Are You Living as a True Disciple?

So um this message was downloaded to me, um, uh, Labor Day weekend. I was at the lake the Saturday before last week's service, and, uh, God just gave me the the message, but, but even yesterday, it wasn't really ready like like it was just one that took all week. And then this morning, it changed again. I had a dream this morning and I woke up and uh in the dream there was a suicide note from one of my kids and they were gone and um it seemed very real.

So, um, kind of freaked me out and, uh, I imagined little casket there, you know, I can't even with that. Um, excuse me. Um, and you know, there may be people out there that have experienced that a parent shouldn't have to bury their kid. And and it's a horrible thing when that happens.

And and I want to speak to whoever is out there listening that you got to understand that even if you may be blaming yourself saying, you know, everything is a free will choice. We all have a a free will choice. Okay? And every lots of people had bad uh childhoods.

It doesn't mean you take your life. Okay? And if you're out there and you're and you're struggling in that, what we were singing about was Jesus and the blood and what it takes care of, okay? [sighs] All you got to do on something like that, rather than carry the guilt, carry the shame, is lay it down at that cross, okay?

Put it down there. Get on your knees. Lay it down. almost imagine Jesus taking that thing and and and and throwing it as far as the east is from the west and and accepting his healing.

He will heal you and and heal that deep hurt. Okay? And um [sighs] and then rise up and leave it there. Leave it there.

One of the worst things is we to lay something down and then pick it back up again. It makes no sense. I mean, lay it down, lay it down. Okay?

And it's so easy for us to do. And we've got to stop that. And the way my my mind works is as I'm contemplating, what would I do if this were really to happen? You know, I thought I'd probably, you know, the the first thought that came to me is, well, stop the church.

Okay. Um, sell all my stuff and move down to Key West and and be a bartender. [laughter] That's the first thing I thought. But ultimately, it came down to this.

I would probably take a few weeks off to grieve. Okay. Probably have Glenn or somebody preach for me in between. [snorts] Um, maybe have Colt try your hand at at preaching.

Um, and then I'd go back to my mission. Okay? Because I have a mission, a purpose. That's beyond me.

That's for for all that we do. And the Bible says where the people lack vision, they perish. Okay? When someone thinks of taking their life, they've lost the vision.

In the times that I've been very depressed, it's because something happened that changed the vision of what it was. I was married. Now I'm divorced. My business, I'm a successful businessman.

My business goes in the toilet bowl. Those are the things that then set you back and you start focusing on yourself. And that's how that depression spiral spirals out of control, okay? Is by focusing on yourself because you've lost your vision.

And the thing is you have to have a vision that's that's larger than you. Because if your whole life is all about you, you are going to be depressed a lot. There's no way around it, you know. You know all your flaws.

You can't hide from them, you know. And so depression is always an obsession on self. We have to have a vision that's beyond us. And the good news is we do.

Every single person in this room, if you're saved, Jesus himself gave you a commission, something to do, a mission, a purpose. People say, "I want to know Jesus's, you know, uh, uh, path for my life." He gave it to you already. Okay.

Matthew 28:18. And that's the verse we're going to focus on. That's what we're going to study today. It's called the great commission.

And as I'm going through this stuff, the question you need to answer for yourself is this. Am I living as a true disciple of Jesus? living for Jesus or am I living for me? That's the question that I want you to try to to because the lukewarm church that Jesus says he'll spit out of his mouth, they're living for him.

I mean, they're living for themselves. Okay? [snorts] We want to be living for him. So, Matthew 28 verse 18 through 20, little backdrop on it.

Okay? Jesus comes, dies for our sins at the cross, gets buried, and then rises again. It wasn't an apparition that rose again. It was an actual physical body.

Okay? You've got Muhammad has a grave. Buddha has a grave. Every major religion, you know, their leader, whatever, has a grave.

Our guy rose from the dead. All right? The only person Lazarus rose from the dead, but Jesus is the one who raised him. Okay?

the only person who rose himself from the dead, proving once again that he's God. And he appeared to more than 500 people. I mean, Thomas stuck his there's more documented proof of Jesus being alive from the dead than there is that Julius Caesar hung out back in the day. All right, this is a factual statement.

