Growing In Jesus

Growing in Jesus

What does it mean to follow Jesus? I mean really, what comes to your mind when you think about someone who claims to follow Jesus or would say they are a Christian?

- Maybe open it up for their answers?

In John 10 we actually here from Jesus what this means, he is going to explain what it means for those who come to Him.

Right before Jesus goes into this teaching about who exactly he is. We see a story in John 9 where he heals a blind man. We have a dude who was born blind and Jesus heals him so that he can see. Well the religious leaders of the day come to this guy and they simply don’t believe it. They go through all this trouble to even find his parents to see if this really happened. The parents says he is a grown man, ask him. The guy finishes by kind of sounding off. He says I am not sure who this dude was, I'm not sure where he came from, all I know is I was blind and now I can see. He then says I have never heard of the blind seeing before, so if this man is not from God how would this be possible.

The Pharisees, I'm assuming, think that is a good point but they are frustrated that he is trying to lecture them. So they yell at him and throw him out. Jesus then comes to this guy, hearing that he was thrown out and says

- “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” Essentially, do you believe in the one that God has made King.

- The guys responds with “Who is he? Tell me so I can believe in Him.” This guys could careless who it is, all he knows is something crazy happened and I will believe in the one who did this. Jesus says I am that person. The guy then says he believes and worships Jesus.

o Jesus responds with “For judgement I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” Essentially Jesus is saying I have come for you, I am here for you. You were a blimnd man, not valued or cared for by anyone but you need to know that God cares and sees you.

o The Pharisees then respond thinking he is talking about them. And Jesus goes into the teaching that we are going to look at. He goes on to tell them that He is the way, that only those who humble themselves, like this blind man are the ones that will see. But the ones who think they can see, think they know it all, they will remain blind.

Here is where we get the answer to our question, what does it mean to follow Jesus?

- Jesus says, in John 10:9-10 “I am the gate, whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; (this is it) I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

o Jesus says that when people come to Him, they find life and they have life to the full. Those who are followers of Jesus have life to the full

Jesus then goes on to expand on this. He calls Himself the good shepherd. Making the analogy that those who come to Him are the sheep within His care. He protects the sheep, he says in the next few verses that he will lay His life down for the sheep.

- But sheep aren’t just happy that they are protected, sheep listen to their shepherds, they follow their shepherd. Jesus says in verse 14, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me.”

This is what it means to follow Jesus, it means to have life and have it to the full, this means knowing Jesus, following Jesus, following in his footsteps, following His example. This is why Jesus says to follow Him, Jesus never says having the right knowledge is life to the full but truly following Him.

This makes sense, the story of the bible sets forth this view of the world. The bible begins with God creating humanity and giving them direction, telling them this is good, take care of each other and the world and walk with me. However they decide to do what they think is good. Humanity says God I think you are wrong, I know what is better so I am going to do what I want. The results are devastating, they create a world of murder, of envy, jealousy, abuse of power, this continues through the Bible yet there is a glimmer of hope. The hope is that God promises to seend someone, a king, a king who will redeem, a king who will turn things around. Give people a different way of life, not longer one filled with evil and doing whatever you want. But one that results in caring for others, creation, and walking with God.

This is what Jesus is saying, Jesus is saying I am the one. I am the one providing this new way of life. But we need to understand this is the key, we didn’t just need a change of beliefs, we needed a reorienting of our hearts to change the way we lived. Jesus says I am that way.

Now, I don’t know how this next statement will be received but can I tell you guys that one of my favorite movies is Frozen. I think they both have fantastic sound tracks and a great mix of comedy. I am a big fan, so if anyone else is we can chat after about how great it is.

But in one of the movies, Princess Elsa has this line that encompasses a lot of how we feel. Now princess Elsa is the one who has the crazy ice powers and a lot of the movies is her trying to figure out who she is, how she can be herself and all of this stuff. And one of her lines that is subtle but powerful is

- “It’s no right, no worng, no rules for me, I am free.” (Say again)

o To Princess Elsa, she has been longing to be free from rules, to do whatever she wants. And we feel the same way. The main message we hear is do what you want, do what you feel. We think that freedom is doing whatever we want.

o One Pastor says “Freedom now means the ability to do whatever you want… That is the western rules of understanding of freedom. (ELABORATEE A LITTLE)”

o “ Jesus called that exact same thing slavery. (RIGHT ABOUT HERE IS WHERE WE THINK THE PASTOR IS GOING TO GIVE US A BUNCH OF RULES TO FOLLOW) Because when you don’t have right, wrong, rules for me, you are not actually free to do what you want but you are enslaved to your flesh. Paul “slaves of the belly” “lovers of pleasure”. As long as you need it you are enslaved to it.”

“As long as you need it you are enslaved to it…” When we do what we want, we become slaves. We become slave to the cravings we have. We become a slave to post on Instagram, we become a slave to my phone because I have severe anxiety with FOMO. I become a slave to what others think about me. I become a slave to my boyfriend or girlfriend because I desperately need their approval.

Jesus comes on the scene and says the Jesus way is the way of life, life to the full. This means walking in his footsteps. Reading of our bibles, prayer, walking with others who believe in Jesus. Knowing what he says about us.

- A pastor in Oregon says that the two biggest hurdles to us following Jesus is busyness and lies. There are lies we all believe that control our lives. When we come to Jesus those lies are no longer there. Jesus sees us, protects us, leads us. Just like what he said this is life to the full. Yet we fail to let our life reflect this, we put our faith only for Sundays and Wednesdays. Our faith is only for a certain group of people and not when I walk the school halls because I desire approval yet you already have it. You have it in Jesus and you have it in this room.

- Issue becomes we never do anything to remove those lies from our head. We keep on living our life hoping things will get better but we never truly change our life to look like Jesus.

Ill finish with this story, so WW2 is famous because of Hitler and his murder of Jews. Through concentration camps and absolutely horrible things. At the same time there was a guy by the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I actually talked about him last time I taugh. But Dietrich was a pastor and when world war two began he started to meet everyday with a small group of people to teach them the bible, pray together, and grow in their faith in Jesus. However some of his friends were saying you are being too extreme, this is too much. They were telling him that he needs to chill. So then one day, Dietrich took him on a boat ride. They road for a little bit and came to a place on the river where they could see the Nazi army base. This is where the Nazi army was being trained to fight in combat. So Dietrich looks at his friend, he points back to where he meets with his group and says “this must be stronger than that” As he points to the Nazi base.

- Dietrich realize that not only was a war coming but he was more talking about the worldview. If you remember what I taugh on that time or know anything about the war, the Nazi worldview was that the german race was superior and every other race needed to be eliminated. They were persuading people to have this same view, to say that other humans are less than. Dietrich realized this and started a group that said we, as Jesus followers, need to be strengthened, need to walk as Jeuss walked, have the world view of Jesus.

The same is true today, reading scripture, praying, being in community, serving others these are how we form our worldview and how we strengthen ourselves in following Jesus. In these is the only way that we won't be taken captive by our desires, by what others tell us to believe.

You don’t even need to take my word for it, you can be just like the blind man that we talked about at the beginning. If you remember he didn’t know what had happened all he knew was that a miracle happened and he was given value and worth. He said I am not sure what this is but I am in. The Way of Jesus is not something I can persuade you in and it's even tough to explain but what I do know is a life lived by anything other than the way of Jesus is degrading, devaluing, it is not life to the full.

PUT THIS IN????????????Even though each thing that God made is good, delightful, and a source of satisfaction. As an object of our love we cannot expect more satisfaction than its nature can provide. We must give love and praise to things apportioned to their worth. Problems don’t arise because we need things or because we love things. Problems arise when we fail to grasp the nature of the objects that we need and love and the expectations we have regarding the outcome of our love.

Questions

- What are some of the lies/things you believe about yourself and others? What do you think God would say to that?

- How does it make you feel to think about changing things in your life to follow in the way of Jesus? Good, bad, frustrated, anxious, think it's dumb.

- Whats one or two things you can remove or put in your life to better form you?

The healed man has been roughly treated by the religious authorities, and thrown out of the synagogue. What John next writes, then, is that many thieves and robbers destroy the sheep, while the good shepherd leads his own out from the sheep pen and into his own flock. And if the bare juxtaposition of 10:1–18 with the end of ch. 9 is not enough to establish the connection, John reports the continuing uncertainty of ‘the Jews’ over the healing of the blind man (10:19–21) in order to tie the two passages together[1]

[1]Carson, D. A. (1991). The Gospel according to John (p. 379). Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans.