What's Holding You Back?

Well, today I want to talk...actually, I want to center my sermon around three verses today. And there's three statements that Jesus Christ made. Two that He made while He was on earth as a human being, and one that He made back in the Old Testament when He was the God of the Old Testament. And in these three statements, we find things that God expects of us. And there's things that we can't do without His Holy Spirit. Next week on the Day of Pentecost, we'll be observing the time and commemorating when God gave the Holy Spirit to His church. And that Holy Spirit, as we discussed before, is the power that gives us the ability to do the things that we simply cannot do ourselves. Some very basic things that we can't do ourselves, even if we very much wanted to do it. The Holy Spirit makes all the difference in our lives and makes all the difference in fulfilling the commission and the calling that Christ gave us. Let's turn over to the first verse here that we'll look at. That's back in Matthew 16. Matthew 16. And we'll pick it up in verse 24, but what I want to focus on is what Christ said in Matthew in verse 25. Matthew 16.24. So Jesus said to His disciples, and when it says His disciples and you read that, He's just saying that to His disciples back then, but He's saying it to you and me too. We're His disciples today. Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

I want to hone in on verse 25 there. When He says, whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. What does that say to us? What is the first thing that comes to mind? Well, many would say, Are we willing to give up our physical life for the truth that we found? Many have been asked that question over the ages, and maybe we thought about that ourselves. Would we be willing to die for what we know? Would we be willing if someone had a gun to our head or a head down on the block and ready to chop it off? Either we can't, what you believe, or die.

And I dare say, all, or at least the majority of us in this room, the vast majority would say, yes, we would be willing to die for what we believe. We believe it that much. At least, I hope that we would say that. And I would believe. I would say I would be willing to give it up. I haven't been in that situation yet that someone has said, Die or recant what you believe. But I hope and I pray that with and when that time comes, I would have the strength to say, take my life. It means nothing. If I lose my life, I find it.

The apostles certainly had to do that. All except for John, who lived to an old age in Patmos. Stephen was a new, a deacon back in Acts. Let's look at him, and he had to face that very question and something that he did. If he was just kind of living his life in the fullness of his calling, let's look back at Acts 6.

Acts 6, the verses leading up to verse 8, we see that he was one of the original deacons here that were chosen at the time when the disciples needed someone to help out with the daily assistance. And picking up in verse 8, it says, Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people. And there arose some from what is called the synagogue of the freedmen, disputing with Stephen. Verse 10, that they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke.

He knew his Bible. He was led by the Holy Spirit. He knew what he was talking about. When they would throw out a question to him, he could answer back. Then they secretly induced men to say, we've heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.

And they stirred up the people, the elders and the scribes. And they came upon him, seized him and brought him to the council. They also set up false witnesses who said, this man doesn't cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place of the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us.

And all who sat in the council, looking steadfastly at him, saw his face as the face of an angel. They looked at him and they knew there was something different about this man. They knew he was sincere in what he was saying. Sort of giving them pause to look at themselves and wonder what they were doing there, why they were doing the things that they did.

But then they went right ahead with the inquisition that they had. Chapter 7, verse 1, the high priest said, Stephen, are these things so? And Stephen, if you read through Acts 7, gives quite a sermon to the people that are there. He goes right from the beginning of their history, right through it, and shows how they have killed the prophets that God sent to warn them, how they disregarded Christ, and how they murdered the Messiah that they were waiting to see.

And the more he spoke, the more agitated they got because they simply did not want to hear what he had to say. It was the truth. They didn't want to hear it, though. They got so riled up and so agitated that they indeed did put him to death. Let's look at verse 57 of chapter 7. As he was talking, as he was saying these things, this is all truth, they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ratted him with one accord, and they cast him out of the city and stoned him.

And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul, and they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God, and saying, Lord, Jesus, receive my spirit. Then he knelt down. He cried out with a loud voice, Lord, don't charge them with this sin. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. He lost his life.

He lost his life, but Stephen would say he found it. He didn't cave in to the crowds. He didn't cave into the pressure. He didn't cave into the threats. He remained loyal to the very end, and it cost him his life, and he was willing to do it. Right there, the very first verse of chapter 8 says Saul was consenting to his death. Saul, who became Paul, would face the very same thing in his life.

He was very willing to watch Stephen and the others who he persecuted and sought out in the various areas of Judea. He was very willing to see them suffer for what they believed. He wanted them to recant, lives miserable, and he would face the same thing in his life. He would end up giving his life for the truth that he was called to, as they said the apostles did. Did Christ mean, would you be willing to give up your life?

Yeah, he did. He did mean that. But, you know, I don't know anyone in this era of the church who has had to do that. Maybe you do. I don't know anyone who's been a martyr in this era of the church. I don't know anyone who's lost their life because of what they believed or because they were witnessing of what they believe or they were told, if you don't recant it, then you will die. So does that verse not apply to them?

Were they willing to give up their lives? Or how did God know whether they were willing to give up their lives since they didn't face that? Many have died in the faith since then. But they weren't faced with execution. They weren't faced with beheading. They weren't faced with torture as they died. They just died in the faith. How did God know they would be willing to give up their life? Well, the same way that he knows whether you and I would be willing to give up our lives by the things that we do every day of our life, by the choices that we make that show him whether his calling is important to us or not.

Because, you see, we give up our lives when God calls and when we say we will follow him, he expects that we will give up our life. Indeed, when we're baptized, we say, take my former life, it's away. Throw it away, I have a new life in you, God. Back in Matthew 10, Christ says the very same words that he said that we read there in Matthew 16.

But there's verses that surround it that show what he is talking about. Matthew 10 and we'll pick it up in verse 34.

Matthew 10, 34. Christ, in his own words, and we'll go down to verse 39 where you see the very same words that we read back in Matthew 16.25. And in verse 34, he says, don't think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. Now, the world will say, no, Christ came to bring peace. And ultimately, when he returns to earth, he will bring peace. But when he came the first time, he didn't come to bring peace. Don't think I came to bring peace on earth. I didn't come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man's enemies will be those of his own household. Well, that shows. He didn't bring peace. Look at the, look at the acrimony. Look at the conflict that he says there. Man against father, daughter against mother, children against parents, parents against children. Why would that be? Well, if we go back to the time that you were called into the church and you began to understand the way of God and understand that the way that the churches of this world think and preach is not the way that God would have us worship Him. If we worship Him, we worship Him the way He said to worship Him. And so, when we began to understand this, and I, you have your own personal experience, I remember when my parents came in to the church. What's the first thing you tell them? Well, this habit is the seventh day of the week. It's not Sunday. So, you might say, I'm not going to church anymore on Sunday. I'm going to church on Saturday. Which is the seventh day? Which is the Sabbath of God? Which is what He requires of people who really, truly follow Him? And some family members don't take that very well, do they? They think, what are you thinking? How can you do this and go against everything the family has good for? Why would you separate yourself from that? How can all these churches be wrong? What about when you tell them, I'm not keeping these holidays of the world anymore that are so-called Christian holidays, but really have their origins in pagan religions? I'm not keeping Christmas anymore. Does that bring peace in a family? Doesn't bring peace, does it? Brings a lot of discord, brings a lot of arguments, brings a lot of, what about this and what about that? How about Easter? How about New Year's? How about some of those other things that we say, we're not doing that anymore, we're following God? Well, when we have the truth of God and we understand what it is, our lives are different than the lives we led before. Lives that many of our family members lead. Lives that our friends lead. And so when we have the truth, it doesn't bring peace. It doesn't bring the unity with family members that we hope it will. We hope that when we tell them all these things, they'll say, ah, I never saw that. I'll do that too. That isn't what happened. Just like when Christ came and preached the truth, it didn't unite all the people who said they were following Him. It brought a lot of, it brought a lot of grief. It brought a lot of discord. Christ was hated because of what He said. So He goes on to say in verse 37, So when these things happen, and when we go back to Mom and Dad, or when we tell our kids, or our friends, we're not doing those things anymore. And they say, no, no, no, you have to do that. This is a family tradition. This is when we all get together. This is all important. What's wrong, what could possibly be wrong with getting together on this day and celebrating these things?

What do you do? Are you willing to give them up to follow God? Or do you instead say, as some have, well, you know what, they've got a point. I will just keep doing what I'm doing. What harm is it? It's a choice we have to make. Some who have been called, no one in this room, you know, or whatever, have made the choice when they go back. Family is more important than the truth.

Family is more important than the truth. I'll just wait for them, and when they understand that they'll come too, I've been told, what harm can there really be in rolling an Easter egg around on that Sunday morning? Well, it's not following what God has to say. So, in that aspect, are you willing to give up that part of your life? Are you willing to give up that? Because God looks and sees the choices that we make as we come to those things. Will you choose that, or will you choose me?

As other issues come up, and we have choices to make, will you give up that part of your life? Or will you hold on to it? Will you lose that part of your life and sacrifice it for me? Or will you hold on to it? Christ says, if you lose your life, you'll find it. If you seek it, if you hold on to it, you'll lose it. Harrowing words, words of warning if we really know what he's talking about, and he looks and sees what we do every day of the week. What are we doing? Are we losing our life, or are we holding tight to it?

Relationships and family members can be one thing. In verse 38, he goes on and he says, He who does not take his cross and follow after me isn't worthy of me.

If he's not willing to leave it all behind, we'll see here in a few minutes, he's not worthy of me because Christ left it all. He gave up everything. He gave up being God, that He could come to earth, live as a minor human being, a minor in the sense that nowhere near what God is. But so came as a human being so that He could live and die for our sins. He thought that much of us. And He gave up this physical life, too, so that you and I, who really don't deserve it, will have the opportunity to have sins forgiven and then eternal life. He who finds his life will lose it, he says in verse 39, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it. Let's go back to Luke 9.

Back here we find a few men that Christ called along the way, or that said, would follow him.

When they were willing to follow Him or were asked to follow Him, they didn't really give Christ what He was looking for. Let's pick it up in verse 57. Luke 9.57. It happened as they journeyed on the road that someone said to Him, Lord, I will follow You wherever You go. Whatever You say, I'll be there. Christ said to Him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. I don't have a home. My mission is to do this and go to these various cities to preach the gospel, do what I came to do, but it wasn't to make a home on this earth at this time. I don't know what the man thought about that, but in verse 59, he says, Christ said to another, follow Me. The same thing that he said to you and I when he called us, follow Me. I have opened your mind. You know what the truth is? Follow Me. What the man said, Lord, let me first go bury my father.

Sounds like a reasonable request when we read it in the King James. Let me first go bury my father. Why would Christ say no to that?

Nothing wrong with burying your father, but we know what he meant by that. When the man said, let me go bury my father, it goes back to what was the standard of life at that time. When you were a son, you grew up, your father retired, and you supported him. And you kept the household going, you kept the farm going, the family acreage going, so that he could live his life, and what the man was saying, not now. Let me go and fulfill my responsibilities to my dad, and when he's dead, then I'll follow you. So I ask, was that man willing to lose his life? Was he willing to give up everything to follow Christ? No. Let me go back and do these things first. When I get this done, then I'm going to follow you. Pretty good indication to Christ that if he was faced with death or life, maybe he wouldn't be willing to give up his physical life, because he wasn't willing to give up part of his life there. Jesus said to him in verse 6, he left to dead bury their own dead. But you go and preach the kingdom of God. I called you to do this. He doesn't mean leave family relationships unnecessarily, but if there are choices that have to be made between God and them, you choose God, and you leave the rest behind. You go out and you do the work of God. You go do what he called you to do. You do that first. It's part of losing your life, because when you lose your life, you find it. But if you cling into it, if you hold on to it for dear life, you'll lose it. You'll lose it in one amount to what you hoped it would. Verse 61, another said, Lord, I will follow you, but let me first go and bid them farewell, who are at my house. Another seemingly innocent request, right? Well, okay, I'll follow you. I want to go back home, say goodbye to everyone, and then I'll be here. Christ said, no one, having put his hand to the plow, looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. Again, what was wrong with that request? Well, if you read the commentaries and see what Christ was talking about there, the magist didn't want to go back and say hi, shake their hands, and then leave. He was going back to his family, and Christ knew what was going to happen when he couldn't make a decision to follow him. I'll go back to family. I'll tell them I'm keeping the Sabbath. I'm not keeping Christmas. I'm going to do this. I'm going away to the feast for seven, eight days in the fall. I'm not going to do this anymore. I'll be telling my boss I'm not working on the Sabbath anymore. I'm not going to do the basketball games anymore. I'm not going to do these other things I did on the Sabbath. And he knew if they went back to check with family members, they would try to talk him out of it. And so many times, family members do talk people out of the truth. That was what Christ knew was going to happen. And he said, you need to go back and check. Follow me. Know the truth when you see it. When it's there in front of you, follow him. Show him the faith. Be willing to follow him. Not to go back and check it out with friends and family members and bosses and other religious parties. Nothing wrong, I guess, with doing that, but be absolutely sure that you know the truth and then don't let someone talk you out of it. And some have. And some recently. Among the churches here. They go back and they talk, and that's not that important. It's not the right time.

The calling that God gives us is very important.

He says that you lose your life. If you give it up, you'll find something much greater than anything this life could hold. But if you hold on to it for dear life, if you cling to it and say, I'm not going to let that go, I'm not going to let that go. He says you'll lose. You'll lose it. So the question for us is, what are you holding on to? I ask myself, what am I holding on to? When God looks at me and he says, would he be willing to put his head on that stock and know that death is imminent unless he unless he denied me? Would he do it? He knows by the decisions I make every day. He knows the decisions we make. It's not because of our strength. It's because of the Holy Spirit in us that God helps us to see the things that we see. When you read Stephen, you can see that he saw the next life. Jesus Christ had a vision that there was life beyond this life, and it was so much better than what this life had to answer, that he was willing to let go of it. Do we see that? What are we holding on to? What won't we let go of? Will we follow God? With all our heart, all our mind, will we give up our life for him? Let's go back to Revelation 14, a verse we read last week, but there's reading again in Revelation 14 and verse 4. You know that those who God is calling now, we talked last week about there being firstfruits, people that God calls, that he is preparing to be the bride of Christ, and all that that means. Kind of an awesome thing when you think about the bride of Christ. What that means is that you and me, I mean, who are we that God would even think about the bride of Christ? That's like an amazing thing to think about. In chapter 14, we find in the introductory verses the comments about the 144th or I was in, they couldn't learn the song. No one could learn the song that God was teaching them except them. And in verse 4 it says, these are the ones who are not defiled with women, they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. Exactly what Christ was asking, follow me. These really did. These really did follow him wherever he went. These really were willing to say, fine, take my life. Fine, I will give that up. Fine, I will follow you wherever you go. I believe and I have that much trust. These were redeemed from among men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found, though, to see, for they are without fault before the throne of God. Firstfruits. And back in Revelation 19, I won't turn there, we read the verses last week, they become the bride of Christ. They become the bride of Christ. They're invited to the wedding supper. To the wedding supper. A marvel is saying that our mind can't even really conceive of, but that's what the destiny of is for those who really, truly, fully yield to God. Let His Holy Spirit define them, grow them, teach them, train them, mold them into what God wants them to be. And they're invited to the wedding supper.

Back in Luke, we find a parable about a wedding supper. It's a very telling parable about the wedding supper in Luke 14. And about the type of people that were invited to that wedding supper. And given what we've just talked about in following God, being called by God, of the 144,000 in Revelation 14 that are called the firstfruits and that who come to the marriage supper of the Lamb, we can see here in Luke 14 verse 16 some very real parallels to our lives. Christ said to them, A certain man gave a great supper, and he invited many. Reminds us of the verse, Many are called, many are called, but as we'll see, few were chosen. A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and he sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, Come, for all things are now ready. It's ready. It's time. Come to the supper. But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, I bought a piece of brown, and I must go see it. I asked to have me excused. Wow! Well, that invitation didn't really mean that much to that man, did it? That calling didn't really mean that much. I got this piece of land. I can't do it another day. I have to do it this day. I don't want to come to your supper.

Pretty sad, isn't it? He didn't know what he was missing out on, but he let something get in his way. He wasn't willing to give up that part to be where God wanted him to be. He wanted to be where he wanted to be. I thought it was okay because he had an excuse. There was something he was holding on to, something he was holding on to that he thought would be okay not to be where he was invited. Verse 19, another said, I bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm going to test them. I asked you to have me excused. Well, not now. Not now. I've got this to do. I have this work that has to be done. I have to be here on that day, but you know what? Later on, maybe, but not this time. It's just not time for me to be there now. Did he understand the value of the invitation? Did he understand what he had been invited to? Was he willing to give up his life, or was he holding on to something seemingly so minor that he was willing to miss out on what he had been invited to? Still, another said in verse 20, I've married a wife, and therefore I can't come.

Well, that seems like an important excuse, too. I'm married. I don't have time to come to your supper. I want to come. I want to do what I need to do. I want to be with her. Did he understand the value of it? Was it more important to spend that time that could have been spent another time, or to be where he was supposed to be at that supper? Was he willing to lose his life? Was he willing to lose a part of it? Was he willing to give it up?

Or was he holding on to it? It's like, it's just not that important. Just this time won't matter. I don't have the time to come here now.

Well, there's three examples of people that had excuses, things that they were going to hold on to. I'm not going to let go of that, because they just didn't get the importance of the invitation that they had. They just didn't get the invitation or the importance of the calling that they had. It just didn't mean that much, because they had excuse after excuse after excuse. What about us? What about me? Do we have excuses? Do we understand the importance of what we've been called to? And Christ said, follow me. Do we understand what he meant? He meant follow me 100% of the time, not 75% of the time, not when you don't have a conflict with a family engagement or a work engagement or something that you need to do to be somewhere other than where I want you to be. We're doing something other than what I want you to do.

There's plenty of excuses out there. Business can be excused, family can be excused, marriages can be excuses, the responsibilities we have to our employers and others could be excuses, positions, places on community councils, things that we do in the neighborhood that oh, it's a service thing, so there's not a problem doing that instead of doing what we should be doing. We could add more to it. We will in a minute as we read some more verses.

God didn't call us to see if it met our schedules to be where and doing what he wanted to. If it met our lifestyle to be living the way he wanted, he called us and we said when we were baptized or if we're contemplating baptism, I give you my life. I wash my life away. I give you my life and when we came up out of those waters of baptism, we said write on me your law, write on me your purpose, train me. We ask God to put the Holy Spirit, guide us, lead us, mold us into who you want us to be, holding nothing back, holding nothing back. If you lose your life, you find it. If you hang on to it, you lose it. Let's go on here in verses. We have these people in excuses. Verse 21, the servant who was inviting people to this supper said, came and reported these things to his master and the master of the house became angry. Well, wouldn't you become angry if you had a supper being prepared and people knew about it and then you sent out the word, now it's time. Now it's time come and then one by one, no, not now. I've got something else to do. It's more important to me than what you want. He became angry and he said to a servant, go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city. Bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind. Go out. We're going to fill up these seats at this supper table. We're going to complete this. If the people who I invited don't want it, then someone else will. That's what he's saying here. And the servant said, Master, as done as you commanded, there's still room. And the master said to the servant, go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.

Keep calling. Keep inviting. It will be filled. And when the spaces are filled, the invitation stops. And the supper goes on. And he says, none of those men who were previously invited will taste my supper. They didn't think it was important enough to stop what they were doing, to change what they were doing, to change an attitude, to change an opinion, to give up something that they might have held dear. They wanted to cling to it. Well, if they wanted to cling to it, they're not going to find what I open up to them.

It should remind us of Matthew 25, where the ten virgins are, and half of them find themselves out at the last minute, knocking on the door, let us in, let us in, let us in. And Christ says, or the bridegroom says, I don't know you. I don't know you. Because it wasn't important enough to them in the time between the time the invitation went out and the time of the actual supper for them to be always being ready and getting more and more ready and instantaneous in their response, Lord, where You lead, I will follow. What You show me I need to change, I will change. Where You tell me to go, I will go. I'm not going to seek and hold on to my life. I'm going to give it to You.

Because when I give it to You, I find it. I find it.

Now in Luke 14, verse 33, it says, Likewise, whoever you who does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple. Can't be thy disciple. It doesn't say most of what you have. It says, he who's not willing to give all he has cannot be my disciple, holding nothing back. So the question again is, am I holding something back from God? Are we holding something back? Is there something that's holding us up from what God would have us to do? And it can be, as we mentioned, a number of things. Let's look at one example back here in Acts 5 of someone who said they would follow, but they weren't willing to give it all.

Acts 5, verse 1, A certain man named Ananias, you know the story, right? A certain man named Ananias was a survivor his wife told the possession, and he kept back part of the proceeds, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the Apostle's feet. See what he did? We'll see what he did. He held back a little bit. I'm going to keep this for myself. I'm not going to let go of that part. His wife was aware of it as well. He came and brought it at the Apostle's feet, but Peter said, Ananias, why have Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? Well, he didn't have to say that he was going to give it all, but he said, I will give everything that I get from the sale of this to you. I will give it all. But when it came to it, he held a little bit back and thought, who's going to know? Who's going to know? While it remained, was it not your own? It was your choice. When it was in your hands, you could have said, I'll give 50 percent. I'll give 25 percent. You, Ananias, said, I will give it all. Just like you and I told God of baptism, I will give it all.

But when it came time to do it, Ananias held some back. While it remained, wasn't it your own? And after it was sold, wasn't it in your own control? Couldn't you have just been honest? Why did you say you would give it all and then hold some back? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God. And then you know the story, Ananias dropped in. And his wife came forward a few hours later. They asked her the same thing. She gave the same lie. Yes, I will follow. Yes, I will do. Yes, it is everything. But they couldn't let go of all of it. When it came down to it, they held a little bit of it back. And they lost it all. They lost it all. So it is with us if we hold back from God, if we aren't willing to give Him what He wants. And I don't know exactly. We read in Revelation 14 about 144,000 that are called first-roots. And this is a big if with the circle around it, exclamation points around it, underlined. Okay? If. If there are 144,000 first-roots. Do you want to be part of those? Or do you want God to just keep calling and then you be left out of that group of first-roots and all that that means? God knows when the seats at the table are filled up. God knows.

We don't. Are we going to hold on to our life? Hold on to our life? Or will we give it to Him and let Him make of it what He will, which is so much more than anything in this life?

Christ said, if you lose your life, you find it. If you hold on to it, you lose it.

That's one statement. Let's go back and look at another statement He made here in John.

John 6. It kind of goes along with the first statement, but it's a little different vein. And again, it's something else that can hold us back from everything that God has called us to.

John 5. John 5.

And verse 1.

I'm going to go down to verse 6, where the statement that Christ made is, but let's get the context here. John 5, verse 1.

