Matthew 16:24-28 Follow that Baby

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called

Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Well, good morning, everybody.

I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, as Dave said, and I want to start off by welcoming you to this gathering.

I'm just a couple days out from Christmas, so how many of you still have a little shopping to do? Oh, everybody's doing really good this year, so awesome.

I hope that you are here with the purpose of connecting with God and connecting with each other.

The reality is you could have sat at home and listened to a sermon online or something like that, but instead, I recognize that you are here because I believe in part you value worshiping together in community, and so I'm glad that you've taken that extra step because that's one of the things that God calls us to, is gathering together in community.

So here at Recast, it's our goal that everyone would be growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service, and I hope that this morning your faith is stretched as you see

God more clearly by meeting him in his word. That's part of why we dig into his word each and every

Sunday that we gather together. The title of my sermon this morning is a little tongue -in -cheek. It's Follow That Baby.

It's an intentionally absurd title because babies really don't go anywhere. They're not too hard to follow.

I don't know if you've noticed that before, but that's what I'm working at over this holiday, and really this holiday season, to remind us that the baby didn't remain a baby, but he grew up to be a king.

He grew up to be our teacher. He grew to be the sacrifice to cover our sins.

He grew to place a call on each and every one of our lives to follow hard after him.

So if you follow that baby, he will lead you to forgiveness. Follow that baby and he will lead you to wisdom.

Follow that baby and he will lead you to an abundant and eternal life. Follow that baby and he will bring you swiftly into the arms of his heavenly father.

In our text this morning, Jesus calls us all to come and join him in a new way of living, and in a sense, it's a new way of living that equates to a new way of dying.

He calls all of us to live according to his mission, the mission that he came to fulfill here on this earth, a mission of sacrifice, a mission of self -denial, a mission of choosing

God's will, and for each and every one of us, a mission that incorporates following in the footsteps of our king.

So it's an urgent calling because the days are only getting closer when he will come again. We're here to reflect a little bit this morning on his first coming.

At the same time, I want to encourage you to allow the Advent season, the time Advent is a big word, a fancy word that means coming, his arrival, and we celebrate that every year, but let the echoes of that reverberate in your mind to the fact that certainly there was a first Advent, but there's also a second

Advent that's coming, and it's an Advent that we look forward to, that he will come again and usher in his eternal kingdom.

So let's open our Bibles, if you're not already there, to Matthew chapter 16. We're going to be looking at verses 24 through 28.

So again, Matthew 16, 24 through 28, not the most Christmassy of texts, and at the same time, from our

Lord, that baby, born in a manger, raised up in Palestine during that age, to declare these words to us in Matthew 16, 24 through 28.

Then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his own soul?

For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.

Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the

Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the gift of your

Son. I thank you that you sent him here in such humble means the first time, in a way that would bring about salvation for many, in a way that in his humility, he would come and show us the way, and not just merely show us the way, but be the way of reconciliation with you.

And so, Father, in that place of being a reconciled people, a people who are forgiven, a people who are set free, I pray that our voices would rise up together in unison to you as the redeemed people here in this community, as those who are seeking to honor you, are seeking to deny ourselves, to take up our cross and to follow you daily.

And I pray that that reality would strike us, even over this holiday season, as there's so many pressures and so many thoughts and so many plans and so many things pressing in on us.

I pray that this morning might prove to be a pause for just a moment to reflect on why you sent your

Son, Jesus, and the claim that he places on each one of our lives and the calling that he places on each of us.

And I pray that that would reverberate in our minds and echo out into our lives and transform us and change us, even over this holiday week.

I ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, thanks a lot to Dave and the band for leading us in worship.

I hope you were able to worship through those songs this morning. And remember to make yourself at home here.

If at any time you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donuts, feel free to take advantage of that. You're not going to distract me if you get up.

Or even if you just get uncomfortable and you need to stretch out in the back. Our goal is to keep our focus on God's Word over the remaining of our time here.

And I would also ask that you do me a favor and just open your Bibles or your app to Matthew chapter 16 verses 24 through 28 so that you have that in front of you as we're going to walk through that text and look at it together.

