The Fine Print Of Following - Part 2

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

He says there is no blessing without the cross. You have to so identify with me, he said, that you not only say no to yourself, but that you're willing to take the change. You're willing to take the humiliation and you're willing to suffer. Well, that's the fine print. You see, if you want to come after me, if you want to follow me, this is what, these are the conditions. You see, then we wonder sometimes, why am I not, why don't I have the kind of peace that I should have? Why don't I have the kind of joy that I should have? Why not?

Well, this might be why. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Paul's whole identification is he is not my life. I deny myself. I say no to me. I say yes to him.

You see, that's a very important condition. Do you say no to yourself and yes to Christ? See, if you don't, you're not really following.

And if you're not really following, you forget about the joy and the peace and the hope. It's not going to happen. You see, if you apply this in a sense to your own life, you end up saying things like, I can't go there. I can't do that. I can't date them.

I can't work there. You see, I can't because of him. Now, you might be thinking, yeah, but I have a lot on the ball. You know, I'm an impressive person. And I like the idea of adding Jesus to me and we make a good team as long as it's about me. And then Jesus is there to help. Well, I don't think you're as impressive as Paul. I want you to go with me now to Philippians chapter three. And Paul addresses that.

Verse four. This is what Paul says. He said, you know, I know how humans like to brag. In fact, Paul, I think, would tell you that he was a human who used to brag. And Paul said, but I had good reason to brag because I was really impressive.

He says in verse four, although I myself might have confidence, even in the flesh, he said, if anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more. You know what he's saying? He's saying this to you and to me. I'm more impressive than you in the flesh. I'm more impressive than you. Well, he says, what's that mean?

He'll show you. He says, I was circumcised on the eighth day of the nation of Israel. I'm one of the chosen people. He said of the tribe of Benjamin. The finest tribe. The tribe that was first in the battle. To be in the tribe of Benjamin is to be the best of them all.

So that was me. He said, I was a Hebrew of Hebrews. You understand, I'm just not just Jewish.

I'm the most Jewish Jewish person you could meet. I am a Hebrew of the Hebrews, he said, and as to the law, which is what remember what defines the Hebrew. He said, as a matter of the law, I said, Pharisee. A Pharisee.

Now, that has a terrible ring to us, but it had an impressive ring. Then the Pharisees were probably the most impressive people in Israel. I've said in the past that if you had a daughter, you would pray that she would one day marry a Pharisee. Everybody respected the Pharisees. They were the most devout, most religious people you could ever meet. And Paul says, I was a Pharisee. You see, I was the Jew of Jews. Benjamin. Israel.

Eighth day circumcised. He's not done. He then says, as the zeal, I was a persecutor of the church as to the righteousness which is found in the law blameless. Think of that word blameless. You mean nobody had the dirt on Paul or Saul of Tarsus?

No. When it came to keeping the law, I kept it. At least overtly where you could see it, you couldn't blame me. He said, I was zealous. A Pharisee of the Pharisees. You see, that's Paul saying that's who I am. More importantly, it's Paul saying that's who I used to be.

That's who I was. Now watch what he says. But whatever things were gained to me, these things, he said, I counted as loss. For the sake of Christ. I deny them. Because I deny me.

I disown them because I disown me. He said more than that. He said, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ, my Lord, whom I have suffered the loss of all things. And I count them, he says, but rubbish that I may gain Christ. Some translations more accurately where it says rubbish says dung. So you say to Paul, all the things you've accomplished, your heritage and who you are and how religious you were. How do you look at all that?

Dung. Wow. Yeah, he said, I deny it all. See, Paul understood what it was to deny yourself.

He got that idea. He wanted to come after the Lord, as the Lord said. What he said was no longer my agenda, only your agenda. No longer my will, only your will. You see, that's what Jesus says.

Now we can go back to Mark. And he continues his thought. He moves from the first condition to the second.

If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself. And then he says and take up his cross and follow me. Secondly, he must take up his cross. Now, for us, that's kind of like a nice abstract term.

