>> Good morning, church family. Happy Lord's Day. We will now begin our service. >> All right, good morning. Welcome to Breen Community Church. We have announcement from our college ministry. Pastor Nate's going to come up here and give the announcement. >> Okay, good morning, everybody. If you are of the college age, we will be having next Sunday after third service.

So we're saying 1.30, but it's going to be directly after third service, over there in the youth chapel, a welcome event. And at this welcome event, we hope that you're able to join us, because we're going to be explaining some of the events, how college ministry kind of works, when we have our Bible studies, how to get rides, things like that.

So if you can come to that, we'll be providing food for you, and you'll be able to meet some of our staff, our small group leaders, and hopefully I'll be able to meet you as well. So it's after third service. This is second service, so you would have to, if you come to this service, wait until after third service.

But please do put that in your calendars, make it something that you set to go, because it's going to be very helpful for us to get to know you, but also for you to get to know this church. So hope to see you there next week. Thank you. >> All right, a reminder, next Sunday is Communion Sunday, so please prepare accordingly before you come.

Next Sunday there's a Vine, our youth group lunch fundraiser, and they're raising funds for the retreat that's coming up. It'll be Mediterranean chicken bowl, they say, and $10 for adults and $5 for kids. And, again, we do this every time we have a members meeting. So following the lunch, we're going to have our church members meeting.

Our new members will be presented, and also, again, there's going to be a service fair at church. So after our members meeting, we're going to be going out to the courtyard, and you can visit and see what kinds of ministries are out there, how you can get involved. So that's happening at 2 p.m.

And so the lunch will be preceding that so that you don't have to go out, and afterwards at 2 p.m. we're going to be having members meeting. And then women's ministry event, that's happening on October 19th on Saturday, 8:30 a.m. It's going to be in this room. And, again, if you haven't signed up, the cost of it is $10.

So please sign up for that, and, again, on October 19th at 8:30 in this room. That's a Saturday. And then, finally, family ministry picnic on Sunday, October 20th, and they're going to be holding it from 11 to 3. So it's kind of an open event, just opportunity to meet other family ministry members.

So you can just grab your lunch and go to Bill Barber Park, and you just need to show up, and there will be other family members there that you can get to know them better. It's a casual opportunity just to see who's in the ministry. So this is open for anybody in this ministry.

So it's going to be from 11 to 3 p.m. at Bill Barber Park. So if you brought a physical offering, again, our physical offering box is in the back to the right as you're exiting the sanctuary. But otherwise, for the rest of us, let me pray for us, and we'll give you a minute to give your offering electronically.

Then afterwards our brother Dominic is going to come up and give his testimony and be baptized this morning. Let's pray. Father, we praise you and thank you for this morning and for all that you are doing that we know of, many things, Lord, that you are orchestrating behind the scene.

And we pray, Father God, that as you drew us to yourself and opened our eyes to see who you are, that you continue to allow us to see a greater and greater glimpse of your glory so that all that we do will be an overflow of the powerful work that you are doing in us.

I pray that even in this giving, I pray that you would bless us, remind us, Lord God, that ultimately all of it is yours, and that our act of giving would be an expression of our love, our worship, and our lordship to you. May it be multiplied for the sake of your kingdom.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let us all rise and let's spend a few moments to greet the neighbors around us before we continue our service. Oh, okay. Hello everyone. My name is Dominic and this is my testimony. So, like many others, I grew up in the church. I went to Sunday school, like, every Sunday.

I even attended a Christian school for my elementary school years. These were fun times, just growing alongside fellow children from high school. In fifth grade, the year before, I transferred to public school. If I was asked what I believed in regards to religion, I would have said, "I am a Christian who believes that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for all sins on the cross and rose to life." My belief in this statement was strong at the time, but, of course, I was just a young child and so I was a blank canvas still yet to be painted on.

Moving on to middle school, I was placed in a really new environment that I wasn't accustomed to. However, I managed to find my footing and I managed to finally graft myself in with all the other people. This was really good for me socially, but it was incredibly damaging spiritually.

The reason for this is because public school is quite literally a cesspit. In 1 Corinthians 15, verse 33, it says that bad company corrupts good morals. As I continued down the path of destruction, my faith was tainted. Sin had taken hold of me and I began living a hedonistic life like there was no end.

My pride and ego ruled over my life and sexual sin ran rampant in the background. Starting high school, I was basically indistinguishable from an unbeliever. Although I was still going to Sunday school, the information I received didn't pierce my heart. It didn't convict me to change in any way.

And then COVID hit and all my church activities ceased. All I had left during that time was just my life, built on fully ego and just full pleasure, all for myself. My faith was essentially reduced to ashes. And even when things were back in person during the year, I didn't go back.

Fast forward to senior year college acceptance letters. I was sobered by the results, having only been accepted by UCI. I was relieved that, of course, a college of such a caliber accepted me. But the reality check came when I realized that it was far from home. Questions filled my mind like, "Oh, what is my life going to be like?" or "What is my life going to look like?" This was UCI's academics.

But a question I didn't expect to come to mind was, "What if I went back to church?" Oh, dang. In that very moment, I pondered that question and asked, "Well, what if? What if I went back to church?" And now looking back on that moment, I know that it was God who was looking after me, even though I had basically just given up all over.

I gave up on him. But he never gave up on me, even though my sin ran so deep. I can't tell you if I repented once during those seven years of my life in public school. And yet, as Psalm 136 says 26 times, God's loving kindness is everlasting. And by his mercy, he has brought me to Berean, where I have been blessed to walk alongside such wonderful brothers and sisters in Christ.

With their help, my faith has been restored. I have come to truly recognize and repent from my sins. And although breaking sinning habits is incredibly hard, I am willing to surrender everything so that I might become more like him, just as he has commanded us, to be holy, just as he has commanded-- just be holy, for I am holy.

Thank you all. Do you understand when you go into the water, you're being united to Christ's death? And when you come out, you're being united to his resurrected life? Yes. And I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. All right, Dominique, thank you for that encouraging testimony.

If you can turn your Bibles with me to Luke 9. We're going to be reading from verse 23 up to verse 27. Luke chapter 9, verse 23 to 27. Reading out of the NASB. "And he was saying to them all, 'If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory, in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

But I say to you truthfully, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.'" Let's pray. Father, we pray for deeper understanding. We pray for your grace to lead us and guide us. May your word and your word alone go forth, Lord God, from this pulpit.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. I think a few of you may or may not remember there was a show back in the '70s called Tell the Truth. And it was--I think it had reruns in the '80s, but the show started in the 1950s and '60s, and basically the premise of the show was they would have somebody of what the world would consider a significant show up, and this is before social media and computers, so even if somebody won the Olympics, you wouldn't know what they looked like because you would only see them on the newspaper.

So you would bring maybe an Olympic gold medalist swimmer, and they would have them sitting among, like, six or seven different people, and the whole show was basically they would pretend to be that one person. And so at the end of the show, after interviewing them, asking a bunch of questions, so the contestants would basically have to guess, "Who's the real one?

Who's the real gold medalist?" And so at the end, whoever it is that stands up, and if they got them right, then they would be the winners of that show. And so the premise of that thing is that how do you discern who is genuine, and how do you discern who are just playing the game?

In our culture, I think in our generation of where you and I live, the biggest challenge that's facing the church today is not external. It's internal. And that internal challenge is, who is and is not a Christian? How do you identify a genuine follower of Christ versus those who are just pretending?

How do you identify people where the warning of Jesus says, "Not everyone who calls me Lord, Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven," when our churches are filled with people who may have never committed their life to Christ? And so obviously, I think most of you are sophisticated to know that just coming to church doesn't make you a Christian.

Just because you've been baptized doesn't make you a Christian. Just because you are a member of the church or serving the church, or maybe even a Sunday school teacher, it doesn't make you a Christian. You know that the Bible is clear on that. So how do we determine in a post-Christian culture who is genuinely following Christ and who is not?

Who are the people who are going to die, and then they're going to face the truth and the reality of who they are when they meet the resurrected Christ for the first time? So it's imperative that in a post-Christian culture where our church belongs, that we help people. And maybe some people are genuinely deceived because you were raised in a church and you just assumed.

And you hear so many people who stand up here who are being baptized and they give you the same testimony because they grew up in the church. They just assumed they were Christians. And once the Word of God began to get open to them, they realized that they were far from Christ.

So how do we identify genuine Christianity versus cultural Christianity? If you ask the general population in the United States, a number is as high as 75% to 78% that claim to be Christian. Now, most of us know that that's not the case, 78%. So if it's not 78%, it's maybe 5%.

But even the 5%, how did we come to that number 5%? What was the criteria to determine that it's not 78% but it's actually 5%? What was the litmus test that determined it's 5%? We need to know because the question of who do you say I am and how you answer that question and how you respond to that answer will determine if you are a genuine follower of Christ or not.

We looked at last week, Jesus was given his credential and after he showed his power to the multitudes and to his disciples, he turns around and he asked them, "Who do you say that I am?" Not what the crowd say but who do you say that I am? And the response of the disciples, "You are the Christ of God." So the first criteria of determining if somebody is a genuine follower of Christ is do you know the Christ of the Bible?

Not a cultural Jesus, not a Jesus that is convenient to follow, but do you know the Christ of the Bible? Do you have his identity correct? Yes, we are saved by grace, by faith alone, but it must be faith in the right Jesus. So that's the first litmus test, that we're not just confessing a Christ of our own making, but it is the Christ of the Bible.

And the second that we're going to be looking at today is that if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you must actually follow Jesus Christ. No duh. But for whatever the reason, we have created a culture, a generation of people who have no interest in following Jesus Christ other than using the title, "I'm a follower of Jesus Christ." Oh, you're actually following him?

Not really. So the second criteria is are you following Jesus? And then the third criteria is do you speak? Are you on the same mission that he's on? And we'll look at that next week. The first we looked at last week, the second that we want to look at is come from Luke 9.23.

It says, "If anyone wishes to come after me, "he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." He says the condition upon how you determine if somebody is following Jesus or not, he says he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

That's a prerequisite. Now, I'm going to get to this at the end, but I want to introduce a question to you here. Who would want to follow Jesus if this is what he presents? Consider how the gospel is being presented today. Give Jesus a chance. Would you open your heart and receive him in your life?

Would you accept Jesus? And so the gospel is presented. God loves you. You have sinned. He wants to cover you with his blood. Anybody want to accept that? And if you accept that, please come down the aisle, and if you come down, we'll give you a free Bible, and you are saved.

Hopefully, you'll make it to church. Hopefully, you'll be a follower of Jesus Christ. And so we have a generation filled with people who have accepted Jesus Christ but never truly repented. You will never find any language in the scripture where the gospel is presented and at the end of the presence of the gospel where it says, "Do you want to give him a chance?" Would you accept Jesus?

It's not in the Bible. Every place where the word of God is taught, where the gospel is presented, it concludes by saying, "Repent and be baptized." That's what John the Baptist preached. That's what Jesus preached. And that's what the apostles preached. Repent and be baptized. Repentance basically is another word for saying what Jesus is saying here.

Repentance isn't simply saying, "You know, I lied. I shouldn't have lied. I stole. I shouldn't have stole." Repentance basically is saying you are pursuing a life where you are at the center. Our whole rebellion is a pursuit of what we covet. That's why Satan fell. That's why Adam and Eve fell.

It's the rebellion of mankind where he wants to take the place where only God can sit. And so repentance is recognizing that my whole pursuit in life was for me. And so I repent of the direction that I was headed, and now I am headed toward Christ to make him my king.

That's why he says you must repent. Not just repent of an act. Not just repent of a thought. Repentance of our whole pursuit. If you look at the Ten Commandments, every single one of these commandments, at the root of it, is our coveting. The first commandment, "You shall have no other gods before me." Why would the Jewish community ever even be tempted to worship other gods?

I mean, do you ever see the idols of the Old Testament? They're as ugly as you can get. It's just like a piece of wood that just carved out. It's just a piece of stick. And they worship it. Why were they tempted to worship these idols? Obviously, it wasn't the appearance.

It was periods when they were going through a drought, or they faced an enemy, or they weren't getting what they wanted. Something that they were coveting wasn't getting. And then it looks like the Canaanites have it, but we don't have it. Their field is growing wild, but we don't have anything.

And so they decide, since God's not answering our prayer, maybe their god is better for us. So every time they turn to an idol is because they coveted something, and God wouldn't give it to them. The second commandment is, "You shall make no graven images of God." Meaning, you may worship Yahweh by name, but the Yahweh that you worship is not the Yahweh of the Bible.

So making a graven image of him is basically calling him Jesus, but you attach characteristics of Jesus that doesn't come from the Bible. You make him whatever you want him to be. And so that's why we have a culture in our generation that would say, "Well, my Jesus would never do that.

