We're now going to draw our attention to Luke chapter nine, and I'm going to go ahead and do the scripture reading first, and then turn to the prayer for God's blessing upon the preaching of the word. For the scripture reading, I'm actually going to begin at verse 18, and then I will read down through verse 27. though our focus is going to be verses 23 through 27 on self-denial right in the middle. This is a message that I try to preach in as many churches as the Lord gives me the opportunity to do, and I hope to show you how this will be particularly relevant to us today, and by the Spirit's blessing, I hope helpful to our souls. Let's go ahead and begin at verse 18. This is the word of the Lord, let us hear it with reverence and receive it with faith and love. And it happened as he was alone praying that his disciples joined him and he asked them saying, who do the crowds say that I am? So they answered and said, John the Baptist, but some say Elijah, others say that one of the old prophets has risen again. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Peter answered and said, the Christ of God. And he strictly warned and commanded them to tell this to no one saying, the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised the third day. Then he said to them all, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and is himself destroyed or lost? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him the son of man will be ashamed when he comes in his own glory and in his father's and of the holy angels. But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the kingdom of God. Let us pray. Almighty Lord, we thank you for giving us your word. And we thank you, O Lord, that we may hear and receive it now as though hearing your voice itself speak to us from heaven. We ask now that your spirit would be well pleased to shine the spotlight on your son, Jesus Christ. We ask that you would enlighten our minds, that you would renew our wills and our affections, that you would convict us where we must be convicted, that you would convert the unconverted, that you would comfort us by your promises and by your glorious son. And we ask that in all things and to all of us here, your spirit would be present in power, that Jesus Christ would be the true preacher by his word and by his spirit, And we ask, Lord, that we would say with conviction that God has been among us, and we pray that from all who are here, the least to the greatest, we would all know you. And we ask it in Christ's name, amen. You may be seated. One of the privileges that my family and I have since I've been at Greenville Seminary is we are able to visit different places and meet Christians in other churches, such as my son Owen and I are doing today. Ordinarily, the whole family comes, but today the rest of them are with other friends for a family baptism. So Owen and I are glad to be here today. One of the things that I'm always conscious of in traveling and in preaching, especially to groups of people that I don't know very well, is Ed Donnelly, the Irish preacher, once said, sermons don't travel well. Pastors always preach better to their own congregations than they do to people they don't know, and I think that's true on some level. So as I come and as I see you all and as I meet you all and we worship the Lord together, one of the things that I have to do is pray what would be something that applies to all Christians in all churches in all places, and in the case of our family, even in all countries that we go to. This text on self-denial is one that I keep coming back to, and there are many reasons for that. I think in our day and age, perhaps especially in our Western world, we are used to Christianity being at a rather low ebb. In other words, the church is small, In many places, it's getting smaller. My own father-in-law, after 27 years of ministry, saw his church close, and this happens in many places. Now, there are other parts of the world where the Lord seems to be doing great things and many things, and people are coming to Christ left and right. And the Lord works different ways in different places at different times. But if we live in what the prophet calls the day of small things, the question for us is what thing or things should we focus on? In other words, what are some of the key things that the Lord would direct you and I to in order to strengthen the church and to see the Lord's blessing come upon it? No longer to, as it were, be a weak force or an insignificant witness in the world, but to be noticeable and to see the blessing of God upon us. Well, ultimately, Those things are up to the Holy Spirit in terms of how the Lord blesses the church. But I believe this text on self-denial hits the nail on the head with so many issues that we face in the church today. Because what we learn in scripture over and over and over again is that the Lord is more concerned with our godliness than with our circumstances. We are concerned with whether or not we will suffer outward persecution, whether the church will grow, whether it will flourish, whether it will prosper or not in our lifetimes. The Lord is concerned with how we serve Christ, where we are, how we trust in the Lord, what we do with our lives, whether young or old, rich or poor, American or from other countries. Whatever we are, wherever we are, whoever we are, whatever we do, we are to pursue godliness and walking with the Lord. Now this text puts its finger