Hey, good morning. It’s good to be with you. I’m glad that we all survived the storm yesterday.

I just got some rain, so that wasn’t so bad. It made me clean my gutters out, which needed to be done. So I did that. But it’s good to be with you this morning. We’re going to be in Matthew chapter 8. Matthew chapter 8, 18 to 22. If you want to turn there with me. Matthew chapter 8, verses 18 to 22.

It says, Now when Jesus saw a crowd around Him, He gave orders to go over to the other side.

And a scribe came up to Him. And said to Him, Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go. And Jesus said to him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. Another of the disciples said to Him, Lord, let me first go and bury my father. And Jesus said to him, Follow Me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.

So I’ll start the new year off right with the Pilgrim’s Progress reference.

Did you know in the Pilgrim’s Progress, which we should all read, a Christian isn’t too far out of the city of the destruction when two of his old friends run after him. And they beg him, Come back. You don’t know what you’re doing. And he says, No, I’ve got to go to the celestial city. There’s a crown of glory waiting for me there that will never fade. And he describes it. And his friend Pliable says, Well, then I’ll go with you if it’s that great. And so the other friend goes back angry, and Pliable goes on, and Christian tells him about how wonderful it is. All the trials they’ll face, though, to get there, and Pliable’s just excited to get there. But soon after, they fall into a muddy bog together, and Pliable says, If this is the happiness you promised, I don’t want any of it. And he didn’t even say bye to Christian, and he left him there in that muddy bog to sink, and he went back home. I think oftentimes we need… to differentiate between the Christian life as we think it ought to be, and the Christian life as it actually is. And I think we get ourselves into trouble when we want the Christian life to be what we want it to be. As if Christ didn’t come to redeem a world that needed a redemption, friends. We are, much like Christian, we’re in between two worlds. And we especially live in a time, we live in an age where we’re so fixated on the present, on the now, we’re worried about our schedules, and what we’re doing, and life is here, and life is present. And there’s an urgency we often lose to remember that we’re living for one of two kingdoms. We’re living in one of two realities. And one is the kingdom of man, and it’s fading, and it’s falling away. And the other is the kingdom of heaven. It’s a different world with a different prerogative. And it is harder. And it is difficult. And if it wasn’t, everyone would be doing it. Right? So I want us to see Jesus speak to us this morning and remind us that we’re between two worlds. Which one are we living for? Which one are we truly devoted to in these few moments that we’re traveling in between?

So verse 18 again, it says, When Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. So Jesus has come to Peter. His mother-in-law’s house. Remember, he had healed the leper, which was incredible. Then he healed the centurion. And then he heals Peter’s mother. He goes into the house, we can assume, to rest with Peter and the disciples. And there he finds Peter’s mother-in-law sick with a fever, it tells us previously. And he touches her, and it says she rises to serve. So Jesus is never off the clock. He was willing to heal her, and it led her to serve him. But it says at night time, At night time, the demon oppressed and the sick, they come to Jesus for healing. So Jesus can’t get a break. So here he is in the evening time. And it gets to the point, it says, where the crowd is around him. And because the crowd around him gathers, Jesus gives orders to the disciples. It’s time to move on, to go across the Sea of Galilee and to continue ministry there. But now why? Why doesn’t Jesus like this crowd? You know, good church people like crowds. We like to say, oh, we had such and such. Such people come to our event, right? Pastors of all people are supposed to be depressed. Oh, we didn’t have that many people. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, you know, that’s how it goes. But just generally, crowds mean something important’s happening. You think about campaign season. You know, Lord help us all. You know, people stop, and crowds come to hear the latest politician. And you think about a music artist. And people go in large swaths to hear their favorite musician or artist. It usually means that something great’s happening. So why doesn’t Jesus? We want a crowd. Well, Jesus doesn’t have a problem categorically with crowds. It’s the reason why these people were crowding around him. That’s the problem. Their reason for coming and crowding Jesus was wrong. Don’t you see what Jesus says in Mark chapter 1, verse 35? Jesus is out praying, and the disciples come and say, Hey, Jesus, everyone is looking for you. And he said to them, No, let’s go on to the next town that I may preach there also. That’s why I came.

And in John chapter 6, verse 13 through 15, it says, They gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. And when the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, This is indeed the prophet who is coming to the world. So Jesus does that great, amazing thing, and he multiplies the food. And what do they do when Jesus gives them this material, immediate blessing? It says they were going to take Jesus by force and make him. They’re king.

So the kind of relationship, friends, that the crowds wanted with Jesus is not the kind of relationship he wanted to have with them. The kind of blessing that they wanted from Jesus really wasn’t the blessing that he wanted to give them. And ultimately, the kind of king that he would be over them is not the kind of king they thought that he would be to them. In other words, I want to say this. Life lived at a distance from Jesus will always lead us to false conclusions. About who he really is, what he’s really about, and what life lived under his teaching, under his life, what it would really look like. And that’s why between two worlds, friends, do we discern the way of this one and the way of that one. This world, that world, the way of life as we want it, and the way of life as it is, truly knowing and following Jesus. I want us to see it this way. Jesus calls his disciples to, first, a different kind of kingdom.

A different kind of prestige. Verse 19, it says, A scribe came up and said to him, Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go. And Jesus said to him, Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. So when you read what this scribe says, you would think, wow, that’s a lot of boldness right there. That’s a lot of commitment. He just said to Jesus, I’m going to follow you wherever you go. But perhaps the scribe doesn’t really know what he’s saying. He doesn’t know the kind of life he’s asking for.

Scribes were, and we’ve talked about scribes before a little bit, they’re like lawyers. They know the law of God really well. They interpret it. They teach it. They would advise people in high positions about what it means and how to interpret it in certain situations. So they were very much so the intellectuals of their time. They had that air of arrogance about them and what they did. They were thought to be more righteous. Listen to everyone by the grasp of it. See what Jesus says about scribes in Mark 12, verse 38. He says, Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long rows and like to greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, but they devour widows’ houses and for pretense make long prayers, they will receive the greater condemnation. So in society, scribes like the lofty positions they got. Scribes liked their leverage that they had because they were scribes. It was a comfortable life you expected to have if you were one. It sort of demanded respect from people. It wasn’t a lowly life. It should have been, but it wasn’t. So for this great scribe, here comes a better and greater teacher. The scribe’s not arguing that. He knows he’s outdone by Jesus. Jesus can teach like no one else. Remember after the Sermon on the Mount, it says the people were astonished at Jesus because he taught with them. The authority that they said the scribes that they had heard didn’t have. So this Jesus can draw the crowds with his teaching. His grasp of the law seems to be superior. He can really mesmerize the mind. And plus, bonus, this Jesus guy, he’s got these supernatural wonders that he can do as well. But understand this, what the scribe really wants. The scribe doesn’t really want Jesus and the full body of Jesus. He says, What the scribe wants is a piece of Jesus to enhance the life he wants for himself.

If the scribe really wanted Jesus, if he really wanted everything Jesus had to say, one of my favorite commentators says, he would have to also call him Lord. Because if you’re going to call Jesus teacher, you better call him Lord because his body of teaching is going to lead you to do things you never would have led yourself to do. It’s going to send you places you never would have sent yourself.

So the scribe has no idea what he’s saying when he says, Jesus, I’ll follow you wherever you go. And I think Jesus’ reply is fair. Jesus is not a greasy car salesman. I know that he’s a car salesman, but he’s not saying whatever he’s got to say to get somebody’s name on the line, you know, get them on the team. That’s not what he’s doing. He says, hey, look, you know those lowly creatures, the foxes and the birds? They have the smallest of dignity and comfort in life in that they have a place to lay their head. Like they have a small place in the world. Jesus says, the son of man, me, my fathers, my disciples, I don’t often have a place even to lay my head.

Now, what would have this scribe thought of hearing this high, famous, miracle-working teacher say, I don’t even have the dignity and the comforts of small animals? The better question is not what did the scribe say in response. I think the better question is, what do you and I say in response to Jesus saying that to us?

Following Jesus in this world, in this life, friends, it accrues not fame and fortune, but often ridicule and rejection. Not prestige, but humiliation. Because when you and I really get close to Jesus, when we get really close to His teachings, we discover this. He’s not teaching us that we must attempt to live a great life now. Jesus is teaching us we must learn how to die a great death now. That’s why Jesus came. So much of what the fallen human self longs for runs counter to what Jesus really expects of His disciples to embrace. You know, you and I, we want the approval of others, don’t we? We want to be thought well of by others. I want to do some feat in life that causes others to swoon over me. I want a position of authority and respect. I don’t want to be low on the totem. I want to be really, really thought well of people. I mean, I want to count. I want to be someone. And while the desire to be known and be loved, it’s not wrong, the selfish desire we often have to receive glory through the people that know us, a certain kind of love God never intended for us to have from people, certainly is wrong. So friends, the perception and the approval that other people have of you, coupled with your approval, your identity of yourself, it should always terminate what God says. Well, what’s God say about that? What’s God think about that? How’s God view me? What’s God say a right life I should be living? That’s what matters most, irrespective of what other people say about you, irrespective of, and this is maybe harder for some of us than others, irrespective of what you think about yourself.

The sin problem rooted deep in the heart of man, it produces the fruit, the bad fruit, self-admiration. I think the best word is vainglory. I think you and I have a vainglory glorious bent to erect ourselves as worthy of praise God never intended us to have, a desire to be loved by people the way God never intended for humans to get glory and get praise from other people. So what you and I need is this, we need a square punch in the soul, real square punch right in the soul, and here’s how Jesus does it in Luke 14, 33. He says, hey, if you want to be my disciples, don’t erect yourself, don’t build yourself up. Jesus says, you’ve got to renounce yourself.

Do away with yourself.

Self is broken.

Self is confused. Self is perverted. Self is sick with sin and pride. And that sin sickness, friends, it always blinds us to the one thing that we need to see most, and it’s this. There’s just one famous person. There’s just one person worthy, worthy of all your praise. There’s one person who’s worth you giving up your life’s pursuits for Him, and it’s Jesus. Jesus calls me out of the silly little pursuit of self-glorification to a higher heavenly pursuit to live for His glory. And you know the funny thing about it is, when I stop pursuing my glory, when I stop living for people loving me, and I start to live for Christ and His kingdom and His glory, it’s amazing how being known and loved by God is more satisfying than it could ever be to be known and loved by someone else. It’s amazing how when we really know God and we give ourselves up for Christ, we’re found to be loved and full in Christ in a way we never could have otherwise.

Knowing, loving Jesus, living under the full body of His teaching, you know what it does? It exposes the praises, approval, the way of man for what it is. It’s meaningless.

Fading. When we are known and loved and love and know Jesus and we live for Him and under His teachings, you know what it does? It exposes the foolishness of you and I trying to build our castle right now.

When we live for Jesus, we go, oh, my castle’s like a little sand castle. And as soon as the tide rises, it’s going to be gone and nobody is going to remember it. It’ll be gone forever. But in Jesus Christ, let me say, is a wealth of heavenly eternal glory that never fails. It can never be taken away. It’s the glory of knowing and being known by Jesus. Living a life that’s better than one we could ever find here. Living for His glory outweighs infinitely living for your own glory. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8, Jesus, though He was rich, though He was glorious, though He was praised, though He was high, what did He do? He became poor so that through His poverty, when you and I give our life up, when we give this world up and we take and we accept and we become poor, we become poor with Jesus, what happens? We become rich with Christ where He is in the heavenly places.

The world’s rejection of Jesus and His pupils will be obvious and evident because it condemns the glory that so many people live for. It condemns the prestige that so many people want so bad in life. Like the Hebrew writer says, Noah, Noah condemned the world when he forsook it to build that ark to place his family in it and pass the rejection and the ridicule of the world. Noah was safe in that ark. And you know what that points to, friends? In the very same way when you and I really forsake ourselves and forsake this world, we’re found safe in Christ.

If we get near to this Christ and we look close enough at Him, we’ll see a Jesus that didn’t demand the glory He deserved, but a Jesus who emptied Himself. A Jesus who gave Himself up. A Jesus who lived according to the Father’s will that called Him to, empty Himself against the rage of the world that hated Him. But in Jesus living for heaven on earth, you know what it did? He ascended to heaven with a glory that no one has ever had and no one will ever have like Jesus. Jesus is worthy of a praise that no one else is worthy of because of who He is alone and what He has accomplished. So there lies the great choice, friend. A world that’s right in front of your face that, man, you can taste and you can touch it and you can feel it now. Oh, how it’ll vanish. If we could but identify with a suffering servant, we will be raised up to the heavenly places with Him.

I want at the same time for us to do what I’m not sure the scribe could do and it’s this.

Deal honestly with our weakness to rightly recognize our own vainglorious nature. I don’t think he could really got that. He thought too well of himself. You remember the Apostle Peter? Jesus, I’m going to suffer with you to death. Bye. I mean, that’s what happened. Jesus, you know, he was taken. He was arrested and Peter was gone with the rest of them. And soon after, Jesus three times denied Jesus. Friends, you and I are weak and I don’t say it to discourage you, but until we come to that place as painful as it is of confessing, God, I really don’t desire to lift my heart and my hands to you. Until we can be honest about that, we’ll never actually do it. I’ve got to be that brutally honest with God about my lowest state before His Spirit will come and turn my heart towards heaven and lift me above a world that’s fading, a world that’s passing away. Christ has called you and I to a different glory, an eternal heavenly prestige. If you and I are found rejected with Christ here, we will be found exalted with Him there between us. Between two worlds,

who are you going to live for?

The documents of surrender officially ending World War II were signed by the Japanese and designated representatives of the Allied Nations on September 2, 1945. And General Douglas MacArthur, officiating the ceremony aboard the USS Missouri, was the last to sign on behalf of the United States. But he did something different. MacArthur took his pen and said, simply sign his first name, Douglas. He then passed the pen to General Wainwright, who signed Mac, and then MacArthur gave a pen to General Percival, who signed Arthur. This unusual procedure was MacArthur’s way of honoring the two U.S. generals who had suffered severe persecution as prisoners of war. They’d persevered, and now they were allowed to share in the glory of the victory.

And I think that is such a, such a word for us as the church, corporately. We want to get to heaven, but we don’t want to fall in the mud and the bog, you know? And perhaps you saw it in the news. I mean, you know, think about the Methodist church right now. They’re proposing literally a split in their denomination for something that a hundred years ago would have made any churchgoer do backflips. I mean, it’s not over some especially like esoteric doctrinal difference. It’s over human sexuality. It’s over approving of the LGBT community. And just to be clear, it’s not about loving people. It’s about affirming sin is what it’s about. So it’s crazy how the church today, especially in the West, we want so bad to be liked. What do we have to do to be liked by the world? And I think it just screams wet noodle discipleship. It screams faux discipleship. Yes.

