What did Jesus expect from His followers? What does He expect from Christians today? We may be shocked to discover that the Real Jesus has different expectations than what many proclaiming Christians of today have.

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OC Church of Christ

We are going to continue in the sermon series that we mentioned earlier

called uh, the Real Jesus, because we're in search of the real Jesus.

And, uh, if you have our church app, again, you can get some helpful

information because we're studying out the biography, if you will,

of Luke, which documents Jesus' life in primarily his ministry.

And so we're making observations about Jesus and what it means

to follow the real Jesus.

And some of our observations so far, Jesus is powerful.

Uh, Jesus was not religious, but he was righteous.

Jesus is a world changer who welcomed interruptions.

And last week we talked about how the real Jesus challenges our worldviews.

And so we've been having a, a united prayer, uh, for this series.

And so last week our prayer was, let's all pray for each other that our church

would've the humility to submit our worldview to the Lordship of Jesus.

And now this week we are going to be talking about how the

real Jesus has real expect.

The real Jesus has real expectations.

Let's go to the Father and prayer.

Father, I thank you so much for allowing us to be filled up this morning.

As we've been singing, I know my heart has been stirred, the words that we

have been singing out in the truth, in the words, God, and how we can

praise you in the mountains, or we can praise you on the mountaintop.

We can praise you when the mountain is in our way.

We can praise you in the valleys.

And God just hearing even John's experience in how you have transformed

his view of Jesus, God, we pray that whether we've been in the faith for

25 years, or we've been here only in the faith for maybe 25 minutes, God,

that we can, uh, really establish a, a conviction about who Jesus is

and what that means for our lives.

And God, I pray right now that you will minister to every

soul in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

All right, so, uh, I, um, I'm in this.

Assistant coach for my son Dominique's baseball team.

Amen.

I appreciate that.

All right.

And so this is actually, um, so last year was his first year.

He was three years old.

I was surprised they were even able to have a league in which you'd

have three year olds playing T-Ball.

And so my expectations going into this were pretty small cuz I, I know my son and

we're doing stuff at the house and I, I felt like he was pretty good for his age.

And then, so I figure when we get to T-Ball, we're not gonna really

expect a lot, but just, just to have some fun and a little bit of growth.

You guys with me here?

And then we go there and the coach, his name is Coach Andrew.

Coach Andrew had higher expectations for these kids.

And so he's showing them some stuff that's really like, you know, true fundamentals.

And I'm going, whoa, my son is three years old.

I don't think he's gonna get this.

And so part of me is getting a little insecure, you know?

And if you're a parent, you know what I'm talking about.

You start to say things to hide the fact like, oh well you know, we tried

this or you, you know, you start to say something cause you're really insecure

cause you're like, uhoh, my kid isn't maybe living up to my expectation and

so therefore it's an indictment on me.

You parents, you know what I'm talking about.

And so, so he's going around and we're doing this and as

the weeks progress, I see whoa.

There's a huge difference between our little T-Ball team

and every other T-Ball team.

Our team is roping it big, big.

I mean, we're not hitting off the T, we're pitching the ball.

Everybody else is trying to hit the T and they're swinging,

hitting the T all over the place.

Our to team.

He's pitching and kids are big beep beep.

And other people are like, what is going on?

And I'm tender every week we would feel guilty.

We're like, man, our team shouldn't be this good you.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, I really was like, people were like, what are you doing over there?

How old are these kids?

You know, like, I don't know, maybe one of 'em has a driver's license but still.

And so these, and so we started seeing it.

I'm like, whoa, this is phenomenal.

And I thought, well, I'm so grateful for our coach.

I'm like, man, he had expectations that led to a different

result than everybody else.

Because expectations affect your behavior, your view, it affects your life.

And the sad truth, spiritually speaking is that we live in a time, especially in

Western society, where many have a false version of Jesus because they believe

Jesus has very little to zero expectations for those who would claim to be followers.

And so unfortunately, and we've addressed some of these things, as you look at

the real Jesus, you start to see way.

He's not the way many people perceive him today, but in the religious circles, the

real Jesus isn't what is seen practice priests taught or portrayed as well.

And so we're gonna look and see how Jesus, the real Jesus.

Has real expectations.

Brother and sisters, are you ready?

All right, so here's what I need for you to do, cause you're

gonna take some notes here, okay?

All right.

And we'll see depending on time here, but I want you to start taking notes

as we go through the scriptures and hopefully I'll give you some time,

but take a little bit of time and just write down one expectation you see that

Jesus has from the text that we read.

All right, church, you're with me here.

And if you're online you can go ahead and put it in the chat.

All right, so let's go on over to Luke chapter nine in verse one.

Church, are you with me here?

Yes, sir.

Luke chapter nine.

We just finished up Luke chapter eight and we saw some incredible

things and so now we take it up.

It says, when Jesus had called the 12 together, he gave them power and authority

to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim

the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

He told them, take nothing for the journey.

No staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt.

Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town.

If people do not welcome you, leave their town and shake the dust off

your feet as a testimony against them.

So they set out and went from village to village, proclaiming the good

news and healing people everywhere.

Okay, go ahead, take real quick.

Second there.

Write down what expectation do you see that Jesus has?

And again, if you're online, go ahead and type it in the chat there.

I'll give you 30 quick seconds, 30 quick seconds.

Go ahead and share with the person to your right there.

All right.

Share with the person to your right.

What, what stood out to you.

Any expectations that Jesus has from this passage that we see.

Go ahead and share that with your neighbor.

Okay, stop.

Alright, sorry.

I don't know if that was 30 seconds or not.

Okay.

Alright.

But hopefully you wrote something down or hopefully even hearing somebody

else, you go, Hmm, that's interesting.

I never thought about that.

Here's an observation that I have here for us.

Number one here is that Jesus expects participants and not spectators.

Did you catch that?

He calls the 12 and he says, Hey guys, here's what you're gonna do.

I'm gonna send you out.

You have the power, a power and authority to do what I've

been doing and what do they do?

They said, no, that's okay.

Jesus.

No.

They went out and did it.

The 12 went out and did it, and he expected his father to participate and

not just observe what he had been doing.

They had seen his ministry, they had been part of his ministry.

They saw the work that he was doing, but guess what?

Now it was their turn to go out and do it.

An interesting, cool thing.

This is a sight notice.

He qualified them.

He was like, you're qualified to do this.

I'm sure some were like, I don't think I'm qualified.

And some were chopping at the bitch like, yeah, here's my chance.

But he qualified them and here's what he told 'em to do.

To do what?

To preach and heal.

Now think about that for a second.

To preach and heal.

What is Jesus?

What does he want?

What does he, what does he desire for people?

He desires not just a part of a person, but the whole person.

Yes, there's a spiritual component to my ministry, the salvation, your faith.

But then there's just a practical side of life that I want you to be whole in.

And so it's not either or.

It's all together.

And if you see Jesus' ministry, especially as it describes it, it will always say

He's preaching, teaching, and healing.

And so Jesus' ministry wasn't just okay, we just preached the word

and we just let any need go by.

And it wasn't just, Hey, we just try to serve needs and we

just hope and guess that they'll maybe ask a question about Jesus.

No, it was all together.

And so the ministry of Jesus, even today should what include some form

of me physically meeting needs and obviously preaching and teaching.

And I'm so grateful that in our church here in North Sea, several years ago, our

court group, our core group, got together.

And just for the family ministry business expanded to all the north

o c and we talked about, Hey, what are some of our core values?

And so, uh, we have five core values in discipleship, our relationship

with God, family, the family of believers, our, our own physical

families, but also evangelism.

We wanna see Orange County North o c Reach.

We wanna see it be reached with the good news.

But also service, serving each other, but also serving in our communities and fun.

And it's so incredible to see our church not just, uh, uh, uh, talk about these

values, but really make intentional strides to live out these values.

And so we've even had recently here, just started back up our Saturday Academy,

which we're really excited about.

They just started, uh, uh, for the first time a couple years after Covid.

And so this is an aw man.

This is so incredible.

And so we're helping fourth and fifth graders in Santa Ana and,

and we're helping 'em with math, literacy, and character development.

And these are situations that are really tough.

We're not getting the honor roll students.

We're going, Hey, can we get the students who are going into the principal's

office for behavior issues, can we have those kids come to our program?

. And so it's so cool to see it resurrected.

And by God's grace, we, we we're having an impact there.

We have, uh, the several members going to Tecate orphanage trips.

We have the food pantry for Cal State Fullerton.

