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Living the Adventure By Pastor Samuel Chess Grace Emmanuel Church Port St. Lucie, Florida (To Follow Or Not To Follow)
I spent 18 weeks talking to you about: I. The Principle of Divine Exchange 1) Jesus was punished so that we might be forgiven! 7) Jesus endure our rejection so that we might enjoy His acceptance! 9) Our old life died in Jesus so that His new life might live in us! II. The Principle of Deliverance 1) Deliverance from this present evil 3) Deliverance from self and selfishness 4) Deliverance from the flesh III. Appropriating Divine Exchange and Divine Deliverance 1) Embracing Faith 2) Embracing the Transformation of the Holy Spirit All of this has been provided for you by Jesus sacrifice of Himself in your place and given to you as an eternal gift. None of us earned the right to be treated by God in this generous manner. He did it because he loves you more than anything in the universe. Just because all of this has been provided for you…that doesn’t mean there doesn’t need to be a response on our part. This last week I became fixated on one word that shows up continually in Scripture. I spent some time gathering all the pertinent uses of the word and compiling them on four pages. The word has to do with our continuing relationship with our Savior. Without it there can be no relationship with our Savior. Somehow, in the last 25 years I’ve never focused on this one concept and preached on it….so…in keeping with our intense focus on Jesus through Easter this year, I’m going to spend the month of February talking about how this one word relates to your life. Let me read a familiar passage and let you pick out the word: (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 make you fishers of men." 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. (NIV) What significant word here strikes you as one that defined these four disciples relationship with their Savior and might define your relationship with your Savior….. Follow- akoloutheo, ak-ol-oo-theh'-o to be in the same way with….. to accompany I. To Follow or not to Follow Gandhi was asked; “If you admire Christ so much why don’t you become a Christian?” …he replied, “When I meet a Christian who is a follower of Christ I may consider it!” Not everyone who claims the title of Christian would qualify as being a “follower of Christ” … It’s possible to call yourself a Christian because you fit within certain socially accepted parameters and have no idea what it means to follow the one who’s name you have adopted. One of the candidates for President who I will leave un-named but is almost certainly not going to become the Democratic Nominee, suddenly about a month ago started to strongly promote his admiration for Jesus Christ. He also gave the name of another philosopher who he admired who happened to be an Atheist but who’s counting…I read an article by a reporter who had traveled with him for two months and the reporter said, “This candidate is one of the most purely secular Presidential candidates that has ever run for office.” His talk about Jesus was a carefully calculated political strategy to reach voters. Not everyone who claims the title of Christian would qualify as being a “follower of Christ!” And this “follow me” theme is one that Jesus used liberally and then just so nobody would understand what he meant by his demand.. he set out to define it. We will try to follow that trail through Scripture here in the next few minutes. He apparently used the same pattern in calling each of his disciples: We read the calling of Peter and Andrew, and James and John… (Matthew 9:9) As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. (NIV) (John 1:43) The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, "Follow me." (NIV) Notice something here…these were all people who had lives. These were people who had gotten up that morning and checked their day-timers and they didn’t read: work till noon…meet unknown prophet…leave everything we have worked a lifetime to build up and follow this unknown into the sunset. The Bible is very careful to tell us that Jesus did not go by the unemployment office and call twelve disciples who had not worked for a year and were desperate for a new life. Watch this…. Jesus went to these guys who had a whole lifetime planned out, all kinds of business contacts that they had worked years to build up, all kinds of plans for their new boat purchase…perhaps one or more was halfway through the building of a new home… maybe some had many children or some had children on the way, and He demanded that they give their full attention to him for what would amount to three initial years of ministry followed by a lifetime of ministry, followed by persecution and finally execution. (all except John) All of that wrapped up in two simple words: Follow Me! There were no negotiations, Jesus didn’t draw them out a five year plan, there was no pre-nuptial agreement. Just follow me! It was the first thing Jesus said to Peter and it was the last thing Jesus said to Peter: (John 21:18-22) I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, "Follow me!" Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them….When Peter saw him, he asked, "Lord, what about him?" Jesus answered, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me." (NIV) We watch fundamentalist Muslims strap themselves with explosives and blow themselves to bits along with whatever innocent bystanders happens to fit their warped description of the enemy, and we are appalled that any human being could be so evil that they could do such a thing. but there is one reality about it all that we should take note of. These people truly believe in what they say they believe in. They may be (and are) completely possessed by the evil one but they are certainly following their leader. The reverse of that mentality with many Christians is what prompted Gandhi to say “When I meet a Christian who is a true follower of Christ I may consider becoming a Christian!” The original early Church didn’t call themselves Baptists or Presbyterians or Charismatic. They called themselves Followers of the Christ. Later on, when the community at Antioch slurred them as Christians, the slur made so much sense that they started calling themselves that. They literally took on the name of Christ as the title to describe who they were.
The most important phrase an early Christian could recite was “I am a follower of Christ”. For them it often meant total rejection by the rest of their community. It often meant rejection by their family. Later it came to be an almost sure sentence of death. People who made the statement were fed to wild animals for the sport of those watching or covered with pitch and lighted as a torch…but to them reciting the phrase was a badge of honor they were willing to take to the grave. Let’s try it ourselves: I am a follower of Christ I am a follower of Christ I am a follower of Christ I am a follower of Christ I am a follower of Christ If you listen carefully to some segments of Christianity you will pick up a theology that sounds very different from what Jesus taught.. It sometimes come out sounding, not like: We exist to follow Jesus …….. but suspiciously like Jesus exists to follow us. God exists to satisfy our demands….. The power of faith and prayer are instruments designed to get God to serve our impulses for peace and prosperity. Jesus Christ becomes just one more commodity available to us to enhance our dreams and empower our goals. That sounds vastly different then some of the words of Jesus himself on the subject of following: (Mark 10:17-21) As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good-- except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.'" "Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy." Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." (NIV) (The thrust here is not that you have to be poor or that you have to give up all your possessions to be a Christ follower… that’s what this man needed to do.. The emphasis is on the last four word. In order for this man and us to be a Christ follower we have to follow Him.) (Mark 8:34) Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (NIV) (Matthew 10:38-39) … anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (NIV) Follow- to be in the same way with….. to accompany Jesus seemed almost brutal in trying to get this point across: Luke 9:57-62) As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family." Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." (NIV) Jesus wasn’t against family funerals, or against good-by hugs….He was against putting everything else in the world ahead of our following Him. II. Created to Follow In terms of our relationship with God we were created to follow. The whole sin of satan and a third of the angels was his refusal to follow. The sin he enticed Adam and Eve into was the sin of refusing to follow. One of the influences of the curse was a dissatisfaction with following the leader. That’s why your one year old resists the leadership of the woman who birthed him That’s why the teenager finds their parents leadership to be “like so dumb” That’s why you have a fuzz buster in your car. One of the influences of the curse is a dissatisfaction with following the leader. Now this is tricky because in life we want ourselves and our children not to be followers but to be leaders. Says the mother to her 10 year old boy. Don’t follow your friends…If your friends jumped off the Empire State Building would you jump off too. Simon sez touch your nose…Simon says stick out your tongue….Simon says stick out your tongue and touch your nose….. We get the impression that followers are weak, vulnerable, lacking in personal initiative. So we don’t want to give anyone the impression that we are not able to figure out life for ourselves. We men will drive on the wrong road for hours before we would consider stopping and asking someone for directions. Instructions on how to put something together are only for the weak. You never open up a set of instructions unless you are completely desperate after many days and no one else is looking. In direct disagreement to this inbuilt curse of never wanting to be perceived as weak. Jesus ask the most self-sufficient people to completely and without compromise make themselves completely vulnerable to His leadership. He asks us to make him, not a part of our existence but the all-consuming center of our universe! III. Following a Savior…not a System! If following Christ means, to you, subjecting yourself to the policeman of the universe then, the effect of the curse in you is going to make sure you develop all the “fuzz-busters” you can to keep from feeling controlled by your God. If following Christ is something that makes you feel controlled and claustrophobic, if following Jesus is a burden rather than a blessing; it may be that your involved with a religious system rather than with a Savior; A System…not a Savior A Project…not a Person Rules…rather than Relationship Following Christ is to be a relationship with the person who is your Savior from a life of sin! A person who has already done so much for those who follow him, who infinitely loves and cares for those He asks to follow him. Who has done so much for us in advance of Him calling us to follow Him that our normal response should be to look for ways to please him. If following is an obligation to fulfill a list of rules then you will resent every one of them. We don’t find joy in a good marriage because of the law that binds us together or the tax break for filing jointly. Our motivation to our mate comes from the relationship! The relationship makes the rule against dating other people not burdensome. Why would I want to do that??? I am going home to a relationship. So it is with being a follower of Christ. If that means obeying a set of rules, then I’m going to be resentful. If it means entering into a personal relationship with the God of the universe who cared so much about me individually that he took my sin load on himself and offers me eternal life with him… then following that kind of leader becomes the great privilege of my life. Conclusion: Following Christ is not the same as a Muslim following extremist doctrine. It’s not a matter of looking at some ancient, dead document, and interpreting it to fit today’s issues. Following Christ is about positioning a living Savior, as our singular passionate pursuit. With every thought, every choice, moving us closer and closer to intimacy with the Person who gave His life in our place. It’s about receiving love from, and giving love back to, the God who created us, the God who has every right to tell us what to do, but chose to become one of us and show us instead. Following Christ means never feeling him behind us prodding us in the rear….but always out ahead of us, encouraging us and assuring us that he has cleared the path of landmines.
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