Well, I'm so happy to be here with all of you, but I am so sad about what we are talking about because Jesus says to his disciples, "You will all fall away.” And so, I invite you to open your Bible and turn with me to Mark 14:26-31. If you don't have a Bible, there is a handout there in your bulletin, and it has these verses printed on there. And what we do here at our church is we just go through a book of the Bible. Right now, we're going through the Gospel of Mark. We're coming to the end of the Gospel of Mark. In fact, this October we're going to have Easter all over again in October because we're going to study the death and resurrection of Jesus as we come to the end of this book and what Jesus says here to his disciples on the last night of his life that when he's betrayed and when he's arrested. They're all going to fall away; they're all going to flee away from him. It's sad. This is for me. At least, this is the hardest part for me about being a Christian is seeing people I get to know and love, fall away from the faith. And if you've gone to church for a long time, I bet you've seen people that you thought that's my brother, that's my sister. We're in Christ. And then over the years, people you thought were right there with you, they don't keep following Christ. They don't keep going to the church and being plugged into the fellowship. They drift and they fall away. Some of them even saying, "I don't believe anymore.” Some even choosing to go back to their old life of sin. And it's heartbreaking when you see somebody you love fall away from Jesus. I remember one young man, and to me, it looked like he was on fire for Jesus. I had small groups with him where we shared our hearts together. I saw him tell other people about the new life he had in Jesus. And then I saw him drift, and I saw him stop coming to church and go back to his old life, and I was so brokenhearted. I went to his house one day, just showed up unannounced, and I knocked on his door. I'd been there before, and I knocked on his door, and he opened the door. He was kind. He welcomed me in, and I just said, "Hey, man, what happened? You were right there. It seemed like you had Jesus on your heart. What happened?” And I can still remember very clearly what he said to me. He said, "You know, when you were preaching those sermons, I thought you were talking to somebody else. I didn't think you were talking to me.” And so, when you listen to this sermon today, when we hear the very words of Jesus today, I hope that you will listen to what Jesus says, like he's talking to you. And out of respect for God's Word, I invite you to stand up for the public reading of Scripture. I encourage you to give this your full and undivided attention. This is the Word of God. I'm going to read Mark 14:26-31.

And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. And Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” Peter said to him, “Even though they all fall away, I will not.” And Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” But he said emphatically, “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And they all said the same.

That's the reading of God's Word. Please go ahead and grab your seat. And I'd love for you to take notes on that handout in your bulletin. And the first thing you could write down is one of the major themes in the Gospel of Mark is Jesus tells us the future before it happens? This entire gospel is spoiled by Jesus. You know what it is to spoil a story, right? When you've seen a movie or a show and you think it's worth recommending to your family member, to your friends, and then you're watching it with them, and you feel so cute because you know what's going to happen before it does, huh? You ever spoiled the show before for your friends or family? Well, Jesus intentionally here is trying to show us that he knows the future as well as he knows the past. In fact, the way Mark is telling us the story, it's not Mark telling us the story; it's Jesus already telling us what he's going to do before it even takes place. It was in chapters 8, 9, and 10 that Jesus said three times to his disciples, "We're going to go to Jerusalem. I'm going to get handed over and betrayed. The scribes, the chief priests, the Pharisees. I'm going to suffer at their hands. They're going to kill. And on the third day, I will rise.” You don't have to wait till you get to the end of the gospel to find out what it is. Jesus tells you the whole way, in chapters 11,12, and 13. Jesus, he kept saying, the scribes are going to be judged, the temple's going to be destroyed. Even in the future, he said the Son of Man will come on the clouds, and everyone will see him.

So, Jesus has been telling us before it ever happens, and this is one of the major themes that we're seeing. We're learning it from the mouth of Jesus, not just from Mark writing about it happening. Even in chapter 14, he's already said one of his disciples will betray him before that happens, and now he says that the rest of them, the other eleven, they will all fall away. He's talking about this moment when he's betrayed, when he's arrested. None of them are going to stand with him. They are all going to flee. And you can see what Peter's response is right there in verse 29. Can you circle “I will not”? He says this two times in our text here, which is very short today. And two times in our text he says “I will not” there at the end of verse 29. Can you see Peter's response right away? He's just like I'm not going to fall away. Hey, these guys might all fall away, but I will not fall away. And then Jesus actually gives a specific thing that's going to happen with Peter. “Peter, tonight, on this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you're going to deny me three times.” And Peter comes back even more emphatically. “I will not.” Can you circle that again there in verse 31? “I will not.” And it's not just Peter. Peter's like the representative that's brought to our attention, but all of them are like, yeah, these other guys might bail on you, Jesus, but I'm ride or die. I'm with you to the end. I'm not going to fall away.”

So, they're not even accepting the premise of what Jesus is saying, and when a major theme in the Gospel of Mark is that Jesus tells you the future before it happens, you would think this is not a good way to respond to Jesus. You don't just contradict someone. This might happen in conversations at your house or when you're interacting with other people. Someone says something, and immediately it's like, nope, that's not how it is. I would strongly encourage you not to talk to anyone that way, especially not Jesus. If Jesus says something, you should pay him the respect of listening to what he has to say. You should accept his premise. You should take it to heart. We should be hearing questions like, "Well, what do you mean we're going to fall away? How could we not fall away?” Well, what does this look like, Jesus? How can we stay close to you? “No,” he says, "you will all fall away.” And their answer is, "I will not.”

And so, this is sad to see that they have this kind of contradiction towards Jesus, even now on his last night. And so, we're going to see here the proclamation that they will fall away, and we're going to study this in three parts. Look down at verses 32 to 42. You can see we get to the Garden of Gethsemane. If you come back next week, we have an epic scene. We're going really from two of the most famous scenes in world history. One, the Last Supper in the upper room that Jesus has with his disciples, and now we're going over to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus is going to be on his face praying to God. If you come back next week, so we're in transit from the upper room to the Garden of Gethsemane, and he gives this proclamation on the way: You will all fall away. And what we have next week is the preparation, or we should say the lack thereof, as the disciples don't prepare for this time where they're going to fall away. And then in verses 43 to 52, we're going to see the perpetration where they actually do abandon Jesus and flee in the moment of need, in the hour that he is betrayed and arrested, and so he says it. They don't prepare for it, and then it happens. This will be a three-part study for us. And even though they don't ultimately permanently fall away, Jesus restores them after he dies, after he's raised up. Look back at verse 28. There's good news here. It's not just you will all fall away. He says in verse 28. “But after I am raised up,” predicting here, prophesying his own resurrection, he then says, “I will go before you to Galilee,” and that's going to be something beautiful.

We're going to get to see as we go through the Gospel of Mark how Jesus will restore his disciples, and how Jesus will prepare them for the future ministry he's going to send them to. Yes, they will fall away, but he will restore them and get them ready to serve him and to be sent by him. Go over to chapter 16, verse 7. This idea that after he's raised up, he'll go before them to Galilee. The angel says this. So, this is the last thing that Jesus says is going to happen before it happens is “I will go to Galilee and I'll meet you there” after he dies and rises again. Look at chapter 16, verse 7, where the angel says to these women who are there at the empty tomb. He says, " But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.”

So, there is here the statement that you're going to fall away, and then the statement that he will go before them to Galilee, gather with them again, restore them, and then commission them. So, this falling away is more focused on the moment that Jesus is betrayed, and they don't stand with him; they flee for their own lives. But Jesus has already said a lot about this idea of falling away in the Gospel of Mark, and I think what happens here with the disciples is a great test case that I would imagine most of the people who have fallen away didn't think they would fall away. So, I just want to encourage you as you're listening to Jesus., can you accept the premise that Jesus gives a warning about falling away? Here, he's saying that these disciples at this particular moment will fall away. But he's already given warnings about falling away in his gospel. And if you're to sit here today, if you profess to be a Christian, and you your attitude right away is, "I will not fall away,” what makes you better than all the people who have fallen away? Like that's not the right response.

We're supposed to see the disciples here as an example of how we don't want to respond to Jesus. We don't want to hear Jesus say something and act like we already know better than Jesus. Go back to Mark, chapter 4, verses 17 and 18, and let's just review some of the teaching Jesus has already given about falling away, how he's already warned us about this. One of them is in the parable of the soils, a great example of the teaching of Jesus, given to us in Mark, chapter 4 verses 1 to 20. Some of you may have been here when we studied this last summer. This is one of the most profound responses I have seen to a sermon we preached here in Huntington Beach. No sermon has ever been responded to at our church like this sermon was responded to. And in chapter 4, verse 16, he begins to describe different types of soils. The gospel is ringing out. The word of Jesus is sounding forth, and he's comparing these soils to the different souls that hear the Word. Some people they hear the Word, and Satan, like a bird, just comes and snatches the seed right away and takes it away, so it doesn't really get to their heart. They don't really hear it, but then other people they do hear it, and at first it seems like they believe. Look at what he says in Mark 4:16. “And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. 17 And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.”

The Greek word is skandalizo, which you can kind of tell, oh, scandal! There's a scandal that happens. So, there are many people, according to this. There's a whole rocky ground group of people who, when they hear about Jesus, that sounds like good news. I'm in. But then there's tribulation. There's hardship. There's a weight you carry following Christ, and then there's persecution. There's opposition. There's other people coming against you, and the burdens and the opposition. Some people they don't have the roots. They don't stick with it. They fall away. In fact, he goes on to describe another kind of what about the ones sown among thorns, the thorny soil. “They are those who hear the word,” verse 19 “but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.” And that's the contrast: you're either unfruitful or you're bearing fruit. That's the good soil. Verse 20, “those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
But see, some people they're like, oh, I'm in. I want Jesus. I want salvation, but I also am anxious about all these things in my life, and I also want money and to provide and the things that can buy, and I also have these other desires that I want, as well. So, they want Jesus. They want to go to heaven when they die, but they also want this life, and they're torn. They're in this. They're sown among the thorns here. It's kind of half in with Jesus, half in with the world. Oh, they're not bearing fruit. They're not going to make it. So, you can see, you’ve got rocky and thorny soil where people they hear it and it seems like they respond, but they don't stick with it to the end. They fall away, and perhaps you know someone that you love that professed faith in Christ, but they're not making that profession anymore. And you know, wow, this is real. I'll tell you. After the 11 o'clock service, I can remember very clearly when we did a sermon, "The Soil of Your Soul” from this passage. There was a line of people who wanted to talk about their soul, longer than I could talk to after that service. They knew they were falling away. They knew they were the wrong soil. They knew I like Jesus, but it's getting hard. Or I also want other things besides Jesus. And they were getting a glimpse into the fact that they could be on their way to fall away. I want to encourage you: listen to what Jesus says. Don't just deny it. Don't just say I will not. Jesus is saying some will fall away.

Today's a good day for me to remind everybody here that if you're going to go to heaven and you're going to be with Jesus, how is that path? Is it a wide road to go to heaven, or is it a narrow road? Are many people on their way? Well, it says that many are called, but only a few are chosen. So, it's a good day for us to remember that the standard is not what does America say a Christian is. The standard is not how other Christians are. The standard of what it means to be a Christian are the very words of Jesus Christ. He has the words of eternal life. And Jesus is giving a warning that some, who seem like they're in, will fall away, and you need to hear that and say, "Hmm, I want to take that to heart today. I want to make sure that I don't fall away. I’ve got to start by hearing what Jesus has to say.”

Go to Mark, chapter 9. He uses this “skandalizo” here. He uses it throughout Mark, but here it really packs a punch in Mark 9:42 because it's translated as “a cause to sin.” So, we've looked at it as kind of the person falling away. Well, this time it's kind of used for the thing that causes the person to fall away, the thing that causes the person to turn to sin. And first in verse 42, it says, you don't want to cause someone else to sin. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” Hey, one thing you don't want to do in your life is cause somebody else who believes in Jesus to fall away. If you cause somebody else to sin, it would be better for you to drown at the bottom of the Sea of Galilee than cause somebody else to sin. So, Jesus uses extreme language here to make the point that it is not acceptable to cause someone else to sin. And what's causing you to sin? You’ve got to repent. You’ve got to get rid of the temptation that is causing you to sin. Look at what he goes on to say, verse 43, “If it's your hand that causes you to sin, cut it off.” So, every time it says causes to sin, that's this word skandalizo. That's the idea of falling away. Is it your hand that causes you to sin? Is that where the temptation comes from? “It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. “And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’”

See, despite what you might hear on some podcast or for some famous Christian preacher these days, Jesus is saying you can't continue in sin and follow me. And so, what is your temptation? What is your cause to sin? Is it your hand? Is it your foot? Is it your eye? Whatever it is, let's talk about radical amputation. Let's talk about cutting that temptation off, not continuing in that sin. Because if you continue in that sin, you're not going to end up in the kingdom with me. You're going to end up, Jesus is just flat out saying, you're going to end up in a place “where the worm doesn't die and the fire is not quenched.” That's what happens if you continue in sin. If you let this cause sin continue in your life, you will be falling away.

Now I don't know if you remember, maybe. Some of you were here. We preached through that passage even earlier this year. Let me just tell you, people did not like that sermon very much. They did not like it at all. I'm still getting angry emails. I'm like, this was months ago. Where do these emails come from? Who are these people circulating this sermon? You get an angry email like that's not right. When you preach that sermon, you're creating this system of fear. I mean, have you ever been personally attacked before? Usually, when people attack me, they have tact in their attack. They usually start with, "Oh, you're such a great guy. You're doing such a good job,” and then, "but,” and then they slap you in the face. Have you ever experienced that before? Have you gotten that email before? This email, there were no niceties, there was no pretending that anything was going well. It was just attack to your face. In fact, it got personal. They're like, "That's not how you think about sin in your life.” They were giving me kind of the modern Christian definition is, I've already believed in Jesus. “I'm good to go, and if I sin now, not really that big of a deal. I just remember what Jesus did. I feel better about my sin. I keep moving forward.” The person was basically saying, that's what you do in your life. Why didn't you say that to everybody at the church? Well, I'm not getting my definition of being a Christian from what people are saying today. I'm getting my definition from the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus didn't say it's okay if you keep sinning. He says, "Is it your hand? Is it your foot? Is it your eye? Your sin is going to kill you. Your sin is going to cause you to fall away. You’ve got to cut it off if you want to make it to the kingdom.”

And so, what I did, what I try to do whenever anybody says something, I try to listen, no matter how angry they are. I try to hear what they're saying, and so I try to take the angry email to heart. Am I saying something at church different than what I think about myself? And I go back and I look at my notes about the sermon. I re-listen to the sermon. I was accused in the email that I'm trying to create a system of fear here to keep everybody in line. And when I go back to the sermon, I'm like, no, I'm just trying to say what he said right here. And he said you should be afraid of a cause to sin in your life because it will take you to hell. That sin that you're allowing to continue could cause you to fall away, cut it off, tear it out. That's what he said, and that's exactly what I need to say to myself. That's exactly how I need to think about sin, and that's how I would strongly encourage you to think about sin is, people fall away because they don't cut off their sin, and so we’ve got to take that sin seriously. And you’ve got to hear Jesus speaking to us.