on that point. very poignantly and, as I hope to show by the end of the sermon, very painfully in some ways. This is a hard text and I want to tell you that up front. The application is hard and it's difficult to balance the things that I want to balance here. On the one hand, I want us to feel the weight of what the Lord is telling us about self-denial and feel the absence of it. But on the other hand, I want us to see the loveliness of Christ so that he is weightier in our minds than anything he calls us to give up or deny ourselves in this life for. That Christ himself might be worth more than anything else we would give up for the sake of Christ. So I wanna totter back and forth between those two things as we go through this sermon on self-denial. And I truly believe, brothers and sisters, this is the need of the hour. The Lord is calling us to take up our cross, deny ourselves, to die daily, to follow Jesus Christ. Now here's my basic point, and if you remember one thing from the sermon, it's this. The Lord calls us to deny ourselves and to do so in ordinary acts of obedience. So in other words, the whole Christian life is self-denial from beginning to end. The Lord calls us to deny ourselves. This is Christianity. This is Christian discipleship. And it comes out not merely in extraordinary acts of obedience, but ordinary ones, how we live day to day. If you are a Christian, you deny yourself by definition. If you are a Christian, you must deny yourself. If you are not a Christian, you must deny yourself and come to Christ. And so whoever you are, wherever you are, we must deny ourselves, we must follow Christ, and this shows itself in ordinary acts of obedience. Now I wanna break this down into two parts. First, what is self-denial? And secondly, what does it look like? It sort of sounds like doctrine or teaching and application. That's not absolutely right. But in general, that's what we're doing. To understand the principle, what is it? And then secondly to say, now that I know what it is, what does it look like? How does this apply to me? And that second part is the hard part. And putting that into practice. So first, here's the question. What is self-denial? Sometimes we're better, aren't we, at describing what something looks like than what it actually is. So what is self-denial? Well, it means giving up something that I want for something else, presumably. But ultimately, what is it and where do we begin? Well, what I want to say is, from this text, self-denial is forsaking all things in principle for the sake of following Jesus Christ. Now what that really looks like is this, whatever Jesus tells me, in principle, I will believe it. Whatever Jesus commands me, in principle, I will do it. This doesn't mean that I or you or anyone else in the world perfectly understands what Jesus is teaching. or that we perfectly obey Jesus the way we want to. We all know the painful reality in both cases. We wish we understood more. We wish we knew him better. We also wish we did more, and there are things we wish we hadn't done. And until we see Jesus in glory, it will always be the case that this is an imperfect reality. But this is why I said, in principle, what Jesus is saying is you are not your own. You are bought with a price. You have no right to your own opinions, to your own actions, to your own life, to your own ways. You belong to God in Jesus Christ. This is what it means to be a Christian. Literally when Jesus says jump, you say how high? When Jesus tells you something, you say, if you see black and he says it's white, you say it's white. This is the principle. We must deny ourselves, we must take up the cross, we must follow Jesus Christ. Now it's realizing the implications of this that led Israel to be unwilling to enter the land of Canaan. Deny ourselves to believe God, but not when we have to face giants. This is what led people to turn back from following Jesus at so many points in his ministry. He preaches to a crowd and he breaks bread and he distributes it to feed 5,000 people and the crowd follows him over land and sea and he says, you come because you want full bellies. not because you're concerned about the kingdom. And literally, after preaching on election and predestination, he thins the crowd to nothing. And you see what happens. They had to deny their opinions, they had to deny their safety, they had to deny their comfort, and in principle, leave everything in order to follow Christ, to take whatever this man says, and to believe whatever he'll tell them, and to do whatever he commands them. And this is where Peter ends up at the end of John 6, which I was just alluding to. Jesus says, are you gonna go away too? Where are we gonna go, Lord? You alone have the words of everlasting life. We don't fully understand everything you're saying. and we certainly don't believe we can do everything you're commanding, but where are we gonna go? You alone have the words of everlasting life. That's getting at the heart of this, isn't it? He's understanding there's nowhere else to go. There's nothing left. It's Christ or it's nothing. It's all of Christ or it's none of Christ, and so it's always been in Christianity, and so it must be with you and I. So what is self-denial? In principle. forsaking everything in order to follow Jesus Christ. Now, in a sense, I've fulfilled the task of this first point, haven't I? I still have several verses, though, left to look at that I wanna push. So what