Follow Me
We've been in a series to help you discover God's call on your life. Our theme verse for this time has been in Jeremiah 29:11 which says, "For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for prosperity and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope." And from that we've learned that God does have a plan and that it's because He has given us a hope and a future. We just need to discover that plan, to find out what that plan is and be able to carry out that plan.
Let's look at the call of God upon us -- and it's really a very simple thing. It is extremely simple. The call of God as an invitation. God gives us an invitation to join Him and to fulfill the destiny of our lives. Let's look at Mark 1:16-20: "And as He was going along by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, 'Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.' And they immediately left the nets and followed Him. And going on a little farther, He saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who were also in the boat mending the nets. And immediately He called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and went away to follow Him."
When the world tells you how to fulfill your destiny, they tell you to "Dream those dreams. Decide what you want to do. Choose your destiny, pursue it and hopefully get others to come and join you in that endeavor." But Jesus never tells you to choose your destiny. Jesus says, "Follow Me." Jesus extends the invitation and in this invitation He said, "If you want to know the purpose for which I made you, the plan for which I designed you, follow Me.
If you want to experience the full measure of the Kingdom of God, the rule and reign of God on this earth, the full measure of that, you can experience it when you follow Me." It doesn't get any simpler than this: Follow Me.
That phrase in verse 17 that "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men." That phrase that says I will make you become is really just one word in the Greek language. And it means to bring about, to evolve, to create into. What we have in verse 17 is the distinction between God's responsibilities and our responsibilities. What is God's responsibility? God said, "I will do this. I will make you become fishers of men." He didn't say, "Follow me and then help yourself become a fisher of men." We have a distinguishing of responsibilities here.
In other words, God is saying, "Okay I'm going to give you what you need to become a fisher of men. I'm going to give you the heart for it. I'm going to give you the passion for it. I'm going to give you the gift for it. I'm going to train you. I'm going to equip you. All the gifts, all the ability, all the power, everything you need to do what I want you to do, I'm going to give it to you and I'm going to make you into that person." That's His job. What's your job? See you're getting this .. You job is just to "Follow me."
All of the equipping is done by Jesus. All of the empowering is done by Him. All of the development of the skills that He is going to give you, He is in charge of making sure we have that. All we have to do is follow Him. He will impart it to us. This is a very consistent thing with Jesus that you will find that whenever He called somebody, the message was the same. In Matthew 9:9 when He called Matthew: "When Jesus was leaving He saw a man named Matthew sitting in the tax collector's booth and Jesus said to him, 'Follow Me.' And he stood up and he followed Jesus. The call was consistent.
Well what's involved in following Jesus? To follow Jesus means that you have to be with Jesus. In fact that's the whole approach of discipling and equipping. It's being with the Lord. And when Jesus said, "Come and follow Me", they understood exactly what He was talking about because that is exactly how they did that in that day and time. (They did not have university where everybody comes with their notebook and sits down in class and while the teacher gives a lecture and later they take a final exam.) Back then the student lived with their teacher. They learned from being with the teacher day in and day out. Likewise, the disciples left everything and followed Jesus. Where He went, they went. When the teacher talked they sat down and they listened. When the teacher worked they watched, they observed, they participated. This was the way teaching was going on. It was a mentoring type, discipling type of relationship. And Jesus knew that the way that they were going to be able to fulfill their call that He had for them was first of all that they had to be with Him.
In fact, Jesus puts it in order in Mark 3:14, "Then He appointed twelve that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach." He didn't say that He might send them out to preach and then be with them. There's an order here. The order is that you were with Him and then He sends you. Oftentimes we want to be sent without being with Him. We've got to be with Him. We've got to learn how to walk with Him. We've got to learn how to spend time with Him. In doing so, the Lord will train us and equip us.
In fact most of the skills that you learned, you've learned by watching, by observing: both positive and negative. Think about this. A lot of your characteristics of your personality came from things you observed and experienced. You observed them. It was in your household. You saw it with your friends. Much of what you have learned, you've simply observed and watched it. Not everything, but a lot of things. We call that modeling. Jesus brought his disciples with Him so He could model how they were to live and think.
Jesus asked His followers to adopt His way of life, to rearrange their whole life for Him. He asked them to commit to a lifestyle that was centered around Him. He did this so He could train them, to teach them to be like Him in His attitude and in His actions. The commands haven't changed much. What has God called us to be like? He's called us to be like Him. Romans 8:29 says: "For God knew His people in advance and He chose them to become like His Son." I like that phrase, "He chose them." It has the sense of the call of God. God has chosen you to be like His Son.
Ephesians 4:13 says: "We must become like a mature person, growing until we become like Christ and have His perfection." That means we've got to become like Jesus. We become like the one we hang around, so when you hang around Jesus, you become like Him. The more you are with Him, the more you become like Him. So we have to develop this habit in our life of spending time with God every day. We have to learn how to commune with God and walk with God.
Let me give you two other practical steps. One practical step is to become familiar with the life of Jesus and the other is to follow someone who is following Jesus. Let's look briefly at these.
