Join Jesus

Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”John 16:32-33

Every time you approach God, you are engaging in the process of discipleship, and every time you engage in discipleship you are cultivating a relationship. If discipleship is all about relationship, why do you sometimes treat God like your celestial cheerleader instead of your friend? You might often pray, “Lord I’m going to do this, would You bless it?” But how is that partnering with Christ Jesus? What if God is sitting up in heaven thinking, “Yea, I could bless that plan, but what about this plan over here?” And too quickly you turn your fist towards God and demand, “Why aren’t you blessing me?” When God wants you to take a moment’s break from your agenda and join Him. When you join Jesus in His agenda, you find unity with other believers in pursuing His mission and message. Although God made you unique, you find that you have unity with other believers when you put on the mind of Christ and keep your focus on Jesus and serving others. You may want to control others and serve yourself, but when you control yourself and serve others, you become like Christ in giving up Himself to serve us. Jesus didn’t esteem honor and respect as the most valuable thing - unlike most celebrities today. Instead he emptied himself, He poured Himself out. And you are to make your attitude like His, pouring yourself out.

Join God in what He is doing.

You have to focus on joining God instead insisting that God joins you. Only Jesus has overcome the world. So instead of being scattered and following your own system, join Jesus in His system. When you follow Jesus, you can have peace because peace comes from God, not from anything the world offers. Many times when you follow Jesus, you will feel alone but you are never alone because Jesus is with you just as the Father was with Him. What matters most is that you are following Jesus in what He is doing. Jesus emptied Himself, He poured Himself out, so He could become a servant. God became a human being like us just so He could serve us. Jesus himself said in Mark 10, “the Son of Man didn’t come to be served but to serve.” And how greatly did He serve us, by taking care of our sin and death problem, but not only did He die for us, He went the extra mile and died on a cross, the most gruesome painful way to die. As one pastor put it, Jesus went from glory to gory. Deuteronomy 21:23, which Paul quotes in Galatians 3 says, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” By having Jesus hung on a tree, the pharisees were trying to show the people that Jesus was cursed by God. and you can’t be cursed by God and also be from God. And this is the mind you are to have, to serve others even to the point of death. 

The Servant was exalted and given the name that is above every name - Jesus the Messiah - Jesus the deliverer - Jesus the Lord of all. That seems so counterintuitive to us that a servant should be the one to receive glory, but that is the system God honors. The servant is the one who receives the glory, And one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. We can do it now and God will grant us eternal life and salvation, or we can do it after we die, but at that point it will be too late. 

Where you are doesn’t matter as much as where you are going.

The choice is simple, you can declare Jesus is Lord by the way you live your life and receive eternal life or you can declare Jesus is Lord after you die and spend eternity wishing you had declared Him Lord while you were alive. But either way you are going to declare that Jesus is Lord. Some people are so stubborn that they have to die before they will declare Jesus is Lord. If you care about your neighbors, you can teach them what it looks like to live declaring Jesus is Lord, or you can let them perish without him. The choice is yours.

You can’t wait for people to come to you, because the world doesn’t know it has a sin problem and needs Jesus. You need to first bring the gospel to them by the way you live before they will come to you to learn how to join Jesus. As Romans says, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Christ came to us first before we turned to Him.” You can bring the gospel to your community by loving others more than you love yourself.

Will you still trust Me?

 God never promises the ride of life will be smooth. Pouring yourself out is not always a simple process. But as you pour yourself out by serving others, you can trust God to gather you back together and make you more than you could have been if you pursued serving yourself.