Learning to Follow

When we think about the disciples, we often imagine them

as they understood everything from the beginning.

When Jesus called them, it's important to understand.

These were young guys.

Jesus was 30.

Some of these guys were 19, 18, 17, maybe some in the mid-20s.

They were young.

Jesus said, come, follow me.

And we assume they immediately knew who he was, what he came to

do, and exactly how the story would end.

But that's not how it happened.

That's not at all how it happened.

The followers of Jesus did not understand from the beginning, and

we don't either.

And I think that's why some people are afraid to follow Jesus,

because they don't understand it all from the beginning.

So they won't take that first step, walking with him.

But for the disciples, their faith grew, their love deepened,

their understanding developed, the courage came, and the uncertainty

was really tested.

It was a walk of progress, just like it is for us.

Sometimes they misunderstood.

Sometimes they were amazed by him.

Sometimes they were confused by what he said.

They were always drawn to him.

They were afraid of losing him.

And they were shattered when he died.

And they were stunned, absolutely stunned when he rose from

the grave.

And that's the point at which they became certain who he was.

And they gave the rest of their lives telling the world about

Jesus.

When followers start walking with Jesus, some come because they

have questions, they have needs, they have wounds, maybe ambition,

maybe looking for meaning, forgiveness, looking for hope.

Christ accepted them to follow him wherever they were.

He just said, come and follow me.

He didn't give any more instruction than that.

Just follow me and you'll see.

And I think as I look at their lives and what happened, and we'll

study them this semester.

There are nine steps in that journey that are pretty common to

most of these followers of Jesus.

And the question I have for you this morning is, as I go through

these nine steps, where are you on that progression of walking

with Jesus?

Because if you can understand where you are, you can see where

the next step needs to be and the one after that that will lead

you into the kind of relationship with Christ that these

disciples had, that they gave their entire lives and their future

to telling the story of Jesus and living for him.

So the first step was they were all looking for meaning of some

way.

They wanted their lives to count.

They didn't just want to go through the motions.

They didn't want to give up meaning for the trinkets that the

world offers.

They may not have understood it fully, what he could do and who

he was, but something in them knew that There was more to life

than simply success and reputation and position and comfort

and survival.

They wanted significance and meaning for their years on this earth.

And Jesus met them there and he said, come, follow me with whoever

you are and however you are.

And, and then they took those first steps.

And at the beginning they were really drawn to his beauty.

At first they were not drawn to what he could do, but by who he

was in him.

They saw kindness, that boy, the Roman Empire sure didn't show.

They saw joy, they saw compassion, they saw courage, they

saw mercy.

These were characteristics that were out of sync with society.

They saw authority, they saw holiness, they saw purity, they saw

truth.

Christ was unlike anybody else they'd ever met.

He touched lepers on purpose.

He welcomed children in a society where children were not even

considered worthy of, of anything.

He ate with tax collectors who were the most hated people in the

entire community.

He defended the shamed.

When people were self righteous about him, he turned the

other cheek.

He noticed the overlooked and he had time for those who were desperate.

You see, at this point they were just drawn to his beauty.

They didn't understand the theology, they, they just wish they

could be like him because there was something so different

there.

And today I think in our Christian walk of walking with Jesus,

we get so focused on trying to get it right.

We don't just follow who he is.

And sometimes it's best to just let go of that and follow who

he is to be like him.

And that's what they were drawn to.

And then they were amazed by his power was kind of the next step

in this journey of walking with Jesus.

He turned water into wine.

He calmed storms when they thought they were going to die.

He healed the blind, he healed the lame, he took care of the sick,

he fed the hungry, he raised Lazarus from the dead.

They were with him a long time before they saw his power.

His power wasn't revealed to them at the beginning.

And I think there are a lot of people who try to walk with Jesus

and they say, well, I don't see him doing anything in my life

because you haven't walked with him far enough yet.

And if you walk with Him a little bit farther, you will begin

to see his power.

Many people follow Jesus because they need him to do something.

And that makes sense.

A lot of our prayers are, lord, please do this and do this

and fix this and take care of this.

And that's okay.

God doesn't mind that.

But eventually we have to discover, like the disciples finally

discovered, it's more about who he is rather than just about

what he can do for us.

And that led them in then to the fourth step.

If they began to be shaped by his teaching, his teaching made sense

of life.

The world's way was a limited approach, very confined approach

to what life can be.

And I've talked last semester quite a bit about the upside down

world.

What Jesus did was often upside down of what society does.

We'll talk maybe some about that this semester.

But the world's approach was very limited as people were trying

to figure out life, trying to figure out how to get by, trying

to figure out how to make it work.

