A Life Revolved Around Jesus: Part I

Lifted that your piece falls upon us. What a wonderful thing to get to experience as a church. Lord, we ask that you make us a contagious group that in the West Valley and the areas that we touch in the normal parts of our lives during the week, Lord, that we're a contagious group and that we can go out from here, Jesus and be disciples that follow you and that carry real hope, real hope in Jesus. So we humbly recognize, Lord, that that requires the surrender of ourselves and a turning to you.

Thank you for your presence. We give you all the praise and glory and everybody said Amen, Amen. Hallelujah! Thank you, worship team.

You can grab a seat. Actually right now. Right now let's do an exercise together. Let's close our eyes.

It's a great way to get us started. Let's close our eyes and imagine for a second, with your eyes closed, that you're on an elevator somewhere and you're headed up to wherever you're going. And you're looking around the elevator a little bit. Maybe you're looking at the lights and the elevator or the walls.

You're just by yourself. It's just you in this elevator until the door is open and you see a woman standing there and her eyes just look at you real quickly and then look back down, and she gets on. And it's evident to you very quickly that this woman is going through something tough. And you say hello and be friendly and get to talking to her and find out.

She's really been having a tough week. That has been on the heels of a tough life, and she's really had it difficult. So she says to you, I think I'm going to try Jesus, you know anything about that? And I don't want you to answer out loud.

I just want you to think about what might your response be? Orbit church is you in that elevator. And Jesus, when this lady comes in and says, yeah, I don't I don't really know what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. And then the door is open and you're at your stop.

My question for you this morning is, do you know what you would say to her? I don't need you to answer out loud, but you can open your eyes. Hi, it's me, Pastor Elijah. Glad you joined us.

So we're going to talk today about being a disciple of Jesus. My goal, me and Pastor Matt's goal is that in this two part series, this is week one. And tomorrow or next week will be week two. So I'm going to preach week one today, and then next week I'm going to preach week two also.

So I convinced Pastor Matt to let me have two in a row. Give him give him a two week rest there. And I'm really looking forward to talking about it. We're going to jump right into what real discipleship is because here's our goal is, I want you guys to be able to say in your mind right now, go.

I know exactly what sentence I would say. I know exactly how I would respond if that lady was like, what does it really mean to be a disciple of Jesus? I want you to be able to have that right in your back pocket. Let's jump into our text in Matthew 2816 it says.

Meanwhile, the 11 disciples went to Galilee, the mountain Jesus is designated. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. I just want to pause real quick for a little commercial break. For those of you who are doubting, notice that these were the disciples that had been following Jesus.

Some of them worshiped and some of them doubted. So if you're here this morning because somebody else drug you to church and you're not really sure what you think about Jesus, hear me say and know that it's everyone's thought who goes to this church that you are in the right place? We believe that this is a church where someone curious or doubting can come and encounter Jesus. We want you to be here.

We want you to know this is your church home if you choose to make it that. Amen. Okay, now back to our text. Then Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I've commanded you. And and surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, these words of yours seem like simple directions, and we are your church.

And this morning we're asking for your wisdom and your help. Would you make these simple directions come to life in our lives by the power of your Holy Spirit? Amen. After my wife and I had been attending orbit for about three weeks and way before I came on staff as an executive pastor, there was a couple of young men in the front row, and I think they might be here right now.

So for for the purpose of this story, there's a couple of good looking young men in the front row. And during our little meet and greet time, they had asked us, why do you guys keep coming back? We know this is like your second, third time we recognize you. Can I ask what is bringing you back?

And there's a lot of things that were bringing us back. But for this morning, I want to share just two things with you. Number one reason, one of the reasons that brought us back is our times of worship. And you can you may say, yeah, and you may applaud the efforts of the worship team.

And they're serving our church so well. It's because for me, it's because I spent I spent over two decades in, in worship ministry. And I just love it when I'm sitting in the church and I'm watching the worship leaders lead worship, and I can look at their face, and I believe that they believe the words that they're singing, and that's effective leading. And so I could I could preach three years long on on worship and all that type of stuff.

But that was one of the reasons. The other reason is the reason we're talking about today. What I stumbled upon on your website and on that website, Orbit church is our mission. And it's interesting because that mission makes so much sense with what we're talking about, revolving everything around Jesus.

That's what it says. We all know that, right? That's a common term for everybody. If you're new, you're going to hear that a lot revolving everything around Jesus.

So we read out of Matthew 28 this morning, anybody know what that section of Scripture is called? Oh, somebody I heard sail outer the Great Commission. That section of Scripture is called the Great Commission. Was that Hannah?

That was your wife, pastor. Good job sir. You're doing a great job keeping her in line. So I like to say the Great Commission is a commission.

We are on that mission with Jesus Church. It's what we ought to be about, as as we're just praying. We ought to be about being a light in the darkness. We ought to be about when that person comes up to us at work and talks to us about something, we'd be like, oh, yeah, you're looking for real hope.

It's found in a life that revolves around Jesus. That's what we're talking about this morning. Hey, Pastor Matt, pretty smart of you. Pretty smart of you to put in the mission of the church, the commission right out of the book of Matthew.

Good job. Give him a hand. Here's the point we're trying to make. A disciple of Jesus is someone who revolves everything around Jesus.

So did you know it's already written in your church's DNA? Credit Pastor Matt in the Holy Spirit that our mission as a church is what Jesus said. Go make disciples, baptize them, and teach them to follow me. So that's what we're going to be about.

Let's get into what it means. Psalm 16 eight. We're going to read this verse together. Please, please be better than the first service.

Just be better. I believe in you guys. Okay? Okay.

Ready? Here we go. We're going to read this day that you guys see it. Okay?

Am I the way? Here we go. Psalm 16 eight I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand. I shall not be moved.

So it says before, and it says at my right. But this verse is about a lot more than just directions before. Like in front of is what it's talking about. What that is is a priority word.

Take this, this stand right here. For example, if I set the stand before me, here it is now, as I'm revolving around the stand, if I'm revolving around the stand, what is set before me now? Good. Ten of you understand it.

Let's try this way. Now I'm going to go this direction. Now I'm seeing a whole bunch of different. I'm seeing a speaker and drums over there.

What is set before me now? The stand is still set before me. So it is priority. Right hand in the scripture, you know.

You know, the king used to have somebody at his right hand and and that person is right hand was like a trusted advisor, somebody that if he gave advice, the king would probably heed it. He would probably listen to it. You've ever heard somebody, maybe somebody from my generation, say something like, oh, yeah, he's my right hand man. That guy's my right hand man.

Who does that? If that guy gives me advice, I'm probably gonna listen to it. It's probably good advice. That's authority.

So what we see in this verse, I have set the Lord always before me because he's at my right hand. I shall not be moved. We see priority and we see authority by giving God priority, making him first in our lives, setting him before us, and by giving him authority meaning, looking to him for direction and letting him decide what is best. By doing those things, we can revolve our lives around Jesus.

It's a good idea, I promise. Let's keep talking about it. So to help us be about our mission, let's see if we can't memorize this verse. Okay, let's read it together one more time.

I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand. I shall not be moved. You know what we used to do in Sunday school? As they would add motions.

Y'all want some motions? Yeah. Okay, let's do some motions. Is this one's first this one and then this one, and then this one.

Okay. Ready? Let's say the verse together. I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand.

I shall not be moved. Man, that's good stuff, isn't it? It kind of hits different, doesn't it? Because here's the thing.

Somebody that are clapping, you're like, man, I could use a little shall not be moved in my life, man. I could use a little. This happens, that happens, but I shall not be moved. We can sing about it.

But the problem is, if we don't have the Lord set before us, if he doesn't have priority in our life, and if we aren't giving him up, then we're going to get moved. You're going to get moved all over the place. You're going to get kicked left and right, and it's going to make you weary. You're going to get beat down.

But if you set the Lord always before you, we're always oriented, revolving everything around Jesus. Very good. We're going to get some disciples up in here, I love it. Oh, here's the thing.

Life is not perfect. So I want to talk to you at this point in the message about your circumstance, because I don't know what you're going through, but it might be really, really tough right now. It might be the toughest you've ever experienced in your life. I won't try to guess what your circumstances are at all, but I do want to offer a bit of encouragement about revolving your life around Jesus.

In fact, I'll call it more than encouragement. I'll call it Good news. The good news about your circumstance. Are you ready for for a dash of hope?

If you're going through a tough time, you better say yeah. Are you ready for a death of hope? Okay, here it is. Well, first, let's read Psalm 46.

Psalm 46 says, God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So we will not fear when earthquakes come and the mountains crumble into the sea. Let the oceans roar and foam. Let the mountains tremble as the water surge.

I love what this verse does. It starts out with a statement, the statement God is our refuge and strength. That is a resolve statement, man. Let's make that statement or a bit church.

Let's make that as a church. God will be orbit church's refuge and strength. That is our resolve. We're going to just we're going to hold to that.

The next part is that God is always ready to help in times of trouble. So we had a statement made by us, and now we have a promise made by God. Some of your some of your versions say an ever present help. I like that I need some ever present Jesus in my life, especially when I'm driving on the 303 and somebody thinks you can go 50 miles an hour right here in front of me.

I need an ever present Jesus to calm me down. Oh, just me. I'm the only one or. Okay.

Thank you. So we have the statement that God's our refuge and strength. Then we have a promise that he's right there, ready to help in times of trouble. And verse two and three, we've got earthquakes, mountains crumbling, oceans roaring, water surging.

What are those? Those are circumstances. Those are just a list of circumstances. Plug yours in in the scripture if you want.

So we will not fear when we are broke. So we will not fear when our whole family has the flu at the same time. So we will not fear when plug in whatever you want to right there. When I'm jobless, when I don't know what I'm going to do with my future after high school, when I when I don't see what the outcome should be after a broken relationship is torn my heart to pieces.

Those are circumstances. Oh, yeah. The good news. Here it is.

Are you ready for it? The good news is this. When I revolve everything around Jesus, my circumstances are not at the center. Somebody say that again.

I will when I revolve everything around Jesus. My circumstances are not at the center. Sometimes we need to refocus because our circumstances have taken up so much of our mind and our time, and it adds to our stress and anxiety. And all we're doing is thinking about our circumstances.

That's not living a life of a disciple that's asking for more trouble than you need. That's forfeiting peace that you could otherwise have. Because we're not revolving everything around Jesus. Somebody probably needs to hear this.

It's easy. If you focus on your difficulties, focus on your circumstance, focus on your troubles, focus on your woes. It's easy to let that become your identity. And I'm here to tell you your difficulties are not your identity.

You just need to refocus. You just need to put Jesus back at the center so you can look at Jesus first. I have set the Lord always before me, so now I can look at Jesus first and I can say, Lord, how do you want me to view the fact that I don't have a job right now? Lord, how do you want me to view the fact that I just got out of this relationship and my heart really hurts now, I'm not looking at all of the circumstances, and I have a foundation here the Lord has set before me.

My circumstances can do whatever they do, and I'm going to be all right. The peace of God will be with me, man. I've set the Lord always before me, and he's my right hand, so I shall not be moved. My circumstances don't get a kick me around anymore.

My what? I want to give you a warning about this is that it's not always pretty. It takes grit and determination to keep the Lord at the center. Sometimes it is the right thing to do as a follower of Jesus, to prioritize the Lord and give him authority.

It just takes some grit and determination. You can do it. The Lord can help. I think of grit and determination and I think of my my son Cliff, he's 18 and he goes to college in Washington and plays basketball there.

And his whole life is full of stories of grit and determination. That's just the kind of kid he was growing up. A lot of fun stories for him. Like when he was two years old, he begged me to take his training wheels off so that he could write a two Wheeler.

Dad, I want to watch a two Wheeler without 20 wheels. So I did, and I thought it was going to take forever for him to learn. And he just took right off right around two years old, around the circle a bunch of times in the cul de sac before he crashed. He was full of grit and determination.

I didn't write a two Wheeler without trading wheels till I was three years old, and I thought I was special. He did it at two years old. A particular story that I'll share with you this morning about his grit and determination is that when Cliff was, he had he had just started writing this little two Wheeler. He was maybe three years old at this point.

We had all decided to go to the lake, and the lake that we went to has a really long hiking biking trail, and it's about as wide as this stage is like this. And it goes way, way long trail at a pretty good incline. It's not super steep like kids can ride a bike up it, but it is an incline and it is very long and the lake is beautiful at the top. So we all went there as a family and we took our bicycles and we looked like a kind of a parade.

You know, there's people hiking to the left and to the right, and we've got, you know, I'm, I'm at the back and my wife's leading the charge on the front on her bike. And then we have my daughter Dylan on her bike. And then little Cliff just pedaling. Away's legs are like little pistons just going up this hill.

The tires are only about that big, and he's going up that way. And then of course, dad is in the back and I've got my mountain bike like this. I've got the trailer hitch to my mountain bike behind me with our one year old in it back there. And he's he's just the baby.

He's getting the free ride back there. And it's also got the cooler and the towels and everything else that my wife wants me to peddle up this hill. It's got all of it. So I also have the dog on the leash and I'm telling him, you gotta pull harder than this, but you are a German Shepherd and you are not pulling your weight right now.

So we make it all the way up to the top of this long, long hill. And we have a wonderful day at the lake. And then it's time to go. And we get all our stuff packed back up.

And the towels are wet now, so they're heavier and we're headed downhill fortunately. So we get going and it's getting to be dark. So this is when everybody's leaving the lake. And it was a busy, busy day on the lake.

And so the path is packed with people walking back. And as we get going. I said, you know what, let me get out in front. So I lead this time and and my family's behind me.

And all of a sudden I hear my wife Brooke, she yells at me, Ilija, Cliff's chain fell off his bike. Shoot! Well, no big deal, right? Chains fall off bikes all the time.

You just get him back on. Only the thing is, on his little bike, he didn't have brakes like this. It was a little bike. Right?

So the brakes are when you go like that, right? Only problem is, when the chain falls off, the brakes aren't there. They just go and go. And Cliff had already begun going down the hill.

And in true cliff fashion, he started going down the hill pretty fast because he likes to go fast. And then his chain fell off and then he had no brakes. And as she's yelling at me that his his chain fell off, I immediately just start pedaling as hard as I can because I need to get ahead. Some of you know what I was thinking already.

I get as far ahead as I can and I jump off and there's a rock wall on this side of the trail, and over here the trail kind of slows down like this. And there's big, huge cedar trees. And I look up at Cliff and he looks down at his chain and he goes, March 18th is off. My chain is off my car, and his legs are going backwards and nothing's happening.

He's only picking up speed and he's coming down the hill. At that point, I stand there and I'm like, I jump off the bike, I throw the dogs leash there, and I stand there and I say, Cliff, just focus on me. Come straight to me, ride right at me. And Cliff lifts his head up and he looks right at me like this.

And his hands go. You want to talk about grit and determination, man? His hands go like this and he starts only it's a bumpy little trail and there's tree roots and rocks and all that stuff. And he's going, boo boo boo boo boo, hitting all the bumps and all this stuff, and he's coming down.

I go, just stay going right at me, Cliff. You're going to run right into me. Come and straight towards me, I got you, I got you. And he's like, oh good, he's hanging on.

He's going faster and faster. People stop because they can tell there's a little bit of panic happening here. People are watching. They're like, how is this kid going to get out of it?

Nobody wants to see the train wreck of this kid going to be coming. Gumby on the side of the trail here like this. And so everybody's kind of hoping for the best. He comes down like this, he stays focused on me.

I managed to get my hands underneath his armpits as he comes toward me. And you guys, you dads know what I'm doing, right? Couple. Dad's done this before.

As he comes, I hit his armpits like this and I go, woof! And I swing him up in the air. Only thing was, Cliff forgot to let go of the bike. His grit and determination made him squeeze so hard on those handlebars like this that he becomes like this, like getting by the hands.

And he goes home and he goes all the way upside down with a bike. And I'm holding a three year old and a bike in the air about that tall. I managed to set him in the bike down and the crowd went crazy. Cliff could have been distracted.

He could have been distracted by the rock wall on his right or the trees to his left, or that his chain was clanking, or that there were people diving out of the way. Go and save yourself. Are. But he kept his focus on me.

