Leading The Way

Guest (Male): Here's Dr. Michael Youssef to begin a new series of teaching on Leading the Way.

Dr. Michael Youssef: Everything that I am, and everything that I have, my job, my degrees, my money, my possessions, even life itself is rubbish when I compare them to knowing Christ and loving Christ my Lord. Until I come to that point, then I have no way to grow in loving Christ.

Guest (Male): How about you? Are you willing to walk away from everything to grow deeper in loving and living for Christ? Thank you for listening to Leading the Way audio with pastor and the author of more than 50 life-changing books, Dr. Michael Youssef. This episode is the launch of a series that's sure to challenge you and change your perspective about living for Jesus. Dr. Youssef calls this series, "To Know Jesus is to Love Him," and the first step, interestingly enough, is dissatisfaction.

As we begin, keep in mind that Leading the Way is a listener-supported gospel ministry impacting lives right there in your neighborhood and in neighborhoods just like yours all around the world. A great way to learn more about Dr. Youssef and the worldwide impact of Leading the Way is to subscribe to the monthly My Journal. Give us a call at 866-626-4356. Right now, there is a special offer to get a free subscription. Call 866-626-4356 or go to LTW.org. Do that later, though, because right now you can listen with me to a message to challenge and drive you toward dissatisfaction, as Dr. Michael Youssef begins his series, "To Know Jesus is to Love Him."

Dr. Michael Youssef: Can you love someone and you still neglect that person? Can you love someone only for what you get out of that person? Can you truly love someone without wanting to know everything about that person? Can you truly love someone without wanting to spend every waking moment with that person? Think about these questions as I begin this new six-part series of messages called "To Know Jesus is to Love Him."

Beginning today, I want to help you to fall in love with Jesus and stay in love with him. I'm not talking about loving him in name, but I'm talking about loving him in deed. There's lots of people out there who say they're followers of Jesus. Lots of politicians who say they are followers of Jesus, and their lives are in shambles, and they're far from obeying Jesus.

I want to explain to you in this series of messages how your love for Jesus can be all-encompassing, that your love for Jesus will not ebb and flow. Your love for Jesus is not seasonal, that your love for Jesus is not going to blow hot and cold. No, but your love for Jesus can only grow deeper and higher.

I want you to hear me right because this is important. I believe with all my heart this series of messages is most desperately needed in these last days as we see the love of many growing cold. Loving Jesus intimately is one of the most important things that you begin to comprehend and focus on in these days as we see many people whose love for Jesus is so superficial. As we look around and we see how the love of many is in words and not in deed. We need to know how to love Jesus intimately, completely.

For those of you who know Jesus, you need to learn how to grow in loving him more intimately every single day. Listen to me. Wherever you are on the spiritual spectrum, I want to share with you that when you totally and intimately love Jesus, he's going to give you greatest joy in the midst of crushing circumstances.

But just in case someone here would say, "Oh, well, Michael, I think I'm going to switch off right now. I love Jesus. I don't need to know more. I have excellent Bible knowledge. In fact, I'm a stickler for accurate Bible interpretation. I defend biblical doctrine." All these things, beloved, are wonderful, and I don't want you to stop.

Others might say, "Well, Michael, wait a minute. I'm into the deeper life. I'm into the changed lives. I'm into the victorious life. I'm into the upward call." Don't stop. Keep going. But here's the problem. There are so many believers who have made the means of loving Jesus become an end into themselves, and that's what I want to talk to you about today.

Please, please listen carefully. Not just today, but in the next six messages. For if your goal in life is to have head knowledge of the Bible, if your goal in life is to get out of God and his word what you want to get, I pray that God would transform you today. It is the cry of my heart that you be transformed today as we look together and learn together. I'm learning as much as you are of how to love Jesus more deeply, how to love Jesus more fully, how to love Jesus more intimately, how to love Jesus more uniquely.

You may say, "And why is that important? I received Jesus as savior of my life, I made him my profession of faith long time ago, and I'm fine. Why do I need to know this?" Because I can tell you the deeper you love Jesus, the more all of things in life going to fall in place.

Paul was a religious man. He was zealous for his religion. My goodness, you couldn't get any more grocery lists of accomplishment in that religion than Paul. He was committed to his religion. He has accomplished a great deal for the religion. He was an amazing human being in terms of his accomplishment. And then he had an encounter with Jesus, an encounter that transformed his life.

After that encounter, all of his religious stars, he said they are rubbish in comparison to loving Jesus and knowing Jesus. His desire in his growing love for Jesus made him to consider all that stuff to be trash. Listen to what he said, and if you want to check me out, it's Philippians 3:8. After he lists the grocery list, all his accomplishments, all his achievements, after he lists all the qualifications, he goes on in verse eight and he says, "I regard all these things." What are these things?

I want to read it from the ESV. "Indeed, I count everything as a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them rubbish." By the way, the word is a lot stronger than that. It is very close to the word "dung" because rubbish sometimes can have value. "I count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ."

What does he mean? What does he mean for me? What does he mean for you? Listen to me very carefully. I don't like to talk about myself, but only if I give God the glory. To me, that's what it means here. Everything that I am, and everything that I have, my job, my degrees, my money, my possessions, even life itself is rubbish when I compare them to knowing Christ and loving Christ my Lord.

Beloved, listen to me. Until I come to that point, then I have no way to grow in loving Christ. Until I come to that point of saying nothing can be compared to you and my love for you. I want men to listen to me for a minute. I know, and you know, and this is a fact, that we men particularly derive our identity from our work, what we do. We derive our identity from our accomplishment, our achievement, our titles. That's just a fact of life. Can I get a witness, men? Here is the question. What is it that I value the most in life?

Only you can answer that. Only I can answer that. What is it that I value most in life? Let me get in a confession time. When I was younger, I was ordained at ministry, I was serving God, but I had only one ambition in life back then: to earn a PhD from a prestigious university. That was my goal in life. That was the most important thing for me that I wanted to accomplish in life.

Is that degree worthless for me today? No. But when I compare it with my love for Jesus, it's hands down. It's not worth the paper it's written on. Every one of us has different ambitions. I want you to ask yourself whatever it is. Is it your aspire to be the CEO of your company, aspire to be a CEO of a bigger company? Are you aspiring a major net worth, or whatever you aspiring? Ask yourself the question.

Once you've identified whatever it is, then the next question should be this: how does that compare with my love for Jesus? There are some people in ministry, there are some people who are Bible teachers and preachers. They need to ask themselves the question: do I love preaching and teaching and ministry more than my love for Jesus? You say, "How can you make that dichotomy?" Yes, I can because many of us can take those means of loving Jesus and turn them to an ends in themselves. Ask yourself the question.

The first step, beloved, in the way of developing deeper intimacy and love for Jesus is to ask yourself this all-important question: is it comparable with my love for Jesus? Does it stand in the way of my love for Jesus? Loving Jesus begins with being dissatisfied with where you are at your current level of loving Jesus. Can I get a witness? That's where it begins, with dissatisfaction. I know advertisers want to give you satisfaction. I'm telling you today that if you really want to get the real thing, start with dissatisfaction.

Your loving for Jesus begins with yearning to know him and love him more than anyone or anything in life. Listen to the Apostle Paul's prayer on behalf of the Christians in Ephesus. In Ephesians chapter 3, verse 18, here is what he's interceding on behalf of the people that he loved the most. And he spent three years, more than any time he's ever spent anywhere, in Ephesus.

He says, "My prayer for you is that you may comprehend fully the breadth, and the length, and the height, and the depth of Jesus' love for them." Because until you come to the point of saying, "Lord, my love for you is so pathetic. My love for you is so shallow. My love for you is so superficial. My love for you is so self-centered. My love for you is only for what I can get out of you. My love for you is not anywhere near your love for me."

When you come to this point in your life, I have great news for you. You have taken the first step in the right direction. Until and unless you become dissatisfied by the level of your current love for Jesus. The scripture warns us that in the last days, the love of many grows cold, and that is why the urgency of this message. Until you become dissatisfied, you haven't begun yet. Today you can. Today you can begin on that road.

Beloved, if I've learned anything about Jesus from the word of God, it is this. Listen carefully. That he longs to nourish our minds with the truth, that he longs to fill our hearts with his love, that he longs to lift our imagination into new heights, that he longs for us to surrender our will so that he may fill us with his.

It all begins with dissatisfaction. When you become real with God, when you start crying out to him on a daily basis, "Help me, Lord, to comprehend that depth, and the width, and the breadth, and the length and the height of your love for me, so that I may love you with all my heart and above all." But there's a warning. If you pray this prayer on a regular basis, get ready for a transformation in your life. Get ready.

What is the biggest and the first obstacle to deeply loving Jesus, to intimately loving Jesus? Do you want to know the answer? I'm going to tell you anyway. It is complacency and smugness. It really is. In fact, in the next message, I'm going to talk about the three things that will hinder you from intimately loving Jesus. Just to whet your appetite, let me give you the outline: the inability to accept correction, the unwillingness to change, and the susceptibility to confusing the journey for the destination. I know you can't wait.

I could never comprehend when God appeared to Abraham and he said to him, "Abraham, I want you to leave your CEO of this closely held corporation that you're presiding over. I want you to leave it." So I can make you CEO of a bigger company? No. So I can make you the chairman of the board? So I can give you a promotion? No. That's why it always, always puts a lump inside of me.

He said, "I want you to leave this lucrative place and lucrative job, and I'm going to lead you to uncertain future." Think about that. I know it's not in the Bible, and some of you are going to write to me and say where is that in the Bible, but I am convinced that Abraham had epilepsy at that point. I mean, he must have had tremors. I know human nature. That's the only reason. I can only imagine this God appearing to him and says, "Okay, I'm going to take you out of all this wonderful place of wealth and pleasure, and I'm going to take you to uncertain future." He said, "What?"

Remember this, Abraham did not have a Bible or a Bible commentary. Abraham did not have a pastor, a Bible teacher. Abraham did not have 2,000 years of Christian history. Abraham was 2,000 years before Christ. He knew very little about God, but he trusted God. That is enough, and that's the beginning of the road of loving God.

Let me ask you, if you were in Abraham's shoes. Here we are 2,000 years after Christ, all this Bible teaching and all the books and all the seminars and all this going on. Ask yourself, "Am I willing?" I'm going to repeat that word, "Am I willing to give him everything?" You notice I keep repeating the word "willing"? Because here's what most people don't understand.

God gave you everything you have. He really did. You say, "I worked hard, I did this and I've done the other thing and I sacrificed." Yeah, but he gave you everything. Keep that in your head, no matter what you've done. He gave you everything. Everything you have, he gave you. He doesn't want anything from you, but he wants to know, "Are you willing?"

Abraham was willing to give up everything. And he wants to know if there's anything that comes in conflict with your loving him with all of your heart deeply and more intimately. Hands down, you give it up. He wants you to say, "If the time comes, oh dear Jesus, if I put everything and everyone on one side of a scale and my love for you on the other side, hands down your side wins. No comparison. No comparison."

And here's the blessing, here's the thing that most people don't realize. When Abraham did this, and not only trusted him in the beginning, he trusted him even after he gave him Isaac and said offer him, he said, "Okay, I know you're going to raise him from the dead if you have to. I'll go ahead." God blessed him out of his socks. Because you cannot truly begin on the road of loving Jesus without willing to obey Jesus, no matter what the cost.

I was thinking about a man in the 19th century who was a well-known lecturer by the name of Wendell Phillips. Renowned, gave lectures all over at least the eastern side of United States. Wendell Phillips loved his invalid wife with all his heart. He loved her so deeply.

But unfortunately, because of his profession of going around and giving lectures, his speaking engagements took him away on long journeys from home. One time, at a close of one of those lectures, miles away from his home in Boston, he was determined that he was going to go home that night. His friends pleaded with him. They said, "Please wait till morning." They said to him, "The last train has left, and you have to hire special transportation. It is cold and sleeting outside. You will face so many obstacles and dangers on the road."

He simply replied, "Yes, but on the other end of those miles, I shall see the face of my beloved Anne." Now beloved, as I said, regardless of where you are in the spiritual spectrum, this message is for you. Because when your love for Jesus grows deeper and higher and more intimate, even in the heavy and crushing circumstances and experiences in life, they become light for you. Why? Because you know that on the other side of life, when you get home, you will see the face of the beloved Jesus. Amen?

When your intimacy with Jesus is all-encompassing, all of the sufferings along the journey will not compare with his beautiful face that we will see on the other side of the river. I don't know where you are, but it really doesn't matter. You can start today. You can continue if you've already started because there can be no end to loving Jesus. We keep on growing in his love, we keep growing in loving him, keep growing in loving him until we see his face.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. As the author of more than 50 books, he invites you to learn more about his most recent release and the current special offer.

Pre-order your copy of Dr. Michael Youssef's eye-opening new book, "An Unholy Alliance," today for your gift of any amount. You'll discover why two ideologies radically opposed to one another are working together to undermine faith and freedom. How this alliance is advancing on college campuses, in the media, and in public institutions across America. What history, scripture, and documented evidence reveal about where this alliance leads and what you can do about it. How Christians can respond not with fear or outrage, but with courage, compassion, and gospel truth. Pre-order your copy of "An Unholy Alliance" today for your gift of any amount to Leading the Way. Your generosity will help reach the lost for Christ and call the church to revival.

Learn more about this powerful book and details about Dr. Youssef's special offer when you call 866-626-4356 or LTW.org. Well, that's our broadcast for today. Thank you for being with us, and do remember to join Dr. Michael Youssef right here next time when he continues his series called "To Know Jesus is to Love Him," on Leading the Way audio. This program is brought to you by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef.