As we move into this teaching series about following Jesus, let’s go all the way back to the beginning as we are reminded of where this all began.
Matthew 4:18-22 “As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed him.Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.”
Luke 5:27-28 “After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.”
What Jesus was really saying was simple, and yet incredibly confronting. He was saying, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men and women. Follow me and I will connect you with the power that created this universe. Follow me and I will take you on a journey into the supernatural realm … right into the middle of a cosmic battle between the powers of light and darkness.”
In the first sermon in this series, I began to explore what it means to really follow Jesus; what it means to get our teeth into the ‘meat’ of discipleship; to grow up spiritually and leave the ‘milk’ of elementary teachings behind us. We were challenged from the book of Hebrews to accept the possibility that we are spiritual babies, still consuming the ‘milk’ of the kingdom of God. By now many of us should be teachers and equippers of others and yet we may still have a diet of milk. This confronting challenge comes as an encouragement to press on and mature in Christ. It does not come as a judgement to any of us. It’s this ‘meat’ of discipleship that I want us to discover in this series and begin to chew on as we ask the question: What does it really mean to follow Jesus?
I decided to look up all the references in the Gospels where Jesus said, “Follow me.” I found over twenty of them and it was really fascinating to notice the response of those to whom Jesus issued this invitation. They either dropped everything and walked with Him, with no thought to their own possessions or anything – or they just walked away from Him because the cost was too high. They are the only responses we can make to the call of Jesus. Let me share some more of those passages:
Matthew 8:18-22 “When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.””
As a young person first reading this verse, I thought this was an incredibly heartless thing for Jesus to say to this man who had just lost his father. I am sure it appeared pretty cruel to the man. But I have since come to understand that Jesus was deliberately using such an emotive scenario in our human life to point out the priority of our spiritual walk and discipleship. Another person who was not willing to pay the price was the rich young man we encounter in Matthew 19.
Matthew 19:23-24 “Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Now I’m sure that most of us realise that Jesus is not preaching against wealth or money here. He is also not saying that those who have financial security in this life will not enter the kingdom of heaven. He is talking about the attitude of our heart. If our heart attitude to anything is such that Jesus gets second place on the priority list, then we will not experience the glory and the fullness of the kingdom for that only comes to a totally surrendered heart. Jesus looked into the rich young man’s heart and saw that his wealth was the most important thing in his life and that there was no room for Jesus.
If we are to follow Jesus, He must be our first priority; His mission must be our primary concern. That doesn’t mean that we leave everything behind literally – at times that is what He calls some to do – but most often that is not practical. But He does call us to leave everything behind in our hearts as we put Him first in everything.
Now before we all jump in to affirm that Jesus is first in our hearts, let’s be careful to evaluate our lives, our actions and our priorities – the things we think, say and do every day – before we affirm that Jesus is first. Because if Jesus truly is first, it will be very obvious to all around us. That story in Matthew 19 is very threatening and challenging. Jesus is actually saying that nothing should stand ahead of Him, His ministry and the Kingdom of God. He uses a very emotive example of our own families to make the point that we live in another realm, we are citizens of an eternal reality and it is in that eternal spiritual realm, that Kingdom, where our priorities must lie.
This physical human kingdom in which we now reside is but a drop in the ocean of eternity. The years that we reside on this planet are just a brief stopover in our eternal existence. For we never die. Every human soul it eternal. We will all live forever, whether we believe in Jesus or not. We will either live in His presence under His love, or we will live outside His presence. But we will all live forever. So, Jesus is setting the scene for that eternity by saying that if we are to follow Him then He is to be No. 1. He is to have our greatest loyalty and allegiance and our deepest love. This is what Jesus meant here:
Matthew 16:24 “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
There have been many sermons preached and many books written which try to explain what it means to deny ourselves. The truth is: this self-denial will be different for everyone. For some it will be very literal and all the way. Some will sell everything, own nothing and live totally by faith from day to day and serve Jesus in a full-time ministry capacity. For some that is their calling and conviction.
