Let's turn your Bibles, if you would, to the book of Luke, Luke chapter number 14. Luke chapter number 14. This is a passage of scripture that is probably familiar to us. And yesterday, we had, my wife and I traveled up, actually, well, Friday night and then Saturday, went to a wedding yesterday, as a couple of the other staff did and friends of Michaela was Ryan, now it's Vara, who's a teacher in our academy. And we went up there, and boy, a beautiful country. We had a nice drive, and it took about six hours or so, and then we kind of made our way back down and stopped in Kennebunkport last night, had a wonderful time. And when Brother Boyle asked me earlier this week if I would speak, I was trying to just thinking and praying and saying, you know, Lord, what is it you'd have me to perhaps share? And sometimes the Lord kind of waits and kind of gives you some ideas and thoughts. You want to make sure you shuffle it around, make sure you get the right one, ask the Holy Spirit for help. And, you know, really up until just, you know, within less than a day, you know, the Lord, Holy Spirit kind of spoke to me about a particular passage. And this passage of scripture in Luke chapter 14, in just a moment, we'll actually turn over to Luke chapter number nine. If you want to kind of turn there and prepare, but hold your place, we'll be here to start Luke chapter 14. We're going to read a few verses and then turn over in a little bit. But this passage of Scripture, and in particular this outline that I want to share with you this morning, has been a great blessing to me many times and I've gone through it and I've listened to it and I can't, I'll be honest, it's not my outline originally but it's definitely something that's been an encouragement to me and I hope that it'll be a blessing to you this morning and hopefully a very important thought for us to think about. and that's being a disciple, being a disciple. So we're going to start here in Luke chapter 14. Let's start reading if you would with me in verse number 25. Luke chapter 14 and verse number 25 it says, And there went great multitudes with him, and he turned and said unto them, If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother and wife and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Verse 27, And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. Skip down, if you would, to verse number 33. The Bible says, So likewise, whosoever he be of you, that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. Salt is good, but if the salt hath lost his savor, wherefore shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill, but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. We have this passage of Scripture given to us where three times the Lord Jesus, if you have a Red Letter Edition Bible, which I do here, it is in red that is mentioned. He gives us three times, ye cannot be my disciple, verse 26. Then again in verse 27, ye cannot be my disciple. And then a third time in verse number 33, he cannot be my disciple. And we have here this three mentions, and any time something is repeated in scripture, it's worth noting, of course. And it's important to see the emphasis where God places the emphasis. And so if he says that three times, you cannot be my disciple, cannot be my disciple, you cannot be my disciple, then we probably should take note and understand who is it that cannot be a disciple. Now, if we think about the word disciple today in a contemporary term, I don't really hear the term used really too much. And this morning's message is not to get us to conform to be just like the 12 in the sense that we're going to be somehow you know, the 12 apostles are going to be expanded and now we're included in that. Obviously we know there are only 12 in Scripture, but there are disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a disciple simply is, if you look it up in the dictionary, one who accepts and assists in spreading the doctrines of another. Now there's another term that's kind of similar to this that I've heard many times, but again not really a word I hear too much today, is an apprentice. Someone who has an apprentice, someone is following underneath someone else to perhaps learn a trade or somehow a talent, something they're going to be doing, And the main difference really between something like an apprentice and a disciple is that of someone perhaps learning a trade or perhaps a practice where they're going to be paid, maybe it's a work or a job. So someone like that, if you read the biography of William Carey, William Carey began his apprenticeship in a shoe cobbler shop and learned how to make shoes. And so he became an apprentice of shoemaking or a cobbler. And then you have that of being, he wasn't really a disciple, but more an apprentice. We are, in Scripture, told and desired by the Lord Jesus Christ to be a disciple of Him. Disciple. Someone who not only is trained and is taught the things as we're supposed to do them from Scripture and from God, but also it's more about teaching the belief of, transferring that belief or the doctrine and turning that into duty or to service as it were. So it's more than just learning a trade or a talent. God does give us talent and God does allow us to use things for Him, but we are to use what God has given us and to stand where God stands and to believe what God believes and to follow Him with everything we have and to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is important in the life of a believer, and it's important for us to understand that in the Scriptures, if you notice, He does not say three times, you cannot be saved. He does not say anywhere that you cannot be a son or a child of God. He says, you cannot be my disciple. It's important to note the fact that not every