In the day when most traveled by train, there was a physically disabled boy who ran a small newsstand in a railroad station. Each day he sold candy, gum, and newspapers to people who passed through the station. One day two men rushed through the crowded station to catch a train that was to leave in minutes. One man was 10 to 15 yards in front of the other. The first man turned a corner, ran into the boy, and knocked him from his seat. Candy, gum, newspapers, and change scattered everywhere. The man spoke harshly to the boy, and then went on his way.
Seconds later the other man arrived at the scene. He gently helped the boy up, made sure he was all right, and then collected the scattered belongings. He took out his billfold and gave the boy some money to cover any lost change or the expense of any item broken in the spill. Then he picked up his suitcase and hurried to catch the train that was about to depart. As he hurried down the track, the boy cupped his hands to his mouth and called, “Hey, mister! Are you Jesus?” The man replied, “No, I am simply one of His followers who is trying to do what He would do if He were here.”
Following Jesus transforms lives. If that is not happening, then people are not following Jesus.
It is believed by many that Mark’s gospel is written to Gentiles in Rome. One reason for this line of thinking is because he explains many Jewish customs. The church is being persecuted, and Christians are suffering for being followers of Jesus. Mark wants to help these suffering believers. He starts by telling them something stupendous has happened: God has come to earth as a man in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. The promised Messiah has arrived to save His people! The first eight chapters is one breathtaking demonstration of power after another.
In light of this glorious good news and this remarkable Person, Mark answers two basic questions: Who is this Person, and what should be our response to this news? The answers: This is the Messiah; follow Him.
What does it mean to follow Jesus?
I. TO FOLLOW JESUS MEANS TO ACKNOWLEDGE HIS AUTHORITY (MARK 1:16-20)
(16) As He was passing along by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew, Simon's brother. They were casting a net into the sea, since they were fishermen. (17) "Follow Me," Jesus told them, "and I will make you fish for people!" (18) Immediately they left their nets and followed Him. (19) Going on a little farther, He saw James the son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in their boat mending their nets. (20) Immediately He called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed Him.
Immediately after Jesus’ public declaration of His ministry through baptism, He is driven into the wilderness to endure fasting and temptations by the devil for forty days. That is to say it will not necessarily be an easy life to follow Jesus. The persecuted believers in Rome should not be surprised by the hardship they have to endure because of following Jesus.
To follow Jesus means to acknowledge Jesus’ authority. Mark describes what it means to follow Jesus by including the calling of the first disciples of Jesus. This encounter appears “out of the blue.” The abbreviated way Mark tells the story sharpens the lesson of the authority Jesus has over his disciples when He calls them to follow. Luke’s gospel says that Jesus has been preaching and healing in this area for some time. People have heard about him. Peter and Andrew, James and John were acquainted with Jesus. Picture the scene in your mind. Jesus is on the shore. Peter and Andrew are busy working at catching fish. Jesus interrupts them in their work and simply says, “Follow Me and I will make you fish for people!”
“Follow Me” appears so simple. Yet those simple words have deep and broad implications for a person’s life. First, look at the broadness of those words. What about my business? “First, follow Me.” What about my family? “First, follow Me.” What about my future? “First, follow Me.” Every area of their life came second to following Jesus. In truth, there really was no second. Those words meant He was not even to have a competitor.
Next, the call is personal. The “you” in the next phrase is a singular. In other words, “Peter, you follow Me and I will make you fish for men. Andrew, you follow Me and I will make you fish for men.” It would be a mistake to think that the message this morning is a good one for new believers or those who have yet to become a Christian. This morning’s sermon is all about you. Are you following Jesus?
The call is about Jesus. Jesus did not invite these men to live a moral lifestyle; he is not calling them to accept a certain view of life over another. The call is about Jesus.
Max Lucado has a bestselling book by the title It’s Not About Me; that is a good description of what this call conveys. After a young couple becomes parents all the decisions about time, vacations, money, and recreation always have to consider the child. That is what it means to acknowledge Jesus’ authority in following Him. The call to follow Jesus means it is not about you or me; it is about Jesus.
The call is urgent. They are to act immediately. They are to drop what they were doing at that very moment and instantly submit to His authority and begin to follow Jesus. The call to Peter and Andrew is prompt. Do it now. The call to James and John is complete. Give up everything, and do it now. No more excuses. No more delays. No more information. Act now!
Only the greatest of priorities can call us to abandon previous commitments to give allegiance to another. Young men have left behind wives expecting their first child to go fight America’s enemies on the other side of the globe. What would ever possess a young man to leave behind the high calling of being a husband and father? It is their sworn allegiance to defend this country that exceeds every other commitment. Several of you have made this commitment. For several years the military controlled where you slept and how often you saw your family. You know of the high commitment Jesus requires of these men. To follow Jesus means to acknowledge His authority. His authority over our life is broad, personal, priority, and urgent.
The solar system illustrates what it means to acknowledge the authority of Jesus as a follower. Primarily our solar system consists of the sun and nine – or is it eight? – planets with the sun being at the center. The sun holds the solar system together by its gravitational pull, which causes the planets to revolve around it. The sun dominates the gravitational field because it makes up 99% of the mass of the solar system. All the other planets combined make up only one percent of the mass found in our solar system.
There is always something at the center that defines and directs everything else that moves around it. As the sun is to our solar system, so the Son of God should be to our existence. What is at the center of your life that everything else revolves around? Is it Jesus or is the real center of your life your career, or your kids, money, or other interests? What would an objective viewer of your life say is the controlling influence?
For too many Christians, Jesus is no longer the sun pulling everything in relationship to Him. He has been relegated to a planet circling whatever else we have given authority. If He were to look over His shoulder would He find you staying with Him or straying from Him? To follow Jesus means you acknowledge His authority. Following Jesus transforms lives. If that is not happening, then people are not following Jesus.
What does it mean to follow Jesus? To follow Jesus means acknowledge His authority.
II. TO FOLLOW JESUS MEANS TO ACCEPT HIS GRACE (MARK 2:13-17)
(13) Then Jesus went out again beside the sea. The whole crowd was coming to Him, and He taught them. (14) Then, moving on, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office, and He said to him, "Follow Me!" So he got up and followed Him. (15) While He was reclining at the table in Levi's house, many tax collectors and sinners were also guests with Jesus and His disciples, because there were many who were following Him. (16) When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that He was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they asked His disciples, "Why does He eat with tax collectors and sinners?" (17) When Jesus heard this, He told them, "Those who are well don't need a doctor, but the sick do need one. I didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Levi is also known as Matthew, the author of the first book of the New Testament. It is said that when Matthew followed Jesus, he left everything but his fountain pen. The other men could go back to fishing if things did not work out, but not Matthew. He lost his job for good. Mark’s purpose in including Levi’s call to follow Jesus was not so much to reveal how to respond to Jesus but to show the grace of Jesus for all people.
The word follow is written in a present tense in the language of the New Testament that means “continually” or “to keep on” following Jesus. Levi’s response, “…he got up and followed Him,” is written in the verb tense aorist that means “one point in time.” His decision was definite, permanent. Jesus says to Levi, “I want you to always follow Me.” Levi says in his heart, “I’m through with this old way of life. I’m burning my bridges. I will never return to this life. It’s over. I am continually following Jesus.”
Many would consider Levi to be the poorest prospect for a disciple of Jesus. If there was a contest for the most unpopular man in town, Levi would have won. The Jews considered tax gatherers as traitors. They collected taxes for the oppressive occupying power of the Roman government. Rome would assess a certain amount of taxes for a certain area. Once the tax gatherer collected that amount, anything he got over that was his to keep. This system was ripe for corruption and greed.
Tax gatherers were even barred from participating in temple worship. They were considered such low life that the Jewish legal system would not let them testify. They viewed them with the same kind of disgust that people have for sexual predators of children.
In contrast were the Pharisees. Their name means “separated ones.” The Pharisees were very careful to keep the law. They believed the way to see God was by keeping the law. People admired their great commitment to God.
Suppose you came to church one Sunday evening and the front yard of the parsonage where Elvis lives was filled with cigarette smoking, tattooed, motorcycle gang members and their mommas. In the backyard are a collection of LGBT people. Men dressed in skirts and women dressed like men. In the middle of all that diversity was Elvis laughing it up and flipping burgers for a cookout. Would you come in the church house rejoicing or registering a complaint? That is the way the Pharisees felt. They simply did not understand Jesus.
Jesus makes an analogy to help them understand His motivation. It would be ludicrous for a doctor to say he does not want to see sick people, only healthy people. Of course a doctor sees sick people! It is just as ridiculous for the Savior of mankind not to want to be with sinners. That was why He came. Jesus’ amazing grace reaches out to all, even those we instinctively withdraw from.
It would have been enough if Levi’s was the only story we had of Jesus calling terrible sinners to know Him and love Him, but we have a Bible full of such stories. Mary Magdalene was full of demons, the Samaritan woman divorced five times and was living in an adulterous relationship, and the thief on the cross lived a wasted life and had nothing else to give. These people were not tokens of His love and grace. They were the central reason He came.
You know the story. The boy broke his parent’s hearts, brought shame to their good name, plunged them into poverty, and then abandoned them for years. In time God began to deal with him. His repentance grew. What a fool he had been to hurt such loving parents like he had done. He longed to see them, express his remorse, and ask for their forgiveness. But there was this great doubt in his mind: would they accept him back after all he had put them through?
He wrote them a letter telling them he was coming home at the end of the next week. He would be on the train that ran by the home place. There was an old oak tree near the railway line. He could see it easily from the train. If they would welcome him back, he asked them to tie a yellow ribbon on the old oak tree. If it was not there, he would stay on the train to another destination.
The day arrived, and he boarded the train for home. As the train got nearer, his anxiety grew stronger. What if there was no ribbon? Would they want to see him again? What a fool he had been to think they could forgive him after all he had done. As the train came around the bend to his home place it slowed, and with great anxiety the young man pressed his face to the window and looked for the old oak tree. Then he saw it. On every branch were tied yellow ribbons until the tree looked like a giant yellow flower of welcome. We too have a tree of grace and welcome. It is the old rugged cross.
Levi is a reminder that no one is too bad to be saved. God specializes in saving really bad people. It is a mistake to think you have to clean up your life before you can be accepted by God. What is required is to follow Jesus by accepting His grace for you.
The Pharisees remind us that some people believe they are “too good” to be saved. That is, they have such a high opinion of themselves that they do not think they need God’s grace. God’s grace cannot help you until you are desperate enough to receive it.
The Latin word for “grace” is gratia, from which we get our word “gratitude.” Could it be the reason why so many Christians’ lives are indistinguishable from the unbeliever is because the Christian is no longer grateful for the grace of God? They have forgotten the scandalous act of love God performed to forgive them of their sin. They have forgotten how undeserving they were to be accepted and forgiven by God. You can tell when a Christian has truly accepted the grace of God. His life depicts the gratitude he has for God’s goodness, kindness, and forgiveness.
It is hard to imagine that son going back to his old way of life after his parents dealt with him in such a gracious, loving, and forgiving manner. One explanation for those who are consistent followers of Jesus is they never lose sight of how gracious God was to them, a sinner. Following Jesus transforms lives. If that is not happening, then people are not following Jesus.
What does it mean to follow Jesus? To follow Jesus means acknowledge His authority….to accept His grace…abide in His presence.
III. TO FOLLOW JESUS MEANS TO ABIDE IN HIS PRESENCE (MARK 3:13-19)
(13) Then He went up the mountain and summoned those He wanted, and they came to Him. (14) He also appointed twelve—He also named them apostles —to be with Him, to send them out to preach, (15) and to have authority to drive out demons. (16) He appointed the Twelve: To Simon, He gave the name Peter; (17) and to James the son of Zebedee, and to his brother John, He gave the name "Boanerges" (that is, "Sons of Thunder"); (18) Andrew; Philip and Bartholomew; Matthew and Thomas; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot, (19) and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him.
Have you noticed that one of the ingredients in good stories is an odd mixture of characters that come together and become greater than they are separately? Places in the Heart is a movie starring Sally Fields, Ed Harris, Danny Glover, and John Malkovich. The setting is the Depression Era. The story is about a small town sheriff who is killed, leaving a wife and two children. The bank threatens to foreclose, and the wife takes in a border, a blind man who was a veteran of the Great War. Later a drifter, a black man, takes up residence with them. In the movie the widow, the blind man, the black man, and the two children pull off the impossible. They get the first load of cotton to the cotton gin so they can win enough money to save the farm. Part of the drama of the story is a widow with no farming skills, a blind man who is bitter about his life, a black man who struggles with honesty, and two little children. But together, they overcome all those obstacles to do something amazing.
The Odd Couple is about a neat freak and a world-class slob learning how to live together, something they had failed to do with others. Gilligan’s Island is about seven very strange people living on an island together. Can you get a stranger group of people than those in the Lord of the Rings who are drawn together in a loving, caring community?
This list of disciples is just as strange. We do not have the time to point out the contrasts and conflicts between these twelve men. What I do want to point out is that something so changes these men individually and corporately that these dozen are the people who transform the world. The explanation is Jesus. Jesus had two purposes for these men: communion and commission. Before they go to work for Jesus, He wanted them to be with Him.
This crowd before me knows it is essential to read the Bible, regularly pray, attend church, serve, and witness in order to grow in your relationship with Jesus. But the real secret to following Jesus and being transformed by Jesus is not a program or a plan. It is a Person.
Tony Evans tells of a woman in his church who was a perpetual dieter. She tried one program after another, but she was never permanently successful. The last time he saw her she looked great. He asked, “What happened? You must have found the right program.” She said, “No, I found the right guy. We started dating and fell in love. He loved me enough to say, ‘I think you need to lose some weight.’” She added, “I found energy I never had before! It didn’t matter what the program was I was using, because there was someone in my life I wanted to please.” We do not read the Bible because that is the program. We read the Bible because we want to meet the Author. We do not pray because that is the program. We pray because that is time with the Lover of our soul.
After communion with Jesus there is commission by Jesus. It makes sense, does it not? After being in the presence of Christ, you become so excited about Him you want to tell others. The text reveals the disciples learned truth from Jesus and went out and lived it. That is the main ingredient to living a changed life. Whatever God teaches you, seek to live it out that day. That is the basic action we take for God to transform our lives. The simple explanation for so little transformation is so little effort to apply God’s truth.
This is the place where I talk to you about being spiritually gifted and called to be a servant of God’s people, and I give you a list of places where we need help in the church. We do need help. But do you know where Moses found his commission? He found it in communion with God. Do you know where Paul found his calling for life? He discovered it in an encounter with the living Christ. So instead of giving you a list of jobs in the church, I am asking that you would spend time with the Lord Jesus, and ask Him to make you a willing servant for His people.
CONCLUSION
Recently, I saw a video of professional fisherman and TV personality, Jimmy Houston, catch three bass at the same time. He said he had never done that before. Jimmy Houston is a deacon at a Baptist church in southern Oklahoma. In 2003 he walked away from a potential $100,000 prize on the professional fishing circuit. The BASS Angler of the Year competition picked up Busch Beer as a sponsor. The participants were required to wear a Busch Beer jacket patch and have the Busch Beer logo displayed on the side of the boat. Houston and four other fishermen refused to advertise Busch Beer, and this meant they were ineligible for the points they would need to qualify for the $100,000 prize. Jimmy Houston had won that contest twice before. Several years earlier, Miller Brewing Company, offered to pay him $175,000 to do an advertisement. He would not do it. He walked away from an easy $175,000.
Lendell Martin also dropped out of events that year. He too is a deacon in a Baptist church in Nacogdoches, Texas. He said, “I had a problem with alcohol years ago, and the Lord took that away from me. I’ve never seen anything good come out of a can of beer. The money issue is the only thing good that came out of (the Busch/Bass agreement), and I feel they could have gotten another sponsor and done just as well.”
You can learn more than how to catch a fish from Jimmy Houston and his friends. You can learn what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Do you have any question who or what is the authority in their lives? Did you hear the gratitude Lendell Martin voiced in God graciously rescuing him from alcoholism? We know the value these men placed on their relationship with Jesus. They would not violate it for $100,000.
Following Jesus transforms lives. If that is not happening, then people are not following Jesus.
i http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar-system
ii http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar-system/sun-article.html
iii http://www.bpnews.net/15402
iv http://www.bassfan.com/news_article.asp?ID=506#.VCBhMcJdWSo