And as he's getting ready to leave this planet, he sends the last words he's gonna say to his disciples for now. Now 60 years later, he comes in a vision and speaks to John in Revelation 2 and 3. Wrote a book about that. But but here is his last thing.

So imagine a father, you know, on his deathbed. His kids are around him. He wants to share that most important thing, right? That last thing.

What's that most important thing that I want you to to know? And this is Jesus's last thing. He says, this is his most important thing. This is what we have to remember every day.

This is red letters now. And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

He's talking about making disciples of all nations. You see that word disciple? Okay, a disciple, I went to little, you know, new Bible dictionary here to get, you know, make sure I've got disciple nailed down, right? In its purest form, a disciple is a student of a teacher.

Okay? But Jesus took it to a different level. Okay. And and and I like the way they say it.

I'm going to read it now. It involved a personal allegiance to to him to Jesus expressed in following him and giving him an exclusive loyalty. Uh in every case, a readiness to put the claims of Jesus first, whatever the cost was demanded. Such an attitude went well beyond the normal pupil teacher relationship and gave the word disciple a new sense.

Faith in Jesus and allegiance to him are what determine the fate of men at the last judgment. That's that's that's good, isn't it? That's big stuff. A disciple who's focused only on themselves.

They are taking the mission that Jesus gave them and they are going out into that world and they are showing it. And if you have that vision, you won't be prone to bouts of depression if you're actively working in there. Go and serve a homeless person on the street and still stay depressed. You're just not going to be able to do it.

Okay? Um you will see the need. You will be serving them. And Jesus expanded that role.

Mark 8:34 through38 Jesus expounds on the disciple peace. And uh he says this when he Jesus had called the people to himself with his disciples also he said to them whoever desires to come after me let him deny himself take up his cross and follow me for whoever desires to save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake will find if you live for yourself if you're not willing to put your stuff down you're going to lose your life there is a great white throne judgement All right. And following Jesus, having a relationship with Jesus.

Jesus came to that cross not so you can become wealthy. He came to that cross so that your sins could be forgiven because we're all guilty. We have all sinned. We all deserve hell.

And he took those sins for us. the actual thing that happened at the cross. That's so critical and so important. Um, and to lay our lives, our desires, our things that we want down to follow Jesus is a pathway to real life.

Okay? A a full and flourishing life. Whoever loses his life for my sake, and the gospels will find it. For what it will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?

Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of him, the son of man also will be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angels. Putting Jesus first in your life, exclusive loyalty. Luke 14, Jesus, we studied that last week.

Jesus describes counting the cost before you go and follow him. It's not some simple God's going to help you become rich type thing like it's being taught. In Luke 14, he ends that little passage in 14:33 where he says, "So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple." Again, Matthew 28:18, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

So he has all authority. Okay? We don't have to worry about whether we're going to be trumped by the devil. He's got all authority.

Okay? But we have to draw near to him. We have to be with them. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.

What's a disciple? Someone who's following Jesus. Baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded.

Teaching them to obey. What did Jesus say? If you love me, you're going to obey me. Remember we we did a lot on that last week.

So all we Jesus has given us the power. All we need is available the all the power we need to overcome habitual sin. Jesus has given it to us. All the power to grow, to overcome, to carry out his mission.

He has given to us. When you are commissioned to do somewhere, you go with the authority of the person who's commissioning you. Okay? So Jesus Christ, the Lord of all, has commissioned us to go and talk to people about Jesus.

To reach and to teach. If you want to keep it simple, to reach people and to teach them. Teach them to obey Jesus. Reach and teach.

That's all we got to worry about. Okay? >> [clears throat] >> So he's given us that mission and he's given us the authority to carry it out. So we can have success in this mission.

People say, "What's Jesus' plan for my life?" He says it right here. Go and make disciples. Sold out believers.

That's our job. It's not just my job. It's everybody's job in this place. He doesn't want lukewarm casual people.

