1 John, Mathew, 2 Timothy, Hebrews, Mark, Luke, Philippians

Good Morning Saylorville! How are we doing this morning? All right! Glad to have you here. Very special welcome to all of those of you who are mothers, and for moms… those of you who will one day be moms, who want to be moms, who have moms. Thanks for your example, and your love and your patience. My wife, Meredith, is here today, mother to our son, Judah, and my mother, Penny, is watching this online a little bit later, and my mother-in-law, Linda, in Florida is watching this. And, Mom, I’m preaching today so I will be getting paid this week. I know that’s a concern for you. All three of those women are wonderful examples of women who are faithful followers of Jesus.

And that’s actually what we’re all about here as a church at Saylorville, and really as individual members that make up this family called Saylorville Church. We’re on a mission for more, to be more like Jesus ourselves and then to help others be more like Jesus too. And so if that sounds like a pretty lofty mission, well it is. It’s a high goal, but it’s one that comes right out of the Bible. I want you to see this out of the new living translation, First John chapter 2 verse 6. We referenced this a couple weeks ago at the beginning of this series.

1 John 2:6 (NLT), “Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.“

It’s pretty clear, right? Another version says it this way.

1 John 2:6 (ESV), “Whoever says he abides in Him (lives in God) ought to walk in the same way in which Jesus walked.”

So we’re walking like Jesus walked here during this series and as we follow Christ in our lives. So if you’re wondering where this whole idea of more people, more like Jesus comes from… you see that around here, a couple of different places… it’s our mission statement. It comes from Jesus himself. Over and over in the New Testament, Jesus and the human writers urge us to follow the example of Christ, to imitate him, to reflect His image, to see people the same way that Jesus did, to live the way that He lived, to practice His same priorities and practices, and, as first John says, to walk in the same way in which He walked.

In fact, today we’re going to look at the next step of this journey, becoming, M-O-R, more like Jesus, and we’re going to answer, we’re going to discover one of Jesus’ most well-known and, I think, least understood commands. And then hopefully at the end of this morning we’ll be sent away from today with a fresh understanding of what it means to journey with Jesus as we walk alongside of him.

So to begin, we’re breaking into the story of one of Jesus’ first recorded conversations with a group of fishermen by the Sea of Galilee 2000 years ago. And so here’s how the Gospel writer, Matthew, records it in Matthew chapter four, starting in verse 18. If you have your Bibles, you can follow along with me in Matthew four. Otherwise, it’ll be on the screen behind us.

Matthew 4:18-22 (ESV)

18 “While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he (that’s Jesus) saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen (sort of commercial fishermen, not line and lures, but nets.)

19 And he (Jesus) said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him (Jesus.)

21 And going on 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.

(And they respond the same way)

22 Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him, (Jesus)”

I wanna start out this morning with a confession, okay? Can we do that? We love each other, don’t we? The first fall that my family were living in our home here in Ankeny after we moved from Pennsylvania, I was out on the front yard mowing our yard on a Saturday, and I noticed across the street almost every single house had flags in the driveways and those canopy tents and tables and chairs and yard games and the grills were going already, smoke coming out of the grills early in the morning like they were all getting ready to have graduation parties at the exact same time, right? So I was clueless as I was mowing until one of our neighbors who would become a good friend of mine came across the road and he stopped me in the middle of my mowing and he says, “Hey, what are you doing?” And I’m like, “Where did we move? You don’t mow grass here? I mean, I’m mowing the lawn.” That’s pretty obvious, right? But then he said, “Do you know what day it is?” And again, I’m like, “It’s Saturday! Dude, you don’t understand this? You know, that’s what people do.” But then he said, “Umm, today is the Cy-Hawk game!” — and I replied with one of the most un-Iowa words that have ever come out of a human’s mouth. “What’s a “Cy-Hawk” game?” [Laughter] Exactly, right? I had a worthless existence before I moved here! That began a year of discovery for me and my little family and all of a sudden everybody was asking us, “Are you a fan of the Hawkeyes or the Cyclones?” Right? And we had no idea. It was extremely stressful! We just couldn’t decide. We were completely clueless in the dark, right? — Until one day another friend of mine who follows the Cyclones invited me to go with him to a basketball game in Ames at Hilton Coliseum. And so we went, and I sat there with 14,000 Cyclone faithful and my eyes were opened. And It was at that moment surrounded by those people that were so clearly all in, including the clone cone that I ate, my life was changed! I was transformed! I was once blind, but now I see! I was becoming a real Iowan all of a sudden! Right? — And I am a Cyclones fan because that friend invited me to come and see and discover what it was all about.

