Following Jesus - Week 1: Follow Jesus—Your Life Depends On Him | Matthew 7:13-14

I hope you will join us on this journey as we follow Jesus towards the empty.

When a child is only a few months old, parents and grandparents, along with aunts and uncles, they have this instinctual response.

Just a few months into a child's life, those family members begin to play games with the newest member of their family.

They just play games with the child because they want the child to laugh and to learn.

And the first games that we introduce to our children are these very simple one-on-one games.

Games like Patty Cake and Peekaboo and This Little Piggy.

Now, eventually, our babies they grow up into toddlers and then become preschoolers.

And as our children grow and mature, we exchange those simple one-on-one games for simple group games.

Yeah, games that can include brother or sister, or maybe even a few friends.

Again, it's all for the purpose that the child would have a time to laugh, an opportunity to learn.

So at this stage of a child's development, we introduce to them a game like Follow the Leader.

Now, generations of children have played the game Follow the Leader.

Mostly, I think, because the rules are super simple.

It requires no prior experience, and no equipment need to be purchased.

You know the rules.

One child is designated the leader, and then every other child gets in a line behind that leader, and then it's the responsibility of every child who is a follower to mimic the actions and the behavior and the sounds of the child who's the leader.

So in the moment of the game, if the leader starts running, every child behind him should do what?

Start running.

Don't walk, don't jog, don't hop and skip.

Run.

And then the moment that that child stops, everybody should stop because if they don't stop, they end up falling down like a row of dominoes, right?

But if the child stops and he does three jumping jacks, what should every child do?

They too should stop and do three jumping jacks, not four jumping jacks, not two jumping jacks, but three jumping jacks.

And then if that leader continues in the game and he then uh waddles like a duck and barks like a dog, every child in the line should waddle like a duck and bark like a dog.

And I decided to save you that visual this morning and not do those things.

But more important than the laughter that occurs through the course of that game is the lesson that each child is taught.

Yeah, follow the leader.

This game we introduce to children teaches us a lesson that we should carry with us and remember for our entire life.

Here's that lesson.

Be careful who you follow.

Be careful who you follow.

Because as you grow up in life, there are going to be leaders for good and for bad, who, because they're the leader that you're following, they have this ability to sway your opinion, to influence your behaviors, uh, to shape your attitudes, to give you a general outlook on life.

Now, when I was in kindergarten through third grade, I was kind of the teacher's pet.

Like I was the ideal student.

I'm not joking.

Like I always did what you think I'm lying, you should ask my mom.

Like, literally, kindergarten through third grade, ideal student.

Like, never spoke out of turn, always did my work, always did what the teacher asked.

And then in fourth grade, I made a new friend.

And my new friend also just so happened to be the class clown.

You know that guy?

The guy who always interrupts the teacher to make a wise crack in the middle of the lesson, and then everyone in the room bursts into giggles and laughter, and the teacher has to spend the next five or ten minutes getting everybody back on task, back in purpose.

He was the kid who would uh always speak out of turn.

He he always had a story to tell.

And he was pretty funny, right?

Like everybody actually thought he was really funny, and everybody uh gave him a lot of attention, and everybody liked to look at him, and and so he became one of my really good friends in fourth grade, and I decided I was kind of tired of being the quiet kid who never said anything, and I decided to follow his lead.

And so I started cracking jokes like he cracked jokes, and just so you know, in case you're curious, my jokes were just as funny as his jokes.

I began to speak out of turn, I began to at times be a little probably disrespectful towards my teacher like he was.

And really, like we were having a great old time.

Everybody was laughing at us and giving us attention and laughing with us and looking at us.

I had like this newfound fun I was experiencing every day at school.

And then the fun actually came to kind of a screeching halt.

At the end of the first nine weeks, my mom went to the parent-teacher conference, and I can still remember her coming home after that fourth grade parent-teacher conference, and she sat down with me and she said, Son, you know that's not how you're supposed to act, don't you?

I was like, What are you talking about?

Well, your teacher told me.

I was like, Oh, she did.

Interesting.

And my mom, in very few words, just said, stop acting like him.

In other words, Jonathan, be careful who you follow, because it can get you into trouble.

Of course, it's not just 10-year-old Jonathan who needs to remember that lesson.

All of us, regardless of our age, need to remember that childhood lesson.

Because hear it again: the person you follow in life has the power to sway your opinion, to influence your behavior, to shape your attitudes, and to give you a general outlook on life.

And in life, when we follow the wrong person, that person will lead us to difficult situations, to dangerous situations.

That wrong leader, if we follow that wrong leader, they will cause us to hurt ourselves and to hurt other people because of how they will lead us and how they will direct us.

The book of Proverbs makes a similar point.

Proverbs chapter 12, verse 26 says, the righteous choose their friends carefully, but the way of the wicked leads them astray.

Proverbs 12:26

The righteous choose their friends carefully, because the righteous understand you need to be careful who you follow, who's going to influence you, but the way of the wicked, they're not paying attention to who they follow, and that leads them astray.

You know that's true, don't you?

You know it's true.

You know it when you were in the hall of your school or at recess, and you and this group of friends, like you just kind of ganged up on one person and started making fun of them for no reason.

Just giving them a hard time, making them feel terrible about themselves.

Because you followed the wrong leader.

There's always a leader in that moment.

There always is a leader.

Or um, you know, you showed up at that party on Friday night, and the moment you got there, you're like, I shouldn't be here.

I shouldn't be here.

I I followed this person, I followed this friend here.

They're they're kind of my leader.

They influence where I go and who I associate with, and I will kind of want to be like them.

I shouldn't be here.

It's put me in a difficult, a dangerous situation.

Or you feel it in your bedroom, sitting on the edge of your bed.

Yeah, you feel it because you've kind of followed the lead of your own father.

You said you never would, and you're making a mess of your family and a mess of your marriage just like he did.

You feel it sitting in your recliner, your heart races every night, your anxiety spikes every night, your anger overflows every night, all because every night you watch the exact same uh television news program, you're just following his emotional lead, whoever your favorite guy is.

In moments like those, if we have the necessary kind of self-awareness, we can actually begin to kind of talk to ourselves for a moment, right?

If we have the self-awareness just to kind of say things like, I never thought I would do this, to say something like, I don't like how this makes me feel, or to say something like, I don't want to become this person, or to ask yourself the question, how did I become this person?

Ask yourself the question, how did I get here?

How did I come to this moment?

The answer is you chose the wrong person to follow.

That childhood lesson, we've got to remember it.

Be careful who you follow.

But here's how I want to encourage you this morning.

You're not the only one who's forgotten that lesson.

This isn't just a one-person struggle.

This is a many person, if not an all-person struggle.

And it's just not the many people in this room who have struggled with remembering this childhood lesson.

Be careful who you follow.

Listen, many people that we meet in God's word, when we read the stories of the Bible, many people forgot that exact same lesson.

Be careful who you follow.

And in the New Testament, um, one of the people who forgot that lesson is a guy named Matthew.

He's the author of the very first gospel in the New Testament.

And here's what you should know about Matthew.

When Matthew is a young adult, he starts a very lucrative career.

He's a tax collector, he's making lots and lots and lots of money.

But to be a tax collector meant that Matthew had to choose the wrong leader to follow.

Matthew chose to follow the lead of Rome, the Roman Empire.

Remember, Matthew, the author of the first gospel, he's a Jewish man, which means he's followed the lead of the occupying army, basically, the occupying forces who are ruling his land unjustly, who are oppressing the people.

I think we kind of struggle a little bit to grasp the magnitude of um the dangerous and difficult situation that Matthew's choice led him to.

For us to realize, like the choice that he made to follow Rome is horrific.

And we struggle to see that connection because we live, listen, we live in a free country, right?

We don't live with the kind of the fear of an occupying army showing up or an occupying army living down the street and people taking our money or people seizing our homes or our possessions.

We don't live with that fear day in and day out.

So help me, let me help you kind of contextualize what it meant for Matthew to make this decision, to follow the lead of Rome.

Matthew following the lead of Rome would be something like a man in Ukraine walking out of his home in his village or in his city and collecting supplies and money from all of his Ukrainian neighbors and then giving them to the Russian forces.

That's the level of what Matthew does in his life.

He is a traitor.

He does something that is egregious against the people who are his countrymen.

Now, that meant that when the Jewish people saw Matthew collecting taxes, that um they thought he was something like a thief or a murderer.

He and all the tax collectors who had that job.

The religious people, they thought Matthew and people like him, they were beyond repentance.

They could not repent of their sin.

They could not turn from sin and turn to God.

So I think we can rightly imagine that when Matthew walked the streets of his village and people saw him from a distance and they made eye contact with him, it was like knives coming out of their eyes.

That when they got close enough to Matthew, they would hurl insults, they would shout curses.

And I wonder, kind of living with that day-to-day reality of following the wrong leader and what it meant for his life, if that at moments when Matthew sat in his cubicle all alone, he thought to himself, this is not what I had planned.

How did I get here?

How did I become this person?

Why did I follow that leader?

Why did I make that decision?

See, Matthew has a lot in common with you and me.

And then one day in Matthew chapter 9, verse 9, we read this.

Matthew 9:9

Read that Jesus saw a man named Matthew.

Yeah, that Matthew, the Matthew I've just been talking about, Jesus saw him sitting at the tax collector's booth.

Follow me, he told him.

And Matthew got up and followed him.

Again, do you comprehend the magnitude of what just happened in that single verse?

For at least his entire adult life, if not longer, Matthew had followed the wrong leader.

It had led him to a difficult place in life, a dangerous place in life.

He was hurting his own soul and hurting those around him.

And then one day, Jesus walked by his tax booth.

He walked by his office window, his cubicle.

He sees him sitting inside.

Get that part of the story in your mind.

Jesus fully knew who Matthew was.

Jesus wasn't confused about the types of things that Matthew would have done.

And Jesus says, follow me.

Jesus, I can see the hurt in your soul, Matthew.

Follow me.

I will give rest to those who are weary.

Jesus says, come follow me, Matthew.

I know how you've hurt other people, and I can give you a brand new start, and I can heal those that you have hurt yourself.

For far too long in his life, Matthew had followed the wrong leader.

But now he finally met the right leader.

Yeah, it's it's true.

Be careful who you follow.

It's 100% true.

We see it's truth in all areas of our life.

But when you meet that right leader, you better be ready to get up and to follow that right leader.

That's exactly what Matthew did.

He got up and he followed Jesus Christ.

Are you ready to get up and to follow Jesus?

Today we're starting a new sermon series called Following Jesus.

It's right there in huge letters.

They just went away, but they were there for just a moment.

It's okay, David.

Following Jesus.

This series is going to take us all the way to Easter Sunday, and we'll actually have one more week in the series after Easter.

This is a series for folks who um maybe in the past you made a decision for Jesus.

You gave Jesus a yes, you put your faith in him, but you've kind of stalled out.

You're not following Jesus.

You've made a decision, but you've kind of not taken that next step and begun the walk of being his disciple.

This is also a series, though, for someone who's never said yes to Jesus.

This is a series where you're gonna see why both you want to make a decision for Jesus and be his disciple.

You want to say yes to Jesus and you want to follow after Jesus.

And here's my promise to you.

If you'll get up and follow Jesus, if you will get up and get close and personal with him, he's not gonna lead you to pain.

He's gonna point you to how you can have purpose in your life, how you can feel fulfillment in your life.

He's not gonna take you to hurt.

Instead, he's gonna show you how to be a person who extends love and hospitality, uh, who offers hope to other people.

Because what Jesus does, when you follow him, just like any other leader that we follow in this world, when we follow Jesus, he shapes our attitudes, he uh transforms our behavior.

Jesus gives us this big biblical outlook on the world that is rooted in God's character.

Are you ready to follow Jesus this morning?

To leave behind your life that you know and to truly follow after Him.

So in weeks two, three, and four of our series, we're gonna get up close and personal with Jesus by uh understanding Jesus as a prophet, as a priest, and as a king.

I'll talk to you more next week.

So come back next week about why prophet, priest, and king.

But today, in the remainder of our time together, here's what I want to emphasize for all of us in the room, all of us listening online or on the radio.

I want to emphasize the importance of following Jesus.

I think sometimes in life, let me be real honest with you, I think sometimes in life we view following Jesus like It's a game of follow the leader.

Like it's just a game.

It's casual.

There's no real commitment to it.

There's no real consequences that come from it.

It doesn't really matter.

I can show up and play and go home and go on about my life.

But following Jesus isn't a game.

It's about your future.

It's about your life.

It's about your eternity.

Because when we follow Jesus, we're not just following the leader.

We're following the Lord.

Let's not play the game, follow the leader.

Let's give our lives to following the Lord.

So here's what's at stake when it comes to following our Lord, to following our Jesus.

Follow Jesus.

Your life depends on him.

Follow Jesus.

Your life depends on him.

Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 7, verses 13 and 14.

Matthew 7:13

Our Lord says this.

But small is the gate, and narrow the road that leads to life.

And only a few find it.

Those two verses, Matthew chapter 7, verses 13 and 14, begin what is the conclusion of Jesus' most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 7:13

If you've read the Sermon on the Mount, then what you should know is that the Sermon on the Mount is how Jesus describes what it means and how you can follow Him in this world.

He explains all the ways how following Him, how getting up close and personal with Jesus will shape your opinions and transform your behavior.

It will give you a new attitude and this full, big, huge biblical outlook on the world that you see the world through the lens of what life is like in the kingdom of God.

And here's what I think Jesus knows.

Like he is this master teacher.

And he's got this group of people around him listening to the Sermon on the Mount.

And I wonder if Jesus in that moment he can kind of read the room, he can read the expressions of the people who are gathered in that moment.

And he can kind of see like they aren't really taking me all that seriously.

They think that Jesus' talk about anger and keeping your word and loving your enemies, about being generous towards other people and not worrying about all the details of your life.

They think that all of those things are fine and dandy, but he can't be serious about them.

He's just kind of talking.

But Jesus, listen, everything he says in the Sermon on the Mount, he is completely serious about those things, about how he wants to shape attitudes and give you a new outlook and shape your behavior, how you see the world.

He's completely serious because why?

Your life depends on him.

Your life depends on him.

So to grab everybody's attention, who's not taking him serious at that moment?

Jesus talks to the people about two roads.

He says, let me tell you, first there's a road.

It's wide.

That's Jesus' way of saying it looks really inviting.

It's got a huge gate that opens wide.

And when you look beyond the gate, the road is flat.

It's paved.

There are no rocks on the road, no potholes on the road.

There's no roots of trees that you can trip over as you walk the road.

The road never has a steep incline that you have to climb.

Instead, it is like you're walking on the treadmill, right?

And you don't set the incline at all.

You just walk step after step after step.

Jesus says, this wide road, it's a road that is about as easy and as comfortable as life can be.

And the reason I think Jesus says this, remember, the entirety of the Sermon on the Mount is how you uh live as my disciple, how you view the world through the lens of the kingdom of God.

And so what Jesus is, I think, saying, he's saying, like, this wide road, though, has nothing to do with the kingdom of God.

And the reason it is so easy and so wide and so comfortable is because on this road you are following the lead of the world.

You are following the flow of culture.

It's the road where it's easy to fit in.

It's the road where you agree with all of your friends and everyone in the media.

It's the road where nothing challenges the world around you.

You're just going with it, and life is happening to you, and you're just bebopping along like everything is okay.

It's the road that makes us believe that we can think like culture and act like it.

Jesus says, like, if this is the road you want, it is comfortable and it is easy.

But then he points to its destination.

Remember, your life depends on Jesus.

Your life depends on him.

And Jesus says, the destination of the wide road is destruction.

That's when the people know he's being serious.

Last week, you probably saw the stories on the news about the two tornadoes that touched down in and around New Orleans.

One of those tornadoes had winds of about 135 miles an hour, some of the aftermath in the city.

The other tornado winds of about uh 90 miles per hour.

Homes were literally lifted from their foundation and laid into the road.

Cars were overturned.

A school bus was carried a hundred yards from where the driver had parked it.

People lost their homes.

Their streets are just littered with metal and wood and debris, and there's down power lines.

At least one person lost their life.

Eight people injured.

The pictures you just saw.

That's the picture of devastation, right?

That's the picture of destruction.

And here's what I want you to grasp.

In New Orleans, they didn't ask for it, right?

They didn't ask for the destruction.

They didn't ask for the devastation.

It happened to them.

We pray for them.

We want to see healing and hope occur in these places through disaster relief going down there and serving them.

Devastation and destruction happened to them.

They didn't sign up for it.

They didn't choose the tornado.

There are some of us in this room, we chose the tornado.

We signed up for it.

We put our life in the way of it.

Pride and arrogance, jealousy, selfishness, mean-spiritedness, those are the mile markers of the wide road that leads to our destruction.

