Follow Me: The Radical Invitation of Jesus | Trinity Sermons

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Trinity

Sermons. This week we're launching a brand new

teaching series called This is the Way. But what

is the way? What are we following? What are we

chasing? Everybody is chasing something. Maybe

it's a career. Maybe it's a dream. Maybe you're

following a set of rules and expectations. But

what would it look like to follow the way of

Jesus? That's what we're going to start exploring

today and continue throughout the rest of Lent.

Today's reading is from the Gospel of Mark, chapter

Mark 1:9–20

1, verses 9 to 20. In those days, Jesus came

from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by

John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of

the water, immediately he saw the heavens being

torn open and the Spirit descending on him like

a dove. And a voice came from heaven. The Spirit

immediately drove him out into the wilderness,

and he was in the wilderness forty days being

tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals,

and the angels were ministering to him. Now,

after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee

proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, The

time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is

at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. Passing

alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and

Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net into

the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said

to them, Follow me, and I will make you become

fishers of men. And immediately they left their

nets and followed him. And going on a little

farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and

John, his brother, who were in their boat mending

the nets. And immediately he called them, and

they left their father Zebedee in the boat with

a hired servant and followed him. The word of

the Lord. In the good old days when someone called

you on your phone, you didn't know who it was.

You just had to take your chances and you answered.

Now, of course, today we look down and we have

caller ID and that kind of gives us some indication

of, you know, the person that is calling and

therefore we're able to respond based on who

we know that person is. So, for example, if your

spouse were to call, you can pick up and you

can say, hey, honey, how's it going? And if you

can see that it's one of your children, You can

say, hey. kiddo, what's up right away? You know,

if let's say it's your, you know, your ex -boyfriend

that's calling, it allows you to answer and say,

what do you want? Right? First off, it's a power

move right from the very beginning. Or maybe

it's the bishop calling. Has that ever happened

to you? In which case you're like, you can sit

up straight, take a deep breath and say, hello,

it's Robert Herkman speaking to, you know, what

do I owe this pleasure, bishop? Right? So you

can tailor your answer depending on who you know

is calling. calling. And for, you know, you would

never, for example, want to, your ex -boyfriend

is calling and pick up and say, hi, honey, you

wouldn't want to do that. And if the bishop calls,

you don't want to pick up and say, what do you

want, right? But so the thing is, the way you

categorize the caller enables you to respond

to them in a certain way. Well, the same is true

of Jesus. The way you categorize Jesus determines

how you respond to Jesus. Hmm, you say. Well,

here's what I mean about that. So say, for example,

You believe that Jesus is a crazy lunatic sort

of person. Well, then your response to Jesus

is going to be kind of to laugh him off. Oh,

this guy is off his rocker, right? Let's say

instead you categorize Jesus as a liar. He's

this person who is deceiving people and going

around and he's a con man of sorts. Well, if

that's the category you put Jesus in, then the

appropriate response for you is to hate this

guy because he's totally deceiving people. manipulating

people. Now, on the other hand, if you were to

categorize Jesus as a myth, this is just some

made -up guy, a legend, a fictional character,

then the appropriate response to that would be

to ignore him, right? Because it's just a story

like so many other stories. If you were to put

Jesus in the category of God, then the appropriate

response for that would be for you to fall down

and worship this Lord of the universe that has

shown up in the form of Jesus, okay? But, so...

So if there's some of us here this morning, and

you might be like, well, no, I'm not exactly

sure what category I would put Jesus in. In fact,

I think some of you would say, I do think he's

crazy, or I do think he's a myth, or some of

you are convinced that he's God. And so that

allows you to respond to him in different ways.

And there's others of you who you're not sure

which category to put Jesus in right now, and

that's okay. But what that means is that you

maybe don't know exactly how to respond to Jesus

on this Sunday morning. You don't know the kind

of person that you're dealing with. But if you

had encountered Jesus 2 ,000 years ago, the category

that you would have put him in was the category

of rabbi. And rabbi is a Jewish word for teacher.

