 Hallelujah. Hallelujah. It's such a privilege and honor for us to be as Christians to know Jesus, to be known by Jesus, and I think it's pretty obvious for people who come here and when you see worship and when you see all of this you will quickly understand that for us, for me, I'm not, I can't say this about everyone, but I can say this about a lot of people here church Jesus is not a religion It's a real deal Somebody say amen And I was talking to one of the young men and he he was saying he's a glad he's like when I talk to most of the leaders here And he says and I found out that none of them have a desire to move out of tri-cities for only one reason Because they love the church Some of you may be like well, I'm gonna move out of tri-cities Wait, we'll get to you too We did not get to that point right away. It took us some time And then God did the work inside of our hearts. Amen There was a time everybody was dreaming it was on everybody's bucket list to get out of tri-cities and Everybody and now to get out of tri-cities is on everybody's blacklist It's the last thing I will do. Amen because we love the church. We love what God is doing and most importantly Because we have a vision that's bigger than where we're coming from because somebody say amen See when the prostitute came to a meeting where Jesus was there and the Pharisees saw her he only could see her past He only saw prostitution. He only saw dirty woman But a prostitute though being a woman with a questionable past She was not a woman with a questionable vision because she knew if I touch Jesus my past Will be just my history But it's not gonna be my destiny and Here is a religious person Pharisee looks at the prostitute and he's judging her based on her past and he's completely clueless That because of Jesus she can have a fantastic future She can be a mother. She could be a citizen. She could have a career. She could sing in the church She could make a difference for the glory of God this Pharisee for God Rahab Was a prostitute This Pharisee for God Tamar Bashi ba and so many other women who were used to bring Jesus on the scene had a really bad past Every saint has a past and Every sinner has a future. We are people of vision We see beyond today We see beyond this year and I want to challenge you today if you are stuck in some kind of a situations Be a person of vision see beyond your situation See beyond your mess see beyond your past See beyond your mistakes see beyond 20 15 or two or maybe three years of wasted See beyond that you are in the place where we're not gonna judge you based on your past But we're gonna challenge you based on your future Let's put our hands together for Jesus Christ. Amen. I Think I might cut this out and put myself to encourage myself every day I'm encouraged already in Jesus name. Amen. If you have your Bibles We want to take one verse and read it We welcome everybody who is with us this evening I see some a lot on your faces and those of you who are watching who also are with us today Through the live stream. We welcome you in Jesus name and the verse that we want to read today It will be one verse. It's a very short verse first John chapter 3 and verse 16. Now. We all remember John 3 16 Everybody remembers John 3 16. Okay, so today you're gonna learn something else add number one to John 3 16 And this is gonna be the verse first John 3 16 by this we know love Love meaning also salvation God a relationship with God eternal salvation by this we know love because he laid down his life for us and We also ought to lay down our lives For the brethren and if word brethren is very hard for you to chew on put others I Want you to say this prayer out loud after me say Lord Jesus open my heart To your word Lord Jesus open my heart to your faith Lord Jesus Open my heart to your spirit Amen I'm gonna speak to you briefly on the topic that will be called on waste your life Don't waste your life the scripture that we've read this evening together says the following that Jesus We know love means we have salvation because Jesus laid down his life for us. I Want you to notice that for Jesus to make salvation available to us Sometimes we don't realize how much it cost him Sometimes we don't realize that he had to come to this earth. That was a sacrifice he had to Live on this earth. That was a sacrifice and he also had to die on this earth. That was a sacrifice I remember I had an opportunity to be in LA for dream center to go there for a week of visit and The whole week we were there to minister to the homeless to the needy and just kind of to be exposed to how People are in need in the United States. I remember feeding the homeless people giving clothes to the homeless people And there was one scene that will never leave my mind and partially is because I have this phobia of Mice and rats up to this point. I've never seen rats in my life only in movies and on pictures I've seen mice and I remember feeding the homeless people and seeing rats I thought there was glory. They were glorified mice. So I asked one of the people. I said, I know mice They're smaller. I'm like, what is this and he said these are rats and I mean and after that I just could not focus on the poor people. I was focused on his poor rats and The rats were literally just feet away from me walking around in a crawling and they were so big and I just It just gave me really bad this day. So the week was over. I was so glad I'm like praise God took pictures great experience gonna go back home and share about it until on Friday night They say we're gonna do something very special that we do all the time We will go at midnight carry a big cross and go to the downstreet down of LA Where the prostitutes the gang members are at where the homeless people are at and we will preach the gospel in the street I'm like, yes, this is awesome Until they said but we're not returning back to the hotel. We are going to sleep together with the homeless people for the rest of the night And I was like It will be good. I would