What does it take to be a REAL disciple of Jesus Christ? Luke 9:57-62

Phillip Ma- Saturday Nights at Selah

How do you know you're a Christian? A prayer? A message? Something I did? A moment? Do those things REALLY make you a Christian?

The real word Christian means you are a Christ Follower, you then can say, I am a follower of Jesus Christ.

What does it take to be a REAL disciple of Jesus  Christ?

Jesus is going to meet three people in the chapter of Luke.

Luke9:57-62

 What is the cost of discipleship.

It may mean "lacking material comfort", sacrificing luxuries you may have.

UCI's law school's dean, is very liberal, what if he one day reads the bible and believes in Jesus?

V58: Jesus knows man's heart. When the scribe describes his devotion to Jesus, Jesus proclaims that I don’t live in something awesome and amazing, I don’t even have a home! He said this because he knows the scribe's heart, and would probably not be willing to give that part of his life up. It was too big of a sacrifice for the scribe.

V59: Jesus turns to another, and says "Follow Me", but the man was not ready to dedicate his life. He says "Let me go home and bury my father" essentially saying, Let me go and finish up my house work, and the management of my home until my dad dies and passes his estate and finances to me.

We can see that the first man needed a comfortable reassurance, whereas the second man desired financial stability.

If Jesus calls you to go out and serve him, ask yourself… Are you willing to give up basic needs to serve Jesus? Are you willing to give up the comforts of your current daily life to serve Jesus?

V62: The third man proclaims he wants to follow Jesus, but he desires to go and bid farewell to his family before going. Jesus answers him, when you plow a field you cant look backwards and still are able to plow forward on. If you are going to follow Jesus, you need to be able to lose your previous attachments, losing ties with your family or friends. All this is for the sake of following Jesus.

Before I got married, I used to still go meet up with my non-believing friends. I would teach bible studies Saturday night, then, go hang out with them till 12 or 1am. Then the next day I would still be able to go to church. However I felt a tugging in my heart, even though I was determined to go one way for the Lord, my life was still looking back towards my past even though I was not involved in sin with it, I was still surrounding myself with the past. God then called me to leave that past in order to serve Him fully, and ultimately left those friends, and surrounded myself with what God called me to do.

The high cost of following Jesus is to be able to leave what you have.

Why would you even want to live a life of a half Christian? How can you be sure you will be saved? Then be fully committed to God.

How to Have an Effective Ministry?! Luke 9:51-54

Tony Dang: Saturday Nights at Selah

How to have an Effective Ministry?

 It is to follow Jesus' example.

1. You have to be focused in God's will

• Luke 9:51-52
• Our messages have started out with Jesus' coming. Now we have coming to a point where Jesus is being received up. A spiritual meaning to this was Jesus knew he was going to be dying for humanity, and he would soon be back with his father. Jesus knew God's plan, and God's will and executed it! He "steadfastly set his face to do God's will". There was nothing to get between Jesus doing God's will. Luke 22:42 Jesus praying to the point where he's sweating out blood. Jesus says not let my will be done but Yours. It was God's will that Jesus took out.
• If you go into ministry without a goal, or a plan, it would go haywire because there's many different approaches the world, the flesh, and people will drive you in different ways. But if we focus our hearts, mind, and spirit into God's heart, mind, and Holy spirit, we then can find out what he desires for us.
• To know your strengths, and weakness, just go out and serve! Get involved! It is better to serve than to be stagnant! Also, get encouragement from other believers !
  

2. Be able to take rejection

• Luke 9:53,54
• With ministry, we know what God is calling us forth to do, but we're fearful of failure and what people think of us. Like dating we start becoming interested in someone, spend time with them, but then we doubt ourselves into becoming more committed into the relationship because we are fearful of what that person thinks of us. With ministry this is GOD'S realm, not ours. It is something God has to have called us to. Is it His. We shouldn’t take it personally when things do go "our" way, but we should be encouraged to move on.  

3. To have a spirit of mercy and grace

• Jesus was full of mercy and grace! Be merciful because your Father is merciful. The story of the prodigal son, in his lowest time, he associated himself with the lowliest of animals, swine. But when it was time to return back to his Father, the father accepted him with grace and mercy. It is grace and mercy that leads us to repentance.
• When we look at the people around us, our neighbors, friends, family, and even enemies, there can exist people who get on our very deepest nerves, however we must remember that vengeance is the Lord's. If we really were here to deserve justice, we would all be in Hell. Come forth with a spirit of mercy, and grace, through this you will be blessed more than you thought was possible.

The Power of Encouragement 2Timothy 4:9

    Anh Thanh Sunday Morning Message on 2 Timothy 4:9

When we encourage someone:

1. There is divine order and direction to do and say His will. Paul mentions that his calling, and purpose in life is not because of my degree, or experience in the field. Paul's purpose for his own life was to kill the Christians, so opposite of God's calling on his life. However, God called him back onto the right track . So before we can bring encouragement to others, we need to know what way we are going! How can we encourage someone if we don’t even know our own paths? This will only bring discouragement. 

2. Grace, mercy, & peace. Going to church, or serving God is not about our own needs. We need to have the best intentions and motivations when encouraging someone. Is it to boost our own self confidence? Or is it to accomplish some vain goal? What is it? Lets glorify God!

3. Appreciation. Serving God with a pure conscious, no selfish gain. Thanking God for one another. Sometimes we let our pride go before our true intentions of encouragement. Learn to appreciate the people who give, or serve within the ministry. How can we encourage one another if we don’t appreciate them. The principle of encouragement has a lot ot do with appreciation!!

4. Prayer. To effectively encourage someone, we need to pray for them. We don’t know what people are going through, and it is only by the Holy Spirit can we know to pray for those who need it most. Paul openly and expresses his thankfulness for Timothy, and he is praying for them day and night.

5. V 4. Mutual affection for one another. You cannot affectively bring encouragement to someone if you don’t really love them. Paul's love for Timothy was like a Father & his Son. Paul truly wanted to see Timothy.

6. Affirmation. You affirm of God's calling in their lives. He's reaching into Timothy's spiritual life. Brining one another into a place of victory over what God HAS done in their live. When people are down, and depressed, we need to be reminded of what God has done in their lives. This is so they will be uplifted to continue knowing what God WILL do in their lives!

Words of Encouragement. What Paul does for Timothy, we need to be able to do for one another Timothy today! Find encouragement to give to others! Only when we come before God to see what he desires to speak through us, then we can uplift someone. 

Greatness!

Vinny Lam - Luke 9:46

What is greatness? Greatness drives us to move on in life. My testimony, when I was 17 I joined WMA, an insurance company. And at that time what drove me was money! I wanted to be able to reach 45 years old and have 50 million dollars in my bank account. It took me to the point of the love for money, greed,  gangs, and eventually jail. We're going to look into the gospel of Luke. What is God's point of view of greatness.

Luke 9:46.

If you want to be great in God's kingdom, you need to learn how to be a servant. Galatians 3:28 - In God's eyes there are no unimportant people, but everyone is important. When we truly live out the life of Jesus, people will see a life of a servant. A life of Love.

When people who show they NEED to show that they are great, deep down inside, they know there is some kind of weakness in them.

Striving for greatness also causes a person to hold back from sharing the works of ministry. When we see other ministries other ministries do well, Praise them! Don’t be jealous, but be willing to accept what God has to offer through seeing God work in other ministries.

God sees us as great! Great enough to have Jesus die for us on the cross.

Brothers & sisters we must see one another like how God see us.  Through the eyes of Love!!