in the United States, Boston, England, and we had a good time, visited Amanda Baker, stayed at her house, but our reason for our trip was we needed to renew our U.S. passports so that we could go to our daughter's wedding in May, and so kind of important, and so but the consulate, the U.S. consulate in Edinburgh was closed, so we had to go down to the embassy in London, and so Tuesday morning we got up at 4 a.m. and left and drove in, Got down into London, 645, in the heart of London, and God gave us safety on all our travels and things, got the visas renewed, had some good fellowship time down there, and saw God do some things with regards to the building as well. There's somebody that may help us with our sound equipment, another person may help us on remodeling some of the toilets, and so made some contacts in that way as well. And we also saw the chairs that we hope to purchase for the church, and they're 100 pounds each, But there would chairs and nice chairs that would all go together and kind of a bench type fashion and so God continues to kind of fast-forward us and and it's giving us wisdom with the building project and everything that we've got going on. So we thank God for that, but again, thank you for your prayers. Our family has traveled a lot, so it's not new to us that I spend time on the road in the states when we're raising support or back reporting to churches, a lot of miles in the car and different places that we get to see. And it's kind of a privilege in many ways to enjoy some things. One place I hope to visit sometime, I think I've told you about before, But it's Crater Diamond State Park in Arkansas. And you can actually go there and you can dig for diamonds or look for diamonds there in the park. And there was a man who was in the news again last week, so it was kind of on my mind this past week. A man, Julian Navis, he was visiting the U.S. from France, apparently came to see the first moon launching mission since NASA had done it before. And so he was there in Cape Canaveral, Florida. He was going to go to New Orleans. He learned about Crater Diamond State Park and decided, I'm going to go there to see if I can't find a diamond. So he goes there. The article said he had panned for gold in the past. He had searched for ammonite fossils. So this is kind of up along his lines. And I kind of think, you know, for me too, we love looking for rocks and collecting agates. And so it's along my lines as well. So he looked at it and thought, I'd like to do that. So he gets there about 9 o'clock. He starts to dig. and he said it's back breaking work so then finally he just decided to look and they had a lot of rain and that's good because it actually makes the heavier matter come to the surface And they actually turn the field over every now and then where you can look and they plow it. And so it brings kind of fresh stuff up to the top. And he found something, not very big, but you know, if it's a diamond, it doesn't really matter. And so he takes it and they weigh it or measure it. And it's 7.46 carats. It's a brown diamond. and he's gonna have it cut into two by a jeweler and made beautiful. And so his diamond's a diamond in the rough. Gonna take it, make some facets on it, and I was reading a little bit about that, they cleave it or saw it, okay, to get those nice edges and then you pick it up and you look at that jewel and you look at the many faces or facets that are on it and that shows you all its brilliance. This morning, we're looking at a text, it's just gonna be one verse. We read several verses there, Parker read them for us, but the verse we wanna look at this morning is just one verse, Luke 9, verse 23. And it says, and he said to them all, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. What we're going to do this morning, we're going to look at the many faces of that verse. We're going to kind of pick it apart and look at each word, each idea that's there. Our theme this year is Thou Art Worthy, O Lord, from Revelation 4. and verse 11 again once we get into the sanctuary we're going to have a banner that's going to be in there that's going to say that phrase valor worthy oh lord i preached on this text or not this text that idea um every sunday so far this year for all the month of january what i'm going to do now Lord willing is preached once a month on that theme just to keep it in our minds to be to be thinking regularly about God thou art worthy O Lord. So this will be kind of the end of my intro to this in the first one first Sunday of the month here. I want to preach on it yet one more time and then we'll take it once a month. And so the Lord is worthy this morning. of you confidently following after him, okay? God is worthy of us confidently following after him, and we call that discipleship, discipleship. Again, it says in our text, if any man will come after me. I just wanna ask you this morning, are you a disciple of the Lord? I'm not asking are you saved. I'm not asking are you born again, but are you somebody that is actively following the Lord? Because I'd say this, even somebody that is a Christian at some points in their life, they could stop following the Lord. and stop doing what they should, even as a believer. So the question this morning, again, is are you a disciple of the Lord, following him, and do you know what that looks like? So we're going to look at it this morning, a multifaceted look at how Jesus defined it, and just to consider, did I really understand what a disciple is, or a follower? Let's pray and ask God to help us when we come to his word. Father, we thank you again for each one that is here this morning. It's a blessing to be in the house of God. It's a blessing to be with