He actually says he's going to spit them out. And the more I'm diving into this stuff, the more I'm starting to feel that same kind of almost anger towards that lukewarm doctrine that's being taught in this country because it's leading people astray. It's hurting his flock. [clears throat] He wants us white hot, not lukewarm.

He wants us white hot and fired up. Every one of us has a mission. We are ambassadors to reach and to teach and to make disciples. Not just my job, it's everyone's job.

This is his final message like his death bed message. Here's what Jesus isn't saying. Okay? He's not saying, "All power and authority has been given to me.

Now go and get rich." It's not what it says there. Okay? All power and authority has been given me.

Now go and be financially successful. That's not what he's saying there. And the church today teaches a form of this in America, man. It's bad.

Where Jesus is someone who's going to help you become successful in what you deem success is for you. Okay? And who does that keep the focus on? self and whenever you keep the focus on self going to be depressed.

So, so the the the the success theology keeps people focused on as long as money and everything's going their way, they're blessed and highly favored. And you have to give credit to God by saying blessed and highly favored. That's a part of the success theology. You learn that as a thing.

You have to go and say, "How you doing, brother? I'm blessed and highly favored." Okay? You got to say that.

That's important. All right? It's very important because otherwise you're bragging about how much money you got and you don't want to do that. So, but that is what you're doing.

Um, and that's not what it says here. He says, "Go and make disciples." Jesus laid down the scorecard. It's souls, not money.

It's salvation, not dollar signs. Okay? You can't take your money with you. We've been sold this American dream thought process.

A house, a car, you know, the 401k. You know who gets rich off your 401k? Your financial advisor. All right, that's the guy making money off your 401k.

Guess what? >> It's likely. She cuts me down. It's likely sometime this month, the world will finally acknowledge that we are in World War II.

That's going to probably be good for a 40% drop in your 401k. So, just get ready for it. Now you're ready for it. It'll be okay.

All right. You can't take that money with you. It's useless. All right.

But the American dream is actually a nightmare because who does it keep it focused on? Us. My house, my car, my dreams, my 401k. And if you keep it focused on you, you're going to end up depressed unless everything goes perfect in your life.

Anyone have everything go perfect in their life always? I mean, it just doesn't happen. All right, that's not where the magic is. The magic is at that cross.

The magic is living for Jesus. Jesus said in Matthew 16:26, "For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?" All right? You see, we get eternal rewards.

So, so we talked about the the great white throne judgment where everyone's going to be heaven or hell. Okay? And what gets you there is your relationship with Jesus. All right?

It's not it's not uh your good works. It's having a relationship with Jesus Christ. It's what he did on the cross that allows you to go there. But after that, we're all in heaven.

There's going to be a beacy judgment, another judgment just for believers. Okay? Paul describes this and he says that our our works are all going to be brought in front of everybody. Everyone's going to see your works.

So I want you to think through a couple things. Okay, first off, everyone's going to be there. So, if there's a sin that you've been hiding that you haven't repented of, remember, if you repent of a sin, God forgives it and it's forgotten. I don't believe he's going to bring it back at the beam of seat.

He's just not going to bring it up again because he says he forgives and forgets. But there's something you did that you haven't apologized for. You're a kid and you cheated at Monopoly with your parents. Yeah, your parents are going to be there.

What? you know, and it's going to be shown as something that gets burnt up into ash. Okay? Our our our things that we do, you know, going down when no one's looking and sneaking that ice cream, that's that's going to be burnt up into ash.

Going and preparing a a child uh room for people to come, even if they don't come, you're getting a beacy reward for that. That's going to be a reward at the thing. It doesn't matter that no one showed up today. It matters that we were ready if someone did show up.

And they will. And they will. Okay? And and there are rewards for that.

These are eternal rewards we get to have. And here's the thing, they don't they don't wither. Unlike your 401k, they're not going to go down if Trump sneezes the wrong way. Okay?

These things are yours forever. And and so we should be striving for those things. And so I ask you this question. How much time do you spend each day thinking worrying contemplating how to get money, how to pay bills, how to do money.

