The Way of Jesus Week 1: Follow Me

MATTHEW 4:18-22, PREACHED AT ASBURY MC ON FEB 2, 2025

The core mission of the church, any Christian church you are a part of, is to do one thing: make disciples of Jesus. It’s what Jesus told his closest followers to do before he ascended into heaven: go and make disciples of all nations.

But disciple is one of those words that has almost become so used by the church that we’ve forgotten what it means—or perhaps we’ve forgotten what it means because it’s rare to see someone actually living it out.

But I want us together to figure out what it means, and to do everything we can, in our power, to become disciples of Jesus.

Intro teaching series, use of John Mark Comer’s book, invite to join a group

What is a disciple?

Jewish context: Jesus is a rabbi (master or teacher)

=> every rabbi had a “yoke”, meaning his teachings, his way of studying scriptures, his spiritual life

normally rabbis would only receive applicants of the best of the best of Torah students…

Matthew 7:28 NIV

When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching…

Matthew 13:54 NIV

Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked.

Mark 1:22 NIV

The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.

A disciple is a follower or student of a rabbi

Student/teacher is part of it—> but way too quickly think being a disciple is merely about having right beliefs…it’s not!

A disciple is an APPRENTICE of a rabbi

Story about me learning from Bill (esp. getting stuck in the room with a doorknob)

The goal of an apprentice:

To be with your rabbi

To become like your rabbi

To do what your rabbi did

“To follow Jesus, then, meant to walk alongside him in a posture of listening, learning, observation, obedience, and imitation. For Jesus’ first apprentices, the goal wasn’t to pass a test, get a degree, or receive a certificate frame on your office wall; it was to master the art of living in God’s good world by learning from Jesus how to make steady progress into the kingdom of God.”

-John Mark Comer, Practicing the Way

And this is how it worked with Jesus’ disciples…with the exception that Jesus called much more ordinary men to be his disciples…not scholars, not learned men, but fishermen. Ordinary folks. And he did not take applications for people to be his student, he called them. And that’s what we see in Matthew 4:18-22

Matthew 4:18–22 NIV

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.

We might read this and think, why would anybody just drop everything to follow around some random guy. But we’re missing it if we think that way! This is like getting a full ride to a prestigious college—this would have been a great honor, for a rabbi like Jesus to want you to be his apprentice. Jesus was and would turn out to be a very radical, very unusual rabbi; but he was a rabbi. And when you read the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, this is what these twelve men are doing. They are spending time with their rabbi…constantly. So that they can become like their rabbi.

The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher. Luke 6:40

Jesus was training apprentices so that they would be like him; he had a yoke, a way of life, and he wanted them to learn it from him and adopt it, so that they would be like him. And ultimately, after his death and resurrection, once he is about to ascend into heaven, he gives his mission, to these men, to do what he did. To go and make apprentices of him, and of his way of life. Jesus said in John 14:12,

John 14:12 NIV

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.

Who are you following?

Everyone is following someone, everyone is becoming like someone…

Are you a “Christian” or an apprentice of Jesus?

“Christian” only used 3 times in the New Testament; disciple/apprentice used 269 times

According to a recent Barna study: 65% of Americans self-identify as Christian, but only 4% could be said by worldview and practice to be following Jesus; are you a Christian or a practicing Christian?

Discuss believing rightly so we can go to heaven when we die vs. a way of life that transformed us to be like Jesus

Protestants particularly get so hung up on avoiding works righteousness that sometimes we fail to grasp that faith in Jesus is not only in our heads, it’s trusting him with our entire life; it is a WAY of life, because he is the WAY

Jesus died to save us from our sins, but he also saved us TO a life of apprenticeship into the kingdom of God…we have neglected what Jesus saved us FOR and what he calls us to, the life he commands us into

The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who…are identified as Christians will become disciples—students, apprentices, practitioners—of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of Heaven into every corner of human existence. -Dallas Willard

John 14:6 “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

“The Jesus way wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life…Jesus as the truth gets far more attention than Jesus as the way. Jesus as the way is the most frequently evaded metaphor among Christians with whom I have worked for fifty years as a North American pastor.” -Eugene Peterson

Come, follow me. -Jesus

Come be with me

Come become like me

Come do the things that I did

Ways to Practice the Way this week:

1.Join a small group.

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2.Develop a daily prayer practice.