And so that wasn't just Bible reading earlier, but that's the text that I believe God has laid on us this morning for our benefit, for our blessing, and to grow us in faith.

And so the flow of the last two sermons has been to clarify the mission of Jesus.

That's really what Matthew chapter 16 is all about. And two weeks ago we saw that Peter boldly declared that Jesus is the

Messiah and the Son of God. And that it was declared in that text that that was a gift from the Father, that that revelation, that the reality of the identity of who

Jesus Christ truly is, that he was the chosen one, prophesied all the way back from the time of the

Garden of Eden, all the way back to when God was talking to Adam and Eve after they fell and he said to the woman, he said to Eve, one of your offspring will be chosen to crush the head of the serpent.

The serpent will bite his heel and wound him, but he will defeat and crush the ancient serpent

Satan. And so that prophecy all the way from the very first, all the way through the Old Testament, that he was declared to be the

Messiah and the Son of God by Peter a couple of weeks ago. Then last week Jesus clarified what it meant then to be

Messiah. What does the Messiah do? He had to correct some of the false and fuzzy notions because as humans, our belief is that God exists to serve us.

That's our natural fallen tendency. And so the assumption was that Messiah was going to come and take care of all of my problems, all of my issues, all of my oppressors.

And he was going to come in and set up his earthly kingdom. All of the Jews thought that he was going to come and take care of them and push out the

Romans and make all of that work. So last week Jesus clarified to his disciples what the actual mission of the

Messiah was. He said, I must go to Jerusalem, I must suffer and be tortured there, I will die there, and I will be raised to new life three days later.

So that's where we've been. And then this week he's going to call us to enter into the same mission as he had.

He's going to invite us all to be a part of his purposes here on this earth.

He's going to say, hey, and that's not just for me, but those who would be those who follow the

Messiah will also be called into a similar ministry to me. And so what we really are seeing here in this text, a great

Christmas message, a call to die. A call to die may seem like a very insensitive and maybe even culturally ignorant message.

I can imagine that someone is sitting out there right now thinking, really, Don? It's Christmas. Can't we talk about shepherds?

Can't we talk about angels singing in the sky? Can't we talk about the little baby in the manger? Why, Don, can't you just conform?

But that baby was born with one focus on one mission. It was a mission to bring reconciliation between the creator and his created, between the heavenly father and us.

And that is a mission that is worth all of our time. We don't get to take time off from that mission.

I am a one -trick pony here, folks. I've got one message to bring you. It is the gospel and the gospel alone.

That is what I have to offer as a spokesman for God and one who is taking apart his word and bringing it to us.

It's the gospel through and through the good news that God sent his son to die for people who could not take care of themselves and to rescue us from our sins, to provide forgiveness by dying on the cross for us.

That is the mission with which he came. You see, it was a mission that started, by the way, way before Christmas, way before that first Christmas.

But it winds its way certainly into Bethlehem, but it doesn't stay there for long, and we shouldn't tarry there long either.

It's a mission that moves the baby into manhood and ever steadily towards that cross. His mission was to die for us and to call us to come and die with him, that in the end we might have true life and have it abundantly.

And so in verse 24, Jesus tells his disciples the way of true life. Here at Christmastime, we've got a chance to focus in on this and to see what does true life look like?

What does it look like going out into 2019 with real life? And he says this, if anyone wants to come after Jesus and follow him, they are being called to a threefold mission, deny self, take up your cross, and follow him.

And so let's look at this first thing that true life really is composed of. He says, anyone who wants to be my disciple, anybody who wants to come after me, says

Jesus, is called to deny themselves. My goodness, that is a forgotten message in our current time in history, is it not?

Is that forgotten where we live? Deny yourself, is that an all -American battle cry?

Absolutely not. It's a crazy thing that Jesus is saying here.

The very notion of denying self, wow, we're touching on Christmas here, aren't we? The very notion of denying self is an affront to much of what our

Western culture stands for. Think about that phrase, just let it roll over your mind as I'm talking. Deny self.

