Anyways, listened to my first one today and it was quite good .. just decided to share some thoughts... or what the sermon was about.
The basic gist of the sermon was that as a true discipler of Jesus, you do not purely pursue glory. Instead you must endure a life of suffering and love unto God for the good of others. A life of service, life of humility, life of love before you can experience glory.
The disciplers of Jesus initially failed at this. In Mark 10, even after Jesus told them how he was going to die, they asked Jesus how they could become recognized, how they could gain higher status, basically they wanted glory.
So how does it look for us to become true disciplers of Christ?
Crucification was actually the most humiliating way to get punished. Romans didn't even allow their citizens to die on the cross because of how shameful it was!
So the speaker talked about how our discipleship is not a glory discipleship but a crucified discipleship. Jesus calls us death of our reputation and death of control. Basically death to ourselvers. We are to have faith that when we die, we know that He will raise us up from the dead. So He commands us to take up the cross and follow Him. We are always trying to make ourselves look good. But we have a calling to lose our former life. After that, we can truly live.
What does it mean to lose our life?
It's giving up our control over everything and letting God handle it. It humbling ourselves and living a life full of humility. And it's definitely not easy. But it wasn't easy for Jesus to die on the cross for us either.
I mean, personally, it's hard for me to be completely faithful. I mean I can be faithful and trust in God. But sometimes it's hard to give complete control to God to humble myself in His presence. Most of the time I want to do things by myself and most of the time I want to do it my way. But God always has a way to humble me and bring me back. But regardless, what would it look like to completely give my life up to God. It's so much harder said then done. But I hope as the days go by and I spend more time with God that I can truly take up the cross and die and be transformed. Like legit, put full trust in Him and that He will provide.
My friend once said, you know with your mind that you should trust in God but do you know with your heart?
bahaha I don't know if this post makes sense. butttt heres the link to the sermons! I listened to the most recent one and I am going to make my way down. You can download them onto itunes or use the podcast tool!
http://www.apostlesnyc.com/sermonsort/sermon-month/5-2011/
kk peace out girlscouts!
couple of thoughts:
ReplyDelete1). YES. I was the one that recommended it to her :) it's my cousin's church; JR VASSAR = SO GOOD. Listen to the sermon during Easter and listen to the one called "Community vs. Radical Individualism". I listened to the community one after our freshmen meeting reflection on that Saturday and it fit perfectly :)
2). One thing sorta related, sorta unrelated to this sermon, while on the topic of glory, is the idea of what masters you. This is John Piper's "Don't Waste Your Life" sermon (link below):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh1wmPQA0QA
In this sermon, he says, "People who are great are not those who have mastered many things; no, people who are great are people who have BEEN mastered by VERY FEW things." I love this quote (it's kinda my life mantra now lol). The idea begs the question, "If I am seeking God's glory, to be a part of that greatness, what worldly things have control over me that I am refusing to give up to have God dominate my life?" I felt like this quote was related in some way because you have to be honest with yourself and you need to ask yourself what is keeping you from living a God-centered lifestyle? What is keeping you from living a life suffering for God's message? What "masters" hold control over your life that pull you away from the glory of God? How can you embrace such a lifestyle if there are still idols and masters that reign over your life?
Thoughts.