Are You Comfortable?

In life we like to be Comfortable

• The temps in our houses

• Ourselves

• Financially

• Relationships

• Our Surroundings

People don’t like to feel uncomfortable in any situation.

• Because It feels… well…uncomfortable.

• As a result, people will go to great lengths to avoid situations that make them feel uncomfortable.

But Sometimes as a result of being comfortable it leads to a false sense of security

• We become so Comfortable with where we are that we lose tract of what’s going on around us

• And because of that we tend to buy into the falsehood that everything is Ok

• And that’s what we are going to talk about today

For the past many 6 weeks or so on Wednesday night we have been a part of a small group Bible study called “Not A Fan”

• And we wrapped this up last Wednesday night

• And afterwards as we were fellowshipping a few people came up to me and made the comments that

• A. They had never thought of the ideas this way

• B That this was to important a topic to not share with the rest of the congregation

So today we are going to take a look at the heart of this study and we find it in Luke 9:21-27

Background

• In the beginning of this chapter we see Jesus sending out the 12 disciples

• And before He sends them out He empowers them

• He gives them the ability To cast out Demons and Cure Diseases

• With the empowerment in place His instructions are to go tell Everyone about the Kingdom of God

• ELAB (Take nothing with you, And if the towns you go to don’t welcome you, shake the dust off your feet as you leave to show that they have left them to their fate.

Word gets back to Herod of this and hes confused on who Jesus is

• Some said He was John the Baptist raised from the dead

• Others said He was Elijah or one of the other prophets raised from the dead

• So his response is, I beheaded John, so who is this guy??

Meanwhile the disciples have returned

• And they are sharing their adventures / encounters with Jesus

• And Jesus tries to slip away with them, heading towards the town of Bethsaida

• But the crowds of people found out where He was going and followed Him

• And Jesus welcomed them, And He taught them about the same thing the disciples had been sent out to teach about the Kingdom of God.

• And after He gets done teaching them we see that He fed them

• First He fed them Spiritually then he fed them Physically

• This was the feeding of the 5000 with 5 Loaves and 2 Fish

So this is what was been going on

• They had been empowered / Taught / Witnessed Jesus teaching / Seen Miracles

Read 23-27

Lk 9:21 Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone.

Lk 9:22 And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”

Lk 9:23 Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

Lk 9:24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.

Lk 9:25 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?

Lk 9:26 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

Lk 9:27 I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”

What we see is that Jesus opens up

• About His rejection and His death and what He expects from His followers

• And then in vs 23 He turns to the crowd and say,

• If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross daily, and follow me.

Explain the meaning of the cross in Jesus day

• Now When Jesus carried His cross up Golgotha to be crucified, no one was thinking of the cross as symbolic of a burden to carry.

• To a person in the first-century, the cross meant one thing and one thing only:

• Death by the most painful and humiliating means human beings could develop.