Jesus Freak

Announcements

Trunk N Treat

Baptism nov 3 class, nov 17

Business Meeting November 10 - 2025 budget is in the large lobby

Intro

we all have things that we love in this world. Some of those things are more important than others. If you have a family married hopefully you love your spouse, and kids. Maybe you would say you love exercise, or sports, maybe even a great movie or book. Or perhaps there is a subject that you love like history, or a hobby like gardening.

So as I said we all have something that we love, and yes some of them are more serious or more important than others, and it is important that we have these passions. It is important that we love our children, it’s important that we love our spouses.

However we must make sure that we keep our minds in the proper perspective.

The Proper Prospective

So what is the proper prospective?

1 John 2:15–16 NIV

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.

So this brings us to an interesting point, if we are not supposed to love the world or anything in the world, then how should we interact with the world around us.

Well this brings us to an interesting fact. Some of you are probably aware that in the language that the New Testament was written there were multiple words for the same word that we us as love.

So when I can say, I love pizza, I love Florida State Football, and I love my family, we use the same word, however in the Greek language each of those phrases would have their own separate word.

So the most common words that the Greek Bible uses for love are Phileo - brotherly love (which is where we get the name Philadelphia from), Eros This is the type of love between a Husband and wife, Storge which is familial love, and then Agape, and this is the unconditional love.

Agape love is the type of love that God always speaks about when He is referring to us. God doesnt love us as brothers, or even just as family members, but God loves us in an unconditional manner where there is nothing we can do to make God love us more, or make God love us less.

And that should be something that we celebrate.

So we know that there is nothing that we can do to make God love us more, or less because He loves us with this perfect Agape love, how does this apply to 1 John 2:15. Well Im glad you asked. The word in Greek that is used in 1 John 2:15 here is the Agape love, so in this passage it is telling us that there should not be anything in this world that we love so unconditionally that it would take us away from our love of Christ.

We see this similar concept in Luke 14:26-28

Luke 14:26–28 NIV

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?

This passage is not telling us that we should literally hate our father, mother, brother and sister, but instead it is telling us that compared to our love for Jesus our love for anyone else should look like we hate them. By that I mean if our friends ask us to do one thing and Jesus says something else it shouldn’t even be a question in our minds.

So we have to keep our love for the things of this world in the proper perspective. To make sure we are not loving our hobbies, or sports more than we are loving on ur families. But unfortunately we see this all the time, your favorite sports team loses and suddenly your entire week is ruined.

Count the Cost

Not only do we have to keep our love for the things of this world in the proper perspective Luke 14:28 Tells us that we should not just follow Christ without understanding what it will cost us.

Luke 14:28 NIV

“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?

This passage is right after Jesus tells us that whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. And then He starts talking about making sure that we are able to fulfill the promise that we are making.

Jesus is telling the crowd that is following Him do not enter this life of following Jesus lightly because it will come at a cost. Here in the United States we are blessed. We are so blessed that for the most part the biggest cost that we have to deal with on the regular basis is the potential of losing a friend, or someone calling us weird, or maybe even a Bible thumper.

However that is not the case for millions of believers around the world. There are books, filled with stories of different people who have paid, and suffered for the Gospel of Christ.

People like a 13 year old girl from Syria named Miriam who found a Bible in her sisters backpack and trusted in Jesus after she began reading it, and because of this was beaten by her own parents.

Or like Poonam from India who back in 2018 her husband overheard her praying to God, found her Bible ripped it to shreds in front of her then kicked her out of the home preventing her from seeing her own children.

Here in the United States we just celebrated see you at the pole. Here in Wapak we had about 100 students gather together between the middle school and the high school to pray for their community. And in another community a student named Owen stood at the pole alone in Oklahoma, and other believers found out about it and decided it wasn’t right for him to be alone so they organized a second day where about 50 students came and joined him. so we don’t face that kind of persecution here.

Now thankfully after much prayer God has begun softening the heart of her husband and he has even attended church with her, and she has gotten a new Bible, however she still keeps that tattered Bible as her most prized possession. Because in her words the Bible is everything to her.

These are just two of the stories out of a book called Jesus Freaks, written and compiled by some of the members of the Christian Band DC Talk.

But the question is do we as Americans really count the cost of following Jesus? Do we truly live out 1 John 2:15. Are we willing to lose everything for the cause of Christ.

Receive eternal life

Here is the thing, God doesnt call us to give anything up without promising more in return. Now we may not get more in this earthly life. There are pastors out there that will tell you if you just donate to my private jet fund, God will bless you and your bills will be paid.

Thats not what we are talking about here, but we can see a promise given to us in 1 John 2 of why we should be willing to hate the things of the world.

1 John 2:25 NIV

And this is what he promised us—eternal life.

We are promised eternal life. If we are willing to make Jesus the leader of our life and forsake the things of this world, and follow Jesus, and I mean actually follow Jesus.

1 John 2:29 NIV

If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him.

So we have to make sure that we are living our lives in a way that is actually following Jesus. Not just with our lips but also with our actions. Trusting that Jesus Christ was born on earth, died for our sins, and rose again on the third day, but not just believe that but also believe it and repent

James 2:19 NIV

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

But as we make that decision to make Jesus the leader of our life we must count the cost, and realize that there may be a day coming in this country where you may have to make a choice between your job and your faith. Are you willing to give up everything you have to follow Christ?