Let's get this down for point number one: You need to “Take heed to the warnings of Jesus.” The warning signs are often what keep us on the road. When Jesus is giving warnings about falling away, about causes to sin, we need to not just immediately say, "I will not.” No, we need to hear what Jesus has to say. Take heed. If you profess faith in Jesus Christ, that's a great place to stand. Well, look at what it says in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 12. This would be a great verse to write down under point number one. “Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he” what everybody don't assume that you're going to be fine. Don't let the fact that you know some things puff you up with pride. The minute you get beyond listening to Jesus, you are in dangerous territory. You need to hear what Jesus has to say and take heed, take his Word to heart. It is by heeding warnings that we stay on the path.
I was so blessed, me and my family, this last week, we got to go on vacation. Somebody here from the church let us go to their timeshare on the island of Maui. I don't know if you've ever been to Hawaii. If you've been to Maui before, we were so blessed to go there, and while we were there, my wife said, "Let's go to Haleakala.” And I looked at her like, what is that word that just came out of your mouth? What are you talking about? And then she said two other words that immediately convinced me to go. She said, "Haleakala National Park.” How many of you went to a national park this summer? Did anybody get out there and get to see some of God's glorious creation in the United States of America? I have found the national parks I've gone to have all been worthy of my time. Distinct places where I could enjoy not Mother Nature but the glory of our Father in heaven, who made this place. And so, when my wife says there's a national park on the island of Maui, I'm like, I'll drive. Little did I know what I was signing up for, because some of you know what Haleakala National Park is. It's a national park that's 10,000 feet elevation, so you go from sea level to over 9,000 feet in this one drive that I just signed up for, and I don't know how you feel about mountainous, curvy road driving, but I'm clutching it, ten and two as we're going up, because I’ve got my nearest and dearest right next to me, and I want us to arrive alive at Haleakala, or however you say it, right? We’ve got to make it to this place, and I'm driving, and I'm like, I'm on an island. I'm blessed. I'm too blessed to be stressed. The longer this drive goes, I'm not having a fun vacation anymore, right? Because you get so high on this drive, and you hit so many windy roads. At some point, they just stopped with the railings, they stopped with the signs. Like they gave up on the way up to Haleakala. And we're driving at this one part and I realize that if I don't hit this turn right, if I miss this turn, we are literally going to fall thousands of feet to our demise. And here I am on vacation on an island, thinking, "Where are some good railings when you need them? I just wish I had more warning signs out here on my vacation,” right? And I can tell there are beautiful views. We're like up at the level of the clouds. I thought you had to take an airplane to get to cloud level. We've just driven up to cloud level, and I want to look at how beautiful it is. But I'm like, I’ve got to just focus on the road right now, man. I wish somebody was telling me how fast I could take this turn up here, because I want to take heed.

See, some people have fallen away because they weren't warned. They weren't, or maybe they were warned, but they weren't listening to the warnings. If you ever think you know more than Jesus, you are in danger of falling away. The whole point is well, take heed, because even the mightiest, even the wealthiest, even the smartest, oh, they've all fallen down. And how dare you think you're better than other people that you wouldn't fall? No, you could fall. And so, when Jesus warns us about falling away, I need to really listen to what he has to say. Go back to Mark 14 because he doesn't just say it; it would be enough if he just said it. We've seen that Jesus speaks with authority. We've seen that Jesus can tell us the future before it happens. We've seen Jesus walk on water. We've seen Jesus feed five thousand. I hope that everybody at our church that's been going through Mark, I hope Jesus has credibility. That if he says it, we should listen. But notice how Jesus often speaks when he says in verse 27, "You will all fall away.” What does he immediately go to? “For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.” Not only does Jesus say they're going to fall away, he quotes a Scripture prophesying about them falling away.

So next to verse 27, put down Zechariah 13, verse 7. That's the verse that Jesus quotes. It would be enough if Jesus was just saying it, but now he's even quoting a Scripture about it. And so, what is this prophecy? What is this Scripture that he's referring to? If everybody could grab your Bible and turn a few pages to the left. It's not that far to the left. It's towards the end of our Old Testament, Zechariah 13, verse 7. I want to read for you the whole verse to get the context. Zechariah is one of the prophets after the exile. So, Babylon came in, and like Daniel and his friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, Nebuchadnezzar took them off to Babylon, so they were exiled. They were out of Jerusalem for seventy years. Then they come back, and that's when Zechariah is prophesying. When they come back, and here in chapter 13, verse 7, look at what it says. "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me, declares the Lord of hosts, strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.” There's the part Jesus quoted. I will turn my hand against the little ones.

Now, when it says "strike the shepherd, what shepherd are we talking about? Well, you can see the context here in verse seven has Yahweh speaking. So, do you see that when it says, "declares the Lord of Hosts" whenever you see L O R D in all capitals in our English translation of the original language of Hebrew, that means it's God's name YHWH. When they use LORD with all capitals, that's the very name of God, YHWH, I am that I am, and so YHWH of hosts. Hosts is like armies. Hosts, like the heavenly hosts, the angelic armies. So, YHWH, who controls the spiritual beings in heaven, is saying, "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd.” So, let's think about this. Who is YHWH's shepherd that cares for his people? In fact, notice how he describes this shepherd against the man who stands next to me. Who's the only one that can stand next to YHWH? Who's the only one that's been exalted to the name above all names that can sit at the right hand of the Majesty on high? Who's the only man? His name is Jesus. Right. So, this is talking about God's sovereignty to strike his own Son Jesus. God is over the sacrifice of his one and only Son Jesus. God is willing to sacrifice his Son to save you from your sin, and this is a prophecy about that.