And on a personal level, friends, I think we have to take into account how much do we love the truth when we’re around friends and family and coworkers. How bad do you truly fear rejection? I’m not telling you to pick a fight at work,

at family reunions, you know, on the internet. At the same time, are you letting times pass you by when you should speak for truth, when it doesn’t matter? I’ve gotten myself, I won’t say in trouble, but I’ve gotten myself in controversial family gatherings because I wanted to speak the truth and it needed to be heard. So friends, whose approval do you want? You know, even I think down to the smallest thing in your heart, like I just want to have a house that people like, that’s a nice home. I want to just have a car that just looks. Those are just the smallest of indicators. It’s like you’re wanting some kind of approval in some way from someone other than God. God himself. And I think we’ve got to constantly like, Lord, shine that light on my dirty old heart. Like how I just want to be here and be affirmed in this place. Like remind me of where I’m going. Remind me of the world I’m going to. And lastly, I say, friends, we’re going to be praying for this. Like, Lord, constantly keep my heart like pure and right. Like, let me just Christian discipleship, Christian discipleship, Christian discipleship. And I send those articles because I like to send them for us to like be aware of like how Christians are doing this, you know, around the world. I just think about in China right now and Pastor Wang, he’s going to prison for nine years. Nine years. For what? For passing out gospel tracts. I mean, it’s crazy. Just our context and just, do we grapple really what it means to lose the prestige and the honors of this world for our Christ, for our King? Is he teacher? I hope. But more, is he Lord? Is he Lord?

Jesus doesn’t call us to just a different kind of prestige. Jesus calls us to a different set of priorities. He calls us to a different set of priorities. Verse 21,

it says, another of the disciples came, said to him,

Lord, let me first go and bury my father. And Jesus said to him, follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead. So I think Matthew’s reminding us, you can’t just call yourself a disciple and you are one, right? Like if you get in an airplane, you’re not a pilot. Just because you observe and you watched it. So you can wear the label all day long, but what matters is how are you really meaningfully, effectively learning and fully imitating and embodying the way of the Master you’re following. That’s what actually matters. So Matthew gives the man the title disciple, but it doesn’t, it doesn’t seem the man truly grasped the meaning of the word, what it costs. And I think Jesus makes it very clear, it costs a great deal. He makes a request. This beginner, perhaps faux disciple, asks Jesus if, before he follows Jesus fully and truly, he says, can I go and do something first? He says, first. And he says, I want to go and bury my father. Now here’s what’s very likely, the Greek phrase, the phrase he used, it more implied he was going to go take care of his father until the time of his death. So it was like an idiom to imply take care of my father until he passed away. Maybe. Maybe he just meant my father died and I need to go and set up the funeral arrangements and then there’s his estate, all this stuff I’ve got to take care of and then break up the will. Whatever he meant, I don’t know exactly what he meant. But here’s certainly the case. He says, put a nail in the coffin of his own Christian discipleship. Because he said to Jesus, I got something else, I got something first to do. The man said he had priorities other than Jesus that he had to tend to first. And I think it’s a really hard word for us to hear this morning, but we need to hear it. That just won’t comply with Jesus.

Jesus seems to give, I think, the coldest of responses, doesn’t it? It seems really cold. It’s not cold at all. It’s actually just good advice.

He says, go and let the people who are obsessed with the affairs of this world, let them deal with it. In other words, let the spiritually dead bury the physically dead and just follow me. Now, we’d be missing this entirely if we thought, here’s what Jesus just did. All Christians, all time, all place, henceforth barred from ever attending a funeral. You can never bury your biological relatives. That’s not what Jesus is doing here. I, I think Jesus can see through this man in a way that you and I can’t and he’s getting to the heart of the problem with the man. Okay? And here’s the heart of the problem with the man. Nothing, even the good things in life, can stand between Jesus and his followers. Nothing. Between the orders he gives and between obedience, between the mission and devotion,

nothing can take priority over Christian discipleship. If it does, Jesus warns, our discipleship may come out to be, to be, no discipleship at all.

