What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus?
Notes
Transcript
Good Morning!
Good Morning!
If you lose you left leg, your right will be left.
This is the last Sunday of 2024! It has been a great year. It has been a tough year. There have been many valleys that we have been through, but there have also been many mountain tops that we have enjoyed. That is the life of a Christian. We do not have just a level ground that we go through life on. If we did, we would not mature our faith and we would not grow closer to God, in fact we would grow farther away from Him. It is ok if your life is a roller coaster. That is what we see in the lives of the Apostles in the Bible. What is more important is how we handle the roller coaster! How we handle these ups and downs displays who we are and where are hope lies. Our lives may be a roller coaster, but we should not be. I am not saying it is wrong to be sad, mad, or upset. Those are normal emotions that will happen to everyone. We must never lose our joy. Our joy comes from our Lord. Our life here is temporary. What happens to us here on earth, while it seems really big, it really isn’t. Eternity is really big. We will spend more time with our Lord than we will here on this earth. I said all that to say when we are praying to God for this new year to come, don’t pray for an easy life. That is not Biblical. I haven’t found anyone in the Bible that was a follower of Christ, that had an easy life. Jesus didn’t! Instead pray that when the valleys do come, that we will have the maturity of faith to glorify our King in it. That people will be able to see our joy while we are in the valley. Also pray that when we are on the mountain top, that we do not forget who got us there! Jesus! I know 2025 will be a great year, I also know that 2025 will be a hard year. Let’s glorify God all 365 days!
Today we are going to be in Mark 8:34-37.
Last week we talked about Jesus rebuking Peter and He revealed He was going to have to suffer and die. He rebuked Peter because Peter was not thinking about the will of God, but rather his own will. He wanted the Messiah to be a conquering one. He wanted to be freed from the Romans. Peter was not thinking about his greatest need. He/We need a King that is a saviour first, then a conquering King. Jesus will come back in that role one day. Make sure you are ready. Make sure your have answered the questions correctly. Who do you say Jesus is? One thing I didn’t talk about is that we can take comfort in knowing that Jesus let’s us know what is going to happen. He may not give us the details all the time, but He does tell us in His word what is going to happen. He loves us so much, He wants us to be ready. I hope you are preparing for that day! The day the He comes back!
Today we are going to be looking at what it takes to be a follower of Christ. This being the last Sunday, what a great topic to be looking at. We can see what a follower of Christ is supposed to do and if we are not doing them, we can use that information to focus ourselves for doing those things in 2025.
Please stand as we read God’s Word
34 And He summoned the crowd together with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it benefit a person to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? 37 For what could a person give in exchange for his soul? 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.”
Jesus had just rebuked Peter and now He calls the crowd to Him along with the disciples. He is going to tell them what they need to do to be a follower of His. He is going to give them God’s will for the person who wants to be a follower of Christ. These are things that a person should think about doing and if they are having a good day do them. NO, Jesus says they must do them. There is a price that we must pay if we are to be a follower of Jesus! We must deny ourselves. What does that mean? I am so glad you asked!! It doesn’t mean that we are to deny ourselves a home, a job, a nice house. We are to deny our own will. It is no longer I who lives but Christ in me. We are to submit to the will of God. We are to no longer do the worldly things that we use to do, but rather we are to now do what God wants us to do. It is the will of God, that all believers be in church. Hebrews 10:25
Hebrews 10:25
25 not abandoning our own meeting together, as is the habit of some people, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
When we do not go to church, we are doing our will and not His. He wants us to go and tell others about Him. Matthew 28:18-20
18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
When we are not doing this, we are doing our will and not His. If we are telling Jesus no, is He really the Lord of our life? How can we tell Him no, knowing all that He has done for us. All that He suffered because of us and for us. Obedience is not optional for a follower of Christ. Obedience is what shows the world who we belong to, that and the love we have for one another. If there is no denial of self, there can be no salvation. Jesus didn’t die so you can continue to live for yourself. Jesus left the right hand of God, was born on this cursed earth, and was rejected and murdered for you. He rose on the 3rd day and is now back at the right hand of God. He didn’t do all that so you can just say you are a christian and live however you want. The life of a follower of Jesus is marked by self denial and total surrender to Christ. That is the only way.
If that wasn’t enough, Jesus said we have to pick up our cross and follow Him. We have to identify with Him in suffering and death. I promise you no one back then was wearing a cross necklace! Know one wanted to be identified with the cross. The Romans only used the cross for the worst criminals. It wasn’t just anyone who was crucified. It was the worst possible death, and the Romans had mastered it. A person who was crucified was beaten first, then they were made to carry their cross to the place they were going to be crucified. Then long nails would be driven through their wrists and ankles. It painful just getting put on the cross, but that wasn’t the end of it, to breath you had to push up against the nail in your ankles. Every breath was extremely painful. You would have to repeat this cycle every time you took a breath. A person that died on the cross, suffocated. They got so tired that they couldn’t lift themselves up to breath anymore and dies. If this was taking to long, the Roman solders would break the legs of the person so they could lift themselves up. It was a horrible death to say the least. It was painful beyond imagination. Now, are we called to this kind of suffering? Most of us no. Some of us might be. There are missionaries who have died trying to go and tell people about Jesus. Whatever suffering we are to have in this life, we are to pick it up and carry it like Jesus did. Through that suffering, we will identify with Jesus. Satan promises you glory, but in the end you receive suffering. God promises suffering, but in the end that suffering is transformed into glory. Our suffering is the price we pay for eternity with our King. Salvation is the most expensive free gift! It has a cost. Are you willing to pay what is required?
Next Jesus tells them that whoever wants to save his life will lose it. Anyone who is not willing to suffer with Jesus will lose their life in the end. If we do not pick up our cross and follow Him, we are losing our life. We are saving it here on earth for a short time, but we are losing it for eternity. We are not to be seeking to live our best life now. If we do, we will not have eternity with Jesus. This can not be our best life! If this is the best it gets, then what are we doing? Heaven is so much better than this. Eternity is so much long than the 80 or so years we are given here on earth. We have to be willing to live for Him and not ourselves. Jesus says that if we lose our lives for His sake and the gospel’s, we will save it. John 12:24-25
24 Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 The one who loves his life loses it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life.
When we lose our lives for Christ and the gospel, the kingdom will grow. We will bear much fruit. We will honor and glorify Christ.
When we chose to suffer with Christ and to live according to His will and we chose to go and tell others of Him, we will save our lives. We will have eternity with our King. All the suffering will be made to glory! All that we give up, all that we go through here on earth, it is worth what is waiting for us. No where in the Bible are we promised an easy life, a life of riches. Our riches are in heaven! I would rather be dirt poor for 80 years and rich forever! Than rich for 80 years and then poor for eternity. Following Jesus requires sacrifice of self and what we want. When we do that, when we submit to His will, His will will become our will. Our desires change to match His desires. The suffering becomes more and more tolerable the longer and the closer we get to Jesus.
Jesus says it is worthless to gain the whole world and lose your soul. If we were to gain all the riches of this world, it would not be enough to pay our debt. Our debt is so high, we can never pay it back. We must stop trying. Jesus already paid that debt. Now we work to show our gratitude to our King. We deny ourselves because He did. He did the will of God and came to earth and died on the cross. Jesus did the hardest work because we couldn’t. We pick up our cross because He did. We suffer because He did. We can’t buy our souls. They cost to much. They are literally priceless. It took the death our the only Son of God to pay for them. We could not and can never pay that price. We have to accept His payment for us. We do that by obedience to His will.
What do we have to give for our souls? NOTHING!! Everything we have is like filthy rags to God. When we try to buy our souls, we insult the work that Jesus did for us. There is nothing we have that God would take for our souls. They are already paid for, we just have to let the payment be made. We have to accept what Jesus did, then we have to spend the rest of our lives living for Him, they way He is telling us here to do it. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me! If you life doesn’t say that, then there is something wrong.
Finally, Jesus tells them that if they are ashamed of Him, He will be ashamed of them when He comes in the glory of His Father. He is not saying that if we are ashamed of Him then, He is saying that if we are ashamed of Him now, He will be ashamed of us then. How we react to Jesus now will determine how He reacts to us then. Are you afraid to tell people about Jesus? Why? What can they do to you. Call you names, Yell at you. Is that being ashamed of Jesus? How do you want Jesus to react to you when you stand in front of Him? Is it fair for Jesus to accept you then if you did nothing for Him now? If you never gave Jesus a second thought, is it fair for Him to accept you then?
What does it take to follow Jesus? It takes our whole lives to follow Jesus. Not just Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. Not just a couple of minutes a day. All day everyday.
What does it cost to follow Jesus? It cost everything. Everything we have belongs to Him. Our will becomes His will. We give up comfort to suffer for Him. We love others no matter how different they are than us. We do all these things because He first did them for us.
It is not I who lives, but Christ who lives in me!
We love, because He first loved us!
In this new year 2025, will you live more for Jesus than you every have before? That is my prayer for us! May God draw us closer than ever. May we see Jesus like we have never seen Him before. May He be more real than ever before! May God give us His eyes to see His people the way He does. May our hearts break for what breaks His. May we go and make disciples!
Let’s pray
