Come After Me | Jon Jorgenson Sermon

how y'all doing tonight I say I say y'all is more of like an urban hip thing y'all y'all say it is like a an actual word which is great I think I think southern accents are very charming I wish I had one myself but you all are gonna have to you all y'all are gonna have to listen to my sort of boring Chicago accent all weekend I hope that's okay well my name as as Trenton said my name is John and I am very excited to be with you all all weekend here at D now and before we start I do want to play a really quick game and I'm really hoping in such a big space that this game is gonna work because it's one of my absolute favorite games of all time do you all have something on your body that you can crack don't do it but maybe it's your neck maybe it's your like don't break your arm but like yeah not like a broken thumb but like if you can crack your knuckles so you can crack your neck maybe your back I don't know maybe you have a trick knee and I'm not sure don't crack it yet because here's what we're gonna do get it ready and on the count of three we're all gonna crack at the same time in complete silence if you don't like the sound of knuckles or things cracking will pray for you over this next ten seconds here we go you ready you ready I'm gonna do my thumb absolute silence or doesn't work I'm hoping it works in a big room ready one two three oh that is the best sound in the world the best sound I love it I love it all right so can someone raise their hand and tell me what is the theme of this DNow weekend does anyone know what the theme is yes follow me ten points for that guy I will be keeping a tally of all of your points all weekend follow me that's right and we are basing this theme around a verse that you may or may not have heard before it's found in Luke chapter 9 verse 23 says this if any this is Jesus speaking if anyone would come after me let him deny himself take up his cross and follow me so you see all weekend we're gonna be diving into this verse and hopefully answering the following question what does it really look like to follow Jesus what does it really mean to be a disciple of Christ for those of you who grew up in church you've probably heard that phrase follow Jesus before yes nod your head if you've heard this or maybe you've heard be a disciple of Jesus we want to become a good disciple right and maybe for you in growing up your understanding of what it meant to follow Jesus maybe for you it simply meant going to church right going to church with your family maybe showing up to youth group and becoming to a Dean now weekend that's what following Jesus meant or maybe for you it simply meant studying your Bible right you read the Bible that means Jesus talks in the Bible so I'm following Jesus right doing what God said or maybe for you following Jesus it meant just being a good person right being nice to your friends witnessing to your friends inviting your friends to church I don't really know what exactly your background is and what exactly your understanding of that phrase follow Jesus means but what I'm here this weekend to suggest to you is very simple and that is what if Jesus is invitation to follow him was actually meant to do more than simply change our behavior what if it was meant to do more than simply change the things we read what if it was meant to change the way that we interact with other people but what if it was more than that what if Jesus is invitation for us to follow him was bigger than that what if it was actually meant to change us what if Jesus is called to be his disciple what if that call was actually meant to change everything for us that is what we're going to be tackling this DNow weekend and this weekend we're going to be diving into what it looks like to be a true disciple of Jesus but in order to do that to start we're gonna look at another passage in the Book of Luke I'm gonna read you a short passage you may have heard before from Luke chapter 5 which my Bible gives the title Jesus calls his first disciples Luke chapter 5 says one day Jesus was standing by the lake of Gennesaret and the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God he saw at the water's edge two boats left there by fisherman everyone say fishermen fishermen who were washing their nets he got into one of the boats the one belonging to Simon and asked him to put out a little from the shore then he sat down and taught the people from the boat when he had finished speaking he said to Simon put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch Simon answered master we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything but because you say so I will let down the nets and when they had done so they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break so they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink when Simon Peter saw this he fell at Jesus's knees and said go away from me Lord I am a sinful man for he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken and so were James and John the sons of Zebedee Simon's partners then jesus said to Simon don't be afraid from now on you will fish for people so they pulled their boats up on shore left everything and followed him like I said this weekend we're gonna dive into what does it really look like to follow Jesus right but before we do that before we discover what real discipleship looks like we have to ask ourselves another question and that first question is what type of person does Jesus call to follow him what are the qualifications who are the candidates to be a disciple of Jesus what are the exact prerequisites for enrolling in this course and so to start us off tonight we're gonna be answering that question through a message that I have entitled come after me turn to your neighbor and say come after me that's not come at me that's a whole different type of invitation let's pray before we dive in Heavenly Father thank you so much for tonight I thank you for each and every person in this room god I truly do Lord it has not been easy for any of us to get here I can complain about canceled flights or you know rental cars or luck inta ins but at the end of the day there are people who walk in here carrying much bigger burdens than difficult travel God there are people that walked in here this morning feeling the burden of a broken marriage that their that their parents are going through right now there are those who perhaps have lost loved ones in the last year there are those who just have really difficult friendships or maybe have a relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend that they're just not feeling right about anymore I don't know but we are all walking in here this weekend carrying something we're all walking in here this week and following something and god I pray as we open up your word tonight and as I begin speaking that it would not be me speaking at all father but I pray that you by the power of your spirit would be speaking through me and God I pray for each and