I'm gonna do with the rest of this is try to reinforce it and try to get it to sink in and come home. Because you notice what the Lord is doing. He doesn't simply come to you and come to me and say, if you really wanna be a Christian and you really want to follow Jesus Christ, here's what you need to do. You need to, in principle, die. You need to no longer live for yourself, you need to give up everything else, believe whatever Jesus tells you, do whatever Jesus commands you, regardless of the cost, have a nice day. Now if we begin to understand the implications of that principle, it would crush us. By the time I'm done with the sermon, this is the litmus test of whether you're following me and you really get the sermon. If you don't feel this crushing you in some way, you're not getting it. and I don't want to leave you there. I want to lift us up, I want to impel us forward by the grace of God so that we want to do these things. And that's the challenge again. But the Lord doesn't approach us this way, does he? Notice what he does. He puts two bookends on this command to deny ourselves. So I wanna deal with the bookends, then flesh out with the text itself a little bit more of what Jesus is saying. What are the bookends? Well, notice it's the humiliation and the exaltation of Christ himself. This is the key to the Christian life. Everything the Lord requires of us and everything that he demands of us is centered on and focused around the person and work of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You see, he's not simply saying you must deny yourselves, give up everything you want, and it wouldn't be self-denial if you didn't want it, would it? But he's saying, as it were, here are the scales. Take your wealth, take your security, take your physical safety, your opinions, your sense of self-importance, your pride, your ambition, whatever else it is in this life that you value, and put them all on one side of the scale over here. And then on the other side, put the Lord Jesus Christ, his humiliation, the one who died for your sake that you might not die under the wrath of God. The one who bore God's curse on the cross that you might not bear it in hell or in this life. The one who lived and walked a righteous life that you might be counted righteous in God's sight. The one who was raised from the dead that you might be alive right now this day as you worship. and that you might walk with God and live like Christ. And that one day, body and soul, you will see him, you will be with him, you will worship in the presence of God. The one who ascended to the right hand of the Father and is seated at his right hand, interceding for you and I right now, the one who we celebrate in the sacrament as well as the word of the sacrament preaches all that I just said to you very well. Now put all of that on the other side of the scale. And you see what Jesus is doing, and what the Lord is doing with this command of self-denial is He's saying, look at your goals, your ambitions, your self-importance, everything else that you want in life, and it's on this side of the scale. Now look at everything that I've just said about Jesus Christ on the other side of the scale, and which one weighs more? If we consider the humiliation and exaltation of our Savior, it should be so weighty that it not only tips the scale, but it falls through the floor. Then we say, if the Lord calls me, I will give up my wealth, I will give up my safety, I will give up my ambitions, I will give up my family, I will give up whatever he calls me to. Because he is weightier than them all, he is worth more than them all. It's easy to miss that. So notice what happens. I read earlier in the text and Jesus comes and he asks the disciples, who do you say that I am? He's just fed the 5,000, he showed them a glimpse of his glory, as it were, rolled back the heavens and let a ray of his glorious person shine through. And the crowds have their opinions. Maybe he's John the Baptist risen from the dead. Maybe he's one of the old prophets. Maybe he's the prophet that we've all been waiting for all this time. But here's the heart of the matter, who do you say that I am? And Peter answers, you are the Christ. You are the son of the living God. In our terms, we could add to this, your holy God, your holy man. In two natures and one person, you're the only one who's able to be the mediator between God and man, to live for me, to die for me, to be raised for me, to ascend for me, to intercede for me. And without you, I have no hope and I have nothing. And notice what the Lord does. He doesn't say, you're right, Peter, let's march into Jerusalem so I can take my crown and sit on the throne. What does he say? The son of man must be betrayed. He must suffer. He must die. Now, at this stage in these people's lives, this was the most baffling thing the Lord could ever say. Hopefully, where you are, most of you are gonna say, if somebody says, is the suffering and death of Christ necessary, you would say, absolutely. Without it, I couldn't have any hope before God. But it was dawning on these people slowly. And you see how shocking this is. I am the Christ, but I'm not what you expect. I must deny myself. I must deny myself and take up my cross. I must die. Then fast forward. After our text, he not only comes and says, I must deny myself if you would be saved, but he says, you must deny yourselves if you would be saved. you must follow me. I have forsaken all