What is a Christian: By Decision

Father, we thank you for today and we are grateful that you have brought us together tonight to spend time in your word. We realize that in the middle of the week, things get kind of hectic and time-consuming, and yet, Lord, those who are here have made the effort to be here, to hear the word of the Lord and to understand what it is you have for us. So, our prayer is that you would use your word in our lives to strengthen us, convict us, comfort us, and motivate us to live for the glory of your kingdom.

We love you, Lord, and we are so grateful for those who are here, maybe for the first time, others for the second time, others for a long time. We just thank you, thank you for those who are here. So bless our time together this evening.

In Jesus' name, amen. We are discussing what I believe is probably the most crucial topic for us to discuss at this time. The question is, what is a Christian? And we're gonna answer that question for you.

Last week was by way of introduction, and this week, we're gonna begin to move through the text of Scripture and answer what is a Christian. And I wonder if somebody asked you that question how you would answer that question. Would you answer it based on what the Bible says? Would you answer it based on your own opinion? Would you answer it based on what your pastor has said? How would you answer the question, what is a Christian? Would you be able to take someone to the text of Scripture and explain to them Christianity, articulate to them what Christ has clearly stated in the word of the Lord? I would trust that that would be the case for you.

I promise that when we're all done 11 weeks from now, you will say, yes, I know what a Christian is. I know that I am a Christian, and I know that heaven is my eternal destiny. That's very, very important.

It's unfortunate that in today's day and age, we live in a state where Christianity is very confusing. It shouldn't be. It's not confusing because Christ made it confusing.

It's not controversial because Christ made it controversial. It's very clearly stated in the Bible about what is a Christian. The problem is not what Jesus said.

The problem is with teachers and preachers and pastors who misread or misinterpret or misapply what Jesus said, thus leading to all kinds of confusion in churches all around the world. That shouldn't be. But it happens that way, and that's quite unfortunate.

You know, there are churches that have started out extremely strong, great churches. In fact, if you were to think about all the churches in the book of Revelation, the seven churches in Asia Minor, all true churches, all started out great. All were on fire for the Lord.

But when John writes to those seven churches under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, the Lord speaks to those churches because of what has taken place in them. Even though they started out really, really good, over time, they became pretty bad. It was a downgrade of the gospel.

It was a downgrade of Christianity in those churches. It begins, of course, with the church of Ephesus. That was the cold church.

They had lost their first love. And these seven churches, five of whom were told to repent, show us the downgrade when it comes to how churches begin to move away from sound doctrine and move away from the truth. It's Satan's ploy to detract the church from its mission, to move the church away from the truth of the gospel.

And it begins by churches losing their first love. They become cold churches. Satan's ploy is to steal their passion.

Once he steals their passion, he then begins to supplant their devotion. That's the church of Pergamum. So once a church grows cold, the church then begins to compromise.

Once Satan is able to steal their passion, he then supplants their devotion. And then you come to the church of Thyatira. Once a church grows cold, it begins to compromise.

Once it compromises, it becomes corrupt. And Satan's ploy was to subvert their affection. If he can effectively steal your passion, supplant your devotion, he will subvert your affection and your church will become corrupt.

And then the next church, the church at Sardis, which was told to repent, that was just the dead church. There, Satan secures their destruction. And once he secures your destruction, then he seals their deception.

And that was the church of Laodicea. They were the counterfeit church. And that's exactly how Satan begins to operate in churches that begin really, really good, but he wants to take them away from the truth of the gospel and the mission that they've been called to accomplish.

It's a warning to churches all around the world. But let me give you a modern-day illustration. I think it would be good to do that for you.

Because we can read about the churches in Asia Minor and they're in the scriptures, it's all true. But when you think about churches today, you can think about a lot of good churches all around our community, all around our state, our country, that started out really, really good. But over time, things began to change.

So let me give you an illustration. 32 years ago, I was called to be the pastor of what was at that time, or what was at once called the most prestigious church in all of Southern California. That church was called Church of the Open Door.

I was called to be their pastor. And so, this church, which began with the likes of R.A. Torrey, a great evangelist, strong Bible teacher, that's how the church began. Other men along those lines were Louis Talbot, the founder of Talbot Seminary.

He was another great man in a long list of men who were great. You would know the church basically by the testimony of J. Vernon McGee. I mean, he still speaks on the radio today.

His tapes do, not him. He's long home with the Lord. But he was probably the most famous pastor of Church of the Open Door for 21 years.

But after J. Vernon McGee stepped aside, things began to change at the church. How they changed, how far they had changed, I did not know until I went there. The first sermon I preached was on 1 Corinthians 16, verse number 9, where Paul says these words, for a wide door for effective service has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

That was my installation message. That I preached at that church in 1993. Little did I know, I wasn't a prophet, nor was I a son of the prophet, what that verse would actually mean as I began to preach each and every Sunday.

It wasn't long before I opened to the gospel of Mark and began to preach steadily through Mark's gospel. If you have read anything at all about Mark's gospel, it begins with the ministry of John the Baptist, and he is about preaching a baptism based on repentance, because the kingdom of heaven was at hand. And of course, Jesus followed John, and he preached the same message.

And so, as a young 35-year-old pastor, I'm preaching the same message about repentance and how you need to turn from your sin and follow the Savior. And I'm preaching it with vigor and vitality. I have a lot of passion when I preach, and so I'm preaching about repentance.

Little did I know that the church, the leadership of the church, did not believe that repentance was essential for salvation. I didn't know that. How could that possibly be? So we had this discussion among the leadership about repentance, and I would describe to them what repentance is, what the Greek word metaneo means, and how do you define repentance? And they didn't agree.

And they soon began to say that I was preaching a works-based salvation, because repentance was a work. I said, no, repentance is a gift. 2 Timothy 2:25, Acts 11, verse number 18, tells us that repentance is granted to us by God.

It's not a human work; it's a God work that causes man to turn from their sin. But they didn't believe that. And I began to realize how far things had changed in the church of the open door.

Let me tell you some of the things that they believed. They believed that repentance was a change of mind only about the Christ. That there was no turning from sin required for salvation.

And I said to them, how do you gel that with First Thessalonians chapter 1, verse number 10, where it says that the church of Thessalonica turned to God from idols in order to serve the true and living God? That's what repentance truly is all about. And I even quoted J. Vernon McGee. But they also believed that the whole of salvation, including faith, is a gift of God, which I agreed with.

But they also said that that faith might not last. A true Christian can completely cease believing. How can that be? Show me in scripture where a true Christian ceases to believe.

They also believe that saving faith is simply being convinced or giving credence to the truth of the gospel. It is confidence that Christ can remove guilt and give eternal life. But saving faith is not a personal commitment to Christ.

I said, well, wait a minute. How can true saving faith, when I put my trust in someone, I'm not trusting in a set of statements about the Christ, I am trusting in the person and work of the Christ. That's what saving faith encounters.

They believe that some spiritual fruit is inevitable in every Christian's experience, but that fruit, however, might not be visible to others. Christians can lapse into a state of permanent, spiritual barrenness. Again, how do you gel that with Matthew chapter 13 and the soft soil that produces fruit, some 30-fold, some 60-fold, some 100-fold? That's obviously seen by everybody.

But spiritual barrenness, completely over long periods, show me in scripture where that is evident. They could not. They said that only the judicial aspects of salvation, justification, adoption, imputed righteousness, and positional sanctification are guaranteed for the believers in this life, but practical sanctification and growth in grace requires a post-conversion act of dedication.

In other words, sanctification is not a guarantee, practically, if you're a Christian. Wait a minute. We're set apart unto God for his glory, for his purposes.

They were saying that if you wanna be sanctified, sometime after you are saved, you can then make Jesus Lord of your life and completely dedicate your life to him now. But believing in Christ as Lord and accepting him as Lord at salvation is not necessary. They would go on to say that submission to Christ's supreme authority as Lord is not germane to the saving transaction.

Neither dedication nor willingness to be dedicated to Christ are issues in salvation. Really? They went on to say that Christians may fall into a state of lifelong carnality. A whole category of carnal Christians, born-again people, who continuously live like the unsaved, exists in the church.

Listen, but does it exist in scripture? If it exists in the church, those people probably were never saved to begin with. But show me where it exists in the scriptures. You see, it's important to always keep your finger in the text to prove whatever it is you say you believe.

Because it must be supported 100% by the words of Christ. They would say that disobedience and prolonged sin are no reason to doubt the reality of one's faith. Had they not read 1 John? Had they not read what John says very clearly, that he who practices sin does not love God nor know God? They believe that a believer may utterly forsake Christ and come to the point of not believing.

God has guaranteed that he will not disown those who thus abandon the faith. Those who have once believed are secure forever, even if they turn away, even if they apostatize the faith. Well, the writer of Hebrews speaks all against that.

The question is, how do you get there? How do you come to those conclusions? You come to those conclusions because you are led by a pastor who has compromised the truth. For the previous pastor had lived in immorality for at least seven years before he was dismissed. Other people that he had an affair with was still speculation.

But he had lived with one young lady, half his age, for seven years. And as he preached, living in sin, the gospel was completely and totally diluted. That you could believe in God and still carry on any way you wish because everything is forgiven by God and the grace of God accomplishes everything.

In fact, he was asked before he left, why is it you didn't feel the conviction of the spirit of God when you were involved in this immoral relationship? He would just say, well, we believe that everything was covered by the grace of God and that when we asked for forgiveness, he would forgive us. That was his response to those who asked him the question. Unbelievable.

See, the grace of God does not mean we have permission to do as we please. The grace of God means that we have the power to do what God pleases. That's the difference.

But they were led by a man who was the fulfillment of what Jude says in Jude four, when he says, ungodly persons have turned the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. He had turned the grace of God into lawlessness. That you could live without any kind of law and live as you chose and it would be okay.

And that came out very subtly, but very, very determinately in his sermons as he preached. And so, you have people that would come to the church, hear those things, believe that they could add Jesus to their lifestyle and continue to live any way they wanted afterwards without any consequences because of the grace and forgiveness of God. He had turned the grace of God into disgrace.

And so, when you think about that and you realize how quickly things begin to turn. So here I am, 35 years of age, all passionate about preaching the gospel of repentance and turning to God from idols to serve the true and living God. And so I am preaching what I believe is the truth.

But because the church had heard error for so long that when someone comes and preaches the truth, they think the truth is error and their error is the truth. That's what happened. I carry in my desk at work a pamphlet of when Church of the Open Door celebrated 90 years of existence and in this pamphlet, they list all the previous pastors of the church.

I happen to be the eighth in line. Also, the shortest tenured pastor, 14 months. And in it, it says this, this was the greatest crisis in the history of the church of the open door.

The greatest crisis was not that there was a pastor who had turned the grace of God into licentiousness and denied the only master, the Lord Jesus Christ. That wasn't the greatest crisis in the church. The greatest crisis in the church is not that people heard a false gospel being preached.

No, the greatest crisis in the church was when the man who came to preach the truth was said to be a heretic. And therefore, because they swallowed error, hook, line, and sinker, they believed that the error or the truth was error. And so that was what they have said is the greatest crisis in the history of the church of the open door.

I give you that illustration because it's a modern-day illustration of how a church begins great, is a great testimony and a great light in the community. But all of a sudden, over time, very gradually, what did Paul say in Acts chapter 20? He said it very clearly, these words, Paul warned them.

I know, he says, Paul says to the church of Ephesus, that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves, men will arise, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them. Paul warned the church of Ephesus. And that is so true.

And so, if the leadership of the church is not careful, not protecting the flock, not warning the flock, not watching the flock, deceptive heresies rise from within and lead people astray. That's why it's so important that you understand these sermons on what is a Christian. So you understand the importance of what it means to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Having said that, let me give you a test. Let me give you a simple test. And I want you to answer this in your mind.

Is this describing a Christian? If someone is devoted to seeking God, are they a Christian? If someone is devoted to seeking God daily, are they a Christian? If someone is to take pleasure in understanding God's ways, are they a Christian? If someone wants to do what is righteous, are they a Christian? If someone remains true to their beliefs and stay loyal to their faith, are they a Christian? If someone says to God that they will seek Him and seek Him for guidance on what is just and what is right, are they a Christian? If someone was to take joy in drawing near to God, are they a Christian? Well, you would think that somebody with those characteristics would demonstrate true Christianity. And you would think that the verse in Scripture that states all that would be describing people who knew the Lord, except for one thing. God says they didn't know Him.

God says they were in sin. God said they were far from Him. That verse is found in the book of Isaiah, the 58th chapter.

In verse one it says, cried loudly, do not hold back, raise your voice like a trumpet and declare to my people their transgression and to the house of Jacob their sin. Isaiah, you need to declare loudly, not subtly, not secretly, not behind closed doors, but make sure that everybody hears this, everybody knows this. Listen to what he says.

And say, yet they seek me day by day and delight to know my ways as a nation that has done righteousness and has not forsaken the ordinances of their God. They ask me for just decisions. They delight in the nearness of God.

This is what they say. We delight to know your ways. We delight to know you.

We delight to be near you. We want you to act righteously among us. Lord, we want to seek you, not just today, but we want to seek you daily.

And God says to Isaiah, you tell them about their transgressions. You tell them about their sins because this is what they're gonna tell you, Isaiah. And then they're gonna say this.

Why have we fasted, Lord, and you do not see? Why have we humbled ourselves and yet you don't notice? Isaiah, they're gonna ask you that question. And this is what you tell them, Isaiah. Tell them this, behold, on the day of your fast, you find your desire.

Here's the problem. You do what you please. You do not do what I please.

This is your transgression. This is your sin. This is why you are so far from me.

He says, behold, you fast for contention and strife and strike with a wicked fist, yet do not fast like you do today to make your voice heard on high. You don't come to fast in order to draw near to me and cry out to me. You do it for your own attention, for your own admiration.

You do it for your own pleasure. Everything you're doing is self-serving. It's all about seeking me, drawing near to me because you wanna be noticed by everybody else.

It's all the outward externals, but everything about Christianity is all about the internal, not the external. But Israel was known for honoring God with their lips, but their heart being far from him. So he would go on to say, as you read through Isaiah 58, verse 13, if because of the Sabbath you turn your foot, in other words, you keep from breaking my law, from doing your own pleasure on my holy day and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord, honorable, and honor it, desisting from your own ways, from seeking your own pleasure and speaking your own words.

You see, everything was about them. Everything was about them. Then you will take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth, and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Verse, chapter 59, verse number one. Behold, the Lord's hand is not short, that it cannot save, nor is his ear dull, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he does not hear.

For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken falsehood. Your tongue mutters wickedness.

Describe to them their transgressions, their sins. So easily, people become self-deceived. And the sad thing about it is, is that there are pastors who confirm them in their self-deception.

Without warning them, without challenging them, without causing them to examine their lives, to see whether or not they're in the faith, to know for certain whether or not they are truly born-again believers, they're truly followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. See, Christ was never confusing in what he said. He wanted to make sure that nobody was confused about Christianity.

So when Christ would speak, he would make it very clear to people to understand who he was and why he came to earth. He preached the gospel message over and over and over again to make sure that people understood exactly what he was saying. In fact, he preached the gospel so significantly that he concluded his ministry with an illustration.

Let's just call it a closing illustration. All good preachers end with a great illustration. I don't, because I'm not a great preacher, but most great preachers end with great closing illustrations.

And our Lord would end his ministry with the greatest of all illustrations about the gospel. He wanted to make sure that everybody understood what it meant to be a Christian. He wanted to leave no doubt in anybody's mind about all the things he had said throughout his three-year ministry.

And so he closes his ministry with an illustration. That illustration is summed up in one verse in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all three gospels recorded, but the illustration in one verse. And I'm surprised that so many people and great preachers miss this, because it is the epitome of all illustrations of the gospel.

And Christ wanted to leave etched in the minds of every man, every woman, what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ, our Lord. So what happens on the Via Dolorosa, the way of the cross, Christ has been beaten beyond recognition. And so he is carrying this crossbeam from where he was before Pilate to Calvary, the place of the skull.

And this crossbeam would wear anywhere between 80 to 100 pounds. And so you have to imagine that having been beaten as severely as Christ was beaten, that he was still able to carry the crossbeam. Isaiah 52 tells us that he was beaten beyond all human recognition.

But as he began to carry the cross on the Via Dolorosa, on the way to the place of the skull, he would fall. Thus, giving the way for the greatest illustration of the gospel in the Bible. Luke tells us this in Luke 23, verse number 26.

When they led him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, coming in from the country and placed on him the cross to carry behind Jesus. There it is. That's the illustration.

Talk about being in the right place at the right time. You might wanna consider it maybe consequential. I see it as providential.

You might see it as an accident. I see it as a divine appointment. Why? Because Simon's name is mentioned.

Simon of Cyrene. Now, we don't know anything about what he knew about Christ before he got there. But the crowds had gathered, and Simon had gathered in the crowds.

And Simon was watching like everyone else was watching about this individual who was carrying this crossbeam to the place of the skull. Cyrene is a city in North Africa. Today, it's modern-day Libya.

And we know from the book of Acts that there were many Cyrenians on the day of Pentecost, and that there was a synagogue, a Cyrenian synagogue in Jerusalem. But Simon was compelled out of the crowd to carry the cross of Christ. And he would carry that crossbeam from where they were to the place of the skull.

Whether he remained there or not, we do not know. But there would be this living illustration of what it means when Jesus said, if any man come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. Simon became the quintessential illustration of what it means to be a follower of Christ.

It's that at the end of his ministry, he's about to die for the sins of man. And when he wants to leave, indelibly etched in the minds of everyone in the crowd, this is what I've said to you all along. If any man come after me, he must deny himself, he must take up his cross, and follow me.

A life of self-denial, a life of self-sacrifice, a life of submission. And Simon was compelled out of the crowd. Was Simon born again? He was.

Or he was, or became born again. He'd been a follower of Christ. How do we know that? Romans 16 tells us that his wife ministered to the apostle Paul in Rome.

His son Rufus is also named in Romans 16, verse number 13. Simon was instrumental in the church in Cyrene. And so, something happened in the life of Simon Cyrene, that's why his name is mentioned here, that's why the illustration is in the scriptures, because you need to understand the essence of the gospel.

This is what it's all about. And Christ wants to make sure that everybody sees it and understands it. It says in the very next verse, and following him was a large crowd of the people.

That they weren't followers of Christ, but they were following along. Like a lot of people were, quote, followers of Christ for a while. But Simon of Cyrene, different kind of man.

He was totally committed to follow his Christ. He would lead his wife to the Lord, he would lead his son Rufus to the Lord, maybe he left his other son Alexander, that's his other son, to the Lord. But he realized that this one, the Christ, was worth dying for, because Christ died for him.

Simon's decision to follow the Christ was irresistible, he was compelled. When you give your life to Christ, you are compelled to give your life to Christ. It's what the Bible calls irresistible grace.

There's common grace for all men, but the irresistible grace, it cannot be refused. Because when God calls you to himself, and he grants you the gift of grace, and the gift of faith, and the gift of repentance, and the gift of belief, because they're all gifts, granted to us by God, and when God compels you to come, you can't say no, you come. Why? All that the Father gives me will come to me.

You will. Now, as Simon was compelled, so we, when we give our life to Christ, give our life to Christ, because we're compelled to do so. We've been drawn by the Spirit of God to come to Christ.

And we give our lives to him. So we begin to understand, as we read through the Gospels, that a Christian is known by his decision, his decision to follow Christ. And that decision is based on the fact that God, in his sovereignty, has chosen you and called you into his kingdom.

And that's why it's an irresistible compulsion. So Jesus would say this, long before the illustration, there was the instruction, Luke nine, verse 23. And Christ was saying to them all, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross 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 or his own soul? Such a tremendous statement.

This is the Gospel message. You see, we live in a world designed for self-fulfillment, but we preach a Gospel about self-denial. That's why it's rejected.

We live in a world filled with self-respect, self-dignity, self-importance, self-fulfillment, self-satisfaction. And we come along and we preach a Gospel that says, you need to sacrifice your life for the kingdom of God. You need to sacrifice yourself.

You need to deny yourself. You need to be willing to surrender yourself. And that goes against everything that society teaches and wants us to believe.

But the Gospel is directly opposed to what society teaches. And that's why Christ will say it over and over again. If you wanna keep your life today, you're gonna lose it for eternity.

But if you're willing to lose your life, if you're willing to give your life away. You see, Christianity is not about exalting myself. Christianity is about executing yourself.

Willing to die for Christ. Take up your cross and follow him. But we've got that all wrong today.

Because we wanna appeal to the masses. We wanna appeal to the crowds and say, listen, if you just come to Jesus, everything will be better for you. That's not what Jesus says.

In fact, he says direct opposite. You read on in Luke chapter nine, it says in verse 57, as they were going along the road, someone said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. Matthew's account tells us it's a scribe.

So here's this scribe who says, I wanna learn from you. I wanna follow you wherever you go. And you think that Jesus would say, come on then.

You wanna follow me? Get in line with everybody else. This is great. It's not what Jesus says.

He says, the foxes have holes. The birds of the air have nests. But the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

Christ wanted to make sure the man was serious. You gotta realize, if you follow me, there's no comfort here. There are no accolades here.

There are no palaces here. There's not a life filled with happiness. You're gonna go through life and not find a place to lay your head.

The birds of the air, they got a nest. Foxes have holes, but you follow me. You got nothing.

You got nothing. See, Christ didn't make it easy for people to follow him. He made it so incredibly hard.

Why? Because you see, if you're called by God and chosen by God, you're willing to accept whatever he says. If you're not, those sayings are too rough for you. You don't follow.

So, verse 59. And Jesus said to another, follow me. You can imagine the scene.

Here's Jesus walking along, and some scribe comes up and says, hey, hey, Jesus, I'll follow you wherever you go. And then Christ gives him the statement. And he doesn't follow.

So Jesus says, you, hey, you follow me. See, that's the call of salvation. The call of salvation is to follow Christ.

The call of salvation is not an event. It's not a prayer. It's not a card you sign.

It's not a moment in time. The call to salvation is a continuous act of following Jesus without reservation for the rest of your life. We forget that.

And so, he says, you, follow me. Having heard what Jesus just said, he said to Jesus, Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father. I need to go bury my father.

Now, his father wasn't dead yet. How do we know that? Because in Judaism, the burial took place the same day as the death. So if his father had died, he'd be sitting in a home decaying while he is out trying to follow Jesus.

That's not the case. His father is still alive. He hears what Jesus said about no place to lay your head, no place to sleep, no comforts.

Hey, you know what? If I wait till my dad dies, guess what? I'll get the inheritance, take the inheritance, and guess what? I'll have a place to sleep, and this guy will have a place to sleep. I'll have clothes to wear, this guy will have clothes to wear. Everything will be okay.

My dad's not dead yet. I need to bury my father. Jesus says to him, allow the dead to bury their own dead.

It's just so crude, isn't it? But it's not, it's Jesus' words. Let the spiritually dead bury the physical dead. But as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.

You want to follow me? Let the spiritually dead take care of those who will die physically one day. You be engaged in proclaiming the kingdom of God. First man's deterrent was materialism.

The second man's deterrent was pacifism. He was going to wait that maybe Jesus will let him follow him sometime down the road when everything is financially secure for him. Then in verse 61, another also said, I will follow you, I will.

You can just see the person in the crowd, ooh, ooh, ooh, Jesus, ooh, I'll follow you. I'll do it. These other two losers, they won't, but I will.

I'll follow you. But first, permit me to say goodbye to those at home. Let me go back home and say goodbye to mom and dad, brother and sister, aunt and uncle, nieces and nephews.

Permit me first to go back home and say goodbye. His deterrent was sentimentalism. But Jesus said to him, no one having, or after putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.

There are to be no rivals for my affection. There is to be nothing that comes between me and you because if something does, that becomes more important to you than me. That then becomes your God and not me and no man can serve two masters.

Therefore, you can't follow me. See, those are hard sayings. They're not easy.

That's why when you come a little further in Luke's gospel to the 16th chapter, Luke chapter 16, it says these words, verse 16. The law and the prophets were proclaimed to John. Since that time, the gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached and everyone is forcing his way into it.

What kind of statement is that? Who's forcing their way into the kingdom? What's that mean? Am I trying to fight to get into the kingdom? What is going on here? The whole forcing aspect is that all of Satan and all of his minions are doing all they can to keep you out of the kingdom and you are exercising self-denial, self-sacrifice, self-surrender. You are fighting your own pride, your own will, your own stubbornness, your own sin. All those things are the hindrance to you coming to the kingdom and that's why man is forcing his way into the kingdom because without the spirit of God moving, controlling, calling you to come, you can't, just can't.

So important. Earlier, Christ would say these words in Matthew's gospel. He would say, therefore, everyone who confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my father who is in heaven.

But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny him before my father who is in heaven. Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

For I came to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law and a man's enemies will be the members of his own household. He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me and he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. He who has found his life will lose it and he who has lost his life for my sake will find it.

See, these are the words of Christ. But those aren't the messages that preachers preach today when it comes to presenting the gospel to people who need to give their life to Christ. Because we try to water down the gospel, dilute the gospel so much down to its bare minimum, just to get someone to make a decision, just to get someone to say, yes, I will follow, yes, I will come, yes, I will pray, instead of, as Christ did, make it virtually impossible for a man to do it on his own because he can't.

But when God calls a man, he's willing to do whatever Christ asks because he empowers him to do that, to accomplish his purposes. Back in Luke's gospel in the 14th chapter, Christ says these words. Now large crowds were going along with him.

Stop right there, large crowds. That's verse number 25 of Luke 14, large crowds. How large are large crowds? Well, what do you do when large crowds follow you? You want larger crowds to follow you, right? So you do whatever you can to keep the large crowds coming.

Not Jesus. Jesus, he didn't want anybody to be deceived. He didn't want anybody to think that they, just by getting on the Jesus train, that everybody was gonna be going to heaven.

No. He turned and said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. He cannot follow me.

He cannot be one of mine. That's just a hard saying. Christ doesn't want any superficial followers.

He doesn't want any shallow followers. He wants totally committed people following him. So he says in verse 27, whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

Same thing he said in Luke 9:23. Same thing he said in Matthew chapter 10, verses 34 to 39. He says the exact same thing over and over and over again.

Then he says this. For which one of you, when he wants to build the tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish, or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with 10,000 men to encounter the one coming against him with 20,000? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then, none of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.

Have you calculated the cost? Have you understood the ramifications of what it means to follow me? Have you sat down and began to add up everything that it consists of? Christ wanted them to be sure that that's exactly what they wanted to do, because he knew that it would cost them everything. We just don't want to present Christ like that to anybody. And yet, when someone's called by God, they are desperate enough to embrace all that Christ says, no matter how difficult it may be.

Because they understand the parable of the treasure and the pearl, in Matthew chapter 13. The man who found the treasure, he stumbled upon the treasure. The man who obtained the pearl, he found the pearl.

He sought the pearl. Christ has given an illustration of those who stumble upon the kingdom, realize it has value, go back, sell all that you have to purchase the field. Or, set out on a journey for a specific pearl, willing to give up all that you have, sell all that you have, to pay the price for the pearl.

It speaks of the estimable value of the kingdom, that when someone understands the kingdom of God, the forgiveness of sins, the relationship you have with the living God, you are willing to sell everything that you have, Matthew 16:26. What will a man give in exchange for his soul? That's the gospel. What will a man give in exchange for his soul? The word exchange is a transactional term.

What will a man give up to obtain his soul? Answer, everything in this life. Because this life means nothing compared to Christ's life. Are you willing to give up all that you have to obtain Christ's life? Or is your life so valuable to you that you are unwilling to give up your life for Christ's life, and thus lose your life? That's the bottom line.

And the Christian decides to follow Christ. And there's no turning back. You know the chorus, I decided to follow Jesus.

No turning back, no turning back. Though none go with me, still I will follow. No turning back, no turning back.

My cross I'll carry till I see Jesus. No turning back, no turning back. The world behind me, the Christ before me.

No turning back, no turning back. And that's the decision that the Christian makes. But that decision is based on a divine decree by the living God who calls man to himself.

The God, the man's decision is always subject to the sovereignty of almighty God. But to as many as received him, to them gave you power to become the sons of God. It is true that man receives the Messiah.

He accepts the Messiah. But he's born not of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, he's born completely by the will of God. Christ says if you want to follow me, it's the end of you.

That's what it means to deny yourself. It means you refuse to associate with yourself any longer. That's what it means to deny yourself.

Man, unfortunately, wants glory. He wants his needs met. But God does not want to meet your earthly, worldly needs. That's not why he came to die. He wants you to abandon all your earthly, worldly needs and embrace him. That's what self-denial is. That's what self-sacrifice is. That's what self-surrender is.

In today's day, we have rewritten the gospel or we have reinvented the gospel. Thus, we get a multitude of false converts to converts because we dilute the truth, hoping to gain more people to follow Christ.

Jesus never did that. He knew that all that the Father had given him would come to him. But he wanted to make sure that nobody was ever self-deceived.

No one was ever, ever thinking they were saved when in reality, they were not. So, he kept preaching the hard truths of the gospel over and over and over and over again. Because he didn't want anybody to be confused, anybody to be a counterfeit Christian.

He wanted everybody to understand the genuineness of salvation, the gracious, saving mercy of a living God. Our Lord is the quintessential evangelist. He came to seek and to save that which was lost.

That was his mission. And he wanted to make sure that nobody would have a question about their commitment to the Christ. And so, he spelled it all out very clearly for those who wanted to follow him.

But for most of what he said in John 6, unless you eat my flesh, unless you drink my blood, you have no part with me. And people said, who can hear that? Who can hear that? And many of his, quote, disciples, followers, walked away. They left him.

Why? Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, all symbolic of the life that he would give and the blood that he would shed, you have to take in all of me. You can't take bits and pieces of me. You must embrace all of who I am and all of what I said and all of what I'm going to do.

People didn't want to do that. So Christ turns to his men. He says, will you go away also? And Peter said, where are we gonna go? We've left everything to follow you.

You have the words of eternal life. You have the words that give life. And before we met you, we had no life, because you don't.

If you're not a Christian, you have no life. You exist, you walk around, but you have no life. The only people who have life are those who have Christ's life.

That's true life. I came that they might have life and that they might have that life more abundantly. That's the life that Christ wants to give.

And I wonder if you've embraced that life. I wonder if you understand what it means to follow Christ. Christ wanted to be very, very clearly stated all throughout his ministry.

So, he concluded his ministry with an illustration, with Simon of Cyrene, who would carry that cross to the place of the skull. And that man would realize this is what the Christian life is all about. And that man became the living illustration of Luke 9:23.

My question to you today is, are you a living illustration of what it means to be a Christian for the world to see? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for today, the opportunity you give us to spend time in your word. Truly, Lord, you are a great God.

And we are grateful for your mercy, for your grace, for your love, for your goodness, for your kindness. We are grateful, Lord, that you died for us. Lord, no greater gift in all the world than the indescribable gift of eternal life.

It is so valuable, it is so incomparable, it is so immeasurable that we can't even begin to compare it with anything on earth. And those of us who have embraced that gift understand the beauty of it. And we have decided to follow Christ.

So, Lord, as we journey on each and every day, may our lives exemplify the beauty of Christ that all who come behind us would see that Jesus is our King, our Lord, our Master, our Savior, forever, in Jesus' name, amen.