if I wouldn't see the rats and So here I am a youth pastor. Nobody else knew that I was a youth pastor and I started to look for excuses of What I could come up with so I don't go to carry the cross in the middle of LA I wanted to carry the cross. I just did not want to Sleep under a card box for the whole night with the rats being my buddies And I am very sad to acknowledge to you I found something else to do on that Friday night And I slept in my wonderful wonderful comfortable bed And I did not choose to go into the world of homeless people What brats will be my neighbors When I think about what jesus did How jesus came into our world how jesus's sacrifice isn't coming into this world Becoming a man and laying down his life To come from heaven on earth is not the same as to leave a hotel and live on the street To come from heaven on earth is not the same as to leave a comfortable bed in your house with the ac And living under the bridge where you see spiders and everything that is not an accurate Comparison but most of us wouldn't even do that But jesus for the sake of us Leaves heaven where he spent eternity not few years eternity Eternity Comes into a new world where there is more than rats. There are sins. There is corruption There is oxygen. There is love gravity that is sleeping walking There is all of these things and he completely immerses himself into this world But the amazing part is that he did not come into this world With the heavenly chariot Heavenly bed Heavenly throne Heavenly robe And heavenly messengers He did not come into this world like most of us go into other missionary trips bring 25 bags Of everything that we'll ever need for us and our neighbors And we come into a missionary trip and there's literally all of our makeup All of our clothes and we pre-order hot water from somewhere We find wi-fi we have everything that we had in united states the only difference Is the coordinates are difference Jesus comes into this world not as just fully god He becomes a fully man means he strips himself of all the makeup of heaven and takes fully the makeup of the earth God who created the mouth had to learn how to speak God who created the knees had to learn how to walk God who initiated sleep and they had to learn how to sleep And get tired God who created everything Had to as a man learn It all as a baby A billy graham who is a very famous evangelist that all of us know about when he was a young man He said god revealed to him what the gospel is about from a story That he had experienced once as a young man. He developed this in fascination with ants With these little creatures That crawl in your house and sometimes outside of the house He said I was so fascinated by that I would come all the time and watch how they work together I watched her and hill I watched how they were so organized I watched how they seem to kind of not hit into each other but always gonna be so busy and everything And once a month in billy grams house, there was a man who would come with a pest control Where he would come and spray certain things around the house and in the house to kill ants spiders and all other little creatures And here's billy graham sitting in front of his fascination the end hill Knowing that tomorrow a man is going to come And extinguish all of these ants out of his house and around his house. He's a young boy He comes to his mom and he says mom. How can I warn them? To leave the property She said well, you can try. Did you try talking to them? He said well They're not responding He said I took the biggest biggest end into my hand and I told the biggest end every month Your kind gets removed from my property That day is coming tomorrow Can you gather the rest of the troops and tell them you have less than 24 hours Before a poison that will look like food Will hit your territory and all of you one by one will die He said that fat little ant looked at me and did nothing Continued the whole thing again And his mother said there was only one way ants will listen to you if you become an ant Would you become an ant to tell them they will be excommunicated and remove tomorrow Imagine leaving the world you are accustomed to imagine leaving the world you are so comfortable in And going into a world that is under your feet Going into a world that is so insignificant Going into a world that is so Minor compared to your world Just so you could tell them that they are in danger So that you can be like one of them To guide them out of the truth the sacrifice that Jesus made if you can put a slide back on The sacrifice that Jesus made is not only in coming into this world, but becoming an ant Jesus became us Jesus became fully men Just so he can guide other men out of the danger That was coming upon our life, which was we were following satan. We were following sin And you would think that's already hard But he didn't he wasn't the biggest end That had all other ends worshiping him When jesus came on this earth, he wasn't fully welcomed his birth Was already an assassination note was written so he gets killed as a baby Throughout his life He had very few friends and very many enemies He didn't live even up to 33 years Before people mocked ridiculed questioned blasphemed spit scorched plucked his beard out and blindfolded him And beat him and said prophesy Here is a god becomes a man to tell men you are headed in the wrong direction Here's a god who abandons the makeup of heaven who abandons the beauty and the glories of heaven and becomes literally worse In our comparison than an ant to tell the other ants This is not the way to do it and at the end He sacrifices his life For the very ends he came to show salvation That Is sacrifice When you sit in church and it's 90 degrees that is not sacrifice When we give 20 or 20 dollars to church or we go tell somebody about jesus That is not sacrifice when you think about this I want to remind you of something today We know love He laid down his life when jesus came on this earth. He had the opportunity to live like most of us pursue education Try to find the best spouse Build the biggest house and find the nicest car And live the life to the fullest in every term in every meaning of that term Except what jesus did is that he came into this world. He took the life he chose And laid it down and said father whatever you want this life to be Even if I have to end up on the cross for these people I will lay my life down Unlike jesus you can't choose your life. It was chosen for you None of you had a council meeting where you said do I want it or not? Nope, I don't want to exist mom dad. Take me out. You didn't choose that It was chosen for you the only person who could choose his life on earth was jesus And the man who chose it gave it away When he came here right away He laid it down and said father I had chosen it, but I want you to completely direct it Now you cannot choose your life, but you can lose your life to christ But you can make the same decision as jesus has made you may not be able to choose it You may be born at different place maybe to parents that you don't know But you have the right and the choice and the privilege to do what jesus did lay it down So other people can find jesus christ because somebody say amen Because of that jesus paid this heavy price Jesus did not pay this price to make your life better on earth even though That was his desire He paid a heavy price because he knew of something He didn't come down of heaven just so give you a religion something to do on sunday He didn't come into this earth and put on the makeup of of men and literally become like an end for the better analogy for no use of Better analogy He didn't do all of that stuff just because to give us goosebumps when we lift our hands and sing our favorite song He did something else See jesus knew that the next day meaning There is heaven and hell And that we Are headed in the wrong direction It's amazing that jesus mentioned word hell 33 times on this earth. It's about 11 times per year about once a month He mentioned hell more than probably any other person in the bible You would think jesus who loves the children jesus who told when somebody hits you on the right cheek Give them the left cheek jesus who said love your enemies don't judge people And he talked more about hell than any other person. Why because the reason why he became a man Was because men were going there Jesus knew how horrible hell was Nobody knows how bad hell is better than jesus The reason why because he made it He created it He fashioned it He planned it except Not for us When the planning was made to make lake of fire, there was only one enemy It was satan and his followers The problem was is when satan came on this earth He gained more followers than the fallen angels. We became his followers through our sin Every time we chose sin we started to follow blindly after satan not knowing where he is headed And don't let the music from the hollywood fool you that we will rock and roll in hell People who are singing about that have never been there and have no idea what they're talking about Because jesus said he created it and what he told us there is no rock and roll there There is worms that don't die that is fire that that doesn't get squinched Jesus says it's like a bottomless pit and he said it's a very very bad so bad that he says I am willing to abandon heaven Come down and become like you Knowing not all of you will listen to me Knowing not all of you will respond, but if I could just get few people off of the track and say guys Tomorrow you all going to be terminated come this way if I could succeed that this will be worth it If this salvation is so expensive to jesus that he was willing to leave heaven And become a man and dial a command I think It's valuable enough for me to drop a boyfriend smoking Or few other habits That we say they're so hard to drop This salvation is so valuable that jesus died for it. You sure can Should and will live for it Can somebody say man This salvation is so valuable that we have to make it our life's priority To share it with as many people as possible the thought that always Such my heart is that our life should not be dearer to us than jesus's life was to him When jesus wasn't this earth his life was not very dear to him. I'm not saying jesus was suicidal I'm not saying jesus just hated life jesus wasn't one of those debited out or depressed walking around always always having something negative to say jesus said I am the way the truth and life so everything about jesus was happiness and life Jesus says I came to give you life and more abundantly. There was nothing about jesus that suicidal or down Yet jesus did not value his life very dear to him He always laid it down Can I ask you a question? Are you valuing your life dearer than jesus valued his life to him? An apostle john tells us today. He says that If jesus did this for us lay down his life He says we ought to lay our lives down for our brethren See for most of us we love the message that jesus came. You're like. Oh my goodness. I just want to give jesus a little bit more money Such a great sacrifice became like human died man I just my love just grows deeper for jesus But see what that is It's not only so that your love will go deeper for jesus But so that you will follow his pattern and so that your commitment to jesus will go higher Can somebody say amen? I really want to encourage each one of us Disciples murderers all the people who brought christianity to us lived with this motto If jesus's life was not dear to him our life should not be dear to us If jesus's life he laid it down so that I can hear about the gospel I should lay my life down so other people can hear about jesus for the glory of god. Can somebody say amen? I'm gonna tell you about few of these men that jesus had around him Who did some really incredible things for for god James the son of zebedee and the elder brother of john Was killed by king by herd agrippa so james is a disciple of jesus and he Ends his life being killed because he followed lay down his life for jesus the second one Is matthew the tax collector most of you know matthew because matthew wrote the gospel of matthew in hebru He was preaching in ethiopia when he suffered martyrdom by the sword I mean matthew Decided that jesus laying his life down for the world Is good, but jesus is my mentor. I am gonna lay my life down also For the world in ethiopia James the brother of jesus somebody said if you don't believe that christianity is real How hard will it take to convince your brother your god? That is that is a miracle in itself. And so jesus had a brother The half-brother of jesus He was a leader of the church and he was the author of the epistle by his name and this james at the age of 94 History says that he was beat and stoned and finally had his brains bashed out with the fuller's club Imagine jesus's brother who could have said jesus died for my sin This is for free. I don't need to do anything. Then why did he? At 94 years of age not just keep this faith to himself and live all of his days Celebrating maybe writing a book that jesus was my brother see most of us think that To believe in jesus is free, but to follow jesus costs everything Most of the time disciples were shut down and they were said if you're not gonna preach about jesus We will not hurt you. But if you talk about jesus you will be beaten and disciples chose Not to value their life very dear to them matthews was an apostle who filled the vacant place of jesus He was stoned at jerusalem and then beheaded Andrew was the brother of peter so peter had a brother He was name was andrew. He preached the gospel throughout asia upon his arrival at edesa He was arrested and crucified on the cross and the two ends of which were fixed Transversely in the ground, which is where we get the term st. Andrew's cross. So this is how peter's brother history says was crucified why Because to peter's brother as it was to peter they said this Jesus did not value his life Very much to bring salvation. Don't think the angel was suicidal This is not an angel's dream. I want to be crucified Of course not. They all wanted to live just like you. They all had dreams just like me They all had ambitions just like all of us The only difference between them is they followed a master who laid his life down to save them And they said we cannot he became he was god became man We are men. We cannot hold our life to dear that will end. Anyway, we will lay it down as well Peter Was condemned to death and was crucified upside down at his own request because He said he was unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as his lord Becoming a christian at those days did not necessarily mean you're not going to have troubles It just simply means you will have salvation and you also will follow the pattern of jesus to lay your life down to bring others to jesus Jude the brother of james was also crucified at this city Barthela meyu he preached in several countries and translated the gospel of matthew into the language of india He was cruelly beaten and then crucified by people there Thomas who was the dowring thomas he preached the gospel in india where peggen priests murdered him with pin spears And tortured him with red hot plates on his body and finally burned him alive Philip evangelized at the city where hostile jews had him tortured and crucified upside down Simon preached the gospel in the city and in africa and even in britain where he was crucified in about 74 ad john The beloved disciple who was the brother of james from emphasis He was ordered to roam where he was affirmed to be cast into the boiling oil He escaped by miracle without injury and then the emperor banished him to the isle of patmos where he wrote the book of revelation He is the only apostle who escaped violent death So jesus had 12 apostles all 12 Followed his pattern. Please understand Following jesus did not mean dying like jesus. It meant living like jesus And living like jesus means this you lay your life down for god's call And sometimes it could end Good sometimes as we see with 11 it didn't end so good Even with john at the last time of his life, but there was one more apostle that the church had And this apostle was judas He was so bestowed by betraying jesus that he committed Suicide it's interesting that all 12 Did not die normal death Even him who walked away from jesus Can I tell you something we as a church we as youth group? There's three things you can do with your life is you can either waste it You can either wreck it or you can lay it down to god We can either waste our life we can wreck our life or we can give it to god's will For most people they are going to wreck their life They're gonna try to hold their life so dear to them and very soon addiction after problem comes in a boyfriend comes in You know a child or a wedlock comes in not finishing school comes in some kind of a sickness comes in And they crank up dead children out of different places No husband no relationship just straying out on drugs It's literally just challenges after challenges and satan takes and he wrecks this life Other people will read self-help books drink 27 vitamins every morning exercise four times a week They will go to school and they will attend church and they will do their best to Protect their life Make a name for themselves Make a difference meaning make good money Get married to the girl of their dreams to the guy of their dreams Have a nice car have a boat jet ski and a truck A dog and a cat and go on a vacation once a year And pay off student loan until they're 60 And it will seem an american success Until this life ends And you look in the eyes of the one Who looks at you and said i held nothing dear To save you My son is the only thing i had i let him go You held everything dear In this world and you didn't save other people And then that Beautiful successful life in the law in the eyes of other people will seem like a waste American dream is amazing But it has to be second Getting married is important, but it has to be second Getting degrees is important, but it's not first Getting a nicer house is vital, but it's not first Getting bigger rims bigger car shinier nicer newer is nice, but it's not important and it's not the priority Saving up for the new iphone is great, but it's not the priority because for us as christians We have jesus who gave his life away to god's will and that is our standard Everything else comes second. Can somebody say amen? I want you to notice that when you sacrifice You will bring salvation when you live selfishly you will bring Damnation to other people for example Let's look at adam adam is in the garden reaching his hand to a tree selfishly adam is in the garden eating the fruit of the tree Selfishly and guess what happens because of that Every bad event on this earth today that happens happens because of this selfish act of adam every death Every murder Every suicide every sickness and every pain is connected to a man's selfish act in the garden Then there comes another the last adam his name is jesus He is also in the garden except. He's making a different decision Instead of reaching his hand to a tree. He stretches his hand on the tree and lets people nail him on it Sacrificially He gives his life away and because of that sacrifice every good thing every healing Including john's healing last sunday including my salvation including your salvation all of that is connected Not to adam but to a man on the tree Your life has a domino effect People who think that if I sacrifice for god nobody's life will be affected. That is not true People who think if I live selfishly my life is not going to make a difference. That is not true because I know personally people and you do Who made a decision to get drunk and get behind the wheel and your friend died Who was innocent? It shows to us living a sacrificial life has a domino effect on people you don't know and people that you love There are people who will be in the kingdom of god when you make a decision to say what jesus said Not my will be done, but die lord And there will be people who will go to hell If we will make a decision it's all about me and it's all about my me myself and I people will suffer because of that My friends we only have one life to live it will soon be passed only what's done for christ will last Everything else will be wasted Trying to keep your life make it successful is such a dangerous journey Because you got millions of demons waiting for you to fall You got devil who has nothing else to do but to destroy you And you got you who have only 20 years of experience a lot of foolishness and flesh inside of you who screams to do stupid All the time and here you are holding on to your little poor little dream I want to make your life possible flesh is against you world is against you millions of demons are crawling to way to chew you into pieces Give this life away. So when satan comes to take it he has nothing to take it's already in the hands of god I think it was this man who was jim elliott Who was a missionary and he went to ecuador as a missionary to reach out to a tribe who has never heard about jesus And he eventually Got through to this tribe They had a little helicopter and they brought food there and the tribe people picked up the food and they decided that you know They are opening to us. They're picking up our food So they decided to already approach them and start the conversation and you can see the movie. It's called and spear It's based on the true story and they landed on this beach Bringing more food supplies learning their language and trying to communicate with this tribe man as they started to approach them People from the tribe ran at them and speared all of those missionaries to death And before that when they asked him why did he move his family to that place in ecuador? He said the following man is not a fool who gives what he cannot keep To gain what he cannot lose The wives of these men instead of going back to united states Even though the president ordered them to come back because the whole country knew about this incident Because american people were lost in the jungles of ecuador They said we're not going back And they went back to the same tribe people who murdered their husbands And slowly but surely they won their trust And the most amazing moment was when the son Of jim elliott met the man who speared his dad And that man gave his life to jesus And today that man Is his father Today jim elliott's son calls the man who speared his father his dad He comes to united states now he goes there and that whole tribe Will go to heaven because a man decided to follow the man Jesus and lay down his life Man is not a fool Who gives what he cannot keep So he can gain what he cannot lose Only two percent of people in united states who are christians share their faith regularly 80% statistics says have never once in their life 80% have never once in their life share their faith with someone in this country 170,000 people every year get murdered For sharing their faith in the world And here we have 300 million people in our nation And many of us 80% of people that are christians today will never even dare to invite their neighbor To a church I want to tell you something. Let's step it up We're not talking about dying on the cross. We're not talking about being skinned speared or being stoned or beheaded We're talking about that some people actually will get saved and healed and they become your best friends We're talking about your life getting purpose and meaning We're talking about your life seeing richness and miracles. We're talking about people's lives being changed But if it comes to the fact that we will have to sit in jail Our lord jesus christ is so much more for our salvation I'm sure we can handle a little bit more pain and rejection for the salvations of other people Can somebody say amen With that said I wanted to encourage each one of us. We know love Because he laid down his life. Let us lay down our lives for the brethren