Others will have successful careers and homes and cars and material wealth but choose to use that wealth for Jesus and His Kingdom. Their role is just as important and the fact that they have material wealth and possessions does not mean that they have not taken their discipleship seriously. Of course, I need to stress that it is much, much harder for these people to get into the meat of discipleship, for their wealth and personal security will always try to lure them away from Jesus. That’s why our Lord said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, He was talking about our heart attitude here. If we are possessive, protective or selfish in regard to our wealth, we will not taste the succulent steak of God’s kingdom. We will always fall back on our man-made security.
In the kingdom of God, Jesus is the rock upon which we stand; He is our security; He is our focus; He is the One Who holds our life together. Financial security, personal possessions and wealth can often get in the way of us acknowledging the Lordship of Christ, but they don’t have to. It is certainly not impossible for us to follow Jesus and be surrounded by material wealth, but it is much harder. The pressures placed on us in an affluent society and in this ‘enlightened’ technological age are tremendous. It is much harder to be a true disciple in our culture today than at any point in history. I believe that is one of the reasons why the vast majority of revivals that have broken out across the world and continued over long periods of time have been in poorer parts of the world where people simply don’t have much to give up as they follow Jesus. When Jesus issues the invitation to deny themselves and follow Him, these people jump at the opportunity because they have very little to lose. When Jesus issues the same invitation in the rich, materialistic western world, there is a much stronger reluctance to make Jesus No.1, because in human terms we have so much more to lose.
I also believe it was easier for the first disciples to follow Jesus than it is for us. They really had no idea what they were letting themselves in for. When Jesus stood by the lake that day and called those guys to follow Him so he could make them fishers of men, they just went. They left everything they owned and everything that was important to them and followed Jesus. I don’t want to minimise their obedience or sacrifice – there was a very real cost for them to follow Jesus. But had they known the real cost; had they known what was coming, perhaps their willingness to drop their nets and leave their jobs to follow Him would have been a little weaker.
They didn’t know what we now know. They didn’t know that when Jesus called them to follow Him – He called them to a whole life of self-denial. They had no idea where He was headed. They had no concept of Calvary. There wasn’t even a hint which told them that after spending day and night with this very special Man, they would then watch the Romans torture Him to death on a cross. They were not aware that they would be the laughing-stock of the whole society, scorned and ridiculed because they followed a loser who promised the world and delivered nothing.
I would therefore suggest that it was easier for Peter, James and John and all the others to say yes when Jesus issued that invitation than it is for you and me today. Because we now have the full picture. We have the whole of Church history to look back on. We have all of the Scriptures to read. We have the Holy Spirit resident within us to reveal the heart and purposes of God. We know more of the cost of true discipleship than those early brothers and sisters. When we say ‘yes’ to Jesus and follow Him, it takes a lot of courage and faith – or at least it should. As I was reflecting on this over the past week or two, I began to wonder how superficial our commitment to follow Jesus really is.
On the one hand, we should know the implications of discipleship because it is so clearly laid out in Scripture and Church history books. We know what real disciples of Jesus face in this life. And yet I look around the Church in this nation and I see hundreds and thousands of people who have said yes to Jesus at some point, but they aren’t really following Him. They are not really on that journey; they’re not walking beside Him in His ministry. They have made some commitment or decision or intellectual affirmation of faith which gives them the label of Christian, but they are not a true disciple yet.
They may be affirming Who Jesus is and what He has done for them, but they are not following Him, because to follow someone – you have to move! Jesus is going somewhere. Jesus is always on the move. The ministry He began when He was on earth, He continues today through His Spirit. So, when we say we are followers of Jesus, that’s what we should be doing. You can’t follow someone unless you go where they go. It sounds ridiculously simple, doesn’t it? But we need it to be ridiculously simple sometimes so we can see the futility of what we are doing or not doing. I want to suggest that there are millions of people in this world who call themselves disciples of Jesus; who say they are followers of Him; and yet they are not going anywhere in their spiritual walk. If they are true followers of Jesus, then Jesus hasn’t done much in a long, long time! Do you get my point?
