Highlands Fellowship Experiencing Life with Jesus: Radical Obedience Transcript
0:00 Well, hey everybody and welcome to Highlands Fellowship where our mission is to help people experience life with Jesus and we are so thankful that you are here no matter where you're joining us from. We're glad that you're here with us today and we're excited about what God is doing. I do just want to let you know right here at the beginning of the service that we do have quite a few things at the end of the service that we're going to be doing. And so when we get to the end, don't run out too quickly. Make sure you stay till the end because I believe God's going to do some amazing things and it's going to be very powerful toward the end. And so thank you for being here. I'm excited about what God's doing and I want you to make yourself feel right at home because as we like to say around here, Highlands is home and so welcome home today. And so like I said, at the end of the service, we're going to be receiving communion together. And so if you're joining us online or on TV, I want you to go ahead and think about what you might be able to get that resembles bread or juice to take communion with us and then we'll have that special time at the end of the message. But today we're actually in week five of a six part series called Experiencing Life with Jesus that we do get directly from our mission. And what we've done is we've learned how we can actually experience life with Jesus. And as we do, we must have a total dependence upon him.
1:18 We need an unwavering faith. We've got to learn to have an unyielding resistance to our spiritual enemy. And then last week we learned about having this pure love, loving people the way that Jesus has. And this is a deep love from our hearts and it's something that we do. In this message, we're going to be talking about radical obedience. And so in Luke chapter nine, verse 23, this is what it says. "Then he said to them all, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." Now, that is a very, very powerful statement. And I want you to think about what Jesus is actually saying in that verse. He doesn't say that following him means adding a little bit of religion into your life and asking him to help you accomplish all the things that you already want to do. Now he says following him means denying yourself, taking up your cross daily, and following where he leads. Following Jesus means that his will actually becomes more important than our preferences. His direction becomes more important than our comfort. And his calling becomes more important than our desire to stay in control.
2:38 And if we want to understand what kind of obedience, what that really looks like, we don't have to look any further than Jesus himself. So what I want to do today as we talk about experiencing life with Jesus, I want to look back on the life of Jesus and then that kind of that final week of his life here on earth. So Jesus is entering into Jerusalem. He's riding on a donkey. The crowd is absolutely going crazy. People are cheering for him. They're shouting "Hosanna!" Like they're laying their coats down on the ground in front of him as he's moving along. They're celebrating him as the Messiah. And this is the moment that many of them had been waiting for. They believe that he is the king that has arrived and they are welcoming him with open arms. But Jesus knows something that the crowd doesn't fully understand. Like he knows that the road into Jerusalem is actually leading him toward a cross. He knows that before this week is over, the celebration will actually turn into condemnation. The cheers will turn into cries of "Crucify him! Crucify him!" And the same city welcoming him as king will actually become the place where they put him to death. And here's what gets me.
3:56 Is that Jesus kept going. He kept going. He knew what was coming and he kept moving toward it. He wasn't confused about where this road would lead him. Like he wasn't caught off guard by the suffering that was ahead. Jesus understood the very reason that he came into this world and that was to give his life for us. And even knowing the cost, he was committed to doing what his father had sent him to do. Now think about that for just a moment. Most of us are pretty good at obeying God whenever obedience lines up with what we already want. You know, we can follow him when the decision makes sense, right? We can follow him when the timing is convenient or when we can see how everything is going to work out. But what happens when obedience actually costs us something? What happens when following Jesus means letting go of our plans and choosing forgiveness when we would rather hold on to resentment or taking a step of faith when we're afraid or doing what's right when it would be easier to go the wrong way? That's where obedience becomes real. And that's why we see Jesus in our example.
5:13 He doesn't only teach obedience. He lived it. He demonstrated it for us. He didn't just tell us to take up our cross and follow him. He walked the road of obedience all the way to the cross himself. He did that himself. So listen to how Jesus explains his own mission in John chapter 6 verse 38. He said this, "For I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me." That is the heart of radical obedience. Jesus was not living to accomplish his own agenda. He came to do the will of his father. And when that will led him towards suffering, towards sacrifice, toward ultimately the cross, he remained faithful. Jesus chose obedience over comfort. He chose surrender over self-interest and the father's will over his own will. And he did it for you and he did it for me. So as we talk about radical obedience today, I want us to see two things, okay? First, we need to look at the example of Jesus and the example that he set as he walked the cross.
