FOLLOW ME - Week 1

Hey, Gochers family, welcome back to week one of our podcast for our series this September

called Follow Me. My name is Gilbert and I'm sitting here with Pastor Matt Haddabal.

Hey everybody.

And we're also sitting here with Joseph.

Hey Joseph.

Hello everyone.

Happy to have Joseph with us for this month during this series.

This is a series that is very near and dear to his heart.

It's something that Joseph actually prepared and laid out for us for this month.

So we're super excited to have Joseph with us on the podcast.

Thank you.

And to really get Joseph to pour out from his heart.

Ahlan wa sahlan.

Shukran.

So excited.

So I'm going to get started with a couple of quick announcement points before we get

started.

We made most of our announcements in the introduction week last week.

So I'm going to keep this very brief.

What I will say is that this is week one out of week three for our podcast.

So we're leading into the first week of our grow groups.

We're so excited to discuss the theme that we're going to share this week in our grow

groups this week.

And I will also say that in case you missed the big Sunday gathering, you can always listen

to the message that was shared right here on podcast.

So even though you weren't there, you can still be there with us.

With that, let's get stuck right into our series.

So our series is called Follow Me.

Joseph, what are we trying to really talk about or trying to hone in on this month?

So basically we are trying to highlight the fact that as we say yes to Jesus, there is

a lifetime journey of experiencing growth and experiencing discipleship.

And that we are going somewhere after we are being discipled.

So that's what we are trying to achieve.

That's really good.

You know why I think that's important for us to take time and just point out is the

number of people that I have met when they find out that I have a ministry, they'll say,

oh yeah, I went to church when I was a kid or even I believe in Jesus.

But what they don't really identify themselves as is I'm in a position where I live in such

a way that the word of God, that the Holy Spirit through the word of God can correct

me.

Yeah, exactly.

They don't live as disciples.

It's just they had an event in their life in the past, but it is not part of who they

are or their present position where they are in a place to change.

Yeah, that's why we always talk about eternal life and the difference between eternal life

and afterlife.

Because a lot of people think that I believe in God, so it's all good.

When I die, then I'm going to have a life with God.

But the difference is that's afterlife.

Of course there's an afterlife, but when we say yes to Jesus and when we take a decision

to live for God, we enter eternal life right now.

It's something that we can experience day to day, every single moment of our lives.

It's actually something that gets better and better.

I remember the other day I was praying in the morning and I started saying this thing

where the worst moment of my life is right now because it's going to get better and better

and better with you all the time.

And that's something I truly believe because I have eternal life, because I have that relationship

with Jesus and because I'm following him.

So I'm using the terminology from our theme and our theme is follow me.

This is what we're talking about.

And I want to read the main scripture for the month.

Our main scripture is in the Gospel account of Matthew in chapter 4, verses 18 through

the 20.

And to put some context to that, this is one of the first encounters that Peter and

so Simon and Andrew have with Jesus.

And so here it goes, verse 18, and Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee saw two brothers, Simon,

called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.

Then he said to them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

They immediately left their nets and followed him.

What stands out to me right now is the words of Jesus are what we're basing our whole series

on for the month.

We've broken this down into three portions.

This is the light that Joseph has about the scripture is beautiful because we develop

this and we talk about this over the month.

And this week, so basically what Jesus says is follow me and I will make you fishers of

men.

This week, we're talking about follow me.

And what's amazing is that in verse 20, it says they immediately left their nets and

followed him.

There's a corresponding action to what Jesus said and it's beautiful, right?

Jesus invites everyone, but we need to have this response to him, to actually follow him,

to leave the things we have and follow him.

So this week, we're going to talk about this in our grow groups.

What does it look like to follow Jesus?

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

And so let me ask the question to Joseph.

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

Well, I love what you said that about the two disciples leaving their nets and following

Jesus.

It starts with a personal decision that I'm saying yes to something, but also if I'm saying

yes to something, I'm leaving something, I'm saying no to something.

If you see these disciples, their life was fish.

They were like on a daily basis, I can imagine going out, pushing the ships into the sea.

This is a lifestyle and this was not just a lifestyle, it was a life earning for them.

So basically they were saying yes to Jesus.

They were taking a personal decision to leave something behind and to go towards something

that Jesus was calling them to do.

So it starts with a personal decision that I need to follow Jesus.

I need to say yes, it starts inside of me.

So following Jesus, it means that I am leaving something that I have been doing or a way

of life that I have been living and I'm going towards something that God is calling me to

be or to do.

