This sermon emphasizes the importance of discipleship and the commitment to follow Jesus wholeheartedly. It highlights the need to prioritize Christ above all possessions, relationships, and ambitions, and to carry our cross daily. The speaker urges for a relentless pursuit of God, seeking His approval alone, and avoiding lukewarm faith that leads to ordinary Christian living.

I wanted to share something. There are few more visitors than normally are. I wanted to share with you a verse from Romans chapter 12, verse 6. Start from Romans chapter 12, verse 6. Romans chapter 12, verse 6. We are different from most other churches. Probably all of us have grown up in other churches. And in the sense that we give an opportunity for other people to also speak. It's not because we believe everybody has a gift to speak publicly. It's not because we believe that everybody, it's an equal opportunity establishment. Everybody gets equal opportunity to speak. Not at all. We believe in the body of Christ. And there's a word that the Bible uses called prophecy. And it's a weird word because the culture understands prophecy as talking about the future. Prophecy in the new agreement in the Bible. We always go to the Bible to get our definitions of biblical words, not the dictionary. To get the understanding of biblical words. We could get trouble if we look at the dictionary for words like humility and joy and prophecy. Because humility could be defined very differently by the world than the way the Bible defines it. It says, Jesus for example says, learn humility from me. And then he goes and chases out the people from the temple. I don't know any human being or any dictionary definition of a journalist who would say, there was Jesus being humble when he took the straws and chased out the temple. But the definition of humility is not the dictionary, it's Jesus. He said, learn from me humility. So humility has got nothing to do with how we act based on a definition from the dictionary but from Jesus' life. And so Jesus was standing up against sin and didn't care what people thought or whether he was humble or not. The same way prophecy as it relates to this is, what we are desiring from people who get up and speak is this. Not that they'll give me more information. That in this verse, in verse 6, it would say that we would speak in such a way according to our faith. That's the key word. I am starting to see more and more in my own Christian life that every problem in this world that has come by me can be solved by faith. In God's word. God's word has the solution. That is enough. Now the challenge is for me to grow in that faith so that I can more simply believe that God said it, so it is. And the challenge is that I use a lot of other things that make me rich, as we heard. Money can make me rich at the expense of trusting God's word. Lots of intellectual understanding can make me rich to the point of not going to God and his word. And his word is sufficient and so sometimes God allows, and many times, God allows all these situations to come in to attack us to where we are not rich. Not because he's trying, he's a mean God, but he's trying to build in us faith which is, me and my word is enough. And so praise God for opportunities for that. Now, as it comes to sharing, we also are given words with which we should be sharing words. And what people ought to get out of me speaking is not solutions. Is not, here is the theology on it, here is the explanation of it. That's teaching. And teaching is for the folks who are the elders in the church to teach. What sharing, when we ask people to come up to share is, because we want the church to grab a hold of people's faith. Faith is not belief in your mind. Faith is not belief in your mind. Faith is belief in one's heart. Big difference. I could believe in my mind that exercise and a low sugar diet and all kinds of other things is good for me. It's the right way to live. You all probably will check those statements. If I asked a quiz, how many believe that lots of sugar is bad for you? All of us will put our hands down, put our hands up saying sugar is bad for you. But let's go to the restaurant and put your tantalizing chocolate cake or Indian desserts and then we'll find out whether you believe it. I know what you said in your mind, but do you believe it? I'll apply that to the Christian life. We say, God, you are enough. God, you're my everything. Prostrate before you, I'll worship you. We can say a lot of words. Now, it's not whether they're technically correct or wrong. I can have every one of us get up and speak nutritional facts, and I have a feeling most of us will get it right. Nobody's going to get up and say, sugar is great for you, come on, keep on eating sugar. Eat as much butter and everything else you want to eat, doesn't really matter. Don't think, even if non-nutritionalists among us have not read a thing about it, I think we'll have enough sense to say, well, you've got to do things in moderation, things like that. So it's not very difficult to get a group of people to get up who are Christians, who study this book, like English majors study literature and Shakespeare, to come up and say, here's what the book says, we should live like that. There's no virtue in that. What we're trying to build is a group of people who have faith. And it's hard