things for your sakes, now you must forsake all things for mine. He did so sinlessly, we do it sinfully. He did it perfectly, we imperfectly. But we must follow the lamb wherever he goes. So you see what he's doing, he's solidifying it in his own person. The Christ must suffer, the Christ denies himself, then says you, in fellowship with Christ, trusting in Christ, following Christ, must deny yourself. Then the other side of the text that comes after is his exaltation. He's transfigured on the mountain. The veil of his flesh as it were is peeled back for a moment and the disciples see the rays of divine glory shining in their faces. And you see what he's saying. The law of the kingdom is humiliation precedes exaltation. Now this takes us right into the heart of the text, doesn't it? If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, follow me. Whoever desires to save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and is himself destroyed or lost? Do you see what he's saying? I've given you the pattern. Humiliation precedes exaltation for me, and it must do so for you as well. You must deny yourself, in principle, being willing to give up all things, your opinions, your safety, your security, your everything, in order to believe Christ and to obey Christ. That's the call of the gospel. No more, no less. J.C. Ryle once said that a Christianity without a cross is without a crown. A Christianity that costs nothing counts for nothing. Do you believe that today? Do you understand this? Now here's what I want you to see. Jesus Christ, in whom the Father is well pleased, denied himself and suffered all the effects of sin, though he had no sin to speak of personally, that you might be saved, that I might be saved. Jesus Christ humbled himself. Jesus Christ was exalted. And I ask you, first when you think about self-denial, do you see the glory of Jesus Christ? If the Lord calls you to suffer something particularly difficult for his sake, or calls you to give up something particularly painful, you cannot do it and you will not do it unless you have these bookends before you. The humiliation, the exaltation of Christ. Now I confess to you, this is the point where as a preacher, I always feel like everything I say is completely inadequate, almost to the point of being worthless. I wish the angels in heaven could come and sing the praises of Jesus Christ at this moment. I wish that God himself could come in person and extol to you the glories of his son. But with the help of the spirit, I plead with the Lord and I plead with you to see something of it today. Do we see the glory of the Savior first in the Christian life? The gospel is ultimately, my friends, not about a list of benefits. Jesus Christ is not a cosmic vending machine giving you justification and sanctification and adoption, anything you ever wanted. He is a person who has come in person to reconcile sinners to God. And is he worth it? Is he worth leaving behind your opinions to turn to him? Is he worth denying your own righteousness and your own accomplishments and your own achievements and anything in your mind that you think may recommend you to God? What is more glorious and lovely in the sight of God than his obedient, suffering and exalted son? Will you surpass him, let alone reach him? Then dear friends, deny your own righteousness. Deny your own self-opinion. Look to the glory of the Savior first and foremost. And for all of us, I pray that as we live the Christian life, these things are what keep us running. We see Christ in all that He has suffered for us, and we say He is worth it. And therefore, I will take up the cross, I will deny myself, I will die because He has done so for me, and the Spirit will help me do it. This is where we have to begin. Now, of course, if we desire to save our lives and we say this is too much, you see what he's saying, you're going to lose everything anyway. You know, I have a relative who used to be a drunkard and, um, He's on his fourth marriage and the first three ended basically more or less because of the alcohol problem and adultery and all kinds of other things. He had a well-paying job, he lost his job and basically ended up losing everything and not even being able to find normal employment. And then later on, his life got turned around. Now he's got a good marriage. He's got a good job. He's a nice guy. He's easy to get along with. He's got his wealth restored. And he's no longer a drunkard. And he lives his life thinking of others. Sounds like a great testimony, doesn't it? The problem is he's not a Christian. And sometimes it disturbs me that this is what Christian testimonies sound like. I used to be this way, I used to be bad off and now I just really don't know how I'd live a day without Jesus Christ. Well that's good but this man that I mentioned is new age, he's not a Christian and he'd say the same thing. And you know what I've said to him, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and he loses himself and loses his soul? If you become a Christian, it will change your life. If you are a Christian, it has changed your life, and it will change your life. But it's Christ who does it. It's Christ who brings us to God. It's Christ's humiliation and exaltation that remedies all of our needs before God. All of these other things are external. All of them are secondary. All of them are peripheral. Knowing the right God and knowing him in the right way is the only thing that matters