brothers and sisters in Christ. We're the family of God. And Father, it's a joy to be able to be here together and say, Savior, we're here to honor you, to worship you, to glorify you, to magnify you, and this morning to learn how to better follow you. And Father, again, it's a privilege to sit under the preaching of the Word of God because it is so many places today. that don't have this. There's unsaved families all around us, where their kids are not in church, they're not listening to the truth about God. They might be forbidden, as one young man I met this past week, forbidden to read the Bible in their home, or if their dad saw them reading the Bible, they'd get around for it. And Father, that's sad, but we're privileged this morning to open up this book unashamedly, unapologetically, and see what God says. And so, Father, with our privilege, give us grace to have ears to hear. Help us to take it in. Help me as I speak, help me articulate the truth of the word of God with clarity. Fathers, we look at the multifaceted truth of discipleship this morning. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen. And so the Lord is worthy of you confidently following after him. And so again, we're gonna look at multifaceted truth here. So we're gonna go through a lot of truth this morning. And so first of all, let's look at the instructional facet for following the Lord, okay, the instructional facet. Look at what it says at the beginning of our verse, chapter 9, verse 23 of Luke. It says, and he said to them all, he said to them all. So when instruction is given, it matters who is saying it. I mentioned that we enjoyed some time at missionary Amanda Baker's house and staying there. And she's got coworkers, the booths. and their son is a blessing, and Logan was there. We met Logan for the first time, a little Logan, and we have big Logan, and that was kind of fun too, but Logan's getting to that age, he's like three, and he wants to exercise a little bit of authority, so his mom was telling us, he pulls out the big boy voice, you know, as he tries to say something with authority, so I went to call Mac downstairs, and Logan was there on the stairs, and I said, Mac, why don't you come down, and then Logan would be more content to stay down here. And so, Logan turns around and goes, Mac, you come downstairs right now, you know. Well, it matters who says it, right? I mean, Logan saying it, you know, versus Dad saying it, there's a difference in that. And so, who is speaking matters. And so, in our text, he said to them all, well, who said it? Well, Jesus said it, right? Jesus is the one giving instruction. He's the one talking about it. On Sunday evenings, we're going through the Gospel of Mark, and we're studying that. It's been a blessing to just continue on through that gospel. I think we're in chapter 10 is where we are tonight, or actually not tonight. We're skipping it tonight. We'll come back to it again next week. But in that study, one thing that we've noted is that Jesus is continually teaching. There's a lot of times where he'll be traveling with his disciples as we just right now see him going from Galilee to Jerusalem. And yet as he's doing that, he's giving instruction, he's imparting knowledge to them, okay? And so in our verse right here, that's what Jesus is doing. He's talking to his men, he's giving them instruction. And so how we are to follow the Lord is not a good idea by a church leader. You know, it's not something that a pastor came up with and, hey, this would be a really good idea if we could get everybody to grab a hold of this idea of discipleship, and this is my idea to get people to better follow after Jesus Christ. It's not a pastor's idea. It's not a deacon's idea. It's not a church idea. It's a God-ordained idea that was instructed by Jesus Christ, the head of the church. Colossians 118 says he is the head of the body, the church. who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. We've been studying in our Sunday school hour at 10 o'clock, we've been looking at ecclesiology. And ecclesiology is the doctrine of the church. And so why we do what we do as a church, and how we do what we do. And one of those things, again, that we've talked about is Christ is the head of the church. He's the one we were looking at then this morning, that is over everything with regard to the church. And so, the them all in our text. So he said to them all, who's the them all? He's the head of the church. Who are they? Well, they're the apostles. And the Bible speaks about them and they're the disciples as well. But Ephesians 2 verse 20. and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are built together for the inhabitation of God through the Spirit." So God is building the church, got the apostles and prophets as a foundation. And then church members that God saves, he adds them to the body, Christ is the head of the church, and that structure is vital. And so if we're looking at this text this morning, Jesus is speaking to his men, and he's saying, he's speaking to them about following after him, patterning their life after him. Well, again, he's the cornerstone. He's the one that every wall ought to take its bearing from. We want to build a good church here at Southside Freedaptive Church, so what do we want? We want Jesus Christ as a cornerstone. We want, as blocks in that wall, as it were, to say, let's model ourselves after Christ so that we have the same alignment with him. The Apostle Paul desired to do that. And he said, in 1 Corinthians 11, He said, but he follows me even as I also am of Christ. Okay, so he said, as I follow, I follow Christ and you follow me, and that's the idea. It's Jesus saying it, he's instructing