We support the, uh, the, the work of Hope worldwide with the TJ Center of Hope.

And, and so some people are going actually to TJ tomorrow, uh,

to, to go to the Center of Hope.

And so it just makes me so proud to see Jesus' followers

continuing this ministry today.

Amen.

Amen.

And so this is what we are a part of, but we should always be a part of.

These should never be just cool additional items.

This should always be the core components of our church, and not just

as a church, but of us individually.

And so we see here the following of real Jesus meets participating

in Jesus's ministry and not just watching others do it, but we ourselves

are participating in it as well.

Church, are you with me?

And we see this even some more as we look at Luke chapter nine.

Let's continue reading here.

When the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus what they had done.

Then he took them with them and they withdrew by themselves

to a town called Bethesda.

But the crowds learned about it and followed him.

He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and he

healed those who needed healing.

Later in the afternoon, the 12th came to him and said, send the crowd away so

they can go to the surrounding villages in countryside and find food and lodging,

because we are in a remote place here.

It makes sense at this time.

There's thousands.

We're gonna read, there's over 5,000 people there.

They're going, Hey, it makes sense.

This is a reasonable thought.

This isn't, I don't think, uh uh, an evil wicked thought from the apostles

here, but check what Jesus says.

He says, you give them something to eat.

So they were like, who?

What'd you say get, you know what I'm saying?

They start speaking another language.

Right?

Right.

What, what language are you speaking?

Jesus?

Did you give them something?

The answer, we have only five loaves of bread and two fish unless we go

and buy food for all this crowd.

About 5,000 men were there, but he said to the disciples, have them

sit down in groups of about 50 each.

The disciples did so and everyone sat down taking the five loaves and the

two fish and looking up to heaven.

He gave thanks and broke them.

Then he gave them to the disciples to distribute to the people

they all ate and were satisfied.

And the disciples picked up 12 basket fools of broken pieces that were left

over him again with the disciples.

Their response, I don't think is unreasonable.

If I were to ask, uh, you know, if I were to ask Daniel

Sammo, Hey, you know what, man?

Everybody's hungry after service and that's real, isn't it?

? Hey man, you go ahead and feed these people.

Well, well hold on brother.

I, you know, I only make so much money.

He gonna be like, hold on, Marcel.

I said, will you give him something?

Right?

We, we can understand this, but what is Jesus doing?

He's doing a number of things here.

He's, he's leading my understanding, Hey, God is a God of provision.

He will provide.

We need to trust him.

We need to have faith, but we also need to go ahead and do something ourselves.

We need to serve.

And again, Jesus is comp.

He's caring about the whole, the compassion upon the people.

They had been hearing him speak.

He's healing, but he knows there's, there's real needs and therefore we

have to do our best to meet those needs.

And so again, Jesus's compassion for the whole.

And he expected them to take care of the people practically.

I just love that sentence.

You give them something to eat.

Wow.

And then Jesus feeds the people.

But who actually gave the people the food, the disciples there?

Huh?

That's interesting, isn't it?

Wasn't Jesus going around giving all the.

, but Jesus was, was preparing it and serving it in whatever

miraculous way, right?

But it was the disciples.

Now, here's the interesting part.

Throughout this whole part, right before it kept talking about the apostles

and the 12, you remember that it was apostles that went out and did these

things, and then the 12, and then it gets down here and it says, but

now it give it to all the disciples.

Wait a second.

All the disciples, meaning it was more than just the 12 who were what?

Participating in the Jesus Ministry.

It was them.

It was all of them who were what?

Distributing the food.

Again, hey, if you're gonna follow me, this isn't a spectator sport.

You're supposed to participate in this.

We all serve.

It's not just the leaders who serve.

It's not just a few.

That 80 20 roll, that should never take place in the church because we all

contribute and just imagine somebody getting mad at Jesus and going, well, why

aren't you over here feeding these people?

Why aren't you handing it out?

He's like, man, I'm over here providing the food, those

disciples to learn something.

Every single one of 'em.

Wait a second, we are all supposed to do this.

It's not just a few.

We all participate in this healing teaching and preaching ministry, and

so we see Jesus expects us all to do ministry, expect us all to serve.

Let's continue in Luke chapter nine, church, or you still with me here?

Once, when Jesus was praying and private and his disciples were with him, he

asked him, who did the crowds say?