Now go back to chapter 10 of Zechariah because there were the shepherds at this time. God was not pleased with them. Often in the Bible, the idea of a shepherd is used as a leader of God's people. Pastors are sometimes referred to as shepherds, and in the time of Israel, prophets were often referred to as shepherds. Look at what he says in chapter 10, verse 2, “The household gods utter nonsense. The diviners see lies. They tell false dreams. They give empty consolation. Therefore, the people wander like sheep. They are afflicted for lack of a shepherd.” And then God says in verse 3, "My anger is hot against the shepherds, and I will punish the leaders, for the Lord of hosts, YHWH of hosts, cares for his flock.” So, the prophets at this time are saying they're saying something divine, but it's a lie. They're claiming that they're giving God's Word, but it's not from God. They're saying I have a dream, but it's a false dream. They're saying you can be comforted, but it's empty words. God didn't give those words of comfort and hope. So, God is hot. He's angry with these false prophets that are telling people what they want to hear. And why is God angry? Because he cares about his sheep, and no one's really leading them. No one's really caring for them. And so then, when you get to chapter 13 and verse 7, and God has a shepherd, God has someone who actually is going to care for his people. That seems like such a good thing that we would have a shepherd who would care for us. But then that shepherd who's going to care for us is going to be struck. Who's going to tell the sword to strike him? Well, God himself is going to have his own Son struck. He's going to have his shepherd die on behalf of his sheep. And when that happens, the prophecy here is the sheep will scatter. Here's Jesus saying, they're coming to get me, and when they come to get me, you guys are going to run for it. You guys are going to flee for your lives, and this should bring us back now to the core of what it means to be a Christian.

Is my life is now connected to my shepherd, and as Jesus goes, so go I? The story of the life of a Christian is not what I will do or not do. The story of the life of a Christian is what he will do, what he has already done, and what Jesus is still going to do in my life. As one of his sheep, I am connected to my shepherd. See, this is the right way to be thinking about it. Go to John chapter 10. Everybody, turn to where Jesus owns this idea of being our shepherd, and let's hear afresh what Jesus has to say. He says, "There's a thief who wants to steal your life.” He wants to kill you. He wants to destroy you. But Jesus says, "I have come that you may have life, that you could have an abundant life, a full life. And here in John chapter 10, verse 11, Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. So, not only do we have it clearly said that God the Father is going to strike his Son, that he's going to sacrifice his one and only Son, whom he loves. But here we have now Jesus is willing to lay down his life. Jesus is willing to die to take your place. He's willing to shed his blood to pay for your sin. Oh, that's how I really care for you, that's how I'm providing for you and protecting you is I'm the good shepherd, and I'm willing to die for the sheep. And he says in verse 12, “he who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, he sees the wolf coming and he leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep, and I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice?

So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason, the Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father. So, in this one brief prophecy, where we're going to strike the shepherd, we see the Father's love that he gave his one and only Son, and we see the love of Jesus that he's willing to lay down his life. So, we're going to read about Judas and the mob, and they're going to arrest him, betray him, and the Jewish religious leaders are going to hand him over to the Roman authorities, and they're going to kill him. But we're supposed to already know, actually, it's God who's letting him be killed, and actually, it's Jesus who's willing to die in our place.

And that is my Christian life, the life that I live. I no longer live for myself. I no longer live by my own strength. It is now Christ who lives in me. Can I get an amen from anybody on this? See, I think way too many Christians think I needed Jesus to save me, but now I'm just living myself. And if you're thinking that way, you need to change the way you're thinking today, because you, like a sheep, have gone astray, and the only reason that you returned is not because of you. You returned because you have a good shepherd who's the overseer of your soul. The only reason we're saved is because Jesus saved us, and the reason we will be saved all the way to the end is he who has begun a good work in you. He will be faithful to completing. It's not about what I will do or not do. It's about what he has done and what he will do. This is my hope that I will endure to the end and not fall away.

Jesus will hold me fast. He's my good shepherd. He knows me, and I know him. And what does it say about his sheep? We listen to his what? To his voice. Jews, Gentiles, all being brought together with one shepherd, one flock, all the people of God. And how do we become the people of God? We listen to the words of Jesus, the very words of eternal life. Your life. Let's remember this. Point number two: Your life. “Remember, your life is defined by your leader.” It's no longer your life. It's your life in Christ. Sometimes we talk about being new creations, and if you're a new creation, behold, the old is gone and the new has come, and you can now learn how to put off your old ways and to put on the new ways of truth and righteousness and holiness. But we always need to remember that you are a new creation in who everybody? In Christ. The only way you're going to go from the old you to the new you and continue to live out the new, is you're going to do it in Christ. He is the shepherd who needs to lead you all the way to the end. Salvation, if you think of it as just something in the past, knows there's an ongoing work called sanctification. God is continuing his work in you, and it goes all the way till glorification, till you experience the fullness of your salvation, till you're in the presence of God's glory, and you're completely set apart from sin in your new body. And we haven't got there yet. Jesus is continuing his good work in us, and we need our shepherd all the way. And so, I can't be saying, "Well, here's what I'm going to do. I already know what I'll do.” That's the wrong way to think as a Christian. “I'm going to keep living in Christ, and it's not going to be I who live, it's going to be Christ who now lives what in me.”