But I need to tell you something here this morning. There is a big difference between being a fan and what I’m going to call a follower. Watch this. Fans like me are fickle. Followers are faithful, no matter what. Fans like the benefits of being associated with the team, like going to games and wearing the merch and stuff, but followers, these people are committed for the long haul. Fans like me wait until someone gives me free seats. Followers have season tickets, a parking spot, and do you know people actually have tailgating areas reserved for every game? You know this, right? These are followers! Fans like me, we know about the teams. I can probably name two active Cyclone athletes right now. Followers actually know the players. They know their stats. They know their jersey number. They know their names. They can even recognize their voices sometimes; fans and followers. See fans are motivated momentarily by wins, but followers are deeply devoted despite the win-loss record. Fans go to games when it’s convenient or, like me, they stay home and watch it on TV. But followers, they show up to games rain or shine. Right? You know this. In fact, sometimes I don’t even watch the whole game. I just skip through the highlights the next morning. I know, I’m sorry! In fact, some of you are really annoyed right now. You’re personally offended by this story because you’re like, ‘How dare you call yourself a cyclone follower?’ — And that’s my point. I’m not. I’m not a follower. I’m just a fan. And there’s a massive difference. And the dividing line between those two groups of people is a word commitment; fans, and followers.

And so I want you to go back to Matthew 4, and I want you to see what Jesus is inviting, challenging, calling these four fishermen to. Look at it again, verse 19 specifically. Jesus said to them,

Matthew 4:19, “… Follow me, and I will make you, fishers of men.”

Do you see that? So Jesus’ first words to these four fishermen, is a crystal clear call to commitment. Now remember last week, Jesus invited the whole world, the crowds, the curious, even the clueless to come and see, just to show up, to meet Jesus, to discover what it was like to be around Him and other people that love Him. But in this passage today, Jesus moves from that point in his ministry to challenging people to move beyond “Come and see” to “Obey his call.” So we’re talking today about obeying his call, about committing. And this call comes in the form of a two word invitation that he gives 21 times in the Gospels in 12 separate conversations. And I think it’s really well known, but often misunderstood and it’s a call to you and to me today too. Here it is, Jesus says in two words, “Follow Me.” Did you get that? “Follow Me.” Could it really be that easy? Well, no. It’s not easy, but it is worth it, absolutely! — and I’m gonna show you how from the text this morning.

But first we need to understand what this looked like for these four first century fishermen, and to do that we’re gonna focus in on four phrases in this passage that characterize this call to follow Jesus. So first here it is.

The call to follow Jesus is number one, relational.

It’s relational. Jesus says in verse 19, the very beginning, “Follow me.” “Follow me,” he says.

The Barna group, research group, recently released the results of a nationwide study on what they call faith and religion. And the stories coming back from these statistics are really quite frankly sobering. Here’s one. Barna found that while 71% of Americans believe in some kind of deity, some sort of God figure or form, only 40% of Americans believe in the God of the Bible. And even fewer than 40% say that they follow Jesus personally. That’s interesting. In our Des Moines Metro, about 65% of a population of around 700,000 claim to be Christians. And so I want you to think personally here. Think about your neighborhood, the houses on your street, the people in those houses, your apartment complex, your dorm. If you were to go door to door asking people, if they claim to be Christians, chances are almost two thirds of them would say, ‘Sure! I’m a Christian.’ But what if you ask them about following Jesus?

In my own experience with our own neighbors and friends, the answers to the question, ‘Are you a Christian? — and ‘Are you a follower of Jesus? — are very, very different. Most people are happy to be connected with Christianity, but they get uncomfortable when we start talking about committing to Jesus. And what’s becoming more and more obvious in our culture is that people profess to be Christians, but don’t think they need to follow Jesus. In fact, I think that we’ve watered down the mission becoming more like Jesus, and we’ve somehow started to believe that becoming more like Jesus and making others is optional, like it’s a choice and not a command that comes directly from Jesus. One writer summarized it like this.

“For many who call themselves Christians today, being saved or being a Christian has (watch this) no serious connection with an ongoing commitment to being formed into the image of Christ” (or being more like Jesus.) Bill Hull

That’s staggering! In the New Testament, those who followed Jesus were called disciples. It’s what they were called because that’s what they did. They followed Jesus, the master. And so this idea of becoming a Christian and then later becoming a disciple, it’s actually foreign to the Bible. It doesn’t exist. Disciples weren’t professional Christians or people who had perfect church attendance or Bible college degrees. In the Bible, every single follower of Jesus was called a disciple. The New Testament really doesn’t allow for a separation. In fact, the word disciple shows up, or a form of it, almost 270 times in the Bible. The word Christian, three times. And I think somehow we’ve created a second tier of super saints who’ve been injected with some sort of secret serum that makes them real disciples. Like there’s disciples up here who are crazy committed, and then there’s just regular Christians down here who sit on the couch and fast forward through the highlights. There’s followers of Jesus and then there’s fans of Jesus. But from the beginning, Jesus is calling us to more. “Follow Me,” he says to these four Jewish fishermen and to us today as well.

To these guys it would have been a familiar phrase. In the first century Palestine boys started school at the age of six years old, and for the next several years they memorized the Old Testament, and they learned about the laws and the customs and the traditions of the Jewish way of living. And so then by 15 or 16, only the best of these students remained, and then these boys would apply to a Rabbi, a master teacher, to become one of his disciples. You might say in our culture it’s sort of like applying for an apprenticeship under a master, or if you speak Star Wars, it’s the “padawan” under the Master, right? (Nerds!) The Rabbi, the Master, would look at all the applicants and he would pick the best of the best to join him, to be with him, to take on his teaching and his way of living, to practice what he practiced, to be like him, and to commit to a community with him and a community with other apprentices who were doing the same thing. In fact, the Rabbi I would use this two word invitation, “Follow me,” to the ones that he chose, and they knew exactly what was expected of them.

So when Jesus shows up on the shores of the Sea of Galilee in our passage, and he tells Peter and Andrew and then later James and John to “Follow Me,” they recognize the call. They knew that he was inviting them to be His apprentices in a brand new community. That was intentionally relational. It’s a whole new way of life, being with Jesus in order to be like Jesus. They got it.

And folks, this is 2000 years ago, but it’s no different today. And somehow we’ve separated it. Look, the call to obey is a call to relationship, not just to religion. It’s a call to follow Jesus, to spend time with Him, to speak with Him, and then to listen to Him. It’s a call to be a part of a community of others who are also following after the Rabbi. The greatest decision you’ll ever make is to obey Christ’s call to follow, to enter into a relationship with Him, to find yourself loved by God and secured in Christ and surrounded by His people. It’s the greatest decision you’ll ever make!

Maybe you hear this morning and someone introduced you to Jesus and you’ve really started to discover who He is and what He’s done for you. And so in our graphic, our pathway, you’ve opened that door and you’re crossing that threshold. And I wanna encourage you, don’t stop there! Don’t get stuck with one foot in the darkness and one foot in the light, commit to walking through that door and deciding to follow Jesus. That’s where the light is. That’s where life begins and that’s where the journey starts getting really good! That’s where cultural Christians become Christ followers, walking through the door and obeying Christ’s call to follow Him.

Which one are you, a Christian or a Christ follower? The call to follow Jesus is relational. It’s a challenge to commit to being with Jesus and with His people. My question here for you this morning is will you obey that call? It’s very simple. It’s relational.

