(The sermon began with the Reader’s Theater piece ‘Who, Me?’ published by Carson-Dellosa Christian Publishing.)
This morning I begin with a visual and active illustration of the challenge of following someone. I need two volunteers… thank you ____________ and ___________! Now, _______________, would you please start following ________________, around the sanctuary?
(Have the follower keep looking over their shoulder as they try to follow the leader…. Then have a tall person get in between them… then have a select group of people along the ends reach out and seek to delay the follower with a request to stop and chat, listen to a joke, sit down and relax. Go for several minutes then stop.)
How is this like following Jesus? (Ask for audience feedback) Many are the distractions and challenges we face in following Jesus just like _____________ did in following _____________.
Some ‘distractions’ are legitimate needs – work and family for example, yet they can get in the way of God from time to time. The challenge for us today as followers of Jesus is to make the intentional effort to put God first and follow Him. How do we do that? Let me suggest this morning that we need to first stop and consider what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
What might have happened if Jesus would have submitted the names and resumes of His 12 disciples to a Management Consultant company who would do a series of tests on them to determine their suitability for serving as disciples? From the Anglican Digest in 2001 here is a possible responsible response from ‘Jordan Management Consultants.’
Dear Sir: Thank you for submitting the resumes of the twelve men you have picked for management positions in your new organization. All of them have now taken our battery of tests; we have not only run the results through our computer, but also arranged personal interviews for each of them with our psychologist and vocational-aptitude consultant.
It is the staff opinion that most of your nominees are lacking in background, education, and vocational aptitude for the type of enterprise you are undertaking. They do not have the team concept. We would recommend that you continue searching for persons of experience in managerial ability and proven capability.
Simon Peter is emotionally unstable and given to fits of temper. Andrew has absolutely no leadership qualities. The two brothers, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, place personal interest above company loyalty. Thomas demonstrates a questioning attitude that would tend to undermine morale.
We feel it is our duty to tell you that Matthew has been blacklisted by the Greater Jerusalem Better Business Bureau. James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus definitely have radical leanings, and both registered a high score on the manic-depressive scale.
One of the candidates, however, shows great potential. He is a man of ability and resourcefulness, meets people well, has a keen business mind, and has contacts in high places. We recommend Judas Iscariot as your controller and right-hand man. We wish you every success in your new venture. Sincerely Yours, Jordan Management Consultants
Our main text for this morning, one of several that we will examine is Acts 1:8. “But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power and will tell people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
As we think about Jesus’ words in this verse of being witnesses and about the humorous (but all too true) contemporary view of the disciples, I think that we need to ask ourselves the question, (Slide 1) What does it mean to be a Jesus follower?
Let me suggest this morning several important tasks that are central to being a Jesus follower.
(Slide 2) First, as defined in our main text, we are to be witnesses. (Has anyone here ever testified in court?)
I have never testified in court but I have sat in a courtroom and it is my understanding that one is not asked necessarily for opinions but for facts and asked what one saw happen. To be a witness is a very, very important task.
(Slide 2a) To be a witness is to tell what you saw happen to someone else or to yourself.
Throughout the New Testament, a witness’ testimony often resolved a dispute to what Jesus or one of the disciples did as a demonstration of God’s power to help people. For example in John 9, there is the story of the man, born blind, who is healed by Jesus who used spit and mud to heal him.
His healing caused concern among the Pharisees’ because healing took place on the Sabbath prohibited by the religious laws of the day. First, they called him to determine what had happened.
Then they called his parents because they found his testimony incredible and unbelievable. Then they called him back a second time and he said to them “But I know this: I was blind, and now I can see!”
This man’s testimony of Jesus’ healing power confounded those who were trying to accuse Jesus of doing wrong on the Sabbath and discredit Him. Such happens in the courtroom does it not?
Credibility is essential in a witness. When credibility is at stake, a witness’ testimony is at stake and the verdict is at stake. In following Jesus then, one key task for us is to be credible witnesses. In light of this important task I ask myself and all of us here this morning (Slide 2b), ‘Are we credible witnesses for Christ these days?’ To be a credible witness for Jesus is a key part of following Jesus.
(Slide 3) Another task of being a Jesus follower is that we are cross bearers. In other words, (Slide 3a) we must surrender our agenda to God take God’s agenda for our own. In Luke 9 beginning with verse 23 we read, ‘Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross daily, and follow me. If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life. And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose or forfeit your own soul in the process? If a person is ashamed of me and my message, I, the Son of Man, will be ashamed of that person when I return in my glory and in the glory of the Father and the holy angels.’
Cross bearing was a common sight for Jesus’ audiences. It was a common means of execution for many and one carried one’s own cross to the place, often along the roads, where you were crucified.
Notice Jesus said, ‘you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross daily, and follow me.’ Notice the progression of this statement.
First, you must put aside your selfish ambition. Those carrying their crosses to the place of their own death most definitely put aside their own selfish ambitions because they were about to die. And, most likely, their self ambitions may have caused them to be carrying their cross as it got them in trouble.
A follower of Jesus puts aside one’s agenda and ambition and makes the conscious and continuous choice to follow Jesus no matter what it costs. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who understood the cost of following Jesus said, ‘Salvation is free ... but discipleship will cost you your life.’
A man named Jim Elliot wrote 50 plus years ago, "Utterly ordinary, so commonplace: while we profess to know a power the 20th century cannot reckon with. We are all sideliners, coaching and criticizing the real wrestlers while content to set by and leave the enemies of God unchallenged. We are spiritual pacifists, conscientious objectors in the battle-to-the-death, with principalities and powers in the heavenly places. The world cannot hate us, we are too much like its own. Oh that God would make us dangerous.” He became dangerous enough that he would die in a South American jungle at the hands of primitive people who he, along with several others, tried to reach with the Christian faith.
If we truly, deeply, and completely want to follow Jesus, then we must set aside our selfish ambition and then daily take up our crosses and die to that agenda and live only for God’s agenda.
Granted we have daily responsibilities that are important – working, caring for family, taking care of ourselves – but if we want to be a Jesus follower we do these things in Jesus’ name and not our own.
Now when we hear this message I believe we often assume that we cannot be successful in this life or become wealthy or have influence. Not necessarily so.
The story is told of a young boy by the name of James who had a desire to be the most famous manufacturer and salesman of cheese in the world. In fact, He planned on becoming rich and famous by making and selling cheese and began with a little buggy pulled by a pony named Paddy.
After making his cheese, he would load his wagon and he and Paddy would drive down the streets of Chicago to sell the cheese. As the months passed, the young boy began to despair because he was not making any money, in spite of his long hours and hard work.
One day he pulled his pony to a stop and began to talk to him. He said, "Paddy, there is something wrong. We are not doing it right. I am afraid we have things turned around and our priorities are not where they ought to be. Maybe we ought to serve God and place him first in our lives." The boy drove home and made a covenant that for the rest of his life he would first serve God and then would work as God directed.
Many years after this, the young boy, now a man, stood as Sunday School Superintendent at North Shore Baptist Church in Chicago and said, "I would rather be a layman in the North Shore Baptist Church than to head the greatest corporation in America. My first job is serving Jesus."
So, every time you take a take a bite of Philadelphia Cream cheese; sip a cup of Maxwell House; mix a quart of Kool-Aid, slice up a DiGiorno Pizza, cook a pot of Macaroni & Cheese, spread some Grey Poupon, stir a bowl of Cream of Wheat, slurp down some Jell-O, eat the cream out of the middle of an Oreo cookie, or serve some Stove Top; remember a boy, his pony named Paddy, and the promise little James L. Kraft made to serve God and work as He directed.
Today, a Kraft plant sits in our town and is a major employer for our community. Some of us here today worked for and currently work for Kraft. What is important about this story is that James L. Kraft had his priorities straight. God was first, business second (or third behind family).
He probably could have been wealthier than he was, but if we follow the line of his story, he put God first in all he did and what we would call success came as a result of being obedient to God. He put aside his selfish ambition, picked up his cross (thus limiting what he would and would not do), and followed Jesus in the direction He believed that Jesus was leading him.
In setting aside our selfish ambition, in picking up our cross, we follow Jesus who put aside His place, carried His own cross at least part of the way to His place of execution, and followed the will of His Father. We need to ask ourselves on a regular basis, (Slide 3c) ‘Who’s agenda am I following, mine or the Lord’s?’
But even though we are called to be a witness and a cross bearer, we are also called as a Jesus follower, to be a (Slide 4) ‘disciple maker.’ (Slide 4a) This means we are called to help others follow the same path we are taking in following Jesus.
In Matthew 28 beginning with verse 18 we read, “Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given complete authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
If the end of the Biblical story about Jesus was before these verses, I don’t think that you and I would be sitting here. I also think that you and I would be living radically different lives if we even existed.
The Lord is giving the disciples an assignment that has lasted over 20 centuries and is still on going today. It is part of following Jesus. Those who have come before us in this place and in our lives, responded to the call to follow Jesus and obey Him. What if they wouldn’t have done so?
Notice that Jesus said, ‘Go!’ He did not say stay. And He was specific, in Acts 1:8 as to where the remaining disciples were to go – locally in Jerusalem, close by in as in Noble County our Judea, regionally as in NE Indiana as in our Samaria, and then through out Indiana, the US and world.
Some of us are called only to Jerusalem but we cannot dismiss the fact that Jesus calls others to go further away. Others or us will be called to Judea but we cannot forget those who are called to stay at home.
Others of us are called to serve in a Samaria –where things are different. We dare not forget those who serve in easier settings. And God calls others of us to far away places and we must remember that the gospel is not just for us but for everyone, everywhere.
This task, as our dramatic opening reminded us, is a life long and on going one. Until Jesus returns, we are to be engaged in helping other become disciples and it will go on after we die. But it is part of being a Jesus follower.
(Slide 5) I want us to think about the ‘follower’ part as we conclude this morning. Soren Kierkegaard once said “To become an ‘admirer of Jesus’ is much easier than to become a follower.
Gordon MacDonald echoes this sentiment when he writes that there are four kinds of people when it comes to Jesus: (Slide 5a) Spectators, Seekers, Followers, and Kingdom Builders.
Spectators writes MacDonald, was ‘the largest and the most common of the four… as they [basically hung out] with Jesus.’ Seekers, were ‘curious people’ who ‘ask questions, observe everything very carefully, take tentative steps forward to get closer to Jesus.’
Followers are those seekers who have crossed a line of ‘saving faith’ and begin to follow Jesus. Finally there are the Kingdom Builders who, MacDonald notes, ‘have finally gotten the message that there is more to following than, well, just following.’
Where do you find yourself these days? What one step or decision do you need to take or make to move up to the next level?
In reading our text for this week; in thinking about the implications of following Jesus as I thought about what the disciples might have said later in life about following Jesus; in reflecting what Kierkegaard said about admiration verses following; I simply stand before you this morning and say, “I want to keep following Jesus no matter what, no matter where because it is what God has created me to do.” And I invite you this morning to do the same. Amen.
