Consume My Life: Part 1 of 2

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Podcast network you're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com do you feel like you're on a religious treadmill.

Do you feel like Christianity is just a system of rules and regulations, I can do this but I can't do that.

Do you feel like your efforts to reach God.

Find God, and please God.

If you do you feel like your faith is dead or alone. Today Pastor Russ Andrews will walk us through Scripture to answer these questions join us on finding purpose of local tribal ministry glorifying God by helping men find their purpose for living. For more information and to connect with Russ Andrews and finding purpose could visit us online@findingpurpose.net connect with us on Facebook. Now let's listen to Russ Andrews as he teaches us how to be a Christian without being religious.

Part one of a specialty episode titled this morning's message. So my life will look at Matthew chapter 10 versus 37 through 39 Wheaton College is a small liberal arts college that 25 miles west of Chicago. It's motto is for Christ and his kingdom. When Jim Elliott went there in the fall of 1945.

His objective was to prepare himself to serve the Lord for the rest of his life. Therefore eliminated everything that he felt would distract him from the subjective dating being one of those things. Furthermore, he made a habit of getting up early in the morning in order to have uninterrupted time for prayer and Bible study, but it was not until his junior year that he began to keep a journal as a means of self discipline forced himself to articulate something on paper helped him to concentrate and gave direction to his devotional times on January 17, 1948 Jim wrote in his journal.

What is written. These pages, I suppose, will someday be read by others and myself.

For this reason, I cannot hope to be absolutely honest in what is here and recorded for the hypocrisy of the shaming heart whatever they putting on a front and dares not to have written what is actually found in its abysmal depths. Yet, I pray Lord that you will make these notations to be is nearly true to factors as possible salon they know my own heart and be able to deftly pray regarding my gross that often on viewed inconsistencies. Here we are 67 years later and were reading the words Jim wrote in his journal. What I want us to see this morning is Jim Elliott's heart for God in that same journal during that same year, Jim recorded this prayer God.

I pray the light. These idle sticks of my life, and may burn for the consumer life, my God flutist on I signaled a long life, but a full one lucky boy. Jesus, for those of you may not be for me were Jim Elliott, he was one of five missionaries who were spirit to death by the Alcan Indians in 1956 as they attempted to share the gospel in the jungles of Ecuador.

Jim's wife Elizabeth in her book shadow of the Almighty rights when he died.

Jim left little of value is the world regards values of material things. There were a few home in the jungle. A few well-worn clothes, books and tools.

The man who want to try to rescue the five missionaries, all of whom died brought back to me from Jim's body his wristwatch and from the beach. The blurred pages of his college prayer notebook. There was no funeral there was no tombstone for Memorial, and so I asked Wes there was no legacy then was it just as if he had never been. Jim left from. They she likes in memory and for us all.

In these letters and diaries.

The testimony of a man who saw nothing but the will of God and pray that his life would be an exhibit of the value of knowing God. The interest which accrues from it from this legacy is yet to be realized. It is hinted at in the lives of Indians who determined to follow Christ, persuaded by Jim's example in the lives of many who write to tell me of a new desire to know God is. Jim did his death was the result of simple obedience to his captain. One of the reasons that I found myself in ministry today is because the life of Jim Elliott when I read the account of his life and death and Elizabeth Elliott's other book forgets of splendor, I was climbing the ladder of success in the financial world was in the early 1990s, my life at that time was pretty much all about me.

I will never forget reading a book and read about Jim Elliott's commitment to serve the Lord really challenge me to examine my own life. Jim Elliott think about this was only 21 years old when he wrote this prayer we will pray the same prayer dear God, I pray the like.

These idle sticks of my life and mail burn for the consumer life, my God that is non-I seek not a long life, but a full one lucky Lord Jesus in Ephesians chapter 4 verse one Paul writes as a prison of the Lord, and I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you received in Colossians chapter 1 verse 10, Paul writes, and we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way. Jim Elliott is our only one thing that was to live a life that please God. I can't speak for the rest of you but I know for me in this excuse, easy to say this on Sundays and sees the site is when you're preaching, easy to say this when you have in the spirit.

The hard part is when you're in the flesh, but when I'm in the spirit right now I want to live the rest of my life to please God.

60 years old I probably got about 20 more years and older make them count. In Matthew chapter 10, Jesus called his 12 disciples together around him because he was prepared to send them out into the world.

These were his chosen followers, and he wanted them to be ready for what they were going to counter encounter the world a hostile world is of the forcing amount he gave him some instructions first T he said go and preach the message of the gospel to the ends of the earth and with a command. He wanted to be on their guard against man who would who would attack them.

He warned them that the world would hate him simply because of their association with his name. He told him not to be afraid. He said if you acknowledge me before men, and one day in heaven.

Our technology before my father and then he gave them three conditions of the heart that are necessary if one is to live a life that really pleases God. A life that is worthy of the Lord in those three conditions are found in Matthew chapter 1037 to 39 and listen carefully to what Jesus said to them, verse 37 anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.

Anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me who finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it you pray with me. Jim, a father, thank you for the Bible.

Thank you Lord.

It is a treasure that you've left here on earth for us is your word to the world is a letter that you've written to your children.

All we have to do is pick it up and read it and I'm amazed it every time I think of your word in the morning in my office. I sent you speaking to me just like you did this morning, Laura, thank you for what you said to the disciples and it's a challenge to us to God as to how we are to how you want us to live our lives in so I just pray this morning for those who are in Christ here who are your children who are being pulled by the world but really in their hearts they really want to follow you, but the world is has a grip on them. The world is a grip on all of us from time to time. Lord help us to be willing to let go, to say no to the world and to be willing to take an adventure with you, no matter how we are. Whether were 10 weather were 90 as long as we have breath in the lungs is still something you can do with us.

So I pray that we would be willing to say here I am Lord, send me. That's my prayer this morning. Now I pray that you take your word and penetrate our hearts teaches what you want to teach us to Jesus and that I pray. Amen.

Okay. From these three verses I want to show you three conditions that must be evident in your heart if you really want to please God and live your life to him is condition number one you must love Jesus more than anyone or anything else. Look at verse 37 again Jesus said anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Anyone who loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me now know about you but I really love my mother liked Donna.

She passed away on May 6 and she celebrated her 87th birthday yesterday in heaven.

I love my two sons and my wife so it's hard to quite get my hands run. This did where to love Jesus more than we love them. That's what he's asking of us in fact a parallel path passage for this verse found in Luke 1426 seems gave a little bit further this. This is where Jesus is addressing the crowd of people who were following him. He said if anyone comes to me does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life that he cannot be my disciple. What did he mean by that that were to hate a mother and father are brothers and sisters, even our own lives to remain that one worst the explains that Jesus seems to be making a distinction between salvation and discipleship. Jesus wants everyone to be saved. He wants to fill heaven with save souls. However, when it comes to discipleship. Jesus is more interested in quality and quantity which rewrites salvation means coming to the cross and trusting Jesus Christ.

While discipleship means carrying the cross and following Jesus Christ. You see the difference salvation means coming to the cross and trusting Jesus, discipleship means carrying the cross and follow him see a lot of people willing to come to the cross and trust Jesus, but few are willing to carry across and follow him to be a true follower of Jesus begins by loving him supremely even more than we love our own flesh and blood. It's is not that we hate our parents are children. Is that a comparison to a love for Christ. All of the loves appear as hatred. So the question I have asked myself is how much you really love Jesus. Yes I love my work and I saw this ministry, but when I compare what I'm doing here in America to what thousands of missionaries are doing on the mission field with their lives a little in danger. I have to ask myself to really love Jesus the way they day when I'll be willing to go anywhere and do anything Robbie willing to give my life. That is what got asked of me so nasty. Do you really love Jesus. I think loving Jesus begins by really understanding who we are and what is done for us. So what is it mean to love Jesus, how we define this love while think love is better demonstrated in this defined salinity give your demonstration in Luke chapter 7 we learned that Jesus went to the home of a wealthy Pharisee was having a meal while he was reclining the table.

This woman comes in who lived a very simple life.

I'm sure if there was a story she was a prostitute and there's no telling how many men she'd been with but at some point she must've heard Jesus preach. She must've been captivated by the authority of his message. She must've seen the love coming from his eyes, but she also verbally felt convicted of our sin, and so she repented she was determined to live a new life in Christ and one day she heard that Jesus was at the home of a very prominent Pharisee and she wanted so much to go to Jesus just to show him how much she loved him.

She didn't really care who was watching she was not ashamed to show her love for Jesus publicly so she went to the Richmond's house when she arrived at the house. She quietly came over to Jesus and I'm certain that the conversation at the table stopped every on the room was on this uninvited woman humbly. She knelt at his feet, tears began to well up in her eyes.

They begin to literally run down her cheeks and dripping on his feet. She had a close and she is took her hair and she began to dress feet and she began to kiss them and she poured perfume on them. I'm sure she brought that perfume with her probably expensive perfume and the Pharisee said to himself that this manway profit he would know who's touching him what kind of a woman she is that she is a sinner and Jesus looked at the Pharisee and since Simon, I have something to tell you tell me teacher said two men owed money to a certain moneylender moneylender. One owed him 500 in area and the other 50 and neither of them have the money to pay them back so he canceled the debts of both know which of them love them more. Simon replied I suppose the one with the bigger debt canceled Jesus as your judge correctly.

Then he turned toward the woman said to Simon, do you see this woman, I came in your house. You do not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You do not give me a kiss, but this woman from the time I entered his not stop kissing my feet. You do not put all my habit she is poured perfume on my feet. Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven. She'd love much, but he has been forgiven little loves little. Then Jesus said to her, your sins are forgiven, was in the glove. Jesus Almeida begins by recognizing how sinful we are as we begin to understand the extent of our sin, then we come to understand more and more how great and wonderful is God's grace and thought about that. So don't believe that we can truly love Jesus and to really see ourselves for what we really are. We are sinners who need a Savior. And we need to experience the grace and mercy of God. Romans three makes it so clear there's no one righteous, not even one. There's no one who does good.

All have turned away.

They have together become worthless.

I've learned a lot about the grace of God is just look back at my life and thought about knowing that I've known him since I was 10. Some of things I've allowed myself to do and so I'm not really coming glad that God is revealed in the extent of my sin and the immeasurable extent of his grace, because now when I have someone come to me, like I did a man a few years ago who had who was married and had a six-year-old daughter. He confessed to me that he had three homosexual relationships. The last thing I did was for my Bible and human tell him that he was a sinner.

I begin to share with him some of my sins, they would feel so bad about his sin. TR was consuming fieldbus wiped tears running off his chin as he set my office. Romans 586 but God demonstrates his own love for us in this while we were still sinners, Christ God for us in second quickens 521 states God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God until we come to understand extent of our sins, and that Jesus took them all upon himself and Lily died in our place. We can't really loving the way we should do you really love Jesus. If you were to live your life in a way that pleases God and it begins by letting his son more than anything anyone else that must be the first condition of your heart, and his condition number two. You must be willing to doubt yourself liver still yet again. Anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. What did Jesus mean when he said anyone he does not take his cross or to understand what he meant.

You must consider and think about what a person did on the cross. John MacArthur writes no one in the Roman empire in New Testament times could have missed Jesus's point, the cross symbolize the extremes of the excruciating pain and heartless cruelty, but above all, it symbolizes death. Only a few years before Jesus spoke these words, a zealot named Judas, not the one that betrayed Jesus. This was another man. Then Judas, this Judas had gathered together a band of rebels to fight the Roman occupation forces the insurrection, the insurrection was easily quelled in order to teach the Jews a lesson, the Roman general Harris or the crucifixion of over 2000 Jesus there crosses line the roads of Galilee from one into the other seat during Jesus's day everyone knew what cross net you meant death see today. I think the cross is lost some of its main think about it today.

The cross most often is seen hanging is a beautiful piece of jewelry around a ladies neck and I don't think is anything wrong with this but would time the beauty of these piece of jewelry has resulted in the cross loop losing some of its meaning. The cross was an instrument of execution. It was a place of horrible pain and death.

So the hang of cross around your neck, back then would be like us. Hang in a gas chamber around that today it would do that. She was symbolic of of death. We had that meaning in mind. Jesus tells us that we are not worthy to follow him. If were not willing to take up our cross. Jesus died on his cross. He challenged us to die on our cross. Are you willing before you answer that question. You might want to know what it means was a me to take your cross and follow Jesus. One was the rights to cure the cross does not need to wear a PN on our lapel open a bumper sticker on my car it means to confess Christ and obey him in spite of shame and suffering.

It means death to self drawing plans and ambitions, and a willingness to serve him as he directs a cross is something we willingly accept from God as part of his will for our lives in McCully was one of the other five missionaries who died in that fateful day and he was probably the most talented of the five although the wall talented. He was the one to the other guys thought would be so successful.

Whatever he did in the secular world in the business world but got it something greater in mine. It was 6 feet to 190 pounds very good-looking great athlete. He startled the football team and the track team at Wheaton in 1949 he entered and won the national oratorical contest 10,000 students entered he wanted. He was elected Senior class Pres. after graduation waiting. He enrolled in Marquette Law school, where he planned on become a lawyer in his second year he took a job as a night clerk at a hotel because he was thinking he would just been all this time studying but he began to actually read the Bible more was corresponding with Jim Elliott and he got inspired to give you missionary, he decided to say no to the world and to Lily take up his cross and follow Jesus fully went down to Ecuador. He trained in dentistry and obstruct obstetrics and gynecology so he could be a medical missionary done neck widow's exactly what is is is the is the cross of a believer. MacArthur writes the cross of a believer is the willing sacrifice of everything one has including life for the sake of Christ to take up your cross might mean simply bowing your here in a public restaurant sin. The blessing to take up your cross might mean sharing your faith with a friend risking that friendship to take up your cross might mean giving to someone in need and denying yourself something you won't to take up your cross might mean standing up for the truth know if you will agree to take up your cross might mean going to some distant country to share the gospel with those who might not want to hear it, to take up your cross might mean refusing to want something refusing to partake of something, refusing to do something, even though everybody else is doing it to take up your cross might mean refusing to follow the crowd. It might mean being less popular and enlightening being a little lonely to take up your cross means to enter through the narrow gate and walked on the narrow road it means to seek the applause of God rather impulsive men it means to live a sacrificial life rather than indulgent one to take up your cross means to live for God and others rather than for yourself. Are you willing to take up your cross and follow Jesus therefore needs to understand this truth following Jesus will always cost you something.

This is why Jesus gave his warning in Luke chapter 14, he said.

Suppose one of you wants to build a tower would not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it for he lays the foundation is unable to finish it, everyone who sees it will written curriculum same. This fellow began to build and was not able to finish. Can you imagine if Noah free. But no, in my Bible yesterday.

Can you imagine if Noah got about 30 years into his hundred 20 years of the spent building the ark hundred 20 years cut down trees, ridiculed functional.

He was ridiculed. It never rained good and what is it's about that, whatever sing about hundred 20 years. I think you must've measure the cost you count the cost before you pick up your cross is following Jesus will always be costly but installing Rose once said the compensations for outweigh the cost. So we really want to live our lives in a way that pleases God.

We must be willing to pray the same prayer Jim Elliott Friday God light these idle sticks of my life, and may burn for the consumer life, my God is yours. You will pray this prayer.

Do you really want to live your life for God. If you do you must love Jesus with all your heart, you must be wanted out of self and finally he was willing to lose your life. Look at verse 39 again. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and who the loses his life for my sake will find that's what the Bible says, but what is the world site.

I've learned that I have to be contemporary when I use illustrations because sometimes all refer to like an old commercial I did risers in the 1960s and the young people was he talking about, so there was a beer commercial from the 1960s, Schlitz the mega beer and more wheedling that doing.

I should've asked the question church, but the commercial went like this, you only go around once in life.

So what is he years old Zion grab all the gusto you can young people. What was he talking about you only go to your thinking figured out you only go around once in life's a grab all the gusto you can listen mean it means you have one left� Or live it for yourself and read everything you can do will make you happy and wealthy have pleasure and I have to be honest with. If I was not a Christian is exactly I'll be doing. I try to make as much money as I could as much as many things I could and I will have as much fun as I could.

As of 11 for this life. I believe for the here and now Malcolm Forbes, the millionaire and former publisher of force magazine, who died in 1990 he is one who Perley coined the phrase he does with the most toys wins and he had a whole lot of toys hit some big dismissive choice. See, this semester the world is how all television answer produced TV ads are created in an error to tempt us to live for today and grab all that we can to make allows us comfortable and pleasurable as possible. This, the vast majority of Americans live including a lot of Christians.

This is why God hates this concludes part one IT will air next week.

Being a Christian is not about being religious but about having a dynamic alive relationship with Jesus Christ. You've been listening to finding purpose with pastor Russ Sanders local triangle ministry glorifying God by helping men and their purpose for living. You can discover more about finding your purpose in life by checking out the resources@writingpurpose.net will connect to finding purpose on Facebook pastor Russ would also like to extend a special invitation for you to join him in over 300 other local tribal men study God's word together every Tuesday night at 7 PM in downtown Raleigh. Find out more finding purpose.net