us, get into line with me. And so that's the instructional facet. Secondly, let's look at the possible facet of following the Lord, the possible facet. It says, and he said to them all, next word, if. Okay, that shows possibility. It shows that it may or may not be. I can say to you, if you want to go to the shop with me. And if I said that, that means you may go to the shop with me, you may not. But if I said, since you want to go to the shop with me, and that's different, that shows certainty, right? And so when Jesus in our text says, if, it shows that it's possible, but it's not certain. In other words, some may follow, some may not follow after him. And so, as people come to our church, some people follow after Christ, some people may or may not follow after Christ. And a question that you might ask yourself, and I think it's a good question to ask, is if somebody doesn't follow Christ, are they truly saved? Are they really born again? If they're not somebody that is actually gonna get behind Christ and follow after Christ, then are they truly God's child? And I would say this, at the very least, it's concerning. At the very least, if somebody doesn't wanna follow Christ, it would be concerning that maybe there's a chance that they're not truly born again because they don't have that desire to get behind Jesus and follow him. Why would I say that? Well, John 10, 27 says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they what? Follow me. And so if I'm a sheep, if I'm part of God's flock, and Christ is the good shepherd, then I follow him, okay? That'll be a natural thing that I do. Of course, a sheep can get astray, we understand that, and Christ will seek after that sheep. Luke 9, 62, Jesus said unto him, no man having put his hand in the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. And so, that's somebody that isn't really following. I mean, they're looking back at the world, maybe, or looking back at things, saying, man, I kind of wish they was back there, instead of saying, no, I'm just gonna follow after the Lord. 1 John 2, 19, it says, they went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us, but they went out that they might have made manifest that they were not all of us. And so John says the fact that they stopped and they kind of walked away and got astray and you're kind of like, where are they? They're not following Christ anymore. And they're totally off into the world and they're fine like that. John says, hey, look, it's because they weren't ever really a part of us. The Bible says there's sheep and there's goats. And so, it might be that somebody like that really isn't genuinely saved. Matthew 7, 18, a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore, by their fruits ye shall know them. In other words, I ought to be able to examine, I'll tell you this, it's comforting as a pastor to be able to look at somebody and say, I know for sure that person is a follower of Christ. They've got a heart for God. They've got a real prayer life. They've got a devotional life. They're serious about the things of God. That's a joy. It's concerning when you look at somebody and think, man, are they there or not? Are they really a follower after God? So I want to point out the possible facet that Jesus said it. In other words, it's not certain. And so somebody can either be following after Christ or not following after Christ. Okay, so the possibility, the possible facet. And then let's look at the potential facet of following the Lord, the potential facet. Luke 9.23, again, he said to them all, if any man. Now, I like that statement, any man, because that shows potential, right? The potential is there for anyone to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. On our three day trip, again, down to London, we got there at 6.45 in the morning, in the heart of London, had our appointment, we were on our way about half nine. And so we're thinking, you know, on the way back up to Boston, there's Cambridge, we've never been to Cambridge, let's go to Cambridge. So, we go to Cambridge and College Town, and I didn't realize, I'm not sure even now, how many colleges there are, but there's a lot of colleges there. And they're beautiful buildings and beautiful facades and stonework that's amazing. And some of it we got to experience. We walked into one building there. I'm telling you, if you think our sanctuary ceiling is ornate and beautiful, I've got a picture to show you of something amazing, you know? And so, I mean, there's some structures like that. But we went to go to the colleges, like King's College and other places like that. King's College, you can go in for a cost. The other one said, Tourists not welcome, all right? Not open to tourists. You have to be students, you have to have business with the college to be able to come in and see the beauty of it. And that was kind of sad to me. It was exclusive instead of inclusive. I'd rather it was inclusive, and I could just walk in there and see it. We saw a lot of good things. We did enjoy it. It was nice, and I can understand why they don't want a lot of footfall coming through there. But are you thankful this morning that the Bible is not exclusive, but that it's inclusive? The Bible's not inclusive of sin, we understand that. The Bible's exclusive of sin. But it's inclusive in the sense that it's anybody. Anybody that desires it can have it. For instance, anyone can follow the Lord in salvation. Anybody can be saved. How do I know that? Well, that's what the Word of God says. John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Whosoever means anybody who. And so anybody who believeth on him can have God's gift of everlasting life. John 4, year 13, Jesus