Not My Jesus: Comfortable Jesus

Amen. And amen. A practical thing that I want to mention to you with Memorial Day. This is something that’s been a family tradition of ours for many, many years. My mother started this. Every Memorial Day we get together, we do the cookout, and then Mom would pray. And every time she would pray, she would always pray for the families of the fallen, every single Memorial Day. And it wasn’t just something that we remembered on a Sunday morning in church. It was something that was part of our prayer as a family. And I want to encourage you to do that as a church family. Whenever you gather together today or tomorrow for Memorial Day, whatever you’re doing, remember to pray for the families of the fallen. Amen. I think that’s a worthwhile thing for us to give our attention to this time of year.

Well, I’m Matt. Welcome. Good to have you at Eagle Creek Church. I’m the pastor here. And I’m in the middle of a series of messages. So, if it’s your very first time visiting, some of these messages will be ones you may want to go back and listen to on our YouTube channel or on our web page.

Last week, I talked about this concept that Jesus is very, very far away from us. And we have a lot of imagination as to why he may be far away. We think about how much we failed, and maybe we blew it, and maybe God’s just kind of put us out on the dark side, or the backside of the desert. In reality, he’s always incredibly close to us, even at times when we can’t sense him. In fact, we talked about a natural progression of spiritual life which sometimes leads to a dark night of the soul, where you just cannot sense God. And that’s an intentional moment in your spiritual life that God’s creating for you to learn to trust him at levels you’ve never been able to trust him at. Now, I want to encourage you, if you don’t know much about that, last week would be the message that walks you through that.

Today, we’re going to be talking about something that is very, very practical for us, particularly in, I’ll say, 2026, as Americans. It’s the idea that Jesus is a very comfortable Jesus. Now, the concept of comfortable Jesus is kind of this. It’s that God, if you’re really serving him well, is going to bless your life so much that your life is just going to be super comfortable. Like, if you’re blessed, you always have enough and extra money, and you’re always in a good state of health and a good state of mind, and marriage is going well, your relationships are good. All is good and all is great, and your life is comfortable. In fact, if church is really a good church, you ought to come to that church, and that ought to make you feel even more comfortable. That’s the sign of a good church, is just comfortability. And a good God is comfortability.

And I listen to this couple. I’ll give you an example. They came to America. They were traveling. They came across my feed. I get the idea that they’ve got a channel or something like this. But it was this English couple, and they were talking about making a trip across America, and they said at the end of it what they loved the most, and they were giving a list. In the list was included this. We could not believe it in America. And they got their English accents, and they’re like, we could go to a bank, and we could drive through the bank. We didn’t have to get out of our cars to go into a bank. You could pull up to restaurants, and you could literally not get out of your car, and they would give you your food from the restaurants at these drive-thru thingamajiggers. And then you could go to a pharmacy and drive right up, and they would just give you drugs out the window.

I was like, oh boy, you don’t know the half of it. We’d get our hair cut at a drive-thru if we could. We drive through car washes. We do whatever we can to just stay in your car. How many of you have ever been dressed in such a way that you did not want to have to get out of the car? You’re like, no, I hope, you know, nothing better break down on me because I don’t want to get out of the car right now. But that is the way we live our lives. Comfort is king for us. And when comfort is king in a culture, it’s very hard for it not to become king in Christianity. It’s very hard for that to not kind of creep in, to where anytime a pastor touches on something that’s a little uncomfortable, we’re like, I just don’t know if I feel right at that church. Well, specifically, why? I just don’t like the way he talks about things. Well, what are the things? Your things, your issues. That’s what it is.

And so I want to tell you a little secret, a little insider tip on the church in America today. This is a real thing. You’re going to hear this, and it’s going to just, you’re going to be upset when you hear it, but it’s true. I was actually reading an article on this last week. In reality, there are a lot of suburban churches that are growing really fast in America, all across America. We’d probably be in that category. This last year, we were just talking with the deacons this last week, and I think we’re up 25%, this month over a year ago this month right now. And so, you know, that’s like, oh wow, that’s really growing and really happening.

But something has happened, though, with a lot of churches. They’ve learned that the key to growing is not just to see people coming in the front doors, but they call it closing the back door. Don’t let anyone out the back door. And one of the ways to do that is never say things that make people terribly uncomfortable and want to quit your church. So you can preach the truth of the word of God, and you can be a fundamentalist, and you can hit the word of God hard, and everyone says, I love it, they preach the word of God there, they tell it like it is. And then you say, when was the last time they talked about God’s plan for human sexuality? I don’t know. I’m sure they would, but do you remember them ever doing it? No. When was the last time they said, well, marriage was between one man and one woman for one lifetime? When was the last time they said, hey, if you’re living with your girlfriend, God has a better plan. It’s called marriage.

And so there’s all these things where we can appear to be in the truth, but we don’t want to touch on anything that would offend, because we would make people uncomfortable and they would quit the church. And the church in America has made growth king rather than Christ king. Amen. It’s made comfort king rather than growth king and Christ king. Growth in Christ.

There’s two types of growth. Numerical growth. But how many of you know really spiritual growth is what Jesus is looking for in his church? Right now, if we are spiritually growing as people, we’ll ultimately be sharing our faith, and a church would naturally grow if people were naturally growing, right? But I don’t want to grow a church past your growth. How many of you know that would be artificial, for me to push the church to grow past your spiritual growth? That would be artificial. That would not be healthy. And so, I can’t keep you comfortable, folks. I love you, but I can’t keep you comfortable. I’ve got to preach the truth in a way that challenges us.

I’m going to give you a little bit of a backstory, and then I’m going to get into some thoughts on growth here real quick. I was talking to my son Evan this week, and I said, Evan, I want to tell you why what I’m saying. Because I preach, either Sherry or Evan get my sermons before you do. They can’t help it. They get stuck. Dad gets into it. Husband gets into it, and they just have to listen. So Sherry’s out of town with her mom having a girls trip this weekend, so Evan got it this week. And I’m going over this, and I said, Evan, can I tell you why this is so important, and why I will not back off on this? And I’m going to repent before you for a moment.

Up until COVID, I didn’t realize that I had gotten pushed into a corner where I was just the person I described. I was preaching God’s word with authority, but I was staying clear of uncomfortable subjects because I knew how many people would quit the church if I did. And you know what? They all quit the church anyway during COVID. And I saw on their Facebook feeds what they really believed. And I was ashamed that I had pastored that. I was ashamed that my people were no deeper discipled in the word of God and with Christian conviction in every area of Christian living. They may have had Christian doctrines, but they did not have Christian morals. And that’s crazy to think, Christian doctrines but not Christian morals. And I had pastored that for 15 years before then. And I just said, no more. And I literally told my wife, if I preach this church down to a small group that meets in our home, I will not stop preaching the word of God. I did.

And I told my son that, and I said, that’s why I have to say these things, no matter how uncomfortable it makes people feel. I just have to keep preaching the truth of God’s word. And so I want to do that, because it’s a cohesive thing that brings us together. Not only is it a people of one doctrinal faith, but a people that follow Jesus morally as one people as well. And that is part of Christ. How many of you know that Christian doctrine is part of the faith? Christian moral beliefs is part of the faith as well. It’s really foundational to live a holy life as he is holy. It’s very foundational. We want to walk that way. And so I just want you to understand that on the front end.

So Jesus walks people through a process of some uncomfortable things that are going to have to happen to really be a follower of his. And the way I’m going to do this, once again, I try to make this simple. So I’m going to walk you through Jesus’ teachings that are uncomfortable, not the specific ones, but the concept of this, so that we understand what it is that we’re called to carry. That Jesus is not a comfortable Jesus. He never was. That’s not who he is.

His Hard Statements Soften Our Hard Hearts

And so first, the first thought I want to give you, you can write these down. It’s also in your app. If you go to our Eagle Creek Church app, you’ll have this. You can go ahead and follow along with this. It’s this. His hard statements soften our hard hearts. Now, this is absolutely true for half of the population or less. And this is absolutely a false statement for the other half of the population. And I’ll explain what I just said. But for all of you, I’m going to believe this is going to be true. I’m going to believe this statement is true for your heart. And so, will you read this out loud with me? His hard statements soften our hard hearts.

Now, I’m going to contradict that real quick. Okay? God tells Moses to go to Pharaoh and to tell him to let his people go. And he does. And then it tells us, and God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. He knew the truth of God’s word, and it was a hard truth. You have to give up all those you hold as slaves. Pharaoh knew the truth of God’s word. It was clear. He knew the sacrifice, the surrender. This is what it is. And then it says, and God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.

And I remember whenever I heard that for the first time and thought about it in that context, that God had predestined someone toward hardness. I was actually in Bible college, and I had a discussion with my professor afterwards, and I was like, I don’t understand how God can give us free will, then it says, and God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. It seems like Pharaoh didn’t even have a choice in it. And he gave this beautiful description that has stuck with me till this day. He said, Matt, I want you to think of this for a moment with me. Just back away from the Pharaoh and answer this question for me. I’m like, okay. He said, so, it’s a very, very, very hot, sunny day, and you’ve made a pot of clay, and you’ve set it outside, and you’ve taken a dish with a stick of butter and set it beside it, out on the same concrete slab, out your back door. What’s going to happen to the clay? I said, it’s going to get hard. He said, and what’s going to happen to the butter? I said, it’s going to get soft and melt. He said, the sun is the same, but the heart is different.

And I want to tell you, the teachings of Jesus for some of you will harden you today. And you’ll become angry and mad and inflexible and immovable. And I cannot stop that from happening in the hardened heart of people. I can’t do anything about it. And there’s particular teachings that you hear throughout the course of a year, and whenever Matt hits that subject, you get mad at Matt, and mad at Christians, and mad at churches, and mad at God’s word, because your heart is hardened toward a subject that you don’t want to bend on, you don’t want to change on, you’re inflexible on.

But there are many across this room that when the Holy Spirit shines his light down on any area of your heart, you melt like butter before him. And there’s something that just happens in you, where you just say, woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among an unclean generation, like Isaiah in Isaiah 6. Your heart melts before the Lord.

And so when you hear this message today, I want you to pay attention to the substance of your heart. I want you to pay attention to whether you are a person and a man of clay, a woman of clay, or whether you are a person who’s ready to be softened by the word and the spirit of God working in your life. I have to pay attention to that in my own life.

There have been some areas, and I’ll just, okay, I’m going to do a moment of confession for you. I know this is a beautiful thing. Confession is wonderful for the soul. It is terrible for the reputation. That’s okay. I’m not a man of reputation. So, it’s okay. But for me, I have an area where bitterness can be the thing that takes hold of me, because I have this strong justice vein, where it’s like, if you’ve done me wrong, you need to pay. Now, how many of you know the Bible says, vengeance is mine, I will repay, sayeth the Lord. I just want to be on the sidelines watching it. I’m just like, but can I watch? Can I watch? God’s like, nope, you don’t get to watch. You go away somewhere else. You’ll never know what I’m going to do. And I have to sacrifice that and give that away and say, Lord, I have to trust you and walk away and let go of this thing. My heart would get hardened there. And I have to recognize, the nature of my heart is to be hard in that area. And I have to continually break that area in my heart, and ask God to break it, so that I am gracious and merciful and forgiving and loving and accepting of people that have wronged me and wronged those that I’ve loved. Any of you know what I’m saying? Somebody confess it with me? Okay. All right. I feel a little bit better. I’m among company on this one. And so this statement is for me as well.

So let’s get into the teachings of Jesus. Luke chapter 9:23. “And he said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.” Now, this is what’s going to happen. You’re going to end up following him, but in order to follow him, a couple things are going to have to happen.

He says, if you really want to follow me, you will discover areas of your life that have to be denied, like your bitterness. That’ll be something in your life that says, I have to deny that thing in me. I do that. I have that issue. And you’re going to have some areas that get exposed in the course of a year, in your small group, in your personal Bible reading times, in times when you’re at church, a whole variety of moments where God is going to reveal something and say, that has to be denied in yourself.

And then you’re going to have to take up a cross. What’s a cross? It’s a place of death. It’s a thing that Jesus says, like the denial, I am dying to this thing. “I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” And it says,”In the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”. I’m living a crucified life that is alive, not in its own desires. It’s alive in Christ’s life and Christ’s desires now. So, I’m not dead. I’m dead to self, but I’m alive to the will and the desires of God, instead of the will and the desires of Matt. Does that make sense? That’s the cross that I’m carrying. It’s a death cross, but it’s also a life cross. It’s a physical death to my physical wants, but it’s a spiritual life to Christ’s spiritual plan and desires for my life. Now, how many of you understand that that life is truly life? The life that I had of my desires was just kind of my own personal thing, that it’s not really the life ultimately that God has for me.

So he’s talking to a group of people that are literally like, wait, wait, wait. You just said take up your cross. We literally saw that last week. There was this guy, and the Romans were whipping him all the way up the hill, and they killed him. They nailed him to that thing. That’s an abomination. That’s a curse. That cannot be from God, for anyone to take up any kind of cross. We as Jewish people watch the Romans do this to us. They inflict this gruesome, torturous punishment on us. And you’re saying we should willingly submit to that? Jesus, you don’t know what you’re talking about. We watch that happen to people. I don’t want that in my life.

Now, I’m saying that because Jesus was making it hard. He was saying, the things that I’m going to tell you to give up are going to be as hard and gruesome and heavy and ugly to you as that cross is. You’re going to hate it when I say you can’t do this anymore, and you have to surrender this. It’s not going to be easy, the things I’m going to strip away from your life. You’re going to deny yourself. You’re going to take up this cross. But then in that place, you begin the life of a follower. Amen. All over the room, you begin the life of a follower. And it’s not easy to begin the life of a follower. And he’s not trying to make it easy.

Oh, but I want to be comfortable. There’s no such thing as the comfortable Jesus. You’ve made it up. There is such a thing as the cross and the denial. But it leads us to a life that’s truly life.

How many of you know that when you get married to someone, there’s a lot of love there, but there’s a lot of denial? How many of you get to deny yourself all sorts of things? I don’t like it this way. I wish she did it that way. Why does he, name it? My wife sometimes sleeps in the living room in the middle of the night. She wakes up, and she’ll tell you this. She just is one of those ladies that she gets her head going. She wakes up at 3:00 a.m. and she can’t shut it down. But it doesn’t help that when she wakes up at 3:00 a.m., someone’s snoring. Yeah, she didn’t know she was getting into that when she married me. Turns out, I guess my son does now, as I’ve heard. They’re just figuring that out. But there’s these pieces you get of someone that you don’t imagine that you’re going to get. But how many of you know you don’t get to lop all those parts off? You get that too, right? You get both sides of that.

And whenever you come to Christ, there’s the beautiful life of Christ, the sense of forgiveness, the fulfillment that you have in him, the joy of his spirit living in you. There’s all of these amazing things that come along with it. And then there’s also the things where he says, but you can’t do that anymore, and that, and that. You’re going to give up some things. There’s going to be some sacrifices. And so we walk through that understanding. And it’s just a real thing in our walk with Christ that there’s a cross. There’s things that we’re going to have to deny.

Your Cross Is Not Your Problem, It’s Your Pathway

Let me give you the second thought. Your cross is not your problem. It’s actually your pathway. It really is. Your cross is not your problem. It’s your pathway. Everyone say that with me, good and loud, here and online. Let’s say it together. Your cross is not a problem. It’s a pathway.

And this is so true. In Matthew chapter 10:38-39, let’s go ahead and read this. It says, “And whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Think about that for just a moment. Why would he use that phrase? Why would he say it’s not worthy of me? I want you to reflect back to what Christ has done for you. Can I ask you this question? Did Christ take up his cross for you? And he carried it all the way up Golgotha’s hill, until he could carry it no longer and fell down under the weight of it. And Simon carried it the rest of the way. And then he hung on that cross for you. Did Christ take up his cross for you?

Every moment you say, I can’t do this, God. I can’t give this up. I can’t give this anger up. I can’t give this unforgiveness up. I can’t give up these three glasses of wine after dinner. It’s the only way I cope with my life. I cannot give this up, God. I want you to picture him carrying his cross for you. I want you to picture what he did for you. And maybe when you see the cross again of Christ, you’ll say, but Lord, you laid everything down for me. So Lord, I will take up my cross, and I’ll follow you right now.

“Whoever finds his life will lose it.” And then it says, “And whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Whoever is just holding on to his life, and won’t take up the cross, but it’s like, no, I have my life. I don’t have room. I can’t. My arms are full, Jesus, with all my stuff. And you’re saying, take up a cross. I’ve got no room for a cross, because I have my car, and I have my pension, and I have my boat, and I have my retirement, and I have my attitudes, and I have my past, I have my unforgiveness, I have my wants, my desires, my lust of the flesh. I got all these things. I’ve got no room for a cross.

And he says, of course you don’t. I’m asking you to literally deny yourself of all those rights and lay them down and watch them come crashing to the ground. And then your hands will be free to take up the cross I have for you. But Lord, how do I lay these things down? My life is made up of these things. He said, yeah, but I’ve called you to be a follower. Your life is to be made up of this thing. Will you lay this down and follow me?

Many people on that day will say, Lord, Lord, didn’t we feed the sick, visit the hungry, go to the prisons? And he will say, depart from me, you workers of iniquity, for I never knew you. You were never a real follower. You were someone who confessed to believe something, but never followed as if you did. And if you hold on to your life, you will surely lose it. But if you’re willing to lose all this, then you’ll find the life that God has for you. That’s the call of the cross. It’s not a comfortable call, but it’s a truthful call.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor in Germany during World War II, was so convinced and so convicted that what the Nazis were doing was an atrocity, that when the church would not call out Adolf Hitler’s atrocities because of their comfortable relationship with the Nazi party, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. And so he would not stop speaking about the atrocities of what the Germans were doing, until they arrested him, and until they killed him. It wasn’t just a nice phrase that a good Christian pastor threw up on Instagram to get a lot of likes. It was the prophecy of his own death, and he made it openly, and he faced it willingly.

The Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 3:10 “That I may know him, that is Christ, and the power of his resurrection, and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.” And shortly after these words, he was crucified upside down in Rome.

You see, the cross is not conceptual. The cross is a real Christian life, with real Christian sacrifices, with real moments of denying what we want, with real moments of surrendering our rights, and with real consequences for speaking up and speaking out for faith. The cross may be that you have to speak up for Christ in your workplace and do it in a gracious and truthful way, but it still may result in people not loving you anymore. It may result in someone hating you. Like, I could never carry the cross of truth into our culture. I could never carry the cross of bold witness into my family. I could never carry the cross of consistent Christian living in my workplace.

The cross is real. It’s not this imaginary conceptual idea. It is real, and real people live it, and real people die to themselves on it every day, all across this world. Christians are dying on the cross of self-sacrifice and suffering with Christ, and many are even dying for him still in this world today. The cross is real. The question is, will we carry the cross that Jesus has for each one of us?

In Mark chapter 10, a very righteous man, a godly, godly young man comes to Jesus. What do I have to do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus starts giving him the run-through, and this and this, and I’ve done them all. I’ve done everything since my childhood. I’ve lived this way. All right. Here’s your denial. Here’s your cross. Sell everything you have now, so that there is zero dependency on worldly things, and then come and follow me in your poverty. I see one thing that you still lack. Jesus said, sell all you have and follow me. It was the one thing.

Now I want to tell you, finances is not the thing for everyone. Now, everyone needs to be a participant financially in kingdom work, because Jesus just told us this. Where your treasure is, there your heart is also. Lay up treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust corrupts, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. So, how many of you understand that every Christian is called financially to be putting treasure in heaven? Amen. Amen.

But for some people it becomes the Achilles heel, like bitterness could be mine, right? For someone else it, money could be theirs. And so the radical, I’ll say, incision of the spirit to cut deep within you will be in the area of finance. And for this guy, it was a radical incision. We’re cutting out all of your finances to follow me.

I just read about a guy yesterday, I’m reading a book right now, that literally felt God call him to start schools in India for children that were in poverty, through an organization. And the only way he knew to do it in his retirement was he got rid of his entire pension plan. And he started a school for 40 kids, and he was in the middle of starting the next one, and raising funds, and living happily on social security while he was giving it away. How many say that’s a pretty radical cross to carry? But the impact he was making in lives made it so worth it to him.

And Jesus says, this is your cross. It’s this. And he says, no. He literally turns away, and he walks away heavy and sad, because it says, because he had much. And I don’t know what makes you heavy and sad about the word of God. What makes you heavy and sad on a Sunday? Which are the Sundays that you walk away heavy and sad? Jesus says, that’s the one. That’s the one where I was saying lay that down, but you walked away heavy and sad on the week when I could have given your life purpose and joy. You would lose your life, and you would then find it, like the retiree that got rid of his pension to start a school in India. He lost the life that all of us said, that’s your life, your life savings, that’s your life. He lost his life. But what did he find? He found his life, and he’s trying to figure out how to multiply what he’s done by bringing other people on board with him. He didn’t lose his life. He found his life.

But to us as Americans, where comfort is king, many of us can’t get over the fact that he did that. We think he’s lost his life still, because we think like Americans in comfort, not like Christians with a cross. How many of us think like Americans in our comfort? How many of us think like Christians carrying our cross? And so we see how far the world has crept in.

Now I look at this, and I think about what the Holy Spirit might be whispering to our hearts. I don’t know, but I’m sure he is. And so just lean in and pay attention.

You Find Your Life When You Surrender Your Life

And the third one, before we take some time to worship together in surrender and in sacrifice. The third thought is this. You find your life when you surrender your life. Everyone read that one. That’s the most obvious one. Let’s all say it together. You find your life when you surrender your life.

John 12:24-25. Let’s read this. It says, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat”. Now Jesus is speaking about his life. And he’s about to give his life and die on the cross. And he’s talking about, I am the kernel of wheat. So he’s not talking about you yet, but he will talk about you. “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted, buried in the soil and dies,” that’s him. Unless I die, I’m in the tomb, it remains alone. I am the only Son of God. There are no other sons and daughters adopted into the family of God. Just me. And the Greek word there is, I remain monos, alone, singular.

But its death, my death, will produce many new kernels. Many new kernels. Now, what is true of the kernel, the seed? And who are the many new kernels? You are one of the many new kernels. But what is true of the kernel? What happened? It has to be planted, doesn’t it? Your life has to be planted and died to itself as well. And what happens when you die to yourself? It says you will bring life to many others, right? Like the man who gave up his pension brought life to 40 kids in India. He planted something, and God brought life out of that thing. It remains alone, but its death will produce many new kernels. A plentiful harvest of new lives.

Now, he gets into what I’m talking about, lives. Many people that are sons and daughters of God. Let’s continue on here, the next portion. “Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity.” You will have something that matters for eternity.

Now, I use the example of that guy, I’m reading, the book is called Multiplier by Dave Ferguson. Um, John Ferguson, Dave’s his brother. And as I’m reading that book, I think about this guy, and we would say, well, you’ve lost everything, you lost everything. You say, no, what I did is I gave up something that was temporary for something that was eternal. That’s what I did with my life. The hardest things that God will ask you to do will often be the things that will bring the most life you could ever have.

16 years and seven months ago, Sherry and I went on a trip to Ethiopia. And we were there to pick up our youngest son, Gabriel. And when we did that, we didn’t have the money to get by on that. And so we sold our cars, and we drove old jalopies. I drove a Mitsubishi Colt, a very old one that, I should have checked into it more. Had a mechanic check it out before I bought it, because it literally sprayed oil out the back. Like if you drove behind me, Sherry did this on my way back, she had oil all over the windshield of our minivan. It was pretty bad. Anyway, and I was driving my nicest car I’d ever driven, it was only like seven or eight years old or something. I was like, I had this car that I was like, oh, it was awesome. Anyway, but I was driving that. So, we’re sacrificing in a big way financially. It was well over 20,000. We had one income 16 years ago. Three kids, well, four with him. And it was a huge sacrifice for us to do that.