I want us to look at Jesus’ invitation to follow Him in a fresh light, with a renewed focus on the implications of accepting that invitation. Jesus is calling us to follow Him every moment of every day. He is always asking us to follow Him; never demanding; never ordering; but always inviting. We can ignore that invitation; we can accept it superficially and think we are following Him; or we can look at it honestly, count the cost of saying ‘yes’ and then pay the price of being a real disciple. For we all know how easy it is to follow Jesus when things are going our way. We know how easy it is to follow Jesus when the party is on and things are happening and it’s obvious He’s there. Anyone can follow Jesus when everything’s going well. There were many in those early years who found it easy to follow Jesus when He was healing the sick. They found it easy to follow Jesus when He was raising the dead and turning water into wine at a wedding and healing a crippled hand. They found it easy to follow Jesus when He was on the Mount of transfiguration. They found it easy to follow Jesus when He was preaching with such authority and slamming the religious leaders that had oppressed the people for so long. They found it easy to follow Jesus when He was pushing hard against the weight of Roman oppression. They found it easy to follow Jesus on Palm Sunday as they cried out ‘hosanna to the Son of David.’ When the majority of people around you are crying out His name, it’s very easy to say: “I’m His friend . . . I know Him … I’m on His team … I’m a disciple.”
But as those disciples soon learned, there is a flipside to following Jesus. It’s not a party every day and when Jesus’ call to follow Him led them to the last supper, there was confusion; there was pain; there was betrayal. When His call to follow Him led them into the garden of Gethsemane, all they could do was sleep. When His call to follow Him reached a climax on Calvary’s hill, it was all too much and very few willing followers stood with Him until the end. Where were all His loyal disciples at the foot of the cross? Where were the hundreds and thousands of worshippers from the previous week when their king finally did what He came to do? Where were the crowds that pushed around Him for three years as He ministered with power and authority? Where were the hundreds of people who had been healed and restored to life because of this man; people whose whole life had changed by one touch or one word from this man – where were they when He was writhing in agony?
Is it too harsh to say that the only real disciples; the only genuine, committed followers of Jesus; were those few at the foot of the cross? All the others only followed Him while He was going where they thought He should go. To them, Jesus took a dreadfully wrong turn in that final week and got Himself arrested and killed. At that point, Jesus started to discover who His real followers were. The hard truth is this: either we follow Him all the way, or we don’t follow Him at all. We stand with Him at the foot of that cross and participate in His death and we share in His suffering, or we are not a true disciple. We find it easy to follow Jesus into a church that it alive and vibrant and has all the external signs of being healthy and alive. We find it easy to follow Jesus when the worship is anointed and we have great music. We find it easy to follow Jesus when our Church is growing numerically and everyone’s smiling and happy. We find it easy to follow Jesus when we see His Spirit at work in power.
We find it easy to follow Jesus when we understand what it is He’s calling us to do and why. We find it easy to follow Jesus when He does what we think He’s going to do or when the outcome is predictable or what we prayed for comes about. We find it easy to follow Jesus when there is a clear explanation as to why something went wrong. We find it easy to follow Jesus when those around us are following Jesus. We find it easy to follow Jesus when there’s money in the bank and food on the table and the children are healthy and the job is going well and our life is working. But where are we when things don’t go our way?
How easy is it to follow Jesus when the answer to our prayer is not what we expected? How easy is it to follow Jesus when we are part of a Church that is not growing numerically? How easy is it to follow Jesus when the worship doesn’t suit our personal tastes? How easy is it to follow Jesus when there are people in the Church to whom we can’t relate and prefer not to even be around? How easy is it to follow Jesus when the tide of public opinion turns against us in some way? How easy is it to follow Jesus when those close to us in the Church turn on us and become critical and even betray us? How easy is it to follow Jesus when He goes into the heart of our city late at night and hangs around the drunks and the homeless and the criminals and the prostitutes and the drug dealers? How easy is it to follow Jesus when an overseas country needs us more than ours does – when the call to the mission field comes and our whole life is turned upside down.
Jesus is everywhere – often in the most unlikely places – but His saving, healing, redeeming ministry continues and He challenges us to find Him in those places and join Him there. So many times, we move off in a direction and say that we are following Jesus, but He’s not going that way and we don’t want to admit it. Throughout this teaching series, I want us all to evaluate our current direction in life. Are we following Jesus or are we following a man or a woman or a denomination or a concept? Are we following Jesus or are following our own pre-determined plans and goals which did not come from Him. Look at the road you are on right now in your life and ask yourself, Is Jesus here? Is this the road He is on? Is this where the action is? Is this His ministry? Am I truly following Him? Is He my highest priority? Does He have my deepest loyalty? Is He the recipient of my greatest love? Is He the One to Whom I ultimately submit all? He is the author of my faith but is He finisher of it also? He got me into this race … but am I now running it without Him? Is He One to Whom I yield every moment of every day? In my life, is He the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last?
Or is He just a component of my life. He is in there somewhere as one of the things that occupy my time. I have family, I have work, I have interests, I have hobbies, I have pleasures … and I have Jesus. Is that the way it is? Be honest. Is He part of our life? Or is He our life? I challenge you to look up all the references where Jesus said: “Follow Me” and try to get a picture of what it means to follow Jesus. He is out there right now in your community getting His hands dirty in thousands of people’s lives. Marriage disputes; domestic violence; crime; drugs; immorality – He’s in the middle of the whole mess with His sleeves rolled up, loving people back to life. Where are we? When He says “Follow Me” is that where we want to go? Is that where we will go?
Or will we be selective in how we follow Jesus. “Oh yes, I’ll follow you here to worship each week … that doesn’t cost me much … or hurt much … but out there … I’m not so sure. I have nothing to offer those people. I am not qualified to meet their needs.” Well, I recall that over 2,000 years ago, Jesus gathered a bunch of roughnecks together who didn’t seem qualified for anything special either and turned the world upside down and inside out. None of them had the ability to do that – Jesus did it – they were just available to be used by Him in that process. He is not interested in your ability it is your availability that He is looking for.
Jesus never told us to go somewhere and do something without Him. There is this embedded concept in our minds that Jesus sends us to do things. We use the terminology all the time of Jesus ‘sending us.’ The translators even used it in the Bible. But when someone sends you, you go away from them to the place they sent you. When Jesus sends you, He never leaves you. That’s why we need to use a different word. Jesus doesn’t send us … Jesus calls us. Jesus is already there. He is already doing the stuff and He invites us to join Him in His ministry. Jesus doesn’t send people to Africa to be a missionary. From the heart of Africa, Jesus calls people to join Him there as co-labourers. Jesus doesn’t send us into the heart of our community to minister to the needs of people; He is already there – ministering day and night. He simply issues the invitation to follow Him there so we can participate in His ministry. It is always His ministry. It is in His power, by His strength and His authority that all this happens.
In fact, I would suggest that everything Jesus calls us to do, we can’t do. Every command in the Bible; every exhortation to holiness and service and godliness and good works – we simply can’t do it. It is by the Lord’s power and in His strength and by His authority that anything at all happens in this world and that is particularly true of Christian ministry. So, when Jesus calls us to follow Him, that’s what we are to do, we are to follow HIM. We are to participate in what He is already doing. When we look with human eyes alone, the task of being a disciple is a daunting one indeed. Some days the needs of the world overwhelm us as we look in the mirror and say, ‘What on earth am I doing here?’ That is not the time to look in the mirror … it’s time to look at Jesus. To fix your eyes upon Him and Him only. For His bidding is His enabling. The One Who calls you to follow Him is the One Who empowers you to follow Him.
All He wants from you and me is the willingness to go. He wants a heart attitude of genuine submission, surrender and obedience. He doesn’t want anything else from us, for we have nothing else to offer! We can give Him nothing that will add to His ministry; we can achieve nothing for His glory; without His strength, His power and His enabling presence. Our task is to say “Yes!” when we hear Jesus say, “Follow me.” Brothers and sisters, the invitation from Jesus is issued right now afresh to you and to me, to take up our cross, deny ourselves and to follow Him. Let’s pray that He will give us the courage and ability to accept that invitation with a fresh commitment today, knowing that it is always in His strength and by His authority and power that we even live and breathe!