Galilean Peasant Demands Total Allegiance

Tom Shrader expounds Luke 9:23-25, examining Jesus' hard demand that true followers deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow Him. He contrasts this costly discipleship with popular self-esteem theology and prosperity gospel messaging, arguing that authentic faith begins with recognizing oneself as an unworthy sinner in need of grace. The teaching closes with a real-life illustration of a pastor leaving a thriving church to plant in San Francisco, offered as a concrete example of what it looks like to surrender personal comfort in obedience to God.

“The gospel is a call for self-denial; it's not a call for self-fulfillment.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Scandalous

Recorded: 2011 at East Valley Bible Church

Duration: 51 min

Themes: discipleship, self-denial, sacrifice, following jesus, suffering, obedience, surrender, true identity, new believer, struggling with comfort, considering ministry calling, young adult, feeling unworthy, pastor, questioning faith cost, church planter

Scripture: Luke 9:18-25, Luke 9:57-62, Matthew 7:13-14, Matthew 7:21-23, John 13:34-35, John 14:15, Galatians 5:22-23, 2 Timothy 3:1-5, Acts 13, Acts 20

Theological Themes: lordship salvation, kenosis, sanctification, dying to self, costly grace, prosperity gospel refuted, soteriology, repentance

Full Transcript

Setting the Scene

Open your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke. We are in week four of five weeks on the scandalous sayings of Jesus — or another way of saying it, the hard sayings of Jesus. These are the things Jesus says that make you go, "Really?" There are a lot of them. What we try to do is pick some categories and address them.

Today we look at Luke chapter 9, and we are going to focus on verses 23, 24, and 25. Let me read them, then we will come back, put them in context, make some comments, and close with a wonderful illustration of what this is really all about.

Luke chapter 9, verse 23 — Jesus is speaking:

> "And he was saying to them all, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, but loses or forfeits himself?"

Some translations will say, "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?"

Eugene Peterson's Paraphrase

Eugene Peterson has taken the Scripture and paraphrased it. It is a paraphrase, not a translation. Many times it is really helpful. It is not necessarily what you would study from, but it can be valuable in a devotional setting. Here is his paraphrase of verses 23 through 25:

> "He told them what they could expect for themselves. Someone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat, I am. Don't run from suffering, embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, that is the real you?"

That phrase — "He told them what they could expect for themselves" — is going to be a really big point. The question we are asking today is: how do you become a true disciple of Christ, a real follower of Christ?

What Is the Normal Christian Life?

Luke, who is teaching this passage at the Gateway Campus today, had a question at the top of his notes that I love, because expectations are key in life. The question is: what is the normal Christian life? What can I expect?

I was watching football yesterday — it was Saturday for me — and they had wired one of the coaches, the Iowa State football coach. He said to his players, "This is what you can expect this week. This is what is going to happen. Here is the outcome you want, and here is what you are going to have to do." He was shooting it straight with them. That is exactly what Jesus is doing right here.

The Context: Who Do You Say I Am?

Look back at the context, beginning at verse 18 of chapter 9: "And it happened while he was praying alone, the disciples were with him, and he questioned them." This had been a time of reflection and prayer for Jesus. His disciples were there, and He broke the silence with a question: "Who do the people say that I am? What is the general opinion out there?"

They answered: John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the prophets of old risen again. Then Jesus asked the big question: "Who do you say that I am?" That is the question we keep putting in front of people. We can get distracted by all sorts of things — what kind of music do you like, what setting, what church is right — but the big question is always: who do you say Jesus is? He is the issue.

Peter answered, "The Christ of God" — and on another occasion, "The Son of the Living God, the Messiah." Jesus responded with a strange warning: do not tell anyone about this. In a setting where we are called to go and make disciples, that seems odd. But Jesus was saying it was not the right time yet.

Jesus Reveals the Plan

Then comes verse 22: "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed and raised up on the third day." This is the first time Jesus is revealing more and more of the plan. He tells them the plan includes something they had not anticipated — rejection, death, and resurrection on the third day. He is speaking prophetically, with certainty.

