Live the Word / Luke 14:25-35 / Mark 12:29-31

A Sense of Awe and Knowing Our Heritage

For those of you who were here last week, whether midweek or at one of our Sunday services and gatherings, it was an incredible time. As I was experiencing it myself at various campuses, just watching what was happening, I was reminded of what took place in the book of Acts in chapter two. Verse 43 tells us that everyone present as the early church formed felt a sense of awe.

Acts 2:43 (NASB)

Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.

Every time we teach Discovery, we talk about that passage, and we try to explain what it means to feel a sense of awe. You think about the beauty of a sunset and how amazing that is—you’re left speechless. You talk about the birth of a child and how incredible that is—again, speechless. Sitting through our gatherings last week and watching what God was doing, I found myself speechless. When you talk about awe, it’s recognizing that something is taking place that is bigger than us. God is moving in the hearts of people to respond to Him, to call out to Him, to get out of their comfort zone and pray for one another, to sing louder than they ever have, and even to step out and get baptized in their street clothes. You look at that and you say, “That is awe. That is evidence that God is at work.”

What is so fun about that to me is when you read through the early chapters of the book of Acts, and even when you look at church history after the biblical record, that is very much who the church has always been. That is like us.

A hundred years ago when I played football, I played for arguably one of the greatest motivators in the history of college football, Jim Sweeney. He was amazing. They named the field after him! This guy would walk into a locker room and completely take over. He had the knack to walk in and know when he needed to throw something, when he needed to hug someone, when he needed to kick you in the rear, or when he needed to put his finger right in your chest to challenge you to get better.

He had language that he used that was really fascinating. When we did something that was in keeping with the heritage of what the program was about, he’d say, “That’s like us.” When we did something that wasn’t in keeping with the heritage of the program, he’d say, “That’s not like us.” If you knocked a guy out, he’d say, “That’s like us.” If you lost by fifty, he’d say, “That’s not like us.”

What he did in those moments was connect you to your heritage. He would have the older guys come around and tell stories of when they went and beat Arizona or BYU. Most guys who play at Fresno State didn’t get recruited by the bigger schools, so they ended up at Fresno State. Nobody wants to admit it, but that’s what happened. This last year, I got to speak to the team, and I started with that. I said, “Look, you’re here because USC didn’t want you. But we do! So let me tell you who we are.” And I got to talk about the heritage.

Coach used to always say, “Check your bloodlines.” That was his way of saying: remember, you’re part of something bigger than just you. You might be a redshirt sophomore who has only been on a three-year journey, but this program has been around for a long time. The more you know how it started and where it’s going, the more you can connect to it and be a part of the story moving forward.

In Acts 2, the Spirit of God is moving among the people. People are sharing their faith, coming to Christ, and getting baptized. You can envision the early church looking at that and saying, “Hey, that’s like us! That’s like the Lord; He’s doing something!”

The Cost and Conviction of the Early Church

The movement of Christianity spread rapidly. But as it did, it initially enjoyed a certain covering of grace within Roman culture. The Romans did not persecute Christians at first because they had such a difficult time with the Jewish population. When the Romans conquered a territory, they would simply inherit that culture’s gods, add them to the Roman pantheon, and worship them all together. As long as you were fine worshiping their gods alongside your own, there was no problem.

Obviously, the Jewish people refused to worship pagan gods. The more Rome pushed, the more stubborn the Jewish people became. So Rome finally gave them an exemption, saying, “Fine, you can worship your one God.” The early church grew under that covering because it was initially considered a sect of Judaism.

By the mid-third century, Christianity was growing like wildfire. Scholars suggest nearly 30,000 believers were present in Rome alone, primarily from the lower classes, evidenced by the fact that they spoke Greek rather than Latin. Christianity was gathering the misfits, the broken, the outcast, and the downtrodden.

Three primary characteristics established their culture:

First, they had an undeniable passion for sharing the Word of God. You cannot read through the book of Acts without seeing person after person preaching Jesus. It didn’t matter if they were in jail, on death row, or shipwrecked—they preached Jesus.

Second, they possessed a powerful expression of their faith in the streets. They loved God and loved their neighbors in practical, sacrificial ways that stunned Roman culture. When plagues or infections hit a city, the Christians were typically the first responders. Even at the risk of personal infection and death, they stayed to care for the sick and show the love of Christ.

Third, they endured persecution in a way Rome had never witnessed. This was the rise of the “witnesses”—from which we get the word martyrs. Believers went to their deaths proclaiming Jesus. When the authorities threatened to nail Polycarp to the stake, he told them, “He that gives me strength to endure the fire will also enable me, without your securing me by nails, to remain without moving in the pile.” They burned him alive, and he proclaimed Christ to his dying breath.

Over time, as Caesar worship became mandatory and the church separated from Judaism, intense persecution began. Pliny the Younger, writing to Emperor Trajan around AD 112, admitted he didn’t know what to do with Christians except execute them simply for bearing the name, even if they had committed no actual crime. Christians were socially rejected. They were called saints—holy ones. In the ancient world, the temple was holy (distinct from other buildings) and the Sabbath was holy (distinct from other days). A Christian was called holy because they were distinct from ordinary culture.

