Qualities Of A Good Follower
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Greetings…
In Matthew 4:19 we find a passage that is familiar to most everyone.
19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
More often than not this passage is used as a starting point to a sermon or lesson on being someone that goes out and teaches the lost.
In fact, there is a bible study that is actually titled “Fishers of Men.”
However, though it is very important that we hold to the great commission and be about the teach work of teaching the lost in this dark and dying world, I want us to focus on a slightly different aspect of this verse.
I want us to focus on the first part of Jesus’ statement and thus what it means to have the “Qualities Of A Good Follower.”
A follower of Christ is a follower of what is right and that is one of the most powerful forces in the world.
So, what are the “qualities of a good follower of Christ?”
They all have a…
Strong Faith
Strong Faith
Abraham’s Example.
Abraham’s Example.
In the book of Romans, as Paul strives to bring unity between the Jew & Gentile brethren in Christ, he uses Abraham as an example of faith in chapter 4 to demonstrate we are all made just by the same thing, “faith in God.”
Within this illustration of we see a “quality of a good follower of God” in Romans 4:19-20.
19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,
A quality of a good follower of Christ is one that doesn’t weaken in faith but rather is “strengthened in faith” day by day.
How does one “grow strong in his faith”, by…
Studying The Word.
Studying The Word.
Whether man wants to admit it or not there is only one avenue by which faith comes and it isn’t by wishful thinking, osmosis, or any other method of lifeless work, it’s granted through knowledge of God’s word.
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
A good follower or disciple of the Father, Son, and Spirit is one that studies God’s precious message every day.
They only way to “stand firm in the faith and be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13) is to learn more about God each and every day through study of his holy writ and study with other brethren (Romans 14:1-15:2).
Summary
Summary
So, the first required quality of a good follower of Christ is to be strong in the faith.
Relentless Fear
Relentless Fear
Fear The LORD.
Fear The LORD.
Fifty-five times in the God’s holy word we find the phrase “fear the Lord” and yet so many struggle with this concept.
How and why should we fear our Creator “who is love” (1 John 4:8) and desires everyone to be saved (2 Timothy 2:3-4).
With this phrase found so much and made so prevalent it most assuredly is a quality of a good follower of Christ.
After all, when God talked to the Israelites concerning the “king they desired” and how things could continue to “be well” for them, he stated…
14 If you will fear the Lord and serve him and obey his voice and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, and if both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord your God, it will be well.
Notice the first thing, “fear the LORD.”
The great king Solomon in all his wisdom said this at the end of the book of Ecclesiastes…
13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man’s all.
So, what does it mean to “fear the Lord?”
There are two parts to this.
First there is the obvious reality that God is our final judge and has the power to bring us to live with him for eternity or cast us into eternal damnation.
28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Secondly, we find in scripture a maturing that take place within every faithful child of God that goes from “solely being afraid of hell” to being “afraid of disappointing God.”
16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
Summary
Summary
So, a strong faith is a vital quality of a good follower of God but so is a relentless fear of the Lord.
We must most assuredly be mindful that God is our judge and hell is real, but we should be more focused on pleasing God because we love him and don’t want to disappoint him.
Another quality of a good follower of Christ is a…
Different Spirit
Different Spirit
Right Spirit.
Right Spirit.
In Numbers 14 we read where God listens to Moses and pardon’s the iniquity of the people who didn’t trust God to help them take the promised land but then explains that the consequence of their iniquity is that this people would never step foot in the land promised by God.
It’s within this powerful message to Moses and thus the disgruntled Israelites we find this gem concerning Caleb.
22 none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, 23 shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. 24 But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it.
A quality of being a follower of Christ is having a “different spirit” from the world.
We aren’t to be friends with the world.
4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
We are sojourners and exiles of this world, it isn’t our home.
11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
Summary
Summary
A quality of a good follower of Christ is having a different spirit than the rest of the world, a right spirit.
One that loves God with our all (Luke 10:27).
Conclusion
Conclusion
To be a follower or disciple of Christ we must have these qualities…
We must have a strong and ever-growing stronger faith.
We must have a fear of God that grows from being terrified of hell to terrified of disappointing our God with sin.
We must have a different spirit from the world, one that is right in the sight of God not man.
Invitation
1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; 2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
32 “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.
8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.