OPENING ILLUSTRATION:
Oh man, it’s SO good to be back up here preaching to you guys. It’s one of my favorite things to do with you guys. Didn’t our guest preachers do a great job!
Can you guys believe Summer is almost over? Ugh, I’ve been trying to keep my heart from accepting that fact.
Have you ever gone on a trip in the summer where you have all these hopes for the trip – “I’ve needed this trip SO bad!” and then you get there and EVERY single thing seems to go wrong?
Years ago, Jenni and I went to NYC, it was over her birthday and I had one hope for the trip, to get Jenni a cannoli in NYC. So, I found the best cannoli in the city, I researched it and planned this whole sneak attack. We went to pizza with some friends, when Jenni went to the restroom to wash her hands my friends slipped out and I started taking Jen on this little adventure. We walked through the streets of NYC making our way to Little Italy, Jenni kept being like, “what is this” all the anticipation was building. I had checked online and the cannoli shop was open till 10pm and it was 9pm as we started towards the shop. We could see a couple guys standing outside looking like they were shutting down the shop, so I told Jen we had to run over there.
I could tell these guys were going to locking up for the night early, so I said, “hey aren’t you guys open till 10?” they said, “yeah, but tonight we’ve got a party to get to.” You know the moment in a Hallmark movie where they guy does some big gesture to show the girl how much he loves her? I knew this was my moment, I said, “look, it’s my wife’s birthday and we’ve come all the way from Kansas for the best Cannoli in NYC, can we just slip in and buy one cannoli before you lock up for the night…” The guy looked at me in my flannel and jeans, he paused for a moment and then said, “nah, we gotta get outa here…” Lol, I was crushed!
We all know what it’s like to have a hope crushed don’t we?
-hope that girl or guy was going to be the one and say yes and they said no
-hope to get offered the job only to not get a call back
-hope to get on the last flight home only to have all the seats full
Our leadership at the church as been talking about one question over the past few months
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“What do we hope for those who come to Harmony”
-I don’t mean for all 500 of you, I mean you
What do I hope God will do in YOUR life through YOUR time at this church.
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We are working hard in the background to try and ensure that we are designing what we do in order to answer that question…
I don’t want you to get to the end of your life or the end of your time here and feel like it was all for nothing –
I want things for you!
I believe God wants things FOR you!
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So,
How do we keep you from feeling like the door is shut in your face? How do we help you find those the things God wants for you and start to learn to walk into them?
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That’s the question we’re going to try and answer through this sermon series.
Jesus told us very clearly what His hope for you was… Listen
Matthew 28:18-20
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
if you went to bible college, when your professor talked about this passage, what they would tell you is the imperative in the verses is to “make disciples”.
What Jesus wants for you, what I want for you, is for you to become a fully activated disciple of His.
ILLUSTRATION:
Over the summer our family got to hang out with my youth pastor and his wife. She started telling my kids stories about me when I was a teen. She said, I always tell everyone that when we would go on vacation that when we got home, Kent would be waiting outside for us… Lol, I guess I was border line stalker.. Ha, but it’s because I had found a different way of doing life and I wanted to know everything about it. That’s what being a disciple is all about.
Listen to what Jesus said about becoming a disciple:
Luke 9:23-26
23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? 26 Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
I know, I know, you’ve heard this passage before, but have you ever stopped to ask yourself,
Why would I have to deny myself and take up my cross daily to be a disciple?
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It’s the same reason I was at my youth ministers house and sat in his office every day.
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Because to learn completely a new way of life, you have to let go – completely – of your old way of life.
Do you know how Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Jesus wasn’t trying to be cute by saying you have to become like a child.
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Jesus was trying to illustrate the quality of the kind of faith it takes to follow Him – an unyielding, complete trust that His way is better
If I had to speculates, some of you are holding back from being disciples either because you didn’t know it meant learning a completely new way of life or because you knew and weren’t willing to step into it.
The thing is, when you deny yourself – you say no to your old way of trying to get things done – power, manipulation, and money
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and you take up your cross daily – you say yes to the things God calls you to – even the hard things
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You find life… What seemed like loss – giving up your old way of doing life, ends up being not giving up, but getting
So, I’ve been thinking, how would I define what a disciple is/does for you?
Discipleship is a life spent pursuing life with God
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-it is hearing His voice and following it
-it is finding your value/self-worth in God rather than what people think of you and what you can accomplish
-it is seeking to exalt Him and His Kingdom over protecting yourself and your kingdom (ego and economy)
CLOSING ILLUSTRATION:
Some of you know that Jenni and I are building a cabin at the gorge to rent, we are doing that as a bit of a retirement play because churches as non-profits don’t offer retirement and typically don’t pay as much as the business world. Due to all that I’ve gotten in all these facebook groups for people running airbnb’s and buying real-estate. One of the things that has hit me is how much all these people are like sharks when there is blood in the water if there is a deal to be had on real-estate. Literally within hours thousands of people will be commenting on and trying to get a piece of the pie. It reminds me of something Jesus said, He said imagine if you were walking in a field and found out there was a treasure – millions in gold – buried in that field. Wouldn’t you go back and sell everything you had to purchase the field? Wouldn’t you go after it like a shark in the water with blood? Then Jesus said, this is what the person who finds the Kingdom is like. They sell everything – completely let go of their old way of life to get the new way of life of the Kingdom. For some of you in this room, the most dangerous part of your life is you settled for simply being saved and missed that you were saved to follow the savior.
What would it look like for you to orient around learning to hear and discern God’s voice? To learn to unwind all the ways you’ve found value in this world and to entwine with Him or to seek His kingdom above yours and those of this world?
