in areas that you can't imagine. And make no mistake about it, your life, the greatness of your life, the influence of your life, the joy and peace of your life will be directly proportionate as to how closely you choose to follow Jesus. If you choose to believe, thank God we're going to heaven when we die one of these days. Amen for that. But listen, that's not where it stops. That's the beginning. And God said in John chapter 10, Jesus said, I came that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. That word abundant means overflowing, a super abundance. God said, I've got so many good things for you, you can't even understand it all. I want your cup to be overflowing. But it will only happen in proportion to how we choose to follow the Lord. Now look here, Matthew chapter 16. And let me just show you a few things here. Verse number 12, we'll go back to. We find here that the Pharisees and some of the religious people reject Jesus Christ as a Savior. Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. So Jesus was warning the common people here about religiosity, about those people that are religious, but they don't have a relationship with God. Let me say a word about that. I'm thankful you're in church today. I believe you ought to be saved and baptized and a member of a Bible-believing, Bible-teaching, Bible-living church. I think Curtis Corner Baptist Church is one of the best churches around. If it wasn't, I'd go to the next church I thought was better. Amen? It's a good place, wonderful place to be, not perfect, but a good place, a family. And thank God for that. But listen, religiosity is the enemy of a true relationship with God. And the Pharisees, they had all the outward symbols right. They had the services right. They would dress right. And they had all the fancy accoutrements of what people thought religious people ought to look like and be like. But they were not right on the inside. They didn't believe in Jesus Christ. And faith in Jesus Christ is where it all begins. There's no outward form of religion that can save your soul and forgive your sins. It's only faith in Christ. You can go to the biggest church made of the most beautiful brick. You can go to the place that has marble. And boy, there's places and churches around the world that have gold everywhere you look and silver and brass and this beautiful thing. You can have a nice pulpit. I've seen pulpits worth $20,000 just because they're so ornate and special types of wood. You can have all that stuff. You can be baptized every day of your life. You can give a lot of money away, but if you don't know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, it's not going to mean a thing. It's not going to mean a thing. And mankind has trouble with that because we want to attach our salvation to our good works, don't we? Some people just have to believe they are having a part in their own salvation when the first tenet of salvation is you must realize you can't save yourself. You're hopeless and helpless without God. You say, I just don't believe that. And you're going to be in trouble. Have you figured out life's bigger than you yet? Have you figured out there's a lot of things in life that you just can't handle on your own? People say, well, religion's a crutch. No, it's more than that. Jesus isn't just a crutch, He's my Savior. I'm not proud enough to try to stand up and pretend like I've got the world by the tail and I can handle anything that comes at me. When the going gets tough, the tough fall on their face and beg for mercy. You learn to pray. Learn to have your faith in God grow. Now, we find here the great difference between believers and religious people. And then, Jesus comes in verse 13, when Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples saying, whom do men say that I the Son of Man am? So understand, Jesus was famous. He was on the front page of all the newspapers. He would be the discussion of just about every blog if there had been blogs during that day. I mean, He was it. He was famous. And the great discussion was, who is this man Jesus? They could not deny the miracles. They could not deny His wisdom. Some were trying to attribute that He was a great prophet. Some, He's just a good student of the Bible. Some, that He was a reincarnation of some great prophet from the past. Some would say He's the Messiah, the Savior we've been waiting for. The great discussion taking place. But Jesus wanted to ask His disciples, those close ones to Him, those people that were following Him closely, Whom do men say that I am? Look at verse 14. And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist, and some Elias, and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Now the word Christ means Messiah or Savior. So he was saying, I believe you're the Savior we've been waiting for all these years. You are the Son of God. And that's the most important question you'll ever be asked, is who do you think Jesus is? Who do you think Jesus is? Well, the History Channel. I watched a documentary one time. Well, I read a book one time. It's amazing how many people get their theology off the fiction shelves of Walmart. Well, I read the Da Vinci Code, and let me tell you something. There's a reason it's in the fiction aisle. There is more evidence that Jesus Christ lived and died and is who He said He was than just about any other person who's ever lived. And