LIFE Lessons: "Influencers"

Sermon Transcript:

Your pastor and I send it on to El Paso right about the same time. I got here in October, and he hurried up and got behind me, came here in November of 2019. And we got here just in time for COVID. I mean, right? It was one of those things we just got going and then ministry started going and all of a sudden it was like you're not here. You're about to hear about COVID. Right. Thank you for having me here. Well, today, I want to talk to you a little bit about influencers. And I know that's a topic today that's mostly for young people. I swear the influencers today are getting younger and younger, right? Or are we getting older and older? I prefer the first we're getting they're getting younger and younger. No, none of us are getting older and older, right? But I want to let you know the more influence that comes into your life by whatever person place or thing, you will start to gravitate towards that. Whatever that is in your life. And you may not think while I'm just I'm telling you, when you have influence in your life, you do things and it impacts who you are. And so I wanted to kind of just go over a little couple statistics with you. So you can understand where I'm gonna come from today. The number one influencer in the world that has the most Instagram followers, you probably already know this, but it's Kylie Jenner. She has 399 Instagram followers. Do we have 99 million Excuse me? I think I got 399 399 million Instagram followers. She has 200. Her sister Kendall has 294 million followers. So she has 100 million less followers. So the price between first place and second place, not even close. She has a lot more followers. Kylie has 54 million Tik Tok followers. But this is the statistic that I just blew my mind is that she has 1.2 billion likes. So obviously people are watching her stuff. Kylie Jenner is the most influential person today in the world of social media influencers. But there's a price to be paid. She can't go out into public by herself without an entourage. She probably has to stay at home a lot. They give up a lot to be popular. Well, Paso has a really huge influence. They have a couple but one that's the that's the most Instagram followers. Her name is Ashley solace. She does makeup personal. And she has 672,000 Instagram followers. So if you're one of those, you're helping her out. She's getting rich off of you,

or you've all the likes and clicks and all that and she gets all that right. You may be wondering why what's this guy up? You're telling me about influences. You may be here to say I don't really care about that stuff.

Why did I come to church today? What are we doing here? Well, I want you to be aware of how influenced of people that we are. We are very influenced by the things that we put into our life. They impact who we are even as pastors, we listen to certain pastors, we listen to certain music, we listen to certain things. We read certain topics. We're impacted on how we ministered to people with what we put in our life.

But I want you to understand our biblical text this morning. As popular as these worldly influencers are, they're unable to keep up with Jesus. You know that Jesus has 2.1 8 billion followers all over the globe today.

1/3 and 1/3 of the population believes that Jesus Christ is the King of kings in the Lord of lords. Now, I guess a lot of work for us to do because two thirds of the world doesn't believe that. But 2.1 8 billion followers, he's the greatest influencer of our time. His name is Jesus. That's Believe it or not, is 1.7 billion more followers than Kylie Jenner doesn't hold a candle to Jesus. So I want to get to our text this morning. So you came here to hear what God's Word says and I want you to understand. We'll put it all in the context for you. I'm going to be reading from Mark chapter 10. Mark chapter 10. And I'm going to begin in verse 23. And I'm gonna read down through verse 31. Now, a lot of times I like to say, you know, if you have your Bible or your app or whatever, I want you to open it up, and let's look at it for yourself. I've always tried, I've always wanted to do this. We didn't do that today. But when I was pastoring, and I started the church too. I've always wanted to put the wrong text up on the screen. Just so you can see how I can dupe you into believing that's what the text says. So that's why it's always good for you to follow along to make sure To help keep me accountable, because trust me there are times we got it all electronically, we put it in there. And it's like I've said the wrong address to what that text is, it happens. This is Mark chapter 10, verses 23. Through 31, says Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, how hard is it for the rich to enter the kingdom of God? How hard it is, excuse me how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God, this amaze them. But Jesus said, again, dear children, it is very hard to enter the kingdom of God. In fact, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples were astounded. Listen to the question they asked, then who can be saved in this world who in the world can be saved? Jesus looked at them intently and says humanly speaking, it is impossible, but not with God. Everything is possible with God. Then Peter began to speak up. We've given up everything to follow you. He said. Yes, Jesus replied. And I assure you that everyone who has given up house or brothers or sisters, or mother, or father or children or poverty, for my sake, and for the good news, will receive them and return 100 times as many houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and property, along with persecution. Now, I was good with the first list. And then he threw that in, along with persecution. And then the world to come, that person will have eternal life. But many who are the greatest now will be the least important then and those who seem least important now will be the greatest, then what do you bow your head and pray with me as we pray for God's word to impact our lives. And Father, God, we come this morning thanking you for all that you do for us. We thank you that we can look to you turn to your word, and understand how we ought to live in this world. And so God we're grateful for all the blessings that you've given each one of us. But today, God tune our ears towards you. Bend our hearts towards you. Let us lean in and understand what it is you have for us to take today. In Christ's name I pray, amen. My first point is being an influencer is hard work. Being an influencer is hard work. Only a few make it to that elite status of social media giants known as the influencer. It takes a lot of hard work. In verse 23 of our texts. Jesus said this about influencers, he said, people with lots of earthly riches, will have a hard time entering the kingdom of God. Why would Jesus say that? Why did he say that? I mean, we all have we are rich compared to most of the world as a people in the United States. Why would Jesus say that? He said it because the riches of this world can blind us into believing that this is all there is. When we are blessed beyond measure, when we God has given us so many blessings it can. It can distract us from what the real goal of our life is. And that's to influence others with who Jesus is in our life. It becomes an obstacle to follow Christ. It was believed that a rich person was blessed by God, everybody that had a lot of stuff back in that culture, they believe God was blessing them. Let me say this before we go a little bit farther, all riches are a blessing from God. He does bless us with a lot of stuff here. It's when you believe that only those riches are for people that are blessed. And as if those that don't have them are not. And that was the belief of that culture. And I think we sometimes believe that in our life today. Well, they must want to be out on the street or they must want to be like that, or maybe they don't want a better job. You know, you don't know people stories. People have their own stories. Everybody has a story. Jesus's disciples were not rich. They were from everyday walks of life. They were the blue collar workers of the day. That's who they were. They were fishermen. When you listen to some preachers today, they try to sell us a prosperity gospel. Let me just say this as bluntly as I can, God's Kingdom is not for sale. Well, if I was preaching the truth, I'd say Amen, right then it's okay. You can respond. God's Kingdom is not for sale. It's not for sale. You cannot tell me that you can sit up here and tell me if God is gonna bless you. He's gonna bless you and riches, and therefore you're going to have the kingdom of God. That is not what the Word of God teaches. His kingdom is not for sale. Verses 24 and 25. Jesus goes on and amazes everyone when he says this. Remember, he said it's hard for the rich man. And then he says it's very hard. Not just hard, but very hard for a person of wealth to enter God's kingdom, he compared the difficulty to a camel entering into the eye of a needle. Now some people have that have done a commentaries on the Bible said there was a gate called the the eye of the eye of the needle. But that's not true. I've done a lot of studies on that there was never a gate called that. He was trying to say this is a large animal. And this is a small thing. Getting into the kingdom of God because of who you are and what your riches are. It's very difficult for that large animal to go through the amount of fact, he says it's impossible is not going to happen. You compare the difficulty of a camel going through the eye of a needle, a camel, going through the eye of a needle, it makes no sense does it? Doesn't it? The large animal passing through that hole can't be done your hair today and trusting in the riches that God has blessed you with to gain access to Jesus, it's not going to happen. The only way you have access to Jesus is by believing by faith, that he is who he says he is. And what did Jesus say he is He is the Son of God, and He is the Savior of the world. I have come to save sinners from themselves is what Jesus does for us. In verse 26 of our text, the hearers of this proclamation think, well, then no one's going to be able to make it they say they actually question Who in the world can be saved? And how are those possible that anybody can come to Christ, if not by that. And Matthew 19, verses 21 and 22. This is Matthew's text on the same story. And he says this, Jesus told them, If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me. He was talking to a young man and he said this, but the young man heard this, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions. I know it's hard. When you come to Christ, sometimes you lose things, you might even lose your family, you might lose influence of who you thought your followers, your followers were because they don't believe what you believe. When the influence of this world convince us that the wealth is the key to life. And we're told that we'll have a hard time being influenced by the one who can truly give you life. It's going to be hard. He will does want to be the top influencer in your life, he does be the one to be the one that you read the most, that you watch the most, that you take heart the most. But he won't share his influence with somebody else's influence in your life. He's not going to share His glory with anyone. It's Jesus and him alone. If you're here today, I want to I just want to talk to you a little bit. Would you try to make Jesus the most popular influence in your life? Would you try to think about what do I really get out of coming to church? And how am I letting the influence in my life impact others?

If you're just coming to church on Sunday, the rest of the time is going to be harder throughout the week, you have to understand what God's word says to us and speaks to us so that we can tell others about the Kingdom of God. My second point has been influenced by Jesus changes your destiny, it changes your destiny. And the last couple of verses are 27 through 31 Tex Tex agenda, different direction. And this another mind blowing statement by Jesus as everyone up in arms. He says humanly speaking, it's impossible, but not with God. Everything is possible. So sometimes we drink the Kool Aid, you know what that term means, right? We drink the stuff that people are selling us. We drink it that tells us how to be happy in life, how to have blessings in life, how to have riches in life, how to gain followers in this life, right? You will be disappointed with the results. I promise you. Because that's not what life is about. It will disappoint you. nothing or no one can guarantee you happiness or success or riches. Nobody can promise that to you. Nothing can do that for you. I don't care who has your eye or your ear. They cannot guarantee anything. It makes them rich when you follow them, not you. They're the ones getting rich off of your following off of you being influenced by them. They're the ones that are living that life. There's nothing in all humanity that can change your destiny of eternal security except for Jesus. Because he said, if you look after those things, he said, It's impossible, humanly speaking. I don't know about you, but the greatest influencer in the world, just made a bold proclamation. He said, It's impossible, humanly speaking. And then Jesus says this,

but not with God. If you go back to Genesis, one of the most famous quotes from all of the texts in Genesis he says, But God,

but God, but God. So Jesus is trying to teach us a really life lesson here. And he says, Listen, everything that you're trying to do, humanly speaking, you're never going to reach that destination. You're never gonna get there because it's humanly impossible. But he says, I have the answer for you. And he says, but not with God. This same text and the Message Bible says this, in verse 27, Jesus was blunt, no chance at all. If you think you can pull it off by yourself, every chance in the world. If you let God do it, every chance in the world if you let God do it, he says, it's not going to happen doing it by yourself in verse 28 of our texts, we can always count on Peter having something to say if you if you've read any part of the New Testament, Peters lace, then through all over the place. And he says these things all the time that are just, you're just thinking, Peter, what are you talking about? And he says this. We've given up everything to follow You, Jesus. Now, if you know, back in Matthew's account of the color of the disciples, Peter and his brother were fishing, and he told him, Hey, lay down your nets and come follow me. And they did immediately. And so for Peter, I think he thinks he thought giving up his livelihood, or giving up what he did to go follow. Jesus was giving up everything. The fact is, Peter still had a house, Peter still had a wife, and he's still fish, because Jesus told him, Go get some fish for us all the time. So it's not like he had to give up all those things. What he had to do was give up control of those things over to God. And that's what he was trying to say is like, Jesus, I've given up everything. And Jesus was so patient with Peter, wasn't he? He never only one time that he tell him Get behind Me, Satan. And that was because Peter was just talking nonsense, foolishness. And sometimes we talk foolishness to God. And we say things that we shouldn't say to God. No one ever said, being under the influence of Jesus was easy. It's not. Can we just be honest, this morning, being a follower of Christ, and today's culture is very difficult. But Be blessed that you live in a country that allows you to follow Jesus. There are those that don't. The difference between following today's type of influencer, all you have to do is follow with no commitment. Just like their page, watch their videos, zero commitment. The thing about following Jesus, though, it takes a commitment. You have to give up something to follow him. And in reality, what you're giving up is control over who you are, and go to putting it under the control and the influence of Jesus Christ. He says, I want to be more like you Jesus, following Jesus requires a commitment. That's why even though he has over 2 billion followers, there are over 4 billion people that aren't following him 6 billion, actually, there's almost 8 billion people on the planet today. We don't have enough we have the right numbers. Verse 29, of our text, Jesus replies to Peter statement. It says, We have given up everything to follow, you know, one can imply that he literally no longer has these things. When Peter was claiming this, I'm following you, as a priority in my life is That's what Peter was trying to say, is I've given up everything and I've prioritized you in my life. Now you're telling me that I can't do these things. I can't attain eternal life. But that's his what he felt like that God was showing him through this text. That's how much God loved him is that he said, with God. All things are possible with God. Sometimes when a person decides to believe in Jesus, they lose their family. I already said that earlier. They lose who they are. If you're another religion, another denomination, and God leads you to do something different. You could end up lose Seeing your family, they could actually disown you. And I think that's why Peter was saying, Man, we gave up everything to follow you, even at the cost of my family. In verse 30, Jesus says that the gain that we gain much more than we lose, we gain more houses, more children, more livestock more everything because we follow Christ. Jesus mentions one more thing that we gain when we follow Jesus. Like I said, I liked the first part of that. And then he says, You also gain persecution. I was like, why did he have to put that in there? It was going so well. But listen, if you're going to be a true follower of Christ, people are going to make fun of you. People are not going to like some of your posts. People aren't going to like not like who you are. People are gonna say, Why do you go to church? Why do you even follow that Pastor more at your church life? Church? Why? What is he ever done for you? I'll tell you what your pastor done for you. He's given his life to the call to exhort the Word of God to you, every week, upon every week. And he says, This is who we can be if we just follow Christ. If we allow the Holy Spirit to influence our lives, we can be who God has called us to be. It's not easy in this culture to be what I deem a Jesus freak. Because man, you're looked at as weird and different. When we really think about it, we're the ones that ought to be doing the influencing in this world, right? We're the ones that should be doing it. In verse 30, Jesus promises eternal life. That's why we do it. He says, there's this comparison of influence the temporary life versus the eternal life, the temporary life is so easy to attain, you can gain riches and gain all the degrees you want and be this great influencer in this culture today. And yet it amounts to nothing when you stand before a holy God to give an account for the life that you live, if you have no Jesus in your life. Eternal is hard work. It's hard to convince a non believing family that Jesus is the way especially like us, we came to Christ in our 20s. And it took a lot of work to convince our family that we were following the True JESUS. Years and years and years, we live in such an instant world instant gratification, we find it very difficult to do that we give up so easily. Well, I told them once, they didn't want Jesus. So that's it. That's not who we are, as people in verse 31, sums up our sermon today. But many of you who are the greatest now will be the least important, then he's talking about the eternal life. And those who seem least important now, and that's us, as believers, sometimes we're the least important person in the room. He says, it'll be the greatest, then today's influencers are great for the here, and now. They do a lot of good stuff for this world. We're not they're not looking at eternity. Everyone knows them. They're famous. Those that choose to be Jesus influencers must follow Jesus, and be the ones doing the influencing. So this morning, you may be asking pastor, how do I do that? How do I have influence over people? When I myself am questioning whether Jesus is influencing me? It's a good question, right? It's a very good question of the day is Jesus Christ, the biggest influencer in your life? Because if he is, then it will be very simple to influence others. Because I promise you the other things that are influencing your life, you're having impact on other people's lives, because those things are coming out, and who you are. We have to switch our influencing or influencers who come into our life to Jesus. So what does that look like? How do you go about being coming one? Everything depends on how committed you are to Jesus. Have you truly given your entire life to Jesus? Because I think a lot of times in life we think about, I just want to go to heaven. Right? I just don't want to go to that place they call Hal. Because they say that's gonna be a spooky place a bad place. I don't want to be part of that place. I want to go to the place that we're going to be doing what we did this morning. Clap clapping and praising God, I want to be in that place. But some people some of us think that that's all there is. We're gonna just go to heaven. And in the meantime, we're just here. I want to let you in on a little secret. Your eternity starts the day you ask Jesus to be the Lord of your life. That's the day that you get saved. And it's not because of Heaven was the the ultimate goal you would go immediately to heaven as soon as you've said yes to Jesus, but because he leaves you here, he says, I have worked for you to be done. I need you to influence this world for me. He started with 12 disciples, and it turned the world upside down. We're here because we have letters, and documentation, and Holy Spirit, and churches that have been influenced by those first original 12 that Jesus sent out into the world. And look at what he's doing 2.1 8 billion followers of Jesus.

But it takes commitment to follow him. Sometimes I think, as parents, I say this all the time, I learned it from Josh McDowell. We tell our kids to behave.

Just go over there you go, that party, don't mess up my name, because you gotta get my last name. Right? You know who you are. Just behave? Well, we ought to be telling our kids and we ought to be telling our family is to believe because behavior could never impact how you believe. You can't behave your way to belief. But you can believe your way to behavior. If you believe that Jesus is the Savior of the world, it'll be automatic that you want to be the best behaved person that there is not perfect. I'm not saying that. But so many times we're too busy trying to behave our way to our belief. That's not what Jesus said. He said, You have to believe first. And then you can behave. Sunday's are great. Pastor delivers a message that can kickstart our week. I don't know if you know this, but Sunday is actually the first day of the week. If you look at your calendar, it's always Sunday. It's never Monday, even though we're convinced that it's Monday, because that's when we all go to work, right? Sunday's the first day of the week, and we come to church, and we worship God and we kick start our week off, so that we can understand who he is so that we can live for him. But what do you do? What do we do in the middle in between, because we have six more days before, we're going to come back to this place of worship again. We got to be under the influence of Jesus, influence the Holy Spirit, we have to read His Word. Your pastor can't do that for you every day. Even if you even if he did podcast every day, it wouldn't be enough. He's not Jesus. He's only going to try to point you to the one who is Amen. And don't ever forget that about him. We put a lot of pressure on our pastors to become Jesus for us. Jesus doesn't need pastor Moore's help. He's using him in his kingdoms for influence. But listen, Jesus is an influencer on his own, we have the text to prove it, the most popular influences that the whole time that has been put into your heart, mind and soul is Jesus Christ. Don't ever forget that. And so today, I want to ask you, do you need Jesus to be the Lord of your life? who's influencing your life? It's easy to tell, all you got to do is remember, what's the last thing you've done? Even before you came to church, a lot of people were on Tiktok, watching whatever, before they even got to church, there was no preparation to come into this place. We did all the things we wanted to do. And now we want to go now Jesus changed my life in 30 minutes. And then I'm gonna go out and live the rest of my hours on my own. It doesn't work that way. So I want to ask you this morning, who you've been influenced by? And the better question is, Who are you influencing because God has given you a sphere of influence, for you to give impact to for the people that he's put in your life. And all the things that we put into our life are going to come out during our relationships of those people. And so we ourselves have to be under the influence of Jesus, to be able to influence others for Jesus, Amen. So this morning, I'm going to ask you, I'm gonna, I'm gonna close in a word of prayer. But as we're praying, I want you to think about this. How is my life with Jesus? How am I impacted with Jesus? Am I really living for Him? Do I really have a relationship with him? Or did I just want Jesus so I can go to heaven. I mean, that's a great perk. eternal destiny with him is great. But you have a whole life to live here while you're on this planet, to be the influencer that he's called you to be. So do whatever God has called you to do. But I want you to be as we pray, think about your personal life. Do you have a relationship with the true living God that I was talking about from the scriptures? Or are you relying on other stuff? Maybe you're relying on your behavior? Maybe you're saying, well, I'll just do a lot of good things so that when I get there, it'll outweigh all the bad things that I've done. That's not why he went to the cross. When Jesus Christ spread his arms out and he died for your sins. He said, I went there because I wanted to die for you. I wanted to give you life. I gave my life so that you would have life That's the influence that he has on you. So I'm going to pray. And if you need to ask Jesus to be the Lord of your life today, for the very first time, so you know what, Pastor? I've been trying this and I've been trying that, but I've never really tried Jesus. Would you ask Jesus to come into your life today, I'm going to be out in the foyer with Pastor Moore. And we're going to have a song here in a minute. But just stop by and say, You know what, pastor? I want to know more who about who Jesus is, as pastor more pastor more, I want to ask Jesus to be the Lord of my life. We will pray with you right then and there. And I know sometimes in a church, they have people come forward. And I don't know what what God is doing in your heart today. If you feel like you need to come and pray, you come and do that. Just kneel here. This is what we call an altar. This is not the actual altar. But we make this our altar because we kneel before a holy God. And we say, I want to do business with you, God, I want to get my life right with you, God. So let me pray for you. And while the band plays the song, whatever you need to do, get right with God. Okay? God, thank you for this time this morning. I thank you for your word. And I thank you that we don't have to rely on our own strength and our own riches to get to heaven, to have an eternal life with you. And God, I pray that you're the greatest influencer amongst us, in our hearts and in our lives. And I pray that as we come this morning, God, deciding for ourselves, who we want to be the Lord of our lives. I pray this morning God that there will be people moved in this place, an audience, this big God, there are people here that have never surrendered their life and heart to you. And so this morning, God, I'm asking you by the power of the Holy Spirit to do so, to allow them to speak those words, that say in Romans chapter 10, verse nine and 10, that will just confess You, Jesus as our Lord, that will have an eternal relationship with you that if I believed that you were raised from the dead after you were killed on a cross, that we would be saved. God, I'm so glad those passages are there for us. We confess with our mouth, we believe in our heart. And it's because of that we are saved. We're trusting in your influence in our life, not someone else's. And so God this morning as we can to conclude this service. I pray that there are many here that need to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior, and that aren't afraid to say, That's me. Jesus, I need you. And so Father God move in their lives, to move from their seats from where they're at. Christ's name I pray, amen.