If you need a title for this sermon, this sermon is titled, A Call to Come and Die.

A Call to Come and Die.

Please don't clap or get too excited of like, I can't wait to hear this.

This is going to be amazing.

It sounds intense because it is, and it doesn't sound attractive, but it is just as real of a call of Jesus

as any of his other calls to come to him for life, to come to him for eternity, to come to him

for forgiveness, and on paper, it looks like the one that you want to recoil away from, but I want to

show you

in the scriptures today why the call to come and give away what you want to hold on to is actually

the ultimate call to experience the fullness of life. So Jesus, when he calls you to come and

follow him, there's a lot of implications of saying yes and coming to him. And most of them

are net positive the moment you say yes. You come to Jesus and you get rest for your soul, Matthew

Chapter 11. You come to Jesus and you get the forgiveness of your sins, Romans chapter 8. You

come to Jesus and you get the fullness of life promise for all of eternity and peace in here and now all over

the gospel of John. When you come to Jesus, you get a purpose and a mission for your life, Matthew

Chapter 28. When you come to Jesus, you get the fulfillment of all the promises of God that find

their yes and amen in Him, 2 Corinthians chapter 1. And these are just a few off the the top of my head literally no prep for any of those verses beforehand i kid you not but that doesn't count for the other services i'll probably repeat what i just said but in the moment those are just a few that popped off the top of my head of like man when i say yes to jesus it's like i get all this awesomeness i get forgiven by god i get the grace of god i get purpose for my life i get a mission for my future I get all this awesomeness. I get forgiven by God. I get the grace of God. I get purpose

for my life. I get a mission for my future. I get security in any situation. Like, this is awesome.

But then you discover Matthew chapter 16, Luke chapter 9, that when Jesus calls you to come and

follow him, he also calls you to take up a cross. If you want to be my disciple, you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. And on the surface, this one doesn't look like it has any positive implications to it. But I promise you it does. The German preacher and author, Dietrich Bonhofer, who we quote quote a lot around here, said this in the cost of discipleship.

He said, when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

Now, I want you to feel the weight of these words from Bonhofer because this was no ordinary pastor.

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