answered and said unto her, whosoever drinketh of this water, the well water, shall thirst again. But whosoever, anybody who drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. And so anybody who can take that as a, I praise God, that's what we seek to do with evangelism. We're like, hey, here's a couple of water of life out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water, this baking of the spirit. We want you to know about Jesus Christ and the life you can have. And guess what? You can have it because it's for anybody who. John 11, 26, whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. John 12, 46, I'm come a light unto the world that whosoever believeth in me should not abide in darkness. Now, praise God for that. And when I preach on the street in Edinburgh, and I'm down on Princess Street, and I've got literally thousands of people coming at me, I've got North Bridge, and I've got thousands of people coming this way, I praise God that standing down there, I can look at all those people, and I can know this, they can get saved. Because the Bible is not exclusive, it's inclusive. It's exclusive of sin, but it's inclusive of anybody who wants to get right with God. Anybody can follow the Lord and believers baptism. Acts 2.38, Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And we understand that it's not teaching baptismal regeneration, but it is speaking about if you're truly saved, you ought to follow the Lord and believers baptism. The Bible commands us, go ye into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And I praise God this morning that if somebody obeyed the gospel, just like the Ethiopian eunuch, he said, see here is water, what doth hinder me from being baptized? And the evangelist Philip said to him, if thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he said, I believe. And he went down into the water, he was baptized. So I praise God this morning that somebody can follow the Lord in believers baptism, they can follow the Lord in salvation, and they can follow the Lord as his disciple, Luke 14, 27. And whosoever, anybody who does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. And you may say, well, that's exclusive. It's saying you can't be my disciple, but it's inclusive because it's saying, if you'll go away from that, you can follow me. and be my disciple, anybody who, just like verse 33 of that text, so likewise, whosoever he be of you, that forsaken not all that hath, he cannot be my disciple, all right? And so there's conditions that we'll look at in a second that we can meet by God's grace. But I can say this morning to our congregation, I can absolutely say you can follow the Lord in salvation. You can follow the Lord in baptism. You can follow the Lord in discipleship because the potential is there, that facet, if you Any man, it could be anybody. So praise God this morning, you don't have to think, well, I can't be a disciple of Christ. Absolutely, you can be because the potential is there. And so then let's look at the volitional facet of following the Lord, volitional. It says again in this text, he said to them all, if any man will. Okay, will, that's a choice. Do you ever have one of those toys as a child that you had a ripcord for, it was a car or a motorbike, something like that, you rip it and that rear tire goes, you know, it's been spinning, you set it down and the rubber meets the road and it takes off, right? So with what we've been looking at this morning, we've not applied it too much, but this is where the rubber starts to meet the road. This is where we start to get some traction with the ideas that we're thinking about. It's our will exercising it in obedience to God. It's a volitional choice that we make. Okay, so discipleship is our opportunity, but we gotta answer that question, am I gonna take it? Am I gonna take it? Am I gonna make that definite decision to follow after Jesus? Wednesday night, we ended our Life of David study with a verse, and it says this, John 12, 26. If any man serve me, let him follow me. And where I am, there shall also my servant be. And if any man serve me, him will my father honor. Okay, so if you wanna go with me, let him follow me. Make that decision to follow after Christ. You know, I praise God my wife is here this morning to play the piano and I'm just thankful today that she came with me to Scotland. You know, when God called me into missions and God called us into coming to Scotland, I was at the church, I was praying, I was saying, Lord, is this you directing us here? I know you called me to church planting, do you want me to start a church there on the south side in Edinburgh, Scotland? That's what we were thinking at that point. And God anchored in my heart a decision about that. So I made a definite decision. I surrendered downstairs at the basement at First Baptist Church in Goodall, Michigan, praying on a chair in a corner of a room. And I said to God, God, I will go to Scotland for you. I came home and I said to my wife, I said, I surrendered to go as a missionary to Scotland. Do you wanna go with me? And praise God, you know the answer? She said yes, all right, but she made that decision, I made a definite decision, she made a definite decision to follow after Jesus as God led us here to Scotland. I love that old chorus that we're seeing at the end of the message this morning, I've decided to follow Jesus. And it says, in the other verses it says, though none go with me, still I will follow. Does it matter to you today how many people are following Jesus or not? I mean, is that important to you? Or is it important to you that you follow Jesus? It says the world behind me, the cross before me. You know, is the world more