I think I could say any other person who's ever lived. God's left plenty of information. You say, oh, that's blind faith. The information's there. It's available. But the important question is, who do you think He is? And I tell you what, my friend, there was a day in my life when someone sat down and showed me in the Bible who Jesus Christ was and who Jesus Christ said He was, and they asked me the question, what do you believe about Jesus? Will you trust Jesus to be your Savior? And let me just tell you something. I didn't need documentaries. I didn't need degrees. I didn't need all types of research. Something in my heart said, you know that's true. And I was overcome with the knowledge Jesus Christ is who He said He was. And it's that faith that will change your eternal destiny. But if you need research, if you need information, there's a lot out there. But there's also a lot of falsehood. Now, the Bible goes on to say, look at verse 21 now. So they just said, we know who you are, Jesus. Now we get into verse 21. From that time forth began Jesus to show His disciples how He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things. So Jesus would always teach His disciples, those true followers, those people that would sacrifice to follow Him and stay close to Him, more than the multitudes. The multitudes would follow Him. They might believe in Him. They might receive some healing. But there were always people that said, I'm going to take the next step. I'm going to make Jesus Christ the center of my life. I'm going to go to church Sunday school, maybe Sunday morning, maybe Sunday night, maybe Wednesday night. I'm going to read my Bible. I need to know these things. Jesus Christ is the most important figure in my life. Disciples. And Jesus would always teach His disciples more than the other people. So He began to explain to them the gospel plan. Understand here, He's teaching them that He's going to have to suffer and be killed and be dead for three days and then rise again. This is a great privilege that He was teaching them the intimate details of the gospel plan. But Peter, Peter was always sticking his foot in his mouth. He's a little bit pretentious. He would often engage his mouth before engaging his brain. You know anybody like that? Verse 22, Then Peter took him and began to what? Rebuke him. Now, the word rebuke means to correct. Peter, who am I? No, it's the Christ, the Son of the living God. Peter, here's what's going to happen. Now, Lord, let me straighten you out. He just said you're God. But Lord, it took you means I believe you took him over to his side. Lord, can I have a word with you? Now Lord, I know that you're pretty smart and all, but that ain't ever going to happen. We're never going to allow you to suffer. You ever found yourself in a position where you're trying to correct the Lord? I have. It never works out too well. And so he pulls Jesus to the side and look what he says here. Lord, this shall not be unto thee. Lord, we're not going to let you suffer. We're not going to let you die. We don't want you to be buried. Lord, that's not going to happen. I will personally make sure that doesn't happen. And you find later on in the Gospels, when the time came for Jesus to be taken, what did Peter do? He took out his sword and took a swipe at a guy. The guy jumped out of the way and ended up cutting the guy's ear off. Peter was serious. He wasn't just playing around. He was an old fisherman. He was willing to go to the death here, but he didn't understand that this was the plan of God. And Jesus turns around to Peter and says, verse 23, "...but he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan." Now, the word Satan there is talking about the devil because Peter at that moment was acting more like Satan than he was God. The word Satan for the devil literally means adversary. And Peter was pitting himself against the plan of God. Peter had become the adversary of the will of God. God said, here's My will. Peter said, no. Boy, we need to make sure we never find ourselves in that position. He said, Peter, stop acting like the devil. Stop opposing the plan of God. He says, Thou art an offense unto me, for Thou, Savior, is not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. And then verse 24, this great lesson that Jesus wanted to teach His disciples. He said, If you want to follow Me, it's going to cost you something. Now understand, up until this point, following Jesus had a great amount of benefits. He was healing the sick. Hey, if you got sick when you were following Jesus, you didn't need to go to the doctor. You're done. Lord, I got a little... Oh, thank you very much. Lord, I got seven in my eye. I mean, there was nothing that could go wrong with you that wasn't covered. Plus, you never got hungry. Imagine Jesus, here's a man, 5,000 people on a mountainside, not counting women and children. Lord, we better send him home, we don't have anything to feed him. Lord said, bring me some food. And so, long story short, they bring him five loaves and two fishes, and he's sitting there just breaking bread, taking bread in half and passing it out, taking bread in half and passing it out, taking bread in half and passing it out, passing out some fish, and he feeds probably 10,000 to 15,000 people from five loaves and two fishes. Hey, Jesus, would you split that Snickers with me? Yeah, here. Yeah, here. One Snickers can feed all the disciples. You understand. You go into the store and buy one Big Mac and you could feed the whole family. I'm being a little bit facetious here, but understand there were a great amount of benefits from following the Lord. Their needs were cared for. But Jesus said, I want you to understand there's a shift coming if you're still going to continue to follow Me. All the wonderful benefits that you have received are great, but He said it's going to become increasingly difficult to continue to be My disciple. The benefits will change. There'll be better benefits, but it'll be harder to follow. And look what the Lord said here. Then Jesus said unto His disciples, if any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. Well, why should I do that? That doesn't sound very pleasing. Here's the motivation, verse 25. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it. And whosoever will lose his life for my sake in the Gospels, and lose his life for My sake shall find it." Wonderful truth there. Listen, you can choose to not follow God because you want some type of other reward. That's the reason why if you study the Scriptures preceding, that's one reason why God called Peter here Satan. Why? For thou savourest the things of men and not the things of God. To continue to be a disciple, our perspective has to change where we begin to see things from God's point of view. Because if you want to keep a worldly, or the Bible calls it a carnal viewpoint, then the rewards of following Christ aren't enough. You probably have people in your family or friends that say, you go to church Sunday? They don't see the benefit of going to church Sunday. We've got a service Sunday night. Many of you here this morning will be here Sunday night. And there's a lot of people, they go to church Sunday morning, but they'll look at you and say, Sunday night too? And we've got things to do. We've got places to go. We've got people to see. You go to church Wednesday night, I mean, you read your Bible every day. See, there are people around you that don't understand the benefits of why we do what we do. And the benefits come from having that godly perspective. And the godly perspective here is if you try to save all the details of your life by rejecting the will of God, you're going to lose it. We talked about that in the Sunday school class, in our college and career class this Sunday morning. Proverbs 1, the Bible talks about if you consistently reject the will of God, God will allow your fears to come upon you. And those fears become your own self-inflicted prophecy. You think right now of your greatest fear. Maybe it's the loss of a spouse, or the loss of your own health, or the loss of a child, or the loss of your business, or the loss of your money, or the loss of your ability to work. Whatever it is, God promises you that if you consistently reject the will of God, you will fulfill that worst prophecy, that worst nightmare of your mind. You will make sure it happens by rejecting the will of God. That's a scary thought. And the Lord here is saying, listen, if you try to save all the details of your life, oh, my job's so important. I can't go to church. I can't follow God. My job. You will lose your job. You will lose your work. It seems to happen time and time and time again. I tell people, well, I can't do such and such because of my family. And I tell people sometimes, I say, never use your family as an excuse why you can't do the will of God. I never want to take something and put that between me and God and say, this is the reason why I don't do what I know you want me to do. Because God will allow that thing to be taken away. But look what he says here. He says, for whosoever shall save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for My sake, the same shall find it. How do you find your life? How do you find the greatness of living? How do you find purpose? How do you find all the wonderful things that you can't possibly hold on to yourself? Because when you give your life to God, He is able to protect all of those things that you think are important. And sometimes, listen, sometimes when I got saved, I had wrong priorities. One of the most important things in my life was basketball. I'm just being honest with you. I ate, drank, and slept basketball. I loved it. I wanted to play college basketball. I knew I probably couldn't play Division 1, but I wanted to play Division 2, Division 3 college basketball somewhere. And I ate it, I drank it, I slept it. I slept with my basketball. You say, you're a nut. Yeah, today that'd be some type of disorder. You have basketball disorder. I wanted to play, man. My stepdad would say, listen, if you want to... I couldn't jump. I wasn't very athletic. I'm a short white guy. Couldn't jump. Couldn't do much of anything. I was pretty ugly on the court. But what do you do? I had to work harder than everybody else. Learn how to dribble. I learned how to dribble on asphalt. Then I learned how to dribble on gravel. I used to practice dribbling the ball on gravel just so I could get good at it. I'm talking about all of these drills. We used to go to school an hour early in high school. Imagine this, a kid getting crazy enough to get up an hour early and get to school an hour early so you could shoot a couple hundred free throws before class started. And then at lunch break, you'd eat real quick and go out and shoot some more free throws or play a game of pick up. And then after, you'd go to basketball practice and work out. I mean, basketball is it, man. And I knew it for one time in my life, God said, I want you to do this. I said, no, because I wouldn't be able to play basketball. Now, I look back at it and I'm like, you know what? To give up everything I have now to play basketball would have been a foolish decision. You understand that? I have more today than I could have ever imagined and wished for back when I was so focused on that dumb orange basketball. You understand that? I couldn't see it all. And for you, it may not be basketball. For you, it might be some job or some dream or some profession or some amount of money or some this or some that or some car or some house. But whatever it is, it doesn't matter. Because God taught me a powerful lesson. I was rejecting the will of God so I could play my senior year of basketball. Starter on a varsity basketball team. And I told God flat out, no, I will play basketball. And as I walked away from that conversation, I remember as clear as it was in my mind, I didn't hear an audible voice, but as clear as in my mind, I heard God say, OK, break a leg. Now, where I grew up saying break a leg was like, hey, give it your all. You ever say that? Break a leg. Not the nicest thing to say to your friends. God wasn't saying like, hey, give it your all. And in that moment of clarity, I realized I could turn my back on the will of God for something and lose it that fast. An injury that fast. And that truth has carried me through my life because, listen, it doesn't matter how bad you think you want something. It doesn't matter whether it's maybe that drug or that alcohol or that this or that that. Maybe it's some sin. Perhaps it's something totally OK and in proper moderation. But it is coming between you and being a disciple of Jesus Christ. We must come to the realization that my motivation for doing the will of God has to come in part from the fact that God will be able to give me more as I follow him. than I can ever get on myself as I reject Him. Do you understand that? A good man, he's getting to the end of his life. He'll probably die in the next few years. He was a coal miner. He got saved. A coal miner in Kentucky got saved. And then he started going to an independent Baptist church and got some tapes from one of my preachers and went to see that preacher and they became fast friends. He began to grow. I mean, just a coal miner in Kentucky. and guys about this tall, literally. And he just kept following the Lord. He would go to church three times a week. He was just a coal miner from Kentucky. God gave him wisdom. He started different businesses. Then he had a drywall company. Then he had a remodeling company. Next thing you know, he's a multi-millionaire. I mean, multi, multi-millionaire. To date, he's given over $30 million to missions. And he ain't giving it all away. He's got a collection of old classic cars. He's got houses. He takes trips to Hawaii all the time. He's got a ring on his finger that makes him walk like this, the thing's so heavy. Hey, look at my ring. I mean, one time he walked into a church service or a chapel service and he was talking about the folly of living your life for money. He had armed guards with an armored truck bring to the college campus some gold and some money in a wheelbarrow. He willed down so much gold and jewels that these armored and guards are having to try to keep this thing going. And he brings it down and he's at the front of the auditorium running his fingers through money and gold and silver and jewels. And he said, you know, some of you are going to spend your life trying to get this. And he said, you're going to waste your life. He said, I in my wildest dreams could have never imagined having all this. He said, I decided to do what God wanted me to do and God decided to give me You have college students there eating little debbies for lunch, you know, 25 cent little debbies drooling all over themselves and just looking at this pile of cash and gold. More money than you'll ever see in your life. Now, will God do that for you? Probably not. Probably not. If God did that for the average person, they'd take the money and run. Thank you, Lord. All I'm saying is, listen, I don't have a lot of cash in the bank. But I've got a precious family. I don't have all the wonderful things that the world would look at and say, oh, look at this. But I've got you. I love what I do. I love you folks. I wouldn't trade you for anything. Well, maybe a few of you. Maybe if I could trade five of you for like a Hummer and another two for a Corvette. I'm kidding, a Corvette. But you know, the truth is, God is good. And I didn't have the wisdom in my young brain to prioritize all the wonderful things that God wanted to give me. But if I would have given God a piece of paper and said, I'm going to reject your will for all these things that I want, and given it to Him, I would have missed out. Because when I gave God the blank sheet of my life, He gave me a life with more beauty and more precious things than I ever could have even wanted back then. And whether you're young or old here this morning, I promise you the same holds true. God has gifts and pleasures for you, and He's got things He wants to give you that far outweigh anything you can imagine. But it takes being a disciple. The multitude don't get those gifts. And honestly, many people miss out, but it's those few. You know, out of the great multitude, Jesus had about twelve that stuck with Him through thick and thin. I know the great vast part of Christianity out there is going to miss out on most of what God wants to give them, but there will be a few. I wonder if there's a few here today. There's a few here today that say, boy, I just want what God's got for me. Let me show you a couple things and we'll be done. Look at this verse here in verse number Then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. Understand that there's four requirements of true discipleship. The first is, if any man will come after me. talk was given to people that understood Jewish law. There were four basic requirements for becoming a Jewish proselyte. We don't have time to get into all the theology of it, but let me say this. People have always been saved since Adam and Eve to the present day. People have always been saved through faith. They've always been saved through faith. People say, well, you used to get saved by keeping the Ten Commandments. That's not true. Galatians tells us why the Ten Commandments were given. Not so we could earn salvation by them. They were given to prove to us we could never earn our salvation. And the Ten Commandments are the schoolmaster, if you will. They're our teacher that bring us to the knowledge that we need a Savior. And so people in the Old Testament weren't saved by being good, they were saved by looking forward to the coming Messiah. If this on the platform stands for the cross, right here, this is the moment in time where the cross happens, Jesus death, burial and resurrection, and I am over here in the Old Testament, then from this point on, from Adam and Eve looking forward, my faith was in a coming Messiah. And my faith, don't miss this, it's important, my faith was evidenced in the fact that I was willing to follow Jewish law and Jewish custom because I knew back here at the time of Abraham, Genesis 12, God chose Israel as that special country. The Messiah was coming through Israel. So my faith in the Old Testament was evidenced by the fact that I was willing to believe in this Messiah that was coming, and in many cases, become a Jew myself, or believe in Jewish law and the system of sacrifice. Understand? Now once I get here, here today in 2011, I look back and Jesus Christ has already come. Jesus Christ has already died. So I am saved by faith today, but now I'm saved by looking back to the Savior that's already come. But the same faith saved us all. That's a very important thing for us to realize because in this portion of Scripture, Jesus gives the four basic requirements of becoming a Jewish proselyte and makes that a connection with now becoming a disciple to Jesus Christ in today's day and age. And the four basic requirements were these. Number one, you had to volunteer to follow Christ. You had to volunteer to be a Jewish disciple. Nobody could ever make you become a Jew. Just like today, nobody can make you trust Christ and nobody can make you follow Christ. You understand what I'm saying? There are people in this room, and I pray that every one of you comes to that moment of faith in your life where you've accepted that you're a sinner. You've understood that the wages of sin is death, and the penalty of sin is death in hell. And without Jesus Christ, that's where we all head. But Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins. He was buried and rose again. And you come to that place where you acknowledge the fact, you believe those truths, and you say, I need Jesus Christ as my Savior. And that moment, a great spiritual transformation happens where you become a child of God and all your sins are forgiven. That's a wonderful thing. Nobody can do that for you. You say, oh, my parents have been Christian. Christian parents don't get you to heaven. You say, I go to church every Sunday. Walking through those doors aren't going to get you to heaven. If I park my kid's bicycle in the garage, it doesn't make it a car. I wish it did. You make a lot of money that way. You have to trust Christ. It's a volunteer decision. And I have to come to the place where I accept. That's why we use the words, the Bible uses the words, receive Christ, to accept Christ. Because I accept Him as my Savior. Make no mistake about it. After you put your faith in Christ, the same holds true for you to follow Christ. Nobody can make you. Your wife can't make you. Your husband can't make you. Your preacher can't make you. Your kids can't make you. Your parents can't make you. It has to be you. And sometimes that feels like a curse, because if I could, I would help my children be wise. I wish I could protect them from all the evils and make their decisions for them. Now I can, but I will not always be able to. Sometimes a spouse goes astray. Boy, if you could just make that spouse see the truth, or you could make that church member see the truth, or you could help them understand what they're doing and what they're giving up. But we can't do that. It has to be you. That's why Jesus said, if any man will come after Me, it has to be a choice. Have you had a time in your life where you said, I will accept Jesus Christ as my personal Savior to forgive me of my sin? And after that, has there been a time in your life where you said, I