Living distinctly often meant being unemployed. If you were a stonemason, you couldn’t build pagan temples. If you were a tailor, you couldn’t make garments for pagan priests. If you were an incense maker, you couldn’t supply idols. If you were a teacher, you couldn’t teach pagan mythologies. Gathering for worship meant risking Roman soldiers storming the room, taking your spouse and children into slavery, or throwing you to wild beasts in the arena.

Why do I share all of that? Because you need to know your heritage. You are part of something far bigger than yourself. We are standing on the shoulders of men and women who, for centuries, proclaimed faith in this same Jesus and laid down their lives with radical commitment. That is our heritage. That is like us.

Discipleship and Counting the Cost

The baton has been passed to us, but this journey is not easy. Look at what Jesus says in Matthew 10 about the cost of following Him.

Matthew 10:34-39 (NASB)

’Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. ’For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW; and A MAN’S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD. ’He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. ’And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. ’He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.

Sometimes we treat the gospel as an easy message that carries zero real-world implications once we embrace it. But Jesus makes it crystal clear: when you become a disciple of Christ, it comes at a cost. The word disciple meant someone trained by a master, not just to acquire knowledge, but to live and look like the master.

Jesus explains that following Him can bring division. When one person surrenders to the Lord and another doesn’t, it creates a relational rift. Nothing can hold a higher priority in our hearts than the love of God. Not our spouses, not our children, not our careers, not our comfort. Following Jesus means losing our rights, our autonomy, our authority, and the personal agenda we had mapped out for our lives, and instead embracing the mystery of following Him.

Notice that Jesus never invited people to simply “pray a sinner’s prayer” or “become a Christian.” He called men and women to leave their old lives behind and become disciples. Luke captures a parallel moment in chapter 14.

Luke 14:25-30 (NASB)

Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, ’If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. ’Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. ’For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? ’Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’

When Jesus says you must “hate” your father, mother, and even your own life, He is using Hebrew hyperbole to address priority. Compared to your supreme love for God, all other loves must look like second place. He tells the crowd to count the cost. Discipleship might make certain relationships wobbly. It might make your workplace dynamic uncomfortable. It might require walking away from things you once held dear. But because Christ is supreme, He must be ultimate.

The term Christian was first used in Antioch as an insult. Over time, it became a badge of honor. But today, cultural Christianity has often reduced following Jesus to mere behavior modification. We teach people to know the right answers and do the right things, turning the gospel into a transaction rather than a transformation. We clean up the outside, but our hearts remain completely unchanged.

Above the Line vs. Below the Line

The gospel is meant to radically reorient your entire life until you can say with Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” Look at how Jesus summarizes this in Mark 12.

Mark 12:29-31 (NASB)

Jesus answered, ’The foremost is, ‘HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’ ’The second is this, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.’

Jesus is asked for the greatest commandment, and He points back to the Shema: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Then He outlines a specific progression: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

Consider those four areas. In Hebrew thought, the heart is the control center, the seat of affections, the foundation of your moral and spiritual identity. The soul is your conscious life, your core essence. The mind is your intellect, your reasoning, and your thoughts. The strength is your physical power, your capacity, and your bodily energy.

I put my faith in Christ in 1993. For much of my journey, I have been very comfortable operating “above the line”—in the mind and strength. Loving God with my mind? I can do that: read the Bible, study theology, take thoughts captive, memorize scripture. Loving God with my strength? I can do that: don’t do bad things, serve at church, work hard, stay disciplined. That is clean, neat, and manageable.

But when it comes to the heart and the soul—operating “below the line”—I find myself reaching for a flashlight. I don’t naturally hang out down there. It feels uncomfortable. Down there, you start to feel deeply, you confront brokenness, and you tear up. My instinct is to run back upstairs to the mind and strength.

Yet look at Jesus’s progression. He starts below the line: heart and soul first, then mind and strength second. The gospel transforms us from the inside out.

If you have ever tried to plant a tree here in Fresno, you know our soil. You dig down two feet and hit hardpan that feels like solid concrete. You can hit it with a pickaxe until sparks fly, and you won’t make a dent. You can plant a tree in the top two feet of soft dirt, and it might survive for a season. But for a tree to truly thrive and bear lasting fruit, you have to break through that hardpan so the roots can sink deep into the rich soil below.

The same is true in our spiritual lives. If we only live above the line in our intellect and effort, we never develop deep roots of genuine affection for God. That is why you can be an incredibly busy, educated Christian and still remain completely untransformed. You can complete every Beth Moore study ever published, attend Bible Study Fellowship for a decade, know all the right theological terms, and still possess a heart that is cold toward Jesus. Curriculum cannot transform a heart that refuses to go below the line.

When you break through the hardpan of your soul and let God access the basement of your life, you are going to uncover things you have kept buried in the dark. It feels vulnerable. But down there is where the peace of God takes root. Down there is where inexplicable joy and genuine love for Jesus are found. And when you love God from the depths of your heart and soul, it naturally overflows into your mind, your strength, and your love for your neighbor.

Becoming a People Who Live the Word

The early church turned the world upside down because they possessed a “below the line” faith. They didn’t just read the Word, teach the Word, pray the Word, or sing the Word—they lived the Word. Their hearts belonged entirely to King Jesus.

Many of us have spent years building a wall around our hearts, keeping God confined to our intellect and our religious habits. But the joy and the transformation are found down deep.

We want to be a church that lives the Word together—a people who step into the mess, confess our deep need for God, and carry one another’s burdens. Let us return to our heritage, reorient our lives around the supremacy of Christ, and love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.