I am Now, that's a great question.

At this time, there's different ideas about who Jesus really is, huh?

Same situation today, many different views about who Jesus really is,

and in fact, this is what our sermon series is trying to address.

Address who is Jesus really?

It may say here, well, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijahs

to others that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.

But what about you?

He asked, who do you say I am?

It's important that his followers have the rights clear understanding of who

Jesus is because if they're off in any way, that's going to affect their faith,

that's going to affect their behavior, and the ministry will start to what?

Deviate from what Jesus has been doing.

And so it's important that those who want to follow Jesus have a clear

understanding of who he really is.

And the same applies for us today in 2023 because again, if you have

a false idea of Jesus, then it will affect your following your faith, and

ultimately you're standing with God.

Because if you have this false view and then you start following

this false view, guess what?

That will affect your standing with God.

And you may think, man, I'm in the right spots.

But no, you've been following the false version of Jesus the whole time.

So this question is vital, isn't it?

Church, and this again, while we're studying out, and

Peter says, what does he say?

He says, you are God's Messiah.

He says, you are God's messiah.

You're the long awaited king, the one we've been waiting for.

You're the one who, who is the anointed one to Christ, which has been

prophesied for hundreds of years now.

You are, it Peter's feeling really good about himself.

And, and Mark, I believe it says how he was able to understand this

is that God had revealed it to him.

He said, look, you, I, I'm gonna allow you to get this little glimpse.

And they don't fully capture what that meant, but, but they

got it right, right there.

And it's interesting.

That no matter how many times you and I can share the good news with each other,

with others, it always comes down to us having a personal discovery of Jesus.

So even as we study it out, we can provide all these tools and sources and resources.

However, every single one of us has to make a personal choice to initiate

and discover who Jesus really is.

You guys get what I'm saying.

And so even for us parents, our kids, they have to make their own

choice, but we have a responsibility to lead them to the real Jesus so

that they can make their own choice.

And so we have to ask ourselves, what are they seeing in our homes?

Or they seeing religiosity, or are they seeing the real Jesus?

Are they seeing us sacrifice for God?

Or are they seeing us sacrifice God for other things?

Ooh, homework, grades a college, whatever the case may be.

What are they seeing?

What's being communicated, whether it's verbal or non-verbal communication.

I have to ask and wrestle with this all the time.

Let's continue.

Luke 9 21.

Jesus strictly warned him not to tell this to anyone.

He say, Hey, don't tell this to anyone.

Why?

Why would he say such a thing?

Well, many of us believe that if, if the disciples win and started saying, Hey,

here's the Messiah, here's the Messiah.

Those people would hear it and get the wrong idea because

they're expecting a military king.

And Jesus doesn't want that to stop his ministry at this point.

So we continue.

And he said, the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the

elders, the chief priest and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed.

And on the third day, raised to life, whoa, think about this for a second.

You're the apostles, you're the disciples.

And Jesus says, Hey, you know what?

You got it right.

I'm the Messiah.

Wow, that's awesome.

The longer awaited king, the one we've been waiting on, the one

that's been promised, and they're thinking, okay, well, he's gonna

be a king the way King David was.

He's gonna be this powerful figure and that we're gonna have a kingdom

that's gonna be even better than the kingdoms in the past, the kingdom

that we had heard about, and he's gonna conquer all these foreign lands.

And so that's the picture and the image that they would have during this time.

And in Jesus turns the whole thing upside down.

And what does he say?

Hey, guess what?

The Messiah's gonna be like?

He's gonna suffer.

Not only is he gonna suffer, he's gonna be rejected.

Not only is he gonna be rejected, but then he's gonna be killed.

What?

What did you just say?

Wait.

If you're God's Messiah, you're supposed to come in and Jesus says, no, no, no,

no guys, this is why I don't want you to tell anybody, because you won't get

it until you understand who the real Messiah is and what he's supposed to do.

The Messiah is not going to come and kill, but he's going to be kill.

He's not going to conquer wicked foreign, foreign nations, but he's

going to conquer death itself.

He's not just gonna save a nation.

He's coming to save mankind, and he's gonna raise from the grave,

which nobody would see coming, proving himself to be what?

God's Messiah.

And so Jesus turns this whole idea on its head, and then

we continue in this context.

Remember, this is what he just said.

He's revealing, and I'm sure that the guys are wrestling with this, and here's

what he says in verse 23, which many of us in our church are familiar with.

He says then to them all again, this is the context I just told you

that the Messiah, he's gonna suffer.

Now here's what I'm, now, here's the next line for you.

He says, guess what, whoever, whoa, excuse me.

Go back here.

He says, he said to them, oh, whoever wants to be my disciple

must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.

That's the context of our church's famous Luke 9 23 passage.

It's right after hearing about how the Lord, the Messiah's gonna suffer.

Guess what?

If anybody wants to be a Christian, guess what?

You're gonna suffer too.

You're gonna have a life where there's going to be challenges and rejection.

And he says, whoever.

So who does that apply to everybody?

He says, whoever wants to be my disciple and and inter entertain the

world with Christian right there.

Whoever wants to be a Christian must.

Deny themselves.

Take up their cross daily and follow me.

You see the real Jesus here.

Oh, then he goes on, let's, let's continue reading.

Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses

their life for me will save it.

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet

lose or forfeit their very self?

Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, a son and man will be ashamed of them when

he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

Truly, I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before the sea.

The kingdom of God.

Jesus has some real expectations here, and here's the expectation.

He expects real discipleship.

He expects real discipleship.

And what does that mean?

That means to follow Jesus, not just to claim to like Jesus, not

just say, oh, you know what, I, I, I, I like what you're saying.

I agree with you're saying your, your speech is so inspiring,

but to actually follow in his footsteps, to receive suffering.

To take rejection and to keep going forward so that one day two, we

will rise with our heavenly Father.

And so Jesus here expects real discipleship.

What does he say?

Deny yourself.

Take up your cross daily and follow me following Jesus.

His expectation for his followers is you're gonna have a lifestyle

where you deny yourself.

You're gonna deny yourself of sin, but you're gonna deny yourself

the things that are contrary to my teachings and my lifestyle.

He didn't say it's an optional thing.

He says this is a must thing.

You guys hear what I'm saying?

He says, you gotta carry your cross.

The cross meant the utmost self denial here meant, uh, uh, uh, conspiracy

speaking to, to die, to oneself.

And again, the context is what he says.

Guys, I'm going to die.

I'm going to take on the cross.

So you too are gonna have to take up a cross.

So Jesus calling them to what, what he's doing, but even more

so, he does even more than what we can even accomplish or achieve.

This isn't just a bunch of sunshine and lemonade.

He says, no, you're gonna have to deny yourself.

And then follow me.

We're all familiar with being a follower of something.

We follow, uh, people's Instagram, their talks, right?

All these, he said that that's not the type of following that I'm looking for.

That's not what I expect.

I don't want you to agree with me.

I want you to actually follow me the way I move, I want you to move the way I think.

I want you to think the way I behave, the way I speak, the way I view people.

This is how you're supposed to view and act as well.

Here's expectations on how Christians should live.

You know, Christ calls it disciples to committed action and demands more

than a simple confession of faith.

It's more than coming down and doing an alter call.

It's more than coming down and saying a life's little prayer.

He says, no, it's gonna require you to change your lifestyle

and not just once, but daily.

Then not deny, carry across, follow him are the expectations

for being a true Christian.

Anything less means you're following not the real Jesus.

A different false version of Jesus.

And he goes in some more here.

Church, are you still with me here?

Look at this.

Look at this.

Luke nine.

Oh man, I love this passage is so challenging.

He says, as they were walking along the road, a man said to him, I

will follow you wherever you go.

That sounds good, right?

Hey, I will go wherever you go.

And Jesus said, man, that's what's up.

I'm fired up man.

Let's go get some chicken wings.

No, that's not quite what, what Luke remembers.

He says, well, foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the son of

man has no place to lay his head.

Wow.

He didn't seem really fired up about this.

I, I think he is, but I think this is also somewhat, Hey, you gotta count the cost.

You're gonna follow me.

Oh man, there's so many blessings, but you gotta count the cost.

Then he goes on, he, now Jesus said to another man, Hey, follow

me, but he replied, Lord, first let me go and bury my father.

That seems like a very reasonable thing to do.

Jesus said to him, let the dead bury their own dead.

But you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.

Who I thought Jesus was like Mr.

Rogers.

He just says nothing but nice things.

He's Elmo.

You know what I'm saying?

Jesus goes over here, man, and we'll break this down here in a second here still.

Another said, I will follow you Lord, but first let me go back

and say goodbye to my family.

And all the parents are like, yes.

Jesus said, oh, yeah, go ahead.

In fact, tell him I said hi.

He's replied, no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit

for service and the kingdom of God.

Whoa.

You see, the real Jesus expects full commitments.

The real Jesus expects full commitments.

He doesn't expect anything less.

He's not asking for a, you know what?

Just gimme half commitments.

I would love it if you just could gimme a 10th of your time.

Jesus expects full commitments.

We go back and what happens?

The first guy says, Hey, I will follow you wherever you go, however, just, just,

just, just jump up for joy for this.

I believe he's happy.

I, I believe this is good, but I also believe this is somewhat of a test, and

I also think he's trying to teach him, Hey, you're gonna have to trust me.

Look, I, I don't have anywhere to go, so if you're gonna follow me, that

means you're gonna have to trust me.

I'm a God of provision.

, and I think he's also trying to teach him, Hey, look, I don't

live for the material world.

Hey, look, look, I don't even have a place to stay, and so if you're

gonna follow me, that means we're scrapping being materialistic.

Ooh, that's tough for us in America, isn't it?

Then the second man says, Hey, can I just bury my father first?

You see, here's, here's something important here for us to understand the

context even more so in how challenging this really was of a statement by Jew.

See, you see the Jews at this time, they considered a proper burial as of

utmost importance to leave a father Unbe.

Unbury was something that would be scandalous to a Jew,

the duty of burial to a precedence over the study of the law, the temple service,

the killing of the Passover sacrifice, and even the observance of circumcision.

So all these nice things that God wants, they're like, Hey, look

what takes precedence over all that you go bury your father.

, what did Jesus say to this?

Let the dead bury the dead.

Whoa, man, that sounds offensive.

Like, man, how rude.

How, how could you be so mean?

Well, let's let, let, again, let, let, let's, let's take the point here, but

let's also present a couple options here.

It's possible that the father, many scholars believe they all

vary on different opinions here.

It's possible the father actually wasn't dead yet.

And so what he's saying is if the father's not dead is, Hey,

hey, he's gonna pass, but let me, I'll follow you once he passes.

So let me put this on hold.

Jesus, I wanna follow you, but let me follow you.

Lemme put a pause on this.

I'll get to you after this.

Another possibility is that he was actually referring to having to

wait to rebury his father's bones.

You see, well, at this time here, um, uh, what, what people would do is they

would bury their parents, but then about a year later after the flesh

rotted out, they would then take the bones and then they would rebury them.

You guys get what I'm saying here, right?

So they found these things.

I forgot what they're technically called.

I should have wrote it down.

And so that's also a possibility is that he's saying, you know what?

I just buried my dad, but I'm gonna have to rebury him, so I'll

get to following you in a year.

Or, Hey, you know what?

He's already dead.

I just gotta rebury him.

So let me just go rebury him right now.

And so you see here, what is Jesus saying?

Regardless, Hey, following me takes priority over anything.

It takes priority even over your family's.

. Then we have the last option where he says to the, Hey, man, I just

wanna say bye to my parents response.

Hey, hey, if you put your hand to the plow and look back, you're not fit for this.

You don't get it.

You're gonna have to be focused.

You're gonna have to be a hundred percent committed to this.

He's saying, there's many reasons, but there's no excuse.

I believe personally, this is just Marcel Hall's opinion.

I believe that all these things and instances were

really a test for these people.

My personal belief, this isn't, that's it.

The Lord here, okay?

My personal belief, they'd have said, okay, yeah, let's do it.

I think Jesus would said, Hey, you know what?

Go bury your dad though, and then come follow me.

I just wanna see if you're really for me.

I wanna see if you have real full commitments.

Hey, you wanna say by your pants?

Okay, cool.

Hey, but you're gonna follow me.

Okay.

You know what?

We'll stop by that way.

We'll stop by your parents' house.

That, that's my personal belief.

But I believe you was testing them to see would you be fully committed or

would you just be partially committed?

Me.

You see, God did this with Abraham, didn't he?

Didn't he test him?

Hey, with his own son, Isaac.

And then once Isaac passed the test, he's like, no, no, no, no, no.