That's us, that's you, that's me. It means that Jesus is calling each and every one of us, hear me carefully, this is a very countercultural message, but we have to grasp that this is what our

Lord and Savior is telling us. He's calling each and every one of us to be untrue to your nature, untrue to your passions and your desires.

Is that counter to our culture today? You better believe it. It's the exact opposite message that our media is telling us, that our artists are telling us, that our movies are telling us, that the

TV and everything that we take in is telling us. Be untrue. Jesus says here in essence, deny yourself, be untrue to your nature.

Be untrue to the impulses and the passions that rage within you. Each one of us has something in our nature that must be denied to follow him.

Oh, there it is, yeah. It's like, did I say something? No, it's the cake. It's actually our sin nature that permeates every area and aspect of our lives that must be denied.

And that sin nature produces, of course we all know it, we all live in this flesh, sin nature produces sinful desires within us.

We have an emotional response, each one of us, a unique makeup within us, an emotional sinful nature that draws us into specific sets of sins and temptations.

And it's unique to each one of us, but all of us deal with that same makeup, that same sin nature.

And so the one who comes to Jesus as a disciple and desires to follow him, which I hope is all of us in this room, we ought to know at the beginning that the mission that we're embarking on is one of self -denial.

A person with no intention, by the way, of denying themselves, a person who would tell me I have absolutely zero intention of saying no to any of my impulses or anything within me,

I have to be true to myself first, I would suggest to you that that person ought to consider if they ever really want to follow

Jesus at all. What it is, is often I think many have set out to fulfill their own desires and invited

Jesus along to help them in this lifelong pursuit of self. That takes a lot of analysis of our own hearts to determine, is that me?

And I'd encourage everybody in this room to ask that question this morning. Is that me? Have I invited Jesus along for the ride?

And as soon as things get comfortable, well, he can't get out if he's not willing to help. That's often the case for us.

And I'd caution you that if that's you, come and throw it all at the feet of Jesus this morning.

Maybe Christmas would be a time of significant change for you where you'd say, I've been doing religion, I've been doing this me thing for too long and what

I really need is I need a him thing. I need to really give it all over to him this year.

But secondly, so the first is deny yourself. How many of you think that's a tough message? That's a pretty tough message right off the bat.

It's very convicting to me this week. By the way, the hard thing about being a preacher is that it always rings hollow in my ears as I'm standing up here telling you to deny yourself when

I know the areas that I don't. And so it is us, the word of God speaking to us.

I am not standing up here as somebody who has got this nailed down, but man, this was a convicting message to me this week that I need to deny myself as well.

The second thing that Jesus calls anyone who wants to be his disciple is to, of course we know, take up his cross, each one to take up their cross.

And that's become a proverbial statement in our culture and denying self is not doing what you want to do, so think of it that way.

When you deny yourself, you're not doing the things that your heart wants to do, but taking up your cross is doing what you don't want to do.

So it's the active part of it, doing something that you don't want to do. Jesus himself, by the way, I want to suggest to you from scripture, did not want, want to go to the cross.

As a matter of fact, the night before, he literally asked his father in prayer. The night of his betrayal, he begged and pleaded and said,

Father, if there's any other way, if you can take this cup from me, if you can let this torment and this torture pass and there's some other way that we can redeem humanity, could we go that way instead?

He was in turmoil inside and he was sweating and he was praying and he said, is there any other way?

You see, he was willing and at the end of that prayer, it's beautiful because he said, by the way, God, not my will but yours be done.

If this is what you will, we're going to go for it. He was willing, but he wasn't wanting it and in this sense, we ought to think of the cross that way and we ought to correct the chintzy, cheap notion of my cross to bear.

We think of it, I often hear it used in terms of a passive disability or an unwanted set of circumstances or a really tough boss to work for or, you know,

I didn't get as big of a Christmas bonus this year as I wanted or whatever you might think of and be tempted to say is your cross to bear, the chances are that we're getting it wrong most of the time.