So, there was a legend that when the fool moved, they would be healed. So, they were all lined up there. Verse 5. Well, that would seem like a pretty easy question to ask, wouldn't it? If you had had something that long for 38 years and someone said, do you want to be made well, wouldn't the automatic answer be, yes? And indeed, the man said, I can't get down there fast enough, and Christ healed him.

Is that all that Christ meant? Do you want to be well?

Because we could apply that sentence, that question that He gave to every single one of us. Do we want to be well? Because we all are in a state of some kind of sickness, or we're in, certainly, a state of spiritual sickness before we came into the church, before we understood the truth, before God opened our eyes. We were different people then than we are now, and there were a lot of things that we had going on in our lives, and our lives were going nowhere. They were futile. And as God looked down at us, and He said, He might have said, do you? Do you, Rick, do you want to be well? Do you want to be whole? Do you want everything life can offer, or do you want to just stay in the same miserable state you're in? Well, again, we would say, yes. But sometimes we have to ask the question, do we want to be made well? See, this man, for 38 years, 38 years, he had this affirmity. It had begun, well, it hadn't begun. It did define him. When he thought of himself, he thought of himself with this infirmity and everything it meant. Maybe he begged. Maybe that was his identity. As he went out to people, look at me, I need help. I need this. I need that. So when Christ made him well, his life was totally different. No longer afflicted with the affirmity, no longer the same person, no longer laden down with all the faults and sins and weaknesses that he had. Now he was going to be free to live a life as a, I guess we'll say, normal person, an undiseased person.

That was a big choice to make. Are you willing to give up everything you were to live the life as a whole, well person?

Some, if they looked at that honestly, and some look at that and they don't want to be well. They're very comfortable in the state they're in. They're very comfortable in whatever sickness they have. And I don't mean physical illness, but whatever their identity is, because this man's identity was his sickness. Our identity before we were called was not healthy. It wasn't leading to eternal life, it led to death. What's the definition of a disease? Whatever ails you, it leads to death. We were all dead men, dead men and women before we came in. Do you want to be made well? Well, if we want to be made well, there are certain things we have to do. There are certain things we have to do, and some don't want to be made well. Some don't want to be made well. Let me run through a few things here. Maybe some people just don't want to be well, made made well, or don't even realize that they need to be made well, because they don't even understand what it feels like to feel good anymore. Maybe this man, after 38 years, had no idea what it would be like to wake up in the morning and not have whatever infirmity he had. Just got used to the pain, got used to whatever the problem was, and some people live with that as well. Some people just live in a state of depression all the time. It just kind of defines them. You look at them and you can see they're depressed, they're sad. No matter what you do, it just doesn't seem to cheer them up. They kind of wear it like they wear their suit coat, their dress, whatever it is. You would ask, do you want to be well? Do you want to be well? Because you know what? Jesus Christ said, if you want to be well, follow Him. The Holy Spirit, if it's in you, it will make you well. It will make you whole. Some people wear their relationship problems. They're closed. This is just who we are. No. Do you want to be well? If you want to be well, there is the answer. Christ is the answer. He's told you. He's under. He's given you His Holy Spirit. There is a way to be well. But your life's going to be different than it was before. Are you prepared for that? Are you prepared to live as a whole well person? There's addictions that are out there. Name the addiction. You can find hundreds of them on the internet. You can find the standard ones of alcohol and drugs, prescription drugs. You can find pornography. You can find smoking. You can find shopping. You can find anything. People who are even addicted to being sick, who just love to be able to talk about how not good they feel. And you think, do you want to be well? What would you do if you were well?

You can be well. God can heal all those things. God gives us strength to overcome all those things that hold us back. But if we're not willing to be well, if we're not willing to let go of that infirmity, if we're not willing to let go of that thing that was just so comfortable for us to live in, then we'll never find what Christ has prepared for us. We'll never see it if we're not willing to let it go. We can talk about emotional problems. We can talk about stars, very real stars that people get in their lives. And the psychiatrist offices, the psychologist offices are full of people who will sit and tell you all day long they were done wrong in their youth. They were done wrong. They were abused. And these are very real issues that I'm not minimizing at all that cause lasting hurt and lasting problems. In the world, there's nothing really to make you well. But Christ said, do you want to be well? When I called you, you can be well. His Holy Spirit will heal if we let go of it. If we give it to Him and say, I don't want this anymore, I give you this. I will forgive whoever needs to be forgiven. I will not go there anymore. I will not live in that skin anymore that just blames someone else rather than me because Christ sets us free. I won't blame my addiction. I won't blame my illness. I won't blame my relationship. I won't blame my husband, my wife. I won't blame my kids. I won't blame my parents. I won't blame the church. I won't blame the people who offended me because they said something and I just can't let it go. I just want to hold on to it. I won't turn to Psalm 55.22 and 1 Peter 5.7. God says, cast your cares on Him. Do you want to be made well? Or do you want to hold on to it because it defines you? If it defines you and you can't let go of it, you will lose the life that God has called you to. But if you can let go of it, He can give you so much more. And His Holy Spirit heals all these things. But you have to be prepared to live a new life and not keep looking back and not going back to the same thing, not throwing the clothes out and then going out to the trash can and putting them back on every time it feels comfortable, wearing the new clothes, the fine raiment, the righteous acts of the saints that the bride wears from that time forward. We can do it with the Spirit of God. We can't do it without the Spirit of God. We may want to and we may be able to do it for a while, but without the Spirit of God we can't do any of these things. But Christ calls us and He says, Do you want to be well? We can talk about spiritual problems, spiritual hang-ups that people have.