When we got home, he spoke no English, and he was traumatized by what he had just gone through. As you can imagine, a little two-year-old boy would be absolutely traumatized by the world and the transitions and everything that he went through. And he became very angry and yelling and upset, and all sorts of drama happened in our life. And we’d have good seasons and bad seasons and rough seasons, and seasons in his teens where we would just lay in bed, and my wife would cry, and she’d just hold my hand, and she’d be like, I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know what to do anymore. And I’d be like, I don’t know either, hun. I don’t know what to do. And we would just pray. And we would just pray. We would just pray. God help us. God help us. We love this kid. He’s gone through so much in his life. How do we help him? How do we help him?

One of the hardest things we ever did in our life was adopt. One of the hardest things. Everyone’s like, oh, it’s so beautiful. I believe it becomes beautiful, but let me tell you, you go through hell and back first. And we did. And it was hard.

I want to tell you, that boy has become one of our greatest joys. He and I ate pizza and watched a movie last night. And he will talk to me for all hours about everything going on all through his day. He and his mom, when he comes in, he bear hugs her, and leans on her, and they just stand in the kitchen rocking and hugging, and then he’ll mess with her, and then she’ll poke him in the ribs, and they laugh and have a great time. I give up on them and go to bed finally, because they talk too late. One of the hardest things of my life, one of the greatest sacrifices of my life, has been my greatest joy as well.

And that is the way of the cross. Over and over and over. The thing that you give up, the bitterness that you give away, the unforgiveness that you give up your rights to, is replaced by the joy and the grace and the mercy of God, to love people in ways that you didn’t think you could love them. Over and over and over, what you give up, God returns to your life in immeasurable ways. The greatest sacrifices will become the greatest joys. But someone will have to pick up a cross, and someone will have to carry it. You will have to pick it up, and you’ll have to trust that he’s got a life for you.

Today I want to invite everyone in the room to stand with me. Would you do that right now? And I ask our team to come out and lead us in a song of worship. I specifically talked to them and said, I want us to focus this time right now on an area where God may say, I want you to surrender, to lay this thing down, this thing that you’ve carried that you just cannot let go of.

For some of you, you have an online addiction that is unhealthy, and it has to be sacrificed and surrendered. For some of you, you have a substance that has begun to become your answer for everything. It’s wrong. For some of you, your finances are your total security, and instead of looking to Christ, you’re looking somewhere else. Now, over and over and over, Christ will put his finger right on the spot and say, this must be laid down. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. But when you do it, you will find the life that you were created to find. You will find the life that is truly life.

I did this on Thursday night. I feel compelled to do this this morning. I’m going to ask you to do something all across this room, and it’s going to feel like you’re carrying a cross when you do this. And it should. When we begin to sing this song, I don’t want you to be ashamed of the cross. I don’t want you to be ashamed of Christ. I don’t want you to be ashamed of the one who carried his cross for you today. I want you to be bold about it. But I’m going to ask you, in a moment when we begin to worship, to walk up to the front, many of you all across this room, and say, literally, physically, I am laying down this thing in my life.

We actually had objects that were laid down. You don’t have to lay anything down. I didn’t expect that to happen. I was like, oh, I guess we’re sweeping it up and throwing it away. We’re laying it down for real. I love that. But I feel compelled to ask you, you’re going to come down and lay down some anger and unforgiveness, some control, some dreams of your success, and to say, but God, use my life for your purpose. I’ve only dreamed about what I want. I’ve not dreamed about what you’ve given me to do. And so, I lay down my dream, and I pick up the cross that will bring life. That will bring life. I become like a kernel. I’m planting my dream here. But Lord, grow something out of my life for your kingdom.

As we begin to worship, would you begin to do that? If you don’t make your way to the front, would you at least raise your hand and surrender? I deny myself. I sacrifice this thing. I surrender this to you. Would you lead us, Ryan? Let’s just begin to do that. All across the room, step out as the song begins. Surrender it. Lay it down.