Our cross to bear is a calling to serve others. That is your cross, to do that for others which is not comfortable, to do that which is inconveniencing you, to do that which is, at the end, sacrificial for you.

The cross is all about sacrifice, doing for the other.

Our cross to bear is bringing the gospel to a world that will respond with hostility to the good news that we bring to them.

Our cross to bear is love for the unlovable and those who would never return the love in exchange.

Our cross to bear is doing the good that we know we ought to do even when we may not want to do it.

But the calling for everyone who would come along with Jesus and his mission is not just merely denying self and not then just only carrying the cross in service of others.

There's a lot of self -made religion in that, isn't there? If all the message that I have for you is deny yourself and serve others, well, anybody can do that and it's kind of a good message for the world, right?

Shouldn't everybody do that? What makes Christianity different? What makes it unique? The third thing that he calls them to do, do these things and follow me.

We are Christ followers. At the end of the day, it is in relationship to Jesus Christ that these things matter in our lives, that they take on form and they take on flesh.

Calls anyone who wants to come after him, to be his disciple, to follow him. You see, the life of the follower of Jesus is one of emulation and imitation.

It's one of living like Jesus lived, doing the things that Jesus did. How many of you remember the WWJD bracelets?

What would Jesus do? There's some jokes about that now and stuff. I've seen a couple things even on commercials and stuff about it kind of coming back in a different form.

But that idea of living like he lived, asking how would he live, I mean, it gets so far as would he drive an

SUV? I don't know. What would he eat? What would he order? I mean, you could really get your head into a tailspin on this one, but don't go there.

The fact of the matter is we are called to follow the principles by which he lived his life.

We are to love like he loved, to sacrifice like he sacrificed, to speak like he spoke, to value what he valued, to live like he lived, and to die like he died.

The calling to anyone who would follow this baby is to deny self, that is, don't do the sin that you want to do.

Take up your cross, that is, serve in ways that you don't want to, and follow him, and that is, set your course according to his pace and his leading.

Don't get out ahead of him and don't lag behind. Don't wander off the track, off into other things, but keep on his heels.

When he speeds up, we speed up. When he slows down, he slows down. When he stops for a break, we stop for a break.

Follow him. Let him be your guide. Let him be the one who sets the course for your life.

Really in verse 24, we have the meat of the text. It's the core of what he's trying to say here, and this is the calling that Jesus is setting on all of us this morning, to take up your cross, to deny yourself, to take up your cross, and to follow him.

But verses 25 through 28 now give us reasons to take this calling seriously. Why should we do these things?

And he's going to give some reasons. In verse 25, we find the first reason for us to take up this call to follow

Jesus, and it's expressed in a paradox that many of us have lived long enough to experience in our own lives. We could have said this with him, and that is that the more you try to save your own life, the more you try to gather for yourself, the more you try to fix yourself, the more you lose it.

The more you lose the very thing you're grasping for. Jesus is stating something very profound here.

A life lived without any self -denial, without any sacrificial service, without following Jesus is a life lived only unto itself and for itself.

The person who seeks to save his own life is the person who lives for the fleeting pleasures of this world. Riches, fame, beauty, power, health, wealth, all of these things will fall flat in your life.

And not only will they fall flat in this life, but Jesus is warning, is warning all of us about the reality that the one who would only live for themselves in this life, in the end, will lose that very life that they sought so hard to keep in the life that is to come.

The call to be a follower of Jesus Christ, by Jesus, found in these verses, is unfortunately quite foreign to the concept of following Jesus in many modern churches today.

Many preachers today would say, come follow Jesus so you can get ahead in life, so your business will go well, so that your family will go well, so that everything will turn out great.

Come, come and just add Jesus to your life. And if you add him to your already charmed life, man, life will just get a little bit sweeter for you.

Mmm, just a little bit of my Jesus. And Jesus says, deny the desires of your nature.

Take up your cross. Hey, recast, let's go die together, says Jesus. Let's go die together.

And whoever will lose his life for the sake of Jesus Christ will find it.

Now whoever will lose their life, now there are all kinds of martyrs out there in this world, but he doesn't say anybody who loses their life will find it, he says whoever will lose their life for my sake will find it.

Who are you living for? Who are you dying for? Because there's a fine thread between living and dying, did you know that?

Because you could just as well say, I'm living right now, and you could just as well say, I'm dying right now. Do you know we're all on the way?

It's just different stages of the progress. We don't even know where we're at in that stage, do we? And so who are you living for?

Who are you dying for? Whoever would give up this life, whoever would lose all of the riches that the world would offer you, everything that it has to offer, whoever would sacrifice all of that, that's a glorious, glorious thing.

It's a foreign concept, though, often in this day and age. But whoever will lose his life for the sake of Jesus Christ will find it.

And when you find it, you will find it to be abundant, eternal life that he returns to you.

It's a small sacrifice of surrendering a self -fulfilled life in the here and now in exchange for an eternal life without suffering or pain.

Would you call that a great exchange? I'd say that's a great exchange. And that is what

Jesus goes on to say in verse 26 by asking two questions, and these two questions form the second reason to take up this call to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow him.

And that's just simply the value of your soul, the value of an eternal soul. What good is the abundance of this world, he in essence asks?

What good would it be to have the entire world for 80 years and then lose it all upon your death? What is the worth?

What could you possibly pay in exchange for your own soul? All the fame, all the power, all the material wealth of this earth is not worth your eternal soul that will go on forever and ever.

Jesus is here making a case for enduring as his followers. So in essence, he's giving us a reason to live, a reason to live for him.

Why sacrifice for others in this life? Why give up your own plans to take up your cross and follow him?

Why deny your own sinful urges and temptations? Because the pleasures of sin, the joy of fame, or the comfort of serving ourselves cannot compare to the glorious future that he has in store for those who are his.

And that's part and parcel of the next reason found in verse 27. The son of man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his father.

I love that picture of this second advent. As we're here celebrating the first advent and remembering the way he came the first time, how many of you know the second time is going to be different?

Did you know that already? Have you studied that? We went through the book of Revelation a couple of years ago. You can go back online and listen to that series, but man, oh man, he's going to come different.

It's going to be different when he comes back the second time. He came the first time in lowly humility to serve himself up as a sacrifice, and he will come back a second time to set up his kingdom with authority and with power, removing all of the oppressors, removing all of the enemies, including sin and death, and ushering forth a glorious, beautiful, eternal kingdom with those who want to be with him.

It'll be like a ... By the way, he's going to come back, according to verse 27, in multiple texts throughout the

New Testament, he's going to come back bringing gifts. He's going to come back bringing rewards for those who are his, and that's part of the motivation to deny yourself, to take up your cross, and to follow him.

How many of you thought about gifts a little bit in the last couple of weeks? Little bit of gift thinking, little bit of gift buying, a couple of us still have a couple of things we need to get out there, especially the guys, right?

I didn't see many guys' hands when I asked you if you had more shopping, but you were just being dishonest, right? I mean, guys, you still got a good 24 hours to even start your list, right?

I mean, not at Amazon, it's too late, but, oh no, some guy's like, huh, what am

I going to do? We've been thinking about gifts a little bit lately, and the fact of the matter is, it's very unpopular in Christian circles to talk in terms of God giving gifts to us, about that being the rewards, being a motivation, but my goodness, in Scripture, it is held out often for us as a motivation.

He will come and he will reward his children. It will be like a cosmic Christmas morning for those who are his.

You see, at the inauguration of his great and eternal kingdom, King Jesus will reward those who have denied themselves.

He will reward those who took up their crosses and served others in lowly humility. He will reward those who followed hard after him when all the world took another more easily traveled path.

He will come to repay each one of his people according to their deeds, and you probably read it as judgment when you first read it, but that's not what he's talking about.

He's talking about rewarding. Rewards in the kingdom are indeed based on the things that we did and didn't do, but hear me carefully, church, the entrance into the kingdom is only ever based upon grace, a grace that comes through faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

That's how you get into the kingdom, but man, the rewards are based on how you lived for him after you came to faith in Christ, and that's a motivation.