believer, unfortunately, is a disciple. There are those who have accepted Christ by faith. If you're here this morning, you've trusted Christ as your Savior. I hope you have. Then you have by faith accepted what Christ has done for you on the cross. You have taken that step. You're now in a position of sanctification. And now you're trusting the Lord to live your life for Him by faith in that practical way. But now you are trusting God every day for the things that you cannot accept, the things that you cannot do in your flesh. You're living the Christian life. And there is a difference, a vast difference, a major difference between our position in Christ and our practice in Christ. There is a difference between our sonship and our discipleship. There is a difference between salvation and a difference with service. So we can be Christians, we can know Christ as our Savior, and we can not really get a whole lot accomplished or a whole lot done for the Lord Jesus Christ. But we're challenged all the time in Scripture, many times, to live our life for the Lord Jesus Christ, to give everything we have to God, and to hold nothing back because God wants to bless us and use us in ways that we never thought possible. But so many Christians tend to get held back, and we tend to limit ourselves with what we see instead of what God sees, having the vision that God has for us. And I think it's important for us to understand that salvation, although it is free, does not cost us a dime. But being a Christian could cost you everything you have. And, you know, to some people that, oh, that sounds awful, that sounds scary, but the truth of the matter is, is that we have everything we need in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible says, and we need nothing else. And if Christ is all that we need, we sing those songs, Christ is all I need. We might sing, He is everything to me, or we might sing, you know, Jesus paid it all. He is everything I want in life. Take the world, but give me Jesus. But how much do we truly believe those words when we sing that Christ is our everything? He is our satisfaction. He is truly what gives me my meat for life. He fulfills me and gives me what I need to do to accomplish what I need to accomplish. So there's a difference between being just a believer and being a disciple. And unfortunately, not all believers are disciples. And I hope this morning I'm gonna give you a few things that'll help challenge us and encourage us that we can truly be the disciples that we need to be for the Lord Jesus Christ. And first I wanna talk about some negatives before I talk about some positives, if I can put it that way. These cannot be my disciple, things that he gives us that says we cannot be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ unless we meet these requirements, so-called. Three types of people who cannot be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice, first of all, verse 26. He cannot be my disciple. Now, at first glance of this passage of Scripture, we kind of look at it and see this word hate. Now, the word hate today is used often, and often we might hear it in terms of hate speech or anything like that. By the way, any time that anybody ever says anything about Christians or to Christians, it always seems to be freedom of speech. I see this often, but the fact is that, you know, any time a Christian says anything out against anything else, Of course, it's a hate crime, you know, it's a hate speech. But the truth of the matter is, we just say what the Bible says about something. You know, that's what God says, that's how God sees it. It's not necessarily our personal beliefs, we're just following in line with what God says. And so he says here the word hate. And by the way, you can disagree with people without hating people, okay? You know, but he says here you can, he says you need to hate. If any man come to me and hate not his father, and he mentions mother, wife, children, brethren, and sisters. Jesus here is using a lesson. Jesus taught in many different ways, but one of the ways he taught was with the lesson of contrast, teaching us and helping us understand the difference. And so when he uses this term, hate not his father or his mother or his wife and children, brethren and sisters, he says that we as Christians ought to make sure that our love for the Lord Jesus Christ is not to be anywhere compared, any close, anywhere near what our love is for anyone else or anything else in this earth. It says, and it ends with, "...and His own life also." That means no matter if it's a relative, family member, close family member, twice removed, whether it's a best friend, or whether it's your very own self, you are to love the Lord Jesus Christ supremely with everything you have. And sadly, not many Christians might do this. We are to love the Lord God with every ounce of our being. There are many people in Scripture and many examples we have of people who had love life problems. And if I gave you a couple examples we have for us, the church of Ephesus. What does the Bible say about the church of Ephesus? It says that they left their first love. They had a love problem. They had been doing things in the church As a routine, things they knew they were supposed to do, but they had lost the love for the Lord Jesus Christ that they ought to have had. And they weren't effective the way that they should have been effective, simply because their love life was not what it ought to be. If you think about another person, individual, you think of the man Peter. You have Jesus asked him three times, lovest thou me, lovest thou me, lovest thou me. He wanted to make sure it was put across and very well noted that Peter, why does he love the Lord Jesus Christ? And in what way does he love the