He made sure I was set before him and the chaos of his situation. He got tunnel vision on the one thing that he knew he needed to focus on, and he heard clear direction. Some of y'all have got tunnel vision on Jesus and he's giving you a clear direction. I want to give you a heads up.

It might not be what you want it to be. You might be begging God for permission to date this person. And he's quiet because that's not what he has for you. Sorry if we're going to live a life revolved around Jesus and he's got priority and authority, then those decisions belong at his feet.

Amen. Amen. So the direction might be different. Cliff might like to hear me say something different than keep riding.

Go faster. Come to me, I got you. But we gotta trust that the Lord has our best interest in mind. And he sees things that we don't see.

So his his authority is worth listening to you, David. From the Bible. He had grit and determination also in tough circumstances. Do you know that in first Samuel 16 that's when David was anointed king?

Pretty rad right? Like he gets anointed by the Lord's prophet and he and he goes, I'm going to be the king. Woo hoo! I think of the Lion King song.

Remember the Lion King? Yeah. And where they tell him he's going to be king. And it's like it's all daisies and rainbows.

I just can't wait to be king. And only for David. Some of y'all just like Disney. You're like, only for David.

For David. It didn't happen that way. Saul didn't come up. The king.

The current king didn't come up. The David go, hey, man, I hear you're going to get my job. So excited for you. You're going to be great.

We'll have the cake ready. It didn't happen. Saul tried to kill David. He tried to chuck a spear at him more than once, tried to run him through.

And then he ran David out of the kingdom. Then he hunted David to try to have him assassinated. David had to be like, what is going on, Lord? You promise me that this was going to happen, and my circumstances are not evident of your promise.

Sometimes that's life. Sometimes that happens that way. Just because God gave you a promise, it doesn't mean your circumstances are going to line up how you think. When we're yielded to God's priority and authority, then we can not worry about those circumstances.

David. He kept his resolve even though he could have whined and complain to God about all of that stuff going on and on and on. His resolve was, do it with me, okay? I have set the Lord always before me because he's at my right hand.

I shall not be moved. David was up in a cave hiding out from Saul, and he was saying, I shall not be moved, because I set the Lord before me. You know who wrote that psalm that we're trying to memorize this morning? Anybody?

David wrote that song. That was his resolve. He's a great example of somebody living his life revolving around God's plan for it, not his own plan. What else can we learn from David?

This is the important thing about revolving your life around Jesus that we can learn from David. Here's a here's a story of David that's in second Samuel 11 and 12. I'll just put the address of it up. Their second Samuel 11 and 12.

Go back and read the whole thing if you'd like to read the whole thing, I'm going to give you the short version. We're going to call Nathan Nate. And in this case we're going to call David Dave just to keep it shorter. Sound good?

Okay. So Dave is up on the roof and he spies a woman that's not his wife, and he falls into sin. He lusts after her. Not only that, he sends he gets her sent to his room and he conceives a child with her.

David is deep, deep in sin. David realizes that he made a boo boo, and he makes it worse by trying to convince Uriah, who actually is the lady's husband, to sleep with her so that he can cover up the fact that she's going to have a baby. It doesn't go well because Uriah doesn't take the bait. So David makes it worse by sending Uriah on the front lines of battle and coordinating it so that everyone would pull back and he would be in the front lines by himself, and that he would be killed in God's eyes.

David had committed a murder. But the Bible says David was a man after God's own heart. Doesn't that sound like somebody who's revolving everything around Jesus? Yeah.

However, sin is still sin. And David found himself in deep, deep sin. But God, man, I love those two words. I love those two words.

How many y'all gotta? But God's story. Yeah, but God didn't like the distance between him and David because of David's sin, so God did something about it. God spoke to the prophet, Prophet Nathan who were calling Nate, and Nate says, all right, Lord, I'll do what you say.

Nate goes up to David in the in his kingdom. And he says, David, here's the here's the problem, man. We got we got something going on in the kingdom. And this guy who really loves this sheep only has one sheep, but he really loves the sheep.

He really takes great care. He treats it kind of like a daughter. I mean, he it's his baby, man. And he was like, what?

The problem is, I don't I don't I don't get it. He says, well, there's another guy who's really rich and he's got a ton of sheep. And when that really rich guy had a banquet, instead of taking one of his sheep for the banquet and killing that sheep for the banquet, he actually took the sheep of the one guy who was his prized possession, and he killed that guy's sheep. And David comes unglued.

David's like, you got to be kidding me. Somebody in my kingdom would do that. No way. We're going to kill this man.

This man deserves to die. And Nate says you are that man. Oh, it was right. Because here's the thing.

David was a man after God's own heart. And when you are that way, when you're revolving your life around Jesus, your sin will get called out. That's our next point here. When I revolve everything around Jesus, my sin gets called out.

Maybe they don't have that on the screen. Here's the here's the good news about David is that David had the right reaction to his sin getting called out. He had a reaction that was real repentance. And if you look, I don't have this as a bonus scripture.

This is just for free. But Psalm 51, go back and read it, because the psalm is a prayer that David put when he was repenting, and that Psalm shows real repentance. A few excerpts from it. He says, have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love, not because of what I did, not because I deserve it, because of your unfailing love.

Wash me clean from my guilt, purify me from my sin. Create in me a clean heart renewal spirit within me. Don't banish me from your presence. That sounds like a real prayer, doesn't it?

It sounds like real repentance. When God calls out your sin, our response needs to be real repentance. And real repentance isn't just when God calls out, you're saying going, oh yeah, sorry about that. Oh yeah.

No, real repentance actually means stopping what you're doing, turning around and going the other direction. That means changing your pattern, allowing God to give you a new pattern so you don't continue in that sin. And the good news is, God loves you so much that he doesn't want there to be something between you and him. That's why he calls the sin out in the first place.

If you're revolving everything around God, then don't you think that you should be getting closer to him? Yeah. The life of a disciple gets closer to Jesus. As you revolve everything around Jesus, you get closer to him.

So he's going to call out your sin so that that sin can get out of the way. And he's about doing that work. Have you heard that that God accepts you just the way you are? Everybody's heard that.

He just loves you too much to leave you that way. I love that he accepts you the way you are. He just loves you too much to leave you that way. I think of the Instagram Reels that I like to watch, that include those little dogs that are stray dogs.

I'm a sucker for them guys, I love them. There's like the stray, nasty looking dog. It's like in a ditch. You're like, is it a dog?

I can't tell, it's full of fur and mud and looks disgusting. And and then they always in the video they get these dogs right. They take them in there like we're going to rescue this dog. And and then they shampoo it and shave it and get it all clean.

And I'm watching the video and I'm scrolling by name him scruffy or something cute. Getting all choked up over puppy. And, well, some of you don't know about that. Some of you only remember the 90s version of this, which was the TV commercial in the Arms of an angel I remember far away or the guilt.

You. You're $5 will help save this dog. Imagine if they save those dogs. If they're like, yeah, puppies.

You can come into the shelter, we'll save you. And then they didn't do anything. They just left them like that. That doesn't add up, right?

It doesn't make sense. And God wants to clean up that sin in your life because he loves you. He wants to have a relationship with you. The thing is, if I rescue a dog, I ain't touching that thing until it gets clean.

You know what I mean? Because that's disgusting. But Jesus, he doesn't look at us like that. He says, I know what is under all that filth.

I know it's my creation. And God don't make junk. He don't. He only makes masterpieces.

He. He calls you his poema. Your poem. That's what he thinks about you.

And he makes a promise in first John one nine that says, if we confess our sin, if we confess it, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And we can be pretty little puppies for Jesus. Yes, he somebody said, yes, I love that idea. What a wonderful truth that is.

So, Pastor Elijah, how do I become a disciple? I'm so glad you asked that this, the step one of becoming a disciple is to believe. Having faith means choosing to believe in acts 1631 says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. We all know John 316.

A lot of us might know John 316 on the billboards at the baseball games. You see John 316, you know, it's the easiest one, but let's read it together. So we all so we all can read it at the same time. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Whoever. What? That's funny, because some of y'all act like this verse says, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever acts good, that whoever has good church attendance, that whoever volunteers the most at the puppy shelter, that whoever fill in the blank, none of it qualifies you. Nothing that you can do, no work.

You can come up with no good behavior, no no amount of money that you give to someone or the church or to God or anything can purchase your salvation. You can't work for it. In fact, all you got to do is believe. Ephesians two eight and nine says, God saved you by his grace when you believed.

And you can't take any credit for this says it plain and simple. You can't take any credit for this. It's a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we've done so that none of us can boast.

We can't boast about it. All we got to do is believe and receive the free gift of salvation. It makes sense, though, doesn't it, that after receiving the free gift of salvation we would have a desire? Wow, Lord, you saved me.

You made me white as snow. You washed away the sin and deleted the thing that was between us. Now I can be in relationship with you. I ought to want to orient my life to where it revolves around Jesus.

I want to set the Lord before me. Just sort of makes sense. Lord, you gave everything to me, so I surrender my life to you. Step two one was belief.

Step two surrender. Luke 14 seven says, whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. That's kind of interesting. Well, it cannot be my disciple if I don't carry my cross.

That's kind of interesting. Well, surrender means dying to our own plans and choosing to follow his perfect plan. So. You guys want an illustration?

You guys like impressions? Yeah. Okay. Okay.

You like impressions? Let me give you an impression. Let me see here. I'm going to give you an impression of me when I allow my wife to drive.

Okay. What? Calm down. It's going to be fine.

My wife drives sometimes. Usually I drive when we're going somewhere, but I don't mind letting her drive. And this is my impression of me when my wife drives. Here we go.

All right. We go. Okay. Kind of a hard stop, don't you think?

Are you taking Reims? Why are you taking Reims? You should just taking Reims road. Yeah, but it's faster to take Reims Road.

Get around this guy. He's going to slow. Just get around him. Get around him.

You don't need a signal. Just get around him. Okay? You're red.

It's red. You're green, it's green. Go go go go go. Whoa whoa whoa whoa.

See? I gave her permission to drive, but I didn't surrender the directions to her. And. She's.

She's in the front row. She just goes. Yeah, yeah. That's true, that's true.

I wouldn't lie to you at church. I ain't perfect. But some of us, some of us have done the same thing with our lives. We've received salvation, but we're still trying to tell Jesus what he needs to do.

We're still trying to tell Jesus what? What turn to make or what stop we should take in our lives. We we've set like this, and we've entered part of life and we've gone, oh, no, this is getting hard. Oh, I know.

Jesus. Take the wheel. Jesus, take the wheel. Jesus, take the wheel.

And Jesus is sitting here going. You gotta get out the driver's seat for me to take the wheel. But we don't want to get out the driver's seat. We want to receive salvation and then control our lives and tell the Lord what to do.

Man, it's convicting when I realize I'm talking about my prayer life, it's convicting. When I realize my prayer life is nothing more than me telling Jesus what I want. I can't get over here. I gotta give Jesus my surrender, and I need my prayers to sound more like, Lord, change me, change what I want.

Because a life revolved around Jesus changes your own will for your life. It might change your career pathway. It might change what you're doing. Because when you start orienting yourself toward Jesus, he says, now I can use you as a disciple, and I need to move you out of this job and into this job, and you're going to have to trust me when I make a hard left and it feels like a scary decision.

Am I going to surrender my prayer life so I could say, Lord, make me want what you want, Jesus. I want to revolve everything around you. Somebody say Amen. That's good preaching.

Mark 834 and 35 says, then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples, and said, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me, for whoever wants to save their life will lose it. But whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. I mean, to tell you guys, the truth about Pastor Elijah is this Pastor Elijah tried to run his life for a while. And it was at the point in my life when I said I tried to run it, and I tried to make it something cool.

I even tried to make it something that God would be proud of. But it wasn't surrendered to him. He didn't have permission to direct it, and it was at this point where I was like, I know I messed this all up. God, if you want any of this leftovers, you can have it.

And he was like, that's where I wanted you the whole time. I just wanted you at a place of real surrender. That surrender involves choosing to die to yourself. What do you mean?

Take up your cross and follow me. It means. It means choosing to not live your will for your life. We get to see that even today as we baptize people.

