Well, good morning. My name is Tim. I'm the pastor here and I want to welcome you today. Glad you joined us to worship God together.
It's so good to see new faces last week on Easter, but to see those we face as return the following Sunday as we talk about what it means to follow Jesus. If you are new with us, you heard Brad talk about it starting point after the service. It's a great way to see how to follow Jesus and how to do that here at Phoenix Bible Church. We'll do it right down front.
Set up tables. We have lunch provided. Even if you haven't registered. I'm not sure what this Jesus thing is all about.
I'm not sure what this church is all about. How do I get connected? This is how you do that starting point right after the service. We'd love to have you stay for that.
We keep it to 45 minutes. We provide lunch for you and all that. We'd love to have you stay for that. But also if you are new, you might have heard what Rachel read and realize we're in the middle of the story.
We're in the middle of the story of the life of Jesus, specifically in the Gospel of Mark. And we've entitled this story, this series, who do you say that I am? And last week on Easter, we came to the moment the series is named after this moment. Who do you say that I am or where Jesus asked the disciples?
This point is pivotal. All important question. Who is Jesus? Not just who other people say that he is, but who do you say Jesus is?
We talked about on Easter. That moment comes for all of us. And it came for all of us on Easter that we don't just get dressed up nice and hunt Easter eggs. We are celebrating that Jesus beat death.
He rose again and he is reigning today. And all of us have to come to grips with do we really believe that? And what we saw last week is Peter, one of Jesus' closest disciples, he really believes it. He says Jesus, you are the Christ.
The Christ, the promised one who would rescue humanity from sin and restore them to a right relationship with God. But we quickly realized Peter didn't understand what that really meant. We get a clue of that because he rebukes Jesus and Jesus calls him Satan. Peter didn't quite understand what the Christ meant.
So we start to realize Mark chapter 8, Mark is 16 chapters long. Mark chapter 8, this pivotal moment, first time the Christ, the promised one who is going to rescue humanity. Jesus, that's who you are. We start to realize we got some work to do.
The rest of these eight chapters, we got some work to do. Jesus needs to explain what he really means by the Christ. He starts to do that. He says, I came to suffer, to die and to resurrect.
And what we are going to see, these next eight chapters, he's going to go on a journey, a road literally to Jerusalem to start to suffer, to start to begin to show them he's going to die and then come back to life. And so last week we see in the story, Jesus has done amazing miracles. He's taught profound things. But we come to this moment, we start to see he's the Christ.
What does that mean for him? And then we start to see today, he's the Christ. What does that mean for us? If Jesus is the Christ, here's what it means for him.
If he's the Christ, here's what it means for you. So that's where we're headed this morning. We're going to explore that together in the past as we just read Mark chapter 8. We'll start in verse 34.
It says this, and calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he says to them, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. So the first thing we see that we do in response to Jesus being the Christ is we deny self. Now, I think immediately what came to my mind is I read that immediately, maybe what comes to your mind, if you heard that and maybe if you've been around the church, deny yourself, take up your cross, follow Jesus, deny self. That means there are some things in my life that as a Christian, I need to stop doing.
I know for me growing up as a kid in Texas, what I always heard was don't drink, don't smoke, don't chew, and don't go with girls who do. I don't know where you grew up, maybe that's the first time you ever heard that and it's okay, it's okay, if that's the first time you ever heard that. But you heard something like that, right? Maybe it didn't rhyme.
But you heard something like if you're going to go to church, maybe you didn't go to church, maybe you weren't a Christian, but if I were to become one of those people, there are some places I would have to stop going. There are some things I would have to stop doing. And maybe if you grew up in church, maybe you left the church because that was a long list of things you had to stop doing, you just thought this isn't practical, right? Now is there some element of that to the Christian life?
Are there some things you should stop doing? Yeah, right? There are some things, but notice what Jesus says, he doesn't say deny something, he says deny self. You see, let's take it even deeper.
It's not just don't do these things on this list, stop going to these places. It's you deny self, you deny your dreams, your desires, your determinations, your declarations about the world, you deny self. Jesus, I don't just love Jesus, whatever we think it is, he raises it another notch, right? I don't know, Jesus, I don't know if I can deny these things.
He's saying, well, good, that's not what I'm asking you to do. I'm asking you deny, you're very self. Yeah, do that. Jesus calls us to something greater.
He says deny self. I think about, and when I read this in the message translation, it said, you're not in the driver's seat. Jesus is. And whenever I see something about driving in Christianity, I think about carrying underwood and Jesus take the wheel.
And I think about that because I'm not sure if carry is theology. But I think when we picture and we think of something like that, we picture lies getting crazy, getting out of hand, swerving around corners, and we're in the driver's seat and doing the thing, and Jesus is in the passenger seat, and he's like, hold on, I got this. And all that's in, and all that's driving, and I'll say, hold on, I got the wheel. And the reality is what this is saying, deny self, you're not in the driver's seat, it's something different, carry, right?
We're not in the driver's seat and Jesus is coming over helping us out, taking the wheel. No, we're in the back seat. And we're long for the ride, and we're denying ourselves. We're no longer in the front seat of our lives.
We're in the back seat of our lives. We're no longer in the front seat of our profession. We're in the back seat of our profession. We're no longer in the front seat of our relationships and our finances and our sexuality and our dreams and our ambitions.
We take a back seat. Jesus takes the front seat because he is Lord. He's the Christ. And we deny ourselves.
And he is taking the wheel. But he's sitting in the driver's seat. And your dreams, your ambitions, your desires, when you meet Jesus, those things are completely transformed, completely renovated. It's like my family and we just bought a house and just moved in a week ago.
And to buy a house, you know this, you look at a lot of houses. In Phoenix, living in Central Phoenix, you look at a lot of old houses, right? And you start to look at some houses and they're all different. Like some of them, they just need a new room, right?
Some of them you walk in and you're like, I just, I would like to change that door. I'd like to change the carpet or maybe just the backyard and plant grass because zero-scape and Phoenix is everywhere, right? And you just start to look at little things and you're like, maybe we'd like to change that. And I remember my wife and I really wanted to live in one specific neighborhood that was really pricey and I always out of our price range.
And we saw one day a little balloon, a marker pop up on Realtor.com in that neighborhood. And literally that day, I said, Jaya, let's go for a walk. And we went for a walk and we saw this house and as soon as you walk up, you see why it's on the market in our price range in that neighborhood. All the grass has grown up, all the house has broken windows.
It's in really bad shape. The pool had minnows swimming in it. And it got in bad and we're looking with our Realtor who's a personal friend of ours and she just sees our hopeful eyes and just feels sorry for us. And it's like, Tim and Jaya, I could not do this to you guys.
Like this house, once you're done with it, I mean, it needs probably $100,000 worth of work. I mean, it needs a complete overhaul and I'm afraid even if you spend all that money, if you could, it wouldn't even be worth it. It needs a complete overhaul, a complete renovation, not just a room. You see, I think for some of us, we think about the Christian life and we think, well, just I just need to change some rooms.
I just hardwood floors instead of carpet. Instead of pursuing success all the time and working 80 hours a week and to the neglect of my family, well, I'll just modify that a little bit. I just changed that a little bit. I just modified that little bit.
I'll just modify that little bit. Let's put thoughts like, those are okay. I'll just renovate that one room. And Jesus is saying to you, it's not just sexually.
It's not just professionally. You don't just need some new carpet. Your heart, it's deeper. It's rooted in your life, yourself, the core of who you are, deny that.
You need a complete overhaul. We got to rip this thing down to the studs and rebuild your new creation in Christ. The old days passed away, the new has come. So Jesus says, you need a complete renovation.
It means self-help pro tips. That's not going to cut it. You need a complete overhaul. You need to deny self.
Now, if all of us aren't uncomfortable enough, it's uncomfortable to think about this. I got to deny self my dreams, my desires. It's all going to go wait. What am I going to do without my true self?
You need to know you're not alone. This is how our culture thinks as well. Every one of us is trying desperately to hold on to ourselves. You see it in little funny sayings that we say, like, you do you.
Live your best life, whereas Justin Bieber would say, go on and love yourself. One of my favorite shows says, treat yourself. We even have little cute sayings like that. We just start to think about, man, you just need to self-care.
Do something for yourself and preserve yourself and don't let the world, don't let somebody else over you take that away. Treat yourself. Love yourself. Don't be so hard on yourself.
Our culture, just like all of us, are comfortable with this. Our culture feels uncomfortable with the idea of denying self. Now, Jesus enters into culture. He's not removed from culture.
In this day, as He tells them to deny themselves, in our days, He tells us to deny ourselves, He knows that that's hard. He knows that's uncomfortable. He knows that's counter to everything we see in our culture, everything. Every time you go to work and everybody else is trying to climb the ladder of success, Jesus knows you work there.
Jesus knows who you're friends with. In the midst of that, He immerses into that culture, engages that culture, and He says, I want you to be different than that. And it's going to be uncomfortable, but this is what I'm calling you to. And that once we experience who Jesus is in our office, in our profession, in our relationships, where everybody's trying to treat themselves, and once we realize who Jesus is, He engages that culture, He engages us in the midst of it, He calls us to something different.
He moves in. In the midst of all the crazy, Jesus moves in, and He begins to renovate your heart. He begins to overhaul your life. And some of you have experienced this, right?
That before you became a Christian, it was a lot of things. Hey, don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this.
But then you met Jesus, and then all those voices at your office and all those relationships that are influencing you in all of our culture that says, hang on to yourself, but then you met Jesus, and He invaded your life, and He transformed your mind. And then you started to think about desires and determinations and ambitions differently, because that's what Jesus does, because that's who Jesus is. He's not just a good man. He's not just a good teacher giving you advice.
He's bringing the good news of the gospel. He is the Christ, the promised one who God sent to rescue us from the Lord. From our desires and our brokenness and our dreams and our pain, He came to rescue us from that and restore us to a right relationship with God and give us our true selves. That's what Jesus does.
See, as Lewis says it this way, he says, the more we get what we now call ourselves out of the way and we let Jesus take over, the more truly ourselves we become. Our real selves are waiting for us in Him. Our real selves, our true selves. We don't lose it when we deny ourselves.
We find it in Jesus, right? That's what we're here worshiping. That's why we're singing songs about a glorious God, not because He's taken away everything precious to us, but He's given us things we didn't even know we wanted. He's helped us find who we were actually created to be.
That's what we sing with joy. That's why we worship God. He's given us our true selves because He's worthy enough, He's powerful enough to do that because He is the Christ. He gives us more detail on what this looks like.
He gives us some spiritual economics. Look at verse 35. He says this is the way it works. If you're going to save your life, keep all those things.
I'm not going to deny myself. I'm going to treat myself. I'm going to protect myself and everything I have, if you try to do that, you will actually lose your life. If you actually want to save your life, though, He says here's the spiritual economics of the way this works, you want to save your life, you lose it.
You deny self. That's actually how you find your true life. Verse 36, he says, again, spiritual economics, what does it profit a man to gain all of the world but forfeit soul? And Jesus is trying to help us understand the equation.
Why does it work this way? Why do you deny self and find it? Why do you lose your life and ultimately find it? Why do people gain the whole world and don't deprive themselves of anything yet they're miserable and exhausted and tired?
One of the people you went to high school with, in college with, who chased the American dream, who found every pleasure and entered into, who found every girl and every guy and just physically went all in, just for the joy right in that moment. One of the people in Phoenix who drive amazing cars and live in amazing houses who are divorced, who are alone, who are depressed, you see the spiritual economics playing out in our culture, don't you? You see people gaining the whole world but losing their soul, losing who they truly are. You see people who don't have a lot but who have a smile on their face and who have an eternal purpose in Jesus because this is the way it works.
Jesus says, I'm the Christ, here's what I'm going to do. I'm the Christ, here's what you're going to do. Deny yourself, then you actually find yourself. Deny those sinful pleasures, then I'll be able to show you real ones.
It won't fade in a night. It won't give you a hangover the next day. That will last. Even when your circumstances aren't good, you'll be good because you're loved by an unconditional father.
That purpose that you're chasing in your job, working all those hours to the neglect of your family. I'm going to take that ambition, I'm going to overhaul the house and I'm going to make it new and you won't just have ambitions and purpose that show up in your bank account and your 401k, you're going to have ambitions and purpose that show up for eternity and won't fade with you and won't die with you. You want to save your life, you're going to lose it. But if you lose your life, you'll find out who you truly are.
So in response to Jesus being the Christ, the worthy one who comes for us, we deny self. The second thing is we take up our cross. Now to put ourselves back in this context, remember how does Peter respond when Jesus says he's going to suffer? How did Peter respond last week?
What do you do? Jesus, that's a great idea. I was suffering, we never thought about that one. Let's roll with that, Jesus.
No, Peter rebukes Jesus, the Christ. Suffering some of those two things don't go together. Jesus is going to take up a cross and he's going to die. Yes, is he going to rise, but Peter didn't hear that.
He just heard, suffer, die. Now if that wasn't bad enough for Jesus to have to go and do that. Now they're hearing, hey, we have to do the same thing. Jesus, you got to cross.
We got to cross as well. And notice Jesus says, take it up. Take it up. Jesus is saying, there's a reality of suffering.
I'm going to go die on a cross and suffer. You have a cross to bear as well. You're going to suffer if you follow me. And he says, go ahead and take it up.
Don't just leave the cross over there and try to ignore it. Don't pick it up. What's Jesus saying? He's saying, don't ignore suffering.
Don't avoid suffering. Embrace it. Because I'm going to renew it. He talks about verse 38.
Jesus is going to come in glory with the Father and the Holy Angels, chapter 9, verse 1. He says, the kingdom of God is coming with power. There is glory to come, but first there is grief. He's going to renew all these things.
He's going to redeem the suffering. And so don't ignore it. Take up the cross, just like I'm going to embrace it. Because then you can start to see how he's going to redeem it.
Again, this is how Jesus works. This is what we do in response to Jesus being the Christ. There is suffering. And it's all different levels that we have to take up our cross with.
You saw it about a week ago. Sri Lanka, these churches, they got bombed on Easter. That's some suffering. Now, it was so cool this morning to see, just briefly, that some people gathered outside the church that was bombed.
And they're worshiping again a week later. Buildings removed. Safety is removed. Comfort's removed.
But they're still worshiping Jesus. Now, what causes somebody to do that? Well, they know that Jesus is coming in glory with the Father and the Holy Angels. They know the kingdom of God is coming in power.
That the suffering is not the end. It's a means. It's something greater. Jesus died.
He rose again. You will suffer. Jesus will redeem it. That's the case whether it's bombings in Sri Lanka, at churches.
That's the case in your life. That's the case when this morning, as we're doing our pre-service meeting, our sound tech is not here. Because we find out he had an MRI. He's worried about some things.
And yesterday finds out he has a mass on his brain. And today he's in the ER. And we've stopped. We pray for him.
And we've thought about them. We try to put ourselves in their shoes as they suffer. But we prayed. And we prayed because we have hope, even in the midst of suffering.
And we know at the end of the day that suffering is going to be redeemed. There is glory to come, even amidst the grief. And so there's suffering way out there. There's suffering real time in here.
So we take up our cross. We don't ignore it. When we heard the MRI and mass on the brain and what's going to happen, we're not sure yet. We don't have all the details.
We didn't just say, well, let's just not talk about that, because that's weird and awkward. Let's go do the service. And just we'll figure it out. Right?
Let's just try to act like that didn't happen. And put a smile on it and sing songs. No, God meets us in the suffering. God redeems the suffering.
How do we know? Cross led to resurrection. Sickness, sin, strife, suffering, it leads to something greater. So even in that moment, we can say deny self, take up our cross because Jesus is worth it because Jesus is going to redeem it.
Verse 38, it doesn't get easier. It gets harder. The first thing we don't like to read, it says, if we're ashamed of Jesus, that he'll be ashamed of us. What Jesus is referring to is that if you were not willing to deny self, take up cross in response to him being the Christ, that you really don't understand who he truly is.
And if you're ashamed of that, if you go through moments like we just heard this morning, if you go through other moments in your life where life is hard, and you think maybe it's not worth it following Jesus, maybe he doesn't redeem all things. I thought this Christian life was supposed to be easy. Live your best life now. I thought that was the way it was supposed to be.
And now some things are getting hard and taken away. You need to know if that shocks you, if you can't handle it, if you can't move forward and place your faith in Jesus, even when it's hard, I'm not saying it's not hard. But if you can't cling to Jesus in those moments, then you really didn't put your trust in Jesus, you put your trust in yourself, and everything going right, and everything being as to how you understand it, and everything computing in your economics, not his economics. And Jesus is saying, listen, if you don't really grasp who I am and place yourself completely before me and surrender all before me, all the good things and the bad things, then you really don't know me.
See, Jesus is giving us the grace of teaching us what it means that he is the Christ. This is what I'm going to do. Now this is what you're going to do. And he speaks it plainly.
So I would just ask you, man, have bad things happen, and you immediately leave your faith. When sin, suffering, and strife enters the equation, where do you run? You run away from Jesus, or do you run to Jesus? When the promotion at work is at stake, and you have to lie or deceive other people to get it.
What do you do? When your relationships are strained because you believe in Jesus, and it's a big deal to you, and it's a priority in your life, and some other things have to fall behind that. What do you do? Are you ashamed of Jesus?
Do you leave Jesus, or do you run to Jesus? Listen, there'll be times of wrestling and doubt. If you know the Christ, the one who came to rescue you in the midst of your hardship, in the midst of your brokenness, if you know the Christ, you'll run to him. Listen, some of you, you've heard a gospel that only included the good news and none of the hardship, and listen, that just means they skip passages like these.
There's hardship. There's cost to following Jesus. Deny yourself. Take up your cross.
Follow him. Don't be ashamed of him. Cleaned him. That's what Jesus is calling us to do.
So to sum it up, if you want to be a Christian, if you are a Christian, here's what you do in response to Jesus being the Christ. You ready? Deny yourself. Take up your cross.
Embrace suffering. Lose your life. That's the Christian life. Amen.
Let's go. Everybody got that? That's just simple, right? Just make a list.
Just make a list. Put on your cute vintage chalkboard when you get home. Deny yourself. Take up your cross.
Lose your life. I'm done. It was just that simple, right? How do we do this?
He tells us. Deny yourself. Take up cross. Follow Jesus.
If only someone else had denied their self. If only someone else had taken up their cross. If only there was someone out there who could give us a template, an example of what this looks like. We could take our cues from him.
Anybody out there who we could take our cues from? Anybody out there who denied his self by leaving heaven and glory and entering humanity as a baby and a barn. Born to a teenage girl who wasn't married yet. Anybody out there who has denied himself that can give us an example of what this looks like.
Anybody out there who was Jesus, God in the flesh, who could have come on the earth and set up a throne and a kingdom and blew away Rome and all the politics and all the taxes. Anybody out there who could have done all those things but instead, walked humbly and worked as a carpenter and for 30 years we didn't hear anything about him. Anybody out there as Jesus begins to do these miracles and these profound teachings and a crowd gathers and he says, hey, wait, don't tell anybody yet. Don't tell anybody that's not time yet.
Instead of gathering and garnering all the power for his own fame. See, Jesus shows us what this is like. He's not calling you to something that he hasn't done and is not willing to do. That's how good Jesus is.
He is our line leader. He's the one who shows us how to do these things. Honestly, the biggest part of this is not deny self, not take up cross. It's follow Jesus because he encompasses all those things.
If you follow Jesus, you will deny self. If you follow Jesus, you will take up your cross. Now, if you follow religion, if you follow a religious practice or go into church and go into the motions, you may not deny self and take up your cross. But if you follow Jesus, that's what you will do because that's what he did.
So he's the line leader. We just follow along. He's never done a VBS or maybe you teach school and you have everybody hold on to a rope so they don't get lost. The line leader, they got the front of the rope and all the kids are behind and you just follow along.
You're just going, whatever the person in front of you does, that's what I'm going to do. Last week on Easter, we had kids in the service and even though my three-year-old is supposed to be in the nursery, she cannot let us go. And she wants to worship with the adults. She's just mature a three-year-old.
And I look over, we're singing songs, and I look over my little three-year-old daughter during one of the songs. I love you. She's into it. She's waving her hand across in the air.
She doesn't care. She was into it. She was doing it. Now, did I ever teach my daughter how to do that?
No. Did she read that in a book somewhere? She's three. She can't read.
How'd she do that? She saw us do it. She started following the lead of her parents. And she doesn't even understand what that means yet.
But she's following us. She doesn't fully comprehend all the things she should praise God for. And maybe some hard things did happen. And what we're even meaning by doing that, but she's starting to follow us.
That's what this looks like. Listen, I don't understand why MRIs happen. It masses happen on people's brain. I don't understand why that situation at work is unfair and hard.
I don't understand why it's sin that keeps creeping back into your life that you thought you were done with. I don't fully understand all that. I don't fully understand those things in my life. But I fixed my eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith, who does understand and says, you follow me.
You follow me. I'll teach you how to take up your cross. I'll teach you how to deny yourself. You do what I do.
And along the way, eventually you'll understand what it means to raise a hand. Eventually you'll understand what it means to celebrate Jesus in the midst of hardship. Eventually you'll understand what it means to love your spouse, unconditionally, even when they jack up the toothpaste tube. Eventually you'll understand.
Even if you don't now, eventually you will follow Jesus. Listen, are you following Jesus? Because He will provide you the grace and the example to show you how to do what He did. Are you following Jesus?