At this point in the ministry, people were beginning to follow Jesus. They were attracted to Him. They thought it was remarkable that the lame could walk and the deaf could hear, that He could take some fish and loaves and feed 5,000 men plus women and children. There was also a great deal of anticipation — a sense that He might be the one to free them from the shackles of Rome, to bring in a whole new political and economic order, and make everything right.

Jesus was essentially saying: everything is going to be okay, but it is a long road to okay. He had to suffer, He was going to die, He was going to rise again — and ultimately He would tell them that those who followed Him would face persecution as well.

The Normal Christian Life

They are going to persecute you. Jesus made this plain: as a slave, you are not better or bigger than your master. He said this is the normal Christian life. Remember two weeks ago when we talked about this — Jesus is at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, and He says, "On this last day, there will be many that say to me, Lord, Lord, and I'll say, depart from me, I never knew you."

We go back to the context He painted before that, and He is always straightforward about this. He says there are two ways: a narrow way and a wide way. The wide way leads to destruction, and there are a whole bunch of people on it. Then there is a narrow way that leads to life, and there are not many who find it. The idea is that it is a narrow way — a hard way, a restrictive way.

There is not a plurality of ways. We do not all pray to the same God, we do not all worship the same God across all these religions. It is not as though there are many spokes in a wheel all leading to the hub, with many ways to God. No — there is one way, the narrow way, the hard way. Jesus is the one who says it is narrow and hard, and He also seems to say in a quantitative sense that there are not a whole bunch of people who find it.

And this is full disclosure on His part. He says, "I don't want you to be surprised. Don't come thinking everything is going to be okay, that there won't be any hassle, that there won't be any problems." One author has written this: the gospel is a call for self-denial, not a call for self-fulfillment.

A Father's Rubber Bands

There has been a battle over the years on that point, and I was thinking about it yesterday — which is what brought these in. When my father died, the only two things of his I took are these. They are Blue Bonnet margarine tubs, little plastic containers, and they are filled to the top, jammed with rubber bands. That is my dad.

If you got into his golf bag, you would find hundreds of tees. If you went to his home, you would find bags of them — because if we played a course where the tees were free, he would just gobble them up. Paperclips, thousands of them. Pens — oh my goodness, pens. Notepads from hotels, from restaurants, from anywhere. Just thousands of these things that didn't matter that much.

Every time we would get ready to play golf, my dad would say, "Hey, have you got a new glove for me?" And I would say no. He would hold up his worn glove, but I knew there were five new gloves I had already given him sitting in his locker. I was not going to give him another one.

When I would mention any of this, people would say to me, "Well, he's a product of the Depression — that's how they didn't have much." I was laughing about it recently because I was looking for a rubber band in my house and could not find a single one, and there he was with two containers crammed full of them. His idea was that there aren't many of them, so you get them and you keep them. You could call it saving; I would call it hoarding. But he was a product of that era.

A Product of a Different Era

In a sense, I am a bit of a product of when I came to Christ. I came to Christ in 1980 at the age of 30. The theological atmosphere at the time was different from today — more overt then, though more subtle now — and it was saturated with the idea of self-love, self-help, and self.

There was a book written called *Self-Love*, and its entire premise was that until you love yourself, you will never be any good to anybody. There was another very popular Christian author on television constantly who wrote a book called *Self-Esteem: The New Reformation*. He was essentially saying, "Here is what theology used to be, and here is what it needs to become."

Let me read you what he wrote, because this was part of my formative theological background. He writes: "It is precisely at this point that classical theology has erred in its insistence that theology be God-centered, not man-centered." He goes on: "The master plan of God is designed around the deepest needs of human beings — self-dignity, self-respect, self-worth, self-esteem. The pearl of great price is genuine self-respect and self-esteem. If we follow God's plan as faithfully as we can, we will feel good about ourselves. God needs you and me to help create a society of self-esteeming people. God's ultimate objective is to turn you and me into self-confident persons."

Now, this may sound aberrant to you — and it is, a genuine deviation from biblical theology — but it was everywhere thirty years ago. And then there was this one sentence that set me off. He writes: "Once a person believes he is an unworthy sinner, it is doubtful if he can honestly accept the saving grace God offers in Christ."

That is exactly the opposite of the truth. They sold hundreds of thousands of copies of this book. I had just become a Christian, I was reading it, and even then I thought, that does not sound right. I would come at it from the completely opposite direction and say: until you understand that you are an unworthy sinner, you will never respond to the saving grace God offers in Christ.

The Wrong Reasons for Following Jesus

Jesus is addressing something He understands intuitively about the crowd following Him. They are following Him for the wrong reasons. So He comes right at them and says, here is what this is about: denying yourself, taking up your cross, and following Me.

Martin Luther had to fight this same battle. He wrote in proposition number four of his 95 assertions: "Until the sinner comes to hate himself, he does not enter the kingdom of God." When Luther uses the word "hate" there, he is not talking about cutting yourself up. He is talking about understanding yourself and hating the old sinful self.

Tim Keller writes that self-denial is not self-hatred. Self-hatred is still, in reality, a form of self-centeredness — you are absorbed in your own problems, your attention and focus dominated by your flaws and failures. Self-denial is rather self-forgetfulness. That is what A.W. Tozer said as well: if I am not thinking good about myself or bad about myself, I still have a problem, because in either case I am thinking about myself.

A Problem in the Church from the Beginning

Paul wrote to Timothy about this, and it is a problem that has been in the church from the very beginning. Second Timothy chapter three says: "Realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, and as a result of that, they will be lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power." In other words, they deny the power of Christ. This has been around forever.

What a Real Disciple Looks Like

Putting this together with what we saw two weeks ago: there will be some who even make a proclamation of faith. There will be some — and maybe you know them — who will go to a breakfast, a lunch, a crusade, an event, or a concert with you, and in the moment they may say, "That's what I want. I want Jesus. I give my life to Christ. I ask Jesus into my heart. I ask forgiveness for my sin." There may even be, at that moment, some level of sincerity. But now we find out how real that is.

Consider this: on March 6th, 1980, at roughly 8:30 in the morning, God opened my eyes. I saw myself, I saw His provision, I came to Christ, I believed in Him — whatever words you want to use — I became a Christian. I was no more saved then than I am now. But there is evidence of that salvation.

Now, Jesus is not necessarily dealing with that evidence in the passage in front of us. That would be fruit, and we have talked about that before — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control, from Galatians 5. When He talks about fruit, He does not say you will do this or not do this. He says here are the attitudes, here are the fruit. But what He does say is: here are the characteristics of a follower.

Denying Yourself and the Meaning of Repentance

A true follower is going to deny themselves. What does that mean? All of a sudden they are no longer going to be driven by their own agenda, their own wants, and their own needs in and of themselves. There will be a change of mind. We call it repentance.

There are three Greek words translated with the idea of repentance. One speaks of a reversal of thinking — it is a mental attitude. Another speaks of regret or sorrow, a genuine sickness over sin. The third refers to the direction of one's life. So repentance is the idea of changing your mind, and the result is a change in behavior — a change of mind, emotion, and will, accompanied by brokenness.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes: "Repentance means that you realize you are a guilty, vile sinner in the presence of God, and you deserve the wrath and punishment of God, that you are hell-bound." Contrast that with what we read a moment ago from Second Timothy. That is the bad news, followed quickly by the good news: Christ died so we can find eternal life. When He said "It is finished," He accomplished the salvation of all those who would ever come to Him.

The Cost, Not the Benefits

What Jesus is addressing in this hard saying — deny yourself, take up your cross, follow Me — is the recognition that people do not fully understand what they are getting into. This happens all the time. Someone is really hurting — it could be financial hardship, a broken relationship, a physical ailment — and someone comes alongside and presents the gospel, and they respond to it. It is very common to assume that once you believe, God is going to take away all the challenges and the problems. "I am sick, He will make me healthy. My marriage is falling apart, He will put it together. I do not have a job, He will get me one."

That is the same thought process these people were going through. They believed Jesus was going to be the political Messiah, the economic Messiah. And Jesus stops them right there and says, listen — here is the deal. If you are really Mine, let us not talk about benefits right now. Let us talk about the cost. You are going to have to deny yourself. You are going to have to take your agenda and move it to the side.

Now, there is an author I will not name because I genuinely respect him, but I am not sure I agree with the way he puts this next point. He writes that this is not about having your needs met, this is not about getting what you want — this is about saying no to all your needs, all your desires.

He Changes My Wanter

All your hopes, all your ambitions, all your dreams, all your schemes, all your plans. I don't think that when you come to Christ you simply surrender that entire list. Here's what actually happens — among a whole bunch of other things, this is really key — He changes my wanter. He changes my desires, hopes, ambitions, dreams, schemes, and plans. Some of them may even remain the same.

So you may be a person who is driven in business, obsessed with it, wanting to be successful because you want to prove you're the best and make the most. I'm not saying that all of a sudden you come to Christ and conclude that business isn't important anymore. It is important, but now it's important as a platform to glorify God and manifest His grace and mercy to you.

I was reading an interview one day with a major league baseball pitcher who pitched for the Cubs — and that's part of his problem right there. They were talking about pitching, and he said he could never throw at a batter. Here's why: he said, "I'm a Christian." Now, every once in a while you have to put one right in a batter's ear to move him off the plate. If you don't move him off the plate, he's digging in, he's set, and he's going to drill you.

I get all of that. The minute you go down this road, there's all sorts of tension. What we're really saying is we want to do the right thing, the right way, for the right reason. Some of you — just this part right here, these last few minutes — it's going to occupy your thinking for months. You're going to spend months trying to figure out: what do I actually want? Is it really me, or is it God in me?

Here's the answer: if you want to do the right thing the right way for the right reason, God put that desire in your heart — but do it for His glory, not for your own agenda. So here's what may happen. You may have five agenda items, and maybe only three of them make it to the new agenda. But those three are there because God put them in your heart, driven by Him, placed there for one ultimate reason — His glory. That's all.

It's Not About Me

So when I deny myself, here's what I'm saying: it's not about me. It's not "what about me?" It's "God, what about You?" And here's how I know it becomes about Him — because I'm also saying to the people around me, it's not "what about me," it's "what about you." It's not "what can you do for me," but "what can I do for you?" Jesus said it Himself: I came not to be served, but to serve. Follow Me.

That whole idea of "follow Me" simply means obey. In John 14, the night before He died, Jesus had the disciples together and said, "If you love Me, you'll keep My commandments." And just before that, in John 13:34, He says here's how the world is going to know that you are His disciples. He had a blank sheet of paper — He could have put anything there. Go to church. Go to Bible study. Don't do this. Instead He said: "That you love one another."

So Jesus paints an interesting portrait for us. I was walking through the mall one day and a girl had on a shirt that said, "Jesus is my homeboy." I thought, okay, that's kind of interesting. I said to her, "That's a cool shirt — what does it mean?" She said, "I don't like to talk about religion." I'm sorry, but to me that shirt is an invitation, especially for someone like me. Turn it inside out if you don't want the conversation.

Deny Yourself, Take Up Your Cross

Jesus is saying: if you want to follow Him, if you're going to be His disciple, then here's what you need to do — deny yourself and take up your cross. The people He was speaking to understood exactly what He was saying. He was describing something horrific: rejection, hostility, brokenness, shame, and suffering — all of it.

He said this isn't about checking a box at a breakfast, praying a prayer, and walking out. That moment may be the vehicle, but if it's genuinely happening, you are going to deny yourself. There is a new agenda now. You are going to take up your cross and you are going to do it. And what does He say? Take up your cross — daily. There is no finish line to this until I'm in heaven. It is every day.

Now we hear people say, "My wife is my cross. My job is my cross." No — your cross is following Christ. John MacArthur put it this way: this is the gospel. It's the gospel of self-denial. It's the gospel of self-sacrifice and self-submission. Deny yourself, take up your cross every day, put your life on the line.

I'll even admit I have trouble when I read that. Do you really feel like your life is going to be on the line tomorrow for Jesus? Driving down the 101 at ninety miles an hour might qualify, but I don't feel like they're going to come haul me out of my house for Jesus. What He is saying, though, is that this is the real deal — it should affect every single aspect of your life — and then follow Him.

This Is Going to Cost You Something

If I read that honestly, it sounds expensive, doesn't it? It's going to cost me something. Whatever word you want to use — sacrifice, investment, whatever — here's what it comes down to: I'm going to take this life and I'm going to give it to Him.

The Cost of Following Jesus

Jesus continues His dialogue in Luke chapter nine, and verse 57 records that as they were going along the road, someone said to Him, "I'll follow you wherever you go." Jesus responded: "The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." Then He said to another, "Follow me," and that man replied, "Lord, permit me to first go and bury my father." Jesus answered, "Let the dead bury the dead." There is an edge here.

What Jesus is saying is plain: you are going to come along with Me, and I do not even have a place to sleep. He is not saying He will give you a big house, or a jet to get to a crusade, or that He will heal every disease and put every relationship back together. Who would not want a Jesus like that? There is a certain sense in which you ought to be able to sell Jesus to anybody if theology is not an issue. You want to be happy? You want to be wealthy? You want to be wise? You want your spouse to come back? You want your deal to close? Come to Jesus.

But that is not necessarily what He wants for you. He may want you sick, and He may want you poor. There is a cost associated with following Him. It is not an insurance policy guaranteeing that life will go as smoothly as possible.

The American Dream vs. Biblical Christianity

In the world we live in, you have what I think of as biblical Christianity, and then you have the American dream. I still cannot get anyone to define it for me precisely, but I know it has something to do with a house, a car, school, and all of that. Here is what I know: the American dream is immovable, so we redefine the theology to fit inside it.

We talk about rugged individualism — and I tend toward that myself, as a free-market, capital kind of person — but biblical Christianity has a great deal of team sport involved in it. There are a lot of "one anothers." The way I am really going to know that you love me is that you care about me.

I have been reading a book in preparation for an interview this week. They asked if I wanted to interview the man who won a Pulitzer Prize for a six-hundred-page book on Cornelius Vanderbilt. I have developed no feelings for Vanderbilt. I do not like him. I do not hate him. It is strange — I have never read a biography where I simply did not care about the subject. But one thing this man did was take out every competitor along the way. That is free market. That is the world we live in. Go get it, go get it, go get it. That does not seem to be a significant concern of Jesus, and that is precisely where the clash comes from.

A Clash That Is Nothing New

This clash is not new. Martin Luther was dealing with it five or six hundred years ago, and we are dealing with it now. We have presented a Jesus who is not theologically accurate — we have repackaged Him a little. You are not fulfilled? He will fulfill you. You do not have peace? He will give you peace. We have cut corners and softened the edges of who He actually is.

So then Jesus says this: "Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses it for My sake will save it." If you want to take your life — and He does not just mean the breath in your lungs, He means everything in it — and hang on to it, you are going to lose it. Jim Elliot said it well: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." You cannot save it now. It is either going to be lost here or lost later.

What Does It Profit a Man?

Then Jesus asks a profound question: "What is the profit of a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits or loses his soul?" That brings me back to Vanderbilt. The author of the book said he did not want to simply state Vanderbilt's wealth in present-day dollars, so he framed it this way: at his peak, if Bill Gates were to liquidate everything he owned and the United States were to liquidate all of its assets, Bill Gates would have had one dollar in every one hundred and thirty-eight. At the time of Vanderbilt's death, Vanderbilt would have had one dollar in every twenty. This was an extraordinarily rich man.

And here is exactly what Jesus is asking him — and us: what does it profit you if you gain all of this, but you lose your soul? That is the tension. There is just that constant tension, all the time.

Dying to Self and Finding Contentment

He has talked about dying to self, dying to my agenda, suffering, and in the sense of it, finding a level of contentment — being content with wherever God has me, however He has placed me, how I look, how I sound, what gifts I have and what I don't have. I am going to San Francisco this week to talk to a group of 50 young businessmen and women who are at the front end of their careers. The only way you get into the group is you have to have achieved a level of success, but they are at the front end — they are all around 30.

So they bring me in, and here is why I am there: every silver lining has a cloud, and I am it. They are all in there talking about their ambitions and their plans, and I am going to put a lid on their dreams. They are going to talk about Sausalito; I am going to talk about suffering. I am going to talk about Mayo Clinic. That is what Jesus is saying here.

Get your mind around this: if you really want to be His child, then everything will turn out okay, but it may not be the way you want it to be. You are going to get everything you want in terms of peace and love and joy, but you might not get everything along the way that you think will deliver it.

The Illusion of Achievement

Is that not what happens? How many times does that happen? Look at the presidential candidates — Obama, Santorum, every one of them — they are all lined up wanting to be president, and it is consuming them. They think they are going to find happiness there. I do not think so.

Right now you have the same thing going on in Major League Baseball. You have the Cardinals, the Phillies, the Diamondbacks, the Brewers, the Yankees, the Rays, the Tigers, the Rangers — they are all going to beat each other, and somebody is going to win and be the champion. Every year, because I used to do Major League Baseball conferences, the team with the highest divorce rate the following year is the team that won the World Series the year before.

There is also the story of Cliff Harris and Charlie Waters of the Dallas Cowboys. They finally win the Super Bowl, and according to Time magazine, they are sitting in the locker room afterwards — still dirty, still sweaty — and one says to the other, "Who do we play next?" I hesitate to say it, but when you win the Super Bowl, you can be left feeling depressed, because that is what the world promises: get this thing, and you will be satisfied.

I am not saying those goals are not legitimate, or that you should not strive hard. But if you think being a champion is going to make you happy, all you have to do is look at the heap of people whose testimony proves that it is not true. Following Jesus is expensive — and I do not just mean money. I mean there are costs: suffering, pain, hardship all along the way. But ultimately, when I know that following Him means knowing what He wants me to do, I have to do it.

A Video Introduction

I am going to show you a video — nine minutes and six seconds, self-explanatory. I will come back and put some guardrails around it. Let us take a look.

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*Hey, Redemption. Pastor Justin here. If you do not know who I am, I am the primary leader and communicator at the Tempe and Arcadia campuses. I was the founding pastor of Praxis Church, and I am here today to announce a change — a transition that is going to be happening over the course of the next couple of months.*

*Before I get to the announcement, I want to give you a little bit of an overview of what is going on and go back to the beginning — really the genesis of why we are here — and that goes back almost ten years ago. A buddy of mine who I was pastoring with in San Diego took me to San Francisco for the annual jazz festival. I remember standing there in San Francisco, right on Haight Street, right in the center of the 1960s hippie movement, standing in front of this old Catholic church that had been boarded up for a long time. I remember it vividly, just thinking: this place needs a church. This city, this place — it needs a church that can talk about Jesus and really love the city.*

*About two years after that, I got the call to plant a church. As I thought and prayed through that, there were five cities on my short list, and number one was San Francisco. Number two was Portland. Then Seattle, San Diego, and number five was Tempe. To be honest — and I have told this story a thousand times — Tempe was not really on my radar. It was not really where I wanted to go. But after praying through it and getting counsel, I felt really strongly that that was where God wanted us to go. So we came to Tempe about seven years ago and planted Praxis Church, and it has been phenomenal. It has been the greatest experience I have ever had. In the midst of those seven years, I got married, I had two kids, I made an amazing number of friends — it has been seven great years.*

*About six months ago, the leadership team was doing some team-building exercises, and one of them was to build your ideal job description. I wrote down basically that I am already doing my ideal job. I love my job. I love the people I work with. I love our pastors and my role in particular and the people we are serving. I could not ask for much more. And then, as an addendum at the bottom, I just wrote: the only other thing I could imagine myself doing was planting a church in San Francisco.*

*Over the course of the last several years, I had brought it up from time to time with our Praxis elders — something I had considered and was thinking about — and each time, for whatever reason, it just was not the right timing. And so—*

A Season of Change

In this moment with the leadership team, when I brought it up, they all looked at me and simply said, "Is this something that you need to do?" For the first time, I felt freed up to think about it and pray about it. I went home and told my wife that the team was allowing me to really think this through and pray it out. So for the last six months, we have been praying and fasting, seeking counsel, and talking to those closest to us.

About a month ago, we came to the conclusion that next year my wife and I will be moving to San Francisco to plant Redemption Church San Francisco. This decision was unbelievably difficult. I went back and forth in my head literally hundreds of times, and even went back and forth with the leadership team three times — first telling them I was going to do it, then coming back and saying I didn't think I could, and finally saying, "I have to do this." This is one of those moments — excruciating as it is and has been — where I know that if I were fifty years old and I didn't do this, I would look back and feel like I had disobeyed God and missed this opportunity.

Our Commitment to the Vision

Although Redemption San Francisco won't be organizationally tied to Redemption here, I one hundred percent believe in the vision, the values, the doctrine, and everything that Redemption is about. We have spent not only six years building Praxis and all that that entails, but also this transition into Redemption, and I love it so much that we are simply going to take what we are doing here and contextualize it for San Francisco — while upholding so much of what we love about this church.

I cannot say enough about the leadership team throughout this process. They have been unbelievably supportive — not only in allowing us to think about it and pray about it, but in making the sacrifice of letting us go and then, on top of that, supporting us so generously emotionally, spiritually, and financially.

Why San Francisco

We have an opportunity here as Redemption Church to spread the gospel and spread our vision even beyond Arizona, which was a surprise. It was not on our radar a year ago when we started having these discussions, but God does extraordinary things at unexpected moments, and you just never know.

San Francisco is a place of unbelievable need. Geographically, San Francisco is almost the identical size as Tempe, but Tempe has about one hundred and fifty thousand people while San Francisco has about eight hundred and fifty thousand. While there are several good churches there on the ground, they are far outnumbered, and it is a city that needs more people who love Jesus, who are talking about Jesus, and who are demonstrating the gospel.

An All-In Moment

As difficult as this process has been, and as hard as it will be to say goodbye to the church I love and to so many friends and family members I love so much, it is exciting to embark on this next phase in Redemption's life — an opportunity to see the gospel go forward in a pretty dark place.

I ask that in these next couple of months you would be praying for us — pray first for me and my family: my wife Emily, my daughter Lily, and my son Cole. Pray that this transition would go smoothly. Please also pray for San Francisco. It can almost become a cliché at some points to ask for prayer, but there are significant spiritual strongholds in this city, and the only way we are going to overcome them is through the movement of the Holy Spirit. Pray for my family. Pray for San Francisco. Continue to pray for Redemption.

This is an all-in moment for Redemption Church, and I am excited to see what will happen. I love you. We will miss you desperately, but we will be around for the next six months in transition. I will continue to preach and lead through this time, and I am excited about the direction of Redemption and about the gospel being planted in San Francisco.

A Word from the Leadership Team

Justin did a great job of helping you see the scope and the longevity of this issue. When we sat down almost a year and a half ago and were talking about Redemption's future, Justin said the only thing he had ever wanted to do was go do something in San Francisco — and that desire simply never went away. He has talked to a whole lot of people he respects, including a couple of prominent nationwide figures, and they essentially told him he was out of his mind — not because of San Francisco, but because of what they see happening here at Redemption. And yet Justin has gone back and forth; it has been very hard for him.

This is difficult for us as well. This is an expensive move, and Justin has been a key contributor, especially on the Arcadia and Tempe campuses. But this is also, I think, part of what happens when you hold something loosely, as we said from the beginning that we would. We said when we announced the church and started last January that after nine or ten months, or a year, we were going to learn some things and probably restructure and move some things around. This particular development wasn't on the radar screen then, but here we are.

Holding People Loosely

One of the things you learn quickly in church planting is that you have to hold your people loosely — those who attend, those who serve, those who lead. When I watched the video yesterday, I wrote down Acts chapter 20. In that passage, Paul is on his third missionary journey, and he is meeting with the elders in Ephesus to say goodbye. What we see in that scene are tears and prayer, and Paul charging them, telling them, "I never shrank from teaching you the whole truth."

I guarantee there was a moment where someone said, "Paul, you're getting older, you've been here three years, the ministry is really moving along — what do you think about staying?" And you can tell from the emotion in that passage that he had a deep affinity for those people. But he said no. This is what God has called him to do. And I can read that passage and trace the same thing in Justin's life.

I don't want to pretend this isn't going to be costly for us. But I can already sit back and ask: who was not surprised by this? God was not surprised by this. About six or eight months ago, maybe a little longer, we sent Ricardo from here over to Tempe. Three or four months ago, we sent Tyler over to Arcadia, where he will serve as an interim while we aggressively pursue the man who will become the permanent teaching pastor there. Ricardo has already assumed his role in Tempe and has brought real ministry and leadership to that church, and we are so happy for that.

An Exciting Announcement

The timing is a little off — I wish I could have held this off two weeks — but this ties in very well to what I want to say on the 16th, so you need to be with us that day. What Justin has asked for is clear: he needs prayer. He and Emily and Lily and Cole — Cole is now about six or eight weeks old — are heading up to a place that is not just tough but hostile. Church planting is difficult even when everyone is on board and you are starting with a full team. When you are starting with essentially two people, maybe another couple, that is extraordinarily hard.

So pray. If you know people in the Bay Area who might be interested, or people who are happy in their church but open to connection, we are not necessarily looking to pull them away from where they are. We want Justin to begin building a network, and we have already started that with the people we know, but we need many more. You can help with that.

It may even be that right now you are working for a company that is getting ready to transfer you up to the Bay Area, and one of the things standing in the way is not wanting to leave your church. Well, you can take your church with you — Justin will be there. We will give you the dates and times of informational meetings, because some of you are going to want to hear more about it, to know better how to pray and be part of it. Some of you may also want to be financially involved.

What This Costs and What It Means

Once you take a breath, what you see is how remarkable this really is. When I said this is going to be expensive, I did not mean only money, though money is always part of it. I mean people. And it has been costly already. So we are going to talk about that on the 16th. What it means for all of you is that you need to step up — not just because Justin is moving on, but because of all the needs we are going to see as God opens doors.

Every time we plant, even within the valley, hundreds of people and dozens of leaders go with it, depending on the proximity. Every time I visit one of the other campuses — I taught at Tempe the other night — I see around fifty people who used to attend here and now worship there, for the right reasons. I sat with a woman who said, "I go there because it is closer to my house and my unbelieving friends. I could never get them to Gilbert, but we can walk to this." Those are genuinely good things.

God is doing something really special, and we are excited about it. Church planting is a key part of it, and our philosophy of planting is a demanding one. We will talk more about that on the 16th, so be praying. This is exciting news, and we are thrilled that God is at work in this way.

Closing Prayer

Father, thank You for the amazing truths and the great work that You do. God, remind us that following You is a narrow, hard, demanding way, but it leads to life. Help us grapple with that. What is the profit if we gain the whole world and lose our soul? God, help us understand that You call us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow You.

God, help us do that with Your Spirit and Your strength. We pray to You in Christ's name, amen.