Before we came into the church, before God opened our minds, we had spiritual hang-ups. Some still have spiritual hang-ups when they come among us. Some are just that kind of thing. I don't want to do it. Israel, ancient Israel, is pretty stubborn. They just didn't want to do it. They kind of wanted to wear that. Some have an independent mind. I don't need anything except me.

And they believe it. Some have their pet ideas. I believe everything the Bible says except this is what I believe is going to happen in prophecy and it's going to be this way. Or I don't believe this part of it that I can't prove in the Bible, but it's my personal belief and you know what? I'm not going to let it go. I'm not going to let it go. I don't want to be well. It defines me. It's defined me my entire life, perhaps. Or certainly a good part of it, maybe 38 years, maybe 5 years, 10 years. And you know what? Some have actually left the body of Christ because of their pet ideas that they just didn't want to let go of. How important was the invitation to them?

Do you want to be made well? You can be made well, but you have to release. You have to give it to God. You have to cast your cares and concerns on Him and the Holy Spirit if you yield to it and are willing to give it, if you're willing to lose your life, if you're willing to be made well and accept the responsibility of losing a new life, a healthy life, spiritually, physically, in every way that God calls us to, it can be done. Now, what's in that new life is beyond anything you and I can truly imagine. We can read in the Bible, but we can't even, as it says in 1 Corinthians 2, 9, it hasn't even entered our minds what God has prepared for those that love Him.

Lose your life, you find it. Hold on to it, you lose it. Do you want to be well? Do you really want to be well or do you want to use that? And that is what's holding you back from everything that God called you to be. And we know what God called us to be, Revelation 1, verse 5 says. He's called us to be kings and priests. Another concept that's just mind-boggling to us, that God would look down and call us to be that. Let's go back to the Old Testament and look at one more Scripture, one more statement that Jesus Christ, this is God of the Old Testament, made back here in Exodus 4. We'll pick it up in Exodus 4, verse 1. Of course, this is the time where Israel is in Egypt. They're in bondage. They're crying and there is sore affliction. And then, in the Old Testament, Moses, who was living in Pharaoh's house for 40 years, then when he realized who he was, killed the Egyptian's place master. Now, as we pick it up here in chapter 4, Moses has been a shepherd for 40 years in the wilderness. Exodus 4, verse 1. And God has appeared to Moses, and he's letting him know he wants him to go to Pharaoh to deliver the people of Israel. Chapter 4, verse 1. Moses answered and said, Suppose they'll not believe me, or listen to my voice. Suppose they say the Lord hasn't appeared to you. Well, Moses was full of excuses, too, wasn't he? What? You want me to do that? Well, what about this? I can't do that. You probably remember there was a death sentence over his head. If I go back there, you want me to go back to Pharaoh, where I killed someone? Are they going to listen to me? Are they going to really believe that I saw you, that I talked to you? Are they going to really say, are they going to really let the people go? I think God said something very interesting to him in verse 2. So, the Lord, the Eternal, YHVH, Jesus Christ, the God who became Jesus Christ, the God of the Old Testament, said to him, What is that in your hand, Moses? What do you have holding in your hand?

It's an interesting thing to say in the midst of all these excuses, and Moses said, Arad. Now, remember, Moses was a shepherd, right? So, if we were living back in Jerusalem at the time of Christ, if we saw someone walking through the streets of Jerusalem and we saw him with Arad, we would know he's a shepherd, because shepherds have rods. David, in Psalm 23, talked about the rod and the staff. They comfort me. And shepherds use their rods for the various things, to ward off animals, to lead the sheep and lead them to where they need to be. It was kind of a sign of a shepherd. It was an identifying sign if you had Arad in your hand. So, God said, Well, what is that? Moses said, Arad. And then God said something very interesting to him, because that rod was Moses' identity for 40 years. Cast it to the ground. Throw it down. Throw it down. Get rid of it.

Now, that could go along with the same thing that, you know, get rid of it, Moses. That's important to you. Cast it on the ground. And when he did, it became a serpent, and Moses fled from it. And reading the commentary, it's just not, you know, your little garden variety snake, but quite, I guess, a venomous snake. A cobra is what some of the commentaries say. Something that, if it happened here, we would all go running. At least I would be running for the door. But Moses stood there and watched us. And then God said something interesting as it became this serpent that was glittering out there. Reach down and pick it up by the tail.

Now, I don't ever handle snakes, if I can help it. But one thing I would not do, if I had to pick up a snake that I found in my house, I wouldn't pick it up by the tail. I wouldn't pick it up at all. It would be dead if I picked it up. But not the tail, because you know if you pick it by the tail, it's just going to come right around and strike you. So just think of the tremendous faith that Moses had to take this slithering serpent and then reach down and pick it up by the tail. The thing that used to be his rod, the thing that used to be his identity, that defines where the world, who he was, is now a serpent. God says, pick it back up. And when he picked it back up, it turned into a rod in his hand again. Now, we all have things in our lives that define us, don't we? For Moses, it was a rod. Moses was a humble man at this point. Now, Moses, I don't know what he was like when he left Egypt, but he was probably a very, oh, prideful man. I mean, if you get raised in the house of Pharaoh, you probably think that you are at the top of the world and everyone else is beneath you. And he probably had some humbling that needed to have happen to him. And at this point in his life, he's a humble man. He's identified by now this rod. When God called you and me, maybe we had a different identity. Maybe we were someone who needed humbling. Maybe we had this position or this title or whatever it is in our life. Maybe we had this and this and this that's defined for the world who we are. Step back. Here I am. We all have something, right?

We all have identities. What God calls us, what He tells us, go out like He told the man that we read back in Luke 9. You go out and you preach the gospel to the world. You follow Me.

We had an identity, and what He would tell us is, throw that identity away. I'm not saying go out and quit jobs or do anything different, but I'm saying be willing to give up everything. That's a huge thing to say, isn't it? Are you willing to give it all up?

Are you willing to cast it to the ground if God asks you to?

The things that define you. The things that when people look at you, they know who you are.

Moses did. Moses did. And he picked that rod up again, and what did he do with that rod going forward? Did you do the same thing with that rod, that life, in the next 40 years that he did in the prior 40 years? When he cast that rod down. Did he go back to being a shepherd? Well, a shepherd of people in one way, right? But look where that rod took him. When he cast it down and he picked it up again, and he followed God. He went to places and did things that he could never, ever, ever, ever have imagined. With that rod, when he went to Pharaoh and he touched the Nile River, it turned to blood. Of course, God did it, right?

When he held that rod out, the Red Sea parted. It was God who did it. When Israelites held up his hands and that rod was in the air, they defeated the Amalekites. That rod and his life went places that he could never, ever, ever have imagined.

If he had held on to that rod and said, No, I'm not letting this rod go.

Or, No, I'm not picking up that snake. What would Moses have missed out on? Things that he could never have imagined. But he had to cast down the rod. He had to be willing to do that. The same thing that Christ tells you and me. Be willing to give up your life. If he asks you to do it, be willing to be made whole and live the life of a whole person and let go of that persona, whatever it is that's holding you back. He says, if we lose our life, we'll find it.

And in a way that we can't even imagine, nothing we do in this physical world, nothing we could ever do in this physical world can compare to what God has planned for you and me, to whom he's issued the invitation.

What holds you back? What holds me back from being there at that supper? What is it? What is it that we would hold on to? Whatever it is, we can let it go. We can be where God wants us to be in his kingdom, but we have to let go of the things that we hold dear. Let's go back to 2 Corinthians.

2 Corinthians 6.

Verse 11.

2 Corinthians 6.11. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, you know, as you read through Corinthians what Paul wanted for those people, he wanted them to follow God. He wanted them to be all that God wanted them to be. He wanted them to understand the importance of it, and that's just what he wanted. In verse 11, you feel that emotion comes out. He says, oh Corinthians, we've spoken openly to you. Our heart is wide open. At this point, they were blaming him. They had a thing. And that's what Paul did. Paul did this. Paul did that. And he says, you're not restricted by us. You're restricted by your own affections. You're holding yourselves back by the things you won't let go of, is what Paul says. Let me just conclude with that. What are we holding back?

I hope none of us miss out on the supper that God has called us to because of holding on to our own affections, but giving it all to him and letting him make us well.