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Lansing SDA Church

Wes Peppers

The Cost of Discipleship- Part 1

This morning our message is called the cost of discipleship.

How many of you think this morning that there is a cost in discipleship?

If you did not hear the message last Sabbath, which I know many of you did not because you were with the school ministering.

I want to encourage you to get a copy of it.

There is some, there are some available beside the men's restroom in the little rack and there is a form there you can fill out if they are gone.

I want to encourage you to grab a copy of that message.

And I also want to encourage you to give you a pastoral invitation to attend this prayer meeting starting Wednesday night.

We're going to work our way through self-examination and seeking the Lord's face in revival.

And talking about many different aspects of that.

I want to ask you to pray for my family and my son has been sick for the last few days and then my daughter got a cough and then my wife woke up this morning so we'll probably be taking them to the urgent care this afternoon.

And the Lord always gives us some trials in the midst of joy, amen?

And it makes us appreciate Him more and lean on Him more.

That's what we're going to talk about this morning.

I'm going to invite you to bow your heads as I kneel.

Father in heaven, Lord, this morning as we open the sacred pages of scripture, I pray, Father, that your word would speak to us again, that it would not be Pastor Wes's voice, it would be the voice of Jesus, that our eyes would be open, our hearts would be in tune with yours, and we would be convicted, comforted, and encouraged to take our stand with Jesus and to take action for Him, to surrender our lives to Him, to give our hearts wholly to Him.

And Lord, today we cannot do that on our own.

So we ask you to give us the gift of the Holy Spirit to call us to repentance, to call us to faith, to call us to trust wholly and only in you.

So this morning we pray and ask for all these things and that your name will be glorified in Jesus' name.

If I were to ask you this morning, what is discipleship?

What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus?

Many people might answer different things, and probably would be correct about many of them.

But we're going to begin this morning our study in the Gospel of John.

I believe that John chapter 1 really highlights for us what it means to be a disciple.

John chapter 1 and we're going to begin in verse 35.

If you have your Bibles, please turn there.

If you don't have a Bible, There should be 1 in the pew there with you.

I want to encourage you to turn with us to John 1.35.

The scripture says, if you're there, are you there?

Again, the next day, John stood, John the Baptist, stood with 2 of his disciples, and looking at Jesus as he walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of God.

John the Baptist points to Jesus and he says, Their, brothers and sisters, is the Lamb of God.

And the 2 disciples, now whose disciples were these?

They were John's, they weren't Jesus' disciples at that point.

And when John's disciples heard John say, behold the Lamb of God, the scripture says that they did what?

And then Jesus turned and seeing them following him said to them, What do you seek?

Imagine, friends, following Jesus, you know He's the Lamb of God because your mentor just said, There's the Lamb of God.

You start to walk behind Him, and he turns around and looks at you instead of saying, Oh, I love you.

Instead of saying any of those kinds of things, Jesus responds by saying, what are you looking for?

How would you have answered that question?

I know how Judas would have answered that question.

I'm seeking riches and all kinds of other stuff.

These 2 disciples responded to Jesus and they said to him, Rabbi, what?

Jesus, Master, Rabbi, where are you staying?

Because as your disciple, wherever you are, that's where I want to be.

How many of you think that that was the correct answer?

How many of you would want to give that answer to Jesus?

True discipleship is to seek out Jesus and remain where He is regardless of where He is or what we have to do to get there.

What if Jesus would have been on top of a mountain?

Do you suppose that they would have climbed that mountain to find Jesus?

Let's just suppose that Jesus was out in the middle of the ocean, would they have been willing to swim out into the middle of the ocean to find Jesus?

If Jesus were to look you in the eye, more importantly, if He were to examine your heart this morning, and if he would have looked, if Jesus can look into the depths of your soul, into your heart, and he were to ask the question, what are you seeking, What answer this morning would your heart give to Him?

Or would you say, Rabbi, wherever you're not?

You know, my son, last night, to my wife, and then to me this morning, my family woke up sick, My wife said, there's no way we're going to make it.

My wife is coughing, my son's coughing, my daughter's coughing.

I just started coughing, so don't get too close to me.

But My son came to me today as I was sitting in my chair early this morning, putting the final touches on my message this morning, and he says to me, we can't go to church.

And I could see his face begin to just shake.

And I said, Buddy, I want you to be at church too.

I wish you could come, but you need to be here because you're sick.

And he just kept standing there looking at me with this solid look on his face.

He started to cry and he said, but I want to be at church.

Now Jesus is everywhere, but Jesus is especially at church, isn't he?

You know why Jesus is especially at church?

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The Cost of Discipleship- Part 1

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