important to you? The world before me, I love the world and all the things that the world has and the money and the fame and the satisfaction and the entertainment and everything that it's got and people looking at me and thinking I'm cool because I know the music and I know this, that and the other. Is the world before you or is Christ before you? And the world behind you? And so it has to be that volitional decision where we come to it, if any man will, that's an act of our heart and our decision-making process. I am going to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Have you made a definite decision to follow Jesus, right? Whether salvation, baptism, or in this case, discipleship. the committal facet. It says, he said to them all, if any man will come, after me. Committal, you might think, well, Pastor, we don't use that word very often. When I think about it, it speaks about putting a body in the grave. It's a committal. You put it down into the grave, or it's the act of taking somebody and putting them into an institution, institutionalizing them, and that's a committal. Well, we're using it in that same way. It means the act or instance of committing or commitment. This is the idea of placing yourself completely at the disposal of God and saying, God, okay, there I am. I submit to you. You know, our world has very low levels of commitment. Loyalty used to matter, didn't it? That faithfulness in marriage and that even marriage itself, that we're not just gonna live together, but we're gonna commit and say, no, we're in this relationship and then tell death to depart and I love you and you alone. And we live in a non-committal world. Most people today aren't committed in marriage. We've got government that makes promises, and they'll say things to get into office, and then you look at them and say, you know, doesn't integrity matter anymore? Doesn't truth matter anymore? You said this was gonna be your platform, but you've done nothing about it, or you totally violated that. Again, we live in a day where commitment and integrity are at very, very low levels. You know, on a scale of one to 10 this morning, How loyal are you to Jesus? How committed are you to Christ? How strong is that consecration to Jesus? Have you followed him and stepped out and followed him? My father is a pastor and dad pastored for about 50 plus years. And when he was young in ministry, he was at a wedding, and he was the pianist at the wedding. He wasn't there to do anything other than that. So he's playing before the wedding, and then somebody came and got him and said, Pastor, you gotta come back here and pastor. Another pastor was supposed to be doing the wedding, but he was the father of the bride. And he was sitting down, looked very white, and my dad could tell he's not gonna be able to do the wedding. And they said to my dad, brother short, can you do the wedding? And so here's his notes. All right. And dad's got to do that wedding. Well, the date happened to be the 1st of April. We also call that what April fool's day. Okay. Just happened to be April fool's day. And so my dad's got to go to the bride and groom and say, look, I'm telling you the truth. When I step out, walk down that aisle, you know what I'm saying, to the man, follow me, all right? You gotta follow me, this is real. And dad said when he stepped out, you could almost hear the gasps in the crowd, like, Pastor Short, you've gone too far, April Fool's Day. You know, but it was real, he was doing the wedding. But he knew that Jim, I think it was, was committed when he stepped out behind him to follow him up that path. You know, I wonder today, have you stepped out to follow Christ? Is there ever been a time that you could think back and you said, that's when I definitely stepped out and I said, I'm gonna be a Christ follower. And that means, it's not easy to say, and I'll tell you this, don't promise God anything you don't intend to keep. The Word of God warns us about swearing to God, saying to God, I promise I'm not keeping it. God's not gonna be pleased with that. But we ought to say, you know what? It's worth committing to. Didn't you, didn't you think it a good thing in your marriage to commit and to give the vows and say, I vow to be faithful to you and I'm entering into this relationship with you by a definite decision. I'll tell you this, this is different than salvation. This is me like Peter getting out of the boat to go follow after Christ when Jesus Christ says, follow me. following Christ, have you committed yourself as a definite follower of Jesus? And then let's look at the conditional facet for following the Lord. Conditional. He said to them all, if any man will come after me, let him. Let him, okay? So we saw that everyone has the potential to be a disciple, right? And has that opportunity. But not everyone is willing to meet the conditions of following Jesus. Not everybody wants to do that, okay? And so our text says, if any man will come after me, okay. then let him. There's some things that have to happen in your life. You know, in our study, again, of Mark, we saw a man recently, he's called the rich young ruler. He's a man that comes to Jesus. He says to Jesus, Lord, what must I do to have eternal life master? How do I get eternal life, and Jesus deals with him about the law, and he says, all those things have I kept for my youth up, you know, and so he's somewhat of a moral man, he's a religious man, he's wanting to find out that secret to having what Jesus has to offer, and Jesus looks at him, he touches the idol that's in his life, the thing that he was serving. He says, all right, and I'll just give you the text, Matthew 10, 21, Jesus beholding him loved him, he said unto him, one thing thou lackest, Go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven. And come, take up thy cross, and follow me. Okay, so, you know, if any man will come after me, let him. If you're the rich young ruler, you're standing before Jesus, Jesus says, okay, here's the let him part. Sell everything that you have, give it to the poor, and then come and follow me. And Jesus deals with that later in the text. He says, you know what? It's hard for a rich person to get saved. Why? Because they are worshiping their money instead of worshiping God. They're following their money instead of following God. And so you could be here today and you can think just like that rich young ruler, you can think, this is great. I can be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ and I wanna follow Christ and I wanna have everything that Jesus offers. But the tough thing is this. If anyone will come after me, let him. And so there's conditions. Though it's open to everybody, there's still things that we've got to evaluate and say, am I really willing to make that definite decision? Because it's going to cost me to follow Christ. It's conditional. You'll find that some want to keep their life instead of losing their life for Jesus. Look down at her text. Let's go to the next verse. Some people wanna hold on to their life. Verse 24, for whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. Okay, so some people don't really wanna meet the condition. They don't really wanna take their life and put it in the hands of Jesus because that means that whatever Jesus says is what is gonna be done. It's like giving up your will. It's like giving up your choice. But let me ask you something this morning, who makes better choices, God or you? God. And so if I say to God, okay, hands off my life, I'm gonna let you make the decisions, I'm not gonna make those decisions, that's gonna be a really, really good thing in our life. But that's a condition. There's conditions to following Christ. And so do you really wanna follow Jesus? Are you willing to meet the conditions? And so the conditional facet. And then let's look at the denial facet, the denial facet of following the Lord. He said to them all, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself. Again, like verse 24, this is losing our life for his sake in the gospel. It's like giving it up for God. Jesus is speaking to men who have former lives, that before they met Jesus, they were doing their thing. I mean, they had their lives, they were going. I mean, Peter probably thought he was gonna be a fisherman the rest of his life, the same with Andrew and James and John. Matthew thought he was gonna be a tax collector the rest of his life, because that's what, again, the career that he was in. And they were close to their family. They got their father there in the boat with them, James and John did. Peter was married. The Bible speaks about him healing and Jesus healing his mother-in-law. So Peter was either separated from his wife at times or he was widowed, we don't know. But I mean, they had a lot of things in their life, but they had to deny themselves to follow after Christ. Have you ever been denied? We don't like denial. How did denial make you feel? You're trying to make a payment with your card and the machine says, Payment decline. Wait a second. I might have money in my account or something like that. We don't we don't like that. You apply for a loan that you can afford. You know, you're in the bank and you need the loan. You need the money. And they say deny. How does that make you feel? You want to enter a sport during COVID-19. But you're denied, you know, there's so many people, you know, can come in the store. I don't know about you, I really struggle with that. That frustrated me. Why? Because my flesh wanted in there. I'll tell you this, when your flesh is denied, how does it feel? Angry, right? No, I don't like to be denied. Our flesh wants to do that. But Jesus said, if you want to follow me, you got to tell your flesh, no. So I mean, your flesh is gonna go, wait a second, I don't wanna be denied. You might say to any pastor, can you make it more practical? Can you make it really clear? Well, this morning, it's dark and it's time to get up. And the bed's warm and the room's cold. And Jesus says, hey, you wanna go to church with me? Or Monday morning? Warm bed, dark room, cold room. And Jesus says, hey, you wanna spend some time in the word of God with me? or it's raining outside. And there's so many that the Lord's burdened, hey, I wanna go talk to that person about Christ, and I wanna go do some evangelism, hey, wanna come with me? And so there's gonna be so many times where it's like that, where Jesus has something that he wants to do, and our flesh goes, man, I don't really wanna do that. We've got a choice. Am I gonna be a disciple of Christ, or am I not gonna be a disciple of Christ? And so we're looking at the denial facet. There's gonna be, on some level, daily, there's gonna be a denial of ourself, and say, no, I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, so my flesh says no, and I say yes to Jesus, because I'm gonna obey Jesus. And by the way, our flesh longs to do a lot of things that Jesus doesn't want us to do. So if you talk about sin issues and things like that, the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life, and our flesh says, I have an appetite for that, and Jesus says, hey, that is not for a follower of me. Turn from that and follow me. Again, what do we have to do? Denial. And so the denial facet. And so then that brings us to the sacrificial facet of following the Lord. Sacrificial. Luke 9.23. He said to them all, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross. Take up his cross. Jesus didn't even cloak, you know, that'd be good, right? Let's take up our cloak and let's follow Jesus, but that's not what Jesus said. Jesus said cross. What is a cross? Well, the cross is the instrument of death upon which the Son of God suffered blood and died. I mean, that is a symbol of pain and suffering. It's the wooden structure that lifted up Jesus, naked, pierced, exposed to the eyes of men, so that people would mock him and laugh at him. It's the emblem of complete obedience to the Father, right? Because that's what Jesus said, if it be possible, let this come pass from me, nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou will. And the Father said, you gotta go to the cross, and Jesus said, okay. Right? And so for us this morning, are you carrying anything like that this morning? You know, we're talking about discipleship, and we might think, well, I feel like I'm a disciple of Christ, but am I identifying it as Jesus identifies it, and he identifies it for us this morning as somebody that's carrying a cross. Is there anything that makes the world treat you like Jesus that you've got on? You know, any suffering for Him? Is there anything that exposes you as a disciple of Jesus to the eyes of the world so that they look at you and say, you're a Christ follower, and they mock you and they treat you like Jesus was treated because you're carrying the same thing as Him? Is there anything in your life that shows your complete obedience to the will of the Father? Think about what Jesus said. He said, I do always the things that please Him. And so this morning, as we look at the facets of discipleship, we see the sacrificial facet, and so if we're truly a disciple of Christ, we ought to be able to look at ourselves and say, I can identify with that, I see that, it's in my life. 2 Timothy 3, 12, yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer what? Persecution, and so that's the cross. Matthew 10, 25, it's enough for the disciple that he be as his master and the servant as his Lord. If they have called the master Beelzebub, Satan, how much more shall they call them of his household? And so somebody could be right there and say, hey, this great, I'm gonna be a disciple of Jesus. I wanna follow Jesus. But there are plenty of people that as Jesus got closer and closer to Calvary, they got further and further behind, did they not? Yeah, even some looked at it and said, that's hard, and they turned aside from followings. And so I'd say to us this morning, we gotta count the costs this morning, say, if I'm gonna follow Christ, I gotta deny myself, and I've gotta be willing to sacrifice and take up my cross. And then let's look at the continual facet of following the Lord, continual. It says, he said to them all, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, what? Daily. Now I do believe this, I believe that surrender or dedication or following discipleship begins by an initial decision, a commitment, that committal, that definite, I am going to follow after Jesus Christ. Jesus said to his disciples, remember at the boat? He said, follow me, and what did they do? They stepped out of the boat, they left everything behind, and they followed Christ. Okay, so that's where discipleship began for them. And so Peter stepped out, but you know, Peter, Andrew, James, John, Levi, as they're following Christ, every day they wake up and what do they have to decide? I'm gonna follow Jesus. I mean, the boat's back there, mom and dad are back there. but I wanna follow Jesus. So there's two aspects to it. There's that aspect of I have definitely decided to follow Christ, but there's that aspect of I gotta get up today and I gotta decide I'm a Christ follower. I'm a Christ follower. Not remaking the decision, but being committed to that decision that is going to continue today. Paul said it like this, 1 Corinthians 15 31. I protest by your rejoicing, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. I die We gotta get up, look in the mirror maybe, and say to ourself, you're dead. You're dead, you're alive in the Christ, dead in the self. It's not today about what pleases me and what I'm gonna do with my day, it's God, what is your plan for today? What is your plan for my life? What is your ambitions? It's not about my job, it's not about my things, it's not about my life, but God, it's very much about this. God, what do you want me to do as a steward of everything that you've given to me? How do I use this for you? And so are you daily maintaining that commitment? Is that part of your life? You know, again, a disciple is somebody that gets up tomorrow, not just on the Lord's day, not just on Sunday, you know, looking like a Christian, but gets up every day, identifying with Christ and following Christ. And then finally this morning, we wanna end with this truth, and that's, let's look at the relational facet, relational facet of following the Lord. He said to them all, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. See, as I speak about discipleship this morning, that sounds kind of cold and calloused. It's just kind of a term, it's just kind of there. But when we think about it, that discipleship means that I am with Jesus, that it's relational. It's about spending time with the Lord and knowing the Lord. You know, again, as we study the Gospel of Mark on Sunday nights, it's kind of surprising sometimes how familiar the disciples or people are with Jesus as they interact with the Lord. You've got the story at the Last Supper, and you've got John, and I think he's a young man, but the Bible speaks about him reclining on Jesus, all right? That's pretty familiar, you know? up against the Lord in kind of an embrace with the Lord. Peter, in his personal counseling session, as Jesus comes to him and says, Peter, follow me, and he restores him. James and John, we just looked at this, asking for positions in the kingdom. Can I sit on your right hand? Can I sit on your left? And we looked at that. The women ministering to Jesus, you ever think about that story where the woman comes, breaks that bottle of ointment, she takes her hair, and wipes the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ with her hair? And we can read that, and as we read that, we just, I think begin to understand, you know what, Jesus is very personal in his relationships with people, and I would say this, do you have anybody that you'd love to be around? Are they perfect? They're not. But is Jesus? He is, so think about this. They walked around with a person that was the perfect companion. He was the perfect person to be with and to spend time with and to get counsel from and all that. And I would just say this, as we're talking about discipleship this morning, what we're speaking about is knowing Christ and walking with Christ. And if you were to say to Peter, Peter, tell me about Jesus. And he would say, yeah, he is so loving. He's so forgiving. He's so merciful. He's so good. He knows what I need and he almost meets my needs before I even ask. Let me ask you this morning, how do you describe Jesus? See, if I'm a disciple of Christ, I'm following him, on some level, I ought to be able to describe him. On some level, I ought to be able to say, hey, this is what it's like walking with Christ. He encourages me, he strengthens me, he ministers to me, or I'm not with Christ, so I don't really know what that's like. That's kind of like just Bible. That's just kind of like knowledge, it's not experience. But I'll tell you this, that's not what God wants us to be. God wants it to be our experience. So that we can say, no, God encouraged me today. And the Lord was so good to me, God answered my prayer, God directed me, God guided me, and I just, I love getting the word of God, spending time with Jesus. I love being in the house of God, spending time with the body of Christ, that's what this is, this assembly. I love having the head guiding and directing me as a man in my family because Christ is the head of the home. And so I know what that's like because I'm in that relationship with Christ. And so that relational facet, do you see that in your life this morning? You know, I'd love to go to Crater Diamond State Park, and I'd love to find a diamond. I like to find agates. Agates are semi-precious. Diamonds, obviously, are precious. And they're valuable, very valuable. So I would go up to the person there, I'd say, tell me, what do they look like? I'd look at a case, see a bunch of examples, you know, exhibits of it, so that when I get out there and I'm looking at the ground, I can identify it, because it's valuable. I tell you this morning, discipleship is valuable. We ought to be able to know what it is. Because I'll tell you, when you get to heaven someday, you don't want to get there without being a disciple of Christ. You don't want to get there without being somebody that was a follower of Jesus. But the thing is, it's not just kind of whatever it is. Discipleship is not me saying, well, I'm a disciple. Discipleship is defined by the Lord and how he says it is. And so this morning, have you followed the Lord in salvation? Now that's the first step of discipleship, right? I'm gonna accept Jesus Christ my Savior. Have you followed him in baptism? That's the second thing. Then have you followed him in discipleship? Saying, Lord, I really wanna be a disciple of Christ. I wanna make that definite decision. I wanna anchor it down today and say, you know what? To be honest, I'm not really a disciple of Christ, but today I'm gonna make that definite decision. Are you willing to sacrifice? Are you willing if it costs you? Are you willing to deny yourself to follow Christ? Are you willing to daily get up and say, you know what? I'm a Christ follower, not just on Sundays, not just on Wednesdays when we have church. I'm a Christ follower on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. This is my life. This is the trajectory of my life. I'm gonna follow Jesus Christ. And so let's pray. Ask the spirit of God to speak to our hearts this morning. Father, I thank you for the word of God. Thank you for the truth of God this morning. And Father, I just, I pray it might be somebody in their heart this morning, they're thinking, you know what? I really need to be a disciple of Christ. But Father, it's possible they've never made a definite decision. That starts with salvation. That starts with baptism. But Father, I believe there really is a decision. I'm gonna be a disciple. I'm gonna be a Christ follower. And then Father, to daily keep that in mind, to take up our cross, to be somebody that is willing to say to themselves, no, because I'm a Christ follower. And so Father, if you're speaking to somebody specifically about something they need to say no to in their life that they said yes to instead of Christ, I pray, Lord God, for victory. I pray today would be a day at South Cypher Baptist Church where many people would make that definite decision, I am going to be a Christ follower. And Father, truly, you're worthy of that this morning. Thou art worthy, O Lord. And so Father, minister the truth to our hearts. Thank you for it this morning. Thank you for your help. It's in Christ that we pray, amen. Amen, we are gonna sing that chorus this morning. I've decided to follow Jesus. I'm turning back. I've decided to follow Jesus. Let's stand, please, and we'll sing 635, 635.