6:32 And then we need to ask ourselves a personal question. If Jesus was willing to walk that road for me, am I willing to walk the road of obedience for him? Because experiencing life with Jesus isn't just about believing what he did for us. It's about following him and learning to live the way that he lived. You know, sometimes I wonder, you know, and maybe you do too. Like if I could know how I would die and when I would die, would I really want to know that information, right? And maybe you've asked that exact same question to yourself. Like if I could know and have the information of when I would die and how I would die, like would you really want to know that? You see, Jesus is facing that very reality. His entire life, he's walking toward his demise, toward his death, where he would be hung on a cross. And man, that would be a scary reality. It really would. And as we look at the life of Jesus and especially toward the end, what's interesting is we actually see this staggering and stark contrast between Jesus and the crowd. You see, when we zoom into Jesus's life, what we notice about him is this.
7:55 He never wavered on the road to obedience and sacrifice. Jesus never wavered. He never stopped and thought, "Hey, does God have a different plan for me?" Because he never wavered on the road to obedience and sacrifice. He never thought for one second, "God, do you have an easier road for me? Like, do you have a different option than for me to suffer and to die?" Like he knew from the very first breath that he took on this earth when he was a baby boy, he knew his purpose and he knew his mission as to why he came. He knew that he had come to seek and save that which was lost. He knew that he had came to rescue us from our sins and he knew that it would cost him greatly. And never once did he waver. He took step after step after step to his demise and to his death because that is why he came. I mean, look at it from his own words in John chapter 12 verse 27. Jesus says these words. He says, "Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say?" So here you're seeing a glimpse of Jesus's humanity and where we can all relate to him here, right?
9:14 He says, "I'm troubled because I know what's coming. I know what my future holds." And he says, "I'm troubled to the deepest and darkest parts of my life. My soul is troubled." He said, "What should I say?" He continues, he says, "Father, save me from this hour?" I mean, this seems normal to us, doesn't it? Like when you're in trouble, what do we do? We cry out to somebody who's going to be able to help us. A lot of times we cry out to our parents, the people who are strong. And of all the people that Jesus could have cried out to, he cries out to his father. He could have easily just snapped his fingers and pulled Jesus out of these circumstances. And Jesus says, what really all of us can relate to, "Father, should I cry out and should I ask you to save me?" But look at what he says. He says, "No. It was for this very reason I came to this hour." And what we see in Jesus in this moment in history and in his life as he's walking toward death that he had this radical obedience to his father's plans. He never wavered, never considered anything else. He just lived in obedience to what his father had in store for him.
10:36 But in stark contrast to that is the crowd, of course. And we look at Jesus and as we look at him, we see the polar opposite in the crowd. We see in Jesus' story and what we notice about the crowd is this. They chose the path of least resistance. They chose the smooth path, the path with really no bumps or bruises along the road. You know, wherever the majority of the people went, they followed. I mean, this was the crowd that when Jesus showed up in Jerusalem, what did they do? They celebrated him. They worshiped him. They laid their coats and their cloaks and the palm branches down on the ground to make a way for him. They gave their words of affirmation and adoration. And they said, "Hosanna! Jesus is here!" And they worshiped him. They adored him. But it didn't take very long for this crowd to find an easier path. It didn't take long for this crowd to change their tune because just a few days later, those chants of "Hosanna!" and "Adoration!" would completely change. And they would be changed to "Crucify him! Murder him! Kill this blasphemer!" You know, as I look at this story, it's really easy for me to judge the crowd.
11:58 To wonder, how could these people do this to Jesus? But what scares me is so many times I find myself in that very crowd. Or in my life, you know, I'm choosing a path that is convenient, that is comfortable, rather than the path that God has for my life. I can relate so much to the crowd because instead of going against the grain and to what God has led me to, I find it so very easy to fit in and to follow where everybody else is going. And what it really comes down to is this word, obedience. What we see in Jesus is a radical obedience. He submitted to his father's plans. And I wonder about us. You know, I wonder about me. I wonder about you today. Like, what is getting in the way of our obedience, right? What is getting in the way of your obedience? What is keeping you from being obedient to God? I mean, think about that for just a second. Don't walk by this question, but really zoom in on it. Zoom in on your life and ask yourself the question, what excuses are you coming up with not to walk down the path that God has for you?
13:20 Not to go on the journey with him, not to walk the road that God has created you for. You know, maybe if you're honest, you know it's because it's going to cost you something. You know, Jesus said that these words to his disciples, his followers, the people that were closest to him, he says, "If you want to follow me, you've got to go pick up your cross. You got to deny yourself. You got to deny your desires, deny your wants, and you've got to follow me." And the truth is, many of us, like we don't want to follow Jesus because it's actually going to cost us something. And it absolutely will cost you. And so many of us, knowing the cost, we pick a different road. Maybe for some of you today, your excuse may be something like your reputation. Like you desire to follow Jesus, but you have this question like, you know what? I go all in. If I truly surrender to Jesus, what will my reputation look like? What will my coworkers and what will my family and what will my friends say about me? And the thought of your reputation changing just causes you to walk down a different road.
14:39 Maybe for you, it's just fear or uncertainty, right? Like you want to follow Jesus. You feel Him actually drawing you to Himself. But the fear of what it would look like to follow Jesus, the unknown of what that path might look like, the fear of the unknown and the uncertainty just causes you to pause and to question, is it really the road that you want to take? You know, maybe a better way to ask this question is, how are you being like the crowd? Where are you just kind of flip-flopping to whichever way is the easiest, whatever road is less bumpy or not as hard? And can I ask you this? Where is the path of least resistance calling you? Where is it calling you? Where is it calling out and saying, this is easier, so go ahead and go down this path? And I don't know where you are with that, but you've got to determine where you are with that and following the path of least resistance. Following Jesus is absolutely hard. Like it is difficult. You know, maybe the path of least resistance is calling out to you in your marriage today or with your finances or maybe at work or in the current predicament that you find yourself in today.
16:08 And maybe it's just easier with your finances and the stress that you're going through and the worry is just to buy whatever makes you feel good, even if you don't have the money to pay for it. It's just easier in your marriage to take care of your needs and neglect your spouse's and neglect your children's needs. It's just easier in your current state, the current state of our country and the current state of our world to feed our fears and to feed our worries. Like it's just easier when things are hard and a little bit bumpy is just take a different way and go down the path of least resistance. But what if, what if in your marriage you actually put your needs on the back burner and you love your spouse and you love your kids the way that Christ has loved you? Maybe with your finances, the hard road is actually creating a budget and saying no to the things that you want and the things that you desire, but you can't afford. Maybe it's putting Jesus Christ first in your finances and giving to Him. Maybe with your fear right now, maybe it's transforming into faith even though things are really, really, really difficult. Maybe at work it's pressing in and being extremely diligent rather than backing away.
17:29 You see, where is the path of least resistance calling you right now? And as followers of Jesus, as people who claim the name of Jesus Christ, as people who have been forgiven by Him and are following after Him, who are His disciples, we have a choice to make. And it's not a once in a lifetime choice. This is a day by day, hour by hour, second by second choice. And a lot of times the choice is between what is convenient for me, what is comfortable for me, what is easy for me, versus what is hard and rocky and difficult, but it honors God. To go against the grain and to follow Jesus or to just fit in and do what everybody else is doing. And I honestly wonder for my life and for your life, what road will we choose? What road will you choose today? Right now, in the midst of uncertainty and in the midst of hard choices in life, what path will you take? Will you choose the easy route, the comfortable route, the convenient route?
18:48 Or will you say to God, "God, how do I obey you no matter what it means for my life? No matter what road you ask me to walk down, no matter what journey you have for me, I surrender to you. I'm all in. I'm completely bought into you, Jesus." What road will you choose as a follower of Jesus Christ? So let's look at God's word to see what this could look like for us. Philippians 2, verses 5-8 says this, "In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross." Will you choose to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be obedient, even to the point of death? That right there is radical obedience. But there's something else going on, because as we look at Jesus' life, you've got to ask the question, why would Jesus walk down this road?
20:16 Why would Jesus walk to his death? Why would he create these moments that would ultimately get him killed? Is he just not thinking correctly? Has Jesus just kind of lost it? Because no one in their right mind would just walk to their own death. No one in their right mind shows up to their own murder scene. No one in their right mind would walk to the cross. But Jesus did. Why? Why would he do that? Well the answer to that question is this. Jesus walked the road to his death for you. That's what he did. Because of his radical obedience to his father and his pure love for you and for me, he walked to his own death. And listen, I don't know what your background is. I don't know what your family life looks like. But I know for a lot of people in our culture today, many people do not feel loved. But here's what I need you to know. You need to know that you are loved by God. And the evidence is in the words that he says, and even greater evidence is in the love that he shows for us when he stretched out his arms on the cross just to show you and to show me how much he truly loves us.
