 I am choosing to go, I am choosing to follow Jesus. I am choosing to obey the great commission. I am choosing to love the way that he first loved us. I will not settle for anything less. I am choosing to be a disciple of Jesus. Well, howdy everybody. We wanna welcome those who are online and say hello to Portage. We love you guys and everybody who's here in the building. Come on, can we just give it up for Radiant and the Radiant family, everybody everywhere. We love you guys. Man, we're excited to be with you all this weekend. I know that revival is in the air because kids ministry is coming back. That's when you know all the parents right now are going hallelujah, God has heard my prayers. You're absolutely right. Our team is working really, really hard and so we're excited about that and it's gonna be great. It's gonna be safe. We've been working really diligently at that but we really feel like this is the appropriate time to bring that part of our ministry back and we have some great stuff planned for kids and for adults. So everybody, if you're joining us online, we wanna invite you. If you've been just kind of watching online, kind of waiting for the kids moment, this is it. And we're looking forward to seeing you in person. Those of you who are like, hey, we're still gonna kind of take our time and we're gonna be at home, watch online or you're out of town. We'll continue to be radiant church, one church in multiple locations, including online. So we're so glad that you're with us. One thing I just wanna highlight, you met Pastor Tim Matthews and I met Pastor Tim a couple of years ago. We were speaking at a conference together in upstate New York and his story is a prolific story. He actually will be sharing his story next weekend. He's gonna be preaching the third part of our disciple series. He's an incredible communicator. But when I met him, our hearts just linked. The Lord kind of spoke a word to me. I didn't share it at that time about investing into Tim's life. And over the course of the last several months, God's opened a door for him and his wife, Georgie, and their two beautiful kids to come and to join us. So do me a favor. If you haven't met him or you haven't said hi to him, greet them, make them feel welcome here. They're all the way from Richmond, Virginia. They've never seen winter before. This is gonna be fun. This is gonna be fun. And so we're gonna buy him a nice coat and a stocking hat and tell him hunker down because this is where Jesus lives in the North Pole. So, hey, this morning or this evening, this morning, I'm not sure where I am, who I am, what I'm doing here. But if you have your Bibles, open them with me to Luke chapter 18. This is part two of our series that we just started last weekend entitled Disciple. Disciple. And we're gonna read here verses 18 through 25. But before we read, I wanna remind you of the definition that I gave you last weekend about what a disciple is. A disciple is someone who finds, follows, and becomes fully formed or is becoming fully formed to be like Jesus. Finds, follows, and is formed to be fully like Jesus. The title of this message is the cost of not following Jesus. The cost of not following Jesus. And we're looking at Luke 18, beginning in verse number 18, an encounter that Jesus had. You're probably familiar with it. He's oftentimes referred to as the rich young ruler, but this is the encounter that he had with Jesus. It says in verse 18, and a ruler asked him, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and mother. And he said, all of these I've kept from my youth. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, one thing, you still lack. So all that you have and distribute to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me. There's those words again, follow me. But when he, talking about the rich young ruler, heard these things, he became very sad for he was extremely rich. And Jesus seeing that he had become sad said, how difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. For it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. Now those who heard him say this, then who can be saved? This is what they said, who can be saved? But he said, what is impossible for men is possible with God. And God's, and Peter said, see that we have left our homes and we followed you. And he said to them, truly I say to you that there is no one who has left house or wife or brother or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not receive many times more in this time and in the age to come eternal life. This is an incredible, incredible conversation that Jesus has with a young man who the Bible describes as rich, young ruler. And it's actually the story of a would-be disciple. This is a would-be disciple. You know, we all know about Peter. We all know the name of his brother Andrew. We know James and John and we know Philip and Bartholomew and Simon and Nathaniel and the other disciples that said yes to the invitation to come and to follow me. They left everything and they followed Jesus. We know their names. We do not know this young man's name. We know a lot about him, but we don't know his name. We know about his encounter. We know about his conversation. We know about his pedigree, but we don't know his name. And the reason why we don't know his name is because when he was presented with the cost of following Jesus, he actually declined. It says he was sad because he was very wealthy. And in this particular encounter, we find somebody that Jesus gave the invitation to follow me, to come and see. But yet because of the things that he had and because of who he was, he declined the offer and we never find out any more about him. We know several things about him just from what this tells us. We know that he's a ruler in Israel, which means he's probably a member of the Sanhedrin Council. If you know the Bible, you'll recognize that word, especially in the Gospels, because many times Jesus engages in theological conversations and issues of who he is with members who are part of the Sanhedrin Council. Sanhedrin was an eldership, a governing body. Think Congress meets the elders of your church, all combined. 70 leaders that govern the spiritual, the political, even the economic realities of Israel. They were appointed by Moses. If you go back in the book of Exodus, you see that God speaks to Moses and he tells them to appoint 70 elders over the people. This is the Sanhedrin Council. And this guy is one of those rulers. We know that he's got a high position. We know that he's rich, that he has a lot of wealth, and we know that he's young. So he's probably not young in the terms that you and I think young. In our culture today, in American culture, we think young is like in your teens and in your 20s. But in Jesus's day, a person was considered young when they were in their 30s and 40s. In fact, in Jesus's day, 49 was still very, very young. In fact, it was the new 20. And since I'm 49, I'm feeling young today. So I love Jesus's times as opposed to our time. But this guy was rich, he was young, and he was a ruler. And he presents a question to Jesus. The question is, what must I do to inherit eternal life? In other words, what do I have to do to be saved? And he starts the conversation, interestingly enough, by asking Jesus, he addresses him as good teacher. And Jesus says, why do you call me good? Only God is good. A lot of people read that and they think, well, Jesus is not, he's saying that he's not God because only God's good and he's calling into question. Why are you calling me good? But Jesus is actually asking a much more subtle question. He's like, why are you calling me good? Because I know that you know only God's good. Are you saying that I'm God? And he's also got a dual part of the conversation because he also knows the motive behind the question that he is asking Jesus. How many know that Jesus is really smart? Jesus knows not only the external, but Jesus knows the internal. He knows the heart of man. And he knows that this young man is not actually coming to ask a question that he doesn't know the answer to. He's trying to get self-justified. And so by saying good teacher, Jesus turns it around and he says, why are you asking me questions and why are you making statements about goodness? Because he knows at the heart of this guy's question, what he's trying to do is get Jesus to affirm to him that he's good enough, that he's good enough. Good teacher, I know that you're good and you'll answer my good question and you'll affirm for everybody that I'm good. And so Jesus says, you know the commandments and Jesus does not start at the first commandment. Moses' law, the Torah has two tablets. One refers to our relationship to God. It's vertical. You shall have no other gods besides the Lord, your God. You shall not make any graven images. You shall not take the name of the Lord, God's name in vain. It's those commandments. But then the second tablet of commandments deals horizontally with our relationship with one another, this way. And our horizontal relationships and how we honor God this way, whether it's honoring father and mother, whether it's not committing adultery, whether it's not stealing or bearing false witness or coveting any of those aspects of the 10 commandments. Those are horizontal relationships between people to other people, but they are rooted, first of all, in our first commandment, which is the love of the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, which is the summation of the very first three commandments. But Jesus doesn't start with the first three. Jesus starts with the fourth. He says, you know the commandments. Honor your father and your mother, rich young ruler, check, don't commit adultery, check. Don't steal, check. And probably went through all of them, check, check, check. And then, and then Jesus, when the young man probably thinks he's at his most confident moment, Jesus says, oh, you're missing one thing. Oh, what am I missing? I've got the pedigree. I've got the theology degree. I've got the good works. I've got people here that are witnesses about my righteousness. Come on, Jesus, just tell me you're good. You've got eternal life. It's perfect. Jesus says, no, you're missing one thing. Go sell everything that you have, distribute the funds to the poor, and you can follow me. What was Jesus doing? He saved the best for last. His mic dropped, Jesus. What was he saying? Jesus was reverting to the essence of the law, which is the love, the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the only way that you, young man, are gonna be able to do that is if you get rid of the one thing that is competing with your allegiance and your loyalty to Jesus, which is your money. And actually, when you look at the story, what you see very quickly is that this rich young ruler was not coming to Jesus to see what Jesus offered. He actually came to Jesus wanting Jesus to see his righteousness. I want you to see how good I am. I want you to see how hard I've worked. I want you to see how far up the ladder I've climbed. And then I want you to see that, and I want you to affirm that I have self-righteousness in and of my good efforts, my works, that I have done. And I wanna walk away feeling self-justified. But the young man did not understand that instead of coming to have Jesus to see his self-righteousness, what he needed to do to inherit eternal life is to actually approach Jesus with a desire to see that only Jesus was righteous and that Jesus' righteousness alone could save him. He refused to do that. One thing, you still lack. One thing, you still, I mean, this guy got close, but Jesus said one thing. When we look at this young man's life, what we find really quickly is the three things that most often keep us, all of us, from seeing Jesus for who he really is. Our only hope, our only salvation, the only one we're following, the only one who's worthy to be adored and be master over our lives. The three things that describe this young man are the three things that today, before we judge this guy, we need to confront the reality that these three things that describe him are the three dominant obstacles to you and I actually seeing Jesus because there's a vast difference between knowing about Jesus and actually seeing Jesus. Remember the message last weekend, come and see. Jesus said in John chapter three, without being born again, in other words, seeing through a different set of lenses, we cannot see the kingdom of God. There's just some things about Jesus you cannot see if there are competing forces that you're more aligned with than you are to Jesus' righteousness. And here's what they are. Number one, it's wealth and the lure of money. This is one of the great competitors. In fact, it's probably the greatest competitor to being fully loyal and following Jesus so that you and I can be formed fully to be like Jesus. In Matthew 6.24, Jesus said this, no one can serve two masters for either he will hate one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and he will despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Notice Jesus never put up against God a competitor to be compared with other than money. There's a lot of things that are sinful, but there's nothing that Jesus held up. And he said, you see this? This will be the greatest competitor of your loyalty and allegiance to God. It will be the lure and the addiction to money. It's the only one that Jesus ever said, you gotta choose between money and God. Now that's not because money in and of itself is evil, money is neutral. Money is like vanilla. It takes on whatever flavor you put in it. Money doesn't make you somebody that you're not. Money actually reveals who you really are and the more of it you have, the more of who you really are appears. If you don't have any money, you can still be generous. But if you give a generous person a lot of money, they will be really generous. You give an evil person a lot of money and they will be really, really evil. You give a wise person a lot of money and they will invest it. You give a foolish people a lot of money and they will lose it. You know, there's a reason why lottery winners end up bankrupt on average within three to five years. It's because what you are on the inside is gonna be demonstrated through money. Money allows you to be fully who you are. Money is a competitor of God and that's why Jesus said you can't serve both. It's not that money in and of itself is evil, it's neutral, but it's the love of money. And this is what happens. Jesus knows that when it comes to money, our hearts get really sticky. Think about this. First Timothy six, verse six through 10 says, but godliness with contentment is great gain for we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmless desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction for the love of money, love of money is the root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. So the Bible is clear money. Some people quote it wrong and they'll quote, well, you know, money is the root of all kinds of evil. Now money isn't the love of money is because here's what happens. Here's why money, if we're not careful can become a substitute for God in our life and we'll serve it. It's because money is the only earthly thing that promises to do what only God should be doing in our lives. Money says if you serve me, you can have anything that you want. If you serve me, you can have happiness. If you serve me, you can have provision. If you serve me, you'll never go hungry. If you'll work for me, other people will admire you. You'll have a sense of purpose. You can have a house. You can go anywhere that you want to go and you don't have to have faith. All you need to have is money. That's why Jesus said it's hard for rich men. It's not because rich people are different than poor people. It's just that rich people have something that will do for them what God says that he alone wants to be in our lives. He wants us to trust him. He wants to be our provider. He wants to be our protector. But we don't really need that if we've got money as our God that we're serving because if we go after money, we say I'm gonna trust in you. I'm gonna work. I'm gonna give you my energy. I'm gonna give you my passion. I'm gonna give you my values because if I get you, then everything I want and everything that I need is going to come into my life. And Jesus said you can't serve God and that. Now what Jesus did not say is you can't have money and serve God because you can. You can actually serve God with money. That's the whole principle of, I think why God put into effect the law of tiding. The first tenth, it's to be a continual circumcision of our heart protecting us from falling into the trap of the love of money. Because if every time I get a paycheck and I take the first tenth of it and I give it to God and I give it into God's work and I honor him as the Lord of my life, then what I'm reminding myself and what I'm saying to the devil and I'm stating to the world is my provider is not that paycheck. It's not my own hand. It's not my own skill set. It's not my own ability. I am in covenant relationship with God. So everything I have is not mine. It's actually God's and he's my provider. But when we don't recognize that what happens is a heart gets sticky. It's like, ooh, this feels good. Money, money, the precious, the precious is mine. He throws it from just the precious. This is what happens. I'm not gonna tide and give that to God. That's mine. I've got plans for that. Jesus said wherever your treasure is, there will also be your heart. There's a connection between our heart, our soul and money. Where did Jesus say our heart belongs? Love the Lord your God with all your heart. And yet money is connected to our heart. So if money is not submitted to the Lordship of Jesus in our lives, it becomes a competitor for the Lordship of our lives. This young man was rich. He had money, which means he had options. And the love of money was deeply rooted in his heart. How do we know that? Because when he was offered to follow the Messiah, he checked the price tag on obedience and he said it cost too much. Interesting that here's a guy who's described as having great wealth, but yet when it comes to following Jesus, he wasn't willing to spend his wealth on following Jesus. Why? Because he wanted to spend it on himself. You can't be a disciple and serve money unless you want to be a disciple of money. See here's what's interesting. When we talk about a disciple, there's someone who finds, follows, and is fully formed by filling the blank. It's not just Jesus that you and I can become or will become disciples of. We can become disciples of all kinds of things. We can become a disciple of sports, which means I find sports, I follow sports, and I'm becoming fully formed by sports. It's amazing to me how many disciples of football I meet. And you know what, there's, I'm gonna pick on men right now because historically in the church, women have been the leaders spiritually of households and even in the church. Guys historically don't show up and if they do, they're kind of like, well, I'm coming because my wife wants me to come. And they really don't wanna engage in the seeing and they don't, you know, they're not gonna lead spiritually. Now that's a stereotype. I know that there are some amazing men, but historically this has been the case, but I can tell you from anecdotal, from first hand experience, how many times that I've met men who will come to church out of obligation, but they're not really disciples following Jesus and leading their families. They're not really training their children up to love Jesus with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. They're not washing their wives with the word of God. It's not pouring out of them. They're not the spiritual leaders of it, but you can find out really quickly who their disciples are because in church, they're just like, all right, how long the game's on and, you know, one o'clock. But then you get them outside of a church setting and you start talking fantasy football. It's like, oh my gosh, did you see that? And they know the stats of every player on their fantasy team. They know their team. They record it on the DVR. They never miss a game. They know the height, the weight. They know what they had for breakfast. They know who is the maker of their uniforms, who the sponsors are, the stadium size, the seating capacity. They know what Vegas's odds are on their team going to the playoffs. They know the spread on every weekly game. You know what they are? They have found, they are following, and they are being formed by. Unless you think it's just the guys. There are a lot of ladies following on social media. You're, whatever, you're makeup artist or whatever. It's like, oh, she is with this blush and this mascara. And she does this. It's amazing, the fades that are on there and her cheekbones and wow, it's got that all down pat. But it's like, but I'm too busy to really read the bio. You're finding, following, and being formed by. And I'm throwing out stereotypes all over the place tonight. So forgive me. I'm just trying to show us that we can be disciples of a lot of things. We can be disciples of Wall Street where we know our stocks. We know what the projections are. We know the GDP. We know where things are being made. And we're following Wall Street. And we're being formed by capitalism. We're being formed by consumerism just like this young man was. He was rich. We all need money. Ecclesiastes says money answers all things. But we don't have to be formed by it. What's the second part? He was rich and he was young. You wanna talk about something that will keep you from seeing Jesus fully the way that we need to and following Jesus, youth or our pursuit or sense of endless potential can keep us from following Jesus fully. That's what youth really is. That's why everybody wants the fountain of youth. It's because we believe that youth, in our youth, we believe that we have this endless potential before us. Yeah, we know that people die, but they die way down the road. And we really live in our youth with this sense of we're gonna live forever and anything is possible. We can do whatever we want. We have endless potential, endless energy. And the deception of youthfulness is that we ultimately are our own masters. We are masters of our destiny. When we are young, we think that we can do everything, anything the world is available to us. And you know, when we're young, we have energy, we have vision, we have beauty. But the problem with youthfulness is we have all of those things. We've got energy, man, I wish I had the energy I had when I was 20. We've got energy, we've got passion, we've got vision, we've got beauty, but we don't have wisdom. See, because you can't buy wisdom. Wisdom takes years to develop. Wisdom is how you learn. And without wisdom, youthfulness is like throwing the keys to a Ferrari to a 12 year old kid and just saying, go ahead. They don't have the wisdom to know how to drive it. And youthfulness is deceptive in that way. Because our youthfulness, we think, I'm the master of my own domain. Nobody can tell me what I'm gonna do. And listen, Jesus is great as long as Jesus is jumping and he's riding shotgun, because I got places to go. I got pleasures to experience. I'm the only young once, I can't tell you how many young person has told me that someday I'm gonna follow Jesus, but right now I'm just living my best life, man. It's like, I wanna go to spring break. I'm living, I wanna go to college. You know, I'm just having a few drinks with my friend and just sleeping with my girlfriend. I mean, I know all about Jesus. I love Jesus, but someday when I'm old and I can't walk right, then I'm gonna get right with Jesus. And what we don't realize is the folly of that decision will actually contribute towards the hardening of our hearts and the forming of our character to the point where someday Jesus won't even be attractive to us. Or when we arrive and Jesus is there to pick up the pieces which he so graciously does so many times, his grace will meet us, his grace will save us, but oftentimes there is irreparable damage that we will carry with us throughout the rest of our lives because of our youthfulness, because we believe the lie that we've got forever and that we've got endless potential. Youthfulness will actually keep you from seeing Jesus. You know, it's possible for you to be young, but actually be wise, because Proverbs says in all of your getting, Solomon writes to his son. And if anybody understood what it was like to have a lot of money and a lot of opportunity in his youth, it was King Solomon. He had a lot of wives, a lot of concubines. He made a lot of mistakes and he's writing the Proverbs to his son and he said, son, in all of your getting, get wisdom. Get it. And the beginning of wisdom, the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. This young man had youth on his side. He thought he had a sense of endless potential. And why in the world would he wanna waste that on Jesus? Because Jesus' invitation to come and follow him meant that he was gonna have to say no to all these endless opportunities. The third thing that we see in this young man's life is it says that he was a ruler, which means power and position. When I say a religious ruler in Israel, you think of a pastor, but you have to think in terms of it like this. He was a rock star. He was a rock star. It's like, woo, I mean, that guy is sharp. He's rising up the ranks. He's really brilliant. He interprets the law. He's got a bright future. He's gonna be in charge. He might even be the high priest someday. I mean, this guy has got it all. He walks down the street. Everybody knows who he is. He's wearing the finest garments. He's got bells and tassels on the bottom of his garments so that it rings when he came through. Pharisees and Sadducees were known to hire people that would go before them and announce. And so and so is coming and blow trumpets and make announcements and clear the deck. Everywhere that he went, he had security walking around and going, all right, clear the deck, are we good? Let's move him. All right, he's coming through right now. Here he comes right there. Best seat in the house. Come on over here, Rabbi. Take the seat. It's on the house. Don't worry about, oh, you want a brand new car? Would you drive my car from my dealership? How about, do you like one hump camels or two hump camels? Do you want a two door or a four door or two hump or a four, what do you want? Just drive it from mine as long as you put a placard on there because I want the rabbi to be driving my car. And you can have money. You can have wealth because of his position. In our vernacular, we would say he was an influencer. He had a huge following. He's doing great. He's greatly doing. He's doing it. And then Jesus tells him to leave it all. What was he asking this young man to give up? His dream, his worldly potential. You see, all three of these things describe things that all of us face today. Rich consumerism, young hedonism, ruler influence. He was called to give up his platform. And what did he want him to do? I want you to give it all away and give it to who? Give it to the poor. Some people read this and go, well, if you're gonna follow Jesus, you gotta be poor. Now, Jesus was dealing with this specific individual right here right now because he knew that this was the issue for his life. What Jesus will call you to give up will be significantly different. Jesus had two other encounters right after this with two other individuals. I won't take time, but in verse 35, it says, when he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting there. And Jesus walks by and the blind man cries out, hey, Jesus, God is the tension. And Jesus says, what do you want me to do for you? I wanna see. So Jesus heals him and the man sees. He has another encounter, chapter 19 verse one. It says that he was going through Jericho. And when he did, he entered and he was passing through. There was a man named Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector and he was rich. And he was seeking, look at what the verse says, to see who Jesus was. And he climbs up into a tree so he could get a better view of him. And the Bible says Zacchaeus was a man of small stature. Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see. Rich young ruler wanted Jesus to see him. The blind man in Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus. Why? The rich young ruler had obstacles that kept him from seeing his need of Jesus. The blind man in Zacchaeus were desperate to get a glimpse of Jesus because he was their only hope. Now the saddest part of this story is that the rich young ruler says when Jesus told him one thing, you're lacking. Go sell it all, give it and come follow me. It says he walked away. He was sad. The reason why we don't know his name is because he wasn't willing to pay the price. The cost, what's the cost of not following Jesus? Well, the cost is, here's what's interesting. He didn't wanna give up his power and his prestige and his position but he lost it because nobody knows who he is. It lasted for a moment but it's gone for eternity. Those that said yes to Jesus may not have had it in this earth but for eternity they'll have rewards in heaven. He held on to his wealth but guess what? That wealth is now being excavated by archeologists and it's not worth anything. But Zacchaeus, the blind man, those who said yes to following Jesus and giving up everything including Peter and James and John, we know their names but Jesus also said, those who say yes to me and give up everything in this world to follow me, not only will they get some of that stuff back in this life but in the age to come or right now, those that sacrifice are greatly rich in heaven but this young ruler is bankrupt for eternity. We know Peter's name, we don't know this young ruler's name and the question that he asked Jesus was how do I inherit eternal life? He thought he could get it by being good enough but good enough doesn't save you. Following Jesus, being born again, letting Jesus be formed in you is actually the terms of entering into the kingdom of God. You cannot enter the kingdom of God unless you are born again. What are we called to do? Here's three things and these are very quick. What do you do? What did Jesus want this rich young ruler to do? The same thing he wants us to do. Number one, get rid of your idols. His idol was money, get rid of it. That's why Jesus said, go get rid of it, give it away in a useful way but get rid of it. What is the idol in your life that could potentially keep you from fully following Jesus? Number two, consecrate your all to Jesus. He wants us to consecrate our all. Listen to me, giving our all, not our partial, not our part time, not our hobby but giving God our all. He wants us to love the Lord, our God with all, all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Paul said in Philippians three, one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press towards the goal, what for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Paul gave it all up. He consecrated his all to Jesus. And number three, give up every hindrance to love. Give up every hindrance to following Jesus. What does it gain a man if he, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world yet loses his own soul? You wanna know what the price of not following Jesus is? Is that you actually lose the life you're holding on that you're unwilling to let go of in order to follow Jesus. You wanna know the prize of following Jesus? What Paul called the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus? The prize is eternal life. It's riches in heaven. It's reward, it's honor, it's blessing God. It's living a life now that is full of purpose in relationship with the one who gave his all for us. But it doesn't end in this life. It goes on into eternity. You can either live for yourself as master or you can make Jesus master, but you can't have both. He is not into joint custody. He wants everything. But those who give up, this is what Jesus said. Look at it, look at it. Verse number 29, truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brother or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not receive many times more in this life and in the age to come eternal life. There's promises in this life and in that life for every one of us who will get rid of all obstacles to love. I want you to stand with me wherever you are in this room, portage, online. And I wanna invite you if you would to bow your heads with me in the presence of Jesus. I don't wanna ask you a question. What area of your life has the greatest potential to keep you from following Jesus? Is it your pride that says, I don't need it? Is it your wealth because you think I've got everything I need? Well, can Jesus give me? Is it your fear? Because you're afraid of what you'll lose. Is it your pleasure or a pet sin that you know is wrong but you just don't wanna let it go? Or is it procrastination you say, I'll do it down the road? I'll take my chances. What is it today that would potentially keep you from following Jesus? And you might even be a follower, a disciple of Jesus already but yet you would say, this thing in my life keeps competing with total allegiance to Jesus. Here's what I want you to know. The danger of allowing anything but Jesus to be Lord of our lives is that whatever we serve, we become like. So if we serve money, we become greedy. We become self-absorbed. We become materialistic. If we serve pleasure, it's never gonna be enough. If we serve the opinions of others, then we become like others. But today if we'll serve Jesus, if we'll give Jesus our absolute surrender, wave the white flag and say, Jesus, you indeed are Lord. Then today you can begin to become like Jesus and be fully formed to be who you are always meant to be. You know, take a moment and let the Holy Spirit examine your heart. For some of us who are listening in your heart of hearts, you know, you need to make a hard decision of saying no to everything else and saying yes to Jesus. The promise is he will save you. He will forgive you. He will rescue you. He will give you eternal life. But you've got to let go in order to receive. Today, if you're listening to me and you say, I know that I'm not right with God, I know that I need to surrender to Jesus. I want to receive eternal life. I want to follow Jesus fully. I want Jesus to become Lord of my life. Then right now, I just want you to raise your hand. Just say pray for me, pastor Lee. Today I'm giving God my all because I want to receive eternal life. I want Jesus to be the Lord of my life. Thank you, sir. Thank you, thank you. I see those hands. Who else? Say tonight, that's me. Today I want to receive eternal life. I'm exchanging everything. I'm giving God my all so that I can receive eternal life. If you've not raised it, raise it right now and we're gonna pray. Thank you, young man. Everyone, I want you to just repeat this prayer with those who just raised their hands and even those who are online at home right now watching. This can be you, God sees it. I just want you to cry out to God and say, Heavenly Father, today I choose Jesus and I surrender completely and totally. Jesus, come into my heart, sit on the throne and be the Lord of all. I remove all other idols, throw them at your feet. Nothing compares to you. I want to follow you. I want to become formed to be like you. Holy spirit, shape me, teach me, lead me. I thank you for loving me, God, saving me, God. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. If you just prayed that prayer, welcome into the kingdom of God. So exciting, so awesome. Here's the last thing before we go. I'm not gonna have you raise your hand, but for every one of us who are disciples of Jesus, I want you to take that thing that maybe the Holy Spirit is highlighting in your life right now that's competing with Jesus, or that could potentially compete with Jesus. And I want you to do one thing. Here's what I want you to do. Sometime today, I want you to write that thing down. Maybe in your journal, maybe on a piece of paper. And I want you in a time of prayer. I'm not saying it is competing with Jesus, but it's the threat. I want you to write it down. I want you to fold it up. And I want you to get down on your knees. And I want you to present it before the Lord as a physical act of submission and say, Jesus, you alone, you alone. And if you'll do that, it's just like the principle of the tithe. It will set your heart free continually. Maybe it's in your journal and you write it down and you just say, Jesus, you alone. God today, as we walk out of this place, help us to follow you, Jesus. Help us to live our lives in pursuit of the one thing, which is you in your heart. God, we want to live for you. We want to fulfill the purpose that you have for us. Holy spirit, lead and guide us. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.