It's kind of like following Jesus.

Yeah, I really like what you put in the notes here where the purpose or really the theme

for this week is called for a relationship.

So we talked about this, we introduced the subject last week about what discipleship

is and we talked about many definitions around it, but I really like the idea of what it

means when we're basically leading someone to become or the process of making someone

into something and in this case it's making them look and be like Jesus.

And that starts with a relationship.

Yes, exactly.

If you read the scripture, I encourage you to go and read it and kind of point by point

follow the story how it happens.

It says Jesus saw them and asked them to be on their boat.

Jesus made that approach to them and he wanted to go on their boat and use it for ministry.

But basically if someone is approaching me in that way, it means that that is a connection

I'm making with that person.

And after connection, relationships is being built.

So you see that Jesus didn't just like wanted to use his boat and just leave, he built that

connection and relationship and that relationship was just not like fish or you know for a certain

time it was a lifetime relationship.

So that's excellent.

Jesus wants to build that connection with us and to build relationship from that connection.

So that is my experience with him.

Before that experience that I had with knowing Jesus and building that relationship with

him through the years, I had the question where is God and why is he distant from us

and why we cannot connect with him.

And those answers, those questions were inside of me for some years and those questions led

me to a relationship with Jesus where I asked him to come into my life and like I said,

if you exist, come let me know, we'll know you and let's build this relationship and

it was amazing.

And what have you found so far?

It's the most amazing experience that could anyone experience that Jesus himself is coming

to your boat and asking to come in.

That means like, can I come into your life?

Can I introduce myself?

Oh, yes, you can.

So what I mean, there's so, so much good truth there that we could spend the whole time on.

What I want to highlight there is you said it starts with a personal decision.

It starts with a personal decision as a result of something that he has initiated God initiated

he moved first.

The Bible says that God so loved the world that he gave Jesus and the Jesus is there

at the shore of the sea of Galilee as a result of and an expression of the love of God.

But the point that I want to kind of highlight there that you said, Joseph, Peter's relationship

built upon something very natural.

There was this very natural connection.

Hey, I need a place to stand to talk to this crowd of people.

Can I use your boat?

And why I think that's so relevant and important for us to highlight is, you know, in our big

Sunday, even in a grow group, there are opportunities to connect with what Jesus is doing here in

Lebanon in a very natural way.

Right?

I mean, there's a host of very natural things that happen every big Sunday.

And or just setting out, you know, biscuits or tea bags or something at a grow group,

very natural, but it becomes a connection point.

And from that connection point, the relationship of the disciple can grow.

Yeah, exactly.

So I want to I want to refer to a scripture in Mark chapter three, and I'm going to read

verses 13 through to 15.

I love this passage.

And he, Jesus, went up on the mountain and called to him those he himself wanted, and

they came to him.

Then he appointed 12, but they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach

and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons.

I like that in this passage, we see that, you know, he called to himself who he wanted.

And that's not limited to 12 people.

You know, that's that's today, every single person, he's called all of us there.

But you notice, you know, we it's easy to focus on what we would consider from a natural

perspective, the dynamic part of that verse.

If you if you look at that and you say preaching, wow, that's, that's pretty dynamic and healing.

Wow, that's, that's really spectacular.

You know what that is?

That's carnal thinking.

That's thinking according to the flesh, because we think, oh, well, this is a big deal.

This is a super big deal.

No, the big deal is the first thing.

The first thing it says he called them to be with him.

Discipleship is the big deal of discipleship.

Yeah.

You know, what's what's even what stands out to me so much in what you're saying, you

know, the first step is that he he called them that they that they might be with him.

And actually, that is the first step to seeing the other dynamic elements, right?

Yeah.

And you you see that in Jesus, like all those moments where he had big decisions where there

were big meetings where there are amazing things happening in between those and before

those, he always had moments alone with his father.

He would go to remote places and he would spend time, but he would be he would be with

his father.

And in that being with his father, he would know the heart of his father.

He would know what the father is trying to do with that very moment.

He would know how to do things, you know, in all of the moments where the religious

leaders are trying to trap him in his words.

He always knew what to say, how to say it, how to deal with it and how to address those

things just the way his father would have wanted him to do.

But it all started in those moments alone with his father.

It didn't start in those big meetings where everyone's getting healed.

It started when he would go up for prayer before light came up and he would spend time

knowing who his father was.

Yeah, so we're not minimizing the big works, the mighty deeds, the works of Jesus.

