Follow Me

Intro

Have you ever gotten into something and thought after “this is not what I signed up for”. I have mentioned this before I think, but when I was a teenager I started to get into music. a compoany called Columbia House would advertise an incredible offer in the mail: “Get 8 (or 12) CDs for just a penny!” It seemed too good to be true, and for many music lovers like me, it was irresistible. To participate, you’d select your CDs from their catalog and send in the form (often included in magazines). A shiny box of CDs would then arrive at your door. But as iusual their was a catch, that both me and my parents missed.

The Catch

Membership Commitment: By accepting the initial deal, you were committing to become a member of their club. This meant you were required to buy several more CDs (typically 4-8) at their "regular price" over the next year or two. These CDs were often significantly more expensive than you’d find at retail stores.

Automatic Shipments: As a member, you’d receive a monthly catalog featuring the "selection of the month." If you didn’t decline the selection by a specific date, they would automatically ship it to you—and charge you full price for it.

High Prices and Shipping Fees: The "regular prices" were often inflated, sometimes as high as $20-$25 per CD. Shipping and handling fees added to the overall cost, making the deal less of a bargain.

Cancellation Hassles: Canceling your membership wasn’t straightforward. It often required a phone call, persistence, and sometimes returning unwanted CDs.

I did get out of the contract eventually. But I learned my lesson. Sometimes I wonder if the same thing happens when people learn what it means to follow Jesus. When we love others without telling them what it means to follow Jesus we can get this. Thinking this is not what I signed up for. Or like the examples we have in scripture when Jesus told people that he met with what it would take to follow Him they with walked away sad because of the cost, or jumped in with both feet saying I am in.

Where this came from is how something Moses said looked forward to the Birth of Jesus. The first thing that we looked at was How Jesus was the foretold prophet that would be the mediator between man and God. This means that Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of the redemptive plan of God calling all people to repentance. This got me thinking of what it means to love others. Because God loved us, He sent Jesus, the fulfillment of OT prophecy. So because we love others like God loved us we need to call them to follow Jesus as well.

The last message on the short rabbit trail shows what it really means to follow Jesus. We do not want people to come and realize as they join us that this is something we missed telling them, that this is not what they signed up for. But at the same time we will get that reaction from people. What Jesus told us is

If you really want to follow Him you need to realize it is not about you but the glory of God you must be willing to follow even unto death for our reward is eternity in Glory.

Follow Me

The birth of Jesus calls us to follow Him. The shepherds left their flocks in the field, likely with someone but we do not know for sure. They came and bowed down to the Messiah. The wise men followed the sign of the star for years, following the promise of the messiah at the end of the journey. We as well are called to follow Jesus. When Jesus met people where they where at, he called them to follow Him and that is what we are going to look through.

Mark 8:34 CSB

34 Calling the crowd along with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

Jesus was teaching a crowd, mainly talking to His disciples it would seem, but the message was for all to hear. but the first part is what we are going to look at first.

Mark 8:34 (CSB)

“If anyone wants to follow after me

Something I noticed here, I do not believe it is on accident that the wording is here. Though this is not the place to get a theology on the subject of free will it is here none the less. If anyone wants to follow me. We have a choice.

It is not ours to force people to follow Jesus, God will not force us to follow Him. There is a lot more to the discussion then that, but for now we will leave it at this. Part of the discussion on the subject says that we have a choice to follow God or to not follow Him. We tell people the truth and we tell them they have a choice to make. We tell them that these are the facts, (the gospel message) and we tell them they have to make a choice. But we also show them through the way that we live. It works both ways. Through our actions and through our speech through loving them we tell them that they must make a choice. The consequences we will see in a bit.

But like the rich young man who walked away sad we love others we tell them they must learn to follow Jesus but then they ask what must i do to follow Jesus. this is the hard part.

let him deny himself

This is when it starts to get a bit uncomfortable. We follow people all the time on social media these days. We may not really know who they are, but we follow them, there activities, what they do. We may even be able to tell people more about the celebrities that we follow then the God that we live our lives for sometimes.

We deny ourselves of things, we deny ourselves of calories to help us to lose weight, or to be more healthy. We deny ourselves of TV because work needs to be done. We deny ourselves of some nicer things because we have kids and they come before us and we must provide for them. Or at least that is the way that it is supposed to be. But how often do we deny self?

to follow Jesus we are told that we need to deny our selves. To deny ourselves is a hard thing to do when the world tells us to think only of ourselves. This is a simple enough concept though, it means to cease to make yourself the object of your life and actions. It is God and not self that needs to be at the center. Though I think that this is sometimes a learning process as we can read about in John 3:28-30

John 3:28–30 CSB

28 You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but I’ve been sent ahead of him.’ 29 He who has the bride is the groom. But the groom’s friend, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the groom’s voice. So this joy of mine is complete. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”

John the baptist knew that Jesus was the messiah and He got the point that in order to be a follower of Jesus, He must increase and we must decrease.

How are we doing at completely abandoning ourselves to the will of God. God is not looking for detached observers but people that are going to give themselves to Him. How are we doing at telling people as they want to more about what it means to be a follower of Jesus that it is no longer going to be about htem but complete abandon to the will of God?

But it gets tougher yet.

take up his cross, and follow me.

The way of the cross. The picture is of a condemned man already on the way to his execution. This is not merely some simple irritation in life but being ready to die as Jesus was. We suffer as Jesus suffered so that we may be glorified with Him.

The bible speaks of this all the time. If we want to identify with Jesus then you must be willing to identify even in His suffering. The Bible also speaks that the the time leading up to the end is like Labor pains. We go through the labor pains because of the child at the end of it. But during the labor the pain comes and then it goes for a bit. The pains get stronger and worse and closer together as time goes on towards the birth. but none the less there is pain that gets worse as it gets closer.

We are warned that we may suffer for the sake of the Lord and His call on our lives. Part of being all in, to be completely obedient to the will of God means that when the suffering does come we will be willing to take it for the sake of the glory of God. If we love others we do them a disservice to let not let them know that there may be pain involved, there may be hardships. There have been people leave the church before because they where told that they would never face hardships if only they had enough faith. That is not what the bible teaches.

Why do we do this? How do we get through these hardships? why is it that we can suffer for the sake of the cross?

Mark 8:35 CSB

35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me and the gospel will save it.

If it is our own lives we are focused on we will lose are told. The reason for this is that living for ourselves, while it may gain us money, fame, a comfortable life here on earth in the end, in regards to eternity will lose.

You have to remember we are eternal beings, what we do in this life has eternal consequences. To save your life, you must follow the way of the cross.

Mark 8:36–37 CSB

36 For what does it benefit someone to gain the whole world and yet lose his life? 37 What can anyone give in exchange for his life?

What does it benefit you to gain the whole world but lose your soul?

You may be able to gain the world, the riches of the world but what does it gain you in the end. Take the roman empire for example. They where a dominant superpower at the time, one of the biggest empires. At their biggest, they say the empire contained 20% of the worlds population. They where on their way to dominating the whole world. They worshiped false gods, they did many deplorable things and now they are not nearly the power that they used to be.

You may gain the whole world, get millions of dollars

and live in luxury for the rest of your life but what do you get in the end?

But we need to remember the other side of that. We is it that we can lose the world, lose our lives, take up our cross and follow Jesus? Because of the result of what we get in the end. A life lived for Jesus results in eternal life with him. A life lived for self and for the world without a relationship with Jesus results in eternal death.

so therefore Mark 8:38

Mark 8:38 CSB

38 For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Do not be ashamed of a life lived for Jesus. Like a good Christian song I likje says

I'm not ashamed to let you know I want this light in me to show I'm not ashamed to speak the name Of Jesus Christ

This one says it's a lost cause Save your testimonies for church time The other ones state you'd better wait Until you do a little market research I'm saying, "No way

Are we ever ashamed to speak the gospel of Jesus? Do we ever shrink back from sharing the light of the gospel? I have at times. I will admit it There have been times that I have been ashamed, or more then anything scared to share the message of the gospel when I should have freely told people. Most of my good friends these days are fellow Christians, and the other friends and acquaintances I have tend to be in the community and know what I do for a living so it makes it a little easier for me. Let us not be ashamed of the God we serve but freely love others as Jesus has loved us.

So What?

As I have mentioned this all came from going through Jesus being the fulfillment of prophecy and the prophet that was predicted. This means that Jesus was also the redemptive plan of God fufilled. So this got me thinking of how we need to love others then as Jesus has loved us and it got me thinking, Do we really know what it means to love others. So we have been going through the examples that Jesus has given us. And what we learn is that Jesus calls us to more then just being nice, He calls us to tell others what they are in for. This is what people are signing up for.

Fully Committed Followers

Do you want to follow Jesus? then you must be fully committed to Him. Jesus loved us enough to give a way out of our sin, but we must be willing to commit all we are to Him. Jesus does not want detached observers. This is not like a sports game where you can cheer safely from the sidelines.

When I played Volleyball in Bible College coach always taught us to commit to the ball, no matter if we could get it or not we had to go for it and try our hardest. One of the drills we would do is get in the ready position while he stood on a chair on the other side of the net and spike the ball at us. It could go right at your head, or off to the side, either way you had to try to dive for the ball.

Jesus calls us to completely abandon ourselves to the will of God, to forget about selves and give ourselves to the glory of God.

Take up Your Cross

To take up your cross and follow Jesus is no simple feat. It is not a literal take up a cross and be crucified but the journey in this life that matters. The picture is of a condemned man on His way to die carrying the tool that is going to kill Him.

We may not be called to die, we may not even suffer that much. But some people will. We have sickness and disease because of sin. we have world powers that try to condemn what we are doing as followers of Jesus. Either way we travel the road that Jesus traveled and must be willing to give our all for the sake of the gospel, including our lives.

are you a true follower of Jesus, do you really love others? then let us together call others to be followers as well. For what is at stake is eternity.