Let that be a motivation for you. Don't let grace take away your motivation for the shining face of your savior looking down on you with delight and rewarding you.

Jesus is a king who rewards his people. He is kind and generous, and I believe this honestly that no deed of self -sacrifice among his people will go unnoticed on that day.

He sees it. Moms of toddlers, he sees it. Those of you who are serving in tough places, he sees it.

Those of you who are sacrificing day in and day out at a thankless job, he sees it. Those of you who are loving a spouse and sticking with your vows when it is hard, he sees it.

He knows, and he will bring his rewards with him. And the final verse spells out an urgency for his followers to get with the program quickly.

There was an urgency in that day and age. There's an urgency that he's trying to pass along to us as well. That's why this really strange verse there, truly

I say to you there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the son of man coming in his kingdom. Why would he say something so cryptic and strange?

I don't think that's a strange passage. Didn't they die before he came back again?

Is that what he's getting at here? And it can be a little bit confusing. But what he's telling his immediate followers is that his kingdom was coming soon and that within the lifetime of some of them, they would see the son of man coming into his kingdom.

Well, what did he mean by that? And we're not exactly sure of all that Jesus had in mind when he said that phrase, coming into his kingdom.

But just the things that his disciples did see after this prediction in their lifetime before they died showed the value and importance of them coming into this program of recognizing that the

Messiah was one who would die, not one who would bring in a kingdom, an earthly kingdom and kick out the

Romans. He's basically saying here in this verse, you need to get this now because my kingdom is starting.

It's on its way in and you need to understand the nature of that kingdom now. You need to understand that it's not about your riches.

You need to understand that it's not about your positions. It's not about the Romans. It's not about Israel being reestablished as a nation in the here and now.

It is about an eternal kingdom that will go on forever and ever and ever. And so he did some amazing things after this that were all part of his kingdom breaking into the current history.

The very next passage, some of his disciples will behold his glory in the transfiguration where he peels back the curtain and shows who he is in the cosmic way and they're blinded by his glory and the light of just his essence shining through.

Some would be present at his crucifixion where the king made the final sacrifice and forgiveness was brought to all of his people.

Some would behold the empty tomb where the promise of resurrection comes to us. Some would see him ascend into heaven where he would sit down at the right hand of the almighty father observing him going to be with his father and the king overall.

It's possible that Jesus had all of these events mashed up into the idea of what some of the disciples would see before they tasted death.

But regardless of what he actually had in mind at the end of the day, he is promoting an urgency about us getting with his program, not encouraging him to join our program.

And the main thing we need to take from this is that the same urgency that Jesus placed on those early disciples is the same urgency that he would place on all of us.

Don't wait until tomorrow to deny yourself to take up your cross and to follow him. Don't even wait for the week until 2019 starts.

So you can make your, how many of you make, oh I can't think of the word, New Year's resolutions, thank you guys.

I should have had that, I don't know where that went. But how many of you make New Year's resolutions? You do that kind of thing. All right, excellent.

Make all year resolutions. Let me just encourage you that don't wait until the start of a new year. There's nothing magical about the first of the year.

I know that we need, sometimes we need routines, we need kickstarts and stuff like that. But my goodness, go ahead and make that plan to exercise and then if you fall off the wagon, it's not too late, you don't have to wait until next year to do that again.

Do you know what I'm saying? It's not like February struck and I haven't done my goal, I gotta wait until next January.

Do you get what I'm saying? In terms of spiritually, I think that there's some metaphor there about this whole notion about special days to get it right.

Every day is a new day. Every morning you wake up and your eyes look at the ceiling and you're like, ah, it's a new day.

It's another day to praise God. It's another day to deny yourself, to take up your cross, serve others with gladness and with joy and with humility and follow hard after your

Savior. Every day is a new chance for that urgency to take us.

So here at the end, as we enter this Christmas week, let me ask you, what are you shooting for?

Jesus didn't come to make your life comfortable and to give us a Merry Christmas every year, something to celebrate and put stars on the top of trees and give gifts.

Jesus came to call us to deny ourselves, to take up our crosses, to lose our lives for him.

Are you clamoring? Are you clinging to this life? Are you just, with tooth and nail, clinging to your life?

He's warning us that that kind of living, you're going to lose it. Trying to make life something that it can never really be.

If you're here and you've got a deep dissatisfaction with your life, I would suggest to you to look carefully at this, because is it just possible that you're trying to squeeze something out of life that it could never give?

I mean, many of us, I think, try to squeeze the eternal glory of our hearts out of a marriage or out of a relationship with someone or a career, and it can never, it's like trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip.

You're never going to get it because it's not what it's designed for. You will crush a marriage by trying to make it your ultimate thing.

You will crush a career if you expect it to give you the ultimate satisfaction that your heart longs for.

You will crush this life if you expect life to give you what you desire, because what you need is you need

God. This 90 -year spin on this cold ball of dust spinning around the sun will be a futile trip if you don't connect with God in a way that is denying self, serving others, taking up your cross, and following Him.

Clinging to this life isn't it, but losing this life of self -fulfillment for Him, it is the difference in eternity.

When you came to Christ, were you called to count the cost, or were you sold on a list of benefits?

And let me encourage all of us that in our message to the world around us, what are we calling people to?

A list of benefits? Are we saying, count the cost? I mean, my goodness, take a second.

Take a second and think it through before you just throw all in with Jesus and take Him along for your ride.

Are you willing to get on His ride? That's what we're talking about. So as we come to communion this morning, let's take a little more time than usual to consider the reasons why we do this.

On the night Jesus was betrayed, this is a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 11, 23 -26. But on the night

Jesus was betrayed, He took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. And in the same way, He also took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is a new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. And so as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the

Lord's death until He comes. You see, we eat this cracker and we drink this cup of juice each week to remember and to proclaim.

It's a remembrance and it's a proclamation. We remember that He came to live among us.

We remember that He came to live a sinless life for us. We remember that He died for our sins.

And in taking this cracker and juice, everyone who stands in line to go back there to get this cracker and juice, what you are doing is you are proclaiming that you yourself, you are an individual who was saved by the sacrifice of another.

You're a needy individual and you're proclaiming that. I'm a person who is needy in my core and I needed to be rescued.

I couldn't save myself. There's a humbling that comes in this process of going to the tables.

So if you recognize that Jesus is the Messiah sent from God and you've asked Him to forgive your sins, then please come to one of the tables during this next song and take communion in remembrance of what

He's done and in proclamation that you are one who needed a Savior. And then let's launch out in the remainder of this

Christmas season denying ourselves, taking up our cross in humble service to others, and following hard after our

Savior. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your grace and your mercy that has sent

Jesus in so much humility and so much kindness and so much mercy the first time. And Father, I just know in my heart over this

Advent season, in prayer and in study and in reading, it's just ignited my heart and hopes to even just pray, come

Lord Jesus, come. We look forward to the second Advent as we live in this time between Advents now.

Father, I pray that you would help each one of us to really identify in our hearts where we're at in terms of denying ourselves, where we're at in terms of taking up our cross in humble service to those around us, and where we're at in terms of following you.

And Father, if there's anyone here who is living a life solely serving themselves, I pray that today might be a day of transformation, that today might be a day that they would pray and say,

Jesus, I need you. I leave it all to you and I ask you to come in and to rescue me and to save me, to give me new life, to give me forgiveness, and to be my

King. Father, for those who are here who have made that decision already, I ask that you would help us to walk out in bold sacrifice, to walk out willingly to die with you.

Because you, in you, you're the only one in whom life is found. Father, I thank you for Christmas.

I thank you for the opportunity that we have to go out from this place and to celebrate in a variety of ways. Father, I recognize that some here are even discouraged this time of the year, that it just never quite matches up to the hype, and just in a couple of weeks it'll all be off the table.

Father, I pray that you would help us to not look for more in this event than what it can provide, but we would turn to you who will go with us throughout this year.