The highlight here is to shine a light on the fact that the center and the, let's say,

fountain from where those things flow is relationship with him.

Yeah, that's so good.

And I really like this thing that Joseph wrote in the notes about what this follow me mean

or what does it look like.

And you wrote that it's a transformative journey of faith and obedience and discipleship that

brings spiritual growth, fulfillment and a closer connection with God.

And it stands out to me because you wrote a transformative journey and that's something

that everyone is on, you know, like whether this is day one with Jesus or whether you

are the pastor of a church or whether you're called to be an apostle or a prophet or an

evangelist or, you know, you're carrying out huge meetings, you are always called to follow

him.

Like there's never a time where you're done with that, you know, and we're going to see

this next week in the illustration, but even Peter, right, Peter, who was a disciple and

then was then called an apostle.

So it went from being a disciple, you know, a person who is following Jesus, who has been

transformed into the image of Jesus, and then someone who sent out to do something, even

when he was an apostle, he was still a disciple.

Like that, that never went away, you know, and we're going to talk about that next week

because we're going to see that even in that process of being sent out, there was a requirement

to be close to the Lord, to understand what the Lord is trying to do, to be, to allow

him to, I don't want to say change you because that can sound negative, but to elevate you

to a place where he's seeing things, so you can see things the same way.

And that applies to me, that applies to Joseph, that applies to Pastor Matt.

We're all on this transformative journey.

And it's important to recognize that in every single person who we deal with.

Yes, and it's important for me to recognize that I need that relationship, and in this

relationship I need that making of what he wants me to be.

So it's like, it's for me now, and it's for me for the future where I am going.

So this relationship is basically, I'm building it with him, so I can live it with him, and

I can be exactly like him.

So how am I going to do that is that on a daily basis I'm going to live with him, following

him in everything that he teaches me and everything that he shows me and everything he makes me

experience.

Yeah, to make this practical, you know, and I made mention of this before about sometimes

the connection using that word or the way people talk about the things of God or Jesus,

they'll refer back to a past experience.

But everyone knows me, knows I love this country, I love going to different places in this country.

One of my favorite places to visit is Balbac.

I've actually been there several times, I really enjoy it, but I don't live there.

It's a place I have visited, it's a place I have been, it's something that I know about.

I don't know everything about it, but I know some things about it, but it's not where I

live.

I live someplace else.

It's just a place I visit.

The things of God can't be a thing that we visit on, you know, if you go to a Wednesday

night grow group, it can't be the place that you visit on Wednesday night.

It can't be the thing that you visit on the big Sunday.

It has to be a vital, that's living, that word vital means living, a living relationship.

And the result of that relationship is producing change in me.

Yes.

He doesn't change, right?

He is eternal and right.

And so if I put myself up against him, I think, well, nope, I got to change this.

Nope, I got to act different.

Nope, I don't like that anymore.

I'm going to change this.

And that's a process.

It's a journey and I love the way you put that.

And we see that played out in the life of the disciples.

Yeah.

And that goes back to what we're seeing in Mark chapter three where he called or he appointed

12 to be with him.

You know, so many were visiting him, but he asked these 12 to live with him.

Now the stay with them.

The powerful thing to me is in the book of Acts, it says that the people that were not

followers of Jesus, when they encountered the disciples, it says that they took knowledge

of them that they had been with Jesus.

And that's key.

And if you're wondering where that verse is in the book of Acts, I would suggest that

you start in chapter one and just start reading and you'll find it.

It won't hurt you.

But you notice there, the highlight is they took knowledge that they had been with Jesus.

I don't know if you've ever encountered people like that in your life, but there's

just some people I know that when I'm around them, I know they have been with him.

Like they know him.

We you know, everyone that's listening to this podcast know that we're also part of

Ramah Bible Training College in Lebanon.

My very first day as a Ramah student, we had an instructor, this, the instructor came in

and began talking and I said to myself, that person knows Jesus more than I do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And on the subject of knowing it's amazing how and we are talking about following Jesus,

the question that I ask myself, would I follow someone I don't know?

Or would I follow someone that doesn't know me?

And today we have our like relationships in the world.

We have friends, we have family and I take advice from my father or my mother.

And a lot of times I do that because they know me.

They know how I behave.

They know my character and everything.

The Bible says Jesus said basically this.

He said, I know my sheep and they hear me and they follow me.

Basically it's easy to follow Jesus.

First in the idea, I know that he knows me and I know what he has for me because he has

good plans and not of evil so they can give me hope and future.

So basically knowing Jesus is because I want to know Jesus because he knows me and he knows

what's the best for me.

And that makes it easy for me to open up myself, open up my heart, open up my life to tell him,

hey, come and make me know you, make me.

It's more easy to follow him and thinking that way.

That's so good.

I want to share this other perspective that Joseph actually mentioned at the very beginning

of this podcast where when you say yes to him, you're saying no to some other things.

And the decision to follow him means that you're prioritizing him over some other things that

you might be used to or that seem right to you culturally, that seem right to you in

the moment, even that may seem right to you when you were raised and you were told certain

things that might oppose what you need to do right now.

So an example in our key scripture is Simon and Andrew, they left their boat, they sold

everything they had, they moved away from all of that in a day and they followed him.

And to some degree, they didn't know entirely what that meant.

They were still asking him questions.

The day, even after he was resurrected, the day he went up to heaven, they're still asking

him, so is it now that you're going to reinstate your kingdom?

And is it when is this happening?

We talked about those kind of things last month in charge, but they still didn't fully

see everything, but they still chose to follow him.

And there's a great story in the Bible in Luke chapter 10 that I've heard Pastor Matt

Luke 10 · chapter mention

teach on this, talk about this quite a few times, and that's the story of Mary and Martha.

Amazing story.

It's a great story and there's a lot of truth there and there's a lot that we can pick out

there because basically what we see here is that Jesus is teaching.

We see Mary sitting at his feet, attentive, listening to him, listening to what he's

saying, soaking it all in, and then you find Martha running around, trying to serve everyone

in the house, making sure everyone's comfortable, getting everything ready.

She feels a little flustered.

She's on her own.

She wants help.

Are any of them doing something wrong?

Not really.

They're both doing right.

And actually, if you were looking at it from the outside as per cultural norms at that

time, Martha was actually doing the right thing.

Not only that, you have to look at the context of the scripture.

There's more than 80 people that we can identify more than 80 people in this house.

So it's Martha against 80 people.

And I can just imagine a couple of the pots start getting set down a little louder.

Cabinet doors getting shut.

And lots of exhales, lots of, until finally, Martha has just had enough and interrupts Jesus,

which I look forward to meeting Martha.

Like tell me this story where she says, Jesus, my sister's not doing anything to help me.

Here I'm running around.

I've got all these people here.

I've already burned this one pot because I wasn't paying attention and had to start over.

And the garlic got too brown and now I've got to start over.

I don't know what she was making, but I'm sure it was garlic.

Anyway, make her get up and help me.

And Jesus said, there's one thing necessary, which like you said, she's not doing anything

bad, right?

It's not like she's like, man, I wish all these people get out of the house.

I wish Jesus would be quiet.

No, she's trying to serve.

And there are natural things that do have to happen in order to facilitate ministry and

make things, you know, make things better for everyone, make things accessible.

But here at this point, Jesus says he points out the thing that Martha is missing.

And that is the one thing that he said.

There's one thing necessary.

What is it?

It's relationship.

Well, yeah, yeah.

All the actions.

And this is something that's very powerful because you can do, you can spend a lifetime

of doing good things and have no relationship and be found empty at the end.

Yeah, and exhausted.

And that's something we can think about in our own lives, right?

How many, the number of times I've said yes to Jesus means that I've said no to some other

things.

And, you know, if I take a snapshot of where I was like three years ago versus now, I realize

that a lot of things have changed in my life.

You know, there are a lot of people who were in my life, who aren't really in my life anymore.

And it was full of some other things that they're not full of anymore.

And Jesus has taken that space.

And I'm not saying that, you know, those relationships were bad.

Some of them were.

I mean, some of them were really unproductive.

Some of them led me places I wouldn't want to be in today.

But at the end, you know, what you say yes to here will mean that you say no to something

else.

And like Jesus said to Martha, that there's one thing that is needed.

One thing that is important.

Mary has chosen the right thing.

And I can say for myself that I've chosen it too.

Have you chosen that as well?

That's a really important question to ask yourself.

Like, do you know Jesus?

Do you know the call, you know, when he says, follow me?

Have you heard that?

Are you doing that?

Are you doing that on a daily basis?

It's really something to ask yourself.

And also, you know, I love, I love what I love in the story that there is this kind of too

profiles, the person that is serving with all of her heart.

And we can see that because she's exhausted at the end.

She was doing it willingly and from all of her heart.

And there's the other profile of Mary that she was choosing to be with Jesus and to be

in relationship at that time.

