I'm so excited to be with you all. We are in a series called Discipleship 101. Discipleship 101, and we're talking about what it means to be better disciples of Jesus Christ. To my right, your left are just some of my disciples. I just decided to bring them with me this weekend. It'll make more sense as we get deeper into the message while they're here with me today. If you have your Bibles, I want you to go to the Gospel according to Saint Mark.

The Gospel according to Mark, Chapter Number 8. I only want to read two verses in your hearing and then we'll pray and see what the Lord might say to us. Gospel according to Saint Mark, Chapter 8, the 34th and the 35th verse. Here's what it says, "Then--" Anytime you see the word "then," that means there was something before that. I'll actually go back and address before that because it's like we just started in the middle of a movie.

"Then calling the crowd to join His disciples, He said, 'If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow Me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for My sake and for the sake of the good news, you will save it.'" I want you to pay close attention to the 34th verse, "Then calling the crowd to join His disciples, He said--"

"Then calling the crowd to join His original 12 disciples, He said, 'If any of you wants to be My follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow Me.'" It is my assignment to preach from the subject today. Will there be one more? Will there be one more? Is there one more? Is it the way the articles used to go? In the churches that I grew up in, somebody would give their lives to Jesus. At the end, before they would move on, the preacher would say, "Is there one more? To give a chance before we all go eat some chicken, is there one more?" Let's just pray before we get into the word, shall we? Holy Spirit, give us one more, amen.

The Gospel according to Mark is an interesting, fascinating commentary because John Mark is not actually a direct disciple of Jesus. He does not have the eyewitness testimony like Matthew did last week. He does not have this personalized depiction of how it was to come to Jesus. John Mark is actually a disciple of a disciple. He's not been with Jesus. He's just been with somebody that has been with Jesus.

That's the way it is going for the last 2,000 years because after His death, burial, and resurrection, His ascension back into glory to sit on the right hand of the Father daily making intercession for us, the way that we are still talking about Jesus to this day has been because disciples have encountered disciples who have been with Jesus and become their disciples. It's been an amazing thing that me and my friends are disciples of Jesus Christ. None of us met Jesus. None of us have a first witness testimony that Jesus got up from the grave, but all of us have the Holy Spirit on the inside of us and the Holy Spirit is the one that has testified that Jesus has risen from the dead and He is alive today.

What I love about John Mark's narrative is that John Mark is a disciple of Peter. Peter had been with Jesus, John Mark had not, but Peter over and over and over again told stories about the things that happened when he was with Jesus and Mark being a good disciple took notes. How many good note-takers do we have in the building? Yes. Real high. Raise your real high if you take notes. That's right. Nerds rule the world.

If you're a nerd, you should lift your hand up really, really high. Real high, real high, real high. Now, keep that hand up. Look to your left and right for the people that are not raising their hands. They work for nerds.

Nerds indeed rule the world. Mark is feverishly writing notes about the oral commentary that Peter is providing. When Peter gets killed, it is the Roman believers that ask Mark to write it down. He writes down 16 chapters. It's the shortest book of all the gospels. I'm sure Mark was a younger person. Just did not have time for all the details. He was like, "He was alive."

Matthew's gospels has 28 chapters. Mark's has 16. Luke has 24. John has 21. Mark is sitting here with 16 chapters going, "That's enough. I've said everything that I needed to say." He says it so well that it is Matthew that sources Mark's gospel and it is Luke that sources Mark's gospel and here it is, this testimony of Jesus Christ and what it means to be a disciple from a guy that wasn't even a direct disciple of Jesus. May no one in this room fall into the trap of thinking you have to be connected to the person to get a revelation of the person.

John Mark says, "Then," turning to his disciples, which makes you wonder what happened before then. What happens before then is that Peter tells John Mark what it was like to give the revelation of Jesus Christ. Preceding what I just read was the story of Jesus asking His 12 disciples, "Who do men say that I am? Some say John the Baptist, some say Elias, some say one of the other prophets, but who do you say I am?" This is Peter back here. "The Messiah." "Who am I?" "The Messiah." "Woah, Peter. Flesh and blood did not reveal that to you. My Father in heaven revealed that to you." Peter tells John this.

Peter tells Mark, not John. Peter tells Mark that, "I'm the one that got the revelation of who Jesus was." That's an amazing thing. I would tell that to everybody I knew. To this day, I would be like, "Do you want to know who knew first? It was me." Remember, John Mark is not writing down anything other than what Peter has told him. Peter is the one that told John Mark that, "I got the revelation that Jesus Christ was Lord," but I love Peter's transparency because he does not stop there.

He also says, "Now, I got to tell you something embarrassing. After I told Jesus that He was the Messiah, He told us that He was going to have to die for all of us and, man, this is so embarrassing. I don't even want to tell you, bro, but I literally pulled Jesus to the side and I reprimanded Him. I told Jesus, 'Just come here over me real quick. Don't You ever say that again as long as You live.'"

"'Now, listen, man, You are the son of God and I don't want to hear no more talk about You dying. I got a sword. You're not dying. They go die."

"Sir, You're not going nowhere. If it'd come down between sharing Your blood and sharing their blood, I'm telling You right now, I'm poking on."

Jesus has to correct the guy that just got a revelation of who He is. Now, before you judge Peter and go, "I would have never done that," isn't it amazing the expectations that we can put on God and when we don't like the way things are going, we want to have a talk with Him about it? Do I have at least 10 people besides me that have ever gone to your prayer closet and you didn't go in there to pray, you went in there to have a meeting with your daddy?

You walked in there and you closed the prayer closet and it was not going to be a war room today. You said, "Sir, I'm not sure if You heard me last week, but I told You, I need some help. Now, you've helped all my other friends. They're posting testimonies on Facebook as we speak. What I'm going to need You to do--" Have you ever noticed that when you get quiet, correction comes.

I love Peter's transparency because Peter has to tell John Mark that Jesus called him Satan. "John Mark, He looks straight at me like He was looking through me and He went, 'Get thee behind Me, Satan.' I was like, 'Do I get to keep the Revelation or-- Please don't tell me Thomas gets it now, I just--'" He told the truth. After this correction, comes this invitation. See, you can't take Christ's revelation without taking Christ's correction.

If you're going to take His revelation, you have to be prepared to take His rebuke. That's the tension that we hold as believers in Jesus Christ. One day, we can be getting it so good and it's so clear and we can hear Him so clearly. The next day, He has to tell us to shut up. You have now gone too far. Your post yesterday was great. Delete this one. You've gone too far. Your scripture was amazing, but the way you talked to your wife wasn't. You've gone too far.

You had a great prayer for your child, but you didn't have good words for your child when they came home late. You've gone too far. Anybody besides me ever gone too far? John's writing down the transparency of Peter. Peter tells him, he says, "After He corrected me, after He rebuked me, He turned to the crowd." Jesus talking to His 12 disciples, Peter has that great revelation. Peter is like, "Hey, you didn't need to say that anymore." Can you imagine in front of everybody? "Get behind Me, Satan." All the rest of the disciples are like, "Whew."

Peter said, "That's why I'm standing in the back." He was embarrassed. After Jesus has finished talking to his 12 disciples, get this revelation, a pop quiz is over, He then turns to the crowd. He's with His disciples. Now, He's with the crowd. He's with His disciples. Now, He's with the crowd. In just a turn, Jesus goes from disciples to a crowd. When facing the crowd, He is not simply facing the crowd to speak. He is facing the crowd to invite. He never turns from His disciples to the crowd simply to talk to the crowd.

Every time He talks to the crowd, He's given an invitation for them to join His disciples. "I chose these 12, but you all won't be enough. In order for this to still be relevant 2,000 years from now, we're going to need way more than you all. Because as amazing as you are and as much purpose and potential that I've placed on the inside of you, you're going to die. If you don't put what's in you into someone else, then no one is going to hear the stories of what I've done."

He turns from His disciples to the crowd and He says to them, "If you guys want to be My followers like these people, I have three prerequisites. You have to give up your selfish ways. You're going to have to pick up and take up your cross and you're going to have to follow Me wherever I go." Now, He doesn't need to make this invitation to these 12 because they've already done that.

We talked about last week that Matthew actually quit his job in the middle of work, jumped out the tax booth to follow Jesus. Peter, James, John, and Andrew have their best day fishing and they cast their nets aside, quit their job before even tallying the money they got from the fish to follow Jesus. Phillip was under a tree minding his business, starts following Jesus. There's political people following Jesus. There's non-political people following Jesus. Jesus is not trying to make a pretty composite of disciples.

He's just looking for anyone and everyone that will do these three things and follow Him. First thing He says is, "You're going to have to give up your selfish ways." Woo. Can I admit something to you all without being judged? I have some selfish ways. I like stuff. Because I like the stuff that I like, I don't want to share it. When I got married to Juliet, I did not know my wife is half-Jamaican, half-Bahamian. She's a Caribbean girl. She was born in the States, but her whole mindset is Caribbean and I am really American.

I'm talking like I'm real American. We sat down at the dinner table and I saw a weird thing happening at the dinner table. Everybody from her side of the family was trying to offer their food before they even took a bite. "Would you like a piece of my-- Would you like a-- I ordered this, would you like a-- Can you give me a little? Cut that off and put it on my plate." I'm watching this whole thing go around and I'm like, "No. Why would anyone ever do this? It's not normal."

Everybody then turned around after offering each other stuff from their plate and looked at me.

I just looked back and I said, "If you wanted what I have on my plate, you should have ordered it. I don't know what to tell you. It's good." "Can I have a bite?" "You should have ordered it. I'm not giving you a bite. I'm not married to all you, just her. We will address this when we get home."

Anybody beside me got some selfish ways? Here's what Jesus says, "In order to follow Me, you must give them up. Hand over your whole plate." "I want to bite. I want the plate." You have to give up your selfish ways, your own agenda, your own plan. I know you want it to go this way, but He says go that way. I went to school and studied administration of justice. I wanted to be a homicide detective. That's what I wanted to do.

My mother worked for the LAPD for 30 years and I gave my life to Jesus. He says, "I want you to preach," and I'm like, "No, no, I don't like preachers. I do not have time for them," and then he makes me one because my ways compared to His ways become selfish in His presence. "God, I want to go this way," and He goes, "No, we're going that way." Now, this way is selfish. Will I give it up to follow Him? They did.

When He pivots from His disciples to the crowd, He's asking them to do the same thing they did. They've given up their selfish ways. Dreams they had from children, purposes they had for their own life, plans they had made for themselves, they've given them up to follow Jesus. Selfish ways got to go, then He says, "Not only do you have to give up your selfish ways, you have to take up your cross."

This is pre-crucifixion, so imagine how this sounds. "Are You saying we have to die for You?" Yes, not in the way you think. It's basically a metaphor. "I'm going to literally die for you. What I'm going to need you to do is figuratively die for Me. I'm going to need you to die to your will. We're going to need you to die to your way. I'm going to need you to die to your agenda. I'm going to need you to die to the thing that you thought this look like to you."

"You're going to have to pick up your cross. Even physical element, I'm going to tell you to pick up your cross. Generational curse, I'm going to tell you through My power and your weakness, I will be strong, pick up your cross. I'm going to tell you that on the days that you don't feel like serving Me to serve Me any way, pick up your cross. I'm going to tell you that on the days that is not going to be popular to be a believer, I still need you to pick up your cross." If it means the job or Me, pick up your cross. If it means a relationship or Me, pick up your cross."

"If it means your family or Me, pick up your cross and follow Me." They're following thing, woo. They're following thing. I just want you to imagine following Jesus. You all know where you're going. We just follow Him. You got to remember, there were no automobiles. We got to remember who this was written to in the time that it was written in. There were no cars. They weren't even on donkeys. Everywhere they went, they went to get there walking. Sometimes for miles. Can you just imagine following a guy? You quit your job to follow this person. "Where are we going?" "I don't know."

Last week, we got on a boat. When we got to the other side, there was a naked man who was demon-possessed and this is the only reason why we went there. This man is crazy. When you follow Jesus, you don't know where you're going to wind up. I gave my life to Jesus, January 14th of 1996. I shared that last week. Now, I'm a native Southern California, born and raised, Inglewood, two miles from the Great Western Forum where the Great Lake Show Lakers played. I'm talking Magic and Kareem, shorts this short, socks this high. I'm talking about manly basketball where you could get your orbital bone broken and they still went to the free-throw line eyeball hanging off the side just--

I was supposed to come to Texas for 30 days and visit my family from out here because our whole Ross family emanates from East Texas. I was supposed to come for 30 days and then go back home. Two days before I left, the Holy Spirit said, "Buy one-way ticket to Dallas." That's how I got to Texas. The Holy Spirit said, "Buy one-way ticket to Dallas." I got to tell you, I did not want to come to Texas. I cried as soon as He said that to me. My parents raised $400 from their church and bought me a one-way Greyhound bus ticket. Do you hear the words coming out of my mouth?

I did not say a Southwest flight. I did not mention a buddy pass. It was a Greyhound bus, two and a half days.

We didn't stop just at the bus stops. These people stopped for smoke breaks, but He said Texas, so I came. I had no clue you all were a part of this situation. In 1997, He said Texas and I followed. I followed Him to the death of my brother in 2004. I followed Him through dark days in my marriage, in my personal life, in economic times, and financial situations. I've just followed Him.

He decides to recruit after a rebuke. It's to recruit after the rebuke. I wonder, is there one more? When I got 12, but I'm going to need some more. They're going to do some amazing things. The gospel won't go literally around the world unless I have. I'm going to need more than 12 basically what I'm saying. Is there one more? Do I have at least one more person that would say, as scary as that entry-level is, "I will give up my selfish ways, take up my cross, and follow Jesus"?

Now, when I was preparing for this message, I see the Bible more than I read it. I saw some pictures come to my mind and they were so crazy. One of them was this right here. I was like, "I'm going to need 12 people to just stand on the stage." They were like, "Got it." I was like, "Okay," then I said the second thing I'm going to do at the end of my message is I'm going to give an appeal to see if there would be one more person that would want to join my friends to become a disciple of Jesus.

Let me say something as respectfully as I can to all campuses. There's a lot of people that have given their life to Jesus, but you're not a disciple. You're still as selfish as the day you met Him. You have yet to pick up your cross. You really don't want to follow Him unless it's convenient for you. I was following Him around the block, but when He made a left on Kimball, I was like, "Oh God, Kimball?"

I was following down Kimball, but then he made a right on Southlake Boulevard. I'm like, "Not on a Saturday. It's just too congested."

I'm just wondering if there might be a person in this room who somehow, someway goes, "I'll do it today." You might have already given your life to Jesus. It's okay, but discipleship is kind of different. You may have never given your life to Jesus and I'm telling you, this would be a great day for you to do it. Here's the crazy thing. I'm going to ask you not just to come up front. I'm going to ask you to come right on this platform and join my friends.

Is there one more? Is there one more?

This is what I saw in my head and I knew it was going to be crazy if I did it, but I decided to do it anyway. If it was either going to be the Lord or it was going to be me and we were going to find out real quick, but is there one more? I don't care if you're in the balcony. I don't care if you have to walk all the way to the sides and come down. I don't care if you got to go out and come back down.

We will wait for you. This platform is big enough to handle at least one more. If you've been a believer but you haven't been a follower, it's time to become one right now. If you've never given your life to Jesus but you're saying, "Today is the day that I want to give my life to Jesus," this is the time for you to do it because He is waiting for you right now.

They're coming still. They're coming still. Come on, come on. We'll wait for you. I don't care where you are, but disciples are making decisions to follow Jesus right now. You may not want to have a party, but I know heaven is definitely having a party because some people are coming to Jesus right now. I know this is crazy. I know it is. I know it is. I know it is, but somebody has given up their selfish ways as they're walking down here. Somebody's picking up their cross as they're walking down here.

Somebody is ready to follow Jesus in a way they haven't in the past right now and we're celebrating it. We're celebrating it. This is what discipleship looks like. This is why the gospel message has endured for the last 2,000 years because someone met someone who had experienced Jesus and kept telling the story of what God has done. Listen, this is-- Woo. I guess the picture in my head was right. I told my disciples, I said, "Hey, y'all, I don't know if this is the Lord or if I just had bad pizza."

If it is the Lord, if we just go from 12 to 13, we're winning. If we go from 12 to 88, we're winning. The gospel's going to spread. I'm telling you.

I'm telling you, no one is walking down here out of emotion. You make a decision to become a disciple. It's a cold, calculated decision. This is something. Come on, y'all move up a little bit. I think everybody has on deodorant.

Come on. That way, the people that are on the fringes could actually move in. This is just-- I love you too. I love you. Thank you, baby. I love you.

This is the only way I know how to be. For the last 25 years, all I've been doing is having some pretty amazing encounters with God and just inviting some people to follow the same guy I'm following. There's no way we could all be in here on a Saturday night if it wasn't for heart transformation. I believe this month, God is making disciples out of all of us in a way that we never were before until the whole world knows.

Do you hear what I'm saying? "Until the whole world knows." Not part of the world, until the whole world knows that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God. This is as far as I got in my head with this whole message.

I don't even know what to do with all y'all. I hope at the other campuses, people have come down to the front. I hope at Embassy City, y'all have come down and decided to make this commitment. I want to pray for everybody that has come down here. Whether you already believe in Jesus or whether you just gave your life to Jesus today, would you just repeat this after me? Say, Lord Jesus, thank you for coming to get me and asking me to follow you. I give you my life today. I change my mind about the way I've been thinking on how I live my life. And I commit to give up my selfish ways, take up my cross and follow you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Somebody give them some praise right here.