How much time do you spend thinking about money? And how much time do you spend thinking about the mission of Jesus and thinking about Jesus? All right. and and and the goal would be to start thinking about the mission because if you can get focused on that mission and you can start heading out to talk to everyone you know about Jesus, you're golfing and someone gets added to your forsome, you go ahead and start telling them about Jesus.

Okay, you don't have to you it's just looking around and and taking advantage of everything that's there. God puts people in your path and he's expecting you to to say something. Okay? Money doesn't really matter and we spend the reason Jesus spoke so much against money was because he knew it was the such a hard thing in their heart.

We're going to look at one of those. Mark 10 verses 17- 22. The rich young ruler. [sighs and gasps] The rich young ruler really is the poster child for success theology.

Okay? This is the guy who the success preachers tell you you can become. All right? He does everything right.

And because he does everything right, he's wealthy and he's a wealthy guy and he's he's he's the the poster child for that. But Jesus is going to tell him there's one thing he's missing. And So let's dive in. Uh verse 17.

Now as he was going out, he Jesus was going out on the road. One came running to him, knelt before him, and asked him, "Good teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" So Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but one that is God."

Do you get how funny that is? Like he's God. And then he goes, you know, "Hey, why'd you call me good? No one's good but God."

But he's really talked about himself. He just cracks me up. Um, maybe you don't get that. You'll get that later on.

Anyway, [snorts] this is Jesus now. Verse 19. You know the commandments. Do not commit adultery.

Do not murder. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud.

Honor your father and mother. And he answered and said to him, "Teacher, all these things I've kept from my youth." Then Jesus looked at him. Jesus didn't dispute them.

So this guy nailed it. This guy nailed the ten commandments. None of us can nail the ten commandments. Especially when you take it to the level that Jesus did in the sermon on the mount where he said, "If you even think a bad thought about someone, you've committed murder."

Right? Or if you even thought lustfully towards one person, you've committed adultery. So on that, we're all done, right? But this guy nailed it.

Jesus doesn't dispute him. He then Jesus looking at him loved him. A heart went out to the guy. Jesus was like, "Man, he loved this guy.

This guy was one of his children. and he loves this guy. And then he says, can you imagine a preacher doing this today? Guy comes, he's nailing all this stuff.

And he tells you, this is what Jesus says, "One thing you lack. Go your way. Sell whatever you have and give it to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come and take up the cross and follow me." But he was sad at this word and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

He literally made a choice at that moment. The money's more important than Jesus. This wasn't a parable. This was a real situation that happened.

So this guy is in hell because his possessions were more important than following Jesus. All right. Jesus wants us all in. This is so vation decisions without repentance.

Listen, if you went and you were at a thing and the preacher talked about how great it is being a Christian and everything and then and then you're like, "Man, I want that. I want this. Everyone's excited. Everyone's happy.

Everyone just seems to be so up and and happy. All the musicians are going crazy. They're all jumping around, you know, praise Jesus." And everyone's just going nuts.

I want this. I want some of this. And then the pastor says, "Hey, ask Jesus into your heart as Lord and you'll you'll you and and you'll be saved." And everyone, "Yeah, I want this.

I want this." So they all come down and they say, "Guess what, man?" And then the preacher afterwards, "We had 100 salvation decisions today. I'm working for the Lord.

Guess what, man? Those weren't salvation decisions. What saves us? Jesus blood at the cross taking away our sins.

If you don't lay your sins down at that cross, you haven't had a salvation decision. You got to let she you have to repent of your sins. Repentance is key to salvation. All right?

So, that's that's a critical piece. And the church out there is bringing all these people in with the promise that Jesus is going to help make their life better. But Jesus is sitting here in the do in the gospel saying, "Sell it all and follow me." We're being taught the wrong thing.

And it's leading a lot of people to a lukewarm Christianity. And and and Jesus will spit it out of his mouth. He called his disciples to radical obedience. And it's hard, man.

It's hard when it after this thing, Jesus tells his disciples, "Man, it's harder for a rich person to to get into heaven than it is for the camel." You seen a big old camel get through the eye of a little needle. It's pretty tough. It's probably not going to happen very often, okay?

Because to give up the lake and cars and money and doing whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it, that's fun. I'm not going to lie to sit there on a Monday and say, "I want to go to the Cayman Islands this week and just book it and go." That's it's fun. There's no no nothing.

And I'm not saying you can't do that, but I'm just saying where's the money in place of your heart? Because our heart has to be sold out for Jesus first. This church is a is a is a church that I want to be a sold out Acts 2 kind of church. You know, those guys were selling everything, not just 10% tithe.

They were selling everything, giving it to everybody who had a need and they were all just hanging out together. That was the purest the church has ever been. And America is going to be held accountable for what it has become. All right.

America is nowhere in Revelation unless it's mystery Babylon and Babylon gets destroyed. So, we're going down. All right. We'll be held accountable.

And uh what I'm going to share, man, just understand that anything you've done in the past, we're all sinners. And anything you've done in the past, you can take it and lay it down and let Jesus heal you and you don't have to carry it with you. Okay? Last year in this in in America, there were 1.

1 million abortions. That's just what was in the abortion clinics and the hospitals. That doesn't count all the kids today. There's a pill apparently that you can take um you know and and and uh if you take it the like within the day then it washes out whatever.

Let me explain something. All right. I don't know if you've ever seen it but if you see it's millions of sperm to get through to to connect with one egg. But when that sperm does connect with the egg there's a little explosion.

And if you've ever seen it on a highlighted thing like I've seen uh you know videos of this, there's a little explosion. Okay, that's when life was created. So then if you take that little pill and and wash that away, it's not much different than doing it a few weeks later. Okay?

And listen, man, I I'm not judging anybody. I'm I'm a sinner just like anyone else. But since Roie Wade, there's been 63 million abortions just in this country. And that's only I get there could be rape and incest.

Okay? But that's maybe 10%. Most of them are people that had sex and didn't want the consequences of that sex. All right?

And [clears throat] the the thing they use, so Satan is a copycat. You get you get this? Satan is a copycat. All right?

Everything that God does, Satan tries to twist. So Jesus came and said, broke the bread and said, "This is my body. I give for you." But what's the pro-abortion thing?

My body, my life. I get to do what I want, okay? With what's in my body. But I have to wear a seatelt.

My body, my life, I should be able to not wear a seatelt, right? That's what I'm thinking. That's my little That's my little caveat. My kids raz on at on me all the time for not wearing a seatelt.

My body, my life. I'm not judging, but sin is progressive. Okay. What's happening with this Lindsey Clancy case where she killed her kids?

All right. So, if you if you listen to too much media, you'll start thinking the case was about whether she killed the kids or not. That's not the case. She did kill the kids.

She admitted it. The um her defense attorney admitted it. The case was about whether she should be held accountable for murder or whether she should be let off because she had postpartum depression. All right.

I'm sorry. Just because you have a bad day doesn't mean you can off your kids. All right. Your kids are going to give you bad days.

That's just what happens, man. Come on. All right. Um I love you.

I love you guys. My kids are here. I love you. But sometimes, oh me, Jesus.

And um but but what really freaked me out was there were thousands of people at the courthouse with little things wearing pink things with little stuff like that. They'd raised a million dollars through GoFundMe, you know, in support of her right because she was depressed to murder her kids. Okay. So, so now listen, that's not an isolated incident.

Now, there's been copycat people doing it, too. All right? And can you imagine the little baby as mom's ch I mean, I can't even fathom. You're looking at your mom's eyes like what?

Um, Epstein, Lindsey, Clancy, these are not isolated incidences. They are our mirror reflecting back on us what America is becoming. Okay? That's where we're going.

If if Jesus doesn't come soon, within 50 years, pedophilia will be considered the same as homosexuality is now. They were just born that way. No way. That'll never happen in America.

Go back to the 50s. There's no way gay gay marriage would happen. Okay? They'll have a movie out where a 50-year-old is with a 14-year-old.

It's going to be this beautiful love story and everyone's going to start, oh, and then you're going to start seeing pedophiles in every uh movie and TV show. And then eventually for 50 years they'll they're just born that way. It's beautiful love. And in 1973 besides Ro vie Wade the Endangered Species Act was passed which means since 1973 porpuses have had more rights than human babies.

