FOLLOW ME (sermon)....David Platt

but I pray that by God's grace somehow I might be able to serve you well with his word this morning we live in a day where it means almost nothing to identify yourself as a Christian according to research almost 4 out of 5 Americans identify themselves as Christians 4 out of 5 but in this group of self-identified Christians less than half of them are involved in church on a weekly basis less than half of them actually believe that the Bible is accurate the overwhelming majority of them do not have a biblical view of the world around them the researchers weren't even deeper though to distinguish men and women who are described as born-again Christians as if there are any other kind of Christians and these are people who say they've made a personal commitment to Jesus they believe they will go to heaven because they have accepted Jesus as their Savior and according to research almost half of Americans are born-again Christians but out of this group of born-again Christians researchers found that their beliefs and their lifestyles are virtually indistinguishable from the world around them many born Akron Christians believe that their works can earn them a place in heaven others think that Christians and Muslims worship the same God some believed you descend while he was on earth an ever-increasing number of born-again Christians described themselves as nominally committed to Jesus so people have taken data like this and concluded that Christians are really not that different from the rest of the world but I don't think that interpretation of this research is accurate I think the one thing that is abundantly clear from these statistics is that there are a whole lot of people in the world who think that they are Christians but they are not there are scores of people here and around the world who culturally identify themselves as Christians but biblically are not followers of Christ is that possible absolutely it's possible Jesus himself I believe said it's probable in Matthew 7 they said many will say too many will say to me on that day Lord Lord we do not prophesy in your name do we not perform many miracles and drive out demons and I will tell them I never knew you away from me you evildoers those verses haunt me as a pastor to think that there may be many Jesus uses the word many people who assume at this moment that their eternity is secure but will be shocked one day to hear Jesus say I never knew you so what does it mean biblically to be a follower of Christ and I want to dive into Jesus's answer to that question this issue's knowing Christ seems like a generic theme to some but this is hugely important in our day that we identify biblically what it means to be a follower of Jesus and so I draw your attention to Jesus's conversation with four fishermen by a sea in Matthew chapter 4 verse 18 while walking by the Sea of Galilee he saw two brothers Simon who was called Peter and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen and he said to them follow me and I will make you fishers of men immediately they left their nets and followed him and going from there he saw two other brothers James the son of Zebedee and John his brother in the boat with Zebedee their father mending their nets and he called them immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him two simple words here follow me so what do they mean well let's take them in reverse order let's start with the me that's being followed here and this is where what I want to do is offer just a a brief overview of the portrait of Jesus then matthew has painted for us and the few chapters leading up to this invitation to four fishermen in matthew chapter 4 so we're gonna run through this pretty quickly and you might write these down i want to show you 20 pictures of jesus we're gonna go one after the other that we see of who he is who the me is that's being followed here when we come to matthew chapter 4 so you go back to matthew chapter 1 verse 1 and so we're gonna go through these just one after another after another but all starting in the very first verse of the book when matthew writes the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the Son of David the son of Abraham so four pictures right there in this first verse number one Jesus is the savior he's the savior that's what Jesus means he is the one who will save us from our sins so 1 Jesus is the Savior - Jesus is the Messiah the Messiah he is Jesus Christ Christ is not his last name means the Promised One the one promised throughout the Old Testament to come and save his people he's the Messiah number 3 Jesus is the son of David he's from the kingly line of David which dr. Mohler addressed last night taking us all the way back to Samuel and then number 4 Jesus as the son of Abraham maker Matthew takes us all the way back to Genesis the beginning of the Bible the father of the people of Israel so there's a loaded 1st verse there and it's followed by a genealogy that then shows how everyone and everything in the Old Testament was pointing to Jesus the Christ the Son of David the son of Abraham so picture number 5 Jesus is the center of history don't miss it everything in all of history pointed to Jesus and everything in all history since this moment has pointed back to Jesus Jesus at the center of it all you are not at the center of history I am NOT at the center of history our generation is not at the center of history you know United States of America is not the center of history I saw last night throughout history billions of people have come and billions of people have gone empires have come and empires have gone countries nations kings queens president dictators rulers have come and gone and at the center of all stands one man Jesus the Christ everything revolves around him all of history so that's the end of Matthew chapter one we're first part of chapter one we're only halfway through it and then you go to the second half and you see number 6 Jesus is fully human and number 7 Jesus is fully divine the virgin birth fully human and fully divine born of the Spirit through a woman unlike anyone else ever born the Incarnation the most extraordinary miracle in all of the Bible the Savior the Messiah the son of David the son of Abraham center of history fully human fully God we're one chapter in Matthew chapter two picture number 8 Jesus is the sovereign over the wise he's the sovereign over the wise as a Magi from the east come looking for a king and they bow at his crib he's sovereign over the wise and number 9 he is the shepherd of the weak Matthew quotes from Micah chapter 5 to show how Jesus will rule over God's people as a shepherd it's good to good news to know the sovereign king is the Shepherd of the weak then the Old Testament imagery just gets richer picture number 10 Jesus inaugurates he inaugurates a new Exodus Jesus inaugurates a new Exodus imagery that's clear as god takes his son into egypt and then back out of egypt as a picture of the rescue and redemption that this passover lamb will bring jesus inaugurates a new Exodus number 11 jesus ends the mourn mournful exile he ends the mournful exile you study matthew chapter 2 and you see how god and the coming of Christ promises hope to these weeping women in Bethlehem who've lost their baby boys Jesus has come to end the mournful exile of God's people and in the middle of it all number 12 and Jesus loves his fiercest enemies he loves his fiercest enemies when you finished chapter 2 you realized that Jesus has come to save people who seek to kill him he loves his fiercest enemies he loves sinners like you and me that's Chapter two then chapter three hang in with me here for more pictures of Jesus here number thirteen Jesus as the Saviour King John the Baptist declares the king is coming and he's coming to save all who repent and believe in him he's the savior King but he's not only the Saviour King number fourteen Jesus is the righteous judge the righteous judge John the Baptist says that he has a winnowing fork in his hand and he will separate the grain from the chaff and all who do not repent of sin and believe in him will be burned with unquenchable fire then after that is John baptizes Jesus and this rare glimpse into heaven we see two more pictures of Jesus number 15 Jesus is filled with God the spirit Spirit of God resting upon him he's filled with God the spirit and number 16 he is loved by God the Father Phil we got the spirit loved by God the Father a voice resounds from heaven saying this is my beloved son with whom I am completely pleased all of this sets the stage for temptations in Matthew 4 where we discover picture number 17 Jesus is the new Adam he is the new Adam meaning that we're the first Adam fell to the temptation of G of the desert of the devil in the desert Jesus stood Jesus did what no one else in history has ever done or will ever do he resisted temptation fully and did not give in once to sin he's the new Adam and number 18 Jesus is the true Israel the true Israel meaning that Jesus is the faithful and obedient son who passed the test of temptation in the desert that the people of Israel could not do all of that leads to the last verses right before where we just read where Matthew quotes from an Isaiah and we see number 19 Jesus is the light of the world what Isaiah prophesied has come true the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light and then number 20 just as the light of the world and he is the hope for all nations it's galilee of the gentiles to whom the christ first reveals himself so do you see the portrait of jesus we have here when we come to matthew chapter 4 verse 19 we need to feel the wait and the wonder of the one who is speaking this is Jesus the Savior Messiah the one promised to come in the kingly line of David from Abraham the father of God's people Israel fully human fully divine the one to whom wise men from the nations about the one whose birth uh sirs in the culmination of generations and generations of prophecy and anticipation he's the savior King and righteous judge of the world perfectly filled with God the spirit and completely loved by God the Father the only man whose conquered sin and the true son that Israel could never be the light of the world and the hope of the nations do we realize who this is for when we do there is only one conclusion that's possible ladies and gentlemen this Jesus is clearly absolutely worthy of far more than nominal adherence and casual Association Church we must not reduce this Jesus to a poor puny Savior who is just begging for people to accept him into their hearts as if Jesus needs to be accepted by us Jesus is infinitely worthy of all glory in all the universe and he doesn't need your acceptance he doesn't need my acceptance he doesn't need us at all we need him do not patronize him Jesus is worthy a far more than nominal adherence and Gathol association Jesus is worthy of total abandonment and supreme adoration this is no game here and knowing Christ we're talking about the Savior king of the universe and the righteous judge of the nation's God in the flesh saying follow me that thought alone is baffling it's mind-boggling the Jesus comes to you and me and says follow me there's no potential casual response here it's either turn and run or bow and worship you look at Luke's parallel account of this in Luke chapter 5 and you see that as soon as Peter realized who was standing in front of him he fell on his face and immediately rose up and left all and surrendered himself to follow him this is why we know that those who profess to be Christians but whose lives look just like the rest of the world are deceived all kinds of people who have supposedly made a decision prayed a prayer signed a card walked and I'll accepted Jesus into their hearts but their lives don't look any different clearly they don't know this Christ because when you know this Christ everything changes in your life I heard one preacher illustrate it this way imagine imagine I I got here late this morning imagine dr. Nyquist introduced me and then there was just awkward silence and I was looking around and you sit here for 15 minutes and then finally I come running in and I said I'm so sorry I'm late I was I was driving over here this morning and was on the interstate and I had a flat tire and so I pulled over and I was fixing it when I was fixing the flat tire accidentally stepped out into the middle of the interstate and this Mack truck went about 70 miles an hour just came and hit me hurt really bad so I got up finished fixing the tire and got here as quick as I could so I'm sorry I'm late now if I said that too you would think you would know you'd know one of two things is going on here the number one I'm deliberately lying or two I am completely deceived and you would know that because you know that when somebody gets hit by a Mack truck they look different than they did before based upon this I am I feel like I'm on pretty safe ground in assuming that once you and your life coming contact face to face with the god of the universe in the flesh the Savior king of the nations the light of the world and he reaches down into your dead cold heart saves you from the clutches of your sin and gives you new life things are going to look different things are gonna look very very different when you respond to this me followed this Christ everything changes about your life so what does that change look like what does this following look like well I'm glad you asked and this is where I want to spend the last few minutes I have with you and draw attention to four implications just springing from this word follow for these fishermen and by extension for us so what does it mean to follow this Jesus I think this text answers that question in at least four ways probably many more but to sum up one to follow Jesus means to live to live with radical abandonment for his glory to live with radical abandonment for his glory you go back to verse 17 right before what we just read and Jesus says repent for the kingdom of heaven is near that word repent mean means to renounce to knowledge confess your sin to express sorrow over your sin to turn from your sin to renounce your sin and to renounce yourself Jesus says later Luke 14 verse 33 any of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple renounce all that you have and this for announcing is all over this passage think about these disciples and what they were renouncing what they were abandoning what they were leaving behind they were leaving behind their comfort these guys were leaving behind everything that was familiar to them everything that was natural to them leaving comfort for uncertainty and notice that Jesus didn't say where they were going he only told them who they'd be with that's huge followers of Jesus don't always know where they're going but followers of Jesus always know who they're with that'll preach another sermon time for I really remind their comfort they were leaving behind their careers this was an abandonment of profession for these guys at least temporarily now we're going to talk about how all of this applies to us but just see how it applied to them leaving behind their comfort their careers they left behind their possessions they immediately dropped their nets now these guys obviously we're not that economically elite in their society but the fact that they had a successful trade as fishermen and boats and nets showed that they had much to lose in following Christ we found out later that they liked the store at boats and various other things but the reality is at this moment following Jesus led to them having nothing in their hands their possessions they left behind their position this is huge it's one of the things that set Jesus's disciples apart from other disciples who would follow rabbis and that day disciples would often attach themselves to a rabbi in order to promote themselves in order to take a step up the rung in the religious social ladder this was clearly not a step up for these guys this was a step down as the rabbi they followed would be crucified killed as a criminal they were leaving behind their families James and John need their father know not the only ones who were told to do this Luke chapter 9 and when Jesus tells a potential disciple there don't even go back and say goodbye to your family we're leaving behind their families their friends their safety so this is a rabbi a teacher who would soon say to these same men I'm gonna lead you out to be sheep among wolves all men will hate you because of me they will persecute you they were abandoning their safety following Jesus obviously meant leaving behind their sin it's the core of what it means to repent to turn from your sin and all of this point into the they were leaving behind themselves this is the message that would become central all throughout Jesus ministry if anyone is going to come after me he must what himself deny himself that's the starting point of following Jesus Denine so in a world where everything revolves around self protect yourself promotes yourself preserve yourself entertain yourself comfort yourself take care of yourself Jesus says slay yourself so don't buy it so you bought it the idea that all you need to do is make a decision pray a prayer sign a card and become a Christian and you keep your life as you know it it's not true you become a follower of Jesus and you lose your life as you know it now I want to be careful here I'm not saying and I cannot would not say based on the whole the New Testament that every follower of Jesus must lose their career sell or give away all their possessions leave their family behind and physically die for the gospel but the New Testament is absolutely clear that those who follow Jesus comfort and certainty in this world are no longer our concerns and our career now revolves around whatever Jesus calls us to do and however he wants to use us and our careers to spread the good news of his kingdom our possessions are not our own and we no longer live for material pleasure in this world we forsake material pleasure in this world in order to live for eternal treasure in a world to come and this could mean any one of us selling or giving away everything we have position is no longer our priority when it comes to family absolutely based on the whole the New Testament we're commanded to honor our parents and to love a wife or husband to provide for children so you can't take passages like this and justify being a lousy son or daughter spouse or parents or whatever it may be but clearly our love for Christ according to Jesus in Matthew chapter 10 should make our for our closest family members look like hate in comparison and we go wherever he says to go no one because self is no longer our God safety is no longer our priority I think about two young families that we sent out from our church this last month one moving to the heart of the Middle East then their young kids the other moving to the heart of Central Asia young children both very dangerous to reach people groups and one of those brothers those husbands told our church some of you may think that what we are doing is reckless but in light of 6,000 plus people groups yet to be reached with the gospel and many of those people groups resistant to the gospel we must go and then he said the fact that these people groups haven't been reached this was his quote the thousands of people groups haven't been reached is evidence of the reality that in the church here we are in far greater danger of being safe than we are of being reckless followers of Christ we no longer bow at the altar of safety in this world as followers have just read eyed to our self we die to our sinner we risk our lives and obedience to him this is what it means to follow him pathology is to know Christ is to hold loosely to everything in this world our comforts our careers our possessions our positions our families friends safety ourselves and cling tightly to the person of Christ and the mission of his kingdom now to many this sounds extreme even dangerous but don't forget who the me is here to leave behind lay down abandon everything in your life makes no sense until you realize who Jesus is but when you realize who he is when you realize who Christ this King is laying down leaving behind abandoning everything is the only thing that makes sense remember Matthew 13 remember that man walking in the middle of a field and he stumbles upon a treasure that he sees nobody else knows it's there but he knows this treasure in the middle is filled it's more valuable than everything else I have put together and so what does he do he covers it back up and he goes and he sells everything he has the text says with gladness with a smile on his face and gets rid of everything I can only imagine people coming up to him saying what are you doing crazy you're selling everything you getting rid of everything he says I'm gonna buy that field over there I say what are you doing here buy that field why would you buy that field and he just smiles and he says I've got a hunch he smiles because inside he knows that he's found something that's worth losing everything for ladies and gentlemen we have found in Christ someone who is worth losing everything for it do we believe this that to follow Christ is to live with total abandonment for his glory now some might say are you saying that Christian Ewell is based on what we must do for Christ and we need to do certain things even extreme things we need to become radical in order to earn the favor of God be accepted as a follower of Jesus no follow with me second reality here in Matthew chapter 4 to follow Jesus yes is to live with radical abandonment for his glory and right along with that and what makes this a reality is to follow Jesus is to live with joyful dependence on His grace to live with joyful dependence on His grace so behold the beauty of God's grace in these words follow me see this feel the wonder of this Jesus taking the initiative to choose his disciples he comes to them I mentioned earlier that it was common in first century Judaism for potential disciples to seek out a rabbi to study under the but the beauty of what we're seeing here is that these men don't come to Jesus Jesus comes to them he initiates the relationship he does here at the beginning the new test will always see God the Father doing throughout the Old Testament God always choosing his partners choosing Noah Abe him he chose Moses he chose David he chose the prophets he chose Israel to be his people Deuteronomy chapter 7 and just as God the Father initiated relationship with his people all throughout the Old Testament Jesus is doing the same thing here John 15 he later tells them you did not choose me I chose you and he doesn't choose these guys because of any merit in them he chooses them completely of great because of grace in him it's at this point that I sometimes hear sermons or read commentaries on Matthew chapter 4 and people start talking about why Jesus would choose fishermen to be his disciples because fishermen do this or that they have this skill or that skill they have this perspective or that perspective but if that's the direction we go we'll miss the whole point of this text she just did not call these guys because of what they brought to the table these were not the sharpest tools in the shed these four guys the subsequent disciples to follow didn't have many things in their favor at all lower-class rural uneducated Galileans commoners nobodies not well respected hardly the cultural elite not even the most spiritually qualified for the task exceedingly ignorant narrow-minded superstitious full of Jewish prejudices misconceptions animosity and this is who Jesus chose you say well you're being kind of hard on them but the reality is it's not just them it's us brothers and sisters you and I are not sharpest tools in the shed either we have nothing in us to draw Christ to us nothing and the beauty of the gospel is that Jesus comes pursuing us anyway Jesus this Jesus takes the initiative to call you and me to himself my wife and I for years struggle to have children the Lord led us on a journey of adoption remember they basically put a map of the world on the table and asked the Lord Lord where where do you want us to adopt from and he led us to adopt internationally from the country of Kazakhstan I barely knew Kazakhstan existed before that process but ever months of praying turn in an application to adopt a kazakh child and now I'm not long after that I remember talking with her I had one particular woman and told her that we were adopting a child internationally her response was she said a real one no like a plastic one we're gonna take it and put it on our mantle and look at it yes a real child so anyway just number one thing not to say to parents who are adopting I could share others but we'll move on so we start walking through this adoption process and it's long and grueling in many ways forms fingerprints background studies home studies physicals I remember we were up against the deadline we needed to get our physical done because you just keep delaying this process if you don't get everything in on time and so we're up against this deadline we had a physical to do and so my life I win getting our physical there or just looking for a clean bill of health sign off and we got to the eye exam part and we're in the hallway and I still maintain this was a dimly lit hallway but I went in first and so I covered said cover one eye you know I start and I get about two rows down on the eye chart two or three rows down and I start struggling and I start they know we gotta move this thing on and I'm getting stressed out well well she can tell that I'm getting really nervous I'm just sweating and here's standing the hall trying to do this she says sir won't you won't you calm down once you step the side and let your wife go then you can try again so that's that's that's great and and or or she said or you could just try your other eye which would have worked great but I was so nervous I was pressing down so much on this eye then I open it I was like everything was blurry I couldn't see the top letter and so she said step aside sir alright just step aside and let your wife go and so I'm over there just trying to get my eyes back to perform and while my wife does it and I did and I looked down the hall with both eyes and I just start to memorize the letters it's horrible start memorizing letters and so I step back out figure over the i'ma just haste haste telling this nurse look I can do with both eyes closed so so we go through all this process we complete everything and then six years ago this week I'm sitting in our computer and I receive an email with a picture of a 10 month old little boy on it and six years ago next week the day after Valentine's Day we walked into an orphanage in a small obscure city in the middle of Kazakhstan we held this baby boy in our arms and not long thereafter he became our son Caleb now I want you to think about follow with me think about this for a moment see if parallel here and let this just come into your lap adoption like this begins with a parent's initiative not a child's idea before Caleb was even born before he was ever abandoned in a Children's Hospital in Kazakhstan he had a mom and dad planning to adopt him and while Caleb was lying alone at night in the middle of an orphanage in Kazakhstan he had a mom and a dad who were working to adopt him and one day when Caleb was placed in our arms arms of a mom and dad he had no idea all that had been done completely apart from any initiative in him to bring him to that point this orphaned boy became our cherished son not because he pursued us but because we pursued him before he was ever born and so I remind you Father of Jesus of the words of Ephesians chapter 1 blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places even as he chose us in him for the foundation of the world in love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious grace now people say I don't you really believe predestination or choosing here I'm not saying I got this mystery figure out but I don't want to take Ephesians 1 out of the Bible this is good just feel the Christian feel this right there in your seat Rhea realized this before the Sun was ever even formed before stars were ever placed in the sky before mountains were put upon the land or oceans were poured forth in between them before any of that God the Father on high set his sights on your soul and he purposed to save you from your sins all that we're talking about radical abandon for his glory is the overflow of a radical grace from God toward you and it doesn't stop there it's not likely that happened now we know we got to work no he takes the initiative to choose us and then he provides the power to use this notice what you just says next in Matthew chapter 4 follow me he doesn't say follow me and then start fishing for men he says follow me and I will make you fishers of men he doesn't say go do this he says I'm gonna do this in you I'm gonna do a work in your heart to transform you to enable you to obey my commands you think about it these guys could never ever in and of themselves carry out the commands that Jesus would give them in the days to come but the beauty is he would enable them to carry out his commands he provides the power to use this and he designs it this way so that he gets the glory through us you'd think about it what Jesus tinted the lines of these disciples and others who would follow after them who would have thought Peter the disciple with the foot shaped mouth would one day preach the first Christian sermon and 3,000 plus people would be saved just like that John would write books and letters containing this New Testament that are leading people to Christ 2,000 years later james-andrew others Philip Thomas Bartholomew whose words Matt Matthews words were reading right now these guys would scatter to the nation's proclaiming the good news of God's kingdom these guys would literally turn upside down the course of human history forever and it started with four local fishermen this does not look like a world changing Task Force but this is the beauty of God's design to take weak humble lowly sinners like Peter and Andrew and James and John and you and me and to enable us to do far more than we could ever ask or imagine to his glory God made me so I was in India recently Bihar India one of the most spiritually and physically most desolate places on the earth in poverty massive physical poverty massive spiritual poverty almost completely unreached most people living being born living and dying without ever hearing the gospel not even hearing and tough spiritual ground for centuries tough spiritual ground and so I met two brothers Anil and Hari ones a school superintendent the others a chicken farmer and these two guys go to some training that we've been working with some gospel partners over there do some training and disciple-making and in this training they're encouraged to find a totally unreachable edge of village where no one's a follower of Jesus going to that village and find the first person you come to say you're able to have a conversation with it say hey we're here in the name of Jesus and we'd like to pray for your village and anyone who already looked at each other so this is ridiculous we've been serving here for years and never seen any spiritual fruit and like this is gonna work well they said well we're at the end of our rope why not try and so they go into this first village they go in this first village they walk through the whole village nobody and it interacts for them until they almost get the whole village this guy comes up in them and says what are you doing here and they look back and I began their pre-scripted line hi we're here in the name of Jesus and as soon as they said that the guys stopped them and said Jesus I've heard a little bit about him can you tell me more and you know and hurry look at each other said yes we can tell you more and he said well I don't want you just telling me I want to keep my family and friends together well you come with me on my house I know I probably look at each other's sin yes we'll come to your house and so they follow this man to his house he sits them down in the house while he leaves and goes gets his family and friends and he'll it hard just looking at each other like what is going on comes back with a crowd of people a long story short in the next couple of weeks about 20 people in this village come to faith in Christ and though the bear doesn't stop there oh just wait just second it's better so Anil and Hari say say all right you guys let's do the same thing with you guys in other villages though there's other villages around here let's do the same thing they start going that was three years ago three years later three years later churches have begun in 350 different villages in this area of Bihar India and I'll be honest I sometimes hear stories like that and I get a little cynical I'm really but we worship with these churches like it's hard the gospel is bright I don't know ask anyone whoring it what happened five years ago three years ago you weren't seeing any fruit and all sudden all this fruit but what is the difference and they said we don't know it's just the hand of God and as I heard him saying I just my heart left inside I thought I want to be a part of something in my life and church that I lead and among the nations for which only God can get the glory that it's clear this is not done because these disciples had this or that but it's clear that there's a power in and through them a grace working in and through them that it's far beyond all comprehension we got to move on I got two more written fly through these last two I'm sorry running out of time all right number it number three number three to follow Jesus is to live with faithful adherence to his person to live with faithful adherence to his person notice that this is not a call to a set of rules and regulations this is a call to a relationship Jesus is not saying what every other religious teacher in the history of the world says has said followed this path to life Jesus is saying I am the path I am the way the truth and the life he's not saying follow this Eightfold Path believe these noble truths adhere to these five pillars in your life Jesus is saying follow me as your life-positive Jesus are not men and women for whom Christ is part of their life I was with Jesus for men and women for whom Christ is their life period which leads right into the last truth here just keep going forth to follow Jesus is to live to live with urgent obedience to his mission to live with urgent obedience to submission follow me Jesus says and I will make you fishers of men to follow Jesus is live with her Junt obedience to his mission every follower of Jesus he says will be a Fisher of men he uses this imagery that's familiar to their vocation and he gives them a picture of their mission instead of searching for fish all over the sea that would spread the gospel all over the world this is what Jesus said to them here in Galilee when he first called them then at the end of this book when he gathers them on a mountainside what does he say to them there now go disciples go and make disciples of all nations every follower of Fisher of men in Matthew chapter 4 Matthew chapter 28 every disciple a disciple maker it is impossible to know this Christ to know this Christ to believe this Christ to follow this Christ and not give your life to making him known it makes no sense to be a disciple is to make disciples but we have taken this costly command of Christ to go and make disciples of all nations and we've mutated it into a comfortable call for Christians to come be baptized and sit in one location and the results are nothing short of catastrophic do we feel the urgency there's seven billion people in the world the most liberal estimate puts the world at one third Christian which we've already established not all followers of Jesus actually but even if we assume they all were that would still leave at this moment in the world over four-and-a-half billion people who are apart from Christ on a road that leads to an eternal hell what happened billion people and almost two billion nothing have a little no knowledge of the gospel brothers and sisters we do not have time to waste our lives living out a nice comfortable Christian spin on the American Dream we have been created for so much more and there is so much at stake I titled this message the cost of non discipleship and what I mean by that there's a cost clearly there's a cost to discipleship I hope it has been clear that to follow Jesus cost you everything he's worth it but it's a death to self and it's new life in him but there is a cost and market down there will be cost for all who truly follow after this Christ in this world it will not be easy it may cost you your life to live with urgent obedience to this mission but I want to propose to you this morning that the cost of non discipleship is far far far greater because for many who sit back in a cultural veneer of Christianity without knowing Christ there will be eternal consequences not just then hello but now to sit back and casual comfortable Christianity is to miss out on the joy and the peace and the thrill and the satisfaction that come in truly knowing that Jesus of the Bible and following the Jesus of the Bible with all your heart you lose your life and you find life but if we don't you miss life in Christ so the consequences the cost will be great for us and the cost will be great for the world for 6,000 plus people groups who will continue without ever hearing the gospel while those who have the gospel sit back and Coast it through until they get to heaven there's steep cost to cultural nominal Christian in the world so I urge you I urge you to live with a radical abandonment for his glory joyful dependence on His grace faithful adherents to his person and urgent obedience to his mission until we see the face of me we have been beckoned to follow will you pray with me

Channel: CALEA POCĂINȚEI

Views: 12,949

Rating: 4.8290596 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: oKK-WWBWjpQ

Length: 44min 48sec (2688 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 13 2013