How to Become More Like Jesus

[00:00:02] Thank you so much. [00:00:03] Hey, welcome to CC Midweek. How is everybody? [00:00:07] Good. Snowstorm and all. And you are here. I love this. You are my people. [00:00:13] I. We. Oh, my gosh. Broden. Broden distracted me this week. Can you just hold her up so the world can see the beauty of that little girl? [00:00:28] Beautiful. [00:00:30] I told you. I struggle with add and it's hard for me to focus. But we kicked off a new sermon series last week or two weeks ago. And the idea was that most of the time, there are words that are very biblical. There's words that maybe you don't actually truly know the definition, but we just say them anyways because it's Christian. And so one of those words is this idea of being a disciple of Jesus. And I've been reading this new book. It's called Practicing the Way. And in it, he talks about how traditionally, when you think of this idea of disciple or discipleship, that it kind of kicked off with Jesus, but that's not how it worked. Disciples had been around for a while, and he said the best way to think about discipleship is actually to think about it as this idea of being an apprentice. [00:01:27] And to really understand the context, you have to kind of go back to the Jewish culture that Christ was in. And in the Jewish education system, when you were five, you would kind of start school, and by the time you were 12, you would have graduated with really memorizing the first five books of the Bible. [00:01:50] Not bad, huh? And a lot of the kids would be done. They'd move on, and they'd be done. And then some of the kids would continue in their education. And from 12 to 18, they would have memorized the entire Old Testament. This was important because they were in. They had oral traditions where they would pass things on verbally. But for the really smart kids that kept going, they would find a rabbi to follow under, to apprentice under. And when they found a rabbi, they would become their apprentice, and their whole world would revolve around three main ideas. To be with your rabbi. They would literally follow them 24, 7. They would walk behind them, they would sit next to them, they would eat with them. They were all in. You would be with your rabbi. The second thing they would wrap their life around is this idea of becoming like your rabbi. That's where we're going to land tonight. And the third thing is do as your rabbi did. But when we think about discipleship of Jesus, like what a true disciple, what a true follower, a true apprentice is, is it someone who wraps their world around those three Main ideas to be with Jesus. [00:03:14] We talked about it last week of just being in his presence, making your mind go back to him again and again and again, and making your home him. [00:03:29] And tonight I want to look at this idea of what does it mean to be like Jesus? [00:03:38] I spent a lot of time on this and I'm telling you, I was really hoping for an easy one. I thought this was going to be like a, we're going to talk about love tonight and it's going to be good and it's going to be easy. Let's talk about kindness. But God directed me to a totally different passage. And I think one of the biggest problems with following Jesus in today's culture is we live in a very self focused culture. [00:04:05] We hear so much about self help and self love and self care. And listen, I'm a lover of all those things, okay? Mama loves some self love. You know what I say? I'm getting a massage Friday. We're gonna love the self. You know, I'm a big believer in those things. But what happens is the pressure is then on us. [00:04:31] The pressure is on us to fix what's broken. [00:04:36] The pressure is on us to try to help what we can't fix. The pressure is on us to love what sometimes is unlovable. The pressure is on us to try to figure it out. And the pressure can be crushing. [00:04:54] I think what happens is we put self in a place that only God should occupy. [00:05:03] And when we think about this life of following after Jesus, I think there's this idea called spiritual formation. [00:05:15] But from the very beginning of our lives, we have been being formed. [00:05:21] Our spirits have been being formed into something. [00:05:26] A lot of us, our spirits and who we are has been formed by the relationships, the people we are around, good and bad. [00:05:36] A lot of us are formed by our habits, what we do every day. From the time we were young. How have we handled ourselves? Like, what does your routine kind of look like? [00:05:46] Some of us have been formed from the stories that we tell. [00:05:52] It shapes us, it forms us. [00:05:56] And some of us, all of us have been formed by the experiences that we've gone through in our life. And honestly, we are more formed in the hard, in the suffering, in the tragic. [00:06:11] We are formed. [00:06:14] And I want us to understand that when we are looking to become more like Jesus, that every day we are formed. Like, I'm 42, my kids are grown, Like I've shaped who I am as a mom. [00:06:31] And I think when I think about this idea of formation, a lot of the times I've been formed wrong. Can we be honest? [00:06:39] I have some deformation. [00:06:43] I have a thought life that isn't always healthy. [00:06:46] I have habits that will kill me if I don't stop. [00:06:52] I have things in my life that they are forming me, but it's not into the image of God. [00:07:00] It's something else. [00:07:04] And I want to define spiritual formation tonight as this. [00:07:09] It's a process of being formed into a person of love in Christ. [00:07:18] A process. [00:07:21] I think we have this idea too in the world. Like, I ordered something on Amazon and it showed up the same day. And I'm like, this is it. I can doordash. And they deliver to my door. You know what I'm saying? You pay $150 for it, but it comes right to the door. There's instant, instant, instant. [00:07:38] But spiritual formation is a process. [00:07:44] And I think there is this struggle of, like, being so grateful for who God is, but at the same time, like, wanting to be different sooner, wanting better results faster. [00:07:58] And it is not the way. For some reason, you'll see images of trees and vines and fruit, and you get this image of like, there is some building of roots before you produce. There's some building of stability before you produce. All throughout the Scripture. [00:08:15] And it's a process. It takes time. It's a process of being formed. [00:08:22] Really. A better way is transformed. [00:08:25] And we know that from Scripture that we don't do the transforming. That is the work of the Holy Spirit. That is the work of God within us. He transforms us. [00:08:37] And so if we are going to be a part of this, if I'm going to be like Jesus, the part of this being formed then is I have to open up my life to Him. [00:08:51] I have to open up the layers to deeper union with God. [00:09:00] And it's a process of being formed into a person of love. Let me ask you this. If you talk to the people you are around the most or people you interact with the most, would they say that you are more loving than you were a year ago? [00:09:18] See, it's easy for me to come here and love you and hug you, but we see each other like 15, 20 minutes. You know what I'm saying? It's easy to love the people we're not with all the time. [00:09:30] But what would your family know? [00:09:33] What would your family say? [00:09:35] And every one of us, I think we want to be more loving. We want to be better. But it's not just being better for better's sake. It's being better because we are made in the image of Christ. [00:09:48] So it's a process of being formed into a person of love in Christ. [00:09:57] I want to become more like him. [00:10:01] And the scripture today, like I said, I was hoping for something easy, but this is what we're going to get. Let me set you with the context. [00:10:10] It's like, God will not let me get away from this scripture. So in this context, right before this scripture, this story happens, Jesus is talking to the disciples and he says, hey, who do people say that I am? [00:10:24] And they answer, oh, some say that you're Elijah. Some say that you're John the Baptist. And then Jesus asks his disciples, well, who do you say that I am? [00:10:35] And Peter looks at Jesus and he says, you are the Lord. You are Christ. [00:10:43] And then the very next thing we get is Jesus is telling his crew what's going to happen. He's laying out that, hey, I'm going to suffer. [00:10:54] I'm going to die. I'm going to be rejected. But three days later, I'm going to rise again. [00:11:01] Then you get the most crazy line. [00:11:05] Jesus calls Peter Satan. Okay? He just said, you know, here I am, you are it. You're Christian. But in the story, he's saying, I'm going to suffer. And Peter takes Jesus to the side, away from the disciples, and it says that he. [00:11:22] I looked up the word. It's like a sharp disapproval. He just disapproves sharply of what Jesus said. And, hey, I could understand that, right? I can get that. [00:11:35] And then Jesus looks at him and he says this. [00:11:39] He looks at Peter. He turns to his disciples and he rebuked Peter and said, get behind me, Satan. [00:11:50] I don't know why that's so funny. To me, it's just wild. [00:11:54] Well, it's like, make note, don't let Jesus call you Satan. [00:12:00] But this is why, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. [00:12:10] He looks at Peter and he's saying, no, no, no, I'm gonna rebuke you now. I want you to get away. Because what you're thinking is more like, Satan, you're not thinking about what God's thinking about. You're thinking about what man thinks about. [00:12:27] And then this is where we're gonna land tonight. [00:12:30] And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, if anyone would come after me, if anyone would be my disciple, if anyone would be my apprentice, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. [00:12:56] Can we go to John 3:16? You know, for us to reorganize our lives in the kind of way that we truly get to live in the kind of way where we truly get to be most alive. It feels very counterintuitive. [00:13:16] Jesus has three imperatives. First, one, an imperative is a command. It's a command, deny yourself. Now, this isn't the idea of, like, denying your emotions, denying your feelings, denying reality. That's not what this is. This is an image of, I want you to deny yourself. I want you to put me first. [00:13:42] To deny yourself means that God is in the place of where you're putting yourself. [00:13:49] He is number one. [00:13:52] He is who we follow. It's like saying, I'm giving control to you. [00:14:00] And every time that we walk into this life of being more like Jesus, we become less and less like our sinful nature. We become less and less of the stuff that I'm ashamed of, become less and less, like, afraid to be authentic. Because there is something that is bigger than us. My life and my purpose is bigger than just me. [00:14:32] When you deny yourself, you put Jesus first, you give him control. [00:14:41] And then what happens is you're going to have encounters in your life. [00:14:46] You're going to have encounters in life where your desire is to be right. [00:14:56] Maybe that's my desire. I like to be right a lot. [00:15:01] And so then what happens is I'm in these little conversations and I'm pushing to be right for no reason. [00:15:09] It's like I'm doing it to hear my own voice. Like, literally. [00:15:13] So dumb. [00:15:16] But what comes to my mind is, no, you gotta deny yourself. And in those moments of, like, be right, Prove it, Sarah, prove it. [00:15:25] I back off and I put Christ first. [00:15:31] In these moments of deny yourself, what's going to happen is I got a text this week, and it was a woman who just was really suffering. [00:15:51] And I opened it in the morning and I read it. It was like the first thing I read in the morning. And I instantly felt the weight of it. [00:16:00] Like, how can I fix this? How can. What can. What can I do? [00:16:05] And I realized the suffering was more than I could take on. It was more than I have to offer. [00:16:16] And so I stopped and I took my focus off of me and I gave it back over to God. Because he is the Lord of my life. [00:16:30] And when I put him in his proper place, my life starts to organize and the weight starts to come off my shoulders, the tension comes off of my stomach. [00:16:43] We're trying to solve really hard problems right now. And sometimes the problems feel just too big and too much. [00:16:52] But it's not me who's in control. [00:16:55] It is God. [00:16:57] And I promise you, when you're focusing on self, you feel the weight of life. When you're focusing on you, you feel hurt, deeper, you feel offense, like, bigger. When you focus on you, it's a weight you can't carry. [00:17:16] And as I've been spending time in this with Jesus all week, I just, I feel like everything he asks us to do, it's for our good. [00:17:25] Every hard scripture I read, like, sometimes I can see it quickly, but oftentimes it's later down the road where I'm like, he's a genius. [00:17:35] When I reorganize my life and I deny myself and I put him in the driver's seat and I give control of my life to him, stuff starts to melt away. [00:17:50] But then it gets harder. [00:17:54] It says, take up your cross. [00:17:57] Now in this culture, we know Jesus died on the cross. We know that as Christians, but this had not happened yet for the disciples. [00:18:05] But in this culture, they would have very clearly understood what take up your cross meant because they were in a Roman occupied territory and there were these little revolts that would happen. And sometimes Jews would revolt and be like, we're sick of your taxes, we're fighting back. [00:18:23] And they would commonly put have these Jews that revolted in other people who had disobeyed or broke the law or whatever it was. Literally physically pick up a cross, drag it to the spot that they were going to put them on, and then they would hang them on the cross and kill them. And then as like, the word slipped my mind, but as like a model for other people not to do it. What am I thinking? What word? [00:18:57] Thank you. Turns out it was an easy one. So they were using him as an example. [00:19:03] And they would leave these bodies on the cross for sometimes up to a year. [00:19:11] And their families would have to see their bodies. And so now Jesus is saying to his guys, I want you to take up your cross. And these are the images that they would have in their mind. Like, it's a wild statement. [00:19:25] It's wild until you realize Jesus is asking them to do nothing less than he would. [00:19:37] It's a wild statement, but I think at the heart of it, it's, I want you to willingly know, willingly go and expect that things aren't going to be easy, but you do it anyways because Jesus is worth it. [00:20:00] In our homes, there are moments where, like, if you haven't wanted to just like quit at some point, God bless you. But if you're a mom, a dad, a husband, a wife, whatever, you got, boyfriends, girlfriends, like, there are moments when it can just get to be too much. [00:20:22] But to take up your cross, to follow Jesus, to make him the Lord of your life, means you do it willingly. [00:20:35] When things are hard, you move to the problem. [00:20:40] Everywhere you see in scripture, Jesus is facing the problems. He's facing the hard. He never runs from it. [00:20:49] And if we are going to be like Jesus, we have to be men and women that move to the problem. [00:20:55] This is something my dad has taught me my whole entire life. I think I've told the church before. [00:21:01] My sister and I were at a restaurant. We did a big pajama party here one night. This was years and years ago. And we wanted to just go get dinner afterwards. So I think it was like 10:30, 11, and we went to a restaurant and a whole scene broke out. It was like just Katie and I in the restaurant and two women came in and a gun was pulled and Katie like stood in front of them and she's like, sarah, get the gun, get the gun. And I was like, sarah, you know, but like we were taught, you move to the problem. So sure enough, she had this like purse and the gun and it wasn't like a big rustle or anything. I just took it and I like ran to like the back and I was like, call 911. There's a gun. And so like police come in. It's like, it's a wild scene. But like my whole life I have been taught you move to the problem. [00:22:04] Maybe not if there's a gun, okay? [00:22:11] But when you move to the problem, what happens is things aren't hidden, things aren't growing harder under the surface. When you move to the problem and you initiate and you fight, your life is going to get better. [00:22:30] When you move to the problem, the heart of your marriage, things will suck, but they do get better. [00:22:40] And I think when we think about taking up our cross, Luke adds daily, I love that it's not a one time thing. It's every single day I'm willingly going to follow Jesus and whatever that brings. If it's hard, I'm in because he's worth it. [00:23:02] And then he says, follow me. [00:23:05] To follow me, it means to move in the same direction. [00:23:11] Follow me. [00:23:14] I want to deny myself, make him first in my life, over and over again. Push back the self. [00:23:25] I want to willingly choose to pick up the cross. I willingly want to choose that even when it's hard, I'm in because he's worth it. [00:23:38] Then I want to move in the same direction as Jesus. [00:23:44] It's weird. Preaching, because I feel like the only good preaching is vulnerable. [00:23:53] Like, I feel like if I don't tell you something vulnerable, then I haven't done my job. [00:24:00] And there was a long time in my life where I worked with the church, but there would be talk of, like, I only work at the church because my dad works at the church. And it was just kind of like from 20 to, like, however many years ago. And it probably still happens, but my whole life I just grew up with that voice in the background. And it was so bad, I wouldn't even tell people, my mom and dad, Like, I would introduce myself and never be. Like, I would never say anything else. It was just, I'm Sarah. And the. [00:24:41] I don't know, it caused insecurity deep within me. [00:24:47] And years ago, I was working at our west campus, and I was talking to the pastor there, Chet, and I was telling him I had this idea that I wanted to start something, but I don't want it to be, oh, it's just the callings. Like, it's, oh, Sarah. [00:25:04] And he said the most helpful piece of advice I ever got in my life, he said, are you going to let the voice of others rob you of your calling and listen to them over God? [00:25:24] And it was like I was letting people rob me. [00:25:30] Like, a handful of people. I was letting them rob me of my calling. And I was living in this insecurity. And I just want to ask you, are there people? Are there voices that are robbing you of your calling? [00:25:45] Is it insecurities? [00:25:48] You know, I heard not too long ago that insecurity and pride, it's like the same coin, opposite ends, because the focus is self. [00:26:01] And I was crippled with insecurities most of my life. Like, I'm not good enough. I can't do this, not whatever. And when I learned that it was the same coin, different side of pride, I was like, man, I'm still making it about me. [00:26:23] When you follow Jesus, I'm not following the voices of other people. [00:26:30] I'm not letting insecurity drive. I'm not letting pride drive. I'm not letting something or someone rob me of the voice of God. [00:26:43] And most of my life, I've struggled with it. I think I can. I can look back. And I think that, like, when I was young, I just so longed to be loved. [00:27:01] Never felt good enough. [00:27:06] I was 15 and so full of shame. And the whole, like, it was like, hide, guard, protect, don't let anybody in. [00:27:17] And I put on a mask and I put on a show, but on the inside, I was dying. [00:27:25] And then this amazing God, he found me. [00:27:34] This amazing God, he loved me in spite of it. This amazing God, he emptied himself. [00:27:45] He came to earth. [00:27:48] He came to serve, not be served. And he went and walked and picked up his cross for me. [00:28:01] He thought I was worth it. [00:28:05] And when I decided to follow Jesus, it changed my entire life. [00:28:11] When I decided to follow Jesus, I didn't do it out of fear or duty. I did it because God loved me so deeply that there was no turning back. [00:28:24] When I decided to follow Jesus, I just. There was no turning back because I had met him. [00:28:33] I knew who he was. And I don't want to just follow him in Word. I want to follow him in action. [00:28:41] I don't want to just follow him quiet and privately. I want to live my life to be like Jesus so that what is best of him can shine through me and change the atmosphere. [00:29:01] When we say we are disciples, apprentices, followers of Jesus, it's not just in Word Church, it's in action. [00:29:11] We go every day to him. We sit in his presence. [00:29:16] It reorganizes our life and it takes the stress. [00:29:20] Every day we say, I am not. It is not about me today, it is about him. And how can I glorify his name? [00:29:30] When you decide to follow Jesus, you say, okay, I'm willingly going, knowing it's going to be hard, but I choose it because Jesus is worth it. [00:29:41] When you decide to follow Jesus, you're moving in the same direction as he is. [00:29:50] And I promise you, it doesn't happen overnight. [00:29:56] There's no end goal. [00:29:59] It's a formation of the soul. That's a process. It takes time. [00:30:03] But when you give your life to Jesus and you choose over and over and over and over and over and over again to follow him, to make him your home, to make him your Lord, life rearranges. [00:30:24] Your soul rearranges. [00:30:27] Your purpose becomes more clear. [00:30:31] Your home gets better, your relationships get healthier. [00:30:37] And so as we close tonight, I just want to, like, empty ourselves. [00:30:46] I want to empty us of self, and I just want to focus on Him. [00:30:56] We do the Lord's Supper and I'm going to switch it up tonight. [00:31:02] And normally, right before the Lord's Supper, we get on our knees or however you're comfortable, and we pray and we seek Him. [00:31:11] But I want to do it before our worship tonight. [00:31:15] Wherever you're at, I want you to empty yourself, if you're willing, let God shape you. [00:31:28] Let your spiritual life be formed by him and not you, not voices of others. Not experiences that hurt, not bad relationships, not stupid habits. [00:31:44] But let Jesus Christ form you. And it all happens when you empty yourself and you surrender to him. [00:31:56] You say, you are the Lord of my life. [00:32:00] If you've had suffering, invite him into it. [00:32:08] If you'd have loss, invite him into it. Open your heart to him. In the hard parts. [00:32:19] If you have things in your life that you're ashamed of, open yourself to him. [00:32:25] Go deeper. [00:32:28] If you are struggling with putting self first, go to Him. [00:32:38] There is no home better, no safer place. [00:32:44] And so right now, I just ask if you feel comfortable, you can go on your knees if you want to stay where you're at. But just spend some time with God and reset. [00:32:55] We take this Lord's Supper so that we can remind ourselves of who he is and what he's done. [00:33:02] So just remind yourself who our mighty God is. [00:33:43] S.A. [00:34:24] dear heavenly Father, you are the Lord of our life. [00:34:30] I pray for every person in this room who is seeking you. Please, Father, let them find you. [00:34:39] I pray for every person listening or watching. Will you captivate their heart and grab their soul? [00:34:47] Can we follow you not just in word, but with every piece of our life? [00:34:55] And will you show us your goodness? [00:34:58] Will you show us your faithfulness? [00:35:02] Will you reform the broken and the hurting and help us to be more like you every step of the way? [00:35:12] I love you and I trust in you because you are so incredibly good and so thankful. [00:35:19] Be with your people. [00:35:21] In your son's name we pray. Amen.