That's not part of my plan.

Here's my plan.

But I see that you're what committed to me.

You trust me.

And so that's just my personal belief of what Jesus is doing here.

But regardless here, we see that following Jesus is the number one priority.

Let me introduce you to the real Jesus.

Boy, boy, he has some expectations, doesn't he?

You know, there's this idea of what, what some called easy believism

in which you, you believe in.

So you go to church and maybe have the right doctrine in our church.

You, you know, you got the doctrine on, right?

Whatever.

And, and, and, and you go to church services.

But yeah, you live contrary to the Bible, similar to what

John was talking about earlier.

Easy believism, or there's this partial commitment to Christ.

But see, if we don't have a lifestyle in which there's denial, There's a caring

of a cross, metaphorically speaking.

If there's not a true following, then we're not following the real Jesus.

And so we have to make a decision and we have to understand the real.

Jesus has real expectations.

So brother and sisters, here's the question we have to ask.

Am I holding to Jesus' expectations?

Do my expectations of Christianity and his expectations, do they match?

Does my lifestyle reflect his expectations?

And for many of us, we have to ask, am I still holding on?

Am I still holding to the expectations of Jesus?

I did it 20 years ago, but am I still doing it today?

As I was studying this out, the Holy Spirit convicted me.

Marcel, you make sure that you hold to these expectations.

And I had to write down, I wrote down on my little, my little notes there,

and I said, I better make sure I do this before I can hold the church to.

Because I can't get up here and preach it if I don't hold to it myself.

And so that's how the spirit is speaking in me.

I appreciate that brother saying, Hey, if you don't see it in

me, go ahead and call it out.

And so I have the same conviction that if you don't see it in me, then boy I better

repent and make sure that I hold to the expectations that Jesus has for my life.

So ask yourself, are you holding to Jesus' expectations?

And if you're not, then today's a chance to renew that.

If you say, well, I don't really know.

I never knew about it.

Today's a chance to get introduced to it, and I encourage you to study the Bible and

get some help, but for all of us, here's what we can do, is we can carry our cross.

That's what he says there.

You know, we have to be more concerned about carrying this cross than around

our shoulders, than carrying those little cute crosses around our necks.

We have to go ahead and carry that cross and say, yes, I'm in the valley

today, but I'm gonna carry the cross.

And I'm gonna carry that cross until I reach the mountain top

because that's Jesus' expectation.

And guess what He expects me to follow in his footsteps,

cuz that's what he did first.

They're not calling us to do something he didn't do.

And in fact, we can't even drink that cup in which he had.

And so we gotta carry our cross brothers and sisters.

And so that was one of the things I wrote down.

I said, okay man, I'm, I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna pray every day.

God, hey, hey, help me to carry my cross today.

I need to be reminded of that imagery because if we do, then we

can participate in this renewal, in this revival of knowing, following,

and showing Jesus in our community.

Just imagine if we had a whole church full of hundreds of people who

held to the expectations of Jesus.

I believe society's view of Jesus will then start to become more accurate.

. I believe that easy Believism would be spotted out and rejected by those in

the faith and would even be spotted by, rejected by those outside of the faith.

And they say, no, no, no.

I know what the real Jesus is supposed to look like.

Cause those guys over there, they're actually doing it.

That's stuff you're presenting.

Uh, you're a phony.

I believe also our communities would hear correct preaching of God's word.

People being healed and held spiritually and physically, and our

kids in the next generation would be inspired to know, to follow and

show the real Jesus to their peers.

Just imagine if we had a whole church who held true to the expectations of Jesus.

Brother sisters, let's crawl, walk, and run.

Let's let, let, let's get on that journey here today here.

So here's some practical things here as we close out, action,

step and prayer for the week here.

First thing here, answer that question.

Does my life match Jesus' expectation?

And then number two here, pray with us daily that we will all carry our cross

and hold to Jesus expectations for us.

The real Jesus has expectations to be participants, not spectators

to serving, to contribute true discipleship in a full commitment.

Luke 9 23.

Then he said to them all, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and

take up their cross daily and follow me.

Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever will lose

their life for me will save it.

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet

lose or forfeit their very self?

Whoever's ashamed of me and my words, the son of man will be ashamed of them

when he comes in His glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

B Brothern says, says, may we hold to the expectations of the real Jesus.