 our life should not be dearer to us than Jesus's life was to him when Jesus was on 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's 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 it was 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 want to 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 Herod Agrippa so James is a disciple of Jesus and he ends his life being killed because he followed laid 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 Hebrew 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 Fullers 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 Matthias was an apostle who filled the vacant place of Judas 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 Edisa 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 angels 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 ambitious 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 Mayu 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 doubting Thomas he preached the gospel in India where pagan 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 Ephesus he was ordered to Rome 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