First, you've got to become familiar Jesus' life. How can you follow Him if you don't know anything about Him? Where do you gain that information? You gain it from His Word. The book of James is helpful because it gives you things to do so that you will begin to walk in obedience. And the gospels are helpful because they speak of the life of Jesus, and show what He was like. They give a chronology of His life, a summation of His teachings. They tell us about the person of the Lord Jesus; how He acted. Read them, get lost in them. Take your time. Get real familiar with Jesus.
The second practical thing is to follow somebody who is following Jesus. In I Corinthians, Paul the Apostle said, "And you should follow my example just as I follow Christ." These guys didn't have Jesus, but they did have Paul. And they could know what to do by observing what Paul did. It wasn't arrogant of Paul to say, "Follow me, imitate me, do what I do." He was saying, "You may not know the Lord, but you know me. I am following Him. If you want to know what it means to follow Him, follow me, imitate me, do what I am doing." There is a hot term that is used today; it's the term "mentoring". Really it is another word for discipleship. It is taking someone under your wing and training them, spending time with them.
I tell you all my skills that I have learned about walking with the Lord, I've learned by watching other people. I've learned by observing their life. That has done more to teach me the disciplines than anything else. I learned about loving the Lord from my dad. My father taught me how to love God cause he has a great love and a passion for God. I began to observe that, so I began to pursue that; I began to pursue loving the Lord.
I learned about prayer from my pastor, David Young. I was on his staff. He was a good example for me. I thought I had a priority of prayer and I even taught on prayer. David was a man of prayer. We'd get up in the early morning. He would come and knock on my door at 5:30 or 6:00 AM. It wasn't by surprise. It was by prior arrangement. And I remember there was times I was there laying in bed and saying, "I hope he doesn't come today; I hope he sleeps in cause I would like to sleep in today." There were times when I knew that if I went to his office, he was going to make me pray. It's not that I wasn't spiritual. It's not like I didn't like to pray, but this man really was a man of prayer. And he taught me a lot about prayer. I thought I knew a lot about it but I learned from him. He also taught me about memorizing scripture. I began to learn scripture and I began to memorize it and a lot of my inspiration has come because I observed David's model.
By the way not only are there good examples, but you also learn from the bad as well. I learned a lot that I never want to do as a pastor from my first pastor who's staff I was on. The first time he called me into his office and raked me over the coals, I deserved every bit of it. Everything he had to say was true and everything he confronted me on, I needed confronting on. The second time was reinforcement of what he said the first time but I was on the path doing the right thing. The third and the fourth time I would call it spiritual abuse but after that - the guy was struggling. He was having some hard times and so on. We did straighten out our relationship but I learned a lot of what I never want to do by observing his model. You know what I am talking about too. You've had some of those models in your life.
You learn by watching. You learn by observing and especially with those people who can impart the truth and the Word of God to you. Hebrews 13:7 says "Remember those who led you. Who spoke the Word of God to you and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith." Notice the terms "Those who led you." "Those who spoke the Word of God." So the question is, "Who are you following?" Are you following anybody? Is there anybody that you are attached to? Is there anybody you're looking at and getting close to?
We all know that human begins will fail us. They aren't perfected yet and we all have some faults. No matter whom you put up there, remember men will always fail you. But that doesn't mean that you don't have to learn from fallible men because you can. The Lord will never fail you even though men will. And you can still learn observing the models that are in front of you. You can still learn from them even if they may fail you from time to time because they are fallible. So, are you following somebody? Are you learning what it means to follow Jesus?
You need to know this because somewhere down the road, God wants you to be the leader. That's kind of scary for some of us. It may feel like a lot of pressure to have someone looking at you. Someone is going to observer your life and how you live it to determine how they're going to walk. That's a lot of pressure but God wants to get you there. He wants you to get to that place where people will look at you and people will follow you. He wants you to get to the place where you can say with confidence, "Follow me as I follow Jesus. If you don't know how to follow Jesus, come follow me. Imitate me."
Counting the Cost
In our last lesson, we talked about following Jesus. Let me share the main barrier to following Jesus, because there is indeed a barrier. That barrier is the cost. It's just too high. It is real high and for many people they just can't get past this one. Jesus would say this and this is a consistent thing. This isn't the only time it's in the gospels. Continually He would say, this is in Matthew 16.24: "Jesus said to them, if any of you want to be My follower you must put aside your selfish ambitions, shoulder your cross and follow Me."
This is true if you want to move in the prophetic and it is also true if you want to be used in any other type of ministry. Many of you have heard the term "paying the price for the prophetic." Many people misunderstand that to mean that you have to pay some sort of special "price" to be allowed to move in the prophetic. But that is not what it means at all. It means that if you want God to really use you, to really gift you, then you have to allow Him to really mature you as well. That is true for the prophetic and it is true for pretty much any other ministry as well. And that maturity process takes time and it often has some very painful elements. But God needs to work His character in you, to mature you, before you can be an effective spokesperson for Him. If you want to be God's mouthpiece, then you have to allow Him to crucify the old nature and to work His nature in you. That often comes through the refiner's fire.
You see, Jesus is going to require your whole life. It does not matter whether or not you want to be a minister. It does not matter whether or not you want to be a prophet. If you are Jesus' follower, His disciple, then that is the cost. I know it's simple. Follow Him. But it's going to cost you your life to do so.
A lot of people were really interested in following Jesus but not everybody could do it. One guy came to Jesus one time and he was a scribe in Matthew 8 and he said to him: "Teacher I will follow you wherever you go." But Jesus said to him, "The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head." We talked about what they did in the way of teaching and teaching a follower in the last lesson. The student went with the teacher. He said, "You can follow me if you want, however, your little comforts at home that you've been used to, you won't have them."
There's a price to be paid. And there is a great price in following Jesus because He is going to want all of your life. He's going to want all your passions. He's going to want all your kingdom. He wants all of Those things that rule you.
The rich, young ruler came to Jesus one day in Mark 10:17. It says: "As He was starting out on a trip a man came running up to Jesus. He knelt down and asked, 'Good teacher, what shall I do to get eternal life?' 'Why do you call me good?' Jesus asked, 'Only God is truly good. But as for your question, you know the commandments. Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not testify falsely, do not cheat, honor your father and mother.' 'Teacher', the man replied, 'I've obeyed all these commandments since I was a child.' Jesus felt genuine love for this man and He looked at him and as he looked at him, he said, 'You lack only one thing.' He told him, 'Go and sell all you have, give the money to the poor and you'll have treasure in heaven. Follow me.' At this the man's face fell and he went sadly because he had many possessions."
This young seeker wanted to maintain two kingdoms. His self kingdom and God's kingdom. When I am talking about a kingdom, I am talking about what rules you, what has authority over you, what dominates you. And he had this little self kingdom that he had established. Jesus told him, "You can't have that kingdom and have Me. If you're going to follow Me, you're going to have to get rid of your kingdom and take on My kingdom." And that's God's plan. That's Jesus' requirements. Nothing less than absolute surrender. It's a total surrender. Laying down your personal rights. Laying down your kingdoms and exchanging your kingdoms for the kingdom of God.
What are your potential self-kingdoms? For this man it was obviously wealth. For other people it is other things. It could be security. Could be knowledge. It could be ambition. Could be recognition. We all have different wants. If you don't know what they are, let me ask you a couple of questions. What is it you must have more than Jesus? Is there anything? If there is then that's a kingdom. What in your life rivals his absolute reign in your life? What is in competition with His rule over you? What do you constantly find yourself giving back over to God? What do you find pulling back and hanging on to? That's your kingdom. It rules you. It dominates you and Jesus says, "You've got to give it up."
The major hindrance in following Him is the cost involved. That cost is our whole life. But Jesus said this as He spoke to His disciples: "If you follow Me, I'll do My part. I'll make you become what I've called you to become. I'll let you know what I've called you to become. I'll give you everything you need to do it. I'll bring it about in your life. I will give you whatever power is necessary. I will give you whatever gifts you need. I will give you whatever relationship. I will give you whatever resources - everything that you need to fulfill what I want you to do", Jesus says, "I will do it in you. I will make you. I will shape you. I will train you. I will equip you. I will empower you. I will send you out. I will do all this. I will make you become this."
And our job is very simple. Follow Him. Do you want to know God's call on your life, God's plan for you? It's simple. He will show you. He will develop you. He will shape you. He will make you. He will reveal it to you when your highest priority is to follow Him. When that is your greatest passion. And the message doesn't get any simpler than this. Follow Him. What are your kingdoms that you have to give up? What rivals the kingdom of God? What rules you and dominates you?
Would you invite the Lord to do a holy probing in your heart right now? Would you be like the psalmist and say, "Search me O God and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the road of everlasting"? Can you just say that? Can you invite the Lord to do a thorough search now and reveal the things in your life that rule you? In that search is the Holy Spirit saying that God rules you? What has the higher priority? What has a greater passion?
And we need to be honest with God. God is not looking for the right answer. He's looking for an honest heart, for a heart that recognizes the area of struggle. Will you now lay that at the cross? Make it a total surrender, because if you don't get rid of it, it will become a barrier to you. It will become a distraction to you and you won't be able to follow Him.
So why don't you just hang out with God for a moment here. And Lord, I ask that that revelation will come. Lord I pray that revelation will come and that we'll be able to see the barriers and the hindrances.
Are you putting yourself in a position to be disciples? Is there someone that you're following? Someone that you're wanting to emulate their behavior? Are you spending time with God everyday or is it like a once a week or once a month thing? Is it everyday? If you don't have a relationship with God you can't spend any time with Him. And if you've never given your life to Him, if you have never made Him Lord of everything you are, then your first step is to ask Jesus to come in and be the boss. But I'll tell you; He is going to expect all your life, not just a portion of it. Just not the part that you want to get rid of and that you're tired of. He's going to want all of your life. In exchange He will give you forgiveness of sin and eternal life and I'll tell you it is a good exchange. And He'll give you the purpose for which He created you. He'll give you life abundantly on this earth as well as life forever in heaven if you'll ask Him to become your Lord.
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