Counting the Cost of Christ (And What You will Gain!) - Pastor Tom Loghry
Pastor Tom contrasts several parables that show the difficulty of the Christian walk and the benefits to be gained by following Jesus.
Transcript:
So, last month, back in June, uh, James and I went on a hike. Uh, we set out to hike from my parents house to George Washington State Campground. It's a distance of about four and a half miles. We, uh, planned to camp out overnight and hike back to my parents house the next day. And I think things went pretty well.
But we were successful, we were only successful, I'd say, by the skin of our teeth. I planned just enough, I'm not always the best planner, Sara can attest to that, I'm not always the best planner, but I planned just enough, and I was able to work out some solutions along the way. If I had known how hard the hike would have been with our packs on, in the heat, I might have second guessed it.
James complained a little bit early on, but overall he was a real trooper and he rose to the occasion. I was also blessed that despite the fact that the campground did not sell firewood, I assumed they'd have firewood there for me to buy, um, I was able to forage enough deadwood for our fire. And the food I cooked was OK, it was enough to fill our bellies anyways.
So it all, it all worked out. Originally, I thought of hiking from Scituate um, but when I looked at the distance, I realized it'd be way too much. It was almost too much as it was. And the only thing that would have been less fun than not going at all would have been if I got stuck halfway to our camp in the woods with my eight year old son and I'd have to carry the extra pack.
As it was, I really do think James gave it his all and we got to enjoy a great time together. But it required nothing less than giving our all to getting to that camp. There couldn't be any quitting halfway. It really is the same when it comes to following Jesus. We need to give Him all, or nothing. Last Sunday, we looked at the parable of the sower and the seed, and I talked about how in the case of the soil of our lives, the life of Jesus will grow there, or something else, some other desire or idol.
But not both. It's one or the other. In the parables we're looking at today, Jesus is urging those who hear him to think twice about following him. You don't want to go halfway with Jesus. In the first three verses that were read, Jesus tells the crowd what it means to be all in as his disciples. So it describes him in verse 25 as he's traveling on the road with some large crowds.
And so you can imagine Jesus walking down the road and as he's going, it's very visual the way that Luke describes it, you can imagine Jesus turning as he's walking and he's talking to the crowds. And he tells them that if anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even their own life, such a person cannot be my disciple, and whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
Now, when we hear that, it can be quite shocking, I think. What does Jesus mean that we're to hate our relatives if we're to follow him? What Jesus is doing is he's saying something provocative in order to to help those who are interested in following him understand the degree to which they are to love him.
They are to love Jesus so much, be so devoted to Jesus, that in comparison, it might look like they hate their own family. Now, you're supposed to love your family, I mean, as much as anyone in this world, but you're supposed to love Jesus even more. We see kind of the positive framing of this recorded in Matthew 10: 37.
He says, anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. So, we're supposed to love Jesus above all, even our closest relations. And we see this sort of devotion acclaimed even back in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 33: 9. And speaking of the tribe of Levi, speaking of Levi, it's, it says in verse 9. He said of his father and mother, I have no regard for them. He did not recognize his brothers or acknowledge his own children, but he watched over your word and guarded your covenant. The tribe of Levi was so devoted to God.
Not to the extent that they were actually neglecting their family, but again, in that comparison, their love for God, their devotion to God was so much greater. There was no decision to be made. They were all in for God. When we think about today, we might ask, well, what does that look like? Because in Jesus' time, like that actual moment in which he is speaking, it could actually require them to say I'm setting aside my work.
I'm leaving my house and I'm going on the road following Jesus. Obviously, that's not the situation right now here for us. We're not walking down Rockland Road following Jesus, but we're nonetheless called to follow Jesus in radical ways, ways that may put us in conflict with our families. Now, sometimes we don't see that sort of deep conflict as much here in the U S though.
I think it does happen, but you especially see it in other religious contexts. So some of you might be familiar with the ministry of Voice of the Martyrs. They highlight the suffering of Christians around the world. And they share this story. This story is from last year, and this was just posted on Facebook and it talks about this man named Adnan.
It says when Adnan left Islam for Christ, his family rejected him. His brother fired him from working in his shop, and his father threatened to kill him if he ever attended church again. Adnan accepted his brother's decision, prayed for his angry father, and trusted in God. Please pray Adnan's family will come to know Christ.
Clearly, you could say that Adnan's family probably felt as though his decision to follow Christ was an instance of him having hatred to his own family. You can imagine them saying, how could you do this to us? You know, abandoning the religion of our family to follow Jesus. Do you hate us or something? It looks like hatred.
Because Adnan came to know the love of Christ. And was willing to devote himself completely to Christ, even at the cost of being separated from his family.
This brings into our lives at times a painful tension. Because we do feel that devotion, that responsibility that we have for a family. But we also know the claim that Jesus has upon our lives. And I think the only way that we can really reconcile the two is by realizing that we can only love others properly, rightly, when we've given ourselves completely to Jesus.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer talks about this in his book, The Cost of Discipleship. If you don't know anything about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, fascinating man, fascinating life, lived in the era of Nazi Germany, stood up to the Germans, um, stood up for the faith when a lot of the church was just saying, yeah, we'll go along with Hitler.
He did not. Others did not. He knew something of the cost of discipleship. But speaking about this way in which Jesus transforms our relationships with others, he says this, he says, The call of Jesus teaches us that our relation to the world has been built on an illusion. All the time we thought we had enjoyed a direct relation with men and things.
This is what had hindered us from faith and obedience. Now we learn that in the most intimate relationships of life, in our kinship with father and mother, brothers and sisters, in married love, and in our duty to community, direct relationships are impossible. So what Bonhoeffer's saying there is there's a pre existing divide in which we live.
That we aren't able to actually be in right relation with others as things stand. And he goes on and says this. Since the coming of Christ, his followers have no more immediate realities of their own, not in their family or relationships, nor in the ties with their nation, nor in the relationships formed in the process of living.
Between father and son, husband and wife, the individual and the nation stands Christ, the mediator, whether they are able to recognize him or not. We cannot establish direct contact outside ourselves except through him. Through His Word, and through our following of Him. To think otherwise is to deceive ourselves.
So what Bonhoeffer's saying there is that others in your lives might not recognize the necessity of Christ in order for you to rightly relate to them. But that's the reality of the situation all the same. That if you're gonna love your family rightly, if you're gonna love your neighbors rightly, if you're gonna love this country rightly, it can only be mediated through Jesus Christ as you are completely devoting yourself to him and as he is reconciling us to others.
Now something that Bonhoeffer doesn't mention here in this particular passage is the reality not only of our alienation from ourselves from others, but also of ourselves. And Jesus talks about that. He says, look in verse 26. If anyone comes to me and does not hate, and he goes through the relations, and then he says, yes, even if they don't hate their own life, such a person cannot be their, be my disciple.
The call of Jesus is radical. He's calling us to love Him even more than we love our own priorities. Our own fleshly desires. And, to the point of what Bonhoeffer was saying, the reason for this is that we cannot even rightly relate to ourselves apart from Christ. We cannot love ourselves properly apart from Christ.
But from the perspective of the world, by worldly standards, it will look like you hate your own life by how much you are loving and devoting yourself to Jesus.
The world believes that to love yourself is to give in to your every whim and desire. In other words, to indulge in sin. And as we do that, we do enjoy peace with the world, but we do not enjoy peace within ourselves. We do not enjoy peace with God. And while the world doesn't, may not criticize us in certain respects, we don't really enjoy a true, deep peace with others.
If we're going to follow Jesus, we have to be prepared to hate ourselves. And Jesus puts this very vividly. He says, you have to carry the cross if you're going to be my disciple. Now, when we think about the cross, we think about its ultimate end, which is you end up on a hill, crucified and you die. But, when people were sentenced to crucifixion, they were suffering leading up to that hill, where they went through a gauntlet of the crowds that were mocking and jeering them, and they were suffering on that path.
So you imagine these crowds are following Jesus, and he's talking to them saying, you have to pick up your cross and following me. The way that I'm going leads to suffering, and there's suffering along the way.