Then number two, the call to follow Jesus is transformational. Jesus says, “Follow me and I will make you…”

When I was a kid growing up in South Africa, our family spent time in the homes of several Hindu families over the years. And I’ve got a vivid memory of walking into one specific house and noticing right away the hundreds of offerings and candles and statues in the shape of elephants and snakes and humans and everything in between up on a shelf. And I want you to pretend that you’re with me in that same home right now. And we’re sitting down with our host at a small table eating yellow curry and having great conversation. And you’re a good Christ follower and so naturally you start talking about Jesus. And you get to the point in your conversation with our hosts where you ask him if he would like to say a prayer to accept Jesus as his personal savior. And “Of course,” he says, and he bows his head and he repeats a few sentences after you, and you both smile as you open your eyes. And before you leave, you give your new friend your own personal Bible that you brought with you. And when you walk out the door, you notice that he puts the Bible on the shelf… right next to all the statues representing the 33 million Hindu deities that he worships. Outside this little house, you’re talking with my family and you’re bursting with excitement as you’re sure, you’ve just watched this man walk through the door of salvation and become a Christian. After all, he prayed the Sinner’s Prayer and he asked Jesus into his heart, didn’t he? But what you don’t know is that this man has prayed a very similar prayer, dozens of times, every time asking another god to save him, vowing to worship him and then putting him on the mantle right next to all the other religious relics. So your host hasn’t been changed by Jesus. He simply added Jesus to his shelf of idols.

But when Jesus invites you to follow, he’s inviting you to be transformed. You simply can’t follow Jesus and remain unchanged. You can’t claim to follow Jesus if you’ve just added him to your shelf of gods. During the week you kneel down and you worship your job, and your bank account, and your kids sports, and their success, and your own reputation, and your own hobbies. But then when Sunday morning comes you grab the Jesus statue for a few hours only to return to your other gods on Sunday afternoon. Friends when Jesus calls you to obey he means for you to be transformed in every area of your life! You become a brand new creature in him. [2 Corinthians 5:17] Old things, old ways, old habits, old influences and idols, eventually lose their charm as you are formed into the image of Jesus becoming more and more like Him. Like a disciple who looks more and more like his Rabbi, followers of Jesus should be in a lifelong journey of being transformed to look less and less like you and more and more like Him. Dallas Willard says, this is a heart of being a follower of Jesus. Look at this.

“Discipleship is the process of becoming who Jesus would be if he were you.”

Dallas Willard

That’s amazing to me. I love that! And I want you to notice something important about Jesus’ invitation, “I will make you…” It’s a promise. Jesus says, “I will make you…” — so he told the fisherman. God is both the catalyst and the completer. He who began a good work in you will be faithful to see it through to the end. [Philippians 1:6]

And if that’s true, then what does Jesus use to transform us? How does He make us into something new? Three ways really quickly here this morning. Number one, followers of Jesus are transformed by the spirit of God. Some of you are asking, ‘How in the world can I change? I’m struggling. What’s available to me? What are the resources God gives me as a Christ follower to change?’ Here’s the first one, the Spirit of God. God uses the Holy Spirit to change us. And if you’re on this journey, this pathway, then you have the power and the conviction of the Holy Spirit to help you become more like Jesus. Watch this in 2 Corinthians chapter three.

2 Corinthians 3:18, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding (seeing) the glory of the Lord, are being transformed (changed) into the same image (of the Lord) from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the ( say it) Spirit.“

Friend, if you are a follower of Jesus, you have access to the Holy Spirit of God! — the same one that rose Jesus Christ from the grave! You think He has power to change you? Absolutely, He does! You have the Holy Spirit of God!

Next, Christ’s followers are changed by the Word of God, the Bible. You know, it’s arrogant and it’s foolish to think that we could do anything to grow without prioritizing Scripture as the inspired word of God that he uses to grow us as Christians. Look at 2 Timothy chapter three verse 16.

2 Timothy 3:16-17

16 “All Scripture (the entire word of God) is breathed out by God and profitable (good for) for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

(And sometimes we stop there, but look at verse 17. This is one of the reasons God has given us His word, so…)

17 that the man (or woman or child) of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

Friend, if you want to be transformed into someone who’s able and ready to do the incredible works that God is putting in front of you, you’ve got to spend time in the Bible. In fact, I’ll say it this way, you get to spend time in the Bible. You get to open up God’s Word and listen to Him and speak back to Him.

That God uses His Holy Spirit, His Word, and then He uses the people of God, His people, to help us change and grow. When we live and learn in community with other faithful followers of Christ, we’re confronted and we’re cared for, and we’re challenged to be more like Jesus.

A few weeks ago, one of the guys in our community group who’s becoming a good friend of mine told the rest of the group… listen to this.

“I met Jesus a long time ago, but I didn’t really walk through that door of obedience until I started coming to Saylorville and joined this group.” A member of Jason’s Community Group

Listen, this is Hebrews chapter 10, verse 24, in action right in front of us.

Hebrews 10:24, “… And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works…”

How does God change us? How are we transformed? He uses other people in our families, and in our community groups, and in this church to stir or to agitate us towards Christ’s likeness. Friends, God didn’t send Jesus to be born and to live among us, to die a criminal’s death and then to be raised back to life so that you and I could simply add Jesus to our shelf of idols. He came to transform us from the inside out, to make us new! There’s simply no such thing as a disciple of Jesus who isn’t being changed by Jesus. And so the question has to be, are you? Are you?

I’ll be honest, the way that I wake up after the Cyclones lose the day before is pretty much exactly the way I wake up after they win. But some of you… Zoinks! This fall, you’ll come dragging in here. I know. I can see your faces. I know exactly who it’s going to be. You’ll come dragging in here on Sunday morning after the Clones lose to some terrible JV team… let’s call them the Hawkeyes… And it’s going to ruin your entire week! I know it. Why? — Because you’re more than a fan, because you’re a follower. You are a follower. And that changes you. You’ve been transformed.

And the call to follow Jesus is an invitation to be changed by Him. It’s a promise. Is there a clear difference in your life between now and when you weren’t following Christ? Can you remember the last time You made an intentional change in your life because of something that God taught you in His Word or through His Holy Spirit or His people? If not, maybe you’re not actually a follower of Christ, yet. And so today, Obey is called and commit to being changed by Him. His call is relational, it’s transformational. And then it’s missional.

Jesus says, “Follow me, I will make you (what?) fishers of men.” This is amazing to me! We’re just going to take a couple seconds on this today because it’s going to really come out when we get to the letter “E” in a couple weeks in this journey, engage your world. But I’ll just say this for this morning. From day one, Jesus told his followers that he would make them fishers of men. See, they had no illusions or misconceptions of what they were getting themselves into when they accepted the challenge to follow Jesus. From their very first conversations with Jesus He was making it clear that His disciples would make disciples, that His followers would help others become followers, that His mission wasn’t simply to seek and save the lost alone while He was on earth, but to mobilize a movement of multiplying disciple-makers that would continue for centuries after He went back to heaven. And I want to say His mission is our mission too. Actually, here’s a better way to say it. His mission is your mission also! Becoming a follower of Jesus is more than agreeing to a certain set of truths or doing more of the right things and less of the wrong things every day. It’s an all-in pursuit of what your life can be when you live it on mission for God, when you live constantly on the move, looking for ways to show and share Jesus where you live work and play. That’s following Jesus!

I’m not much of a fisherman, but one of the things I love about fishing is that people with almost zero experience and hardly any skill and a bunch of cheap gear can be successful. My son, Judah, he’s 11, he and I’ve gone fishing dozens of times. And since he was a kid, he has out-fished me every single time. It’s infuriating! I’m telling you, he’s caught more fish on his lightning McQueen Walmart pole with a worm we found in the front yard than I’ve caught on my fancy rod and reel and like $10 a piece lures!

You know, sometimes we can leave fishing for men to professional fishermen. We figure I could follow Jesus without doing much fishing. I’ll just leave that to the people with the real gifts, the real training, the real equipment, the expensive poles and lures. They’ll take care of it.

This past week we were talking about this in our community group, and one of the little girls is part of one of the families in our group says this.

“I take my Bible to school every day, and when I can I take it out and read it. And a few days ago one of my friends asked if she could read it with me and I was able to tell her the Gospel and how to become a Christian.” A nine-year-old girl

No formal training, no booklets, no professionals, just a girl and a Bible! Now don’t get me wrong, we need the training, and we need the resources, and we need the gifted people. But if a nine-year-old can fish for souls, then what’s keeping you from throwing out a line where you live, work, and play? We followers of Jesus live on mission. There’s no choice. You introduce others to Christ because someone introduced you to Christ. Followers of Jesus are committed to taking as many people to heaven with them as possible. They’re fishing for souls, starting in their own homes and spreading out all across the globe. And so again, are you? Are you? The call to follow Jesus, it’s relational, it’s transformational, it’s missional, and here’s the tough one… as if the others were easy… This is sacrificial. It’s sacrificial. Verse 20.