And every time we pass one of those mile markers, our families dissolve, careers are ruined, marriages are wrecked, children hurt, communities are damaged.

And here's what you have to grasp.

Listen, the wide road that leads to destruction, when you sign up for it and you put your life in the way of it, it not only hurts you, it hurts the people that you love.

It hurts the people who are in your sphere, in your home, in your business, who are part of your family and your friends.

And it followed long enough.

This is a destruction that reaches beyond life on this earth and reaches into eternity.

Yeah, the wide road, it leads to an eternity of being separated from God.

Eternal separation, that's what we call hell.

When you are eternally separated from God, that is hell, and it is an awful state.

Listen, hell is an awful state because listen, truly in life, God's word promises, and it is true on this, in our life, every good gift comes from our Father who is in heaven.

Right?

And so there is this opportunity in this world where even if you don't go to church, even if you don't believe there is a God, you get to experience some of God's good gifts by virtue of breathing on planet earth.

You do.

Like food is a good gift from God, and God wants people, even people who don't go to church on a Sunday or have faith in Jesus Christ or believe that He exists to experience that good gift.

Or breath in our lungs, that's a good gift from God, or family and friends, that's a good gift from God, and we experience those things on this earth, and it's kind of God's common grace to us, no matter who we are.

So hell becomes this place where we are eternally separated from God and His good gifts.

Like everything good in our life that we desire and we hope to experience is no more.

Because we finally got what we desired.

The ultimate end of our selfishness and our pride.

Forever separated from the God who created us and loves us.

How do you arrive at that horrid destination?

C.

S.

Lewis in his book, The Screwtape Letters, says this.

Listen to what C.

S.

Lewis says.

He says, the safest road to hell is the gradual one, the gentle slope.

Soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signpost.

What C.S.

Lewis describes is following the lead of the world.

Following the lead of culture.

Just letting culture in the world take you where it wants to take you.

It's following the lead of our friends who care about popularity, following the lead of leaders in our country who all they crave is power, following the lead of movies and influencers.

It's just following that lead and saying we're going to let that lead take us wherever it wants to take us.

And it's a safe road and a gradual slope because no one's going to argue with it, right?

No one's going to point it out and say, don't go that way.

No one's going to get pushback.

But again, it leads to destruction.

And that's why you got to remember what?

Follow Jesus.

Your life depends on him.

It's not a game.

So Jesus then says that there's also a second road.

He calls it the narrow road, harder to find, smaller gate.

It's more difficult to walk.

Rocks, potholes, roots, steep upward climbs.

I think Jesus' point is this this is the road that leads to the kingdom of God.

This is the road where the mile markers are faith, hope, joy, and love.

This is the road where people forgive.

This is a road where people love their enemies and pray for them.

This is the road that no one wants to walk because the way of the kingdom of God goes against the ways of the world.

And that means if you walk this road, this narrow road, Jesus promises to his disciples, he says, In this world you will have trouble.

He doesn't say you may have trouble, he says you will have trouble.

I think Jesus' point is this if you say you're following me and you don't have trouble because of me, you're doing it wrong.

You haven't gotten it right quite yet.

And few people choose it because of what it's going to cost them.

In Luke chapter 14, Jesus says, if anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even their own life, such a person cannot be my disciple.

Luke 14 · chapter mention

Jesus says, if you want to follow me, it will cost you everything.

It will cost you relationships and your dreams and your plans and your desires.

It will cost you everything that could keep you from following me.

But don't forget, your life depends on me.

I'm worth it.

Because what you receive at the end is so much greater.

The wide road leads to destruction, but the narrow road leads to life.

On this earth, life looks like flourishing.

Looks like joy and peace and patience.

Looks like health in our homes and our communities.

Life looks like children who grow up to reach their potential and relationships that are healed.

Life looks like life looks like people experiencing joy even in the midst of immense hardship because of the life they have in Jesus Christ.

Life looks like hope erupting where everything looked hopeless.

Life looks like where there is brokenness that healing emerges in a miraculous way.

It may take time, but healing emerges and it occurs.

And it not only do you experience that life on this earth, but this life it reaches into eternity.

It looks like life without end in a new heaven and a new earth where there is no sin, death, decay, or destruction.

It's like finding that place where you were created to live, to be, to exist, and to flourish.

