Living a Christ-Centered Life: Embracing Sacrifice and Service

I just pray that we are able to reach out to people who are hurting in our community I pray that we are able to give them a hand up and lead them into a deeper relationship with you Lord I pray that we have a heart for yours and that we have your eyes to see those people and that we are able to live out the commission that your son has called us to to see people and to make them a disciple by teaching them more about Jesus and his love for them and your mercy and your grace for all of us that is so free and willing for everyone to accept it and I thank you for the opportunity that we get to be your witnesses be your light in this world that is so dark Lord I also pray for the ones in our box Lord you know exactly the ones that are in there and Lord I know the hearts that have been praying for them I know how earnest they are that those people that they have written down and placed would come to a better understanding of you and of who you are and I pray that this week there will be conversations had that would pull them in and that they are able to receive the warmth of your love that they would understand the presence of you even when they're at their lowest points that you would just continue to fill them and allow the ones who are having the conversation let your words come out and let them not be stressed or anxious about trying to have something prepared Lord because I know that you will always be there for me that you will always bring to the hearts and minds the right words to say and I pray that for this week Lord I also pray for those who may be traveling whether it be for the Super Bowl or whether it be for other things Lord anytime we decide to walk outside there's a risk I pray that you would give them a blanket of safety we love you and we give you praise it's in Jesus mighty name that I pray Amen [00:27:52]

So, last week, we talked about a significant prayer life, right? And significant means it's got to be important, you know, or it's got to be an event that has to have some meaning to it. And so, we looked at it as being important. Now, this week, I want us to talk about a significant lifestyle of Christ, which means an event, but that event has to be your entire life. And in order to do that, we have to be rooted in prayer. That's where all of this stems from. You know, it's with the posture of your heart, as we learned in our last series, that everything flows from our heart. So, everything in the lifestyle of Christ is rooted in prayer. [00:35:10]

So, it's because in prayer is when we are in those conversations with God and we're able to hear what He's directing us to do, we get those inner proddings. We get those inner things that we need to do. And in order to understand this lifestyle and the power that we will receive as the church who follow this lifestyle, we're going to read out of Matthew 16, verses 30 to 26. [00:35:55]

So the very first thing that we have to come to an understanding of this lifestyle of Christ is that there has to be a confession of who Jesus is. And in that confession, Peter says that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Well, I guess he was Simon at this point, right? Simon says, you know, we should follow what Simon says, right? Simon says, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. In order for us to be in the kingdom of heaven and the family of God, we follow what Simon says. We have to confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord. And then Jesus immediately gives Simon a new name. [00:38:53]

And this new name means that you are not alone. You are now adopted into the family. See, we all have a name in here, right? We all have been given a name at our birth. Some names we pick up while we're in school, and they might be good names or bad names or somewhere in between. But the name you get whenever you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and come into the family is son or daughter. And that is an important distinction that we all get to have when we accept Jesus as Lord, because he comes along and says brother, and God recognizes you as son or daughter. [00:39:48]

We as Christians need to be extremely aware of when we are speaking, because we can either speak for God and build up the kingdom, or we can speak for Satan and destroy it. And if you destroy the kingdom, you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. And it's in this rebuke that we understand that Peter's rebuke did not line up with what the Scripture said. Because we know in Isaiah 53, it talks about the suffering servant and what he was supposed to do. And Jesus was here to fulfill all the laws and the prophets. [00:43:12]

Jesus challenged them to build the church where corruption was dominant. The gates of Hades, where this was, was one of the most most corrupt places in Caesarea Philippi of what sacrifices they were doing and what rituals they were doing. And I read them so you didn't have to. They're not very good, right? There's pretty, pretty gruesome. But where morality was turning towards evil, that's where Jesus was calling his people. That's where he was calling his people to build the church, to be on the attack against such forces. Ephesians 6, 12 -17 tells us what exactly we should do in these situations and how to be on guard for it. [00:52:18]

But what's more important is that the helmet of salvation has to be the finishing piece. Because without salvation, the sword of the spirit is not as good. The shield of faith is not as effective. The shield of faith is not as effective. Because if you don't have salvation and belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the word became flesh, how on earth are you going to wield the sword? How on earth are you going to have faith in something you can't see to guard yourself? How on earth are you going to have faith in something you can't see to guard yourself? [00:54:30]

When we become Christians, we get keys to one kingdom, and that key will open or shut whatever is within God's will in our life. I'm gonna say that because there are people who would take that and say, health, wealth, and prosperity. That's not how this works. I'm gonna say it right now. That's not how this works. You have to be living within God's will and be discerning of God's will and be using the key for his kingdom rather than your own kingdom. Now, if God chooses to bless you because of your obedience and what you do in your obedience, that's great. [00:56:23]

But we have to reject our own desires to accept the desires of God. Because if we're too full of ourself, there's not enough space for God to operate. So in order for God to operate within us, we have to start casting away. All those negative behaviors. We got to start allowing God to reveal those things to us so we can start casting them aside. But denying of self is different than self -denial, right? [01:00:37]

We practice self -denial like during a season of Lent or we're fasting or like, man, you know, I'm going to go on a social media fast. Well, that's self -denial. When you deny yourself. That means you're completely surrendering, surrendering your whole body to God and taking on a selfless service for others with nothing in return because the world is not going to understand it and they're going to do their best to use and abuse it because we are in a world of individualism where [01:01:48]

If we expect it to be pleasant or mild we will become upset with God because we're going to start questioning God why I'm denying myself but every time I do bad things happen to me I thought it was supposed to be all hunky -dory rainbows and sunshine when I started following you but if we go back to Scripture Jesus told his disciples in this world you will have trouble with God. But take heart for I have overcome the world so if we start twisting the scripture with our own heart just as Peter was twisting it unintentionally and thought man if I could just stop Jesus from getting killed man Jesus if this was more pleasant I would do this all the time he doesn't ask us to be comfortable Jesus didn't have a place to lay down his head he didn't have his own house [01:03:43]

So, there's victory and freedom found in the obedience of following Jesus. Following that cross each and every single day. When the enemy comes to play that Samuel song and dance, you have all the answers and you have the best weapon against him. You just have to be steeped in it. You have to train yourself in it. When I was younger, we flipped through a Bible so often, we called them sword drills, because you needed to be able to find whatever passage it was that they said and be able to read the verse before someone beat you. [01:14:43]