And by the way, out of the 90 conversations that

Jesus has with people in the Gospels, in 60 of

those conversations, the people refer to Jesus

as a rabbi. And so really that is... the category

that Jesus was in in those days. He was a young,

he was brilliant, he was a little bit radical.

He was a rabbi from Nazareth. So here's the question.

If that's the category you put Jesus in, then

what is the response? What is the response to

a rabbi? Is it to laugh at him? Is it to hate

him? No, it's not to ignore him. It's certainly

not to worship him. That's not what you do to

a rabbi. What you do to a rabbi is you follow.

him. You follow a rabbi. The proper response

to a rabbi was to follow him. And that is exactly

what we see people doing with Jesus. So for example,

Jesus is walking along the seashore and he sees

Simon and Andrew and he says to them, hey, follow

me. And guess what? They get up and they follow

him. Why do they follow him? Because that's what

you do to a rabbi, right? Another time, Jesus

is walking along and he sees a man named Levi

sitting at a tax booth, collecting taxes. And

he says, to Levi he says Levi follow me and Levi

got up and followed him well why would Levi do

that because that's what you do for a rabbi,

when a rabbi invites you, you know, and then

there's, you know, other disciples, like in John's

gospel, when Andrew and John start following

Jesus, they start following Jesus, and Jesus

turns around and says, hey, what do you want,

right? He picks up the phone, what do you want?

And they say, rabbi, right? They're following

him because they see him as a rabbi, and that's

what you do for a rabbi. In fact, even in Jesus'

own words, Jesus says, listen, whoever wants

to be my disciple, must deny themselves and take

up their cross and follow me. So it's fair. If

you think Jesus is a lunatic, if you think he's

a legend, if you think he's a liar, if you think

he's the Lord, you can follow him, you can hate

him, you can love him, you can ignore him, whatever.

But the thing to understand is Jesus truly fit

the category in those days of a rabbi. And that

response was therefore to follow him, to follow

him. Okay, so this Lent, we're doing this teaching

series all through Lent called This is the Way.

And we began on Ash Wednesday. And by the way,

if you missed what we talked about on Ash Wednesday,

I would encourage you to go swing over to YouTube

or go to this website, trinitystreetsville .org

slash this is the way. That's where we're going

to put all the material that emerges throughout

this series. But what we're going to see throughout

this is that Jesus's invitation for us is not

just an invitation. invitation to say, hey, believe

in me and I will show you a way to get to heaven.

No, his invitation is to follow me and I will

show you a way to live your life right here and

right now. So if you're one of those people and

you feel like you've lost your way in life, or

if you're out there and you're looking for a

way of life, Jesus comes along and he says, this

is the way. Let me show you a way to live your

life. Now, here is something truly fascinating.

If you go back to the very beginning of, you

know, before there was any such thing called

Christianity or Christians, people were calling

the Jesus followers by another name. They were

calling them the way, the way or followers of

the way. So, for example, when Paul was out there

hunting down Christians, oh, wait a second, sorry.

He wasn't hunting down Christians because there

was no such thing as Christians. What he was

hunting down were followers of the way, right?

That's what he called them. Or when Christians

caused this great big riot in Ephesus. Oh, again,

I'm sorry. Sorry, I shouldn't have said that

because there were no such thing as Christians

in those days. It wasn't Christians that caused

that riot. It was the followers of the way. right?

Even judges and officials like Felix, they knew

all about Christians, but no, they didn't call

them Christians because that's not what they

were called. What they were called were followers

of the way. So on top of that, though, on top

of that, early Christians actually referred to

themselves as the way as well. So, for example,

Akilah and Priscilla were one day they were talking

to Apollos and were told that they were explaining

to Apollos the way of God. Or Paul, in that same

exchange he had with Felix, he confessed that

he was a follower of the way. And some people

thought it was a sect, you know, a crazy sect

of Judaism. But no, he says, this is a way. This

is the way I'm following. Or the writer of Hebrews

says that in Jesus' broken body and in his blood,

we have a brand new and living way. A way for

us to enter God's kingdom. And then, you know,

in 2 Peter, Peter refers to Christianity again.

He doesn't refer to Christianity as Christianity.

He refers to it as the way of truth. So track

with me here. People called Christians, not Christians,

but they called them followers of the way. And

Christians themselves didn't refer to themselves

as Christians. They referred to themselves as

people who follow a certain way. They follow

the way of Jesus. And it's also important to

note, I think, that in fact, Jesus himself called

himself the way, right? In John 14, 6, this very

famous line, Jesus says, I am the way and the

truth and the life. And so, so. Christians didn't

go by Christians in the beginning. They were

the way. They were the way. And I think this

is so, so very important because it lets us know

that right from the beginning, when this movement

began, it was about living your life in a different

kind of way in the world. And I don't know about

you, but when I think about whether I would rather

be called like a Christian. Or a follower of

the way of Jesus. There's something that resonates

with me about that. I like that. You know, it

strikes a core with me. Yes, I want someone to

show me a way to live my life. And I want to

follow the way of Jesus. I think studies are

showing this resonates with millennials. This

resonates more with Gen Z. People who are looking

for a way to live their life. David Fitch. who

is a Canadian scholar, although he's working

at a university in the States, he writes this.

The phrase, the way of Jesus does something positive.

It refocuses discipleship away from merely learning

and assenting to certain truths to actually living

a certain way, a more rigorous life of engaging

the ethical demands of life under Christ's reign.

And he goes on to say that people who follow

the way of Jesus, they stand up for justice.

They stand up for the oppressed and the marginalized

and the poor. And I don't know. I like it. I

like it. And I don't know. Maybe you like this

language too. You aren't just here at church

because you're looking. for a certain something

to believe. Rather, you're looking for a certain

way to live your life, a way of life that makes

a difference in the world. You're not looking

for a religion. You're looking for a way of life.

I'm really excited about this. But before we

can know what it really means for us today to

follow the way of Jesus, we actually need to

go back 2 ,000 years ago and say, what did it

look like for a person to follow the way of a

rabbi in Jesus' original day? Now, it's important

to know that the follower of a rabbi in those

days was a Talmudim. which is very commonly translated

and all throughout your Bibles, it's translated

as disciple. But Dallas Willard and the amazing

writer and spiritual thinker, he said actually

the best translation of the word Talmudim would

be apprentice, apprentice. So that means that

to follow Jesus. was to become his apprentice.

It was to apprentice under Jesus. That's what

it meant to follow the way. of jesus and i just

want to say as a side note it's funny while i

was preparing this i came across like an ad that

was promoting all the benefits of doing apprenticeships

today right like i've got uh you know kids that

are moving through post -secondary education

right now and i was just like shocked when i

read this you know you know you can either you

know get four years of apprenticeship and 250

000 plus benefits plus work experience in your

industry or you can go to university come out

with $50 ,000 worth of debt and mostly have classroom

education and have a hard time finding a job.

I'm like, ooh. This is the way. This is, apprenticeship

is the way. Now, we didn't invent the idea of

apprenticeship, and Jesus didn't invent the idea

of apprenticeship. There were lots of rabbis

in Jesus' day that were teaching their way to

their apprentices and their disciples, right?

For example, Rabbi Hillel had 70 disciples that

followed him around. Rabbi Akiva, Had five famous

disciples, but there are really thousands of

people in Israel who were following the way of

Rabbi Akiva in those days. Plato, remember Plato?

He was the apprentice or the disciple, if you

will, of Socrates. So apprenticeship was part

and parcel of what it meant to live in the first

century world. And to apprentice or to disciple

under a rabbi was a high, high calling. It was

like the pinnacle. of the Jewish education system.

And very few kind of made the cut and were selected

as Talmudim apprentices, disciples of rabbi.

Here's just so you know what the Jewish education

system kind of looked like. It had three main

categories. Grade school, if you will, was called

Beit Sefer. which translate house of the book,

the book being, of course, the Bible. And so

basically, that's where children would go to

learn their basics, like, you know, math and

to learn how to read and write and that kind

of stuff. But they studied the Bible. In fact,

after your years in Bates' affair, you would

have memorized the first five books of the Hebrew

Old Testament, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,

and Deuteronomy. They would all have been memorize,

which is such a feat. It's so hard to imagine,

but that's how it worked in oral cultures like

that. And most children, after they had finished

that, they were done. And they would maybe then

go and work in the family business, or maybe

even at that age, 14 years old, 15 years, they

would go and get married and start a family of

their own. But my point is, that's where most

kids kind of ended. Now, there were, I guess,

the cream of the crop in that graduating class

would move on to something called Beit Talmud.

Now, Beit Talmud means a house of learning. And

what they would usually have on a synagogue in

those days was they would build a little kind

of lean -to off the synagogue, and that became

a classroom for Beit Talmud. And now what you

did was you kind of full -time with a paid teacher,

you studied and studied and studied from like

ages like 12 to 15 or 16. And during that time

of study, I can't even believe this is true,

but you would end up memorizing like the rest

of the Hebrew Old Testament, like all the way

through to like Malachi, which is crazy, crazy.

But I have to say, once that had happened, just

about every single person was done. I mean, that

was a huge accomplishment, right? To have memorized

all that and then off you go and whatever life

brings you. But there was yet a cream and even

more. cream of the crop, like the best of the

very best of the very best, would be invited

to continue into something called Beit Midrash.

And that meant the house of study. And this was

only for the elite. This was only for the Rhodes

scholars, if you will. And what would happen

is you would be invited by a rabbi into this

level of education. Rabbis would come in and

they would sit down and they would grill you

in the finer points of Jewish law and history

and interpretation. And if one rabbi took a liking

to you and they said, you know what? I think

this kid's got the smarts. I think this kid's

has got the drive. I think he's got what it.

takes then that rabbi would turn to you and say

come follow me be one of my talmudim be one of

my disciples be one of my apprentices and let

me show you my way and it was an honor to be

invited by a rabbi it was also very demanding

As you now had to kind of completely submit your

life to the way of this rabbi. Right. So what

does it mean to submit yourself fully to a rabbi?

It sounds kind of scary. Well, maybe it was kind

of scary. Because in the first century, following

your rabbi meant complete devotion. You would

be with your rabbi 24 -7, all day, every day,

eating, sleeping, waking, walking, learning,

following. You were completely, completely devoted.

There is this old kind of Hebrew blessing out

there that says, may you be covered in the dust

of your rabbi, which means may you be following

your rabbi so closely down those dirty, dusty

Palestinian roads that the very dust Dust that's

coming up off of his sandals is landing on you

and caking all over you. That was a wonderful

thing because it meant that you were completely

devoted. Following your rabbi meant complete

and absolute devotion. But it also meant education.

Rabbis were great, great teachers. And so you

would sit at your rabbi's feet and you would

listen to his teaching. And a rabbi's set of

teaching in those days was known as that rabbi's

yoke. Okay, so disciples would take on them the

yoke of their rabbi. Like animals are kind of

bound together in like a yoke, right? So an apprentice

was bound together with his rabbi and obeying

that rabbi's teachings. And they would study

everything that the rabbi had written. They would

memorize everything that the rabbi was teaching.

Every word that came out of his mouth. It was

complete devotion. education but the other thing

related to this was imitation The goal of a Talmudim

was to imitate their rabbi. I know that today

we say, hey, you should just be you and you should

be one of a kind and you're unique and go and

do your own thing. But that is not how it worked.

The goal of a disciple was to become a carbon

copy of the rabbi they were following. Imitate

his every move, even his tone of voice, his mannerisms

of teaching, his dress. Plato's disciples were

said to walk with hunches. A lot of Plato's disciples

had hunches. And why was that? It's because Plato

himself was a bit of a hunchback. And so they

so wanted to imitate their rabbi that they said,

oh, I guess we should bend down like this as

we're following Plato, right? They imitated his

every move. And then the final step, of course,

would be that one day, once they've been with

this rabbi for a good long while, the rabbi would

be replicated in the student. And on that day,

the rabbi could turn to the student and say,

guess what? You're ready. I think you're ready.

It's time for you to step up to bat. I believe

in you. It's time for you to go and make disciples.

So he had devotion, he had education, imitation,

and replication. So that was 2 ,000 years ago.

What does this look like today? Let's bring it

back to the 21st century. What does it mean for

us who want to follow our rabbi, Jesus, today?

Well, here at Trinity, we've kind of taken that

ancient pathway and we've changed the language

a bit and we have created a mission statement,

which I'm sure you've heard many times by now,

but it is a pathway. That helps us follow the

way of Jesus here and now. So here's what I mean.

Here's what I mean. We already spoke about how

being devoted to your rabbi was essential in

the first century. Well, here at Trinity, we

talk in the language of love. And our mission

statement calls us first to love Jesus. To follow

the way of Jesus means first to love Jesus. Then

Jesus invited his Talmudim. He invited all his

disciples into a relationship of loving devotion.

And that is why he says to his disciples, he

says, as the father has loved me, so I have loved

you. Now remain in my love. That is the first

and the primary goal of apprenticeship to Jesus.

Loving relationship with Jesus. And that's where

it starts. That's the baseline. And like all

relationships, that love takes work. But truly

the best part of following Jesus was being with

Jesus and experiencing Jesus, right? And this

Lent. We're going to learn more as a church community

about how to nurture that loving relationship

with Jesus. And I would say the key practice

to this kind of devotion that we're going to

be highlighting in just a few moments is the

practice of prayer. That's how you grow in a

loving relationship with Jesus. But secondly,

there was the education piece. Well, here at

Trinity, we like to talk about learning from

Jesus. So there's loving Jesus and then learning

from Jesus. I think it's fair to say that one

way you could understand what a church is, is

that it's like a school. It's a school of Jesus.

And here we get together on Sundays and at life

groups and throughout the week. And we sit at

the feet of Jesus. And week by week, we learn

his yoke. from him jesus actually said take my

yoke upon you and learn from me so to so to follow

the way of jesus means you've got to be willing

to learn from jesus and jesus was the greatest

rabbi ever he was the greatest teacher ever his

teachings to this day are unmatched right and

and jesus knows everything jesus knows absolutely

everything. He knows all about you. He knows

how to live your life better than you know how

to live your life. So we need to learn from him.

The third thing we talk about here at Trinity

is not just loving Jesus and learning from Jesus,

but living like Jesus. Remember the whole imitation

thing, right? If we want to embrace the way of

Jesus, Then we've got to learn to do what Jesus

did. And Jesus did come, not just to teach us

all the stuff that's in the Bible, but he came

to show us with his life. How to live life in

the kingdom of God. And that's why he would say,

I don't want you to just go love people. He said,

I want you to love one another just as I have

loved you, right? To do it the way that I do

it, right? When we imitate Jesus, we do what

he did. And that might mean that we heal the

sick because Jesus healed the sick. It might

mean that we do justice because Jesus do justice.

It might mean we make peace with people. We reconcile

with people because that's what Jesus did. Jesus

did. And we will eat and we will drink with people

who are far from God. Why? Because that's what

Jesus did. And we want to live like Jesus to

imitate our rabbi. And then fourthly, and finally,

here at Trinity, we don't just want to love Jesus,

learn from him, live like him, but we also want

to lead others to him. Remember that whole piece

around the ultimate goal of a student of a rabbi

was to be told that you're ready to go and make

disciples yourself. Isn't that what Jesus' final

words to us on earth were? Go and make disciples

of all nations. So friends, so friends, here

is an invitation to a way of life. Devotion,

education, imitation, replication. Loving Jesus.

Learning from Jesus. Living like Jesus. Leading

others to Jesus. This is the way. This is a way

of life. And this will give you meaning in life.

But it's a serious invitation. You know, the

way of Jesus is the way of the cross after all.

It's the way of death and resurrection. So following

Jesus can't just be like a hobby. It can't be

like, well, I like to play golf and I like gaming

and I also like Jesus, right? No, following Jesus

only really works when you make... it the whole

point of your whole life when it becomes your

whole way of life i am reminded in the scriptures

jesus was always surrounded by two groups of

people he was always surrounded by his disciples

his talmudim his apprentices but he's also surrounded

by what the scriptures call the crowds the crowds

now If you were one of Jesus' disciples, what

you effectively had decided is that, yes, we

are following the way of Jesus. But if you were

part of the crowd, then you were still deciding.

You were interested in the way of Jesus, but

you wanted to keep your distance a little bit.

You weren't sure you wanted to give your whole

life to this. And I wonder this morning if you

can figure out where you fit in all that. Are

you a disciple? Are you a Talmudim? Are you like...

committed to walking the road with Jesus? Or

are you still in the crowd? And that is totally

okay. And you're curious about this, but you're

not sure just yet. Maybe over this season of

Lent, we can help more and more of us move from

the crowd to true discipleship. But it's not

just a serious invitation. It's also an open

invitation. It's open to everyone. When Jesus

says, whoever wants to be my disciple, dot, dot,

dot, dot, dot, he means whoever, right? To anyone.

Remember, all the other rabbis of Jesus' day,

they had a really, really, really high bar. It

was only for the best of the best of the best.

But Jesus stands up in front of a crowd and he

says, whoever, whoever wants to be my disciple,

which is actually pretty unheard of. What he's

saying, I think, really, it doesn't matter what

you've done. It doesn't matter what you haven't

done. It doesn't matter if you're smart or if

you feel like you're not so smart. It doesn't

matter if you're popular or not popular or successful

or unsuccessful, right? You're here this morning.

You're invited. I mean, goodness, Jesus' first

disciples were fishermen. They were the Bates

affair dropouts, and yet they were obviously

not the best of the best, but God used those

men to change the world. Why? because they embraced

the way of Jesus. And finally, lifelong invitation.

Learning the way of Jesus does not happen overnight.

It'll take your whole life. And it also takes

a community, being part of a church community,

because so much of the learning we have to do

doesn't work if we just try to do it on our own.

So Sunday mornings are important, taking courses

together, joining life groups. We walk this way.

That author, Dallas Willard, said it this way.

He said, the greatest issue facing the world

today with all its heartbreaking needs is whether

those who by profession or culture are identified

as Christians will actually become disciples,

students, apprentices, practitioners of Jesus

Christ. Jesus is not looking for converts to

Christianity. He's looking for apprentices in

the kingdom of God. So love Jesus. Learn from

Jesus. Live like Jesus. Lead others to Jesus.

This might be your first time at Trinity, or

maybe it's your second or your third time, and

you're not sure what you think about all this.

You're invited. Maybe you grew up in church and

you've been hearing this stuff for 20 or 30 years,

but you always sensed you were kind of in the

crowd. You're invited. You know, maybe you, at

some point in your life, you kind of hit a wall

and, you know, maybe you got hurt or burned out

or you're just running on empty, whatever. You're

invited too. And maybe you're saying, well, I

can't really tackle all this right now, Rob.

I'm going through some stuff, sickness or relationship

issues or job loss or I'm moving or whatever.

You're invited too. Right in the thick of it,

you are invited. You don't need to have all your

problems solved. You're invited. I'm invited.

We're all invited to this way, to following the

way of Jesus. Thanks be to God. Amen.