Are you following something else? They may have the appearance of religion and beliefs and going through the motions. But is it Jesus that you're following? He will teach you how.
He will bring you along. This is Mark 8. Peter just got rebuked. Jesus called Peter, Satan.
Some of you are thinking, Tim, I can't deny self, take up cross, follow Jesus. It's a process. We got eight chapters left. We got the book of Acts where Peter proclaims the risen Lord.
And 3,000 people get saved. Maybe you're not ready today to deny self and take up your cross. Just follow Jesus. They keep following Jesus.
And He changes them. He overhauls their house eventually. He'll do the same thing for you. Jesus is the Christ.
He's going to die and resurrect. Jesus is the Christ. We deny self, take up cross. And we follow Jesus.
Now, this is hard. There is a cost. As I said before, if you've heard a gospel that just, hey, come to Jesus and everything else will work out. It won't cost you anything.
That's not the gospel. Here's the gospel. It will cost you. But he's better.
It is hard. But it's worth it. That's the Christian life. That's the Sunday after Easter.
You had a moment last week where Jesus died from my sin. He rose again. He restores me to a right relationship with God. When he picks an illustration to describe how he loves us, he picks a father to a child, the most unconditional love, relationship that we have in the world.
And all of that is true. But there is a cost. It is hard. It's just he's worth it.
It's like in marriage. When I got married to my wife, I didn't think it was going to happen when it did. In fact, when I was in college and coming out of college, I thought and stood on the platform and proclaimed this like an idiot. I'm not going to get married for a long time.
And I was dating her. And so I don't know that that helped her feel valuable. But I would always just be like, I'm not going to be locked down by those chains. And I have my best friend from college here, so you can testify to this that we all kind of did.
We're all just like, man, those other people that are all chained up by their spouse and can't do what they want to do. And we're going to flashbacks and getting the dollar burger and they can't come out. I'm not doing that for a long time. I'm doing what I want to do.
We talked about big game, right? And then what happened? Started dating my wife. Got closer to her, met her family.
Learned she played tennis. Learned she liked some of the things I liked. Saw her in that dress. And I went back to my friends and I kind of softened on that whole.
I'm not doing that. And I started looking for a range. And I started saving up a lot of money. And I started learning about cut and clarity and color in ways I've never learned before.
And I started the guys were going to flashback to get the dollar burger. And I was like, hold on a second. I got to study. I can't make it.
And they're like, I think, wasn't that J.O. You were talking to me? Like, hey, shut up. And I started to change the course of my life.
Why? Because it was going to be easy to be married. No. Whatever I want and go play golf, whatever I want.
Why? Not because it wasn't going to be hard. Not because those things weren't true. It's because she was better.
Because at the end of the day, I got to know her. And I got to do life with her. And 13 years in, I got to have three kids with her. And we got to raise.
It's because she was better, because she was worth it. There is cost. It's just the benefits outweigh the cost. And how much more would Jesus?
God in the flesh who came and lived and died and resurrected on our behalf. Knowing everything about you. Your past, your present, your future. The sins you remember committing, and the sins you have forgotten.
And that Jesus laid down his life for you. And he said, I'm going to know you and love you forever. And you have that relationship with the God of the universe, just by trusting in him and following him. And is it going to be hard?
Is there going to be cost? Yes, he's better. He's better. That's what Jesus calls you to do.
He's the Christ. He's going to die and suffer and rise again. He's the Christ. Deny yourself.
Take up your cost and follow him. He is better. And he will allow you to be your true self. You'll find it in him.
Let me pray. God, I thank you for your word. I thank you for hard passages that show us who you truly are. And in the midst of studying them and wrestling with them and applying them to our lives, you show us who we truly are.
And God, you call us to respond. You explain what it means for you to be the Christ. But then you explain what it means for us to respond to that truth. So I pray for these men and women who, that thing before them, that they don't want to let go.
That cost that they are experiencing even right now, that you would show them in this moment that you are better. And that they would decide right now to take up their cost and not themselves and follow you. And as they wake up in the morning, they would do it again. Luke 9 says, to do it daily.
And God, you show us what this is like. How great of a God do we have? That you didn't just give us mandates. You gave us a model in Jesus.
So help us to follow you. Help us to continue to learn about you and journey with you as we follow you and as you enable us to go through hardships and suffering and to come out on the other side and see it redeemed and to see your glory. God, we need your help. And so we ask for it now.
In the name of Jesus Christ. And everybody said, amen.