What it Means to Follow Jesus

 My text for today is found in Genesis 12:1-3 “Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

 

I want to focus our attention specifically on verse one: “Go forth from your country, and your relatives, and from your father’s house, to a land which I will show you.”

 

If you’ve have been in the church for a while, it’s likely you’ve heard many messages based on this text in which God called Abram to leave his home for an unknown country. I certainly have heard such sermons. But as I studied this text for today’s message, I stopped long enough to consider the WEIGHT that simple command from God must have been for Abram to follow God's voice.

 

Abram is not simply a name in the Bible. He was a real person who was 75 years old when God called him from his home. I’ll say that again for emphasis. He was seventy-five years old when God called him from his home.

 

Seventy-five years is a long time to grow up in a pagan culture with all of its attending religious practices, a culture in which there was likely zero knowledge of the God of the universe. Seventy-five years living and working and making relationships in your small community. Seventy-five years attending births and weddings and funerals of family and friends and neighbors.

 

A real person with a real life.

 

The city of Ur in Abram’s day was a prosperous metropolis and home of the Sumerian kings. It had a population of about a quarter million people and was a weathy trading and manufacturing center.The city also boasted engineers, architects, farmers, artisans, and renowned jewelers. Indeed, the Sumerians even knew how to isolate a variey of chemicals, including acetylsalicylic acid (“aspirin”) to reduce fever and pain.

 

Ur was also the home of the temple dedicated to the moon-good, Nanna who was served by multitudes of priests, priestesses, musicians, eunuchs and temple slaves. Besides their chief city god, the people of Ur worshipped hundreds of other gods whose worship included temple prostitution and sexual perversions of all kinds.

 

It is from THIS culture that God called Abram. It was from THIS culture that the God of the universe broke into his affluent and comfortable life and commanded him to leave it all behind.

 

Now let’s pause a moment to make some application. Abram was not and IS not the only person God has called to follow Him out of their comfortable life. How often did God speak through the prophets to His chosen people: “Follow Me”?  How often did the Lord Jesus urge those of His day, “Follow Me”?

 

And even if we were raised on the front pew of the church, even if we were baptized as an infant or young child – a time came in EACH of our lives that God called us OUT of the life in which we lived and worked and established relationships – He called us to follow Him into a deeper life with Him. At least, I HOPE that has been – and IS – your experience. I hope you are always desiring to follow Jesus into a deeper relationship with Him who, as St Peter wrote, “called us out of darkness and into His marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)

 

Who among us has not discovered that to follow Him who ‘was made flesh and dwelt among us” – to follow Jesus in humble obedience was and is costly? Who has not lost friends, even family, because you decided to leave your old life and relationships to follow the One who died on that cross as our substitute, to pay the penalty of God's wrath – wrath headed our way until we confessed our sins to the Father and received His total forgiveness because of the blood Jesus shed for our sins? And to this day, some of you still pay the price of ridicule and you are ostracized by people even here at Ashwood because of your unapologetic relationship with Christ.

 

And I want to tell you that I thank God that you are standing firm in your faith. I thank God you still stay the course.

 

Jesus called YOU to follow Him. Whether it was a long time ago, or not so long ago, He called you to follow Him. But I hope no one here is comfortable following Jesus in the same way you followed Him even last year. Even the great apostle Paul cried aloud: (Philippians 3:10-11) “[Oh!] that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

 

Our lives in Christ is really all about following Him – wherever He leads us and WHENEVER He leads us. To follow Jesus means to follow Him wherever He goes – to the heights of joy and companionship on the Mount of Transfiguration, and also to the depths of spiritual and emotional agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. It will mean following the Master when our friends have deserted us and Mt Calvary looms on the not-so-distant horizon.

 

John 12:24-26  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.  He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also;

 

Listen to what He told His disciples in Mark’s gospel. Jesus summoned the crowd and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.” (Mark 8:34)

 

THAT is what it means to follow Jesus.

 

Now all that I’ve said is simply prelude to the question that every thinking person ought to ask: WHY does God want us to follow Him wherever He tells us to go? And the answer to that would be easy enough to simply say, “Because He said so.”

“Because He said so.”

 

That kind of response got me to thinking back to the time when I was an arrogant pre-teen.  Sometimes I wanted to go with friends where mom didn’t want me to go. And when I argued the point with her, after a while she’d shut down the conversation with a brusk, “Because I said so.”

 

And you may have heard the same thing out of your own parents’ mouths: “Because I said so.”

 

But our Father in heaven – although He absolutely has the right to shut down the discussion with a simple, “Because I said so,” He does not do that. He gives us reasons to follow Him wherever He sends. He gives us reason for us to follow His commandments and instructions. We might not LIKE His reasons, but it’s good to know that He does not simply ‘pull rank’ – as they say. He is a loving, merciful, compassionate, and PROTECTIVE Father, Savior, and Lover of our souls.

 

So, as I considered the question of WHY God wants us to follow Him, I thought of at least THREE reasons, EACH of which is rooted in His incomprehensible love and desire to protect you and me.

 

We don’t have time today to explore each of those reasons, so today we’ll look only one. We will continue this exploration next week.

 

So, the first reason: He alone has the words of eternal life.

 

When so many of those who followed Jesus decided to no longer follow Him, the Lord asked the Twelve: “You do not want to go away also, do you?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:67-69)

                                                     

Why should we follow Jesus? Who else should we go after? The rabbis and Jewish scholars of Jesus’ day didn’t have the words of eternal life. In earlier and then later centuries, right to this present moment, other religious leaders like Buddha, and Mohammend, the Mormon’s Joseph Smith, the Jehovah’s Witnesses Charles Russell, or Mary Baker Eddy of the Christian Science religion – or a host of other false teachers throughout the millennia – none of them had the words of eternal life.

 

Christ alone – BECAUSE He is almighty God incarnate – He alone is Truth and tells us the Truth. That’s why He said, (John 8:12) “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” 

 

Walking in darkness. John writes in his first epistle that the one who walks in darkness “does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” (1 John 2:11). And there is not a Christian in this sanctuary who does not know people who have in the past walked in darkness – to their own destruction. And there is not a Christian in this sanctuary who does not know those who currently walk in darkness and whose end will also be destruction unless they repent and turn to follow the Light of the world.

 

For the sake of time, we can’t look in detail at this next text, but Paul lays out pretty well what walking in darkness looks like. You’ll find it in the last part of Romans chapter one. Here is only a snippet: (Romans 1:28-32) 

 

“And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parent, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”

 

Just this last week I came face to face once again with someone walking in darkness. But what is so tragic is that this man actually thinks he’s a Christian. He thinks he is following Christ. He regularly attends church and receives Holy Communion. He ministers as a lector in his church – one who reads the Bible portion before the sermon. And for years, I thought he was a faithful follower of Christ because he gave all the outward evidence of being a Christian.

 

But I was deceived. Let me tell you why – and I know I’ve spoken about these incendiary social issues in recent weeks, but I do so again because I am so grief-stricken about this guy who has been my friend. And I’m also SO very worried about everyone in this sanctuary – including myself and my wife. Let me paraphrase what St Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth: “We must not be ignorant of Satan’s schemes.” (2 Corinthians 2:11)

 

This guy I’m talking about, who receives Holy Communion each week, is so full of darkness spawned by his irrational hatred of Donald Trump, that he has vowed to vote for the Democrats, DESPITE their promotion and support of the cold-blooded murder of nearly 3,000 babies EVERY DAY in American abortion clinics.

 

He vows to vote for the Democrates even though they openly and proudly fund the mutilation of little boys, surgically removing their genitals because the children think they want to be girls.

 

He will vote for the Democrats this November, even though they advocate for the grooming of little school children, to introduce them to the ‘joys’ of homosexual sex. Can you fathom such a thing? These children can hardly tie their shoes without their parent’s help, and those politicians want to distort their sexual identities and morals before their morals can even be formed.

 

Scripture is very clear that the Holy Spirit lives inside each and every follower of Christ. Is it possible for the Holy Spirit to encourage a true Christian to support with their votes or their finances politicians of whatever party who boldly and unapologetically spit in God's face?

 

If Jesus is truly your Lord, then you know the answer to that question.

 

God wants us to follow Him because He alone has the words of eternal life. And to ignore those words will inevitably and inexorably bring the person to an eternity in hell and the Lake of Fire.

 

God calls us to follow Him because He alone has the words of eternal life. Listen to the prophet Isaiah, writing some 700 years before Christ, as he warns Israel – and by extension warns you and me here in this sanctuary: (Isaiah 8:20, NKJV) “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”

 

We sang a song last week, and we sang it again this week for emphasis: “I have decided to follow Jesus.”

 

Please. As your pastor and your friend, I implore you – decide today, decide NOW – to follow Jesus and NOT the media or the culture. Please, decide to follow Jesus and DO whatever He tells you to do. Abraham is a wonderful example of someone who chooses to follow Truth – wherever it leads. Abraham knew by faith that God alone has the words of eternal lilfe.

 

Next week we will explore other reasons why we are privileged to hear our Creator say to us: “Follow Me.”