every person in this room that those who have ears to hear that you would let them hear because I believe you have something for each of us to hear tonight or there were a student or a leader I pray all of this in the precious name of Jesus and everybody said amen so raise your hand if you love math and you're really good at math it's okay you can you don't that's great you're awesome like you're not a nerd we're not gonna make fun of you that's great if you love math especially if you're really really good at math good for you I'm so happy for you know raise your hand if the thought of math makes you want to throw in a bucket drink it and then throw up again some of you were like I don't want to throw up and drink it but I do hate math yeah that's me right I hate math and I am atrocious at it so bad you wouldn't even believe it however when I was in high school I had this like weird fantasy of being a math genius right I really wanted to be that guy who like was just walking down the halls and saw like a really difficult math equation on the board that no one could solve ever and I just walk in and I'm like carry the to answer I dreamed of being that guy but it wasn't very good at math and the most difficult math course that you could take at my high school was a class called AP calculus right this class was reserved for the best of the best math students only the smartest kids were in this class the real math nerds you had to have a certain GPA in order to even sign up for this class right but I wanted to be a math genius so my senior year I decided I was gonna sign up for AP calculus not really thinking I would ever get in of course because my GPA wasn't even like half of what you needed to sign up for this class okay so I was like oh this is a funny joke I'm gonna take AP calculus guess how surprised I was when I got my schedule and first period I had AP calculus I peed my pants a little bit and so I knew immediately from that moment I am definitely going to be the dumbest kid in the room right that's pretty obvious but I said okay I'm gonna make up for that by working really really hard and so I made a deal with my teacher her name was Miss Wiseman and I made a deal with Miss Wiseman that every single day before school I would show up at 6:00 a.m. an hour before school started and we would work together on extra calculus work so that I could catch up with everyone else and I was so committed to this I'm like miss Wiseman I think I'm a math genius I just need some work and so for two months we did this every single morning Monday through Friday and after two months I was still failing AP calculus and one day I was waiting for mr. Weisman cuz she was a little bit late and when she walked up she saw me and she just sighed she went John this is an exact quote this is what she said to me she said John I'm tired I think you should probably just drop this class and so I wanted to be known I could still be a math genius but Miss Weisman gave up on me so the world missed out on my genius and so I dropped AP calculus but in all honesty I really had no business being in this class in the first place right this class is reserved for only the best of the best students only the smartest students and I just didn't really measure up to that now in order for you to understand this next part I'm gonna need three volunteers can I get three volunteers raise your hand oh yeah you three right here yeah Three Stooges here let's go let's go three amigos all right you don't come up here and can you can you stand sort of right here and just did a pack for me and you just stand there don't don't do anything stupid just just stand there thank you so for those of you don't know Jesus lived in a time that we call the first century right and during the first cent education looked a lot different than it does today and during the first century little Jewish boys and girls or boys whatever the little Jewish boys they would go to school at around six years old for the first time and it's six years old they would enter in to what is called Bates affair everybody say Bates affair and in this level of schooling right in Bates affair what would happen is little Jewish boys and girls they would learn for about four or five years and what they would do is they would memorize the entire Torah and the Torah is what the word we use to refer to the first five books of the Bible they wouldn't memorize Genesis Exodus Leviticus numbers and Deuteronomy by the age of ten so we're gonna test these guys and see how much of those five books that no I'm kidding we're not going to do that we're not going to do that but by the age of ten they would have those five books memorized now at this point most of the students they would actually drop out of school at ten years old and they would go and they would apprentice and they would learn a trade right they would learn how to be a farmer or they'd learn how to be a fisherman or something like that and they would drop out of school however the best of the best would move on move here to the center for me here we go this is an illustration they would move on to the second level of Hebrew school which was called Beit Talmud and in Beit Talmud these students the best of the best they would go on and they would memorize not just the first five books of the Bible they would memorize the entire Old Testament by the age of fifteen Genesis through Malachi I don't know about you but I couldn't even get the memory verse for the week memorized when I was in Sunday school but they had the entire Old Testament at fifteen years old then what would happen is most students again they would drop out of school and they would go and they would learn a trade they would become a blacksmith they would become a farmer or they would become a fisherman but the best of the best of the best would go on to level 3 and level 3 was called Beit Midrash and what happened in Beit Midrash is that the best and smartest students everyone's looking at him like he's not very smart like this is very ironic that I chose him I'm not sure why he's really until well for this example incredibly intelligent this was AP calculus right and what you would do in Beit Midrash is this student would actually apply to be a rabbis disciple and if the rabbi thought oh this kids smart this kid can do what I do because that's what being a disciple means a disciple is someone who literally follows the rabbi around does everything the rabbi does learns everything the rabbi learns so that eventually one day this disciple can carry on the rabbis practice and so a rabbi would only accept someone as their disciple if they thought this kid can do what I do and if they thought that they would say come follow me let's give a hand to these volunteers great job you guys have a seat excellent job excellent such smart smart people and so now that we understand that that being invited to be a rabbis disciple that this was one of the highest honors that a young Jewish boy or girl could receive since we understand that this was a very exclusive club only reserved for the best of the best of the best this should completely transform our understanding of that passage in Luke five that I read you earlier right because in Luke chapter five what do we have we have Jesus who is a Jew rabbi and we have fishermen right and if they're fishermen what does that mean it means that they had dropped out of school it means that these men Simon and Andrew and James and John they were not the best of the best of the best these guys maybe had made it through the first level of Hebrew school these guys were not special they were not the smartest they were not the best they did not live up to the standard they didn't fit in to the exclusive club and yet the story ends with Jesus a Jewish rabbi saying to these fishermen come follow me you see what we have in this story is we have Jesus taking an exclusive club of religion and turning it into an inclusive family of God what I mean by that is the traditional idea of a disciple was that you had to live up to a certain standard you had to know enough you had to be good enough you had to be smart enough to get into AP Calculus which not all of us are smart enough okay in order to be a disciple there was only a certain number of people who were invited into this religious Club but Jesus is tearing all of that down here and he is inviting these ordinary everyday completely unspecial fishermen into a family of God and so when Jesus says this to them when a Jewish rabbi invites these fishermen to come and follow him what do you think the reaction is of course their minds are literally blown right I was always really confused in reading the story that and there's there's a parallel version of this story in Matthew and it talks about how how Simon Simon's father is there as well and and literally Jesus just says follow me and the guys are like great let's go follow this stranger I always found that very confusing why would they after five minutes with Jesus I know we performed a miracle and that's great but why after five minutes would they just drop everything they'd ever known so that they could go follow this strange man but you see when a Jewish rabbi comes to them these fishermen and says come follow me this was the absolute highest honor that these young boys could imagine this was an honor that they never imagined that they would receive this is an honor that they knew that they did not deserve and so of course immediately they will drop everything and go and follow him because they weren't special they weren't the best they were ordinary and so again what we have in this story is that in a world of the best calling the best Jesus is an extraordinary God calling ordinary people and friends if you want to know the answer to the question we asked earlier if you want to know what type of person Jesus calls to follow him Jesus calls ordinary people Jesus isn't just interested in the smartest or the most popular or the person who gets the best grades or the person with the most talent or the person with the best looks but Jesus calls ordinary everyday people and not only that but Jesus actually calls the ordinary to the extraordinary and you might not understand that right now but let me explain do you remember earlier when I was talking about how when a rabbi would invite the disciple to be their disciple they would only do it if they thought this kid can do what I do remember that so in light of that when Jesus says to these fishermen come follow me when Jesus says to these ordinary men come be my disciple what Jesus is actually saying here is hey fisherman hey Simon hey ordinary hey unspecial person I actually think that you can do what I do I think that you can serve the way that I serve I think that you can love people the way that I love people I think that you can teach the way that I teach you see what Jesus does is he says I know that you might feel ordinary I know that right now in your life you might feel unspecial I know that you might feel like you don't live up to the standard but if you make the decision to follow me I will take your ordinariness and I will bring you on a journey of an extraordinary life that's what following Jesus does you see maybe you're in this room tonight and you don't feel very special right you you know you're definitely not the smartest kid in your school you know that you're not the most talented maybe you you've never been picked for anything right a sports team school play I don't know whatever it is you know that you're not the most popular you don't have the most friends heck you might not even feel like your parents favorite maybe you're in this room tonight and you feel utterly ordinary and if that's true then I want you to hear this I want you to know that if you feel ordinary then Jesus's call is for you come follow me I think you can do the things that I do and if you make the decision to come and follow me I will take that ordinariness I will take your ordinary life and I will begin to transform it into something ordinary that is what Jesus does when we make the decision to follow him Jesus is an extraordinary God calling ordinary people to follow him and friends true discipleship means following Jesus true discipleship means coming after Jesus because the gospel is a story of a jesus who first came after us you see the gospel is the story of a God who even in our sin even in our brokenness even in our utter ordinariness came down to earth and came after us again maybe you're here this weekend and you look at your life and it's not necessarily that you feel ordinary but you certainly don't feel like God would ever call you to follow him because you've actually been running away from God for the last year maybe you look at your life over the last year and you look at the decisions you've been making or some of the friendships that you've made or some of the words that you've been saying and you realize you've actually been running away from God you've been running in sin you've been running in shame you've been running in fear but you see the story of the gospel is that even in our running God came after us by sending his one and only Son to die on a cross so that even in our running even in our shame even in our sin even in our utter ordinariness we could be forgiven for that sin and we could be freed to follow him you want to know the type of person that Jesus calls to be his disciple it calls ordinary people you want to know who Jesus says come follow me he says it to us everyday ordinary broken messed up people like you and me [Music] bringing you

Channel: JonJorgenson

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Keywords: Jon, Jorgenson, jon jorgenson sermon, christian teaching, christian preacher, preaching, sermon, inspiration, inspiring sermon, church speaker, keynote speaker, conference speaker, jesus, christianity, gospel, youth retreat speaker

Id: sehaSM2K9eQ

Length: 26min 17sec (1577 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 16 2018