Lord Jesus Christ? And if we as Christians love the Lord Jesus Christ the way that he ought to be loved, you know, it would solve a multitude of problems in the Christian life. A lot of people struggle with a lot of different things, and they say, you know, it just seems I'm struggling with so many things, and there's this problem here, and this problem here, and I can't seem to always get this done on time, and I'm always having these things done. The truth of the matter is, is if you put God in His perspective, which is what we often have to recalibrate and do when we come back to what the Bible says, we then come back to how much do we really love the Lord Jesus Christ? What is our love life like for the Lord Jesus Christ? Our theme for the college has been for quite some time now from Ephesians 6, 6, it's to have a heart for God. To have a heart for God. There's a reason for that. It's because simply this, when we train and teach young people, that if early on in life they can establish the groundwork, which is the most important thing, is that they love the Lord God with all their heart, with all their mind, with all their strength, then that means that it'll help a lot of issues in their life simply because they know who they put first. It's not that Jesus is supposed to be prominent, it's that he's supposed to be preeminent. It's the fact that he's supposed to be the first of everything we think, we do, we say, every ounce of our being. And if a young person can establish that early on in life, it's gonna help them quite a bit when they go through different trials and struggles and tribulations, and when they go through good times and bad times, whatever it may be, They ought to have a love for the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, it's a sad thing in a lot of churches today, a lot of people doing things out of routine, and not simply because they love the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope you're here this morning in church for the very reason, simple enough, that you just simply love the Lord. I hope you got dressed up this morning and you're here singing songs and giving an offering and hearing the preaching simply only because you simply love the Lord Jesus Christ. And I have that question for you this morning. Do you love Him like you ought to love Him? That's most important. Secondly, notice in verse 27, not only are we to love Him supremely, but secondly, verse 27, and whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me, he cannot be my disciple. Anytime you see the word, bear His cross, or bear a cross, or the cross in Scripture, you can make a note, you can definitely be sure to mentally make a note, if nothing else, that it has to do with suffering in Scripture. We are to bear our cross. Not only are we to love Him supremely, but we have to understand if we're going to be a disciple for the Lord Jesus Christ, we're going to suffer. There are things that are gonna come into our life, they're gonna be challenges and struggles, that if we're not grounded where we ought to be grounded, we're gonna sway quite a bit. Now, of course, our foundation is the Lord Jesus Christ. If we build our life on the rock, as the song goes, it won't go splat, because our foundation is strong. But some people are building some mighty shaky buildings on top of that foundation, and it always goes back to the basics. They always gotta go back to what's simple. They always gotta go back to what starts off We need to be willing to suffer for the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to take a stand like Jesus took. If you say, you know, Brother McKeever, I think, when I look back on my life, and I'm looking right now, and right now everything seems to be quite good. You know, I have nice things, and the Lord is really good. We have a family, and we have things that we're being blessed with. I don't really know if I feel like I'm suffering like we ought to be suffering. But the truth of the matter is, is if we take a stand like Jesus took, then there are going to be times when we suffer for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm so thankful for the staff here and for the stand that Pastor Townsley has taken and the leadership that Brother Boyle is coming up under Pastor Townsley because of the stand that Pastor Townsley takes. And I've got news for you. People around the community know Pastor Townsley and the stand that he takes. And there are going to be things that you suffer because of the stand that you take. You start talking out against the things of the world, people are going to notice. And people are going to start to say and do things that are going to be challenging for us to get things accomplished. We've heard the example before of the college coming close to a, you know, not a close, but trying to be shut down, and how we just persevered and we just trusted the Lord, and the Lord seems to be protecting us, and we're still here today. And we're still training young people. And we're not worried about what the state's going to do. We're just worried about what God wants us to do. And so that's the sort of attitude and that's the sort of things we might face in struggles and trials. And there's nothing in your life that you ever face that God doesn't allow you to be successful and victorious over. And that's what Scripture tells us. We have the strength through Him, the power through Jesus Christ. But yet so many Christians can have a defeated Christian life and they simply just wallow in misery when they realize they have the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ. And the fact is, is if they're not willing to suffer and prepare themselves to have this spiritual warfare, then they're not going to accomplish the things that God wants them to