All right. That's messed up man. I don't want to go too off on that. um if I haven't already.

But but Jesus didn't say, "All power and authority has been given to me. Now go and live your life the way you want." That's not what he said. All right?

And I remember I was sitting in a hot tub up at the Ritz Carlton. You know, sex before marriage is the norm, man. It's not it's not it's not something that's saved for marriage anymore. And you'd think 40, 50, 60 year olds would be bet, but they're not.

Oh, they're they're not all right. I guess they think because they've already had sex, they're no longer a virgin. So that they there's no kids in here. So that you know, it doesn't matter anymore.

But it does. Why? You're a new creation in Christ. When you lay that down, you're a new creation in Christ.

All right? When you put that divorce and it's done and you lay it down at the cross and you no longer lift it up, you're a new creation in Christ. Start living the way. Hit the reset button and live the way you you meant to live the first time around.

Do it right this time. And don't sleep with people to try them on like a t-shirt. All right. It's not it and we think it's something new.

No, man. In Friends back in the 90s, it was a popular show. I think Rob, wherever you are, you were talking about friends today. Um, Monica and Chandler get married.

How did that relationship start? Sex at Ross's third wedding or whatever wedding it was. Okay. And the sex was good, so they kept doing it.

Then eventually they got married. It's the American dream, man. So what happens when the wife has postpartum depression? The sex is no longer good for a while.

what you do if that's your whole relationship, right? That's not what it's about. All right? Give you clues for those who are uninformed.

Um, you don't have to try on sex partners. All right? Sex can be good with anybody that you're partnered with if you're committed to them. It's just communication.

This feels good. That doesn't feel good. You do the stuff that feels good. You don't do the stuff that that's good sex.

That's you don't I know we're talking about stuff that's you're not supposed to talk about in church but I I had a dream and one of my kids was was you know dying so you're going to hear it all. Uh Jesus did not come to that brutal cross so that we could have a life lived solely for us. He just didn't man. He didn't.

What we sung about the blood, the rugged cross, what Jesus did, he did it to give us a real life that matters for all of eternity. Not something for this little time right now that we're on, this blip that we're on right now. Okay? This is for all eternity.

And we're a nation that needs to repent. All right? And in uh next Sunday night, the 20th till the night of the 21st is the day of atonement. Okay?

In the Jewish thing, it would start at dusk and go to dusk the next day. Um and there's a lot of churches that are going to be praying for this country. And um I'm going to probably do that, too. I'm going to fast and I'm going to pray that day for our country.

All right? Because 2 Chronicles 7:14 says this, "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land." Maybe there's still a chance that we can save this country. Maybe.

But you just can't say a non-committal prayer and then go and live your life and think that's what Jesus died for. That is not what he died for, man. A disciple leaves all and follows Jesus. John 3:3 Jesus says,"Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

When you're born again, All right. Has anyone seen a baby come out? What's the first thing they do? They cry, right?

They're not coming out smiling, loving life, right? They're crying. Why? Because it's a it's a it's a thing.

But it's a new life now. Okay? It's a new life. The birth process is painful, but it's a new creation.

When you lay down your your your sins at that cross and you ask God to forgive you and he does forgive you, you can walk up from that a new creation. Like a baby being reborn, you're a new creation. You're being born again. The old is passed away.

So it doesn't matter if you're no longer a virgin. You can start living the way you're supposed to live because you are a new creation. And where we screw up is we pick up the old stuff because we still think we're that person. We're not that person anymore.

All right? We unless you pick it up because the devil roams around looking for people who are in that state, that depressed state, which means he's looking for people who are focused all on them. So, he's loving that the church in America today keeps everybody focused on their success and their happiness. He's loving that.

Go to church as much as you want as long as that's what's being preached because you're not going to do anything to keep people out of hell. All right? But that's what we're supposed to be doing. Church today has made it an easy salvation decision that's void of repentance.

It's non-committal. But Jesus went to that cross. He gave his life, man. That's commitment.

He was committed. And we want to take his life, but not give him ours. He's asking us to give him his ours to lay our life down. I don't care if you want to be a millionaire.

Maybe Jesus allow you that to happen, but you better get your head on straight about money. Because here's the truth about money. All right? Those who know how to handle money have money and those who don't know how to handle money don't have money.

That's just how it goes. It's got nothing to do with whether you're a better Christian or not. Okay? Just because you've been reading the Bible better doesn't mean more money is going to come your way.

That's not how it works. Okay? If you know how to handle money, live within your means, save some, tithe some, you will be fine financially. If you don't know those things, you get credit card debt, everything else.

You're going to be broke. It's got nothing to do with whether you're a good Christian or not. All right, that's success theology being split the wrong way. Jesus didn't come so that you can have a successful life.

But that's what we're pro we're taught in most sermons if you cut to the core of it. It's God came for you to have a your best life now. And that's not why he came. He came to die so that you can go to heaven and be with him.

That's where he wants you to be. He wants you to be in heaven with him. And he's coming back for us. So, we need to lay it down, okay?

Like he did. The old is gone. Stop living that old lie, okay? The new has come.

Start living for Jesus. You're going to read it one more time. Matthew 28 18-20. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

He's the boss, not you. Go therefore and make disciples. We have to reach people for Jesus and not just tell them, tickle their ears. We've got to reach them and tell them the truth that they get to be saved if they ask him into their heart and repent of their sins.

Repentance has to happen. Baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. when he got baptized, buried with him, and and rise again to serve him in a new life, right? Teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded to you.

We can't just say a good thing to them, hope they're saved, and then leave them. We have to then keep teaching them. Okay? We have to keep helping them, guide them.

As a church, okay? Maybe you only have a chance to talk to person, you'll never see them again. That's fine. But but as a church, we're supposed to be helping people obey Jesus.

Not do what's best for us, but obey Jesus. [clears throat] Teaching them all the things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. He'll be with us always.

Colt, that's good news, right? All right. All right. So, as the band comes up, the question we started with, are you living your life for Jesus?

Are you living your life for you? You don't need to tell me. That's your question to decide. Okay.

Are you a disciple living for Jesus? Are you still living for you? I want this church to be an Acts two church, a soldout church, man, where we make a difference and we make a change. I really want that.

Okay? I got to lead that way. And I'm telling you, it is not easy sometimes to lay things down, but we got to do it. Okay?

That's the struggle. Even Paul struggled with it. Paul was just beast mode, man. Paul Paul came up against this struggle with his own sins and things like that.

and he he would write about and it but he just kept grinding man. He was a grinder. Um and so I ask you, are you a grinder? What areas do you need to lay down today?

What thing in your life are you thinking man? [sighs] I I I'm this is really all about me. This area that I'm thinking about is all about me. I got to lay it down.

Okay. What do you want your beac judgement to look like? a pile of ashes of stuff that didn't matter or rewards that last forever. Okay?

What is the thing out there that you've not forgiven yourself of? You got to forgive yourself. If if you ask Jesus, if you've [music] repented and you've asked him to take it away, he'll take it away and you never have to be guilty or judged about it again. Don't let the devil back in, man.

[music] He wants you to do that. The devil wants you to be all full of guilt and shame so that he [music] can come in and mess with you so that you can do something stupid like [music] kill yourself. What sin are you still holding on to? Lay [music] it down, man.

Lay it down. This is a response song. Come up. Lay [music] it down.

And if you do, man, we'll we'll put [music] hands on you. All right. I was I came up last week and no one came up and put hands on me. I know if Glenn was here, Lordis was here, they probably would have done it, but no one did.

And I'm thinking, we need to do that. Even if you [music] don't say anything, I'm coaching you now. Okay? If someone's up here and they're on their knees, just come and put your hand on them.

You don't have to pray for them. [music] you just affirm whatever it is that they're they're they're doing and you just ask God to be with them. [music] That's all you got to do. Okay?

You don't have to be a preacher to know anything. [music] You just have to put a hand on a person, you know, and and agree with Jesus that whatever they're dealing with, he's going to take care of. Okay? So, let's use this time as a time to um get real and uh seek Jesus now.

Okay.