Jesus is making abundantly clear to us it costs personally to follow Jesus. It costs a lot. It’s a sacrificial life of choosing for what and for whom we really want to live and exist. And Jesus is clear here and he’s clear elsewhere. Jesus doesn’t play second fiddle in anybody’s heart. Never. Jesus demands your first. Jesus demands your, your best. Or Jesus doesn’t want any of it at all. That’s what, that’s what discipleship is. It’s, it’s giving your whole self to one whole cause at the cost of everything else. You see it in a picture of the, the high priest in Leviticus 21. Look, it says, the priest who is chief among his brothers on whose head the anointing oil is poured and who has been consecrated to wear the garment shall not let the hair of his head hang loose nor tear his clothes he shall not go into any dead bodies nor make himself unclean for even his father or for his mother. So the law was if the high priest was serving in the temple not even for his mother or his father could he rip his robe. Not could he let his hair down. He had to have unbridled, unbroken service to God. It was that kind of devotion.

And I’m afraid that that just weighs like a feather on our car. Conscience today. I wonder if that just weighs just like air when it should fall on us like a boulder. The seriousness for which we should take Jesus and the Christian life. How casual we make it. How customized we make it. And we stop getting down on our knees and saying, Lord, here I am. What do you want from me? When do you want it from me? What do you want? How much? And we start to ration out ourselves to, God, as we see best fit, I’ll hurt just a little. But Christ says, no, if you’re going to come after me, take up your cross daily and die. It’s totally different, I’m afraid, than most Christians see. It’s totally different.

I think these kind of words, they seem like a great cruelty and injustice to faux disciples. But I believe if we’re truly disciples of Jesus, we’ll see it as a joyful burden. You know why? Because it’s a burden. Because it hurts to lose. I mean, it hurts to give up things, even good things we want. Right? Disciples aren’t immune to suffering and deprivation. But it’s a joyful burden because what we lose, Jesus replaces, you know, in our hands with something far better, something far more beautiful. Jesus gives us a priority and a pursuit of Him and His kingdom and His disciples and His people. And that kind of pursuit, it’ll fill you up as you run. And even as it’s so narrow and even as the valley is so low, it’s joyful because it’s real and it’s going to take you to a place that lasts. It’s not going to terminate with just you making more of you making more of you and you making more of stuff and people that’ll never satisfy. I mean, no matter how difficult the road, friends, it’s a joyful burden that ends in the greatest of glories we could never imagine.

And the story is the smallest things, you know, we give ourselves to. Little interests, little hobbies, little amusements, things we’re so sure are worth our precious time and money. We’re so worried for personal security, so what do we do? We give work. I’ll give money my greatest security. I don’t want security just today. I want to make sure I got security tomorrow.

I want to go beyond the bounds of appropriate, you know, relational health, the care and love for people, the point where I’m appeasing and serving people. You know, let me say parents, we do not exist for our children.

Children, for a lot of parents, are idols

that ruin the parent and the child. Children are not princes and princesses to be given what they want, to be taken what they want. Your schedule should not be chock full of your kid. Your kid should be watching your sacrificial life to see what it looks like to follow Jesus. And I really think certainly in the American context, we’ve flipped that in a terrible way.

The who, the what, that gets your best time, your best energy, your best resources, that is the great nail in the coffin of your Christian discipleship.

I believe what’s hidden behind a life that’s riddled with earthly pursuits

is a dissatisfaction with Jesus. We haven’t satisfied our souls in Jesus the way we should, so I want to find it in that thing. And I want to find it in that person. And I want to find it here. And I want to find it there. But friends, the true disciple has no priorities as well as no backup plans. It’s got to be Jesus first and Jesus always. Jesus today and Jesus tomorrow.

Lewis Sperry Schaefer, referring to a friend who was devoting most of his time and energy in the pursuit of some insignificant matter, said, He reminds me of a bulldog, chasing a train. What’s he going to do with it if he catches it?

You know, how often do we do that in life? Something’s just so important and you get it and it’s great for about one second. You know, what are you going to do with it if you catch the world? It’s going to go like sand through your hands.