accomplish. And they're not going to be the disciple, the true disciple that God wants them to be in their life. You think about the church in Acts 3, where the church was going through trials and struggles, and what is it the Bible says they prayed for? It wasn't, Lord, get us out of this mess. It was simply the fact they said they prayed for boldness. Lord, help us as we go through what we're going through. Lord, help us through this struggle. We should suffer for the same reason, every one of us, we suffer in direct proportion to the stand we take for the Lord Jesus Christ. Maybe this morning we're not taking the stand that we ought to take. Maybe there are certain steps we should take. Now everything we do ought to be in love. Everything we do ought to be in the name of the Lord Jesus ought to be for helping others. It's not to get a point across. It's not to win arguments. It's not to show who's right other than we know God is right. So it doesn't matter who wins an argument. But the point is is that we want to help affect people's lives for the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ. Suffering is a part of the Christian life and it either make you or it will break you. You can either turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and ask for help, and have the Lord help us through whatever God has for us to go through, or we can stay where we are, and we can neglect what God has for us. Are we willing to suffer for the Lord Jesus Christ? To be a disciple, we must do it. Notice the third thing. Look at verse 33. It says, So likewise, whosoever he be of you, that forsaketh not all that he hath, He cannot be my disciple. Probably one of the most profound things we ever learned in Bible college, and I've stated this before, is the statement that Brother Sumner used to say often, all means all, and that's all that all means. So if you say, so likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, all, all, he cannot be my disciple. Now, when I heard this message preached on and mentioned, and I had the same thought in my mind, What does the Lord mean here? Do you mean, Lord, that all the things that I have and all the possessions and all the nice things that I consider that are nice, perhaps, you know, I have a few suits in my possession, I come dressed Sunday morning, and I have a car that I'm blessed with, I'm thankful for that, and I have a place to live, and I have, you know, my wife and I, we have things we're blessed with. Does that mean I need to make sure I give up all those things and make sure I kind of live a poor and ratty-tatty life to make sure that I'm being a disciple the way I ought to be? But the truth is that what God is saying here, and the truth is that He says that if anything else ever comes between me and you in our relationship, you ought to get rid of it right away. Because nothing ought to come between our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. If the first thing, in order to be a disciple, we have to love Him supremely, anytime we allow any possession or any thought or any idol of any kind to come between us and the Lord Jesus Christ, it becomes a liability. And anytime that happens, Satan loves nothing more than to find something that in our lives that we get tripped up. and we can't do anything else unless we get rid of the very thing that God wants us to get rid of. That's why we're asking God constantly, search me, O God, see if there be any wicked way in me, to take what God wants for us, to get it right, and to confess, and to follow what God has for us. We need to strip ourselves of anything that takes the place of the Lord Jesus Christ in our life. God has a will for each person, and we need to be willing to forsake anything that comes between us and the Lord Jesus Christ, and make sure we accomplish what God has for our lives. We've seen this so many times. I've seen this many times with friends that I used to go to high school with, even friends in college. They have something where they're set, they know what God wants them to do with their life. Perhaps it's a young lady who is called to be a missionary, and she knew that's what God had wanted her to do, and unfortunately she met some young man who was just dreamy and wonderful and she fell in love and she realizes to this day the fact that God had called her to missions and she never actually was able to do what God had called her to do. So, that's a tough life. It's difficult, but you give it to the Lord Jesus Christ and she's doing well, she's doing the best she can, but she did not fulfill the very primary purpose that God had for her life. And I hope that for you and I, we never allow anything to come into place. It could be a person, it could be a thing, it could be possessions, it could be a thought, it could be a belief, it could be something you principle. Whatever it may be, we need to make sure we get rid of it and follow after the Lord Jesus Christ. So we see three things here in this passage of Scripture, in Luke chapter 14, that we cannot be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ if, number one, we do not love Him supremely, number two, if we are not willing to suffer for the name of Jesus Christ, and thirdly, unless we're willing to forsake everything or anything we have that is in the way of us and God, we cannot be a true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a very powerful thought. Now let's look real quickly at Luke chapter number 9, if you would please. Now that we looked at the negatives, now that we see what we cannot do in order to be a disciple, let's look at some things that we see here. Three things, or actually a few more than three, but that we see that we need to have if we're going to be a disciple for the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice verse number one, we'll read a few verses here. Luke 9, verse number one, it says, Then He called His twelve disciples together, gave them power and authority over all devils, again there's that word all, and to cure diseases. And He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. And He said unto them, Take nothing for your journey, neither staves nor scrip, neither bread, neither money, neither have two coats apiece. And whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide, and thence depart. And whosoever will not receive you when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them." We have here, and I'll go through these, a few things that a person who wants to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ must have. A person must have these things. Number one, verse number one, he says, he called his disciples and gave them power and authority over all devils and cure diseases. But notice what it says in the very first part of the verse. It says, "...then He..." What's that next word? "...called." "...then He called His twelve disciples together." I want you to notice, first and foremost, the first thing that Jesus did was called them unto Himself. We cannot do what God wants us to do and to be a true disciple, a follower of Jesus Christ, unless we first are called unto Himself. Whatever it is God calls you to do, whether it's to be a lay person in the church and have a full-time job, or whether it's to be a young person who's going to be called into full-time ministry, or an older person called into full-time ministry, it doesn't matter what it is, unless you first have time where you're called unto Him alone, just Him, you will not do what it is God wants you to do the right way. We must be called unto God. He called them unto Himself. In Mark 6, verse 7, it says the same thing. He called them unto Himself. Curtis Hudson used to say the saying, we've heard many times, things that are different are not the same. You see, a Christian who truly is set apart, as the Bible teaches that we are to be holy, as I am holy, as God is holy, we are to be set apart for the use of God, there ought to be a difference in our lives than others. If we want to be a leader, if we want to do what it is God wants us to do, we must be first called unto God. A pastor must be first called to God before anything else that he does as a pastor and his responsibilities or duties, if he's to be an effective leader of the church. He must first be called to God directly if he's going to be the effective preacher that he's going to be. He must first be called to God if he's going to be the teacher that he ought to be. He must first be called directly to God before he can be the prayer warrior that he needs to be. And this is the same and true for every Christian. I'm just using the pastor as an example. Every Christian ought to be called to God. And if you don't love God supremely, you're not willing to suffer for Him, and you're not willing to forsake everything you have, you cannot be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we must also be called unto Himself. One of the things we often tell young people early on is make sure you have time where you get alone with the Lord Jesus Christ, just you and you and Him, and spend some time with Him. It's one of the most important things you can do as a Christian is just spend some time alone with God. And we hear it over and over and many, many times. And you find that specific time, perhaps for every person it's different. Sometimes it's early in the morning, sometimes it's late at night. But you have that time that nothing else happens unless you just spend that time alone with the Lord because that time is precious. That time is important. And there may be times when, you know, your flesh says, I really don't want to read the Bible today. Has it ever happened to anybody? Happens to me. But yet you know it's what you need and when you take that time and you open the Bible and you just spend a few minutes and you just talk with the Lord and you pray, He speaks to you and He gives you what you need for that day but also perhaps other days that you reflect back on. We need to spend time with God and we need to first surrender ourselves to Him for whatever it is He has for us. It's amazing what God can accomplish. So first of all, He called them unto Himself. He called His 12 disciples together. diseases. This is the very beginning. This is really the beginning, or really with Jesus it was the beginning, but teaching His disciples about the sign gifts, what they needed to reveal to those who God was, and God was using the sign gifts at this time. Notice, secondly, a person must also, in verse number 3, have a vital discipline. Verse number 3, it says, After verse two, he sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. Verse three, and he said unto them, take nothing for your journey. Nothing, Jesus, nothing. Take nothing for your journey, neither staves nor scrip. Staves is a staff. You have scrip, which is like a bag. Neither bread, neither money, neither have two coats apiece. Man, you think to yourself, Jesus just wants them to go with nothing. That's exactly right. Jesus Christ is trying to get a point across to them and help them understand something, is that He wants them to have a vital discipline. A vital discipline. To be effective servants for Christ, there must be some things that we have to do without. You ever had to go through and see the things you have going on throughout your week, throughout your day, and you kind of summarize it all together, and you kind of think, okay, this is all the things I've got to accomplish tomorrow, and man, it just seems like there's just not enough time in the day to get done what I want to get done. I remember when I was working a secular job before working for the church, a few, and sometimes, you know, I'd work in the daytime, I worked security before that, and I worked kind of a couple second shifts, one third shift, and then a first shift, So, you know, it's all over the place. But you kind of always plan around. You think, okay, as soon as I get out of work, I've got to go to the post office, I've got to get my oil changed. As soon as I do that, I've got to pick up my wife, and then we've got to go shopping, and then we've got to, you know, you're always making sure you prepare your time wisely, trying to, at least I did, and, you know, you're trying to think it through, and you get it all done, and you feel like, at the end of the day, whew, time to go to bed. I did everything I was supposed to do. But man, it seems like more time goes on. I just told Brother Boyle this the other day, you know, it seems like when you have more time to kind of, more flexibility, you know, working here at the church, you have things you need to get done, and sometimes you have appointments to do certain things, but you kind of got more flexibility. I feel like there's not enough time in the day to get everything done. You just, sometimes it's just non-stop. And you just keep going from one thing to the next, one thing to the next. And the truth is we can get pretty tired unless we do it in the strength that God's given us. But sometimes you've got to look through and you've got to see, what is it that I have that maybe perhaps needs to be cut out? What do I need to do to make a dividing line and say, you know what, all these things I'm trying to accomplish, this isn't really that necessary to get done today. And it may not just be for the day, it may be for life. It may be saying, you know what, I wanted to do all these things, I just can't fit it all in. Well, you know what, a vital discipline helps with that because you establish the things that are the most important. And it could be material things. You know, all these things I have, maybe that's not so important. If it's coming between me and the Lord, do I need to cut it out? Is there something specific that's holding me back from really serving the way I ought to serve? You know, my Christian walk is not what it ought to be. What is that thing? To be effective servants, there are some things that we can do without. We need to get a vision of what God wants us to do and we need to do it with every ounce of our being that God's given us. and strip anything away that God wants us or that keeps us from doing it. You know, those are those things, you know, when a new Christian is, when a Christian is newly saved and they do certain things, it kind of, it's just new. It's rich to them, you know, reading their Bible and praying. It's just, it's like a new thing. But you know, those are those first things that keep you. They'll keep you for the rest of your Christian life. But yet, so often we tend to neglect them. The things that made you will keep you. And the things that keep you excited, they can still excite you. They can still say, wow, look at where this pastor of scripture Jesus showed me this morning, where he performed this miracle. Isn't that amazing? Look what God can also do in my life if I just allow him to do it. It's amazing how Satan creeps in with thoughts and ideas that hinder us from what God wants. But we have to have a vital discipline in our Christian life if we're going to have anything remotely to what we ought to to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. So not only must we have a vital difference in our lives, we must be called to himself. Secondly, we must be a person that has a vital discipline. Notice thirdly, again in verse number three, with all these things that he mentions that we says, take nothing for your journey, a person must have a vital dependency upon the Lord Jesus Christ. A vital dependency. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ wants nothing more than to be your everything. That's all that he wants. You say, wow, everything? Everything. He says, take nothing for your journey, neither staves nor script, neither bread nor money, neither have two coats apiece. You see, Jesus wanted to be their staff. He wanted to be their bag. He wanted to be the bread that they needed. He wanted to be their money. He wanted them to have the coats they needed, but He wanted to provide it. You see, he was putting them in a position in their Christian life where they were going to have to trust and depend on what God has for them, otherwise they couldn't make the journey. And how many times has God put certain things in our lives, perhaps taking things away because we weren't doing it ourselves, but maybe we never would have. He took it away and we say, well, why did God, why did you do that? Why is this missing? Why is it I can't be like this other person? It's simply because He's trying to grow us and teach us as Christians, and we grow in Christ because He wants us to have a vital dependency on only Him. Christ sent out His disciples into places where they would no doubt be without, and they would need to trust Christ for what they did not have. You know, yesterday we were traveling back from this one-day trip, and I know when we first got married, my wife and I, a one-day trip meant the car was completely packed, you know. I tried my best to consolidate, but you just want to have things with you, you know, you just want to take it all. And, you know, you pack a bag for the night, you know, and you want to carry it, and it feels like there's a body in the bag, you know, you're picking it up and you're carrying it to the car and you put it in there. And we have a small car. But now things are getting better. We consolidated