Latest / In the Stillness Podcast / Comfort vs. Calling

Transcript

Comfort vs. Calling · In the Stillness Podcast

• 0:00
  Good morning y'all. It's friendly.
• 0:03
  I'm so excited to be recording another episode and also just
• 0:07
  starting a new week. I'm praying that this time, this
• 0:11
  morning would ground you and really refocus your heart.
• 0:15
  I know we took a little intermission from Matthew
• 0:18
  yesterday, but we're going to be back in Matthew chapter 16
• 0:23
  verses 21 through 28 today. And this is titled Jesus
• 0:27
  Predicts His Death the First Time.
• 0:30
  From that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples that
• 0:35
  he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands
• 0:39
  of the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the
• 0:43
  law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised
• 0:47
  to life. Peter took him aside and began
• 0:51
  to rebuke him. Never, Lord, he said, This shall
• 0:54
  never happen to you. Jesus turned and said to Peter,
• 0:59
  Get behind me, Satan, you are a stumbling block to me.
• 1:03
  You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely
• 1:07
  human concerns. Then Jesus said to his
• 1:10
  disciples, Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny
• 1:14
  themselves, take up their cross and follow me.
• 1:19
  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever
• 1:23
  loses their life for me will find it.
• 1:26
  What goodwill it be for someone to gain the whole world yet
• 1:30
  forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in
• 1:33
  exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to
• 1:37
  come in his Father's glory with His angels, and then He will
• 1:43
  reward each person according to what they have done.
• 1:47
  Truly, I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste
• 1:51
  death before they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom.
• 1:57
  OK, so this is a major shift in our stories that we have been
• 2:03
  going through in Matthew. This is a turning point because
• 2:06
  up until this point, the disciples have been following
• 2:09
  Jesus. They've been witnessing his
• 2:11
  miracles. They believe he's the Messiah,
• 2:14
  but they don't fully understand what kind of Messiah he is.
• 2:19
  They're expecting victorious king and power and maybe even
• 2:24
  political freedom. But in this moment, Jesus is
• 2:28
  sitting them down. And in layman terms, he's like,
• 2:32
  guys, I need y'all to understand what's actually ahead.
• 2:36
  And it's like for the first time, he is so plainly speaking
• 2:41
  about his suffering and his death and his resurrection that
• 2:45
  it's not vague. They are not in the dark
• 2:48
  anymore. This is direct.
• 2:51
  And so this matters because Jesus is not just explaining his
• 2:55
  future. He's preparing the disciples and
• 2:59
  future followers of him for the cost of following him.
• 3:05
  Jesus, he goes first. But what he's saying is if
• 3:10
  you're going to walk with me this road, it is in no way going
• 3:14
  to be easy, but I can assure you it's going to be worth it.
• 3:18
  So as he prepares us, he's he's warning us, there will be
• 3:22
  suffering, there will be loss. There's going to be moments that
• 3:28
  you're going to have to die to yourself and it's going to hurt.
• 3:32
  And this is figuratively, but also for some believers, it's
• 3:36
  going to be a physical death. But on the other side of that,
• 3:41
  there is new life. There is a greater reward than
• 3:45
  anything that this world has or can even offer.
• 3:50
  So we see Peter. When he hears this, he reacts
• 3:55
  very emotionally. He is lovingly trying to protect
• 3:59
  Jesus, his friend. And even though it sounds loving
• 4:04
  and logical, Jesus responds very firmly.
• 4:08
  It honestly sounded very harsh to me at first to just hear him
• 4:13
  say, get behind me, Satan. But Jesus is speaking this way
• 4:18
  to his devoted friend. He loves Peter.
• 4:20
  He's not attacking Peter, but he is addressing the enemy that's
• 4:24
  behind his thought. And we think back to, OK, Jesus.
• 4:30
  He had been tempted by Satan in the wilderness.
• 4:34
  He was offered all the power in the world and the possessions
• 4:37
  that he could think of without the cross.
• 4:41
  But here Satan is using the same tactic again.
• 4:46
  He's just using it through Peter, someone who is close to
• 4:49
  Jesus and y'all. That's still how the enemy works
• 4:53
  today. He wants us to think only from
• 4:56
  our human point of view. He doesn't want us thinking
• 5:00
  through gods, what is quickest or OK, what's most comfortable
• 5:05
  for me right now? What brings the immediate relief
• 5:09
  or answer? But This is why we need to
• 5:13
  recognize the enemy's schemes so that we can rebuke them in the
• 5:17
  moment, so that we can resist Him and intentionally pray to
• 5:22
  see life through God's perspective, not our own.
• 5:26
  So now I want to go into what it means to truly carry your cross.
• 5:30
  As the Scripture references the crucifixion, this was not
• 5:34
  symbolic, it was real. And to carry your cross, this
• 5:39
  meant carrying your cross publicly throughout the streets
• 5:43
  in the town to your own execution and death site.
• 5:48
  So when Jesus is saying take up your cross, he's making it so
• 5:52
  clear, following him, it requires true dedication.
• 5:57
  There is no turning back. There's no partial commitment,
• 6:01
  guys. You're either all in or you're
• 6:03
  not. Because think about it, you
• 6:06
  would not give your entire life, you would not die for someone or
• 6:10
  something if you only feel halfway about them following
• 6:14
  Jesus. It means giving your whole life,
• 6:18
  all of your work in life to serving him, not hiding your
• 6:22
  faith, but you boldly represent him.
• 6:25
  And we see this in Romans 116 when Paul says, I am not ashamed
• 6:31
  of the gospel because it is, because it is the power of God
• 6:35
  that brings salvation to everyone who believes.
• 6:38
  And this seems like just such a plain thing to say, like, OK,
• 6:43
  what's the impact behind it? But Paul is emphasizing he is
• 6:46
  not ashamed he will suffer for this gospel because he believes
• 6:51
  it is worth it and it is true. And so moving on to, OK, what
• 6:57
  does this look like practically living for an eternal
• 7:02
  perspective, trying to protect your comfort or your convenience
• 7:07
  in this life, it can actually cause you to miss the very
• 7:12
  purpose and true meaning of your life, which is to serve God and
• 7:16
  to spend eternity forever with him.
• 7:20
  Y'all, this life, it is just the prologue.
• 7:23
  We're just getting started. It's an introduction to the main
• 7:27
  story that's to come. And so when you live for
• 7:30
  eternity, your values, your priorities, your efforts, your
• 7:35
  goals, right now, they naturally begin to align with gods.
• 7:40
  So I just want all of us to ask ourselves right now, am I living
• 7:45
  with an eternal perspective or is it more of a Yolo, you only
• 7:50
  live once mentality because that is a phrase we hear so much in
• 7:55
  this world today. But that is not, that's not
• 7:58
  really what the Bible is teaching us.
• 8:02
  You were bought with a price. And this is backed up in First
• 8:06
  Corinthians 619 through 20. You are not your own.
• 8:11
  You were bought at a price. So honor God with your body,
• 8:15
  everything, your mind, your body, your heart, your life,
• 8:19
  it's borrowed breath, and what you collect here on this earth,
• 8:25
  it's going to stay here. But really, who you become in
• 8:29
  Christ and who you point to him, people that you preach the
• 8:34
  gospel with and share the truth with, who one day end up in
• 8:38
  heaven. This all echoes into eternity.
• 8:42
  So I just, I don't want us to exhaust ourselves with chasing
• 8:46
  money and rewards and these titles and fame that ultimately
• 8:51
  does not matter at all. When you're gone, your soul,
• 8:55
  that's what matters. And so maybe it looks like
• 8:59
  having fewer possessions here, but a deeper, truer rooted
• 9:04
  faith. And that is going to be far more
• 9:07
  valuable than anything having more things on this earth at the
• 9:12
  cost of a weaker faith. So just my final reminder.
• 9:17
  That can be sobering, but I think it really helps put this
• 9:21
  message into perspective. Jesus at the end, he is, he's
• 9:26
  preparing us in foreshadowing, the Son of Man will return.
• 9:30
  He is the Son of Man. He's coming back, and so he's
• 9:33
  going to come back as a judge. He's going to evaluate how we
• 9:37
  used our opportunities, how we stewarded our responsibilities,
• 9:41
  how we exercised the gifts that he gave to us.
• 9:45
  And this is not to condemn those who belong to him, but it's to
• 9:49
  really show what we lived for. And so that's why Scripture, we
• 9:55
  see it so often, tell us fear God.
• 9:59
  But fearing God, it doesn't mean living fearful and afraid.
• 10:05
  It means living aware. And when you fear God, you begin
• 10:09
  to desire that every aspect of your life honors His Holiness,
• 10:14
  Your choices, your words, your work, your relationships, y'all,
• 10:19
  even your thoughts. It shapes how you live when
• 10:22
  nobody else is watching because you care so much more about
• 10:26
  God's approval than man's. So your final reflection that I
• 10:31
  would love y'all to just sit with today is are you spending
• 10:34
  more time thinking about God or about what's in this world?
• 10:39
  Things, possessions, money, your image, your body, your comfort,
• 10:45
  whatever it is, We need to be spending more time just thinking
• 10:50
  about the Lord and what truly matters and why we're here.
• 10:53
  So I'm going to close in prayer real quick if you'll bow your
• 10:56
  heads or just reflect on these words.
• 11:00
  Dear God, thank you for your word of truth.
• 11:05
  Thank you that it discerns our thoughts and intentions and it
• 11:10
  refines us even when it confronts us.
• 11:14
  Would you realign our thinking when we start to shift toward
• 11:19
  what is convenient and comfortable over what is
• 11:22
  obedient? Would you truly teach us what it
• 11:26
  means to deny ourselves daily, to take up our cross, and to
• 11:30
  truly follow You? God, give us clarity to see life
• 11:35
  with with an eternal perspective.
• 11:38
  Would you remind us that our lives are not our own, that we
• 11:41
  have been bought with the price, the price of your Son in his
• 11:45
  precious blood? Lord, renew our faith.
• 11:48
  Would you anchor our hearts so firmly in the word of truth and
• 11:53
  make us bold ambassadors of your Kingdom?
• 11:57
  Jesus, we trust you with our full lives.
• 12:00
  We give you our desires, our futures and our eternity.
• 12:06
  In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
• 12:08
  OK, well hoping that this episode encourages you guys
• 12:12
  today and that y'all live with an eternal perspective and I
• 12:17
  can't wait to see y'all on the next episode.