So I’ll do what a good pastor should do. I’m going to plug Sunday mornings. Friends in our extremely busy world where people are just so, so sure. They’ve got places to be. They’ve got things to do. Don’t neglect the gathering. Don’t neglect the place where we come and we’re filled with Spirit and we’re filled with truth and we’re empowered to have clear vision of who Jesus is and what the cross is and what a life well spent is and the glory of God falling on us. We can’t sacrifice. We can’t give that up. Nothing else is worth it in all your life. Be here. I mean, I’m mindful. I’m mindful of Moses in the Old Testament and they gathered for the Sabbath and they caught a man out gathering sticks and Moses had stoned that man to death. Friends, we’ve got to rest in Christ. It’s that important.

When you hit that snooze button

instead of getting up to spend time with the Lord,

friend, it becomes obvious what’s most important. I say that to myself.

And I think it does have a great deal to do with money. You know, I think part of the American dream is security. You know, I want security today. So is it wrong to save? Is it wrong to have retirement? I think you’re asking maybe the right question from the wrong angle. It’s not an issue of is it wrong to save money or have retirement. I think it’s wrong to keep money in your pocket when God said give it to something. I think that’s what’s wrong. So, you know, if you find someone who’s doing deep sea diving and proverbs, like pull out some random verse about, hey, the ant works hard so he has food in the winter. Like all you’re doing is using scripture against scripture so you don’t have to obey God, right? So, so not, you know, I can’t answer for all of us. Like how much should you be saving? How much? I know this. You should be giving what God calls you to give. You should be giving cheerfully. You should be giving of yourself. Where are your priorities? Where are your priorities? If he takes care of the raven and the sparrow, will he not also? Take care of you and I when we’re about his business. You know, he’s ever present in that way.

So, between two worlds,

I want to say to us this morning, let’s live for the one that’s coming. Let’s live our life for the one that’s eternal.

Because in that world to come, there is a, there is what Paul said, a weight of glory. You know, it’s a weight of glory. You know, C.S. Lewis imagined it in The Great Divorce. He imagined it like something so heavy it would just pass through your hands if you tried to heal it now. We’re so weak and frail compared to just the glory of what’s going to be in heaven someday.

And when we have heaven’s priorities, you know what Jesus said? Jesus says, everything you’ve lost in this life, it’s going to be multiplied back to you a hundred times. Mother and father and sister and brother and fields. Oh, whatever loss you think you have now, you won’t even remember it when you get what you get in Christ when heaven comes. So a serious, simple plea to us in the early 2020, for whom and for what are we living? I don’t know. I don’t know. And I guess no one knows, but Jesus, how did the man respond? Did he say, okay, I’ll live in poverty with you, Jesus? I don’t know. Did the other man say, okay, I’ll set aside my father? I don’t know. But what do you say this morning? Who will you follow? Who will you choose? Let it be Jesus. Let it be Jesus. Amen. Let’s pray. Amen.

By grace through faith in Christ, are we saved, Father?

Lord, we don’t have the power in ourselves to help ourselves, to save ourselves, Lord. So we need, we need just your grace, we need your grace to come. And we need your grace, Lord, just to give us the eyes to see how wonderful you are, to see how beautiful you are, to see how indescribably

satisfying you are.

Lord, all the things that keep us so busy, all the things that are so urgent in life that we allow to rule us, Lord, we just pray for a heavenly perspective to know what it means to stop

and to be with Jesus, to sit at His feet,

to choose the better thing, Lord.

I’m just praying for something that, Lord, only your Spirit can do and just give us a greater sense of Jesus, a greater desire to obey, to be like, to prioritize this Christ.

I pray we wouldn’t look for our happiness, we wouldn’t look for our joy, we wouldn’t look for comfort now, but we would remember, Lord, that we’re exiles in a foreign land now and we’re waiting for you, Jesus, to come back and to make all things new and to make all things right. So, Lord, I pray each of us individually, I pray as a church, that’s why we would exist, that’s what we’re looking forward to, that’s what we’re making disciples for.

That’s my prayer. God, I know that that would please you if it came to pass. I’m just praying that in faith.

So, just turn our eyes to Jesus. That’s my prayer.

Amen.