And I have to remind myself that I am in a constant relationship.

We say that we invite everyone, like if you don't know Jesus, you are not in a relationship

with him.

You should do that because it's amazing.

But I have to remind myself and invite myself daily to be in a relationship with him, especially

if I am serving in a church or I'm in ministry or whatever I'm doing in my daily life, I

can get easily drawn away from that relationship.

I can easily go away and let this pressure and weight set on my back.

And eventually I'm going to like lean down as Martha did.

So I think there's a balance here.

We need to remind ourselves always that I love the Lord.

I'm serving him.

But that doesn't mean that I'm in a relationship with him.

It means that my servitude is coming out of that relationship, out of my love for him

and the faction I'm serving him.

But also I need to make the balance in my time where I'm breaking off of these things

and going.

For me, maybe it means reading the Bible.

Maybe it means going to church.

Maybe it means just spending some time talking to him.

There is a reality to that.

Jesus says this in Matthew chapter 7 where there are people who say, Lord, I've done

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

so many things in your name.

I've served you.

I've prophesied in your name.

I've cast out demons in your name.

I've done this and this and many wonders.

And he says, depart from me.

I never knew you.

Serving him does not equal following him or knowing him.

From the place of following him, like Pastor Matt said, we don't visit him, but we stay

with him from that place of staying with him.

We're able to serve him.

We're able to be effective.

Actually, that is the first step to what we're talking about over these three weeks.

We're talking about follow me.

Next we're going to talk about I will make you and that we're going to emphasize the

transformation required and what is required to be with him and to be in that place from

which we can be effective.

And in week three, we're going to talk about fishers of men.

So he's called us to something.

He's called us to a purpose.

He's called us to accomplish certain things.

And we all have a great commission, but we also all have a person, a place in it.

So I want to just take this a little further from Luke chapter 10, universe 39.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

And Martha had a sister called Mary, which was also sat at Jesus feet and heard his

word.

Um, the, the setting here is there's a, a group of people, a large group of people.

We know that it's the 70 that followed Jesus plus the 12.

So you know, there's a, there's a good number of people.

They're gathered together.

Jesus is ministering the word.

He's, he just says, he heard his word and Gilbert, what is it that you saw his word

is his word is spirit and life.

What's the truth translation of that?

It contains the life of God's spirit.

It contains the life of God's spirit.

So there is, there is a spiritual thing happening and Martha is doing a natural thing.

And don't mistake this.

The natural thing is not bad.

The natural thing is necessary.

But because she's doing it without relationship, because she's doing it without the focus on

him, her service interrupted the flow of the spirit.

The things that God wants to do in and through go church, Beirut are spiritual.

They contain the life of God for us and for this nation.

And if we are.

Cumbered about with much serving like Martha, we're very busy.

Um, I, I, I don't have time to, um, to really focus on listening to the podcast.

And hear this message because I'm so busy doing a ministry where we're actually putting

ourself in a position where we're going to wind up like Martha saying, Hey, Jesus, would

you stop what you're doing and help me do what I'm doing?

That's wrong.

We need to, we need to make changes in what we're doing and help him with what he's doing.

And if it's, if it's time for him to share the word in Luke chapter 10, I'm talking about,

Luke 10 · chapter mention

then the beans can wait.

So the natural things are important, but they come second to him.

That's good.

That's really amazing.

We're, we're running out of time for this week.

I do want to say that in our grow groups, we'll talk about this encounter in Luke chapter

Luke 10 · chapter mention

10, but we will also talk about another illustration.

So I'm going to introduce this real quick.

It's actually in second Kings chapter two versus one through to 17.

It's a, it's a story about the dynamic between Elijah and Elisha.

So Elijah was a prophet of God and Elisha was a disciple, right?

He was being trained and groomed to really pick up the position that Elijah left for

him and left, you know, left him in.

So like, you know, there's a good example of Mary in this instant.

We're going to look at another good example of Elisha and what he chose to do and how

he, you know, he chose that necessary part, like the scripture says in Luke chapter 10.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

And as a result of that, he was able to go further and he was able to actually carry

through the purpose of the discipleship.

So like we said, follow me week one, I will make you week two, fishers of men week three.

So I'm looking forward to the discussions in grow groups this week.

And I'm also looking forward to talking about, I will make you that portion next week.

So with that, I just want to say bless you and thanks for listening.

And as Pastor Matt always says, if no one told you yet today, we do love you.

And the reason I say that is because it's true.

And we are grateful.