If you're honest, it's kind of a romantic term. It's the cross. I mean, some of us right now might be wearing jewelry. Got the cross. I mean, the cross is just such a special thing. If you were alive right then in Judah, you'd never think that.

Ever. All you'd think about when you thought of that is shame, humiliation, and suffering. In the lifetime of these people who are listening to Jesus speak, Rome crucifies 30,000 Jews. In their lifetime. In a very small country.

What does that mean? Everybody saw crucified people hanging on crosses. Everybody. In fact, 2,000 Jews were crucified at one time. They saw it. They saw the agony of the cross. You see, but it's more than that. He said you have to take up your cross.

What do you mean take it up? Well, Rome had this way of shaming you. So whenever you had the kind of offense which would call for a crucifixion, the Romans would take you and first strip you naked. And then they would put the cross member of the cross on you. And you carry it. You don't just carry it anywhere. You have to carry it through the highest, most populated areas of where you're going to be crucified. And around your neck, they would put whatever was the crime that you committed. And you would carry your cross in that kind of shame to the place where you were going to be crucified. Rome's perspective of the cross was as much humiliation and shame as you could bear. That's what they did. So when Jesus says, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross.

That had to be shocking to them. What do you mean take up the cross? Are you willing to bear the shame? Are you willing to bear the humiliation? Now remember, up at this time, what's Peter saying? No, no, no, Lord, forget all that negative stuff. I want to talk about the kingdom and I want to talk about the glory and I want to talk about the blessing.

He says there is no blessing without the cross. You have to so identify with me, he said, that you not only say no to yourself, but that you're willing to take the shame. You're willing to take the humiliation and you're willing to suffer. Well, that's the fine print. You see, if you want to come after me, if you want to follow me, these are the conditions. You see, then we wonder sometimes, why don't I have the kind of peace that I should have? Why don't I have the kind of joy that I should have? Why not?

Well, this might be why. Have you made these kind of decisions? And by the way, Luke adds to it in his case and he says you must take up your cross daily. Every day I'll take up the cross.

Every day I'll bear the shame or humiliation. You see, those are amazing conditions. And in their day and age, they're even more stunning than in our day and age, that I would willingly do that. The only response I think they could have had, and we often have, is doesn't that seem a little steep? You know, I like the idea that when someone asked me that they just said, hey, do you believe this? And I said, yeah, they said, good, you're going to heaven, that's going to be great. And everything in your life is going to be wonderful. I like that.

What's this stuff? It's a fine print. You see, if you're going to follow, this is what you're going to do. Jesus said, by the way, it's not as steep as you think. Brilliantly, he says, how about if you consider the alternative?

You don't have to have anything to do with me. So notice what he says next. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world for fit of soul? What would it gain a man? Look, you want to live for you, great. What if you had lived for you and you gained the whole world?

It's hyperbole, pretty clearly. And then you lost your soul. In Luke, he says your life, your eternal life. The idea, what if you lost that? What if you gained everything and lost your eternal life? You see, what's the value difference here?

Well, I got everything I could have ever wanted. He said, what would it profit a man? He said, for what will a man give in exchange for his suke, his soul?

See, what would you give for it? Well, the answer is implied, everything. Because Jesus understands the consequences of not believing or following Christ. He gets it.

He understands the consequences. A very unpopular term we call hell. Well, I don't like to hear about that.

Or we just diminish it with humor. Oh, I don't mind going to hell, be there with my friends. It'll be okay. Let me tell you something, it won't be okay. It's unimaginable.

And it's eternal. So Jesus says, think about that. What would you pay for your soul? The answer is, I'd pay everything. He says, so what I'm saying to you, why not invest in me now?

You see, why not do that? He says in verse 38, for whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the son of man will also be ashamed of him when he comes into glory of his father and his holy angels. Jesus says, look, this is your chance. This is your opportunity. If you want to come after me, if you want to follow me, you need to deny yourself.

You need to willingly be humiliated. The shame. And he says, even the suffering of the cross. And then he gives the third, in a sense, condition. He says, take up his cross and follow me in verse 34. Follow me.

The implications, too. The word itself, by the way, is ako luthao. It means to imitate. He said any follow me is to imitate me. You see, when I'm going there, I have to ask myself the question, would Jesus go there?

Is this a place he would go? When I do that, is this something Jesus would do? When I say this, is this something Jesus would say? In a sense, that's what a follower does. He sort of, in a sense, imitates or mimics his Lord. But it also has built into it the idea of obedience. Because if I'm the follower, what's that make him? The leader.

We don't even have a game like that, don't we? Right. You see, the idea of it is, he says it, I do it. In John chapter 8, he said, if you continue in my word, you are my follower. In John 15, he says, you are my friends if you do what I command you. Turn with me to 1 John chapter 2. And this is what John writes in his epistle right at the end of the Bible. John is writing to an audience that apparently has decided to sort of, in a sense, redefine sin in certain ways and its consequences. It's sort of like we do in our culture. Culturally, by the way, how many times have you heard from a cultural point of view, especially on national news, ever the word sin?

There's no such thing. And in fact, even among Christians, you never hear anyone talk about sin, even Christians. We are much more mistakers than we are sinners. I just made a mistake. Yes, and that mistake is sin.

Now, it's a mistake. So he has to address this, and he says this in verse 6 of chapter 1 first. He says, if we say that we have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness, we lie and we do not practice the truth. If you say Jesus and I are like this, you say we're just like this, we're close. He says, you're walking in the darkness, you're not close.

In fact, he says, you're a liar. He said, if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, he said, his son cleanses us from all sin. He says in verse 8, if we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, the truth's not in us. And then he says in verse 9, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and righteous to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Verse 10, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him out a liar, his word's not in us.

Then John says, look, my little children, I'm writing these things to you that you may not sin. But if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he himself is the propitiation or the satisfaction for our sins, not for ours only, but for those of the whole world. Then he says, by this, we know that we have come to know him. What if we keep his commandments? The one who says that I have come to know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth's not in him. Whoever keeps his word in him, he says, the love of God has truly been perfected. By this, we know that we are in him. The one who says that he abides in him ought himself to walk in the same manner as he walked. What he's saying, if you say you're a follower of Christ, then you imitate him because you're following him, because he's the leader. Now notice, he's not talking about perfection because he just spent a lot of time talking about sin. You see, Jesus Christ came and said, I come to give you life, to offer you life and offer you abundantly.

And we've said over all the years, that life is a life of joy and peace and hope. You can have it. But just because you say, I believe Christ is my Savior and he died for my sins, you'll notice that you don't have that. And the reason is, Christ would say, do you want to come after me? Do you want to be my follower?

Do you want to imitate me? Do you want to listen to me? Then you have to say no to you. You see, you have to. And you have to bear your own cross. You're willing to take the shame and the guilt. You're willing to take the suffering. You've been given one life. It's a gift. You have it now. You have life.

You have a day you were born, you have a day you'll die, and you have a few thousand other days sprinkled in there. That's called your life. No one else has your life.

Just you. It belongs exclusively to you. What's that mean? It means this is your shot. This is your shot.

Because it's your life. The past days are gone. The future days are all hypothetical. You got today. And you have now. But as a believer in Jesus Christ, if you follow Him, if you say no to you, if you're willing to bear the shame and the suffering for Him, I know one thing for sure. You can have joy. And you can have peace. No matter what's going on in your life. And you live with hope. That's what our Lord said. They become your everyday companion. You may not have known that when you came in here this morning.

But it's all there in the fine print. Let's pray. Father, my prayer this morning is this simple. I simply pray that each person ask themselves the question. Am I really a follower of Jesus Christ?

Have I really denied myself? Am I willing to bear my cross? Father, if there are those of us that find our lives full of anxiety and worry, full of despair and misery, we have to ask ourselves the question, am I following Jesus Christ? Or am I simply trying to get Jesus Christ to fulfill my agenda for my life? Father, that will never lead us to the abundant life that Christ spoke of. The Spirit of God is to challenge each and every one of us to question us about our authenticity as a follower. Father, I pray that when we come to that decision, we will decide to follow.

You will be glorified and it will be for our good. In Christ's name, amen. And you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.