in this life and the next, and everything else needs to be connected to it. Do we understand this, that when he says, if you do not deny yourself, take up the cross, follow Christ, you lose everything. Even if you feel you've gained everything. Then he says, whoever's ashamed of me and my words, of him the son of man will be ashamed when he comes in his own glory and his father's and of the holy angels. Now really, the second point of my sermon, the only purpose of it is to explain this verse as far as what it looks like. So I just wanna say one more thing. What is self-denial? In principle, forsaking everything in order to follow Christ. How does it express itself? In ordinary acts of obedience, that's where verse 26 is gonna pull all of this out. Is Christ worth it? And the only other thing I wanna add is did you notice that taking up the cross is something you do and not something that happens to you? We use the cross as meaning I've got cancer or I've lost my job or a child died or something happened to me and that's the cross that I have to bear. That's not what Jesus says. That's a trial and one the Lord may use for your good but what does he actually say? Take it up. Pick it up, don't wait for it to come, don't wait for it to fall on you, but pick it up and start carrying it. Not that you're seeking suffering, but that in principle, you are going to die. When you take up the cross, it means I'm not my own, I belong to Christ. He was humbled that he might be exalted and I will be humbled before I'm exalted. And in principle, I will take up the cross, deny myself, and follow Christ. Is this you, dear friend? and invites you this very day to see the Christ who humbled and exalted himself, or was humbled and exalted, that you might see him as worth it in denying yourself, coming to God and following him. Now all of this is principle. All of this is just the big question, what does this look like? Or what does it mean? What does it mean? Too many I means in that sentence. But now what does it look like? This is the hard part. You may be thinking that that's already pretty hard so far. But not if we're looking at the glory of the Savior. Not if we're recognizing that we find everything in Him. Not if we see Him as more valuable and more glorious than everything else. This is what is the lifeblood of Christianity and this is what we need. The glory of the Savior in His humiliation and exaltation calling us to die to self. What does it look like in practice? Well, what do we envision, maybe first of all, when we look at verse 26? Whoever's ashamed of me and my words, of him the son of man will be ashamed when he comes in his own glory of the fathers and of the holy angels. You don't need to raise your hands, but do some of you in this room maybe think of this, the Roman Christians in the third and fourth century being thrown into the Colosseums saying, burn a pinch of incense to the emperor or else, to the lions with you. And if they deny Christ before men, then he'll deny them before the angels in heaven and before God himself. In other words, we think of the extraordinary sometimes, don't we? Not the ordinary. We think of the extremes. We think of the church father, Polycarp, in the Roman Colosseum with all the Romans chanting his name, Polycarp, Polycarp, Polycarp, and is he now going to say, away with the atheists, meaning away with the Christians, and they're waiting with bated breath seeing if he's gonna deny his savior. And instead he points at the crowd of Romans worshiping all their gods and saying, away with the atheists. You're the atheists, not me. I know the right God, I know him in the right way. Christ has been faithful to me for all these years. How can I deny him now? And there's some sense, isn't it, that this is at least the kind of thing we think about. The prisoner in Eritrea who's been arrested and beaten for preaching the gospel and he's still faithful. The little girl who watches her family die in a Muslim country because of her faith in Christ. Those are the things we think about. Are they acts of self-denial? They certainly are. But there's a real danger here, my friends. If we always think of self-denial as referring to extraordinary acts of obedience, It will never touch our ordinary lives. And it basically means that the teaching of Christ here is only relevant for the extremes, not for the day-to-day. I believe that this is why this principle is what's cutting the heart out of Western Christianity. Because we think persecution, self-denial, confessing Christ before men, that's something coming. And you hear that, don't you? Persecution's coming. The Bible says, doesn't it, that it's impossible to live godly in Christ Jesus and not suffer persecution. It's impossible to be a Christian and not take up the cross, deny yourself, and follow Christ. So here's the million dollar question. What does that mean? What does that look like? Where am I facing it? Where is it coming to me? Let me try to give you a few examples. I've given the examples to make the text come home, and again, this is the hard part. What about the Sabbath? It's interesting, isn't it? How do we understand the fourth commandment in our day? Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy unless your employer puts a lot of pressure on you and tells you you might lose your job. I gotta provide for my family. It's a work of necessity, isn't it? Some things are, you know, being doctors, nurses, firemen, a number of other things. We could talk about that another time, but that's not really the point here, is it? It's the principle. Are we willing to obey Christ at personal cost? I've really been disturbed that people magically change their convictions when they're put under pressure. I believe I shouldn't work on the Sabbath day, but now my employer's really pressuring me, because I'm the manager, and people work under me, and I'm using my vacation days to take Sundays off, and now they're saying that's not even good enough. Well, maybe I'm not sure the Bible actually says this anymore, and maybe I'm not really sure there is a Christian Sabbath. I'm just gonna ask you a question for you to wrestle with before the Lord, is that honest? Remember the Sabbath day unless my children need to play Little League on Sundays. Now think about what you're doing. We don't want our children to suffer, we want our children to have good lives, but what are we basically doing? We're saying I want my children to understand, whatever else they understand, that Christianity is about health, wealth, prosperity, and recreation. And whatever else happens to them in this life, even if they have to miss worship, and even if they have to break God's law, as long as they're healthy, wealthy, prosperous, and playing baseball, I'm happy. Now, I'm putting that extremely, aren't I? Nobody would wanna say that. No Christian parent would take those words upon their lips. I hope not. But this has gotta sink into us at some point, doesn't it? Is Jesus Christ worth a Sabbath day? Is he worth losing a job? Is He worth skipping things that we'd like to do and could legitimately do other times? Because it is worth it to set apart one day in seven to celebrate the life, death, and resurrection of the Savior. His humiliation, His exaltation. We see it in the Lord's Supper today. We hear it in the Word of God today, and the day itself is screaming it in our ears. Jesus was humbled, Jesus was exalted, is He worth a day? Now, Satan will tempt you that you can't give up something, whether Sabbath-keeping or whatever else, because it costs too much. He's a liar, isn't he? I could tell you of a friend, for example, that had a high-paying job at a university, and within a month he was pressed on this Sabbath issue, and he wouldn't budge, and they fired him. And because of this, he worked as a janitor, and with four degrees behind his belt, he's sweeping floors for a living to pay the bills. And what could be more degrading and humiliating than as the Lord's promise failed? Well, then this led to a series of circumstances where he got a better job, and one that he never even would have looked for if all of this had not happened. And you see, the Lord will provide for us, won't he? And I could add example after example after example after example. The real question is this, what is the Lord taught? What is he required? And is Christ worth it? Do we trust the Spirit to help us? Here we go, the other examples that touch us deeply. We have a bunch of young people here and I wasn't planning on having you here when I was thinking about some of these things before. But presumably if you're single, many of you want to get married. That was me at one point as well. What, and the Lord bless, I have a wife and one of my kids is here, so the Lord can bless you as well. What are you looking for? What are you aiming at? In some sense, this principle of self-denial comes in here that will shape the rest of your life. Is your attitude, for example, well, this person may or may not be a Christian, or maybe they're a weak Christian, or I'm not even sure if they're a Christian, but they're attractive, and the Holy Spirit is sovereign, and he can change their hearts anytime. Maybe he'll use me to do it, and this sounds great. So I'm going to get into this relationship, even though we have all kinds of disagreements and differences, and who knows what the Lord will do, and now you sound great, and you're a zealous evangelist. Well, here's the problem. If your first question is, Christ gave up everything for my sake, he calls me to give up everything for his. And you begin this relationship by saying, what is the first thing that is pleasing to Jesus Christ? Are you gonna go down that path? I don't think anyone would, honestly. You're not gonna say, well, that person's a non-Christian, the Lord told me to evangelize, I better start dating them. Right? That's not how you arrived at that, just be honest. Or they're not like-minded. They may be Christians, but we're not walking the same direction. And it'll be pleasing to Christ if I go disciple people, so I'm gonna disciple that person, maybe marry them. That's not honest, is it? Are you asking yourself, how can I do good to this person's soul? Is this person going to help me walk with Christ better? Are we going to learn to deny ourselves together, to take up the cross, to follow Jesus Christ? You see what I'm getting at? This has massive ramifications. Doesn't this apply to where we work? When you apply for a job, is the first thing you think, is there a church there? Can I worship the Lord where I'm going? When I go to school somewhere, can I seek God here? Does that come first? Does that stand out? What about other things in life? You know, I had someone come up to me, let me talk about prioritizing worship. I was in a small town in South Carolina pastoring in the PCA for seven years. And somebody came up to me and they said, you know, pastor, this is the best place to go to worship God. And I already knew this was going in a bad direction. Okay, where's the shoe gonna drop? This is the best place to go here to worship God for the preaching of the word. But we're leaving a church, I'm not surprised. Why are you leaving a church? We need more homeschooled children for our children. And there's just not enough kids here. I mean, we homeschool our kids, we understand this. We've had churches with no kids, we've had churches with lots of kids. But you know what I said is, what do you wanna teach your children? You just said, your admission, the best place to worship God, the best place to hear the preaching of the word, but we're leaving because we want more socialization and support and all the other things that homeschool parents and all parents legitimately want. And my answer is you're teaching your children to be idolaters. That their education, their socialization, their support group, everything else is more important than the worship of God. That's what he just told me. And I'm sad to say that after three or four years, the last I heard is that all the children are apostate, the husband became an atheist, and the wife hasn't been in church for years. Well, that's sad, but it's not really surprising because we're losing this, aren't we? You see what I mean? This is not going to the Coliseum. This is not the extreme. This is how you live your life day to day. Do you make decisions? Do you live your life? Do you obey because the Lord taught you to do so? Do you come in principle willing to honestly listen to him? The people in Jeremiah's day did this falsely, didn't they? They come to the Lord, the governor that Babylon has appointed has been murdered and we're afraid they're gonna wipe us out, what do we do? We'll do whatever you tell us, whatever. You tell us to stay, we'll stay. You tell us to go to Egypt, Egypt's a good idea, we'll go to Egypt, right? And you know where this goes. If you stay, you live, you go to Egypt, you're gone. Well, the Lord's not really speaking through the prophet. He's not really saying that we need to stay here at great risk to ourselves. They go to Egypt, they die. That's us, isn't it? We deceive ourselves so easily. And the Puritans would say a little leak sinks a great ship. It's the small acts of obedience that matter, dear friends. It's how you're living your life day to day now that matters. I could literally stand here the rest of the day and give example after example after example after example from scripture until this keeps pushing us harder and harder and harder. And I'm not gonna do that. I mean, people say, you know, I don't have the gift of hospitality. What they really mean is it's expensive and I don't like it. And it's not my gift. Well, the Bible also says, be hospitable to all. You know, elders are to be hospitable because they're to show the rest of you how to do it. It's not the elder's job. It's yours and theirs. And also in Peter, he tells all of us to be hospitable. Share yourselves. Share your time. Share your resources. Invest in other people. Stop being selfish. You see what this all comes down to is, is our self focused on Christ or on us? Prayer meetings, our children go to bed before the prayer meeting starts usually. Well, do I want them to learn that it costs something to pray for the spread of the kingdom? Do I want them to be children that grow up participating in the prayers of God's church and spreading the gospel? Is it worth missing a bedtime? You see, this is an opportunity, isn't it? This is not, I can't believe this is happening to us, I can't believe the church is telling me that I might lose my job, that my children can't play in Little League, that I've gotta keep them up late on Wednesday nights, or whatever else. You see, that's the wrong way, isn't it? This is an opportunity. I can't believe the Lord has given me the means to train my children to deny themselves to follow Christ, because Christ is worth it. And it costs a bedtime, it may cost a job, it may cost friends, it may cost a relationship, it may cost all these other things, but I walk with Christ. I know Christ. And humiliation will be followed by exaltation. Why must we deny ourselves and why is this so important? You know, if you want persecution for living godly in Christ Jesus, you just need to be a Christian. You realize that. You just need to be faithful to Christ. It will happen. You'll grow in favor with God and men, but you'll also suffer persecution. You don't need to look for it. What you do need to look for is a Christ who denied himself and was exalted for your sakes so that there is nothing so great or small that Christ requires us to believe and do it that with the Spirit's help, we won't. May the Lord grant us this. May the supper remind us of it yet again. Let us pray. Almighty God, we thank you for being kind to us and causing your face to shine upon us this day. Lord, forgive us of all of our sins and the ways that we so easily harden our hearts against your commandments. But we thank you as well, Lord, for not simply giving us hard commands such as this one, but setting them in the backdrop of Christ in his glorious work. We ask that the spirit would make him precious in our eyes today. And we pray that the sacrament would seal his benefits to our souls and renew our faith and obedience. And we ask it all in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen.