The Call To Discipleship

sorry there's already tears it might be multiple times with how sleep deprived i am we are coming to the end of remnant and it's been special like i said but you need to know what that word means especially because we have a lot of people visiting and we're not going to reference why they're visiting there will be no barking at auburn community church today it's anti-jesus and so we're just gonna we're gonna welcome you in telling you that remnant is not just the sermon series we decided to do it's the trajectory shaping moment for the future of our church this is a clarifying moment as we're building a building as we're starting new locations and as so much of what god is doing here is growing we felt like this was a strategic time to clarify we are not trying to just put more people in seats to attend gatherings we are trying to equip people to be disciples of jesus right where they are and so here's what we're going to do for the future of this church we're going to preach to what we're calling the remnant now the remnant in the bible is like the faithful few who are praying who are pursuing god the faithful few who stand out as a minority in their culture and most of the time even within the people of god this is what's weird about the remnant is they don't just stand out in culture as people who don't know jesus go hey they're a little weird they go to church or they've given their life to something else the remnant is the group of people who they yes they stand out in culture but they also stand out in church they're seen as the people who take this stuff a little too seriously they're seen as the people who are maybe a little bit too passionate or a little bit too into this and we're going no no that's the exact group of people who we want to preach to because we believe that what jesus did in the sermon on the mount is not preached to the masses this all-inclusive message that everybody can jump into no he included everyone but watch what he did he taught his disciples and he taught them the basics of what it means to walk as a member of the kingdom of god and i feel like in the 21st century church in the united states of america we have traded in the remnant to cater to the masses and i don't know what every church is called to do we're only responsible for this one here's what we're going to do we're going to invite the masses to be a part of the remnant and to do that we've been praying this prayer every week it's this prayer god would you transform us from being consumers of jesus's merit to being disciples of jesus's way would you help our christianity be more than fire insurance for all of eternity would you help me do more in my relationship with jesus then just lean on him for the forgiveness of sins that i need to make sure i go to heaven forever which by the way is awesome it's amazing that you get to be a consumer of jesus's merit we do not negate the blood of jesus we do not talk down about the forgiveness of sins no the fact that there is an atoning sacrifice in heaven for your sins right now i love that word atoning because it's present tense it means that what jesus did on the cross is in the present forgiving you even while you sin if you're in christ it's beautiful you are always always always forgiven if you are in christ and that's an amazing truth in reality but if you just stop your understanding of the gospel at forgiveness you miss out on the life jesus died and rose for you to live and that life is lived as a key word disciple and a disciple was a very normal word 2000 years ago that we've over spiritualized and turned it into a program in the church when in reality disciple and christian are synonyms you can't be a christian and not be a disciple you can be a disciple and not necessarily adhere to the surface level requirements of christianity that we have decided and taught are necessary to call yourself a follower of jesus and so what we're doing right now is we're honing in on this word disciple and we're going okay if we're his disciples who's he he's the teacher and in the sermon on the mount he's going these are my key teachings this is what it means to live as a disciple of jesus christ and instead of setting up where we're going to be going i'm just going to go straight there because it's the hardest passage of the entire sermon on the mount to preach and some of the scariest verses in the entire bible aren't you glad you came to church today look at somebody next to you say i'm so glad i get to be in church next to you so we can be convicted together if you have your bible hold it up hold it up come on 8 a.m you know you grab your bible when you grab that coffee i love it turn with me to matthew chapter 7 matthew chapter 7. we're going to close down the sermon on the mount and i'm believing god has saved the best for last jesus has taught us in so many different ways what it means to walk in the new way of love that his kingdom has been founded on and every week of this series has been special how many of you were encouraged by pastor brad jones being in the building last week bringing the word and it was so good it was so good i'm sitting there in birmingham blown away by what god is doing there y'all it's crazy 350 people gathered to just to just be a part of this room two hours away and they were hungry for the word it wasn't like they were watching what we were doing in here on a screen like we were totally leaned into this moment and so i don't know how we do this spiritually but somehow we've got to feel like people who are not in here physically with us are with us and we know that you're tracking with us and i've been amazed by what god has done so far but this is when jesus turns the corner and he's headed for his conclusion and surprisingly as someone who preaches for a living he does not close with three points he does not close with a key one-liner that you need to walk home and memorize he does not give you a few principles for homework so that when you come back next week you'll be caught up on the work you were supposed to do this is the end of the greatest sermon ever priest and this is the last thought jesus wants us to leave with from the sermon on the mount matthew chapter 7 verse 13. if you're there say i'm there enter through the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it but small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it watch out for false prophets they come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they are ferocious wolves by their fruit you will recognize them do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles likewise every good tree bears good fruit but a bad tree bears bad fruit a good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire thus by their fruit you will recognize them not everyone who says to me lord lord will enter the kingdom of heaven but only the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven many will say to me on that day lord lord did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles then i will tell them plainly i never knew you away from me you evil doers therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock the rains came down the streams rose and the winds blew and beat against that house yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock but everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand the rain came down the streams rose and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell with a great crash when jesus had finished saying these things the crowds were amazed at his teaching because he taught as one who had authority and not as their teachers of the law wow this is the end of the sermon on the mount and this is the end of part one of five of matthew a little bible fact for all the bible nerds like myself out there matthews divided into five sections and all of them end with when jesus had finished saying these things you can find that statement five times and it's because matthew wants to divide his gospel into five sections similar to the torah genesis exodus leviticus numbers and deuteronomy and similar to moses speech in deuteronomy which comes in five parts matthew's going this is a new kingdom with a new covenant and a new leader and it doesn't it doesn't get rid of the old covenant it completes and fulfills like jesus already taught us in this sermon and here's just so cool for those of you who really like to geek out on bible facts the fact that matthew ends with the great commission is so fitting because the next verse should be when jesus had finished saying these things but the end of matthew is our lives when jesus had finished saying these things dot dot dot here we are the church now what we just read is one of the most scary convicting and difficult passages to navigate because jesus very clearly has one priority at the end of the sermon on the mount he wants you to know that there is a mandatory decision and the ball is on your court for what to do with what he just taught you the only thing jesus is trying to prevent at the end of the sermon on the mount is someone walking away and feeling good about doing nothing with what he just said so he gives some rash and difficult and somewhat abrasive directions and warnings to go don't you dare think i can get to the end of this sermon and you can go wow that was awesome it says the crowds were amazed at his authority you want to know why jesus had authority because he was under authority and so he he submitted himself to his father the crowds are blown away by the way he teaches but he doesn't want what just got taught to be able to be ignored and for people to walk away going that was some good teaching because the power comes in actually applying it to your life and there was a dangerous tendency 2 000 years ago for people to sit through really really good teaching and for the greeks to be awed by wisdom and for the jews to be awed by miraculous wonders and signs that's what paul says in first corinthians he says for the jews it's all about the signs and for the greeks it's all about wisdom but jesus is going i don't want this to just be an argument for a way of living he has diagnosed the human condition he has pointed out that he alone is the one who will be savior he is the one who's worthy of following and now he's going you have to make a decision and as dangerous as it was 2000 years ago to walk away from something like the sermon on the mountain do nothing it's way more dangerous today of every generation that has ever lived no generation has ever had the access to information that we walk away and do nothing with like our generation you think about it even like before the smartphone and definitely before news was broadcast in a public way for the vast majority of human history everything you heard was something you could do something about now it's flipped to the opposite in the age of information the vast majority of what we hear about we participate in and do nothing about in response we're just used to information being oh that's good oh that's an interesting video oh i'll share that oh think about that or oh that caught my attention for a second and jesus is going hey the end of the greatest sermon ever preached here it is you cannot leave here and do nothing with this and then he points out oh by the way this is not just one decision that you're going to make this is the decision that will define what your life is built on you are either building a foundation with walking away and doing something with what i taught or you're setting your whole life up for a crash if you need a title of this sermon i know i'm 10 minutes in it's called the call to discipleship the call to discipleship tell someone next to you god is calling you god is calling you then it feel good to say and that call is the most important decision you will ever make so i looked up this study on decisions and psychologists over time have come up with some rough numbers of how many decisions humans in the united states of america make on a weekly basis do you know every week you make on average 35 000 decisions and over half of them are about food i just thought i thought that was interesting what's stressing us out the most is what we will eat next and if you're like me it's the same thing every week it always ends up being the same thing just a matter of navigating the conversation in the direction of what i had in mind okay 35 000 decisions a day that's 245 000 per week almost 13 million a year which if you this is crazy if you multiply it based on the average lifespan it almost comes out to an even billion in your life on average you will make one billion different decisions a psychologist in the same study said in the united states of america there are two decisions that have risen to the top above and beyond all other decisions as what we regard as our most important future shaping decisions you can probably guess them they're not even really one and two they're kind of one a and one b one is the career that you choose what you decide to do with your life and the other is who you decide to marry so if you're here and you're in the age group that's trying to make the decision about both things welcome to your level of anxiety that you're experiencing in life right now it's like the most important decisions those are both on me right now this is crazy yes that is seen in our world those two what you do with your life and who you marry are seen as the decisions that will build the future of your life and you can see it all over the place i saw it in in this new tv show anybody watching this show ordinary joe anybody watching an ordinary joe by you guys this is not really well known the show just came out and i have no idea where they're going to go with this show every time i talk about a show or a book or a movie that is not me endorsing every single scene or word that is said in that show just need to get that out there because we got an easily offended generation that is rising up and people are just automatically it's like whoa you said something about harry potter one time and i still want you to know that that's correct it's like okay calm down okay i'm not saying everything in this show is great i don't know where they're gonna take it but ordinary joe does really no one watch this show is it really just me and courtney in the whole church okay cool well let me get you into it real quick here's the thing this this whole show hinges on a guy named joe wow graduating from college and as soon as he graduates from college he like walks out of his college graduation and there's three different paths in front of him on this path there's the girl who he's been with and there's the projected future of a career working alongside her dad over here in the middle there's the new girl and a thing that is like just now springing up and more of a lifestyle of adventure and he's got this musical gift and could chase that and then on the third road it's kind of being true to his family his dad was a police officer and going into law enforcement and choosing neither of these girls now here's the whole show this is crazy it's going to get you all hooked you ready the whole show is 10 years later might be 15 years later all three realities playing out as if he chose each one overlapped on top of each other so you constantly go back and forth of three different futures it's like if he would have gone this way this is his life if he would have gone this way this is his life he would have gone this way okay this is the career and this is the girl that he's with and everyone's separate and everyone has a unique set of challenges but it all hinges on who are you going to spend your life with and what are you going to do and as i'm watching the way the different futures interact i'm going okay even the world that doesn't know jesus gets this decisions create futures just like materials come together and make physical objects the choices that you make create the future but i'm here to argue today that the most important decision you will make is not who you will marry even though that's a very important one there are very few decisions that will shape the trajectory and the direction of your life more than who you decide to enter into a covenant with you need to be careful with that one and what you're called to do is a big thing your career what you're going to do the vast majority of your time on planet earth that's a big decision but as much weight as you can put on both of those jesus is showing up at the end of the sermon on the mountain going this is the most important decision you will ever make in your life this decision will define the future that you build and it's not who will i marry and it's not what am i called to do with my life it's what did i decide to do with the word of god what did i do with the word that was entrusted to me and i believe today that there's nothing more important happening in this room than that people of all ages and backgrounds are deciding what to bank their life on you are deciding where to put weight in your life and i can just tell you at 33 years old i decided almost 20 years ago that the bible can hold the weight of my life and i believe that the word of god is worth leaning on and worth giving your life to and i wholeheartedly believe that what we saying earlier god jesus there's nothing better than you that the life you will find in the freedom of the scriptures is better than the life you will find anywhere else with anyone else doing anything else this is everything to me but there's got to be a moment where you answer that call and the call to discipleship is not a one-time call it's a daily call and it's a daily invitation to decide hey what are you leaning your life on is it the truth of scripture or is it the lies and i would say the deception that exists all around us here's what jesus did let's put these four things on the screen he drew a dividing line and he said pick a side so you got the narrow gate and the wide gate we will change that for the 10 a.m the narrow gate and the wide gate the true prophets and the false prophets the true disciples and the false disciples the wise builders and the foolish builders what jesus is doing is he's drawing a line down the middle and he's going hey it's one or the other you are not neutral pick a side and all i want to do with the remainder of our time is walk step by step through these verses and as i do that we can put that wrong graphic up and you'll watch how good our creative team is i'll have the right one up by the time i go back to it at the end of the passage you ready for this let's go back to verse 13. let's study this jesus said enter through the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it but small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it no matter how popular it becomes to follow jesus no matter how many revivals break out true faithfulness to jesus will always be a minority thing until we're in the kingdom of god that to know him and be on the road that leads to life it's a narrow road so jesus wants you to know if you're coming with me not everybody's coming in fact most everybody is going to think that they're going to a place that leads to life that ultimately leads to destruction but the few that end up on this narrow road on this road that looks like obedience to my word on this road that looks like sacrifice for the sake of the kingdom on this road that looks like less fun than what sinners are doing on the weekend on this road that looks like you're missing out on this road that looks like i might not come through on this road that looks like your faith is being tested you need to know this is the only road that leads to life and i know that there's an easier one i know that there's one that looks more attractive i know that there's a life that you could choose that seems so much more pleasing to every desire and everything you want to get out of life but jesus just goes you know what's at the end of this you are deceived and it ends in destruction and you are deceived because of the voice you decide to listen to and that's why right after the wide gate in the narrow gate he talks about true and false prophets look at this watch out for false prophets somebody say watch out they come to you in sheep's clothing i intentionally did not wear white today but inwardly they are ferocious wolves by their fruit you will recognize them do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles likewise every good tree bears good fruit but a bad tree bears bad fruit jesus is pointing out that you need to be very careful the voices you allow into your life to tell you who god is and what it means to be a follower of jesus because there's true ones and there's false ones but every time i've heard this passage reference and most of the time i've heard this taught the word fruit is taught as synonymous with ministry growth and so you hear people say hey you can know whether or not a pastor is teaching you truth by the fruit by whether or not there's fruit to his or her ministry but i'll push back against that and say we have all heard stories of people with massive platforms who have had fruit numerically a lot of dollars and a lot of people showing up but the fruit of their life personally ended in scandal and destruction so when jesus says you will know them by their fruit he's not saying you will know them by whether or not their ministry is growing he's saying you will know them by whether or not their way of life looks like the fruit of the spirit so this is so convicting and a little bit awkward for me to be the one saying this because this verse is about one person in this room unless somebody else is the pastor of a church and just visiting today i'm glad you're here i hope this message feeds your soul and reminds you that we have special warnings over our lives that nobody else has and we will be judged more harshly okay this is this is my moment as i'm looking this week to go okay god is not looking at the faithfulness of what i've been called to do by how many people show up or by decisions or baptisms he's looking at faithfulness according to humility according to gentleness according to patience according to whether or not my lifestyle actually looks like the fruit talked about in the scriptures so this is an open invitation to go is our teacher is our preacher producing the fruit here's what jesus says in step with repentance so this is not a perfect standard for teachers and preachers thank god to get to this is an invitation for preachers to be aware of how fallen they are and to be broken on their knees to go hey i don't have it all together and the best thing you can look for is not just the fruit of the spirit being lived out but humble apologies to come when it doesn't happen and i'm just here to tell you i'm figuring out how to live out every word that is written in this book it is not perfect it is not completed but i believe in some of the hardest areas of my life to open up to god i am seeing fruit in my life personally but the warning for you is always pay attention to the voices that you allow to frame your view of god and they might listen they might be telling you something that sounds so good it might sound so attractive it might sound so accessible but does it run through the filter of two things correct doctrine and a life of true fruit and you have to be the one who decides but listen jesus doesn't make this all about preachers then he turns to everybody and talks about true and false disciples and says scariest portion of scripture there is not everyone who says to me lord lord will enter the kingdom of heaven but only the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven many will say to me on that day lord lord did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles then i will tell them plainly i never knew you away from me you evil doers here's the key to understanding true and false disciples so often we make it a question of do you know jesus but jesus says i never knew you maybe the question isn't do you know jesus but the question is does jesus know you does jesus know you personally intimately and the scary thing is you can make a confession with your mouth of him as lord but it'd not get through to your heart and and that confession is necessary by the way jesus is saying the confession doesn't matter no it does matter but it's got to be rooted in something that's deeper than lip service and it's got to be rooted in something deeper than miraculous signs did you know people are able to supernaturally make moves by the spirit of god who might not know jesus and you're like where are you getting this from not just this verse but the life of judas you know judas was there watching demons submit to his word judas was there doing the work with the disciples and i know it's confusing to go there and go so it's possible to mentally ascend to the place where you believe jesus is the son of god and it's possible to supernaturally manifest the power of the holy spirit and not know him intimately and personally i'm saying yes that is the case because what jesus is measuring is whether or not he has your heart and that's what the call to discipleship is it's not a call to follow directions and it's not a call to repeat a prayer out loud it is a call to come and die come what may because you see him as more beautiful and more compelling than any other option for your life it's not special christians this is not christians who listen to francis chan and david platt it's not christians who read books that are a little more extreme than others this is the end of the sermon on the mount and jesus is going don't assume because you said it one time that it took root and don't even assume that because you saw my spirit moved through you in power that i know you and then he brings it to the bitter end and i promise this is going somewhere encouraging eventually therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock the rain came down the streams rose the winds blew and beat against that house yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock but everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand the rain came the streams rose the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell with a great crash so jesus differentiates there's two people in front of me right now this is him saying it people who are going to go home and actually do what i taught my disciples and people who are going to go home and never activate a lifestyle of obedience and the difference is going to determine the outcome of your life this is the most important decision you will ever make and just to fully go there y'all sit through sermons all the time i just want you to think through what this would have been like on the side of this mountain there's no there's no keyboard player behind jesus there's no band in choir waiting to get on stage and come make the closing moments more powerful so when we leave we feel we felt like we exalted the word of god we exalted who jesus is now we get to go back jesus at the end of this sermon just picture it and put those four things back on the screen and we'll see if they got the top one fixed yeah they did that was fast trying to give you a little more time there guys good job the narrow gate and the y gate this is jesus at the end of the sermon on the mount going okay one or the other it's up to you and i want you to visualize this moment in this room like it's happening right now here's your moment everyone who hears these words of mine and goes this way is like a wise man built his house on a rock even though the storms came the winds blew that house stood but everyone who hears these words of mine and does nothing with them is like a fool and when the storm came and the winds blew their house fell watch this it fell with a great crash deuces just just imagine it just imagine it don't look at me look at your decision that's what you got to do how awkward is this right now scale of one to ten this is my heart's beating out of my chest it's so awkward um okay it's not actually over it's not actually i know some of you are like whoa this is is is this actually the end of this sermon no you can breathe you're not getting to brunch early um i wanted us to actually feel the tension of that awkwardness because too many of you came to know jesus on the back end of emotional manipulation you came to know jesus at a summer camp where you were sleep deprived and where the band was hitting the right note in the hillsong song at just the right moment and listen i'm not saying the holy spirit can't use that i'm not saying emotions are not involved but me as a very charismatic knowledgeable speaker have looked back just over 10 years in ministry and gone okay i love the fact that god has given me a gift to preach the bible faithfully but i don't like how short-sighted emotional christianity can make people jesus is going this is your call to discipleship and you got to decide if you want to build your life on me or not and the best thing you can do is make a decision now and by the way indecision is a decision like like sitting on it and going okay i'll do it later that's a decision too and it's a decision in this direction so as as awkward and somewhat different as this sermon has been i feel like this is the message that needs to go out jesus is saying your life will sustain and flourish if it is built on living the way of my kingdom he's also saying your life will decay and crash if it is built on anything or anyone else and if you're new to church it's okay if in your mind right now you're going that is the most arrogant and offensive statement i have ever heard i want you to feel that jesus is not a teddy bear god who wants to give you a hug and forgive you he's the most brilliant teacher who ever lived he has diagnosed the human condition and he has left the ball on your court to make a decision do you want me or not and yes it is the most arrogant and offensive statement you can make unless it's true it is i'll admit it if it's just a random guy think about what he's saying y'all he's not saying practice a few of my principles and have a better life he's not saying read my book and you know be one of my people he's literally going i'm everything if you got me your life will sustain and flourish you don't have me it falls apart but what if he's actually telling the truth what if it's real and what if everything see that changes the way you receive it see framing something a certain way looks one way until you see the full picture so if you saw me two days ago out in the street if you just saw a clip of me out in the street you would think i'm a terrible dad with an anger problem two days ago my girls were riding their scooters and out in the street live in real time your pastor this is as close to acting out what i did two days ago as i possibly can that's close let's pretend she's over there elliott elliott get back here right now that is what i did exactly you're like she's two that's child abuse and she's cute how can you say that what you don't know is that we had a talk right before we went outside because they can get crazy on their scooters some of y'all who are the babysitters know this and i said we're staying sidewalk and we're staying together the whole way and we get out there and i love elliot but she has a little bit of that rebel spirit already which you're like oh wait till she's a teenager don't speak that over me um let's make that over me ever and and so she decides at this moment that we're we're kind of near our pool and and she decides i'm going out in the street and i'm going this way and it's when i had to help aniston with something and it is literally like the worst timing of all time because she's going down a road that she has never seen a car on before that's generally safe and at the exact moment that she catches my eye i don't see one i don't see two i see three cars coming toward where she's going and i'm going uh-uh so you can look at my tone and you can look at what i'm saying and go whoa this is abrasive this is angry or you can see the full context and go it's the father who loves his kid this is truth in the context of jesus trying to tell you how it really is and the word truth if you missed everything i said so far you don't need to miss what i'm about to say this is what i came here to say this week the word truth has been butchered and hijacked by our culture truth has been taken to mean either one of two things either the morality that you happen to choose or a a subjective reality that you pick on the basis of your preferences so when we think of truth and lies we're like okay good and evil well not necessarily or we think of okay i got my truth they got their truth they got their true we all got a different truth and it's fine if they all coexist but here's the thing and i'm reading this in a book right now john mark homer it's called live no lies you need to get it he says instead of seeing the word truth think about the word reality truth is reality it's not a religious opinion it's not a spiritual arm wrestling mouth mouth match truth is simply the way things are so if i make a claim right now if i say will who's on the front row hey will i don't like the law of gravity is not actually true i'm just going to step off this stage but here's the thing i'm not going to fall i'm just going to float out of the room and you make the claim in response hey love you we're still brothers in christ maybe but um hey you're deceived if you step off that stage you'll fall down because you're being pulled down i didn't really pay attention to physics 9.8 whatever squared it's going down i'm going down okay agree here's what our culture says agree to disagree he's got his truth i got my truth but what is the truth truth is reality and reality is what you run into when you find out you were wrong so when are we gonna have that moment we're gonna have that moment when i step off and hit the ground and all of a sudden truth is not subjective it's objective and it's what's really ultimately there and this is when the story of the two houses goes from just okay cool example jesus to the most tragic thing you've ever read because both guys building both houses had the same intentions the guy building his house on sand wasn't going i only want to have this house for a little while i got enough money for another one if this one gets destroyed like i just want to be close to the beach and get a view and like you know i'm going to build my house on sand no no if you actually think about the ancient world there were places on sand that looked like they were rooted in a level of rock that wasn't actually there but builders never found out about it until flash floods hit and the water started sliding and all of a sudden you got to see wait a second wait a second my house and all my stuff and everything i put into that i thought we had built that well and you watched this tragedy and the tragedy didn't happen because the guy built a house on sand didn't know anything about architecture or building a building the tragedy happened because he was deceived he thought there was rock under there he thought there was something to hold and what was holding the house wasn't revealed until the storm came but when the storm came all of a sudden this is not a story of hey two guys built a house one was right one was wrong this is a story of two people built a life one was built on something real and another was built on an illusion and i'm here today to tell you if it's not jesus i know your intentions are good but if it's not jesus it's not real our worldview as christians runs through the filter of a voice that tells the truth and a voice that tells lies and jesus is going i'm the one here telling you about reality as it really is and your worldview will put this on the screen and your decision today has to do with truth versus lies this is everything y'all this is the battle if you don't know jesus but this is also the battle if you do because some of you are living compromised lives and it's because you have agreed to a voice that is telling you something that is not actually real a voice that is limiting your capacity to participate in the kingdom of god and all the enemy does is miscon misconstrue and twist and deceive so that you miss out on what's really there and what's really there in this moment is the truth that listening to the voice of god means obeying the word of god that is the truth being a disciple means learning a level of obedience to jesus that infiltrates and impacts your entire life and it does not have to take decades for you to get there the call to discipleship is still the same in 2021 as it was 2000 years ago and it's this jesus going you can build your life on me and it'll stand or you can build it on something else and i don't want you to hear jesus as the arrogant head of a religion telling you that i don't want cultural christians to be in the room and hear jesus telling them something that they think is comforting when it's actually convicting and scary i want you to hear what he is saying he's going please listen to what i'm saying if you build your life on me it is the only safe place it is the only solid rock and if you go in any other direction you are deceived and so i don't have any points today i don't have like a killer end to this message i just have a question because i feel like it's fitting with what we're preaching from the sermon on the mountain the question is this what will you do in response to jesus what will you do in response will you live a life rooted in truth or will you go back to lies and you can bank your life on the truth notice the two words you and do this is not a decision that someone else can make for you and this is not a sermon for you to spend the entire time thinking about how much someone else needs to hear this this is about you and it's not about what you believe it's about what you're going to do with what you believe and so i just really felt like ball on your court what do you want to do in response to the message of the son of god this is the call to discipleship so all week i've been like i i want to lay it out there and just walk off i want to just lay it out there like jesus because i'm i'm convinced that he trusts in something enough to just lay it out there but then i'm reading through it and i'm like no i got to say something more because i really want people to choose to give their whole life to jesus then i'm going but wait why was he so willing to just walk away why was he so willing to just let the cards fall where they may because here's what jesus knows and if you're scared out of your mind here in this sermon you need to hear this jesus knows that the call to discipleship [Music] doesn't begin with us calling on god it begins with jesus calling on us this is huge the call to discipleship is seen by you as something you want because your master your rabbi has opened your eyes to see it that way jesus says in john chapter 6 he says no one can come to me unless my father enables them so here's the freedom i feel in this moment laid it out there one of the hardest passages in the world to take in here's the freedom i feel if you're here today and your heart's beating out of your chest knowing i am building my life on jesus and nothing else i might not be perfect i might not have it all figured out but that's what i want to do with my life if you're here and that's what you're saying guess what you didn't get yourself there god got you there god opened your eyes and you are here's what the scriptures call born of god and if you're born of god and born of spirit you are alive in him forever so i don't really know how to push this and and pressure anybody because if you're here and everything i'm saying just sounds like noise to you i pray that god would soften your heart but if you're here today and you're going everything he's saying it's what i want out of my life i want to adore jesus i want to chase him i want to make my whole existence about the worship of his name guess what you are a part of the kingdom of god can i get out no because even if you tried you would be miserable and no matter how far you run you'd be reminded of your new identity because here's the thing being a disciple of jesus comes with a new priority jesus over everything but it also comes with a new identity you're a child of god you're a son you're a daughter and when you belong to the great i am jesus christ is the same yesterday today and forever i am the way the truth and the life so how we're going to end this time is we're going to stand to our feet you can do that right now band choir's going to come up here and we're going to lift up praise to the one who's worthy and if you've never made the decision to be a disciple of jesus this is your moment we don't have to do an altar call but if you want to come down here and bow and worship that's you if you've done that a thousand times but just feel like you want to remind yourself that that's the position your heart is in luckily we have room at this gathering for you to actually do that if you want to stand where you're standing and just lift up songs with everything you got all we want to do is remember what we believe and remember that our lives are founded on truth and nothing can ever remove us from his hand heavenly father i pray in the mighty name of jesus that what happens in this room right now would be an aroma pleasing to you in heaven that you're not getting lip service from people who are emotionally manipulated you're getting worship from people who are fully surrendered god we're not giving you blind faith because we haven't seen and you're the only one we can believe and no we are convinced by the power of the holy spirit that you are who you say you are and your truth is reality as it really is so god make that manifest in this room let our lives be founded on the word of god and nothing else and let us settle for nothing less than the life you died and rose for us to live i pray that you open the eyes of thousands today to see a lie following you worth dying for god no more small christianity in auburn alabama no more settling and shrinking back we want more of you we want more of your glory we want more of your presence we want more of your power and we praise you for what you're going to do ahead of time we sing to you now in jesus name amen come on church let's lift it up come on

Channel: Auburn Community Church

Views: 2,466

Rating: 4.9148936 out of 5

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Id: MiZRia6JLyI

Length: 43min 28sec (2608 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 10 2021