My Jesus would always do this." And yet, they know nothing of the Scripture. They've never studied the Bible. They've created an image of Jesus that would fit whatever it is that they're coveting. And so they make graven images, and at the root of it is their coveting. "You shall not take the name of the Lord God in vain." How often do people use his name and say, "God wanted me to do this"?

In Christian circles, "God wants me to date you." "God wants me to date you." "God wants me to have this business." "God wants me to have that." And we use the Lord's name in vain because we covet something, and we attach the name of God and make it godly.

That's what the third commandment is, using his name in vain. But the root of that commandment is coveting. They want something, and so the God of the Bible is not answering them. So I create a God in the name of the God of the Bible, but it has nothing to do with him.

"Keep the Sabbath day holy." Why is he saying to separate it? Because all other days to separate and devote it to God. But because they covet whatever it is that they can get from work, they refuse. "Honor your father and your mother." Why does dissension and hatred and discord happen in the family?

Because the child is coveting something that the parents are not going to give them, so they rebel. "You shall not murder." James makes that very clear. You covet what you do not have, so it leads to arguments and then ultimately even to murder. "You shall not commit adultery." "You covet someone else's wife." "You shall not steal." "You covet what they have." "You shall not bear witness against your neighbor." And you covet your own reputation and how you are viewed.

And then finally he says, "You shall not covet." And every single one of the Ten Commandments, at the root of it, is because we have desires that are unmet. We want something. So we rebel, we lie, we steal, we slander, and ultimately even choose our own God. Even in the church, even in the church, we call his name Jesus.

But oftentimes the Jesus that Christians call looks nothing like the Scripture. That Jesus of the health and wealth gospel, and oftentimes even Bible teaching churches, doesn't look anything like what we see in Scripture. When he tells us, "If you want to follow me, you must deny yourself," it is a call to repentance, to bear fruit in accordance to repentance.

To not simply say, "I won't do this, this, or this," but it's to surrender our life. Metanoia. Repent means to change the direction of my life. It's not simply, "I'm going to keep going down this direction, but I'm going to make some adjustments." No, that's not repentance. That may be sanctification, but that's not repentance.

Repentance is my whole pursuit. I was at the center of my whole pursuit. It is my happiness that I was most concerned about. I am the king of my world, and I repent of that. And I acknowledge you as my Lord and Savior. So when he says, "If you want to come after me, he must deny himself," it's just another call to genuine repentance.

Not just simple words, not just raising of hands, but to turn from a self-centered, self-pursuing life to pursue him. Galatians 2.20 says, "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live. My old life is dead, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh.

I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." I didn't simply add Jesus to my life. The old life is gone. When Christ was crucified on the cross, he lived a life that I could not live. But when he was crucified, we were crucified with him.

Our old life is gone, and so now we live a new life. And that's why every time somebody gets baptized, we ask them, "Do you understand that when you go into the water, you are being buried?" You're being buried. You're not just getting wet. And that's why we believe that this is the biblical teaching of true baptism.

Because symbolically, you are dying with Christ, and then when you are coming out of the water, you are saying you're being united to the resurrected life of Christ. But an individual who continues to live his life independently for his own pursuit, other than the fact that he attends church, other than the fact that he says, "You know, I believe that this is who Jesus is," cannot claim to follow Jesus.

Imagine if two people are getting married, and they're entering into a covenant. And in a traditional Christian wedding, and less and less people are doing this now, but in a traditional Christian wedding, you have the mothers come in and they light two candles, representing the two families where the children are coming from.

And then they would light the candle in the middle, and then what do they do? They blow out the other two. What does that symbolize? That now, the two independent lives are becoming one, and so there's a part of the ceremony. He says, "What God has put together, let no man separate." For the purpose of this union, he says, "You all leave and cleave to each other." Can you imagine if two people come into a covenant and they say, "You know what?

We're going to get married, but I'm going to have everything that I had before I got married. You know, I love playing basketball. I used to play six times a week, and I'm going to maintain that." Or say, "You know what? I'm so used to just using the money any time, any way that I want, and I hope that doesn't change." Now, I could already tell you, if in marriage counseling, if any of you said that, we would cancel that wedding right there.

But I can guarantee you 100% you're going to have a hard time in your wedding. When two people come together, you're basically saying that you're going to put away your old life, and then you're going to learn to become one. You don't have to put away things that you cannot bring to this covenant.

When we become followers of Jesus Christ, we enter into covenant marriage relationship with Jesus Christ. You cannot retain your old life and then add Jesus. That's why the Bible says, "If you are in Christ, the old has passed away. Behold, the new has come." So to be a follower of Jesus Christ, to be in union with Christ, He says first you must deny yourself.

You must take up the cross daily. Whenever we study this text, and I'm sure you've heard it many times, we try to contextualize this. Like, what does the cross mean to you? And so I've heard people say, "You know, my cross is my husband because he's so lazy. I mean, he doesn't take away the trash.

That's my cross I need to bear." And the husband would say, "You know, my wife is my cross because she nags me every day. And every day I've got to pick up my cross. And I'm not saying that it isn't." They say, "You know, I'm going to bear it, and I'm going to do the right things.

I'm going to pick up my cross." But before we get into the application of how it's applied today, we need to understand the context. When Jesus said this, the literal cross was down the street for Him when He said this. He's about eight months away from experiencing the most excruciating pain, a torture device that was made up and practiced in order to deter any rebellion against the Roman government.

He had that in mind, and He's preparing His disciples that, "I'm headed down this way, and if you don't deny yourself, if you don't pick up your cross, you're not going to be able to follow Me." As you and I know, that's exactly what happened. Jesus was about to go to the cross, and Peter could not comprehend.

"You are the Christ of God. You're here to make everything right. You're here to feed the hungry, to heal the sick, to raise the dead. I don't understand why you would go to the cross." So when Jesus told them that He's going to head to the cross, Peter, in Matthew 16, 22, takes Him aside and rebukes Him.

Now, I want you to understand the boldness of what's happening, the arrogance of Apostle Paul. He's the one who confessed to Jesus, "You are the Christ, the Son of the God." It's that Peter who made that confession, "You're God. You're the Son of God. You're the one that all the prophets and all the forefathers have been prophesying, but Jesus." Let me set you straight.

Let me tell you how this world works. And he turns aside, he says, in verse 22, "Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke the Son of God. 'God forbid it, Lord. This shall never happen to you.'" Let me stop right here. As arrogant as this may sound, you know how many times confessing Christians try to correct Jesus?

You can't possibly mean what you say here. There's no way that that is meant to be applied here. Maybe it meant that 2,000 years ago, but it can't mean that today. You don't think that's just as arrogant to come to the Word of God and say, "Maybe it was relevant then.

It's no longer relevant today." This is our version of Peter. "But he turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to me, for you are not setting your mind on God's interest, but man's.'" So you're not thinking about the kingdom. You're not thinking about me.

You're not thinking about His mission. You're thinking about you. You're thinking about this kingdom. You're thinking about the life that you worked so hard to build, and you are hoping that I would make it better. Christ says, "You have no idea what's about to happen." So initially, when Jesus went to the cross, they all ran, because it didn't make any sense.

How can He fulfill my dreams? How can He lift us up to sit on the left and to the right if He goes to the cross? How can He be that Messiah of Isaiah 61 that He said was going to be fulfilled? Injustice will be taken care of. The sick will be healed.

The prisoners will be released. How can you go to the cross and fulfill that? Because of that, they ran. And just like Jesus warned them, "If you don't deny yourself and take up your cross daily, you cannot follow me." So the immediate context that Jesus was telling them was literal.

And that's exactly what happened to the disciples. Peter was crucified upside down. Andrew was crucified. Simon the Zealot was crucified. James was beheaded by King Herod. John was thrown into a burning pot of oil, survived, and then lived out the rest of his life in misery and pain, and ended up writing the book of Revelation.

Philip died hanging in Turkey. Bartholomew was flayed to death in India. Thomas was killed in India. James, the son of Aphaeus, was stoned to death. Thaddeus was shot to death by arrows in Persia. Matthew also gave his life, but we don't know exactly the method. Every single one of them suffered severely.

So when Jesus said to them, "If you don't deny yourself and pick up your cross daily and follow me, you will not be able to follow me," because that's where he's headed. The only one that wasn't martyred was Judas. Judas could not understand the cross. Why is he going to the cross?

So in his attempt to salvage three years of his life, he sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, which was the price of a slave at that time. But guess what? After selling, and once he came to his senses, he ended up hanging himself. So they all died. All of them died.

But the difference between the disciples and Judas was Judas, in his attempt to live better, to salvage something, he ended up dying anyway and went to eternal judgment. All the other disciples also died. But at the end of their life was glory waiting for them. See, when he tells us to deny ourselves, he's saving us from ourselves.

In Luke 9, 24-25, it said, "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profit if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?" You see, living in this fallen world, we are deceived.

The things that we think is going to cause better life, it actually produces death. Let me give you some examples. When social media was created, why was it created? It's called social media. It's to help people connect, right? People on college campuses, to help them connect, and people from this neighborhood, that neighborhood to connect, people from country to country to connect.

And so social media in every format was created to bring the world together. But in every study since social media, what has happened? There's more isolation, more loneliness, more division than ever before. The very thing that was supposed to cause community and utopia has done exactly the opposite. Think about our passions and our desires.

We eat. We have to eat to live. But what has eating done to us? Eating is killing us. The very thing that was created for the purpose of giving us life, and in a rich country, is the largest source of health problems in our culture. You know, people after work, you know, you're so fatigued and tired, and because you're tired, you sit there and veg, and then you watch television, and next thing you know, you're too tired, so you've got to go to sleep, and then you wake up next day, and then you're tired, and then your fatigue causes you to rest, and the solution to that is to exercise.

But our natural desire to rest, ultimately, is what's leading to death. I'm going to give you some more examples. You know, people who desire to be noticed, and they want to be recognized, are the hardest people to follow. If you raise a child to be the center of the universe, and your whole goal, every decision you make is you want to make your child happy, what's going to happen to that child?

You're going to ruin that child. Because as soon as you are gone, as soon as they are grown, they're going to be a difficult person to be around. And so what you've created was a child who is very difficult to love and accept. And so your desire to give them a better life is ruining them.

Let me give you a final example. 50, 60 years ago, Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan were all very, very poor countries. And in one generation, they've had so much money pour into these countries, and they have become one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Every single one of them, if their birth rate doesn't turn around in 30 years, they said, "The country itself is just going to dissolve," because they don't have enough children being born.

And you could see that visually in Japan. You're starting to notice that in Korea and China and in Taiwan. And if you ask every single one of them, "Why aren't you guys having children?" the typical answer that they will give is, "Because we can't afford it." Because the life that they want to have, if you bring a child into that, they're not going to be able to give them what we think they need.

And so as a result of their pursuit of this level of convenience, it's destroying their countries. What we think is going to bring life, ultimately, our pursuit is killing us. So when he says, "If you want to come after me, deny yourself and pick up your cross," he's actually telling us that what you think is going to bring life is what's causing the death.

The coveting in your heart is causing you to run away from God, to reject Him. What does dying to yourself look like in our culture? Denying the desire to be recognized, that coveting in your heart to be somebody, the need to slander back when somebody slanders you, that's hard.

Loving someone that doesn't love you. You can be in the church and surround yourself with friends, with people that you like. And anybody that makes you feel uncomfortable, you won't tolerate it. But our very identity, the Bible says, is the love that we practice, that He practiced with us.

Serving someone without anybody noticing. You know, how much of the service, when we are doing it to be recognized, eventually leads to a greater bitterness. Because we serve to be recognized, and when we don't get recognized, whatever good you did ends up turning ugly. Because even the service was self-centered.

Having integrity when there doesn't seem to be any tangible immediate benefit, just simply because our God is holy. Whatever that may be, an individual who avoids suffering at all costs will suffer because of that. Now let me ask you, why would anybody want to follow this Jesus? The Jesus that's presented in our generation is He loves you unconditionally.

You don't deserve it, so He died for you. And so if you want to accept Him, raise your hand, come down to the aisle, give you a Bible, you're good! Now hopefully you'll behave, hopefully you'll have some integrity, hopefully you'll be able to love people. But you're not saved by that, so go live your life, fulfill your dreams, and hopefully Jesus will help you.

Who wouldn't want that? Even if you're an atheist, you hope that that God exists. Even if all the evidence points to the fact that maybe He doesn't exist, but even if you're an atheist, who wouldn't want that? I really hope that that God that you are telling me exists, because I want that God.

But the God who says, "If you want to follow me, deny yourself. Pick up your cross daily." Who wants to follow that Jesus? Who wants to come to a church that is preaching this? The problem is, if you look at the Scripture, that's exactly what He's preaching. That's exactly what He's preaching.

You tell me otherwise. You search the Scripture to see if He's saying anything else. The reason why people reject this is because they think somehow that what Jesus says is preventing me from having an abundant life. When Jesus is telling us the abundant life is being prevented because you're pursuing your own life outside of Christ.

When He tells us to pick up our cross and to deny ourselves, He's telling us to move away from the very things that are killing you. To pick up and follow Him. There are two things that need to be in order for this to be true. Who would want to follow this Jesus?

One, you would only follow this Jesus if you actually believe what He says. You have to have genuine faith. Otherwise, you're going to pick and choose what you want. You're going to create a Jesus of your own. But if you want to follow the Jesus of the Bible, you have to actually believe what He says.

When He says in Romans 8 24-25, "For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it." If you don't believe that, if you don't believe that there's true hope waiting for us after we die, why would we sacrifice anything here?

Only those who genuinely believe that the promises that Jesus made is true. And who He said He was. 2 Corinthians 4 17-18. "For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.

For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." If you don't believe that, you confess, "Yes, Jesus died on the cross. He was resurrected and then He died for my sins. And so I have eternal life in Him." Right? The difference between a Christian and the devil is not his theology.

It is not his theology. See, the devil didn't repent. A Christian repented. Why did we repent? Because I believe in the promises that Christ made. Because I believe Him. I believe Him that even in the suffering there's greater glory waiting for me. But the second reason why somebody would follow this Jesus is that you see the beauty in Christ above every other temptation.

In Matthew 13-44 it says, "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field which a man found and hid it again. And from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." He's making a trade. He's trading a lesser glory that he's been tempted by all his life for a greater glory in Christ.

Because he sees the treasure in Christ. The treasure that is Christ worth selling everything to follow Him. But if you don't believe that, if you don't see the treasure in Christ, how can you follow this Jesus? All you're going to hear, if you don't believe that, if you don't know that, is to suffer for Jesus.

That's all you're going to hear. The thing that you want, you can't have it. You need to discipline yourself to make sure that you don't get what you want. The things that make you happy, don't have it. That's all you hear. But if you have seen and tasted the goodness of God, then what He's telling us is to let go.

Let go of the rubbish so that you can have the treasure in Christ. Matthew 13-45-46, "Again the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it." If Jesus is not your treasure, Jesus becomes your servant to get your treasure.

Then eventually when Jesus doesn't give you the treasure that you want, you end up questioning Him. You become bitter at Him and then eventually you will leave Him. Because if Jesus is not your treasure, Jesus will become your servant. And if the servant doesn't listen to what I want, then I don't need Him as my servant anymore.

Is He your King or is He your servant? That's the difference between a Christian who confesses and is not following Christ, but a genuine disciple of Jesus. That's why Apostle Paul says with all that he had, I mean, Apostle Paul was living a good life. Roman citizen, highly educated, maybe already famous even before he met Jesus.

Had the highest scholar as his teacher, a Roman citizen. And then he spent a huge chunk of his time being beaten, stoned, sitting in prison, and eventually beheaded because he met Jesus. Because he met Jesus. And yet he says, in light of the surpassing knowledge of knowing Jesus Christ, all of that stuff, I don't regret it.

I don't regret it. I had a friend back in high school. We weren't good friends, we just knew each other. He ran in a crowd that I did not run in, which was, he was very studious. So he was the top of his class. He was that valedictorian of the year that I graduated.

And he ended up making it to Stanford, right? And even back then, Stanford was like, you can get into UCLA, Berkeley, but you made it to Stanford. Whoa, he made it to Stanford. So he got into Stanford, and then, you know, obviously we all, he was like the talk of our class.

And, you know, he went to Stanford, and then we heard that by his second year, sophomore year, he made it to the dean's list at Stanford. You have to understand, Stanford back in the '80s, like this is when the computer stuff was just coming around. So, I mean, if you graduated Stanford with a computer degree, I mean, you know, that's why all those Silicon Valley guys are making all this kind of money.

And so he made it to Stanford, and people were saying, wow, this guy, you know, he made the dean's list at Stanford sophomore year. And then about a year later, we found out that he dropped out of school. So why did he drop out of school? And found out that he gave up everything, and he became a full-time missionary.

And we've never heard from him since. I don't know where he went. I don't know. But I remember all my classmates graduated were talking about this fool. What did he do? Did something happen? Did he get somebody pregnant? What happened? Because they couldn't understand why would somebody who had all of that drop everything.

And a lot of times, even in the church, people would say, what a fool. He's just finished, and you can make all this money, and then climb the ladder, become a multibillionaire, and you can use that platform to preach about Christ. Because they don't understand. Why would Apostle Paul give up everything and die preaching Christ?

Why would this guy who was on top of the world and had possibly a multimillionaire give up all of that so that he can live the rest of his life preaching Christ? If you have not met the resurrected Lord, and if you've not seen the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, you will not understand.

I can explain it to you. You can hear someone else's testimony. You can admire Jesus from a distance, but you won't understand his decision. Why would you drop everything and live your life suffering in a foreign country, speaking a strange language, raising your children in a difficult area? For what reason?

This command of Jesus only would make sense, or even attempt to practice it, if you believe what Jesus says. And Jesus is a greater treasure in your life than anything else in this world. The goal of this church is to help you to see that, not to simply change your behavior, not to simply so that you can have better theology, it's so that you can recognize the beauty of Christ.

That just like Apostle Paul, in light of the beauty of our Lord Jesus Christ, the treasure that we have found in Christ, that all of a sudden everything else in this world becomes rubbish. And honoring him, glorifying him, proclaiming him, becomes a central passion of every single follower of Jesus Christ.

If all we did was cause you to attend church, if all we did is cause you to study the Bible, if all we did was to cause you to be just better people, then you've missed the whole point. Jesus said, "If you want to follow after me, deny yourself.

Pick up your cross daily and follow me." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that the power of your word would continue to lead us and guide us, restore us and challenge us and sanctify us. Help us to be the church that you have created it to be, that you've suffered for, that you've established, and that you've promised that the gates of Hades would not be able to prevail against it.

Help us, Lord God, as the world becomes darker and darker, that our love for you would not become cold, but our passion would grow even stronger, that the light that you have called us to be would burn brightly, that the world may know that you are a living Christ, that hope is in you and life is in you and you alone.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let's all stand up for the closing praise. ♪ And wonder at the sacrifice you've made ♪ ♪ The force you feel measured by death you feel it made ♪ ♪ Your love is deeper than any other ♪ ♪ Than any ocean higher ♪ ♪ Than the heavens reaches ♪ ♪ Beyond the stars in the sky ♪ ♪ Jesus, your love has no bounds ♪ ♪ Jesus, your love has no bounds ♪ ♪ Jesus, Lord ♪ ♪ Jesus, Lord of heaven ♪ ♪ I do not deserve ♪ ♪ The grace that you have given ♪ ♪ For the promise of the world ♪ ♪ Lord, I stand and wonder ♪ ♪ At that sacrifice you've made ♪ ♪ Mercy beyond measure ♪ ♪ By death you feel it made ♪ ♪ Your love is deeper than any ocean higher ♪ ♪ Than the heavens reaches ♪ ♪ Beyond the stars in the sky ♪ ♪ Your love, your love is deeper than any ocean higher ♪ ♪ Than any ocean higher ♪ ♪ Than the heavens reaches ♪ ♪ Beyond the stars in the sky ♪ ♪ Jesus, your love has no bounds ♪ ♪ Jesus, your love has no bounds ♪ ♪ Jesus, your love has no bounds ♪ ♪ Jesus, your love has no bounds ♪ ♪ Your love is deeper than any ocean higher ♪ ♪ Than the heavens reaches ♪ ♪ Beyond the stars in the sky ♪ ♪ Jesus, your love has no bounds ♪ ♪ Jesus, your love has no bounds ♪ Let's pray.

Philippians chapter three, verses 12. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching toward what lies ahead.

I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore as many as are perfect have this attitude, and if in anything you have different attitude, God will reveal it also to you. However, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.

Father, we ask, Lord God, that your glory and your life would be at the center of our pursuit. I pray that all the distractions, all the temptations, and all the coveting, Lord, would be completely in light of knowing Jesus Christ. It would truly become rubbish that we may live our life, this week in particular, for the sake of your glory.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. ♪ God sent his Son ♪ ♪ They called him Jesus ♪ ♪ He came to them ♪ ♪ He lived for them ♪ ♪ He lived and died ♪ ♪ To him by my pardon ♪ ♪ An empty grave is there to hold ♪ ♪ I say no one lives ♪ ♪ Because he lives ♪ ♪ I can face tomorrow ♪ ♪ Because he lives ♪ ♪ All fear is gone ♪ ♪ Because I know ♪ ♪ He holds the future ♪ ♪ And life is worth the living ♪ ♪ Just because he lives ♪ (gentle music) (gentle music)