Onward Pt. 1

Onward Pt.1

How many of us every year create a New Year's resolution? Each and every year there are millions of people around the world that create a New Year's resolution, and they always start with good intentions. Those good intentions are what I want to concentrate on today. We're going to talk a lot about intentions and what we intend to do versus what we actually do. And the reason I want to talk about that today is it is the Sunday before New Year's Day. We always do a New Year's resolution. In fact, most of us in this room will probably create a New Year's resolution.

Some of the top New Year's resolutions are always. Want to read more? Maybe we want to get into the gym more? Probably the top is we wanna eat a little healthier. Or hear that New Year's resolution every year. I'm going to eat better, I'm gonna do better. I'm going to get into the gym or I'm going to be healthier. I'm going to live a healthier life. There's nothing wrong with that. That's great. But long about February. Usually we trade the broccoli for a brownie. Usually we stop going to the gym and we sit on the couch and watch TV. We see our New Year's resolutions are always good intentions. We always want good intentions for our New Year's resolution. But in reality, we don't follow through with them most of the time.

The same way with a lot of good intentions. A lot of times we'll sit down and we'll watch an inspiring movie, we'll read an inspiring book, we'll hear an inspiring speech, and we'll say we need to do this, we need to do better. We need to read our Bible. More we need to live by the Bible. More we need to do this more. But in reality, very seldom do we actually follow through. Very seldom do we actually do it. I had a thought as I was preparing this message. What if Christ just had good intentions? What if he just intended on dying for our sins but never did? In reality, that's a lot of what we give him. We give him good intentions. We say we're going to do better. We say we're going to serve him. We say we're going to do all of this, all of that. It's good intentions, but we never really do it. What if Christ done the same thing for us? What if he gave us what we give, him. That's something we don't really want to think about, do we?

Because we know how committed we are to him. And for most of us, it's probably not as committed as we should be. We also know how committed God is for us. God wants us all to be saved. He wants us all to come to know Him. Second Peter chapter 3 and verse 9 tells us that it says, “the Lord is not slow about his promise, as some counts lawlessness, but his patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.” Do you see what I'm saying here? He wants us all to be saved. He loves us all. He wants us all to know Him. He wants us all to be with Him. He don't want any of us to spend eternity in hell.

But he gives us the option. He gives us the choice. He tells us what we have to do to spend eternity in heaven with Him. He lays out the steps of salvation in the scripture. He tells us everything that we need to do, and He tells us the penalty if we don't do it. But we don't want to hear that. We don't want to hear about the penalty. We don't want to talk about hell. We don't want to think about hell. But folks, it's a reality. It's true. It's a real place. It's not just a made-up place that people talk about that preachers made-up to scare you. When somebody tells you about hell, they're not saying it to scare you. Or telling you about it to make sure you don't end up there. Because we love you. I love each and every one of you. I would not stand up here and lie to you. Everything that we look at is from the Scripture. It's from the Bible. We didn't write it. I didn't write it. Nobody in this room had a hand in writing the scripture. We were just given it to go by. Giving it to live by. That's what we need to pay attention to. That's what we need to really look at.

This morning we're going to look at several verses from the book of Luke chapter 14. I want to start off by looking at verses 25 through 27. It says, “Now large crowds were going along with him, and he turned to them and said, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple, whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me. Cannot be my disciple.”

Now at first these verses seem a little strange to us because we know that Jesus loves us, We know that he loved us enough to die for us. And now he's telling us this high cost of following him, of being his disciple of following Jesus. Now the word that is used here in the scripture is hate, his own father and mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters and even his own life. Now the Greek word that is used here for hate is not hate how we know it today. The Greek word used here for hate is means to love less. We have to love God more. God has to come first, even above our own life, even above ourselves, even above our family. God has to come first. That's why I say that the cost is high, because if we're going to follow Christ, if we're going to follow him in everything that we do, if we're going to serve God, there has to be some sacrifices. We have to do some things. The cost is. High here.

If we love anyone or anything more than God. That's the definition of idolatry. And when we think about the 10 commandments, we think about Thou shall put no other gods before me. Well, that is easy at first. In our mind we, we at first think, well, I'm no member of any other religion. I don't put any God before God. But that verse means much more than any other religion. And when we think about that, we think about Allah, we think about Buddha, we think about all these idols or these people that other religions put before God. But in reality, anything can become an idol, anything can become a God that we put before the Almighty God.

And as we've talked about many times before, a lot of these things are not inherently bad in themselves. As I've talked about a lot, I used to play a lot of golf. Playing golf is not bad. There's not a sin to go to the golf course and play golf. But if I put that before God. If I like God to the side and I put that before him, that's a problem. You see, what we're talking about here is priorities. Where are our priorities in our lives? Where do they align? Now, if you want a time in our lives or a time each year to take a step back and to look at our priorities. To look at where we are, there's probably no better time than this week. There's probably no better time than the beginning of the year to have a new beginning, a new year to serve God, a new year to live for him. A new year to realign our priorities.

Because in order to serve God, we might have to sacrifice a little. What I mean by that is we might have to sacrifice a little bit of our time, we might have to sacrifice a little bit of our financial resources. But the question that we have to answer for ourselves, is it worth it? Is it worth it for us to follow God? You can't be half in, half out. We can't straddle the fence. We can't just serve God when we want to. We have to either be all in or all out. Is it worth it? Is the cost worth it? Is the reward worth it? These are all things that we have to answer for ourselves. There's questions that we have to make.

Let's move down. Let's look at some more of what Jesus said here. Luke chapter 1428 through 30. It says, “For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not verse sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it. Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish all who observe it began to ridicule him, saying, This man. Began to build and was not able to finish.”Now at first we think these verses are a little crazy. Why does this analogy, why does this parable make sense? Well, if you think about it, it really does make sense. Planning is what we're talking about here. Who wants to build something and does not first sit down and calculate the cost?

If we're going to build a house, that's what we would think of today. Or maybe a smaller scale who wants to build an out building beside of our house? We figure out the materials. We figure out what we're going to need to complete it. We figure out how much lumber we're going to need, how many nails we're going to need. We figure out how much this is going to cost to see if we can be able to do the job. Because you don't want to build half a house. Just like Jesus says here, you don't want to lay the foundation of a house and not be able to put up the walls. You don't want to put up the walls and not be able to put a roof on it.

We understand preparation and we talked a lot about that last week with preparing ahead. Same thing that I want to talk about today. Are we preparing? Are we ready for heaven? Are we ready for the race of endurance, the race of life? Because it takes time. I'm telling you, it takes time to run this race of life. It takes time to be a Christian. It takes time to do the what we're supposed to do. It takes time to be a follower of Christ. We talk a lot about the race of life is a long race is an endurance, not just a Sprint. The Hebrew writer chapter 12 verses one through 3. It says, “So therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us. Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus. The Author and Perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross. Despising the shame, he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose. Art.”

So what are these verses telling us? Telling us this race of life is a race of endurance. A long race. And there are times that we might want to grow weary. There are times that our heart may not be in it. But we need to fix our eyes on Jesus, fix our eyes on the Author of the perfector of our faith. He endured the cross. That's what these verses are telling us. This long endurance, this race of life. Is not something that should be thought of as easy. It's not something that should be thought of as not important. Living the Christian life is something that takes concentration. It takes time. It takes sacrifice. Everything that we've talked about this morning is coming together.

Let's go back to the book of Luke, chapter 14. Finish up this little section here, verses 31 through 35. It says, “or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with 10,000 men to encounter the one coming against him with 20,000, or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then none of you can buy my disciple. Who does not give up all his own possessions? Therefore salt is good. But even if salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? It is useless either for the soul nor for the manure pile. It is thrown out. He who hears, let him hear.”

So again, here we're talking about preparation. We left off last time talking about a foundation, talking about building a tower, sitting and calculating the costs to make sure that we don't build a little bit and then not have enough to finish. Now Jesus is talking about an analogy here, a parable about a king. What king sets out to meet another king in battle? Does not consider the odds. Does not consider how many people the other King's going to bring with him.

Again, he's talking about preparation. He's talking about things that we should understand. There in verse 33. Said None of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. Now going back to what we talked about earlier with Idolatry. What Jesus is pointing out here is we can't put anything before Him. We can't put money before God. We can't put material things before Him. We can't do it and still be a follower of Christ.

Go back a few chapters in the book of Luke look at Luke chapter 9 verses 23 through 25. Says, “And he was saying to them all, If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, But whoever loses his life for my sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man? Profited if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself.” Now these are very popular scripture in the Bible. We understand this to be something we have to do. We have to take up our cross daily, follow him. Now, that doesn't mean that we have to carry a physical cross.

Microsoft may be different than yours. My struggle may be different than yours. My sacrifice may be different than yours. But the fact remains, it's something that we all have to do. We all struggle, we all have to sacrifice something. Now this might be something great, it might be something tough, it might be something hard to do. But it also might be something very small as well. We don't know what that sacrifice is going to be. We don't know what that struggle is going to be. But we have to be willing to do it. So I'm gonna ask you the question this morning. Are we going to do it? Are we going to be a follower of Christ?

I love that book by Kyle Idelman. Not a fan. If you haven't got that book, if you haven't ever read that book, I encourage you to do so. It's very important. It makes you look at things a little bit differently. Are we a fan of Jesus? Do we just like what he does? Do we just want to follow him to see what's going to happen? Do we just want to see what they'll do next? Are we truly a follower of Jesus? Do we truly follow everything that He said? Do we follow His commands? Do we follow what He tells us to do? Are we all in? Are we a fan or are we a follower?

Just a few things that I want to recap with just a little bit real quick. The first thing that we talked about. Was the cost is high. And that goes along with a couple of things. First of all, the cost. The price of not being a Christian is high. We know that Hale is a real place. Like I said, it's not just something that people talk about to scare you. We talk about heaven, we talk about hell, because we love each and every one of you. We don't want to see you spend eternity in hell. That's why we have to talk about it. We have to understand it's real. Also, the cost of following Jesus is high. The cost of being a Christian is high. There are sacrifices that have to be made, there are things that we have to do that maybe we don't want to. Maybe we wouldn't ordinarily do them. But we need to sit down and weigh out the cost. Because it's not an easy decision. It's not a decision that should be made in haste.

The next thing that we talked about was it takes time. It takes time to be a follower of Christ. It takes time to run this race of life, this race of endurance. Living the life of a Christian. May not always be the most glamorous thing. Living the life of a Christian. May not get us in the highest places, it may not get us the most followers on Facebook, it may not get us the most likes or whatever on Instagram. You might not get us the most friends. We might be called upon to sacrifice. We may be called upon to serve. But the life of a Christian is the most rewarding life that we can live. I can't think of a better life to live. The life that our Creator wants us to. Money in this morning with a question. Are we going to do that? Are we willing to do it? Are we willing to make that sacrifice? Are we willing to make that commitment? Are we willing to live the life for Christ?