Let's turn to that text they just sang, Matthew chapter number 16. We did not coordinate that, by the way, and had no idea they were going to sing that. They had no idea what I was going to preach from this morning or tonight, but we are in Matthew 16 again this evening. We're going to get further into that conversation. I think that the song really goes more with tonight's than it does even this morning's message. And so thank you, John, Paul, Kenzie. And boy, it's been a joy to be around all the missionaries this week. And I got to meet Kathy, Joe, I guess at Camp Bimmy and then Candidate School. I got to be for some time the Burns director and actually John Paul and Kenzie's director for a little bit of time as well. And we went to the same church together in Chattanooga, and it's been a joy to be around them. And our brother from South America also. Church, you've been so kind to us, thank you. I say that on behalf of all the missionaries tonight, on behalf of my wife and I, your hospitality, your generosity. Again, just the meals, the nice place to stay, but really just your genuineness toward us and your friendliness and showing us that We truly are welcome, so we appreciate that very, very much. We're in Matthew chapter number 16, Matthew chapter number 16. I'm gonna read and pick up from where we left off this morning, and then we're gonna get a little bit further in to the text, and we're gonna really look at the conversation that continues between Peter and Jesus. And tonight's message is simply, again, from the text, and it's entitled, Come After Me. Come After Me. Matthew chapter number 16, beginning in verse number 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? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some say Elias, others say Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? Simon Peter answered and he said thou art the Christ the son of the Living God and Jesus answered he said unto him blessed art thou Simon Barjona For flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee but my father which is in heaven I'm gonna skip down to verse number 21 and from verse 21 on is really gonna be our text for the most part of this evening And I want us to see this We know that Jesus would go on and talk about the start of the church, and we discussed that this morning. And then verse 21, he says this, right after, again, declaring that he's going to start the church, he says, it says, from that time forward began Jesus to show his disciples how that he must go to 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, for thou art an offense unto me. For thou savest 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.'" And by the way, if you mark your Bible, mark the word disciples in verse number 24. It's exceptionally important to recognize that Jesus is speaking to believers in this text. He is not speaking about salvation at this point. And I know that we often will use this text in a lot of what goes on and what is said here for some illustrations in leading somebody to the saving knowledge of Christ, but this is a text for believers. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it, and whosoever loses life for my sake shall find it. It has nothing to do with salvation. Verse 26, for what is a man profited? This verse has nothing to do with salvation. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the son of man shall come in the glory of his father with his angels, and then shall he reward, and rewards are for Christians, for believers. and shall reward every man according to his works. And those rewards that Jesus gives, we can talk about 1 Corinthians 3 and other places. That's not our purpose tonight, but I really want to drive home this point. This is a passage for believers. This is a passage for disciples. This whole passage is about, from verse 18 forward, is about discipleship and following Jesus, becoming true followers of Jesus Christ. Let's go ahead and pray together. and take a deeper look at this text this evening. Father, thank you for this day, for your goodness, for your grace and your mercy. And I do pray, God, that you will bless this time and speak to our hearts. And Lord, as Kathy Jo mentioned, she was in a missions conference and a missionary simply said, maybe somebody would call, would be called, rather, to missions from that conference. And here she is. And Lord, I know that through this week, there have been some who have expressed that they are contemplating whether God is calling them. Some I haven't had conversations with, but you may be working in their lives also. And we pray that you will work in a special way, that you will not only call, but that God, those whom you want to call will respond in obedience to what you want in their lives. Help each of us to do what you would have us to do as we go through this text and the Holy Spirit of God points things out in our lives and we'll thank you for what you accomplish in Jesus' name. Amen. Each year in the Philippines on Good Friday there's a number of different places where you can go and watch the reenactments of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. There's a man named Reuben who was born in 1960 and first allowed himself to be nailed to a cross in 1986, and he has repeated that ritual every single year except for 2020 because of COVID restrictions. Over 35 times, this man, with the very best of intentions, no doubt, albeit exceptionally misguided, has in his mind that he has denied himself, that he has taken up his cross, and that he has followed Jesus in a very literal way. In fact, this is what he says. He says he does this to thank the Lord for saving his life after a terrible construction accident. I don't know about you, but for me it's heartbreaking to think that a man is allowing himself to go through the excruciating pain of being nailed to a cross and have the nails pierce his hands, have the nails pierce his feet, and to do that year after year after year as if it was going to gain him some favor with God and maybe even one day he'd get to go to heaven because of that. We all know this evening, most of us, I think, have got it settled this evening, but maybe somebody's watching by a live stream. Maybe somebody is here and doesn't have it settled. Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy, He has saved us. And it wouldn't matter if you got yourself nailed to a cross every year and could live a hundred years or a thousand years. It would never do what Jesus did. And Jesus, as He was on the cross, said, it is finished, not it needs to continue. Now you and I need to continue in some things, but Jesus' work is done. Salvation has been paid in full. And so as Jesus comes to us and says, take up your cross and follow me, then we have to look at the text and say, what exactly does He mean by that then? What is the implication? Again, it doesn't have anything to do with salvation, but I want to remind us just from the text some things that we spoke about this morning. You remember there was that developing controversy, and Jesus was wondering, what do people say about me? They just sang the song about that, and who am I, and what are people saying? And some said Jeremiah, some said Elijah, some said you're John the Baptist, others said you're one of the prophets. And then as we get a little further in, Simon Peter answers with a definitive confession. He says, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, and he makes that profession that you are the Savior. And so we have to understand that everything that happens from this point forward in the text They are saved individuals speaking to Jesus about their life as followers of Christ, as believers. And if we fail to make that distinction, then it is easy to conclude from the text, if you don't make that distinction, what will happen is you'll start thinking that salvation is by works and we do have to take up our own cross. And this is why people in the Philippines do what they do, and others are confused as well because they don't make the distinction. They don't take a look and just see what the Bible has to say here. And as Peter makes that great confession, you're the Christ, the Son of the living God. He has already trusted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior, and he's just speaking about his knowledge of Jesus as a believer. And then as we get to verse 21 tonight, this is new ground. We're not reviewing any more from this morning. The first kind of thing I want us to see tonight is that Jesus speaks to us about a diabolical conspiracy. A diabolical conspiracy in verse number 21. From that time forth began Jesus to show his disciples how that he must go into Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day. Now, I want you to think about this, because Jesus goes from affirming the confession of Peter, the profession of Peter, you're the Christ, you're the Messiah, you're the Son of the living God, Jesus says, I'm going to start my church, and then the next thing he says is, oh, and by the way, I'm going to be crucified. You and I know the rest of the story. You and I look at this, and hindsight is 20-20. And we know that Jesus is speaking about the mock trial, the death on the cross, the three days in the tomb, His glorious resurrection. We know it's all an intricate and inseparable part of the gospel story. We understand its necessity. We understand that Jesus had to do this to purchase our souls and to die in our place, but it's a twist in the conversation that brings great confusion to the mind of Peter. And if you would put yourself in Peter's shoes, you might easily understand why Peter is so confused. Because God just said he's going to be crucified. And God, who said, I'm going to build my church, just said, but I'm going to die. And this is something that Peter really can't wrap his mind around. And I think very often as Christians, we like Peter, understand and declare Jesus to be our Savior and to be God, but then Jesus does something and he asks something of us that we can't fully understand. And by the way, most times when God asks us to do a thing, it makes no human sense. If it did make human sense, we would be able to reason it out and not have to do it by faith. And we need to move forward by faith. And a lot of times we can't wrap our minds around what Jesus is saying and doing. And so all of a sudden we start to act like Peter in this text. And that really brings us to the next place that I want to get to this evening. We've got to set this all up because we've got to, this is kind of by way of introduction to get us where I want us to be tonight. But I want to see a disturbing contradiction. A disturbing contradiction in verse number 22. Then Peter took him, Jesus took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. Wes Burns, come up here just for a second, please, quickly. He wasn't expecting this, so Wes. This is not sacrilegious, but you're gonna play the part of Jesus just for a second. I'm gonna be Peter, okay? He's not Jesus. I'm not Peter. We're just gonna illustrate, okay? Jesus has said, Peter, you're right. You got it. I'm gonna build my church. Then Jesus says, now I gotta go to Jerusalem. I'm going to the mock trial. I'm gonna be crucified. I'm gonna die. And Peter goes, get over here. What are you doing? Don't say that. You don't say that kind of stuff. That's exactly what the text is showing us. Go ahead, sit down, thank you. I want us to understand what Peter did in that text. He took him and he rebuked him like he was a child. Far be it from you. This is Peter speaking to Jesus, who he just declared to be God, and now he's taking him over here like an embarrassed parent around a child who isn't behaving, and he says, what are you doing? What are you saying? And Peter begins to rebuke the man he just confessed as God. The word rebuke means to sharply reprove, to censure severely, to admonish and charge sharply. You're so far off base is what Peter is saying to him. And Peter goes from declaring Jesus to be God, and almost in the next breath, takes him aside to tell him how wrong he is. Peter goes from confessing that Jesus is God to acting as if he is God. Have you ever wondered why Peter was so confused? I mean, what is going on in his mind? What's happening here? I don't think it's that hard. You think again about what Jesus has just said. Peter, you're right. I am God. I am Christ. I am the Messiah. I am your Savior. In the Jewish mind, the Savior isn't here to die. He's here to conquer and to set up a kingdom. Peter doesn't really probably at this point even understand what the church is. In his mind, the church is probably somehow related to the kingdom and the ruling and reigning of the Messiah. And now Jesus says, but I got to go to Jerusalem and I got to be crucified. And Peter begins to look at things with temporal eyes. instead of eternalize. And you say, well, he should have known because the Old Testament is there. Whether he should have or shouldn't isn't the point. He didn't. He didn't understand it. He didn't get his mind wrapped around that. And I wonder how many times you and I find ourselves in Peter's shoes. Now we don't physically take Jesus like Peter did and grab a hold of him and say, get over here, what are you thinking? Don't say that kind of stuff, you're embarrassing me. You're embarrassing yourself, be it far from you to do such a thing. But how about this? We're sitting in a service, perhaps a missions conference. Perhaps we're like Kathy Jo sitting in a missions conference in 2019, and a missionary says, hey, maybe somebody in this church is gonna be called to be a missionary. And the Holy Spirit of God uses the word of God and says, hey, Kathy Jo, guess what? That's gonna be you. Kathy Jo had showed up to service to worship God, but all of a sudden says, God, you're wrong. And how many of us find ourselves in those shoes sometimes? Now we start to understand Peter. Now we start to understand why he reacts the way he reacts. And we watch as he tries to straighten Jesus out on what needs to be done. Well, watch Jesus' response because there's a devastating condemnation. A devastating condemnation in verse number 23, but he turned, Jesus turned. And he said unto Peter, get thee behind me, Satan, for thou art an offense to me. For thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. Do you know that this is one of the harshest condemnations Jesus ever made to one of his followers? This is one of the harshest things, if not the harshest thing Jesus ever said to one of his believers. Get thee behind me, Satan. You're an offense to me? Peter's over here trying to tell Jesus, you're embarrassing me, stop saying this, and Jesus saying to Peter, you're the embarrassment. Get thee behind me. What happened here? Now it's clear that Peter does not become Satan at that moment. What is Jesus saying? Simply this, in fighting my plan and my purpose to go to the cross, Peter, you've joined the wrong team. You're on the wrong side. You remember in Matthew chapter four that multiple times Satan tried to get Jesus to set up the kingdom without going to the cross? Now Satan is using Peter to try to get the same thing accomplished because Satan doesn't want Jesus going to the cross. You remember that Jesus said in Matthew 12, he that is not with me is against me. See, in the matters of eternity, there's only two sides. You're either on Jesus' side or you're not. And every time you and I fight the purposes of God, we find ourselves fighting from the wrong side. We find ourselves joining the wrong team. And if we're honest, We have all, from time to time in our Christian walk, had God say, hey, you're gonna do this, you're gonna do that, impress upon us from the word of God and the ministry of the Holy Spirit of God that we're gonna do a thing, and we pull God aside and go, God, you're confused. Moses did it, Abraham did it, we've all done it from time to time. And when we do that, When we do that, what we really do is, all of a sudden, instead of saying, Jesus, you're God, we make ourselves God. Because we decide what we're gonna do. And at this point, we would benefit from the follow-up conversation that Jesus has with Peter, and I've been working really hard to get us to this point. And it starts with a divine calling in verse number 22, or four rather. If any man will come after me, after me. The word after means exactly what we would expect it to mean, behind, to follow. You understand what happened? Peter took Jesus and dragged him over. So who's following at that point? Who's leading? Peter's leading. Jesus is being tugged aside and Jesus looks over at Peter and he goes, knock it off, if any man come after me. Why? Because, Peter, you're not the leader. Jesus is. And Jesus is making clear that there's only one leader. And He's God, so He's going to be the leader. And the duty of those who own Jesus as Savior is to come after Him so that He can have the preeminence in all things. This is the call to true discipleship. This is a call to true surrender. Remember, Jesus is directing this conversation to those who are saved. And so Jesus is saying, listen, you have to come after me. And when he says, take up your cross and follow me, he's not talking about a wooden cross. He's not talking about a piece of wood that we're going to carry. Ultimately, just let's just make this as easy as possible. What is the cross in the Christian life? Well, what was the cross in Jesus life? You say it was a piece of wood. Physically, yes, but what was it? It was representative of the will of the father for Jesus It was the will of God that Jesus would take up the cross So when Jesus says to you and I take up your cross and follow me, what is he saying? Get in line with the will of God for your life Follow the will of God for your life. I But the question is, even though we know that Jesus went to the cross, and we know that the Bible says that Jesus actually delighted in that. Read Hebrew sometimes. He delighted. You mean He delighted in being nailed to the cross? No, we're looking at it wrong. He didn't delight in the excruciating pain of the cross. He didn't delight in being separated from the Father for the first time in all eternity. What did He delight in? He delighted in doing the will of the Father. That was His delight. And we delight that that was His delight because we know if He didn't, we're lost and undone. But here's the question, do we delight in the will of God for our lives? Oh, I'm thrilled that Jesus followed the will of God for his life, because without it, I can't be saved. But am I equally thrilled with what God wants me to do with my life, or am I pulling him aside and going, God, you're confused. You got this wrong. Well, we need to look at the follow-up conversation And we have to look at verses 24 through verse 26. And in verses 24 through 26, there are some defining contrasts that Jesus puts forth that every one of us needs to come to terms with. There's some choices to be made, some things involved in coming after Jesus. The first thing is simply this. Am I gonna live for self or am I gonna live for the Savior? It's really the first thing. Jesus says, if any man will come after me, he must deny himself. We just entered Lent. I don't know if you noticed, but all the people on TV with their ashes on their foreheads, I'm not making fun. I think it's sad, quite truthfully. But we just entered Lent, and part of Lent is, you know, I pass by a church sign, a religious organization sign, every single day in Massachusetts as I drop one of my daughters off for work, and it says, what are you gonna give up for Lent? And here's what I know, having been involved in that kind of stuff, usually you give up like, well, I'll give up chocolate. Man, don't go too far with that thing. Well, depending on who's sitting on the throne over there in Rome, sometimes you're supposed to give up meat and sometimes you're not supposed to give up meat. Sometimes you're only supposed to eat fish and sometimes you can do another thing. but you're supposed to deny yourself somehow. Is that what Jesus is talking about? Absolutely not, not at all. It goes so much deeper than that. Verse 25 says this, for whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake as a believer shall find it. The word life in verse number 25 comes from the Greek word psuche. It's the same word that speaks of the soul in verse number 26. And like so many of our Bible words, we can only really understand what that word means in the context that is used. And so we have to look at the context. First of all, this word psuche speaks of the seed of the feelings and desires and the affections and even our aversions in our lives. If you study the word out and you pay a close attention to the context, you'll find out that this word psuche is really speaking about my identity. Who I am. What makes me, me. What makes you, you. Who we are at our core. Because who we are in our heart and in our soul is really the sum total of whom we are. Isn't that what Proverbs says? For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. And so when Jesus gives us this option to embrace self or to embrace the Savior, here's what he's asking us to decide. Listen, he says, listen, I know you have laid out a roadmap for your life. You've got a plan for your life. You have got it all figured out. But I've got a plan too, he says. And I've got an identity that I want to give to you. And my question to you, this is Jesus now, which one are you going to follow? Your sukkah or are you going to take the sukkah that I've made you to be and Be who I want you to be and who I've designed you to be. We all know Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves is it a gift of God, not of works as any man should boast. Verse 10, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus on two good works, which he hath before ordained, that we should walk in them. Jesus says, I have a roadmap for your life too. And what he's asking is, whose roadmap are you gonna follow? Which way are you gonna choose? Well, as we make that decision, I would remind us tonight that Jesus said, I come to give you life and to give it to you more abundantly. And whatever plans I could come up with for my life would be so small and so insignificant to compare to what Jesus wants, it would be like losing my life in comparison to what Jesus wants to do with me. I've mentioned several times that I worked law enforcement for the state of Connecticut. I always worked under the auspices of the Department of Corrections, so the prison system. But I did a lot of internal affairs, and I worked with every three-letter agency in the country at one time, as far as law enforcement goes. I did a lot of different things. But as I went into that job, My very first day on the job, I walked into a room of all new recruits, over 200 of us there, and I looked around and here's what I thought to myself. I will be the commissioner of this department before it's all done. That was my goal from day one. I will run this department. By the time I had 11 years on that job, I only answered to three people. I was on my way. In fact, some time ago, a couple few years ago, we were at a gathering for a friend, and the current commissioner came into the room. I still have contact with some of them, and the current commissioner came in, and I greeted him, and I said, hey, I heard you're the commissioner now, and he said, yeah, I am, and I said, do you remember the last time I saw you, you worked for me. I don't know if I would have been the commissioner, but that was my goal. That's what I was gonna do with my life when God called me to ministry. By the way, that's not a bad job. That's not a dishonorable thing to do. But can I just tell it to you this way? My biggest goal and dream for my life kept me in prison, literally. Jesus said, I've got more for you. I've got more I want you to do. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it. He's not talking about losing our salvation. He's not talking about staying lost. He's saying whatever you could dream up of with your life and your life map plan is so small and so insignificant that it'd be like losing everything compared to what I want to do with you. That's what Jesus is saying. I mean, think about this. What if when God called me, I would have said to him, but get over here, Jesus. Hang on a second. You got this wrong. You want me to go be a missionary in Quebec and sit with Mrs. Pauley and have her yell at me? Don't you understand? People are going to call me commissioner. Do you think if I would have stayed with my roadmap for my life when I got to heaven and I faced Jesus for the first time, do you think he would have said, well, good morning, Commissioner, it's so good to see you. The greatest thing any Christian can hear is well done, good and faithful servants. But we will never hear well done if we're not doing it. And by that, I mean doing his roadmap, not mine. Now, don't look at this and go, well, if God just thinks that's better, why does he make me do it? Because that's a thing called Calvinism, and we don't believe that way. God gives us a choice, and He wants us to serve Him with our heart. And the truth of the matter is, I can't dream big enough to do what God wants to do in my life. So is it gonna be your roadmap, your roadmap, or is it gonna be Jesus' roadmap? I gotta keep going. Is it gonna be self-will, or is it gonna be surrender? Take up... Your cross. The cross that Jesus is speaking about is, I've said it, it's not a physical cross. By the way, it's not your sickness either. It's not your neighbor that you can't get along with. Your cross is not your job or your ministry. Your cross is not that special little burden that you carry around, whatever it might be. That is not your cross. You may have some burdens, and I don't make light of those tonight, but that is not your cross. We have people say all the time, oh, I have my cross to bear. As if it were a bad thing, but Jesus delighted in it. As you consider the cross and you consider the cross that Jesus bore, we think about it and there's some things we know about it. It speaks of solitude, right? It speaks of loneliness. Jesus is on the cross and he says to his father, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And we know that the response, though it's not written, we know that the response has to be because I'm not willing that any should perish. But the cross isn't solitude for you and I. Jesus said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. So the cross isn't solitude. It was for Jesus, not for you and I. The cross speaks of shame. Everything about the Roman cross was designed to bring the maximum amount of shame to the person on the cross. There's nothing dignified about the cross. Jesus endured the greatest shame that he could on the cross. He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. But there's no shame in the cross for you and I. As I bear my cross as a Christian, I do so as an ambassador of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. There's no shame in that. The cross speaks of suffering. Jesus suffered more than we can even begin to imagine as He hung on the cross for you and I. Read Psalm 22 sometime and you'll see that Jesus' suffering was beyond human comprehension. as He bore our sins and became sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. And I'm not going to say you'll never have a bad day or a hard time as you follow the Lord, but I'm going to tell you this, there is no suffering I will endure as I follow Jesus Christ that is equal or even comes close to the suffering He endured for me. No wonder Paul says this is my reasonable service. So what's the cross? It's the hardest word of all. It's surrender. It's complete, total, utter surrender. The person who bears their cross in Jesus' day had no more direction over their own life. None. If the Roman soldier said, take a right, the person bearing the cross took a right. They didn't say, but I think it'd be better to go straight. The cross is total, complete, utter surrender. And here's what Jesus is asking you and I. So you got a roadmap. You gonna give that up completely? Or are you gonna hold back parts for yourself and only do part of what I ask you to do? I don't have time for this tonight, but I'll just tell you this. I've had to go through this time and time and time again with the Lord. When the Lord moved us from Quebec to Arizona, I told him I'm not going. I'm not. Eleven months we fought. God said, I thought you told me you'd do anything, anytime, anywhere. One night I'm in Quebec, I'm gonna preach from Romans 12, one and two. I'm literally getting ready to preach from Romans 12, one and two, but here I am, been telling God for 11 months, I ain't going to Arizona. God said, you're not preaching Romans 12, one and two either, hypocrite. He said, you told me you surrendered. You know what I've learned? I've gotta die daily. I've gotta die daily. And I've got to give full control over to God. One more thing. I'm almost done. Stick with me, OK? As we look at this, ultimately, it really comes down to this. Am I going to serve myself? Am I going to serve myself or am I going to serve Jesus? Follow me, Jesus says, follow me. The word follow me means to follow as an attendant, as a waiter. You know what I've learned? It's hard to serve Jesus while I'm chasing my own dreams. And my dreams may not be bad. It wasn't a bad thing to say to God, I want to stay in Quebec and preach the gospel. It just wasn't the best thing because it wasn't what God wanted me to do. It wasn't a bad thing to wrap up my life and say, I'll be the commissioner of the Department of Corrections, but it wasn't what God wanted me to do. And so we have to get to this point, a deliberate consideration, we're almost done, a deliberate consideration, verse number 26, for what shall a man profit if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Remember, it's the same word as the word life, it's the word psuche, it has nothing to do with salvation, and by the way, it doesn't always have to do with our eternal soul either. If it did, Jesus would have never used the word psuche when he said, take no thought for your soul, for your life. When he said that earlier on in Matthew, in Matthew 6 in verse 25, take no thought for your life, take no thought for your psuche. If it meant our eternal soul only and exclusively, Jesus would never have used that word. So what is he saying? He's calling us to a deliberate consideration. What are you going to profit? What are all your earthly dreams going to amount to if you exchange them for what I have for you? That's what Jesus is asking. That's the contrast. Let's see if I can try to illustrate this and we're done. When I was in high school, I was a audiophile. I was a total sound guy geek. And I had in my mind that I was gonna own, now remember, this is, for the sake of my wife, I won't tell you how many years ago, so you can't figure out our age, but it was a while ago. And I was going to own a pair of six foot Polk audiophile speakers, six feet high. They went for $2,000 a pair a few decades ago. I was going to own these things. I don't know where I was going to get the money, but that was part of my map for my life. I had a friend who wanted to own a pair too. He came from a rich family. He probably had the means to get him. And one day he called me and he said, hey, come on over. I got him. I said, you got what? He said, I got the speakers. Come on over. I said, you got what speakers? I got the Polks. I said, where'd you get them? I was in New York and I picked him up. Man, I said, okay, come on, let's go. I get over to his house, and we hook him up, and I'm like, man, this is gonna be great. We're gonna rattle your parents' windows right out of the house. This is gonna be awesome. We are gonna have a good time. I hope that we don't break anything too badly. His dad was the biggest antique dealer on the east of the Mississippi. I hope we don't wreck all the antiques in the house as we let this thing rip. And I said, man, turn it on, turn it on, turn it on! He turns it on, and I said, that doesn't sound so good. I said, you got it hooked up right? I think so. I said, get out of the way. Let me check. Yeah, the amp's hooked up right. Maybe we just don't have them up high enough. Let's turn them up higher. They don't sound very good. Rich, they don't sound very good. I said, man, what in the world? I mean, they say Polk right here. They're the wooden cabinets. They're six feet tall, like they're supposed to be. I said, man, what is going on? I said, you got a screwdriver? He said, what are you gonna do? I said, just get a screwdriver. I get a screwdriver and we start to take the speakers apart. I started looking at the inside of the speakers. I said, where'd you buy these? New York. I said, who'd you buy them from? Oh, some guy was selling them in the back of his van. I said, you dummy. Total counterfeits. Junk. You know what I'm afraid of? I'm afraid of chasing cheap counterfeit fakes in my life. Being the commissioner of the Department of Correction is an honorable job. It pays well. I would have been retired by now. I would have been retired 18 years. Being in Quebec as a missionary is an honorable thing. I wanted to stay, God said you gotta go. If I would have stayed against his will, I would have been following a cheap counterfeit fake for my life. All the whole while calling myself a missionary. With the best of intentions. So tonight, believer, follower of Jesus, what's it gonna be? You're gonna follow your roadmap for your life? Your sukkah? Or are you gonna step into what God designed you to be and walk in the good works that he before ordained that you would walk in them? And I'm gonna tell you what, if you'll get in those shoes, I hate the term, I got to go find myself. I'm going to tell you what, you will find out who God really made you to be and you will not turn back from that. Only a fool, only a fool. How did Jim Elliot say it? I don't know exactly how he said it. Cling to what he cannot keep. and give up what he could never get on his own, or however Jim Elliott said, it's not coming to me tonight, but you understand. You follow your roadmap, go ahead. Maybe with the best of intentions, I'm not being critical tonight, I'm not. But boy, I would hate for you to look back and go, just a cheap counterfeit compared to what God had for me.