Is the only happen because Friday occurred? Dr. Tony Evans says for there to be a glorious resurrection there had to be a painful death. We have to be willing to die if we want to live. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Knowing about the sacrifice Jesus made for us is important, but responding to it is crucial.
Let's join Dr. Evans as he talks about our commitment to the cross. In the Bible, salvation is free. You don't pay to be saved. When you place faith in His finished work on the cross as your personal substitute, sins are forgiven and eternal life is granted, and you become a Christian. But we also know that you can be a miserable Christian, a defeated Christian, a failed Christian. You can be a Christian who has very little to say about the reality of God at work in your life experience, and you really are on your way to heaven.
You just can't get heaven to meet you down here. The tragedy about being a regular Christian is that you think you're okay because everybody else around you is regular, too. You say, well, I'm as good as Joe or Jane or Butch or Ralph, and they ordered regular.
I ordered regular, too. And you can feel like you're okay because everybody else is okay. But what Jesus went on to say to his followers, who are already Christians, I would like to add to your life a dimension the likes of which you have not seen. Now, if you order Supersize at McDonald's, it's going to cost you more. There is a price tag for the greater. In the Bible, salvation is free. You don't pay to be saved.
It's by grace alone. The Bible says we are justified freely by His grace. Whenever anybody charges you to become a Christian, you know something's wrong there. Salvation is free. But to supersize your life, that costs. So whenever Jesus was talking about this concept of discipleship, He would always tell them the price.
So the question then becomes, do I want to supersize life? And over and over and over again, He would repeat the price of discipleship. In Matthew chapter 10, He says it, and He, verse 38, who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me.
He who has found his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. When the disciples followed Jesus, He gave them experiences that would blow your mind. He put them in situations that were amazing. They saw things that they had never seen or heard of before.
All they can say is, what manner of man is this? They saw Him calm storms, raise the dead, pull out demons. They say, all because they were following Him? One day, Peter was fishing. In Luke 5, Peter's fishing, and he's fishing all night, and he catches nothing. Jesus hollers out to him from the shore, cast your net on the other side.
Peter responds, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Now, you can preach. You can preach.
You can teach. You're all right there. But this is the Zebedee Fishing Company. This is the Zebedee Fishing Corporation. I have been fishing. My daddy was a fisherman, and he then instructs Jesus on fishing.
He said, let me explain how this works. We have been out here all night long. Now, that may not seem like a big statement to you. That's a big statement coming from a professional fisherman. Jesus, it's morning time. We fish at night. That's when the fish bite. We're now in the shallow water coming in from fishing, because in the deep water, which is where the fish are, and we've been out there all night long.
Jesus, the bottom line is, they're not biting tonight. I know this. I've done this. I've been here before. Peter, you finished telling me how you feel about the matter, what your professional training has taught you, what your experiences have given you.
Are you through? Cast your net on the other side. In other words, follow me. In spite of your edumacation, follow me. In spite of your economics, follow me. Follow me. I know it won't make sense.
I know it seems illogical. I know all you think I can do is preach, but follow me. He cast his net on the other side, and he got so much fish that he had to call the other boats to help him lift it. This is what he does, though. He comes out of the water, throws himself on his face, and this is what he says, I am a sinful man.
Wait a minute now. What's fishing got to do with sin? What's fishing got to do with sin? Because he was willing to identify his attitude as sinful. See, that one was what was sinful, his tood. He had a sinful tood. He had a sinful attitude. His attitude is different. See, a lot of folks think they're okay because they're not really like doing bad stuff, but they have an evil attitude.
And they say, well, that's just the way I am. Well, you can't follow him. God says that attitude is sinful. That attitude is evil. And if you don't call that attitude sin, you can't follow him.
He lead you nowhere. But the moment he said, I am a sinful man, guess what Jesus says? Follow me. I'm gonna make you fishes of men. Follow me. He would have never heard the word follow me if he hadn't been willing to deal with the sinful attitude that thought he knew more than he knew in spite of his long-term experience with fishing.
I am a sinful man that I thought I knew more than God. Well, now you can follow me, and I'm gonna take you on a journey the likes of which you never imagined. Says Peter, left his boats.
This is the biggest fish catch he's ever had. Did he build a condo on the Galilee? No. He said, let me follow you.
If you decide to bear your cross, Jesus has somewhere to take you. The question is, do you want to supersize it? Or do you just want to go on and live your regular life?
Your regular, ordinary, everyday, get up out of the bed, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, eat dinner, look at your television show, go to bed, and repeat that for the next 35 years. Is that what you want? Or do you want the adventure of a life? He said, you got to follow me, but you got to drag your cross with you. Do you want to supersize your life?
Do you want regular? This is what he says. Verse 39, and he who has found his life will lose it. And he who has lost his life for my sake will find it. The way you find your life is by losing the life you're looking for. This is one of Jesus's paradoxical statements. The word life is the word for soul.
It's the souquet. Your life is your soul. That's your life. Your life is not your body. Your body is the house that your life lives in. Your life is your soul. Your soul is your mind, intellect, and will.
Those are the three ingredients of a soul. Everybody has three parts, body, soul, and spirit. Body, living in the physical world. Soul, living in the reality of yourself. A spirit, living in the reality of God.
Spirit, God, soul, you, body, five senses, environment. It's interesting to hear people say, I'm trying to find myself. I'm trying to discover who I am. I'm not quite sure what we're looking for, because you don't know who you are. That's why you're looking for you. So if you don't know who you are and you're looking for you, how will you know when you have located you? You don't find your life by looking for your life.
He says, no, no, no, no. You find what you're looking for by losing what you're looking for. Jesus said it another way. He said, except a seed falls to the ground and dies, it will no wise give life. If you're gonna plant something, you got to bury that thing for that thing to come alive. You got a seed in your hand and you say, okay, come on, come on, come on seed, come on seed, come on, open up seed. I'm begging you seed. You can even have a prayer meeting over the seed. God, do something with this seed. God, I'm praying for you to do, you can put a Bible, you can put the seed on top of the Bible.
It's on top of the word of God. Okay, nothing's gonna happen with that seed. That seed has got to be buried in order for it to live. It is the paradox of life. You must lose you in me in order to experience the life you're looking for. You must pick up your cross, identification with me and dealing with sin. Then you must follow me based on that, relinquishing your life to my life and I'll give you back your life.
But Jesus isn't asking us to go through anything he hasn't gone through himself. And Dr. Evans will tell us more about that after this. What if you could unlock the mysteries of life, the universe and everything in between? Genesis 1 to 11 is the foundation for everything. The Tony Evans Training Center presents a transformative course from special guest lecturer Ken Ham, founder CEO of Answers in Genesis. If you want to understand anything about the universe and anything about life and this earth, we have to jump into God's word. This course dives deep into the origins of life, the harmony of science and scripture and how to build a solid biblical worldview. Do science conflict with the Bible?
No, not at all. Observational science confirms the Bible over and over and over again. Equip yourself to face today's toughest cultural challenges with clarity and confidence. If we're going to deal with issues in our culture, we need to start from our foundation, first of all, to understand what we should believe. Discover faith-strengthening truths from Genesis and explore more courses to deepen your understanding of God's word at tonyevanstraining.org. Explore the kingdom anytime, anywhere. Imagine having the latest smartphone that can take gorgeous pictures, connect to the internet, send out texts and emails, browse social media, virtually anything you want it to do. It has all the features you want.
But until you power it up, it's totally useless. Dr. Evans says that's the way many Christians live their lives. In his illuminating book, The Power of the Cross, he spells out why truly understanding and appreciating Jesus' sacrifice is the very key to the Christian life, the difference between a victorious living faith and a dead, empty religion. In The Power of the Cross, Tony shows you how to access all the benefits, blessings and power the Lord died to give you. Best of all, for a limited time, we're offering this life-changing resource as our gift along with all 14 full-length messages from Tony's current two-volume teaching series, Returning to the Cross. They're available right now to anyone who makes a donation to the ministry. We depend completely on our listeners' support to make Tony's teaching available here each day. So contact us right away to get information on how to receive this special offer, The Power of the Cross book, and the Returning to the Cross audio series. Visit tonyevans.org or call us at 1-800-832-22. I'll repeat that information after part two of today's lesson.
Here's Dr. Evans. Sunday only happened because Friday took place. Good Friday.
Jesus crucified. Sunday morning. Early Sunday morning.
Little while before day. We celebrate Easter. Easter only happened because Friday occurred. In other words, for there to be a glorious resurrection, there had to be a painful death.
Are you following me? We have to be willing to die if we want to live. Guess what Paul says? Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 10 and 11, these words, Always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal bodies. The question is, do you want to supersize it?
Or do you want to live the rest of your life on regular? The only way to supersize whatever life you have left is to die. We're not talking about physical death. We're talking about dying to you that you might live to him. He says, I die daily. He says, I die every day. Every day I wake up and I go to my own funeral. I wake up and I say what Jesus said in the garden, not my will, thy will be done. Let me identify the sins that would keep me separated from you.
Let me radically bring them to the cross in identification and association with you. Jesus, I die today. Then Jesus says, okay, now we can start living. But the moment you stop dying is the moment you stop living.
It's a paradox. But it's the only way to follow him. It's the only way to experience him.
Let me put it this way. Jesus went to his cross so you could go to yours. Jesus died on his cross so you could carry your cross and I could carry my cross. And yes, there are going to be difficult times when you've got to split stuff up because of your association with Jesus Christ. Yes, there are going to be those times when you are rejected because of Jesus Christ.
Yes, there are going to be those times when you are persecuted because of Jesus Christ. But you get to follow him, which means you get for him to lead you in places you never thought you could go in. You get to see him do some things you never thought you could see with your own two eyes. The disciples got to see all that they saw because they were willing to bear association with him. Resurrection comes to death. In Luke 14, when Jesus talks about this, Luke 14, because he talks about this over and over and over again with his disciples. This thing of discipleship and identification with him bearing the cross.
Okay, now watch this. Luke 14, beginning with verse 25. Now large crowds were going along with him, and he turned and said to them, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, just even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Okay, did anybody see the word cannot?
Okay, you can't. In other words, your commitment to him must supersede every other human commitment in your life, including the closest people to your life, including your own mate, says your wife, your children. He's not saying you can't become a Christian. He's saying you can't become a disciple.
You can't supersize your life unless I overrule your life and everybody else in your life. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Now, he didn't say that a second time.
You can't. I don't care how much time you go to church, how many Bible studies you attend, how many prayers you give, you can't. You can be a Christian, but you can't be a disciple. He says, Why now?
Why not? For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, This man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with 10,000 men to encounter the one coming against him with 20,000?
Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then, none of you can be my disciple who does not give up all of his possessions. Therefore, salt is good, but if it has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned?
It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown out. He who has an ear, let him hear. So is there anybody in here today with an ear? Good. Then let you hear. All right. Let's get this straight. If I'm not first in your life, you can't follow me.
Let's get to it. He says it again. You cannot be my disciple. I will be your savior, but unless you follow me as your Lord, you cannot be my disciple. See, when Jesus started talking like this, the Bible says the crowds left him. See, everybody want a big church.
Everybody want a big church service, but if you really understand what Jesus is about, stuff gets smaller. He says, you cannot be my disciple. And he says, now let me explain how this works. He says which man, if he's getting ready to build something, doesn't count the cost first before he starts building so he knows he can finish this project, not have this project half finished.
He says which king going into battle goes into battle with a few people when he's got to face thousands of enemies without counting his costs first, make sure he got enough to handle this assault he's getting ready to get into. And then he says, and what good is salt that's not salty? Now, what is he saying?
Okay, here it is. He said, look, I'm about something. I came here to get a job done. I left heaven to come down to earth to build my church and to build my kingdom. I just can't carry anybody with me.
I can't carry anybody with me. I got to count the cost. Jesus is talking about him counting the cost, not us. He's got to count the cost.
He's the king and he's the builder. He's saying, I got to count the cost. So I'm only going to go forward with folk really going with me. I'm not just going forward with folk hanging on. You know, some folk are groupies. I wonder right now in church, is this a congregation of Jesus groupies? Groupies, they just, you know what a groupie that, they want to hang out in the vicinity. They want to be connected with the name.
They want to be associated with the personality. They are groupies. Jesus has a lot of groupies. Folk who like to hang out with his name. He got rapper groupies.
These rappers stand up at the award ceremony and talk about how they want to thank Jesus while they use any kind of lyrics, degrade women and nobody calls it sin, but they want to use Jesus's name. So he got groupies. He got church groupies. Folk who want to sing hallelujah, praise the Lord. But when you want to confront them about what Jesus says about what's happening, that's my business. That's because they groupies.
You confront a wife about her biblical role, a husband about his biblical role. I don't want to hear that. That's because they groupies. Jesus got a lot of groupies. He just wants to say to all the groupies, you may be a groupie, but you're not part of my posse.
You can't be with me because I've got to count the cost of those who are willing with me and only those who are willing with me will I lead, will I respond to, will they see my supernatural invasion, will they see my supernatural commitment, will they see my supernatural power, will they see me transform that situation. Are you bearing the cross or are you just a groupie? Dr. Tony Evans, talking about the importance of our commitment to the cross, part of his series Returning to the Cross. Now, if you'd like to review the full length version of this lesson, copies are available on CD or digital download. In fact, you can get them as a part of that entire two-volume, 14-message series I told you about earlier.
It's called Returning to the Cross. Remember, when you help support the ministry with a contribution, we'll say thanks by sending you this powerful audio series along with Tony's insightful companion book, The Power of the Cross. But this is a special limited-time offer, so don't wait. Drop by our website, tonyevans.org, to let us know you'd like to take advantage of this exclusive deal. Or give us a call at 1-800-800-3222, where the friendly people on our resource team are ready 24-7 to help you. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. Because of Jesus' death, those of us who believe have life. But it's not just a life that begins when our physical bodies die. More on that when you join us here tomorrow.