Go back to Mark 14, and let's review here that these disciples, their response to the promise of Jesus, the proclamation that they will all fall away, even the prophecy from Zechariah 13:7 about him being the shepherd. The fact that he's going to rise up from the dead, the fact that he's going to go before them to Galilee, they miss all of that, and they go back to the first part. “You will all fall away,” and what do they say right away? “I will not.” See, if you come back next week, what is Jesus going to pray? Not as I will, but as your will be done, as you will. These guys, they're looking at life the way a lot of people I think look at life is I'm going to do it. And some people, they have this like gusto, like I got this, like I'm able to do it, like I can do it. And other people they have this sinking feeling like I don't got this, but I’ve got to do it, and so they're filled with anxiety because their pride of trying to do it by themselves is meeting the reality that they can't do it by themselves, and so they're like, oh, how's this going to work out? And so maybe you're one of the people who's boldly going forward, like I can do it, or maybe somebody who's kind of dreading going forward, knowing you can't do it, but still trying to do it. See, we're not supposed to be living that way. We're not supposed to be saying, I will. And notice what you don't want to do. Look at what Peter says in verse 29. “Even though they all fall away, I will not.” What does he use as his point of comparison? His point of comparison is not I'm going to follow Jesus, just like Jesus denied himself, took up his cross, and went all the way to the end for me. I'm going to follow Jesus. No, he's not comparing himself to the shepherd, he's not comparing himself to Christ. Who's he comparing himself to? The guys who are going to fall away. I've seen this happen here in our church.

I've seen people say about other people, oh, well, this person they don't love me, or this person they're like this, or I know I'm okay because I'm not like this person. I've heard people say that, and guess what? The people they were comparing themselves to over time fell away from the faith that is in Jesus Christ. And so, you're defining yourself as to being a Christian by comparing yourself to other people, some of them who proved not to really be Christians in the end. There's a lot of horizontal comparison when we're supposed to be not considering how I compare to other people; I'm supposed to be following Jesus. I'm looking for my life in him. These disciples, by comparing to each other, they completely miss the point that we're here because of him. And so, this self-reliance gets exposed in a profound way, and I think it's intentional. I think this is a case study that you can see if you try to do the Christian life by your own willpower, you will not. Yeah, he was right. I will not. He should have just stopped right there. That's just that's what he did. He did not do what he said he was going to do. He did what Christ said was going to happen. And so, your own willpower? Maybe you think being strong and self-reliant has helped you in some ways in your life. It is a hindrance in the Christian life. Self-reliance is pride. It's one of the biggest problems that you might have when you wake up in the day, and there's your calendar, there's your to-do list, and you're like, here I go. No, you don't want to live like that. That's the way of falling away, is self-reliance. But depending on Christ? That's the real way of faith.

Go to John 15. It's just a few pages over to the right, and let's look at something Jesus taught his disciples on this very night. Back at the Last Supper, we're going from the Last Supper to the Garden of Gethsemane, and on the way he says they're going to fall away, and he had just taught them this beautiful picture in John chapter 15, where he said, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.” So, you’ve got to get into this mindset of a vineyard, and there's a vine, and it's got all these different branches, and on all the branches, that it's bearing fruit. And the Father here, God, is the gardener of the vine. Jesus is the actual vine himself, and then he's going to say that we are the branches connected to the vine. And look how he invites us here in verse 4. He says, " Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do” what everybody? You could write down John, chapter 15 verse 5, and when it says “nothing,” and you could translate it “not one thing.”

So, you've got your calendar of what you're going to do on a given day, or you've got your list. Here's what I need to accomplish today. Before you ever embark on anything to do, you should put the word "abide" above every calendar, above every list. Because if you're not in Christ, apart from Christ, how many good things are you going to do that day? How many days of our lives are we going to waste trying to do it ourselves? I will. When Jesus is saying, "No, the only way that you're going to bear fruit as a branch is you’ve got to abide in the vine. You’ve got to abide in me.” Now, the Greek word "meno,” which is translated "abide" here, it means to “remain” or “stay”. If you're taking notes, can you write that down? Abide means to remain or stay, because we don't really use this English word abide anymore. It's kind of old English at this point. Nobody asks you, where do you abide, right? Oh, I abide in Huntington Beach. You don't say it like that, right? Oh, you people have already asked me here today. Oh, when you were in Maui, where did you abide? Nobody says it like that. They're like, where did you stay when you were in Maui? So, in other Scriptures that aren't as precious to us, because John 15, if you're a Christian, is one of one of my favorite passages. It's one of our favorite things. Oh, this idea of the life of Christ and being connected to him.

And so, we know if you say the word “abide,” you kind of think of John 15. So even though we don't use the word abide, they keep using it when they translate this passage because your grandma read it as abide, and you first heard it as abide, and it's precious to you. You want to abide in Christ. Isn’t nobody better update your English because you're abiding, right? So, the publishers are all afraid of you because they don't want to change it to modern English because they'll make you mad because you want to abide, right? But really, the way we would say it today is, every single day you need to remain in Christ. You need to stay right there in Christ. That's what you’ve got to do. If you go and try to do it, you won't do it. But if you are remaining in Christ, you will bear much fruit. That's how you're going to live the rest of your life, abiding in Jesus, and he will abide in you, as you're connected to him. His life will be flowing through you. Look at what he goes on to say in verse 6. “If anyone does not abide in me, he's thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered, they're thrown into the fire and burned.” What do you call a branch that doesn't bear fruit? Firewood is what Jesus calls it. A branch that's not abiding in the vine, what good is that? Verse 17, “If you abide in me,” and notice, he's going to help us understand what this means. “If you remain in me, and my words remain in you.” So, how do you abide in Christ? Well, you listen to him, you hear the voice of your good Shepherd, you know him, and he knows you. And when you get the words of Christ remaining in you, that's how you stay connected to him. In fact, notice what it says here in verse 7. It says, "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, pray, and it will be done for you.” When you're connected to Christ and his word is on your heart, and you're asking things consistent with his will for his name to be hallowed, he says those prayers they're going to be answered. And then verse 8, “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.”

Let me ask you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, do you want your life to bring glory to our Father? Do you want to bear much fruit? Do you want to prove to be one of the real deal, genuine disciples of Jesus Christ? Well, all you’ve got to do is to bring glory to God and bear fruit and be a disciple of Jesus is one thing. Remain in Christ. And we're like busy doing 20 different things and missing the main thing. And so, I want to ask you, are you doing this? Some of you are already on the way to falling away, and I'm so glad you're here today. And I'm hoping you're not just here today. I'm hoping you can hear today that if you try to do it yourself, you are in grave danger of falling away. You have to learn how to abide in Christ, how to have his life working into your life. You don't have the ability and power to endure all the way to the end. It is only the life of Jesus working in you that will cause you to bear fruit to bring glory to the Father. To prove that you're one of his followers, you have to learn how to abide in Christ. And people are thinking right now as you hear this, oh, I know about this. Look, I'm not asking if you know about this. We're 16 days into August. Has August 2026 been a month where you're abiding in Christ? I'm not talking about July, June, or any previous year. I'm asking you right now: Is the purpose that you have day by day to remain and stay in Jesus, or are you already drifting? Are you already letting your heart be divided with other things? Are you already thinking this is too hard, and should I give up? See, there are a lot of people who are going to try to say right now, well, I know, but I'm not. Look, if you're not abiding in Christ, then you don't know about abiding in Christ. You might have information about it, but guess what? Knowledge does according to the Scripture. Knowledge, what does it do? It puffs up, and there will be plenty of people in those unquenchable fires where the worm does not die, and they will have known that they should have abided in Christ. But that doesn't mean they're doing it. Are you, as a branch, experiencing the life of Jesus in you to bear fruit? That's the question.

Point number three. Let's get it down like this: “Repent from self-reliance to remaining in Christ.” We need to change our mind from self-reliance to remaining in Christ, we need to catch one another when we say, "I'm going to go try harder. I'm going to go do better.” No, that's not how we're doing it. I'm going to abide. I'm going to let Christ's words get in me. I'm going to pray to him. I'm going to make sure that I not just read my Bible today, not just that I prayed today, but that my mindset today is I'm going to live in Christ, and Christ is going to live in me, and I'm going to stay connected to Jesus today, no matter what happens. I know I won't do one good thing unless it's Christ in me. Can I get an amen from anybody on this? This is a great day for you to say to somebody that you know, that's a Christian, yeah, I need help abiding in Christ. I'm not really abiding in Christ today. Nobody has to fake it today. Nobody has to act like I'm already doing this and everything's fine. If you are abiding in Christ, praise Jesus. Keep on, remain, stay right there. Keep bearing that fruit. Keep bringing the Father glory. But if you know you're not abiding in Christ, it will be of no advantage to you or anyone you love for you to leave here and act like you're doing something you're not doing. Just because you know about it doesn't mean you know him day by day.

We like to say it's not a religion. Is that true for you in August 2026? Because he said to the guys who knew him better than anyone. I mean, these guys for three years they lived, slept, ate everything with Jesus. Three years. Do you remember when Jesus passed by them on the Sea of Galilee? Do you remember when they said, you better send the crowd away, and he said, no, we're going to feed the crowd. Do you remember when he called them out again and again and again? If there's anybody who should have heard Jesus, it's these guys, and they didn't even listen. You are in real danger of not listening to Jesus. All of us are in this danger, and if you don't take heed to the warnings, and if you don't listen to the voice of your shepherd and remain in him, yes, you could fall away. But if you abide in Christ, how could you fall away? Because he will hold you fast. He will abide in you. He will be with you to the end of the age, into eternity. See, when you're driving the heights of Haleakala, when you're ten and two, and you don't you're taking heed because you don't want to tumble to your death with your family on vacation, right? And so, you're taking that turn nice and slow. And at some points, I can start to see what's going on. There's like endless clouds, and we're now above the clouds in this rental car, and I'm just like the clouds look like waves coming in from the ocean. It's just like rows and rows of clouds. Like this is amazing. We park the car, and now I'm trying to like we're at the lookout point there. And you know you're at a national park when any picture you take will never do justice to the beauty of what you're seeing. Anybody else been failed by many pictures that did not capture the glory not of Mother Nature but of our Creator? Right? I love national parks, but I'm so frustrated with the pictures. And I'm like this cloudscape. How would I even describe this to people? I've never seen anything like this. Just like the clouds stacked up on each other like waves at the beach, and I'm trying to take these pictures. But there are all these rocks, and the top of Haleakala National Park is a dormant volcano, and I was expecting the volcano part that's dormant to be kind of barren and just a bunch of dirt and a bunch of rock. But the truth is, once you get above the clouds, the whole mountain is all barren, and all of a sudden, it like clicked for me. Oh yeah, when you're above the clouds, no grass or anything green is going to grow because they're not getting the rain that's very plentiful there on the island of Maui that you can experience in so many beautiful rainbows. Oh, that's not happening up here at Haleakala. They're above this. This elevation is above the clouds, and so it's just rocky. It's just barren, like nothing grows there, and so my pictures are all this extreme contrast between beautiful clouds that seem to go on forever and just barren, rocky nothingness. And I'm like, oh, the heights of Haleakala are like the end of all of our lives. It's either endless glory in his presence, or it's barren nothing.

And right now, eternal life is whether you know Jesus or not. It's whether you're connected to the vine, and he's bearing fruit. Right now, you can see whether you're going to have a barren future, or endless glory. And I promise you this. When we get to the glory of the presence of Jesus, and we're there, if you're in his glorious presence, and I'm there in his glorious presence, and we made it to the end, we will not be saying to one another, you know, I'm so glad about that decision I made in my life that got me here. I'm so thankful for my willpower that kept me going all the way to get here. None of us will be talking about anything that we did because we will know we don't belong in a place like that with someone like him. We will shout together at the top of our lungs, “Worthy is the Lamb,” and we will give him all power, all honor, all glory, all dominion. It's all him. We will not think I got here because I willed to get here. We will think I got here because he willed me here. It's not about me. It's about him. And if that's going to be true there on that day, it should be true for you here today.
Even Sunday is a great example where people go to church, and the rest of the day they are not abiding in Jesus. Are you learning life's most important lesson to stay in Christ? Because those are the ones who don't fall away; they remain in Christ, and it's not about what I will do or not do. It's about what he will do. He will keep you. He will hold you fast. Let me pray for us right now.

Father in heaven. We want to come to you, and we want to confess our self-reliance. We want to confess this pride that we think we stand, and we're tempted to not take heed. We're tempted to think we'll be fine. I will not fall away. I won't be like those other people. God, I pray that today you would humble us to hear the voice of our shepherd and to see that when he told the disciples they will fall away, and Peter said, "I will not,” that's an example to us of not the right way to think about it. That we need to heed, God. I pray for everyone who's my brother or sister in Christ here today that they would take heed to what Jesus just said, that we would hear his proclamation, that we would continue this study in the coming weeks. And I pray for everybody who knows they're not really remaining in Christ. For all my brothers and sisters, Father, who know that they are not staying in Christ every day, I pray that they will be humble enough to share that with someone else. I pray that they would admit that to you right now. Father, let them express to you that they're trying to do it themselves. They're trying to live like I got this. They're acting like, well, you'll take care of salvation in the past and in the future, but today is mine. Please, God, let us repent of that way of thinking. Let us put self-reliance off and let it be humble dependence on Jesus every day for the rest of our lives. Let us wake up every day and say, today I'm not going to do one good thing unless I'm abiding in you, Jesus. I need your life. I need an ability and power that I don't possess. I need your spirit to fill me. I need your words to dwell richly in me, Jesus. I need you today and every day because I don't want to fall away from you. I want you to be my shepherd. I don't want anything else besides you. I want you to lead me by your green pastures, I want to be by your still waters. Even if I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I want to know that you're with me. Even if I'm surrounded in the presence of enemies, I want to know that you set a table before me. Even on the last day of my life, I want to know Jesus that your goodness and mercy are still chasing after me all the days of my life. Jesus, I want you to be my story. I want you to be my song. So please change our minds from thinking what I will do and let us leave here today thinking what he will do. Thank you, Jesus, for holding us, for holding us fast, and I pray for those Jesus who are here at this service, and they've always been trying to do it themselves, and they've never trusted in you. Maybe they're not even claiming to be standing. Maybe today they would say they don't believe in Jesus. I pray that today they would see they need you, Jesus. That you would open their eyes to trust in you, that they can have a new life in Christ. So please, as we sing this last song, do your work in our hearts. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.