And those around you are going to be asking, why are you such a glutton for punishment? Why are you making things harder on yourself? Why don't you just go with the flow?
But to be a disciple of Jesus Christ means that you go against the flow. You go in the opposite direction of the world.
But there's no mistaking the reality that this comes with a cost. And so this brings us to the first parable here.
Jesus wants the people to understand that if they're going to follow him, they should be prepared for everything that is to come. And so he gives this parable of a man who considers constructing a tower. He says, suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Why don't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it for?
If you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you saying, this person began to build and wasn't able to finish.
You gotta be able to go all the way if you're gonna follow Jesus. Otherwise, you're just gonna be a laughing stock. You're going to look like a fool. Now, as Rhode Islanders, we know what half finished construction looks like. We see it all around us. And we roll our eyes and say, what are these guys doing?
Why isn't this job finished yet?
There's kind of an iconic symbol of this over in Scotland. It's called the National Monument of Scotland. And it also has another name, which I'll tell you in a second. Um, It's called the National Monument of Scotland on Calton Hill in Edinburgh, and Scotland's national, it is Scotland's national memorial to Scottish soldiers and sailors who died fighting in the Napoleonic Wars.
It was intended according to the inscription to be a memorial of the past and an incentive to the future heroism of the men of Scotland. And then the rest of the Wikipedia description says this was not the full design. It was intended to be a full replica of the Parthenon. And if you don't know what the Parthenon is, it kind of looks like a giant temple.
There's supposed to be a roof there, and there's supposed to be columns going around the whole thing. And instead, it's like you just have the front facade. It'd be like if you only had the columns of the Lincoln Memorial, and they didn't do anything else with it. So, the article goes on to say, it says, Construction started in 1826 and due to the lack of funds it was left unfinished in 1829.
This circumstance gave rise to various nicknames such as Scotland's Folly, Edinburgh's Disgrace, the Pride and Poverty of Scotland, and Edinburgh's Folly. You have to wonder, when those names were taken up, if this passage came to mind to some people, this image of a man who considers the cost of building a building, and whether you'll go forward, because if you only go halfway, people are going to mock you.
If you can't go all the way, if you can't finish construction, it's better just not to have built in the first place. Jesus goes on from this parable to employ another one, this time utilizing warfare. He says in verse 31, Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won't he first sit down and consider whether he's able with 10,000 men to oppose the one coming against him with 20,000?
If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples. Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness. How can it be made salty again? If it is fit neither for the soil, nor for the manure pile, it is thrown out.
Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear. So, in offering this parable of a king preparing to go to war, the suggestion, based on the details, that you only have 10, 000 men and the enemy has 20, 000, the suggestion is that you probably shouldn't go to war when they have twice as many as you do. Although, I noticed kind of in the parable, it says whether you'll be able to take on the 20, 000.
So perhaps you have a really mighty force of 10, 000 men that would be able to overcome this army. Nonetheless, the point is, is that you are going up against a formidable foe. And you have to know if you're ready to face him down and win the war.
When we follow Jesus, we have to recognize that we are entering into a war. We're entering into a war against Satan, against all the evil powers of this world, against sin in our own lives. And it's going to be a costly fight. And the question is, is are you ready to stand in the gap and battle to the last man?
When we go to the book of Revelation, it talks about how the dragon, which is imagery descriptive of Satan, it talks about how he comes and persecutes the saints. It also talks about how they stood up to him. In Revelation 12: 11, it says, They triumphed over Him, that is Satan, by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.
They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. So they didn't do it by their own power. We're not, make no mistake, we're not saying you fight this war by your own power. They're fighting by the blood of the Lamb. It is the power and strength of Christ that is resident in us as we've been joined to Him.
And they fight by the word of their testimony. This isn't a fight with swords, or machine guns, or anything like that. They testify to the truth of who Jesus is. And it says, they do not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Are you prepared to have that sort of courage in testifying to the truth of the gospel?
If you do, You're going to carry your cross daily. Sometimes we think about the extreme situation where someone's got like a gun to your head and you're saying, you know, are you going to deny Jesus or not? And we think, well, maybe I would, maybe I would have the faith. Maybe I would have the loyalty to do that.
But the question is, are you loyal today? When that old temptation comes across your way, are you following the temptation? Are you following Jesus?
When you know that you should speak the truth to someone that doesn't know Jesus, do you stay quiet or do you testify to the hope that you have what Jesus has done in your, in your own life? Or do you stay quiet? Keep it under the covers. You see, we have opportunities every day to have, exemplify that sort of courage.
And in fact, we won't have that sort of courage in a dire situation like that unless we're living it out daily.
The choice that is before us is we can either have peace with God or peace with the world. And this is, this plays right into this parable that Jesus is giving us here. It's like, if you, if you're not ready to stand up against the world, if you're not ready to follow Jesus into the battle, it's better just to surrender and be a prisoner of war.
Be captive to this world. Be at ease in it. The worst thing that you could do would be to change your mind halfway through the battle. You see the moment in which most people died in ancient warfare was not in the immediate clash. They'd go back and forth at each other. Few guys die here and there. The battle would turn when a few started thinking we can't make it, we can't beat them and they start retreating.
It's when you start turning tail and running, that's when the whole army gets decimated. They're starting to shoot arrows into your back, stabbing you in the back.
That's when the real downfall occurs. And that's the worst outcome that's possible for us. It's not, the worst outcome isn't if we decide to go with the world. The worst outcome certainly isn't if we stick with Jesus, we'll be victorious. The worst outcome is if you change your mind halfway through.
Because then you have neither God nor you enjoy the world. You're just miserable.
If you will not follow Jesus all the way, it's better not to start following Him at all. Now that sounds radical. It's like, what do you mean? Wouldn't it be better to be with Jesus a little while? I'm not saying that. Jesus is saying that. He's saying that to this crowd. This isn't the way you wouldn't think this would be the way to kind of win followers, but he makes it, he says, it's going to be really hard to follow me.
It's almost like he's trying to convince them not to follow him based on how hard it's going to be. That's the nature of the situation. That's the nature of the situation, that's the nature of the choice. We have to understand the cost. Peter, one of the disciples reflects this teaching of Christ in 2nd Peter. He says, If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it, and are overcome, they are worse off at the end then they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness then to have known it and then turned their backs, that image of retreating, on the sacred command that was passed on to them.
Of them the Proverbs are true. A dog returns to its vomit. And a sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud. The point here is that we welcome even just further punishment and judgment upon ourselves for abandoning Christ. We welcome greater suffering into our lives in this world when we only go halfway. See, halfway with Christ is just half baked. And we don't want half baked Christians. And I have to tell you though, I think there is a lot of half baked Christians in America.
There's lots of people who have a story of like, oh, yeah, I grew up going to church, and now they're not following Jesus. A lot of people have stories of how, yeah, I know Jesus, I like Jesus, blah, blah, blah, blah. But they haven't gone all the way. They followed Him halfway, and now they're pursuing other things.
And I would, I would be tempted to say it's, some of the problems that we see in this country is a result of this divided heart that we see.
The other way in which Jesus describes this departure of those who would quit halfway is this image of salt which loses its saltiness. Which is weird for us to consider because our table salt doesn't lose its saltiness. But what he was talking about is kind of the mineral deposits of that day. It was never just pure salt.
And so you could have salt and as the rainwater, let's say it got exposed to rainwater or something. The sodium, the salt elements of it, could be washed away. And then what you would have left, it might look like salt on the outside, but it was actually useless. It wasn't good for anything. Now Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5, talks about how the disciples are the salt of the earth.
He says in Matthew 5: 13, you are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
If salt loses its saltiness, it's not good for making things taste better, that's for certain. Kind of reminds me of, have you ever gone to like a soda machine and you go to get like a soda and there's something off with the syrup in it and you go to drink it and it's just like, it's worse than if it is just seltzer water.
It's just, it's good for, I've done that before. It's just, it tastes nasty. You just, yuck. You can just throw it out. It's not satisfying at all. That's what our lives become like if we only go halfway with Jesus. Not all the syrup is there.
We're not good for anything. We're not good, we're not of any good use to the world. We're not of any good use to God. And this is why Jesus puts forth this appeal that the people would hear him. That those who have ears to hear would hear. And it doesn't, Jesus doesn't expect that all people would hear and respond positively because that only occurs as someone opens up our clogged, as God opens up our clogged ears, so that we would respond positively, as He rips away the vines of sin that have wrapped themselves around our hearts.
Now up to this point, we've seen Jesus emphasize what we must give up to follow Him. But following Jesus isn't just about what we lose. It's not just about what we leave behind. It's about what we gain. And he offers this emphasis in his parable of the hidden treasure and the valuable pearl. So when we go to the gospel of Matthew, Matthew 13 verses 44 through 46.
He says, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
Now, these parables are kind of interesting, I think, because not too many of us go digging in fields. Not too many of us are farmers here. We do have a couple that dabble in that. Um, Certainly, I don't think too many of us have found treasure in a field unless we like to go metal detecting. Um, not too many of us here are pearl merchants.
But the idea here is of, is when you find something that is of incredible worth that you can receive and gain for yourself, you go all, you go all in for it. So, um, put it maybe in a frame that would be more familiar to you. Imagine you're going shopping for a house and maybe you know artwork really well and you go into a house and you see this painting and you ask the owner, is that painting included in the house and they say, yes, now they're listening to the house for 600, 000, but you know, that painting's worth a million dollars.
Wouldn't you be like, you know, my budget originally said I only had 400, 000 to buy a house. But you know what? I'm going to buy this house, because it's got that million dollar painting. It's worth far more than anything I'm going to give up immediately here. I'm going to gain well more than what I originally had.
That's what Jesus is offering to us when he says, come and follow me. In him, we gain the kingdom of God. And we gain so much more than anything that we give up. That's like trading 600, 000 for a million dollars.
That image of the pearl merchant who finds the finest of pearls, is one of great value, and gives, sells it, everything he has to buy it. It, it points us to this reality that, when we do find Jesus, when we do see Him for who He is, and the great treasure that is the kingdom of God, we can give everything that we have and find great contentment in simply having that one thing, which is God.
We have this restlessness in our hearts and we're seeking for satisfaction in this world and we try to find it in all these different things. The Pearl Merchant is looking for the perfect pearl. He finally finds it, and he says, You know what? I can get rid of all the other pearls. This is it.
That should be our response to Christ. That when we see Jesus, we say, This is it. This is what my life is about, and I'm going to give my life completely to Him.
I think it's helpful to imagine our world as being kind of like a house on fire. And, you know, Jesus is calling us out of that house so that our lives might be saved. Follow him and find life. There's nothing in the house that could be worth anything more than your own life. And yet, what so many of us do is we run out of the house.
This is the halfway thing. You run half, halfway out of the house towards Jesus, but then you're like, Oh, I've got to get that frying pan that I really need. And we just keep running back and forth between Jesus and the house. Eventually the house is going to collapse. And you will be caught in the house if you are not with Jesus. Jesus kind of points to this reality in Mar:35-35 36, a very familiar passage to many of you. It says, For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me, for the gospel, will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?
Kind of getting back to that image of the house on fire, in one sense you are losing your life. I mean, all your family albums are in there, all the nice things you bought, everything. You're losing your life. But if you don't lose your life following Jesus, you're never really going to have your life. And what good is it for you to have everything in the house, to cling on to it, but in the end lose your soul?
But there's this fear that I think we have. Surrendering and losing ourselves to Jesus. It's because we really love control.
We like to keep a handle on everything, and we I think sometimes even fear with that we won't like ourselves as much. Sometimes we have these little elements of our personality in our lives that don't really match up with Jesus but we kind of like it and we're having a tough time surrendering it.
Sometimes we don't really want to become the new people that God wants us to be.
But the new life that God is offering us is so much better than the fraudulent life that we've been living. The real pie is better than the mud pies that we've been stuffing our face in. C. S. Lewis talks about this gain that we have in giving up ourselves to Christ. He writes this in mere Christianity.
He says, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life, and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day, and death of your whole body in the end. Submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.
Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run, only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him, everything else thrown in.
It's not an easy path that we're called the following Christ. It is a process of giving up ourselves, losing ourselves. It is a process of lifelong death. I really love this comment from Martin Luther. He writes this in his essay, The Holy and Blessed Sacrament of Baptism. He says that , there is no help for for the sinful nature unless it dies and is destroyed with all its sin.
Therefore, the life of a Christian from baptism to the grave is nothing else than the beginning of a blessed death. For the last day, God will make him altogether new. The characteristic of the Christian life is that it is marked by death. We are dying to ourselves unto that day at which the new man, the new woman will be completely revealed.
Now even short of that day, as we are progressing towards that day, that new creation is being revealed in our lives more and more.
Jesus is calling us to that kind of life, to be joined to his death on the cross, to die to ourselves so that we can gain this. And this resurrection life is really just, it's Christ himself. We look like Jesus. So as we go about this life, in death, we are revealing Christ. Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians 4:10-11 talking about his own ministry and his peers ministry.
He says, we always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus's sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.
Following Jesus isn't easy, but as we follow him through the hardship, through the suffering, he is revealing himself in us. So that, in the very substance of our lives, and as we travel together as brothers and sisters, others begin to encounter Jesus Christ. Those who don't know Him yet, they're able to see His life, even as you yourself are dying to yourself.
The Christian life is costly. It is difficult to be at odds with the world, at odds with your loved ones, even at odds with yourself, as sinful impulses seek to rule your life. There is no downplaying it. Jesus, following Him, is going to require everything. Sometimes, it will look like you hate yourself, or something like that.
As you stand up again and again, after every blow, outside observers would say, you're losing yourself. You're not controlling your life like you once did. It seems to be the end of you. If you want to be comfortable, if you want to do things your own way, if everything I've said sounds like too much, you shouldn't follow Jesus.
Don't go halfway. Just stay where you are and take what you can get. Eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. But maybe you're ready to lose yourself. Maybe you're ready for someone else to be at the controls. Maybe you're ready to follow Jesus. He won't help you find yourself as you are. You don't have to go anywhere to figure that out.
Just keep on doing you, and that's who you are. Jesus only offers this to make you into who you should be and never could be apart from being joined to Him. This means shutting down the status quo. Embracing the end of yourself in Jesus. Beginning in your baptism and played on repeat every day of your life.
It means a new you. Not in isolation, but in communion with Jesus. Walking the road with Him. In the company of Jesus, of brothers and sisters who have joined the same death and found the same life. Yes, you need to count the cost. But you also need to count the treasure. You need to look at the size of that pearl.
What you will lose cannot compare with what you will gain in Jesus. So go all in. Go all in. Let us pray.
Dear Father,
Jesus invites us to follow Him. But He also tells us that there will be a cost in following Him.
Now some of us, Father, have already, many of us have already Answered this call to follow Jesus.
And we've known suffering and hardship in our life because of it.
We've compared our lives with our friends and family and noticed their ease. And sometimes we wish, Oh, I wish I had it as easy going as, as that. Sometimes.
Father help us to fix our eyes on Christ. Reckoning that what he has to offer is so much better, so much greater than what this burning world contains in its house.
Father help us to go all in as we follow Jesus. Holding nothing back not going halfway and retreating father, but following Him, standing firm in Him, offering our lives completely to Him. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Hey there, Pastor Tom here. I hope you enjoyed this sermon I offered to Rockland Community Church. Rockland Community Church is located at 212 Rockland Road in North Scituate, Rhode Island, just around the bend from the Scituate Public High School. We invite you to join us in person or virtually this Sunday as we continue our series on the Parables of Jesus. It's our joy to welcome you into our community.
Intro/Outro Song
Title: River Meditation
Artist: Jason Shaw
Source:http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RIVER_MEDITATION___________2-58
License:(CC BY 3.0 US)