quite well. Us and the Bennetts all fit into my one little sedan and we fit all of our luggage and, you know, had clothes hanging in the middle, you know. It was kind of fun. Kind of compact, but fun. And you take a trip and you have all these things you got to take with you. Did you remember the hairspray? Did you remember the combs? Did you remember, yep, I remember all that. Did you remember, okay, you remember the suit? Yep, got to remember all that stuff. You have a list. You've got all these things you've got to make sure you bring. And how many of you have ever been driving down the road and you're on the highway and you think, I forgot something. Anybody ever feel that way? Alright, I'm not alone. Yes, you think, I know I forgot something and there it was. Now we've got to stop by Walmart when we get there on the way. We've got to pick that up at the store. Perhaps it's something you can do without, but maybe it's something you need. And so, that's just the way things are. But He sent these disciples on their way and told them not to take certain things, things you might think, hey, that's necessary, you need to take that on a trip. But He said, no, I want to be the one to provide it for you. And He said, you're going to trust Me. And that's the truth for Christians that truly want to follow after the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to trust God for a lot of things. And just trust that He's in control and that He knows what He's doing. And there may be certain things He makes us do without but we can trust God that He's going to provide it for us. Because the Bible says that He will provide every need that we have and God shall supply all our need. Christ needs to be our total resource. Make sure we have a vital dependency on the Lord Jesus Christ. And notice lastly, verses four and five, we must have a vital direction. We must have a vital direction. And whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide, and thence depart. Back then they didn't have holiday inns and days in, so they stayed in people's homes. And so he said, you go into someone's house, you're there, abide, and then he said, then leave. When you're done, you're done, and go. And whosoever will not receive you when you go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them. He gave them a vital direction. He said, this is where you need to go, this is what you need to do, and you need to do it. And guess what the disciples did? They did it. And if you notice the next verse, and they departed and went through the towns preaching the gospel and healing everywhere. They did what God told them to do. And they did it all for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. We must have the understanding that God has a plan for each one of us, and we must trust God, get a vision of what it is God wants us to do, and then do it with everything we have. Make sure nothing stands in the way. You say, well, Brother McKeever, I'm up in years. You know, I know I may look, you know, I have white hair. Yesterday my wife made a comment, she didn't think about what she said, and I think it was Richard Lejeune was saying something about, you know, something about my hair. I can't remember what it was. And then she said, well, it was dark before we were married, you know. He said, what does that mean, you know? Does that mean that you changed something? But my wife was a little embarrassed after that. But truth of the matter is, my white just turned, my hair just turns white. That's just the way it works. But the truth of the matter is, is that no matter what age you are, you can still serve the Lord. You can still do what it is God wants you to do. There's something God has for you. That's why you're here. And we're so thankful for all the people involved in all the things in the church and the way the people want to join in and help. And God blesses people that want to serve. And the Lord can bless anyone that wants to serve. And God will show you whatever it is He wants you to serve in, He'll show it to you. He doesn't try to hide or try to completely shade or cover up. But the truth of the matter is, would we be willing to do it if God told us what it was? We must have a vital direction, knowing that this is what God wants me to do, and then do it with everything we have, with allowing the Holy Spirit to control our lives. You know, honestly, truthfully, great leaders come from being great followers. A lot of the great leaders, they think, oh, I just can't, I can't do that, there's nothing I can really do. But these disciples, you know, they were given a great responsibility. The Lord Jesus Christ said, go out, and they just did what they were told, and they did a lot of wonderful things. They accomplished a lot of great things, but you know what, they weren't called apostles until after the Lord Jesus Christ left. They were then sent out. They had a lot of learning to do. Disciples went from being disciples to apostles, but they weren't perfect. They had lots of struggles. but they just simply were doing what God had called them to do, fulfilling God's will for their lives. So we see three things, three reasons, three ways we cannot be a disciple. We cannot be a disciple if we do not love Him supremely. Secondly, we cannot be a disciple if we are not willing to suffer for the Lord Jesus Christ. Thirdly, we cannot be a disciple if we are not willing to forsake everything we have for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. But being a disciple means we must have a vital difference. It means we must have a vital discipline. It means we must have a vital dependency. And then we must also have a vital direction. I hope our desire this morning is to want to be a true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray.