I Have Decided Jesus Is Worth It | Pastor Adam Peterson

Let me look into the camera. So many people joining us online today. We're so grateful for you. I think we're gonna try to bring the chat back so that we can find out where are you watching from? Where are you tuning in from? We're grateful for you. And then come on, Rise Church family. Can you do me a favor? Can you help welcome our family members, every single man, every woman in correctional facilities? Come on! We're so grateful for you. We say it every week, but you are our church family. We love you. I have decided, and if you're taking notes this morning, you can write this down. And if you're not taking notes, I would encourage you to take notes. Now listen, I've read the Bible, okay? And taking notes doesn't get you to heaven. But taking notes gets you a closer seat in heaven to Jesus, okay? And that's in the Bible, okay? It's, I'm just teasing, it's not in there. But I would encourage you to take notes. Taking notes keeps you engaged, allows you to take something with you to encourage you throughout your week. If you're taking notes,

you can write my sermon title down. It's simply this. I have decided that Jesus is worth it. Amen! Now this should have got a bigger applause, but it didn't, which tells me we got work to do, and that's okay. But I'm not here today to convince you that Jesus is worth it. I'm here to tell you he is worth it, and the decision you have to make is, is he worth it in your life? I have decided. How many of you are New Year's resolution type people? You don't look like it. You don't, you don't look like goal-oriented people. You look like people that, you're just trying to make it through life, all right? All right. But I admire people that create New Year's resolutions. I admire people that have goals in their life, and I just wanted to kind of offer a few to you. You can take these up if you want. I'm not your Holy Spirit. I'm not your guide. I'm just trying to say, if you introduce these into your life in 2026, things could be good for you, all right? Some of you eating a little bit healthier could be a good thing.

How many of you know that probably is a good thing you should probably welcome into your life? Okay, and so this is where people go off the rails when it comes to New Year's resolutions. They're like, I'm only eating salads. I'm only eating this. No, no, no, just like baby steps, right? So like instead of two pieces of cake a day, just eat one piece of cake a day. You know what I'm saying? Little steps, but eating healthier, that could be good. Some of you, come on, exercise, okay? Some of y'all, like what does that word mean, exercise? Okay, it's been a minute. Like your body, as you get older, hates you, okay? And your body's gonna fight you so much, it's gonna be like, oh, you're sleeping? Punch, punch, punch, wake up, and you're sore. You know what I'm saying? So exercises, it's just a healthy, it's a good decision for you. Some of you, come on, this is yours for 2026. I'm exhausted, go to bed, okay? Take this vocabulary out of your life, okay? One more episode, okay? One more, no, no more. That is gone from our vocabulary. Some of y'all need to put the phone down, like stop scrolling and just go to bed. The older I get, the more I just love going to bed.

I just, I look forward to it. My kids are like out of school. They're like, we're gonna stay up till two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning. I'm like, you're morons. One day, you're gonna wish you went to bed earlier. You know what I'm saying? All right, and then last but not least, some of y'all just need to be a little wiser with your money, come on. Like all that means is, again, baby steps. Like stop eating out so much, stop getting coffee all the time. Like just little steps. This puts me into a little bit of a predicament because the Jags are going to the Super Bowl, okay? They're going and my wife and I already have an agreement that if they go, I'm going, okay? They need me there, okay? And then my son and I have an agreement that if I'm going, he's going. So now I gotta buy two tickets and that's expensive. And so we're gonna take up an offering at the end of service today just to help get us there. We took out a second mortgage on our house already. That's a future financial problem that I'll have to figure out down the road. But if you're like, man, Super Bowl Sunday, what's that gonna look like? I won't be here, okay?

I will be in San Francisco, let's go. Okay, so, but these are just some goals. This series that we're talking about, come on, let's get real. It's a faith series. I have decided that Jesus is worth it. And again, this is what you're gonna hear me say all morning long. He's worth it. He is worth it. And this is kind of wordy, and so if you're a note taker, do like the CliffsNotes version or take a picture of this. But this series is called. Oh, I have decided because nobody else can make the decision for you if Jesus is worth it. Like you can't live off of your mom's faith, your dad's faith, your grandparents' faith, your sister, your brother, like you have to decide. It like, is he worth it to you? Is he worth you following him with your life? Is he worth it? A bunch of old guys got together in the 1600s, just some dudes that loved Jesus, some pastors, and they were trying to write out some faith statements that were gonna kind of like drive the church and the direction the church was going, kind of like our faith statement, that we exist to lead you to love God with all your heart. Everything we do kind of is driven by that statement. And they wrote out a bunch of faith statements,

and then they summarized all of those faith statements. This was in 1647, and they called it the Westminster Catechism. And that catechism word just simply means a summary. And they said this, the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Now that's a wordy statement, and you might be like, I don't understand, what does that mean? Let me break it down very quickly for you. The chief end of man, what they're saying is the ultimate resolution for your life, the ultimate goal of your life, that when I breathe my last breath, that all of my life should have been lived for this one thing, to glorify God. If you were to attend my funeral, I hope and I pray that you would go, man, he glorified God with how he lived. He honored God with how he lived his life. He lived obedient and surrendered. He wasn't perfect, that's probably what my wife will say, but he honored God. That's the goal. What's the goal for our lives? Man, to honor God with how we live. Are we gonna get it right every day? No, we're not. But the ultimate goal, like God, let me live my life in a way that honors you, and then they end it with this, and to enjoy him forever.

See, I think a lot of the world looks on at Christianity and they go, well, that doesn't look like fun. Because if I follow Jesus, then I gotta give up all of these other things. Yeah, because all these other things are death. All these other things will not satisfy. All these other things will leave you empty. The greatest joy comes from following after Jesus. The Bible says in the presence of God, there is fullness of joy. Meaning you want joy in your life, you need to pursue the one who gives joy. And so this was their summary, and I thought, well, I'm gonna summarize their summary. So this is the summary that I came up for the summary. Your fullest enjoyment will come from living a surrendered life to God. Why? Because he's worth it. Your greatest fulfillment in life, your greatest enjoyment in life, will actually come as you pursue the things of God. But you have to decide, is he worth it? Is he worth it? And just like New Year's resolutions, there are some people that decided at some point that something was worth it, but then they get into it and they go, ah, it's actually, it's not worth it anymore. There's kind of people like that in the world today. And so I wanna look at three different types of people

in the world today, and really in Jesus's day. The first group I wanna look at is what I would call the crowd. The crowd. When you read about the life of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, most places that Jesus went, there was a crowd. There was people that wanted to be around him. There's people that wanted to hear the things that he was saying. They wanted to see the things that he was doing, because he was doing stuff that nobody else was doing. And it was awesome, and it was incredible. It was awesome. Guess what? We got a crowd here this morning. I'm so glad you came to church. You're a crowd. We had a really big crowd at Christmas. We probably had about 1,600 people at our Christmas services. It was awesome. So much, we had to do an extra service. Guess what? They're not all back, because it was a crowd. You know who we had at our Christmas service? We had a bunch of Chriesters. That's what we call them, okay? And we don't mean any offense by that. You're like, what's a Chriester?

It's people that only come to church at Christmas and Easter. We call them Chriesters, okay? And if you're like, well, that's offensive. They're not here, okay? Because they only come at Christmas and Easter. I met somebody, actually, at one of our services. I was talking to a member of our church, and they had a family member, and they introduced me to him, and they go, she's a Chriester. And I was like, no, don't do that! Don't ever introduce your people as Chriesters to me, all right? Tell me their name like a normal person, okay? She was like, what's a Chriester? I was like, nothing, she's an idiot. Just don't listen to her. I mean, it was her mom. But we had a crowd. But I knew it was awesome, man. Christmas services were beautiful and we got to preach a message that Jesus came to rescue what? All people. And the pastor there, man, he did this cool, fun illustration where he went A through Z of all people. And it was great, it was awesome, awesome. And guess what, guess what?

There were people that still decided that night that Jesus is not worth it. They heard that he came to rescue them and they still said, no, I'm good. It happened here, it happened in Jesus's day. Look at this verse in John 12. This is gonna blow your way. It says, even after Jesus had performed so many signs, so many miracles, literally in their presence, meaning people were in the moment when he opened a blind guy's eyes and he could see for the first time. They were there when a guy couldn't hear and he opened his ears and he could hear. They were there when somebody was lame and crippled and got up and just walked out. They were there when he raised somebody from the dead. They were there, they saw it happen. And they still would not believe in him. They still said, no, it's not worth it. Maybe that's you today. Maybe you're here and you're part of the crowd. You're searching, you're looking, you're not sure. And you're like, I just don't know if he's worth it. Again, I'm not trying to convince you. He is worth it. I don't have to convince you that he's worth it. He's worth it. You have to decide, is he worth it? And so I'm grateful for the crowd,

but let me say something right here. A crowd doesn't make a church. Crowd is not like this, you are at church this morning, but the church is the people of God. And the church is made up of our second group of people. It's the family, it's the family. And this is beautiful thing that happens where you can go from being in the crowd to being in the family of God. Matter of fact, at our Christmas services, I saw a young lady that had been coming to our church for a couple weeks. She walked out with what we call our yes boxes. It's what we give to people who say yes to a relationship with Jesus. And she had the biggest smile on our face. She was in our first service earlier this morning, and she came walking out and I grabbed her. She had got to talk to some of our team. And I said, tell me about what's going on. She just said, I want Jesus in my life. And it was this beautiful thing. And guess what? She went from the crowd into the family. She said, I was just a part of it. I wasn't sure if Jesus is worth it, but he's worth it. And in that moment, God welcomed her into the family. John one says it like this, this is Jesus talking, but to all who believed in him and accepted him, he gave the right to become what?

Children of God. He gave them the right. We have no right to become children of God. He gave us the right. He goes, oh, you say that I'm worth following your calling upon me. I'm gonna pull you out of the crowd. I'm bringing you into my family. And now because you're in my family, now you're my child. I'm your father that makes you a son that makes you a daughter of God. Not because you deserve it, not because you earned it, but because he's so good and because he loves you so much. And it's this beautiful thing to go, and I was just kind of in the crowd, but now I'm in the family because of God. I didn't put myself here. He brought me here. I just called upon him and he rescued me. The Bible would say he transferred me into his kingdom. Now I'm a part of the family. It's the family of God first and foremost, but it's also the family, the church family, the family of believers. The Bible calls us the body of Christ that we all come together. Just like you have a physical body and everything works together, you know, right? That's pretty good, right? That's how we operate as the church.

Some of you are elbows, man. Some of you are thumbs, eyeballs, ears. But when we all come together, we make the body of Christ. It's a beautiful thing. It means you're a part of something. It means you belong to something. It means you're not just floating through life by yourself. You're a part of the family. You're a part of something bigger than yourself. So you can go from the crowd. When you say he's worth it, you get invited into the family. And then from there, what we become is a follower. You know, a follower of Jesus, this is gonna blow you away, you ready? Does just that. They follow him. See, people all the time wanna put a label on themselves and they wanna say something to the extent of, I'm a Christian. I'm a follower of Jesus. And what I would simply say is, but are you following him? As I can say all day long, I'm something, but if I'm not. that's not who I really am, it's not what I'm doing, then am I really that? So if you claim to be a follower, your life should be following him.

Now again, you're at Rise Church, so let's make it clear. That doesn't mean you're perfect. That doesn't mean you're gonna get it right all the time. I don't get it right. But it means that my heart has a desire to pursue the things of God. And make no mistake about it, when you become a follower of Jesus, it is going to cost you something from time to time. It may cost you some friendships of people who are not going in the same direction that God is calling you to go. It's gonna cost you something. Listen to this verse in Luke. It says, don't begin until you count the cost. And then he gives this illustration. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? Meaning don't start something you can't finish. Count the cost. How many of you were born and raised Floridians? Anybody in here? All right, how many of you have lived in Florida for a while, it's your home? Okay, all right. How many of you have ever taken the drive from Jacksonville to Orlando? All right, if you've done that, then odds are you know this building.

Raise your hand if you know anything about this building. Okay, they call this building the eyesore of I-4. Okay, interstate four that takes you into Orlando. The eyesore of I-4. Why do they call it the eyesore? Because as far as I can remember from my childhood, this building has been built, just not completed. Built, but not functioning to the reason that the building was built. Meaning it's there, but there's no people in it. There's no businesses in it. It's just there and it's an eyesore. You and I were created by God to have a relationship with God. It's why God formed you in your mother's womb. He loved you so much. He said, I'm gonna breathe life into you. I'm gonna create you on this earth so that I can have a relationship with you. And then I love you so much that when you breathe your last breath on earth, I wanna spend forever with you. What a good God, right? And until you are functioning in the way that God called you to, meaning you're living a life that follows after him, you're always gonna feel dissatisfied. You're always gonna feel empty. You're always gonna feel like you're missing something. Because we're not just created to be in the crowd.

God wants to bring us into the family, but you have to decide, is it worth it? And then you have to decide, not only do I wanna be in the family, I wanna follow him all the days of my life. Now, how many of you are like me that over the holidays, maybe you get a little lazy with some of your disciplines? Maybe you eat a little extra. I gained a lot of weight over the holidays. I gotta kick it back into gear. Spiritually speaking, this happens to me from time to time, so I would imagine it could probably happen for you from time to time. If you're like, nope, I just love the Lord more than I ever have before, praise the Lord for you, okay? I don't know if we're the church for you. I don't know if we can help you or not. We're glad you're here. And so from time to time, specifically at the end of a year into a new year, we like to do something as a church to kinda put some jumper cables on your life spiritually to send a shock through you, kinda stir some things up for the things of God. And so I'm gonna announce something that you're not gonna be greatly excited about, but you'll get there. I know you will, all right?

21 days of prayer and fasting. And I'm giving you a heads up. We're starting next Monday. I'm not just springing it on you right now, going, argh, giving you time to prepare. 21 days, but here's what I know. A lot of you are new to church. You're like, all right, 21 days, we're gonna pray. How fast are we gonna pray? How fast should these prayers be, okay? This is spiritual lingo that I wanna slow down on right here. Prayer is us communing with God, where we get to call upon him and we get to hear him speak to us. And you've never heard somebody tell you that God speaks? He speaks. He speaks through his word. He speaks through his presence, his Holy Spirit that lives in us. Prayer is us relying on God, saying, God, we need you. Maybe for the last few weeks over the holidays, you've gotten distracted. Maybe your prayer life has suffered a little bit. I get it, I've been there. So for 21 days, we're gonna say, God, we're gonna make a higher priority to seek you in prayer. And then fasting is a spiritual discipline where you. You say no to the things of this world

so that you can say yes to God more. Fasting is where we silence the noise of this world so we can hear Him more. And fasting all throughout scripture mostly has to do with food. So things just got real personal, right? Now I'm telling you what you can eat and what you can't eat. But not me, God. For some of you, you're gonna fast from fast food. You're gonna fast from desserts. Some of you are gonna fast from meals, meals. You're gonna skip breakfast. You're gonna skip lunches, dinners. Why? Because you don't need it. You can go without a meal. You could go an entire day without food. What you need is Him. And that's what we're gonna do for 21 days is we're gonna prioritize God and we're gonna say to God, I don't need this stuff, what I need is you. I don't need Netflix, I need you. I don't need social media, I need you. And so the Lord is gonna lead you on the things that you are to lay down for 21 days so that you can seek Him more. And here's the beauty, are you ready? You're gonna grow in your love for God. It's gonna, it's the byproduct. And then at the end of the 21 days,

my wife announced it earlier, for all of you who are hungry for more of God in your life, we're gonna gather on a Saturday night here in this room right here and we're gonna seek the Lord together at a revival night. Come on, it's gonna be so good. We're gonna come in here, man, and we're all gonna be like hungry for God spiritually, but then also hungry physically. Some of us are gonna be skinnier, so there's plenty of room now, man. Like we got extra space, look at that. These chairs are huge. But we're gonna gather in this place and let me tell you right now, we're not gonna have to go, come on, guys, please sing. You're gonna come in ready. Matter of fact, I would say don't show up to this unless you know like, man, I am ready. Or maybe you just feel like I'm desperate, like this is the room to be in. Because when that first song starts, man, it's gonna get loud in here, right? Because it won't be the crowd, it'll be the followers. It'll be the hungry. But seating is limited, so register. We're so excited about this night. We cannot wait. It's gonna be, you are gonna walk out and go,

oh, that was different. Yeah, there's a purpose for it. There's a purpose for it. I wrote this thought down. I said it earlier, it's worth repeating. Being a follower of Jesus means you are truly following him. Again, doesn't mean you're perfect, but it means you're pursuing him. Greatest day in my wife's life, 20 years ago, is when she said yes to marry me. Greatest day in my life was when she said yes to marry me. We're coming up on 20 years, you don't need to clap for that, it's okay. It's all right, it's all good, it's good. 20 years, good years, good stuff. We said I do. We're still saying I do. Because it wasn't a one-time moment. It wasn't like, I do, I'll marry you, now I'm gonna go do whatever I want. No, like we still choose to say I do. Even when it's not easy. Even when we're getting on each other's nerves. Anybody getting on each other's nerves over the holidays just because you're around each other more? It's like, gosh, now I know why they're schooled. So I don't have to see you all the time. I'm just teasing.

Eh, maybe. But you have to, like in a marriage, you have to choose to say I do. I am coming up on, praise God by his grace, 25 years of being a follower of Jesus this year. A quarter century. I was 17 years old. And when I was 17 years old, I prayed this honest prayer to God. God, if you're real, would you show me? Because I know I'm missing something in life. And I've been in church, but Jesus wasn't worth it. But I knew, man, I'm missing something. He showed me what I was missing. He showed me it was him. And in that moment, at 17, I said, you're worth it. And here I am, 25 years later, and my life is still proclaiming he's still worth it. Amen. Because salvation, following Jesus, it's not a one-time thing. It's not like, well, I prayed this prayer when I, no, no, no, no, I'm still saying it. I'm still praying the prayer. Be my Lord, be my Savior. You are that, I wanna follow you. It's a daily, it's a lifestyle. And that's what we're inviting you into this year. 2026. Get out of the crowd and get into the family.

And if you're in the family, truly follow him with everything. It's gonna cost you something, that's okay. It's worth it. Because he's worth it, amen.