We can't assume that just because it doesn't go well when God calls me doesn't mean God didn't call me. Pastor Jonathan Evans says when God's involved, every setback has a greater purpose.
Maybe he wanted you to go through that problem because there's somebody there that needs Jesus. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. We've all made wishes on birthday candles, shooting stars, or even in quiet moments of longing. Well, today our special guest, Pastor Jonathan Evans, focuses on a different kind of wish, a wish that leads to a more fulfilling life than we could ever imagine.
Let's listen in as he explains. Today I want to talk to you from the title, Make a Wish. Every Sunday, all around the world, people show up to church to have a party. At the end of a birthday party, when they say make a wish, it's kind of you just close your eyes. You may not even make a wish. Or you make a wish you know is not going to come true. It's a formality that you know won't become a reality and everybody just moves on. Every Sunday, we do the same thing. Everybody comes into church and they have a party and most who gather wish to be like Jesus. And the flame is lit in church when the party is taking place, but by the time we hit the parking lot, that thing gets blown out and everybody forgot the point.
Today, we need to make a formality a reality. Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man to gain the whole world and turn around and lose his soul?
Or will a man give an exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of the Father with his angels and will repay every man according to his deeds. There's a wish that we have and that most people have and they wish to follow Jesus.
Here, he's about to give you the details of what it takes to make the wish come true. But before we get into 24 through 27, I have to show you a conversation that took place 21 through 23. I got to go back up a little bit because before Jesus says this, he has an interesting conversation with Peter. Peter's the one who said, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And then right after that, in verse 21, it says, for that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and be raised on the third day. Verse 22, Peter took him aside and rebuked him, saying, God forbid it, Lord, this shall never happen to you. Jesus looks at Peter and says, get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to me because you're not focused on God's interest, you're focused on man's interest. And here, Peter's called the devil and he's called Satan because Jesus recognizes what he is called to do in what Peter is saying.
Jesus knows what the Bible and the Scripture says about him. Ephesians 53 verse 5 says, I must be wounded for your transgressions. I must be bruised for your iniquities. The chastisement of your peace is upon me.
By my stripes, you're healed. So, you're telling me to go for comfort, not realizing if I don't suffer, you won't even be saved. Jesus is saying, Peter, you're trying to get me to look out for my self-interest, and that's going to destroy God's interest, which is going to destroy you and everyone who comes after you.
I can't just think about myself because if I think about myself, you die, he dies, she dies, she dies, a whole lot of people die if I don't die. Philippians 2 says he emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant, being made in the likeness of men, humbling himself to the point of death, even death on a cross. Jesus understood that when God calls, just because there's suffering attached to it doesn't mean all of a sudden God didn't call. Okay, he's going to suffering because God's word says so. He's denying the word that tries to make him feel comfortable that gets him to avoid what he's called to do, which is the cross, which is for you and me.
Because when you go for your self-interest, you leave a lot of people out even though you feel good. So if we're like Jesus, we can't assume that just because it doesn't go well when God calls me doesn't mean God didn't call me. Maybe he wanted you to suffer because there's somebody there that's not saved. Maybe he wanted you to go through that problem because there's somebody there that needs to meet Jesus.
Maybe it's not about you. We've got to stop thinking if it's not good, then God couldn't be a part of it. God will send you in there and let you experience some hardships because number one, he wants you to depend on him, but number two, he wants you to impact others. Maybe that crazy boss needs a Christian there. And Jesus said, Peter, get thee behind me, Satan.
See, a lot of us as Christians are living under the doctrine of demons. Feel good, and that's your spot. And if you don't feel good, go find another spot that helps you feel good so you're just chasing after happiness, which is like trying to tackle Barry Sanders.
You can't catch that dude. So we're running around in circles like a dog chasing our tails. A lot of moving, but we ain't going nowhere because we're trying to run from the very thing that God is calling us to because he's calling you to be on you. So if anyone wishes to come after Jesus, see, that's why that candle gets blown out so quick. So now that we done cleared that up, how many of us still want to wish to follow Jesus? Sounds good in the party. I had a few folks with alligator arms.
That dude over there, 6'4", looks like a T-Rex. Because really, we have a lot of wishes. We wish to have happy marriages. We wish to be able to have more devotion. We wish to be able to have better time management.
We wish to be able to lose weight and be in shape. We wish, we wish, we wish. But wishes don't come true just because you wish them. Wishes come true because you persist them. Persistence is the ability to go despite obstacles, opposition, and trials, or even failure. That I'm going to continue to persist the wish. That's the only way the wish comes true, and a lot of Christians will not persist this wish once they realize that flesh and faith can't play on the same team.
Once I realize I can't be me, we're blowing that thing out. You wish for a happy marriage until it makes you realize you have to serve and sacrifice. You wish for more devotion until you realize you have to put that at addiction and call your cell phone and actually spend time in God's Word. You wish for more time management until you realize that means you have to consistently manage your time. You wish to lose weight, but you realize you can't go to the fair. You've got to eat right. You've got to work out when you don't want to. We've got a lot of wishes until we realize, uh-oh, I have to participate.
But if there's anyone here who still has the wish, he says, you must deny yourself. Must means must. I don't have them Tony Evans definitions. You know, he gives you good definitions. I use the word in the definition. My definition is whack, but you get it.
It's like, yeah. So I can't use the word in the definition. So must means you ain't got no choice. That's what it means. It means you have to do this in order to get that. That's what must is. See, wishes inadvertently leave out the gory details of the must. So people have a wish till they run into something the wish didn't tell them.
Like Joseph had a dream, but it left out like everything. I mean, you're going to get stripped. You're going to get thrown into a pit. They're going to sell you into slavery. You're going to get lied on. You're going to go to prison. You're going to be doing nice things in prison, but then somebody going to leave. They're going to forget you in there. And a lot of times God will leave that out because if he showed you, you wouldn't go.
I'm not doing that. But as it relates to this, he says, no, no, no, no. I want my people to have the right expectations of the wish to come after Jesus. So I'm going to give you the details of what it takes to be a visible, verbal disciple of Jesus Christ.
It is not a party. And though that may go against our natural inclinations, Jonathan says it's worth the effort. He'll tell us what it takes when he returns with more of today's lesson in just a moment.
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Explore the kingdom anytime, anywhere. Today's broadcast from The Alternative is bringing you part of a powerful new series from Pastor Jonathan Evans called Discipleship for Every Day. Through these messages, we're learning how to move beyond routine religion and live out an authentic, impactful faith that influences every area of life.
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But don't wait, this special offer is only available for a limited time. Visit us at TonyEvans.org or call our resource request line at 1-800-800-3222 any time of the day or night. Right now, let's hear more from Jonathan Evans. He says you must deny yourself, not self-promote yourself, not self-sustain yourself, not self-manifest your dreams, self-happiness. He ain't talking about none of that. He don't apologize for yourself. I don't really like it when people say don't apologize for yourself because that's kind of how you get saved.
Most people just be you, don't apologize for yourself. Don't keep telling people that because they're going to wake up in eternity a little warm. It's called repentance where you apologize for yourself and you go to Jesus. Or this is my life.
No, it's not. Second Corinthians 5 17 says those who are in Christ are a new creature. The old is gone and the new has come. So when he says deny yourself, let me say it a different way. He's saying deny your old self. Don't go back to your old self that you were before you met me.
I need you to deny your old self. Then he says in Galatians 5 16, walk by the Spirit so that you don't carry out the desires of the flesh. It does not say you will not have fleshly desires. The goal is not to be less fleshy.
You're still in the same body. The goal is to be more spiritual. So when you make no provisions, you live as one in the day and you walk by the Spirit. You can't walk this way and that way at the same time. What does it mean to walk by the Spirit?
It's not pie in the sky. It means walk biblically. It means you're not just a hearer of the word. You are a doer of the word while not making provisions for your flesh and living as one in the day. So when Jesus says take up your cross, he's talking about take up your new identity in Christ and take it up decisively.
And there's only two options in this life. You see, when a person carries the cross, it's evident that King Jesus is on the throne of my life. He on the throne anyway, but now we know he on the throne of your life. The problem is with most Christians, we choose the throne. And because there's only two options, if you choose the throne, that means you put him on the cross. It's one or the other because we'd rather maintain our lives, our will, our way, do the same things we used to do. And we don't want nobody telling us nothing.
We like to play the end against the middle. I'll take the cross if I can get a benefit. But if I don't see any benefit, let me just take the throne.
And we're lukewarm, but Jesus, where are you going? Hold on, hold on, hold on. I need a healing. I need help. My family's broken.
My marriage is broken. Why are you seen further away from me? I mean, I'm not on the throne. I know I'm not on the cross. Why is it that you're over there?
I need my prayers answered. I thought James 1, 7, and 8 says, let not a double-minded man think he will receive anything from the Lord. So we in the faith, we back here, plan the end against the middle.
He said, no, deny yourself and take the cross, which puts him on the throne and do it decisively. Because if you do it decisively and you're not playing the end against the middle, you'll have a greater experience of Christ as the disciples. The disciples were doing things the crowd couldn't do. The disciples had power in mysteries the crowds didn't have. Our problem in America is a discipleship problem. It's not a church goer's problem.
Millions go to church. Only few walk out as disciples. If you're decisive in denial and decisive with the cross, that means you will be a continuous follower of Jesus Christ. That's why Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, 31, I die daily. I deny daily. I take up my cross daily so that I can follow every day. We're following, not following.
I mean, I don't know what game that is. The reason why we go in and out and we like to stay in the middle is because we have an alternative wish. For whoever, verse 25, wishes to save his life, oh, that's the other wish. We wish to save our life, but then you lose it. To save something means it's already drowning, dying or dead.
So you're trying to save something that's already out. We go back to the spasm. I want to go back to that old relationship that had me living in sin. I want to go back to the old way, doing it my way, talking my own way, hating who I want to hate, doing what I want to do. I want to go back to being king. Wake up!
All the while, we're not getting to the life that Jesus has for us, so we're losing our life doing CPR in the cemetery. And we're going and going and going. Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! This is the life that I want, the life that I want for myself. I want this spasm not to be a spasm. I want it to be real.
And if you've never done CPR before, it's exhausting. It's not going to get up. It's dead. And Christians spend years trying to get this thing to wake up. Meanwhile, not even noticing the purpose of God or just hovering around them, and they just prefer the cemetery. The people of Israel were in this position. Moses, take me back to Egypt. Lot's wife was in this position. I want to go back to Sodom and Gomorrah, pillar of salt. The 10 spies were in this position.
They're too big. We can't go forward. They died in the wilderness, except for Joshua and Caleb, who saw forward.
The rich young ruler was in this position. He went back to his possessions and didn't follow Jesus. And Jesus says in Luke 6, 62, whoever puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God. So how long?
How long? Is it discipleship or churchgoer? This is exhausting to fight for a life that's dead. Whoever wishes to save his life, you're going to lose it because your life is here.
But whoever loses his life for his sake, then you find it. He knows how he wants to use you as a disciple. He knows what he created you for. He knows what you're supposed to be doing. He knows where you're supposed to be going. He knows who you're supposed to be meeting. He knows all that, but he can't do it while you're doing CPR. For what will it profit a man if he sits on the throne but loses his soul?
Many of us are trying to be applauded on earth and don't even realize we're being booed in heaven, investing for man and reaping no reward in heavenly places. You turn around and lose it all. Do you know how long you're going to be on this throne? Not long. Do you know how long you'll be in eternity? For an eternity.
I know I used the same word to define it. Trust me, it feels easier on the throne and it's harder with the cross. But what one is for your eternity and one is forgotten as soon as you are no more. Because, ladies and gentlemen, Jesus is coming back. And He's coming back in the glory of His Father with His angels. Pastor Jonathan Evans will wrap up today's message with his own wish in just a moment.
Before he does, though, a quick reminder to take advantage of that special offer I mentioned earlier. Your own copy of the full-length versions of all six messages in Jonathan's current teaching series called Discipleship for Every Day, along with Your Time is Now, his practical book that complements these powerful messages. These resources will not only deepen your understanding of authentic discipleship, they'll also help you live out your faith with purpose and boldness every day. And the best part is they're yours with our thanks when you make a donation toward the alternative broadcast ministry. Just visit tonyevans.org for details or call us at 1-800-800-3222. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222 or online at tonyevans.org. It's one thing to put on a uniform. It's another to perform on game day. Tomorrow Pastor Evans explores what it takes to go from being drafted into God's kingdom to delivering on the field of life. Right now, though, he's back with this closing thought for today. I want to actually make a wish. My wish today is that the body of Christ will deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Jesus so that when He comes in His glory, we all hear, Well done, my good and faithful servant.
