Followship - The Essence Of True Fellowship Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: November 3, 2010

Date Preached: November 6, 2010

Where Preached: Oak Park Baptist Church (AM)

Sermon Details:

Series Title: Reaching Our Community – TRUE Fellowship – Sermon 6

Sermon Title: Followship – The ESSENCE of TRUE Fellowship

Sermon Text: Mark 8:34-38 [NASB]

34 And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 35 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? 37 For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.

Introduction:

What does it mean to FOLLOW Jesus? Well when we look in the thesaurus at the word ‘follow’ it tells us it means… to go after… to go behind… to pursue…

or to chase after… And I believe that this is what Jesus was saying when He says, in v.34, to be My disciple… you must FOLLOW ME!

The Greek word for ‘follow’ used in that verse is ‘ah-kol-eh-theh-oh’ which is a participle of UNION and is best defined… to be in the same way with OR to pursue on the same road as… In other words, for one to follow Jesus means that one must to enter into a union that takes you down the same road as Jesus…

Jesus calls you to come and join Him on HIS road… He is not calling you to invite Him to join you on YOUR path… so when we think about the road of Jesus, what do we think about?

I believe we can we see 3 very distinct destinations on this road and they are:

that it leads to Pain & Rejection

that it requires Obedience & Submission

that it will result in Eternal security and Godly affirmation

This is what we see in the Jesus road that is described by Paul in the book of Philippians:

Phil 2:5-11 [NASB]

5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knew will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus was on this road far before we ever got here… Jesus has set the example and His call to follow Him is a call to follow that example… it is a call for us to be willing as He was willing, to be obedient as He was obedient, and to suffer as He suffered.

But this road is not all suffering and submission, but this calling also has its benefits as well. Jesus was exalted and lifted up after His obedient life and death on the cross and glorious resurrection on the 3rd day. We too shall be exalted as servants welcomed by their Master with the phrase, Well done my good and faithful servant.

We are called to join with Jesus on this road, so the question for this morning is just what does that calling mean for us?... First we can see that this calling leads us down…

A Road of suffering and rejection…

Jesus laid out some details about what it would mean to join Him on this road…

His call to join Him comes in v.34, but in v.31 we see what Jesus meant… He lays out a pattern of what those who follow Him will see on this road…

v. 31 tells us that Jesus was called by God to…

Must suffer ‘many’ things [physically, emotionally, spiritually]

Must be rejected by the elders, those the country looked to for spiritual counsel and guidance in the things of God. Those the nation had held in such high regard and reverence. The men who had the duty to from God to be the spiritual leaders of God’s chosen nation… they rejected Jesus fully and completely