to testify in a moment that these people have faith. Only the Holy Spirit can testify. The Holy Spirit has to speak to your heart based on what the people are getting up and speaking. If there's faith, that's coupling what is being said. All of us need to judge ourselves, whether we are doing that. Not only when we're speaking up in states, but whenever we're trying to help other people in the Christian life. It's not about giving advice. It's not about saying, cutting and pasting, searching for refuge and searching for fear, finding the right verse and sending it to our friends and saying, hey, I know you're afraid, here's the verse. No. What's going to convince them is if we have faith about it, like a person who truly believes that sugar is bad for you. I'm not there yet. I tried. I tried to believe that sugar is bad for me. And I've struggled. I'm not there yet. So I'll talk about it. If we have a conversation about nutrition afterwards, I'll tell you how bad sugar is. But if you come and hang around with me long enough, enough weeks, you'll see how my eyes go wide when the dessert cake is coming around. I'm applying it obviously to the Christian life. It's very easy to make bold, big claims because we believe in a very big God. But we won't fool God. We won't fool the devil. And fools will not buy into what we're saying because they don't see faith. Their hearts are based on my heart. I know some people who are really committed to being communists. And it absorbs them. It overwhelms them. It's grabbed a hold of them. That has changed their lifestyle. That's how it must be with us as Christians. First, before we try to tell other people who must live their life, we must be so grabbed a hold of, this is faith. This is the faith. Brothers and sisters who are members of our church, this is what we desperately need. And the light turns on. The proof of the light turning on is I'll be able to say, watch me. It's going to be different. Watch me. Maybe if we can't say, watch me, we'll say, let's first give it three weeks, whatever I'm planning to say in church. Let me give it at least one month to see if I can do it. Before I'm quick to say, hey, this is going to happen and that's going to happen. Let me see if I really am serious. I can't tell you the number of things the Lord has shown me that he has told me. Don't get up and talk about it. I want to see that you really believe it. If you have the faith for it, that you're going to change your life according to it. And so it's very important, family, that we impart faith. Not when we're standing in the pulpit only, but at all times. We don't become hypocrites who share beyond what which God has given us faith for. Faith is very simple. You're going to live your life according to that. Come up and tell me how much sugar is going to be really bad for me and bad for us. But let me come and see that that life is grabbing a hold of you. That it's changing your life. Your priorities are changing. And it's in that context that I also wanted to follow up with something I shared about last week. Let's turn there for those of you who weren't here or so that I can talk about what I was referring to. Luke chapter 5. In Luke chapter 5 it says something about new wine in new wineskins. Verse 37. Luke chapter 5 verse 37. No one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the new wine will be burst and the skins and it will not be, it'll be spilled out and the skins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And then in verse 39 it says, No one, and I talked about this last week. The new wine, so it's a very interesting analogy and it may be difficult for us to understand. I definitely didn't understand it until I was explained to this. What the new wine and the new wineskin was. Very simply, Jesus was coming into a Jewish system that had rules and regulations given by God, written by the finger of God, the ten commandments. But Jesus was saying, that's wine, but it's old wine. And I'm coming and I'm going to give you new wine. And the new wine is the life of Christ, my life. It says in John chapter 1 verse 4 that his life was the light that shone. It was the light of men. I'm the light of the world. That his life is the new wine. It's not doing the right thing. It's not obeying the commandments. It's the life of Jesus, full of grace and truth. Our goal, as we've talked about, is to be like Jesus, not to stop sinning. That's part of it. That's not everything though. It's the fullness of the life of Jesus, in all of his goodness, in all of his purity, in all of his love. This is the new wine that Jesus was saying. I'm throwing away a list of rules and commandments, and I'm saying now, it's my life. That is the new wine. But, you can't put this new wine, the life of Jesus, into the new wineskin, which was traditions and Jewish practices, and you must tithe, and you must go to the Sabbath, and you must go to Jerusalem once a year, and you must give this grain, and the sacrifice, and all these bulls offerings. You can't fit the life of Jesus in this whole form of the old wineskin. This new wine, Jesus, if you pour it into that, it'll just tear the whole thing apart. This new wine, the life of Jesus, needs to be put into a new wineskin, which is a different kind of gathering together. Not where you've got the priests completely separate, doing all the sacrifices, and all the rest of the people of Israel just watching it. Down to where everybody's a priest. It's not a temple in Jerusalem. You are God's temple. God's living in you. Many, many differences in the new wineskin, in which why we also believe that it's not just one person who's a paid pastor who gets to speak. Of course, there's a gift of teaching that some people have, and God gives different gifts, but everybody can have faith. And I said, everybody can share little, little words, share little things, that if they have faith for it, can speak to my heart. That's the new wineskin. But I also, I wanted to concentrate today on verse 39, where it said, The danger also is that some people may not have the old wineskin, may want the old wineskin, so they want a life of traditions and keeping rules, and just keeping the commandments. I read my Bible, I prayed, so I'm good. I go to church every Sunday, I give 10.5%, so I'm giving a little extra, everything's great. That's, Jesus was saying, be careful. That's not, that's old wineskin. But then he also says in verse 39, that there's another danger, that people, if you keep drinking the old wine, will stop wanting the new. This is how I understand the old wine. Now, we don't follow the Jewish traditions, we don't go to Jerusalem, things like that. But for us, our interaction with Jesus is a wine that must be constantly being made new. The old vintage must give way to the new vintage, more and more. That as we taste of the life of Jesus today, compared to last year, I can say, Lord Jesus, your life, and who you are to me as I think about you, I'm in rapture of who you are, more this year, than last year. That's the new wine, not becoming old. That's the old wine, being replaced by the new wine. There's a story in Cana, where Jesus turned water into wine, and that new wine was taken to the groom, and the best man, and the groom said, this is so much better than the old wine I had. And that's the picture. You're tasting of the life of Jesus, say three months ago, say six months ago, say six years ago, say 26 years ago. And you tasted of Jesus, and how he forgave you, and you were enraptured by the love of Jesus that could save a wretch like you. And it grabbed a hold of you. And it was new wine, and you drank it, and you said, God, this is wonderful, this kind of love. How is it now, compared to then? Is it richer? Is Jesus sweeter, more tastier, than it was 26 years ago, six months ago? That's the danger, isn't it? As we saw in the church of Ephesus in Revelation chapter 2, they can be doing a lot of good things. They can be helping the poor. They can be persevering against tribulation. They can be good in their doctrine, but they've lost their first love. They lost that wine. It's old, and they're comfortable with it. They're comfortable with the Jesus who's forgiven them of their sins, who's planning to take them to heaven, who's just telling you, don't do something crazy, don't cheat on your wife, don't steal people's money, pay your taxes, be good to your neighbors, try to raise good children, who know Jesus, who know all the Bible stories, let's go to a decent church. Danger is the wine, which is not how good you are, and what sins aren't you doing, but the life of Jesus, the fullness of God, which is the life of Christ, is getting old. It's not as new as it was six months ago. And He's warning us that if you keep drinking the old wine, if you don't constantly keep fighting and keep reminding myself that the only metric of success is that the life of Christ be increasingly lived out in my life, you'll get satisfied with the old life. You'll build tents at the foothills of the Himalayas. Because the base camp, oxygen is going to get a little harder. As we heard, if the narrow way is the eye of the needle, we're going to have trouble saying, that's a little too difficult, I sized down from a camel all the way to a dog. I mean, that's a lot of trimming I did. But I had to go all the way to the point of becoming like an amoeba. That's way too much. No, no, no, no, no. Lord, just remember, I was a camel, now I'm a dog. Let's just stop now. New wine, you started well. New wineskin, new wines. It was great. The camel said, I'm going to lose weight. I was losing weight and became smaller and smaller. But then at the dog level, you're like, that's too hard. Lord, isn't it enough? You see the size of the camel and now to a dog, isn't that good enough? The Lord says, be careful. This old wine used to be new. But you weren't gripped with it all the way. It's the new wine that is what God is interested in. And the call that is, different churches maybe have different focuses. One of the focuses of this church is absolutely must be that your wine remain new. That the life of Jesus be increasing. Be fresh and fresher and fresher. That if you never saw me again, and God took you to Malaysia for five years, and then you came back and saw me, that you'd taste a fresher love for Jesus in my speaking, in the way I interacted with you, in the way I interacted with my wife and children. You would be able to notice there's a marked difference in your love for Jesus. I can just tell. You're more rooted and grounded in your love for him and his love for you. Saints of God, you've been brought here for a reason. You're committed to this church for a reason. Don't let the devil defraud you and cheat you of what the goal of Christ is. Is that the wine remain new. And it is a certain question that we will come back. I don't mean this to scare you. I mean this to sober me and to sober us. It'll come back to our remembrance on the day of Christ. The day of Christ when all the secrets and thoughts and motives of our hearts will be laid bare before the God who must be absolutely just. And it says about the cities that saw all the miracles and heard all of Jesus' preaching, it will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah than for you. Because you heard these things. You saw all these things, but you didn't repent. You know me well enough to know that. I'm not trying to scare you. But there's a seriousness. We can't act like civilians when we're in a war. I heard a message that Clinton, when he was running for president, he said his slogan was, it's the economy, stupid. And this person was challenging us Christians to know, it's a war, stupid. Christians, it's a war. The enemy trying to attack you every day. It's a war. Just like we get caught up with all the different things, we as Christians can be lulled into thinking it's just a walk in the park, not realize it's a war. With that in mind, I want to go to Luke chapter 14 verse 26 and just use the next few minutes to share with you what this new wine kind of life looks like. Luke chapter 14. Jesus told us when he was leaving this earth to preach the gospel. Mark 16. He tells us to preach the gospel. But in the parallel passage in Matthew chapter 28, he says, make disciples. So you can't separate the two. You can't focus on one and not the other. You've got to do both. Preach the gospel, the good news, and make disciples. There's no in-between route. There's no halfway route to where you just make converts. There's no such thing. The Christian world is full of people who are saying, all I've got to do is convert you so that you don't go to hell. Jesus never told you to go out and make converts. He said, go and make disciples, Matthew 28. And Luke 14, 25, all the way to the end of the passage, tells me what are the requirements for discipleship. Now remember, that's what God's calling you for. God's not calling us to make converts. God's calling us to be disciples. And when we settle for converts going to heaven, when we settle for converts who are living good lives, who haven't cheated on our spouses, and have raised decent children, and who've got a retirement plan, and that's all the goals we have for our life, is we're young and we're raising our children who are young. If that's the only goal for our life, that's not discipleship. Because, again, the definition of discipleship, it's not from the dictionary, it's from the Bible. Luke 14, 25, it says, large crowds were traveling with him, and Jesus said, wow, I've got an incredible megachurch in the making. And he said, let me, I need to find out who among here want to be disciples. I'm not going to be so excited that all these large crowds are following me, and he says, I've got to make sure I've got disciples here. And Luke 14, 26 to 33, give me legitimate, legitimate, earthly reasons why I will not be a disciple. These are not evil reasons, these are not sinful reasons, they are legitimate from an earthly standpoint, but they will stop me from being a disciple who has a wartime mentality. Number one, verse 26, family, family. If I were to write what are the reasons why Christians are not going to be disciples, I would not put family as number one. But Jesus does, so I put family as number one. First of all, he says, anyone who comes after me must hate his father and his mother and his brothers and his sisters and his own life. And there is something about our family, especially if they are close to us, that can create in us an unhealthy allegiance away from Christ. This is something I picked up from my dad. My dad said, don't you think it's interesting that in all the wisdom of God, Jesus used that one as the very first thing. He said, I have found that to be true in years and years of building disciples, that so many sincere Christians mean so well and I have such great hopes for them, but something happens in their family, the father or a mother or the wife or the husband or a brother or the sister that dampens their love and devotion to Jesus. I have found this also in some of my experiences with some Christians, that the idol, that there is an idol of raising a good family, that can be a detriment to being a godly person. There is an honor in this world, in the Christian world, that I can get out of saying, I'm going to make my family a priority. I'm not going to make my work a priority, I'm going to make a family a priority. But it's disgraceful if my family is a priority for Christ. And some of us may not interact with that quite the same way. That is why we as a church fundamentally disagree with people who come to us and say, we'd like, come to us and say, we'd like you to have a great Sunday school program, then we will come to your church. I'm more interested in the adults than the children, and the parents who are not disciples. If parents are not disciples, it's going to be much harder for the children to become disciples. Yes, we're interested in our children. I've got children, three of them. I'm most interested in them being disciples. But the solution is not create a great Sunday school program. The solution is, I as a parent, my wife as a parent, have to become disciples. That is why I'm so glad I choose not to go to a church based on the quality of a Sunday school program. Dear brothers and sisters, if you have children, be committed to this church. Are you being a disciple? Is that the number one evangelistic tool that you're going to use in your children's life? That beauty is going to be defined by how the Bible defines beauty. You've heard me share this before. I've told my kids already, the eldest one, already numerous times, you know what's pretty? I know you told me that dress is pretty and that princess is pretty. You know what's pretty? You're kind. You fear God. Because that's Proverbs 31.30. And it's ugly no matter what you look like. If you're not respectful to your parents and you don't obey your parents, I'm teaching her the definition of beauty. Because I want to be a disciple. And I have to tell myself that when I'm interacting with these pretty co-workers. And when I'm interacting with the pretty women on the movies and all of that. Lord Jesus, I have such a problem defining beauty the way the world does. I need to change my way of thinking. Beauty is the one who fears the Lord. Like a pig with a jewel on its nose is like a woman without discretion. Somebody told me, your daughter is going to have a very hard time in your family. I said, no, I hope she'll be holy. I hope she'll be holy because I'll teach her God's word. And it's not her external beauty that makes her pretty. To ring on a pig's nose. You don't have discretion. You don't fear God. Be on family. Be very careful about raising your own family. Making that an idol. You're being devoted to Jesus. Point number one. Point number two. In verse 27 through 30 it talks about the second requirement is. Anyone who doesn't carry his cross and follow me cannot be his disciple. And then he uses an analogy. He says, suppose someone wants to build a tower. Won't he sit down first and count the cost? Then he will see whether he has enough money to finish it. Otherwise people will laugh at him. They will say, this fellow started to build, but he wasn't able to finish it. What is this? Somebody who starts down the road of discipleship, counts the cost but is not able to finish it. For me, this talks about, and it's in the context of taking up your cross. You're a family of God. A soldier is one who is committed to the life of being in the war for the rest of your life. This is no, discipleship is not for people who are going to quit. And we have to get it into our heads. That it's laughable in the world's eyes when we say we're going to start a building. But, it says in verse 30. They laugh and say this fellow started to build but he wasn't able to finish it. And we are interested in having this new wine of being a disciple. Who we can say to God, God, there are going to be trials, there are going to be difficulties, there are going to be all kinds of situations. But I'm not going to give up. And I'm going to keep on coming back to you so that the wine that I have this year in 2014 is better than the wine that I produced in 2013. It has to be that way. Lord, because otherwise this new wine will become old. And I'll get satisfied with it. But I'm not going to be somebody who's not a disciple, who's not willing to carry his cross every day. Camel to a dog, thank you Lord very much. But I got to go all the way to become an amoeba. So that I can fly through the eye of a needle. Dogs can't fit, camels can't fit through an eye of a needle. What's the use of glorying the fact that I'm a dog compared to when I used to be a camel? You're still not fitting through the eye of a needle. Lord, I got still a long ways to go in terms of being broken and being empty. And being like an amoeba that can fly through the eye of a needle. Lord, I've started a good work. I started to build a building but I'm not giving up. You're committed to this church. I hope that this call of discipleship is a continuous call to take up your cross every day. And I'm speaking from personal experience. It is so easy after years and years of being faithful to take up your cross to suddenly say, Lord, maybe I could take a break for a month. Maybe I can be excused. Maybe I can take it a little easy. And I can get disillusioned with the daily cross of self-denial that God asks me to take on. And I come to church every Sunday and again and again we're talking about denying ourselves. And taking up our cross and we say, God, this is too hard. This is too boring. This is relentless. I'm going to build a building. It's laughable if you commit on the journey of taking up your cross. And suffer after two years, after five years, after you have your first child, after your children go to school, after your children all graduated. No matter what happens. Sometime along the way you say, okay, God, now I'm checking out. And maybe families or souls, maybe something else is. But the call to discipleship is a relentless call to take up your cross every day. There's no stopping it for the rest of our lives. You must take up your cross daily, every day. That's the only way to preserve the new wine. Point number three is verse 31 through 33. It says, suppose there was a king who was going to war and he had 10,000 people and was fighting against 20,000. Won't he first count the cost to see whether he can win or not? And won't he just create a peace treaty? When he says, I got 10,000, that guy's got 20,000. Let's just have peace. How do we figure out how to make a compromise? In the same way, you must give up everything you have. And here's what I got from that. If we do not have a persistent attitude of saying, Lord Jesus, I want nothing in this life to possess me. You don't have a chance. Because you're fighting a war where it's you with 10,000. Or maybe I should say you with 10 against the devil who's got millions. You don't have a chance. You don't have a chance. And the things that possess us is what gives the devil a foothold. Count the cost. If you want to keep the things that possess you, make a peace treaty with the devil. That's what the Bible is saying here. That's what we're saying. Just kind of make peace. Don't go on the soldier war. If you want to fight against the devil, if you want to attack the gates of hell and it doesn't prevail against us, we have to know that what the devil will find as a foothold is our possessions. The thing that possess us. Not what are the things that we have like our home and our car, but our home and our car can be it if they possess us. If they have a hold over us. If our career, if our reputation before people have a hold over us, it says you can't be my disciple. Because you're playing chess with the devil and the devil is wiser than Daniel. You know that the Bible tells you that the devil is wiser than Daniel? Ezekiel 28 verse 3, look it up. The devil is wiser than Daniel. You're playing chess with the smartest being outside of God. What chance do you have? Count the cost. You and your sharp brain and your desire to follow God and its brokenness against the devil scheming. But you want to hold on to your possessions. Answer, you don't have a chance. There's so many things of this world. Okay, Lord, after I get that promotion or after I get married, Lord, if you'll just answer this one prayer of mine, then I'll kind of serve you with everything you got. And these things have a possessing nature on us. There is no half-hearted way to follow Christ. I've shared this testimony about my own Christian life. I was like on a plane ride that desired to go into the heavens and I kept pointing up and I would take off. But I was a plane that had a destination in this world, so I would reach cruising altitude. I didn't really want to go to heaven. I fooled myself into thinking that when I was taking off. Look, God, we're pointing at the heavens. I'm heading straight to you. But I knew sooner or later, a few weeks, a few months, I'd paper off and I'd cruise. Because there was some attraction in the world that I really didn't want to give up. Because it still had a possession over me. And then it came to the point where I finally got to the end of myself and I said, Lord, 99% of you and 1% of me does not cut it. You cannot be my disciple if you're not willing to give up everything you have, all of your possession. And I said, Lord, if this life is going to make sense, it has to be all. All that I have. Everything you have. All of my ambitions. All of my biases. All of my plans. All of my preferences. All of the praise of man. All the criticisms of man. It doesn't matter. I have to die to have it all. And seek to be approved only by God Himself. And seek to only look at His face to see if He's happy with me. I told myself this morning when I was praying, Lord Jesus, I don't want to pray wondering what anybody in this room thinks about what I'm saying. I want to have eyes purely looking at you. Talking to you who are my Savior. Prostrate and asking you for favor on our church meeting today. Doesn't really matter what anybody else thinks, family, when we pray. Are you talking to God when you pray? Are you talking so that everybody else may know, hey look, you spoke a pretty good prayer. Threw in five verses in there. Didn't even use the references. But wow, that's a pretty good prayer all put together. Done to man. Done to impress man. God says, what is this? We're not having a conversation here. Trying to impress people. And it's hard work. I know. I have to keep reminding myself, Lord Jesus, I'm praying among 50 people. I'm praying among 30 people, Lord, but I'm talking to you. You look at my heart, Lord. I want to cry out from my heart that you be present today. That you speak today. I want to shut out what everybody else thinks about me. Because I decided, Lord, I'm not on plane rides anymore. I'm on a rocket ship going to the heavens. And I don't care what people think about me. I don't care whether they praise me or they criticize me. I seek your approval alone. I don't need to tell people I'm more spiritual than I am or anything like that. And I want nothing on this earth to possess me. Not my house. Not my wife. Not my children. Not my reputation. Not all the things I feel God needs to do with me through my life. None of that is going to hold me. Because, Lord Jesus, I want to be a disciple. Where the wine of 2014 is better than the wine of 2013. And it's a tragedy. It's a tragedy. Because it's like going to Napa and going to this vignette. And they've been telling you, hey, you know, 2012's vintage was better than 2011. And guess what? 2013 was better than 2012. This is the most amazing vignette. And so we all come get into a car and we go and we taste the wine of 2014. And it's useless. And that's what it is when the world interacts with us as Christians. We started out so well. We had such a good love for Christ. We were doing so well for so long. It was wine. And people started to hear, you're Christians. You got some good new wine there. Then they see us, maybe two years later. And they interact with us. And all they taste is ordinary wine. Used to be good. Man, I used to talk to him and he used to have such a passion for Christ. It used to bubble out of him. Like a taste of freshness. And now it's just theology. Now it's just Christian speak. I was in Romania a few weeks ago. And I was talking to this brother. And in five minutes, in ten minutes, he would constantly, when we talk about anything, he would constantly draw it back to the Lord. Because the Lord was so precious to him. He's a young man, probably 30, 31. But he was so taken up with the Lord. And it impressed me. I didn't think about that. One week later, my brother met with him. The same brother. And he said the same thing about it. And it hit me. That's what I love about him. You talk about anything and he has a way in which his mind is on Christ. Set your minds on the things above. That's what he was doing. He's 31. I pray to God that when I go and see him, let's say when he's 41, that's when I see him next. I wouldn't be like, what a disappointment. So good at 31. But what happened? Is that what your neighbors are saying about you? Is that what your Christian friends are saying about you? He was 31. Man, was he on fire from God? Something's happened. Family. Wife and kids. Seedfulness of riches. Worry of other things. Anxiety. These are the thorns, Jesus said, which will pierce us from being fruitful. From our wine having any kind of taste or value. Dear brothers and sisters, we have to come back to that devotion to God and say, Lord Jesus, I want an all the way in discipleship. That's the only thing that counts something to me. Hear me, dear brother, sister. Please hear me. I believe I have the mind of Christ. There is only one life. And God proves it. And that's an all in life. About 99%. It's useless to God. All in life is what God's looking for. And we have to keep getting reminded of it because next week, you and I know, it's difficult to stay at 100%. And we have to fall on our faces and say, Lord, you are altogether other than anything else that I know. God, I recommit. And hopefully husbands, wives, brothers, sisters will encourage one another in this goal to be all in. That wives won't be able to say, look, I want to be all in, but you keep only wanting to get 90%. You want to watch these other movies that draw the devil in. Or I don't know what it is. How do we end? I don't know. Maybe we sing a song. Let me sing a song, Bobby. I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. The world behind me, the cross before me, no turning back. Let's close our eyes. We don't have the words, but let's close our eyes and let's sing it to Jesus. Then maybe Bobby can have a time of prayer. I have decided. No turning back. No turning back. The world behind me, the cross before me, no turning back. The world behind me, the cross before me, no turning back. Do not go with me. Do not go with me. Still I will follow. Do not go with me. Still I will follow. Do not go with me. Still I will follow. No turning back. No turning back. Father, you know our hearts. You know that we desire to follow you wholeheartedly all the time. And we confess how often we stumble in that. How lukewarm we are. But Lord, we want to decide. You've given us everything we need. You've given us your Holy Spirit, your word. You've saved us. You don't hold our sin against us. You've given us everything we need to live a life for you now. Not for the world anymore. I pray, Father, that if there are any idols in any of our lives, that you would reveal them to us and help us to cast them down. We want nothing on the throne except you, Lord. May you be everything to each one of us here. Lord, you're the most important thing, the most important person. We're nothing before you. Lord, help us to live like that. We love you, Father, and we just praise you for loving us so much. For not being hard on us, not counting the past against us, our past of loving things more than you. Lord, we repent of that today, Father, and we pray for grace. To live from here on out, fully committed to you. Never exalting the things of the world above you. Surrendering everything. We want to be disciples who carry our cross, not expecting to get anything out of life, but only looking forward to the hope that you've promised and what we can do for you, not living for ourselves, Father. We want to carry our crosses. Thank you so much, Lord, for brothers and sisters who have the same ambition, the same goal. Lord, we want to carry our crosses before you. The only thing that matters is what you get out of us, Father. Lord, may you be happy with our lives in this church. Thank you, Father, so much for the encouragement today. We pray that this would stick on our hearts and not leave us. We pray these things in the name of your beloved Son. Amen. Okay, so I think we have... yeah.