Matthew 4:20-22

20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him.

21 And going on 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.

22 Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.”

“Immediately they left their nets.” Verse 22, “Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed Jesus.” See, they obeyed the call, even though it takes sacrifice. There’s just no way around it. The way of Jesus is the way of sacrifice. And these four fishermen knew it. They recognized that responding to Jesus’ invitation would mean letting go. Just look at what they left. They let go of their occupation and their source of income. Look, fishing wasn’t a hobby or something they did to let off steam after work. It was their work! This was financial stability. It was their security. So following Jesus by faith was economically radical. And it may be economically radical for you. These fishermen left their occupation and their source of income. They also let go of family responsibilities. Look, James and John, not only left their family business, they left their father. They walked away from Zebedee so they could follow Jesus, joining an entirely new family. And friends, when you commit to Jesus, you’re committing to reordering your family loyalty. Watch this, Jesus comes first, even over family expectations. And I get it, that’s tough. Jesus knew that. These fishermen also let go of their social circles and their closest community. Leaving their jobs, their identities, their families, they needed new friends, right? Following Jesus gave them a brand new community, a group of men and women who weren’t perfect, but were progressing together in this journey of becoming more like the Rabbi, the Master, Jesus Christ. See, nobody follows Jesus alone. We need each other. We’re better together, aren’t we? It’s just the truth. So these fishermen, they were willing to leave everything to be with Jesus, to give up what they couldn’t keep, to gain what they couldn’t lose, to sacrifice alongside their Savior. And sure, they failed sometimes. You know they ran back to their nets every once in a while, and Peter would famously, later on, deny Jesus three times. But in the end, they were faithful! They followed their Master, Jesus… even to the death.

And that’s still the call to you today. 2000 years doesn’t water down that call, friends. Some of you didn’t realize that when you committed to following Jesus, you were entering into a life of suffering and struggle for Jesus. Watch the rest of the New Testament. “Follow Me” requires letting the dead bury their own dead Jesus says in Matthew 8:22. Then again He’d say,

Mark 8:24, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.”

Then to a rich dude, He says, ‘Sell everything.’ And once you do that, then come and follow me.

[Luke 18:22, “When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”]

Be willing to give it all up. Later on in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul put it this way.

Philippians 3:10

10 “… that I may know him (Jesus) and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death…”

We say more like Jesus. Did you realize that might mean becoming more like Jesus in His death?

[Philippians 3:11] “…that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

See the journey with Jesus is one that is full of life. It’s abundant life now, an eternal life later through the resurrection. But this path to life, it comes through death! Walking the way that Jesus walks means walking the road marked with suffering. Paul says, I wanna be more like Jesus, and that means being ready to die with Him. Are you? American, are you… ready to die for Jesus? 2,000 years ago, Jesus invited four fishermen to a life of obedience using just two words. “Follow Me,” He said. It was a call to be with Him. It was a call to be changed by Him, a call to commit to His mission. It was a call to suffer, to be willing to sacrifice like Him.

And so, friend, where do you stand? Maybe you’re here this morning, you’re listening online and you realize you’ve actually never made a commitment to follow Jesus. And I want to be careful here, but maybe you pray to prayer or you agreed to a certain set of truths or even said I’m deciding to become a Christian. You may be a fan of Jesus after all pretty much everyone is nowadays, right? But have you become a follower of Jesus? There’s a huge difference. And today, right now, Jesus is inviting you. He’s challenging you. He’s calling you every single one of us to be more like Him. Jesus is saying to you, “Follow me.” me. And I’m just going to ask you, will you? Will you?

God, thank you for your word, for the Holy Spirit, for your people that show us what it’s like to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ. I pray that we would walk like Jesus walked, and, God, that means that we are with Him, that we spend time with Him so that we can be changed by Him, that we commit to His mission that none of us says, ‘Leave the fishing to the professionals,’ that all of us live on the move, making disciples as we go. And God, that we would realize, even in our country, that following Jesus means letting go and grabbing ahold for dear life to Christ, being willing to suffer and sacrifice as we serve along with the Savior, that we would be more than fans. We would be followers of the Master walking in the way He walked. Thank you, Jesus. It’s in Your name we pray and thank you. Amen. Let’s stand as we sing together. [Music]