One more quote from C.S.

Lewis on that ultimate destination of life.

He says this.

He says, Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it.

Listen to that again.

Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you.

It was tailored for you.

Right?

You went to the seamstress, you went to the tailor.

They took your measurements, they made a pattern for you.

It was not off the rack.

It was made for you and you alone.

No one else has put it on.

Because you were made for it.

You were made to spend eternity in God's presence.

To be close to your creator.

So the question remains: are you ready to follow Jesus?

Your life depends on him.

Another simple game that we uh teach our kids to play when they're preschoolers is um Red Rover.

I've heard they've actually outlawed Red Rover in some places.

Too dangerous, they tell me.

Never hurt me.

I say you should play it.

Um if you're aware of how Red Rover works, you know you get two lines of children, right?

And they hold hands with one another and they face each other, and the team, one team says, Red Rover, Red Rover, send, I don't know, Chris Williams right over.

I caught your eye.

There you go, buddy.

And I won't make you run across the sanctuary this morning.

Um and the person runs over and they try to break the arms of the people across from them, right?

Like try to break the arms.

But it's also a pretty hilarious game, right?

If you've ever seen someone, I think this is probably why they about lawed it.

You've seen and they hold it and the person runs as fast as they can, and then they like somersault over the arms, or it's a little guy and he runs, and the people are really strong and they just pick him up with their arms, doesn't even close to breaking it.

Everybody laughs and has a really good time.

Here's the thing about Red Rover, though, you know, it's a game where we laugh a lot, but there's also something uh really important to learn.

Yeah, one of the reasons we play Red Rover with kids is because we want them to learn to listen for their name.

Right?

Like, don't run out out of turn.

Wait until it's your turn.

Wait until you hear your name called, and then when you hear your name called, go that instant.

Don't wait, don't be distracted.

The game's gonna stall.

Be ready to listen for your name and to go.

Kind of like Father the Leader, Red Rover.

That lesson we learn, I think is something we need to carry with us the rest of our life.

Learn when your name is being called.

Because it's not just called when you play a game of Red Rover, it's being called by Jesus right now.

Just like when he walked by the booth of that tax collector named Matthew.

And it says he saw Matthew, he knew Matthew, he knew his name, and he said, Come follow me.

He says the name and he says, Come follow me, Matthew.

Come join me, come walk behind me, get up close and personal with me because your life depends on me.

So this morning, listen, here's what I know about Jesus.

He's calling a lot of names in this room.

He's asking people to follow him and to be his disciple.

He's asking people, he's saying, Hey, I'm calling your name out.

You need to make a decision for me, and then you need to come follow me.

Put your faith in me this morning and trust that I am the only Son of God and the Savior of the world.

Come, come put your faith in me, and then let's get to walking, let's get to going.

Let you follow me the rest of your life, and let me show you what life is like in the kingdom of God.

And Jesus, though, he's also calling to some of us, and we made a decision many years ago, right?

Decades ago, and he is saying, Hey, you over there, yeah, you, I got your attention.

I just said your name.

Get up, follow me, come after me.

Let me shape your attitudes, let me uh control your behaviors, let me sway your opinions and give you an outlook on the world that you've never had before.

Get up close and personal with me.

Be careful who you follow, but when you hear the right leader, Jesus, call your name, be ready to get up and follow him that moment.

That moment.

And if Jesus, you hear that name right now, and you hear him telling you what to do in this place right now.

It could be just to come around here and to pray, to pray where you're seated, to sing louder, to make a decision for him, whatever it is, whatever, however, he's calling your name out in that moment this moment, say yes to him.

Jesus, you said my name, I hear it, and I'm gonna respond.

Follow Jesus.

Listen, hear it again.

Your life depends on him.

Your life doesn't depend on anything else, it depends on Jesus.

Let's stand together and pray.

So many years ago, walking that dusty road, seeing Matthew, knowing what he had done, knowing what he did, even that very day, all the things he had done, you knew what it meant to be a tax collector, and you said, Come follow me.

Jesus, I know you walk in this room this morning.

You are here with us.

You know what we have done.

You know what we did this morning, you know the kind of people we are.

Yet I believe, Jesus, that the call remains the same to come follow me.

Strengthen us, Jesus, to hear you say our name and to follow after you.

In your name we pray.

Amen.