21:36 Like he walked to his own death to declare to you and to me how much in love he is with us. And so the question for you is this. Will you walk the road of obedience for him? Will you walk the road of obedience for him? So God offers you an invitation as he walked the road to his own death that you would be able to receive his love because here's what happened. Like our sin and our rebellion toward God, it created like this barrier in the relationship with him. So what we naturally do is we try to fix that on our own. We try to fix that problem. And we try to climb our way back to God. And here's the issue. We try as hard as we can and we consistently fall short. And we will fall short every single time. We need perfection and we just can't do it. But that is exactly what Jesus was for us. And he came and he walked to his death so that we could know him, so that we could have a relationship with him, so that we could experience life with Jesus.
22:56 And today we're going to celebrate that. We're going to celebrate that through something we call communion. And communion is when we take some bread or a cracker and some juice and we eat it together because Jesus told us to do this to remember that he gave his body as a sacrifice for our sins and he shed his blood for the forgiveness of our sins. But before we take part in communion, if you're a follower of Jesus today, now is the time to confess your sins to God and to get your heart and your mind in a place where you can connect with him without any barriers. Communion is a time where we as believers can examine our hearts. It's a time where you don't think about all the cares and the concerns of this world, but you think about what David said in Scripture where he says, "Search my heart, O God, and know me." Like there may be areas in your life, those little nooks and those crannies that you just haven't given over to God. And I would encourage you right now to reflect on your life and what Jesus has sacrificed for you and what that really means. I challenge you to ask God to reveal the things in your life, in your heart that stand between you and him.
24:21 Communion is a time to remember his sacrifice, remembering that his body was given for us and his blood was shed for us and that he paid our penalty. The penalty of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. He paid that price for us. And here's what you need to know about communion, all right? Communion is for believers, and God makes this very clear in his word that communion is for people who have put their faith and put their trust in Jesus Christ and who follow him. And if you want to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I want to give you a chance to do that today. Like if you don't know him as Lord and Savior of your life, I want to give you an opportunity to actually give your life over to him. Because I want you to experience his love and I want you to experience his grace and I want you to experience his mercy. Like he will never leave you and he will never forsake you. And if you want to step into that love, you must believe in Jesus Christ, who he is and what he's done. And you can pray this in your heart right now. And so if you would, just everybody just bow your head and close your eyes. This is a time of reverence before the Lord.
25:41 And if there's somebody who has never given their heart and life over to Jesus Christ, you can pray this prayer. You got to believe it in your heart. Say, God, I realize that I'm a sinner. I realize that I've fallen short of your glorious standard that I've rebelled against you over and over and over again. But in the midst of my failure, I realize that you came and you have rescued me by sending your one and only son to die on the cross for my sins. And that three days later, he rose again to give me the victory over sin. So today, I'm choosing to put my faith and put my trust, put my hope in you, Jesus Christ. God, I'm turning from my sins and I want you to forgive me. I want you to lead me. From this day forward, I want to follow you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Hey, guys, if you said that prayer today, like if you cried out to God from your heart, here's a simple challenge that I want to give you. Maybe you're ready to do it today. Would you just tell somebody that you said that prayer and that you gave your heart and life to Jesus Christ? You can text your best friend.
26:59 You can email me. You can email the church. You know, if you're joining us online, you can put it in the chat right now. If you're here in one of our venues in the auditorium, go to the Welcome Center and let them know. We actually have a book that will help you take those first steps in following Jesus Christ, and we want to give that to you as a free gift to help you along the way. But here's the challenge. Just declare that right now. Declare it to somebody. And listen, we want to celebrate with you and we want to walk with you every step of the way. But today, we're going to celebrate and we're going to remember what Jesus did. So if you happen to be joining us online or on TV, you can go ahead and go look in the cabinet and get something out of the fridge and something that resembles bread or a cracker and some juice. And if you're here at one of our campuses or one of our venues today, there are going to be tables with the elements on them. They're packaged together. All right. The cracker is on top of the juice. And so those things are together. So right now, if you would, I would like for you to get up from your seats and make your way to the closest table, whether it's in front of you or behind you, and then make your way back to your seat and your campus pastor will come up and walk you through receiving communion together. But as you come up, take that time to examine yourself, to pray, to confess your sins to the Lord so that there are no barriers between you and him as we worship him and remember his sacrifice through communion today.
28:29 So let's do that right now.