Embracing True Discipleship: A Journey with Christ

1) "What we are promised is that the grace and the strength of the Lord will help us in our times of weakness. And we're able to have everlasting or everlasting and overflowing joy because of our relationship with Christ. Amen. Here's the question that I want to pose to you this morning. The question is, who or what are you following? The reality is that we are all following someone or we are all following something. We are all following something. God designed us to be influenced. Some of us might say, well, no, I'm, you know, I'm the leader of my life and this and that. And I would say that's the problem." [49:04] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "If we are not being intentionally formed into the image of Jesus, we might be unintentionally being formed into something else. If we sit around and watch Netflix all night, that's what we're being formed into. Right. But if we spend time committing ourselves to Christ, man, we are being formed into the image of Christ. So before we jump into the word this morning, here's what I'm going to ask you to do. I'm going to ask you to close, close your eyes and bow your heads and in your own way. Talk to God this morning." [52:06] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "The challenge is that there is a gap. There is a gap between popular Christianity and true discipleship. And this is what I'm talking about this morning. It's true discipleship. There's a wide gap. Let me break it down. There's a wide gap between those who identify themselves as Christians and those who are actively following Jesus. Jesus says that we are called to follow him. In the book of Matthew, chapter 4 and verse 19, I'm going to read this from the God's Word translation, but you might be familiar with it in another translation. Jesus says to his disciples, he says, come and follow me, and I will teach you how to catch. People instead of fish." [57:24] (42 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "Jesus is saying following me is an all or nothing commitment. You see, in our modern world, we love options. Don't tell me to do anything because I'm not going to do it. But Jesus is saying it costs something to follow me. Now, about that whole hating your mother and father thing. There's several commandments in scripture, right? Love your neighbor as yourself. There are several commandments throughout scriptures on how we are supposed to love our enemies, on how we're supposed to love and care for our children, how we're supposed to be gentle and loving with our spouses. And the importance of honoring our parents. Scripture tells us to. Do those things." [01:01:28] (46 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "Jesus is saying, will you choose to follow me in the moments when you don't feel like it? Now, the other scenario about a king. That he gives is this picture of a king that is preparing for war. And it's not just about defense, but the king only has 10,000 troops. He knows there's another one with 20,000 troops that's about to invade his kingdom. So instead of him preparing for war, he goes out to make peace with that king. And so what Jesus is saying, please hear me. What Jesus is saying is for us to consider the consequences of not reconciling with Christ." [01:07:28] (40 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "Jesus says, come and follow me. Jesus is not saying, I want you to follow me so that I can convert you to my religion. You know, Jesus was never building a religion. Jesus did not say, come and follow me so that you can become a Christian. But Jesus is saying, come and follow me. Apprentice under me, and I will teach you how to live like I live. Because really, at the end of the day, that's what it means to be a Christ follower, is I'm following his way of living. Because Jesus was living. In the kingdom of God." [58:15] (31 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "Jesus says, the first step, man, is we have to follow. If I want to follow him, I've got to give up my own way. And then I've got to take up my cross daily. Let's look at Luke chapter 9 and verse 23. That's exactly what Jesus says to the crowd. He says, if any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way. Take up your cross daily and follow me. And then he says here, you're familiar with it. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it." [01:12:04] (24 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "Ambition is not a bad thing. Someone say ambition is not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing, right? It is a God-given ability and desire and drive within each and every one of us. I mean, think about it. If we didn't have ambition, there would be no reason to go to school. There would be no reason to get a promotion. There would be no reason to go after things in life. There would be no reason. And I speak from experience. There would be no reason to pursue the girl that shut you down three times. Hallelujah. Ambition is not a bad thing. But if it's left unchecked and unsurrendered, the ambition then becomes a selfish ambition. And it turns servants of God into servants of themselves." [01:23:23] (49 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9) "God will never waste an experience in your life. Whether or not you are walking with God, he will never waste an experience in your life. So now that you're committed to Christ, if you make a decision to follow Christ, all of that training, all of that, that whole life that you had before Christ was never in vain. There's no such thing. You ever heard someone say this, I had wasted years? There's no such thing as wasted years. Because your Bible says that before I was formed in the womb, God had written all my days in his book. That means that God had a plan for all of that stuff that you walk through. It wasn't for nothing." [01:30:03] (46 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)