11.01.2009 What it Means to Follow Jesus

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We are in the midst of some special weeks – appointing elders last week and the Missions Conference in two weeks – but in between, we are looking at What it Means to Follow Jesus
Matt. 4: 17 From that time Jesus began to preach and say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." 18 And walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. 19 And He ^said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." 20 And they immediately left the nets, and followed Him. 21 And going on from there He saw two other brothers, James the [son] of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and He called them. 22 And they immediately left the boat and their father, and followed Him.
If you, like me early on, if your Bible knowledge came from watching movies – like Jesus of Nazareth or The Greatest Story Ever Told – it seems – He goes into the wilderness and then calls these disciples he’s never met and it is like this strange, mystical feeling. But I don’t think that is how it happened.
Let’s look at an outline –
Baptism
Temptation in the Wilderness – 40 days then comes back to the Jordan -
Andrew Follows Jesus (John 1) – and gets his brother Peter – We found the Messiah! They spend some time with Jesus.
Next, we see Jesus at the wedding in Cana - Water into Wine (wedding miracle) – Peter, Andrew, John and James are there and they witness this.
Jesus to Jerusalem and First Cleansing of the Temple – and likely, the disciples see this but aren’t followers yet.
Then Nicodemus in John 3 – and they go to the football game and hold up the sign, “John 3:16” – and that is where that started –
Then to Samaria – sees a woman at a well – and an entire city repents
Then Preaching in Galilee - Healing the Sick – and Casting out Demons
Then
Luke 4: 16 And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. 17 And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book, and found the place where it was written, 18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are downtrodden, 19 To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord." 20 And He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon Him. 21 And He began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
What He is doing – this passage in Isaiah – all would have understood what this is about – the coming Prophet/King/Messiah
Jesus reads this and says – Look – I am the coming Messiah – the coming King – you are witnessing the coming of the Messiah.
Now – I don’t have time to go into it, but we see their response – “Who do you think you are?! We know you – you are Mary and Joseph’s son – you can’t be the Messiah” – we are still not to where Jesus calls the disciples at the Sea of Galilee – it is all leading up here. He has come for the poor – release to the captives and to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord – The Jews were waiting for the Messiah – they were an occupied people – an enemy had taken over the land – most were very poor and oppressed – unless they were in cahoots with Rome – and there were a number who claimed to be the Messiah. None of them made it – and here comes another one. And then we go to Matthew 4 again – Follow ME! And they left everything and followed him. Then John and James leave their dad, Zebedee – How did they do that? Then we want to ask – what would this look like today? What does it mean today – and how do we become disciples like this? We see a radical – these are radical followers of Jesus – at least from our perspective.

There may have been a period of a year before this point where they were around, watching Him do these miracles. He was preaching in all the synagogues – and it tells us His preaching had a unique power to it. He was casting out demons. He was like no one else. This was someone unique – with power. They knew all of that. They also, in John 1, knew that to some degree, He was the Messiah. We see they did not know what that really meant – but Andrew said – Come, we have found the Messiah! The Jews in general did not understand that. With that in mind – all of that is a backdrop to this story. Also, it was common in that day – when someone attached himself to a rabbi, he would leave all. This was not uncommon in that day.
With all that as a backdrop – as they followed Jesus – they were following the Messiah – they were the ones – if you look in Luke 4 – ‘anointed Me to preach the good news to the poor’ – they were the poor – the captives, the oppressed. They were the ones in that situation – longing and looking and hoping for a messiah – someone to come and free them. So when the opportunity comes – they jump at the chance – WOW – we get to be a part of this – this guy has come to kick out the Romans and He is asking US to take part in this. I say this because of this – their motivation was a motivation of hope – they believed that Jesus could change things – that Jesus was the Messiah. We turn this into – “God wants you to leave everything – to sacrifice and follow Him!” But that is not the motivation at all – The one who has come to free us is calling us to follow Him.

Put your political views aside – Throw them out the window!
When Barack Obama was running for president – what was his theme? Hope and Change. People believed he offered a better future. So they voted or followed him. His inaugural address gave this deep sense of hope to people.

What Jesus did – He inspired hope for a future for those who had no future. Understand – Israel had no hope for a future at this point. And here comes someone who is giving them a real hope for the future. What else would they do?
There is a point in John where people are beginning to leave Jesus – and Jesus asks – Will you leave me too? Where shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. When we put this into US now – it does not necessarily mean LEAVING/SACRIFICING – that may come – but it starts with this deep abiding sense of hope – in following Christ there is hope for the future – and I don’t mean by that that the economy will get better. But it means there is an eternal hope for all of us – and that needs to be our deepest motivation in following Jesus. When we think about following Jesus in the 21st Century – it is following Jesus – not following Jesus Plus – Plus principles for successful living. That is not how it should be. If you follow Jesus, you may suffer for the rest of your life. Most of us haven’t, but there are millions who do. But the true hope is the eternal hope. Any bookstore – is filled with – how Jesus – helps you to break bad habits – have financial peace – and all these are good things – BUT – those aren’t about following Jesus – those are things we do as Christians – but that cannot be the motivation.
Dennis Knable used to say this – and probably believed this more than anyone else I know – “Jesus saved me – and if He does nothing else for me – that is enough!” – I think that is what the disciples were saying when they left everything to follow Jesus. It may take a long time to get there – but that is where He wants us to go. That is where it all starts.
Second – we need to follow as the poor and oppressed. It is hard for us, living in a wealthy land – it is worse now – but we have it pretty decent – to see ourselves as the poor and oppressed. Not necessarily poor financially – but you need to see at least, that you are spiritually poor. We are the blind He gave sight to – like Dick shared last week – if you see yourself as pretty good, you won’t follow Jesus radically until you see your spiritual poverty. That is a humbling thing to do – as Good Christians we should – but we need to recognize where we are. The people I learn the most from have that spirit – and you don’t look down on them, you admire them.

The next thing we see – it takes us back to Luke 4 – it is really interesting, but we don’t think about it too often – you need to follow Jesus in community.
Luke 4 - 18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are downtrodden,
Right after this – he gives the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount – Blessed are those who are poor – who mourn – hunger and thirst for righteousness – and He is describing those who will be a part of the Kingdom. We make following Jesus a PERSONAL THING – when I got saved – it was all about individual discipleship – but we are being called into a community kingdom. You were never meant to follow Jesus alone – but in community – in the church. In order to be a radical follower of Jesus – you must be radically committed to His community called the Church. In our individualistic mentality – we miss that a lot.
For the disciples – this will change things for them – in the rest of their following – it is learning to work in community – a couple brief examples –
Mark 5: 25 And a woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years, 26 and had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse, 27 after hearing about Jesus, came up in the crowd behind [Him,] and touched His cloak. 28 For she thought, "If I just touch His garments, I shall get well." 29 And immediately the flow of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. 30 And immediately Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power [proceeding] from Him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, "Who touched My garments?" 31 And His disciples said to Him, "You see the multitude pressing in on You, and You say, 'Who touched Me?'" 32 And He looked around to see the woman who had done this. 33 But the woman fearing and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him, and told Him the whole truth. 34 And He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your affliction."
Now – look at Leviticus 15:19 – this is important –
19 'When a woman has a discharge, [if] her discharge in her body is blood, she shall continue in her menstrual impurity for seven days; and whoever touches her shall be unclean until evening.
Seven days she is to not be touched. In fact – had to live in a tent…
25 'Now if a woman has a discharge of her blood many days, not at the period of her menstrual impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond that period, all the days of her impure discharge she shall continue as though in her menstrual impurity; she is unclean.
This woman went 12 years in this society – she was not to be touched for 12 years – we don’t know that they all followed this – but she was unclean – untouched – for 12 years. The Jewish people had all these classifications for those who were not part of the community – think about it – oppressed and poor – They had a name for these women – Zavah – we can’t fathom this – she was so afraid because she wasn’t supposed to be there – and she was unclean, in a crowd – and she touches Him. What we see – He is bringing in the poor, oppressed/blind – unclean. Every class of person the disciples would struggle with – He invites them in – Go out to the highways and bring them in! If we want to be a radical follower of Jesus, we need to be radically committed to the community. Now we don’t have unclean people in this community – but we do…In America – you are not supposed to think anything bad about anyone – except maybe Christians – but in life – there is racism and categories we set up for people – and we do this with one another – it is – we are just so narrow and God wants us to be willing to really serve with one another – to be radically committed to the people He has called us to be in community with. Whatever the situation.
Jesus was this way – we need to be that way.
I heard this statement this week
The church needs to be a cross-shaped community –
Later, Jesus tells His disciples – Who do people say I am? Some say Elijah – who do you say? You are the Messiah – That is right! Then Jesus told how He would go to the cross – and they were like – wait – the Messiah does not go to a cross and die – and Peter says – may it never be! Then Jesus says – if YOU wish to follow me – you will go to the cross too!
When he said – follow me and fish for men – they might not have understood it at first – but now we know.