am a believer in Jesus Christ, but I want to be a disciple in Jesus Christ. I want to follow Jesus Christ with my life. Nobody can do that for you. For us to do that, we have to acknowledge that Jesus Christ knows better. Turn quickly to Isaiah chapter 55. This goes back again to the motivation of why should we follow Christ. Isaiah chapter 55 verse 6. The Bible says, Seek ye the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Well, that's a good truth. Listen, when God's calling you, you better answer. When God's knocking on your door, you better open the door. There are times in your life where God comes to you and He's vying for your attention. Your heart's soft and tender. You are close to making that decision. You can feel the pull of God on you. You better stop telling God no, friend, because there may be a day when He stops knocking. It's a scary day. Look at verse 7. The Bible says, Let the wicked forsake His way. and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord. And he, the Lord, will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Now, important truths here. For me to willingly choose to follow the Lord, I have to be willing to forsake my way. I have to be willing to forsake my thoughts. Everybody in here, you've got a brain, you've got a way that you were brought up, you've got a way of thinking, you've got philosophies and concepts that you live by, and they've been turned and twisted on the table of your life. For some of you, you've had very difficult lives, horrifying situations and pain that cannot even be expressed in the human tongue. And there may be even things that happen to you, you've never spoken to anybody, or maybe things so bad that happen to you, you've trained yourself not to ever think about them. But every day, they still help mold and shape your life. We've got to be willing to come to the Lord and say, Lord, I realize I've got my ways. My ways aren't working too well. I want your ways. Lord, I've got my ways of thinking. But I understand today I need to be in thinking more like you. And what will happen? The Lord will abundantly pardon. The Lord forgives. Look at verse 8. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. So God's trying to tell us something here. Listen, of course there's going to be times when you and God disagree, because God says, I'm not thinking like you. I don't do things the way Paul Chapman does and God says. I don't do things the way Richard Pash does and God says. I do things the way God does them. And thank God for that. Boy, if I could understand God, he wouldn't be much of a God, would he? But God comes along and says, Paul Chapman, I need to teach you something. I don't think like you think. And I'm not going to do things the way you always do them. And one of the great successes of life, Paul, is for you to realize your ways are wrong. My ways are right. and to the extent in which you trust Me, you'll get to live the type of life I have planned for you." That motivates me to want to be his disciple, amen? Now we find here, what are the four requirements for discipleship? First of all, a true disciple must volunteer to follow. Second of all, a true disciple must deny himself. There's got to be times where I say, my way is not good enough anymore. You must learn that you can't have all you want, be all you want, and do all you want and still follow Christ. You ever thought about that? The devil tries to get you to have all you want, be all you want, do all you want, and God comes along and says, you can't have, be, and do everything that you want to do in life and still follow me. So I must learn to deny myself. You say, well, how do you lose weight? You say no. A cheesecake calls my name in the middle of the night. I'm just sayin'. Got a cheesecake about that tall, maybe some strawberries on top, a nice crust, graham cracker crust about that thick on the bottom of it. And I'm sleepin' in here. Ohhhhh. Ohhhhh. Yes, Lord. My servant here. Talkin' about a carrot cake with a nice cream cheese. You say, well, you're fat now. Imagine how fat I would be if I said yes every time. But it's just one of the things in life we've got to learn to tell ourselves no. Paul doesn't always get his way. In this day and age where we're taught to just flood ourselves with every pleasure you can find, that just doesn't cut it. And the disciple has to go against the grain of the world and say, listen, I've got to tell myself no in some things. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to go there. I'm not going to do that. Why? Because God told me not to. Because I don't want to ruin my marriage. Because I don't want to ruin my kids. Because I don't want to lose my testimony. All of these things. But a disciple must learn to tell himself no. So requirements of a true disciple. First of all, I must volunteer. Secondly, I must learn to deny myself and my way of doing things. We talked last week about Romans 12, 1 and 2. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. You yield your life to Christ. Be not conformed to this world, be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. Great truth. Next, we find a disciple must carry his cross. If you look back there at verse 24, it says, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Jesus warns his people that following me will not always be easy. We are living in a day and age where people look differently at disciples of Christ. They look differently. Over 80% of America still calls itself Christian, but they're not all the type of Christians the Bible talks about here. I was in town earlier this week, and I stopped in a place to get me a sandwich, because I drove by and said, oh... And I said, yes. And I pulled in. And beautiful, I wish I could... I took a picture of it. I walked in, I had my binder in one hand, my black binder and my Bible. And I'm just walking there, standing in line and I walk in. And it's like people just start... A guy walks past me and I kind of look back and he's like looking around me. I'm carrying a Bible. I'm walking through this restaurant. And this is a little shop here in town. When I was a teenager, that would make me stop carrying my Bible. And that's a dumb little illustration, but you know what? That's a type of cross. The cross stands for suffering. It stands for sacrifice. On the cross, they mocked Jesus. They made fun of Him. You listen, if you want to follow Jesus in today's day and age, not everybody's going to be happy about it. There's probably people in your life, in your family, in your circle of friends, they mock you for going to church. They think you're crazy for serving the Lord. They think you're nuts for going to church. They think the Bible's an old, antiquated book. And more and more people in America are beginning to believe the lie that religion is the problem. Well, how many times someone's gone to a psychiatrist in our church, and they'll go up to a psychiatrist and say, oh, one of your biggest problems is you go to church. You believe that stuff? I mean, they'll spend a 45-minute session where the government's paying them a couple hundred bucks an hour to sit there and listen to the fact God's your problem! There was an interview on TV recently, and they were talking to some protester, and you know how many people died for wars in the world, and people die every day in America, and the commentator's making fun of the guy because it's like, what country does this guy live in? People don't die every week in America because of Christianity. But the person on the TV believing this thing. It's the type of world we live in, folks. You better believe that if you're going to center your life around Christ, it's going to cost you something. People losing their jobs for Christianity. A scientist that believes in the Word of God has a hard time getting a job today in America. And on and on it goes. Then we say lastly, four requirements of being a disciple. I volunteer. I deny myself. I carry His cross. I carry my cross. And then a disciple must follow. Ultimately, the decision is a constant decision of, am I going to follow Christ today? And I want you to listen to me now. You may have followed Christ yesterday and the year before, and sometimes we get a little well done in our Christianity. I've been doing that for a long time. Are you going to do it today? Are you going to follow God today? You made a great choice today in coming to church. I'm proud of you. And I hope that you receive some benefit. I hope that you leave the place thinking, man, that was good and I got to see my friends and I feel like I've got some more strength for the week. I feel like I got some help with my burdens. I feel like I got a little bit of biblical perspective. But you know what? Monday morning tomorrow, what are you going to decide to do? Church isn't open, but you can choose to follow the Lord then. You've got your Bible. You can pray. You've got all these wonderful things. And what I'm trying to remind us this morning is we have the incredible privilege to follow Jesus Christ. We not only get to go to heaven, which is enough, He wants to bless me every day. You say, I'm not receiving those blessings. It's not because He doesn't want to give them to you. You want to be a disciple? There's being a believer in that. Some of us have lived enough life to know that not following Jesus isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's a tough world out there. It'll chew you up and spit you out. You have an opportunity to follow Jesus today. Will you take it? Will you take it tomorrow or the next day? Every day your goal should be to wake up and say, God, today's your day. And today I choose to follow you. Today I choose to deny myself any pleasure or thing that would keep me from being in your blessing. Today I choose to take up my cross and whatever it costs me to follow you today, I'll do it. And today I'm going to follow you. I guarantee you, in a matter of days and probably in a matter of hours, your day will change. Your life will begin to change, and it's available. Would you take it? Hedge about, eyes are closed. Simple message today on following the Lord. Perhaps you're here today and you say, Preacher, if I were to die right now, I'm not sure I'd go to heaven. Maybe there's never been a time in your life where you've trusted Christ. Today could be the day. I love questions. If you have questions, I'd love to answer them. But God loves you this morning. He's got a beautiful eternity planned for you. But you'll only get to it through faith in Jesus Christ. If you're not sure you're saved, in just a moment we're going to have what we call an invitation. Every service here, we stand, the piano will play, Christians will be coming forward, they'll kneel down here up front, pray about anything special that's on their heart or mind. There's a man standing in front of the pulpit. If you're not sure you're going to heaven, you just step out of the aisle and shake his hand and say, I'd like to know for sure I'm going to heaven. We'd love to take a Bible and show you what the Bible says. Not what Curtis Corner believes, not what Pastor Chapman believes, but what the Bible says. Today could be the day of your new birth in Christ. Wonderful opportunity. Perhaps you're here this morning and you say, Preacher, I am a believer. There's been a time in my life where I've trusted Christ. May I ask you the question, are you receiving the blessings of God? I'm not talking about everything's perfect and your life has no problems, but do you experience peace? Do you experience joy? Do you have blessings that come at you from all different angles and places that you could have never orchestrated on your own? Are you under the umbrella of the blessing of God for your life? Disciples get special privileges. It costs more. You'll have to carry your cross from time to time. Even daily. You'll have to decide on a consistent basis to follow. You'll have to learn to tell yourself no on some things. But the privileges are out of this world. If you seek to save your life, you're going to lose it. But if you lose your life for His sake, you're going to find it. Father, would You please bless the invitation. Give us a few minutes here to consider what You've done in our hearts, what we've heard. Help those be saved that need to trust You and help Christians decide to be more committed to You and follow You. Amen. Let's stand. As the piano plays, the altar is open. If you're not sure you're going to heaven, Step out of the aisle. We'd love to take a Bible. Come down and see Brother Joe. Christians are coming forward. If you want to come forward and talk to the Lord, we'd love to have you do that. If you're there in your seat, if you would just bow your head and close your eyes for a moment, Would you examine yourself? Are you striving and seeking to follow the Lord? I fail the Lord every day and I'm ashamed of it. But I want to try. Every day I want to seek the grace of God. Try to experience life as He has planned for me. Does your home resemble heaven? Or more resemble the horrors of hell? In your heart, is there peace and joy and contentment? You may be going through the most difficult time in your life, but God has strength available to you. There's a lot of struggles and suffering in this room. My family included. It's been a tough year for us. My wife's in a life and death battle with lupus, and right now the lupus is winning. I don't know how people do without the Lord. But oh, God gives grace, strength. There with your heads bowed and eyes closed, would you ask the Lord to help you follow Him? Would you ask the Lord to give you strength and wisdom? Ask Him to show you areas in your life that you need to deny yourself. Ask Him to help you be strong when the time comes to carry your cross. And every day choose to follow Him. Amen. Have your attention up here. Boy, I appreciate you coming. A special guest to our visitors for being here. You're our honored guest. And I see some folks came in a little late that were here last week. And with somebody new, I appreciate you folks coming again. God bless you. That's wonderful. At this time, our bus workers are dismissed. We'll give you a little bit of a head start on the crowd. For our visitors here, we have Several vehicles that go around Sunday mornings to pick up people that couldn't normally get to church. Children and adults and what a privilege that is. Thank all of you for your help with that. Nursing home tonight, 2 o'clock. Let me ask my girls, I forgot to ask. Is, I believe, I'm 99% sure that the book table is open. Is the book table open over there? Our church has what we call a book corner. It's not a bookstore. We don't sell anything. What we do is just have some materials here on the property that we make available to you so you don't have to go looking for things like Bibles and there's Christmas music over there, Christian music, different resources that you can have. We don't sell them. What we do is put a price on them. We ask you to give a certain donation. to the church so you can have that material. And if you don't make the donation, we don't give you the material. We're not trying to make any money at all. We don't want to get involved with all the craziness of that. We're just trying to make things easily available for you. So that's through these double doors over in the fellowship hall. You're welcome to take a look at that. And I'm going to greet the folks at the back as you leave. It's one of my favorite times of the week. And I'm going to ask one of our men to pray and dismiss us in prayer. And so let's do that. Brother Joe, would you dismiss us in prayer, please? I would ask that you would keep our hearts turning towards the truth and apply it to our lives going forward so you may be glorified. so so I don't know what to do with my life I don't know what to do with my life I don't know what to do with my life I don't know what to do with my life I don't know what to do with my life I don't know what to do with my life I don't know what to do with my life I don't know what to do with my life I don't know what to do with my life I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do Thank you.