Because baptisms, that representation like Pastor Matt's talking about, right? We're seeing people go, I want to die to the old person that was desiring to follow my own way because I've received salvation. I already did the believe part, and as I come out of water, I'm raised to new life, raised to walk the way Jesus wants me to walk when everything revolves around him. Maybe that's you.

If you're getting baptized today, go ahead right now and head out to the lobby and give you permission to just stand up right now where you're at and head out to the lobby. We're very excited for you guys. Yeah, if you can let them know. All right.

Church, before we before we move on to a little bit of worship and celebrating these awesome baptisms, I'm going to ask you to be introspective. And this is just between you and Jesus, not the person that you came here with, not the person in front of you, behind you. And of that, I just want you to ask yourself a question. Bow your head.

Close your eyes. Where do you think you're at today? You heard me talk about all of these things. Take an assessment with you and Jesus, or really allow Jesus to take an assessment with you and him.

I'm not going to tell you where you're at. It's just between you and Jesus. I'm going to give you a few categories in just three categories. Maybe right now you've never received forgiveness for all your sin.

You've never even heard it explained the way I explained it. And and you're going, man, that makes sense. Or maybe you've heard it. You just haven't chose to believe.

And you can choose to believe right now, and you'll be sure of your salvation. Because of those scriptures we read and what Jesus declared and what he did. Dying for your sin on the cross. You can pray a prayer just like this, and you may pray it under your breath.

You may pray it just quietly and declare that you believe. Maybe your prayer sounds like this. Lord, I choose to believe that you died on the cross to pay for my sin, and I choose to receive your forgiveness. Beautiful.

Welcome to salvation. If you prayed that prayer, welcome, welcome. Maybe you're in a second category where you've already received salvation, but hearing about this life revolve around Jesus is new. You haven't yet decided that you're going to follow the Great Commission and become a disciple of Jesus.

And this morning you're going all right. Lord, I guess it's all about priority, authority, and surrender. He's pointed that out to you this morning and your prayer could sound like, Lord, I want to make you number one priority. I want to give you authority and surrender my own will for my life to you.

The third category, maybe that category is you've been a disciple of Jesus for some time. You've been doing a wonderful job revolving everything around Jesus. But this morning, he's trying to call you to a deeper level of surrender. Maybe the Lord's pointed out some areas in in your life where you've been doing too much backseat driving, trying to control your circumstances instead of trusting him with the directions.

Maybe you realize that that thing you surrendered to him when you decided you wanted to be a disciple, that you've slowly kind of taken it back, and he's pointing that out, saying, I don't want anything between us. I want your full surrender. Your prayer this morning could sound like, Lord, forgive me for trying to control the direction in my life. Help me choose to trust in you.

I surrender control, I surrender my life. And while he really has their heads bowed, I think maybe we should add a fourth category. And that for category might be you're hearing everything I'm saying. And the word baptism keeps coming to mind.

And now that I've said it out loud in this little prayer time, your heart is pounding like crazy because you know the Lord's asking you to be obedient. He said, I know that you've made that decision for me, but I want others to know you've made that decision for me, and I want you to be obedient and be saying, be baptized. And I want to tell you, I want to speak directly to you right now, if that's you. I want to tell you it's a really easy thing to do and you can get baptized.

Right now we've got shirts, we've got towels, and if that's you and you feel like, oh my gosh, I'm going to do that right now, I am, I'm going to take that step of obedience. Then I'm just going to tell you right now while everybody else has their heads bowed, nice clothes, stand up and walk out to the lobby, and there's people out there that will receive you. You walk right out there and you just say, I'm getting baptized today. I need directions, and they'll give you directions for it.

They'll give you a shirt and a towel and all of that. Cool. Lord Jesus, thank you so much for your presence. Thanks, Lord for giving us simple directions on following you.

We choose to worship you, Lord. We choose to surrender our lives to you and Lord right now as a as a church altogether. We pray for the people that are getting baptized. We ask Lord Jesus that you would be true to your word and just fill them with the Holy Spirit as they come out of that water and guide them as they surrender priority and authority to you.

Lord, we thank you that we get to be here today. We give you all the praise and all the glory for your mighty, mighty work. And all the church said Amen, Amen.