And Jesus opened a whole different arena for them of forgiveness

and prayer and service and freedom and purity.

Jesus taught them, see how God designed the world to be.

Jesus taught them how God designed you and me to be.

And they weren't living that way.

But when they began to follow the teachings of Jesus, they saw

a different way to operate their lives.

Kind of like how I am with my iPad.

I was up at the Apple store a little bit ago, had a problem with

my phone.

I happened to have my iPad with me.

And one of the guys up there who's one of the senior people at

the Apple store, Lawrence, he's a graduate of Belhaven, is an

art major here, loved Lawrence.

He'd been there a long time.

And he said, do you know how to make that thing run?

Pointing to my iPad.

And I said, well, yeah, you know, I search the web and I can

stream a movie and I check my email and all that kind of stuff.

He said, no, do you really know how to make it run?

I said, what do you mean?

He said, I'll show you.

He took my iPad and he said, first of all, we're going to change

about these six settings, and then we're going to download this,

we're going to put this in, you're going to do this, this.

And it was a completely different machine.

I had been working with an iPad that had very limited capability

because it was the best I could do.

And when I got the expert to show me how to really make it work

in the way it was designed to work, it became absolutely incredible.

Jesus offers us in his teaching a way of life that works

best.

You may look at it and say, well, I don't like it that Jesus

said, don't do this or do this or whatever.

Well, you may not like it, but that's how life works best.

And when you do it that way, life becomes much more full and the

problems tend to diminish.

Compared to us trying to figure it out on our own and run

it by our way, which is limited to how he designed it to

be.

Just like Apple designed that iPad to work a certain way.

I didn't have those keys until I learned the teaching.

So they shaped by his teaching.

Then fourth, we see they were comforted.

Excuse me.

They were confused, but they still trusted him.

Even in their confusion, they trusted him.

As the disciples learned more, they often became even more confused.

He spoke of suffering when they expected victory.

They want him to come in and overthrow the Roman Empire.

That's what they were there for.

He spoke of bearing the cross when they expected a throne.

He told them, the last will be first.

That didn't make sense.

He told them, to make an impact in the world, you must be

a servant.

That's the key.

He told them that he would die and rise again and again and again

and again.

They didn't understand.

They didn't get it.

And lots of times in the teaching of Jesus, we too get confused.

But they still trusted even when they were confused.

You may not understand always God's timing.

You may not understand all his commands.

You may not understand suffering and why it has to happen

in your life or your family.

You may not understand why obedience is costly, may not understand

why prayers seem to go unanswered, or why Jesus leads differently

than you expect.

But our prayer needs to be, lord, I don't understand everything,

but I know enough about you to trust you.

That's real faith.

That's not blind faith.

That's not careless faith.

That's relational faith.

Trust built in knowing his character, not knowing every single

detail of what he says.

So they were confused, but they still trusted in that process.

And then finally they could see that he was the Son of God.

Their understanding developed slowly, gradually, sometimes painfully.

But they came to see that Jesus was more than a teacher.

He was more than a prophet.

He was more than a miracle worker.

He was more than a moral example.

He was the Son of God come to earth.

He was not just wise and smart and kind.

He was God, the Creator come in the form of a man.

We all have to eventually answer the question.

He asked the disciples, who do you say I am?

Who do you say I am?

And our faith is very, very fragile until we get to the point

we can answer and know he is the Son of God.

And when you know he is the Son of God, that's when everything

changes.

That's when the teachings go, I can't get enough.

I want to do it his way.

That's when the mercy can't be enough because I want to do it his

way.

That's when the grace comes into your life that replaces the

hate and the fighting because you want to do it his way.

When you know he's the Son of God who's come for you and for me,

it changes everything.

And I think this is people who get stuck in their walk with Christ.

They walk along and they're looking for meaning.

They're drawn to the beauty and they like the power and help

me, Lord.

And they're shaped by the teaching and they're confused.

But then when it comes to really committing to understand he

is the Son of God and what he says is God talking.

And we embrace that and we respond to life differently because

it's God telling us what to do.

Until we get to that point, our walk with Christ just almost

becomes a struggle.

There's no joy and there's no freedom in it.

And that's the point that they got to that made all the difference.

And then after that, they were shaken by the cross.

Crucifixion, stunned the disciples.

They didn't expect it.

Yeah, he told them it was going to happen.

They didn't expect it.

They were not ready for it.

They were shattered.

They went and hid.

They doubted.

They grieved.

They thought the story was over.

They thought that was the end of the journey right there.

And the question we all have to ask is, why did Jesus have to

die on a cross?

Why did Jesus have to die on a cross?

Well, I think there are four reasons.

First of all, victory over evil and death.

You see, death is not simply physical death.

Death is separation from God.

And until we're reconciled with God, we can't have real life.

The cost of evil is death.

The scripture says, in that separation from God.

And then hope was restored.

Secondly, because Jesus died on a cross, Jesus took our sin as

a sacrifice.

When you're playing around with sin sometime when you're thinking,

well, I'll just do this, it's not all that bad.

Remember the price Jesus paid for your sin.

Is it really not all that bad?

He was so serious about it because he knew the cost of sin that

he was willing to die for sin.

And then thirdly, he died on the cross because it was a chance

to give unlimited love.

The length Jesus will go for us, to give us grace.

To be reconciled with the Father was to give his own life for

it.

You know, if I was ever in a situation and I got two kids, and

if the choice was, you either got to die or your kids are going

to die.

That would be the easiest decision of my life.

I'd say, take it, go ahead, save them.

That's easy because they're my kids.

Well, you're a child of God.

I'm a child of God.

And that's how much he loved us.

And his love was that deep that he gave his life for us.

And the fourth reason he had to die on the cross was to prove

that he was God.

You see, if he hadn't died on the cross, he maybe just disappeared

or died naturally or whatever they would have said, this is a made

up story.

They would have said all kinds of conspiracy theories about what

really happened.

Instead, it was a public execution in the most gruesome way

possible.

And the Roman leader so knew he was dead.

He put guards in front of the tomb so they wouldn't come steal

the body and then try and make up something that he rose from the

grave so he had to die on the cross in order to give us hope.

And the disciples were shaken by the cross, but then they were

convinced by the resurrection.

Everything changed when they saw the risen Christ.

They'd seen him die.

They grieved, they cried, they feared, they ran behind locked doors.

And then Christ came and stood among them.

500 people saw Jesus after he was resurrected.

500 different people saw Jesus.

And in that, he turned fear into courage.

He turned grief into joy.

He turned shattered disciples into bold witnesses.

He turned followers into proclaimers who lived for him.

And then they were transformed into witnesses.

Before all this, they were unsure, they were doubting, they

were timid.

But after the resurrection, after the resurrection, they went

into the world proclaiming Christ.

They preached him, they suffered for Him.

We know through history, most of them died for him.

They carried the Gospel across cultures and across borders to tell

people about Jesus, who was the Son of God, died for their sins,

rose from the grave and sits with the Father to redeem them.

They gave their lives because they were certain, absolutely 100%

certain of what they had seen.

This is who Jesus really was and becomes to us when we see the

resurrection.

But we have to see the Resurrection to walk the fullness

of this journey with Christ.

He takes people who are unsure and makes them witnesses.

He takes the timid and gives them courage.

He takes the confused and he teaches them truth.

He takes the frail and he gives them restoration.

He takes the doubts and meets them with answers.

He takes those who are looking for significance and gives them calling.

Following Jesus is not just learning about him.

It's coming to know him, to love him, to trust him, and finally

to live for him to the point that others can see Jesus in us.

And if they don't see Jesus in us, our walk is not far enough along

yet, and we need to take some more steps.

Well, this semester is not simply going to be about studying

Bible characters.

It's going to be understanding how people follow Jesus.

Matthew will show us that Jesus gives a new identity.

Peter will show us that Jesus restores even when we totally fail.

Thomas will show us that Jesus meets honesty with doubts.

Mary of Bethlehem will show us where priorities matter even when

family issues conflict.

The woman at the well will show us that Christ turns shame into

renewal.

Zacchaeus will show you that grace changes our desires.

And John will show us that love matures over a lifetime.

And then the only one of the people we're going to study this

semester who did not personally meet Jesus when He was

alive before the crucifixion was Paul, who showed us a life captured

by the risen Christ.

They were drawn, all of them, to his kindness.

They were amazed by his power.

They were shaped by his teaching.

They were confused even while trusting him.

They were in awe that he was the Son of God.

They were shaken by the cross.

They were convinced by the resurrection.

And they were transformed into witnesses when they saw the fullness

of Christ.

Are we merely interested in Jesus?

Are we merely hanging around Jesus in our walk because it's the

appropriate thing to do?

Are we just familiar with Jesus, but we don't really love him?

Or are we genuinely following Jesus?

This semester, don't just learn about the followers of Jesus.

Find your place among them and follow Him.

Don't stand at the edge of the story.

Don't stand at the edge of the story.

Hear his call.

Take his next steps and follow Him.

And as you do, he will transform you into a person he's

created you to become in the way he designed you.

Let's share together our benediction.

No eye has seen, no ear has heard.

No mind has conceived what God has prepared for those of Him.

Have a great day.

It.