Follow Me
Transcript
Well, good morning. We are in a series called Follow Me. We're in our third week. We're just taking some time to look in the Gospel of Mark and see what it looked like for the disciples to follow Jesus. Our first week, we basically just covered the idea that the Gospel is news. It is not advice.
It's not here's how you ought to live. It's a story. It's news about something that has happened. That Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died in our place for our sin on a cross. He was laid in a tomb and then three days later he rose again fully alive and ascended into heaven as the king of the universe. That's what we believe as Christians.
And we believe that that news, that fact from history, changes everything for us. That we can be made right with God again. That we live our lives in light of that information. Then the next week, last week, we talked about that there are no unrepentant Christians. That part of the Christian life is to follow Jesus, seeing our sin and turning from it. And that is a continual, lifelong process.
That Christians see their sin and turn away from it to Jesus. That it's not repent and do good works. It's not turn away from your bad deeds and do good deeds. It's turn away from your sin to Jesus. And so we're kind of continuing along with that today as we talk about what it looks like for us now to follow Jesus. How does that show up in our lives now?
And I heard this illustration one time and I think it's helpful to kind of get us started today. If I showed up late today, so if I just came running up a second ago and ran upstairs and was out of breath and sweating because I had to run. You know, there's like four stairs there. So, of course, I'd be sweating. And I was like, oh, I'm so sorry that I'm running behind. It's good to see you all this morning.
I feel like because I'm running behind, I should explain myself. So on my way over here this morning, there was a lady who had a flat tire. So I got out to help her while I was helping with the tire. I lost my balance, fell into the road and an 18 wheeler ran over me. So but glad to get all that straightened out and to get here this morning.
Like immediately your response is no. No, it didn't. Either really my are your options at that point is I'm a liar. That did not happen. I just am not good at lying. So I pick something way too extravagant.
And you'd be like, that's not like you. You've done poorly. You know, you want enough details to sound like it's real, but not too many details to sound like it was rehearsed. And you want some credible things. Getting hit by an 18 wheeler is incredible. Either I'm a liar or I'm just crazy.
Like I actually believe I was hit by an 18 wheeler. But my brain just doesn't work right. Like I buy that is not true. Those are your two options. And here's what the point of that is. If if I was hit by an 18 wheeler, the reason you know that's not true is because that would have had visible, tangible, real life effect on me.
Like there are consequences to that. You can't get hit by a portly person on a bicycle and not like have that go poorly for you. There's going to be some scuffs. There's going to be some problems. There's going to be some dirt in my hair. Like it's not going to go well.
You can't get hit by an 18 wheeler and it not have an effect. And the thing is, Jesus is bigger than an 18 wheeler. When when you meet Jesus genuinely, realistically in life, he has a tangible effect on you. It shows up. So for someone to say, oh, I'm a Christian and there's no evidence whatsoever.
It's simply not true. And so that's what we're looking at as we walk through the series is to say that we believe news. We're not saying this is what you have to do to be a Christian. We're saying Jesus died for us. And because of that, it affects us. This event happened and it changes us.
And that actually shows up in our lives. So I'm going to pray and then we're going to jump back into Mark. We'll be in chapter one today. But let's pray real quick. God, we just ask that you and your faithfulness and your love for us would be at work in our hearts today. To help us see ourselves clearly and see you clearly as we continue to ask the question of what it means to follow you.
In Jesus name. Amen. We're going to be in Mark chapter one. We're going to pick up in verse 16 right where we left off last week. So last week, Jesus began preaching.
The kingdom of time is fulfilled. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. So we just talked about that repentance is the way that you enter into the way you respond to the coming kingdom and the way you live in the kingdom. And immediately following that, we're going to see him begin to interact with people that will be his disciples, would be his followers. So it's on page 543.
If you have a blue and white Bible, if you don't own a Bible, take this one with you. It's our gift to you. Verse 16. Later in the series, we're going to spend a little bit of time looking at that. I will make you become fishers of men. But today we're really just looking at the follow me and kind of their response.
Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men. And then immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee and John, his brother, who were in their boat, mending the nets. And immediately he called them and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him. Okay. So what we just saw is Jesus picks up four disciples, Simon, Andrew, James and John.
Simon and Andrew are brothers. Simon later becomes Peter. Jesus gives him a nickname. And James and John also get nicknames. They're called the Sons of Thunder. That doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about today, but just while we're covering nicknames.
And so he gets four disciples today. And here's what happens. He walks up into the middle of them working. Simon and Andrew are throwing a net into the water. James and John are mending their nets in a boat. And he just walks up and says, hey, follow me.
And they do. They drop what they're doing and they begin to follow Jesus. And this moment in their lives redirects the course of their life. This moment here where they drop what they're doing and follow Jesus changes everything for them. So that all four of these men, three of them will die for their faith in Jesus.
They will die for having said yes to Jesus saying, follow me. And John dies not of being murdered, but he dies while being exiled on an island for his faith in Jesus. So he dies of old age on an island where he was exiled. He was boiled in oil before that. He just didn't die. But all four of these men, this moment in their lives where Jesus says, follow me, and they say yes, drastically alters their life.
And here's what I want us to see from the very beginning. Jesus is disruptive. Period. Period. He's disruptive. When Jesus comes into your life, things begin to change.
That's just how it works. He doesn't just slide in and everything works swimmingly and exactly the same from that point on. He's disruptive. He steps in and when he steps in and when he comes into your life, he messes things up. He changes up your schedule. He changes up your time.
He calls you away from what you're doing to do other things. Like Jesus automatically, when he comes into your life, is disruptive. Some of you, if you would sit in here today and say, I'm a Christian, but Jesus, he's not disruptive. He fits right in. Fits right into my schedule. He's fit right into my life.
He just slid right in and has just been helpful. He hadn't tried to change anything. Hadn't like, I would just put forth. That's not Jesus. You. It's not Jesus.
Because Jesus is disruptive. That's how he works. That's like saying, I want to get a tattoo, but I don't like needles and I don't want it to hurt. You don't want to get a tattoo. I want, I want a Lexus, but I want it to have the rolly kind of windows. You're not getting a Lexus.
That's not, they don't make those. That's not how that works. And if you say, no, no, Jesus is fit right in. Like he hadn't been disruptive at all. That's not Jesus. You don't meet that Jesus in scripture.
The Jesus that walks around in scripture is absolutely continuously, aggressively disruptive. When Jesus comes into your life, things change. Now I want to show us something. I want us to take a minute to look at something. I think Mark does very intentionally in this passage. So when we write books, so the way, the way Westerners write books.
And if you read books, I know a lot of people in America don't read another book after they graduate high school or college. But maybe you remember reading some while you were in high school or college. Maybe some of you are in high school or college and you're familiar with books there. It's like a television, but you have to, you have like, okay. Anyway, the way we write books is there's information about the scene and the setting and what it looks like. And a good author can really help you like picture it.
So they talk about the way things smelled or the way things looked or what the room was like. They give you some scenery. They paint it up a little bit. So J.K. Rowling or Rowling, I don't know how to say her last name. She wrote the Harry Potter series, you know, Harry Potter, Voldemort, all that stuff.
She wrote a bunch of books and they were all very well written and they're all thick. And they got thicker and thicker as she went. It's like she had more and more to say as she went along. And she does really well with like painting up the scene. But she recently wrote a play called The Cursed Child.
She wrote a play. She what? She co-wrote a play. That's actually not the important part here, guys. I wish you will see in a second. But thank you for keeping me honest.
I don't know enough about Harry Potter to be talking right now. Which now makes me want to say a bunch of bad things. But like, you know, in Harry Potter, Dumbledore Calrissian has to take the ring of power to Mordor. You're welcome. The difference between a book and a play. This is the point I was getting to, although I gave way more information than I needed to.
The difference between a book and a play is this. In a play, every bit of information matters. It's just dialogue. And if they give any other information, it has something to do with the story. If they give any other details, it has to do with the setting. It has to do with what the characters are doing.
It does not, in a play, when someone writes out a play, they don't write up a whole bunch of scenery for you. They don't explain the way people felt. They just give you the dialogue and they give you some key, essential information. The Gospels are written like that. If there's information in the Gospels, it was written down for a reason. It was not just because Mark was like, and it was a pretty day outside, and the breeze was blowing.
He doesn't do that. The information given is important. So we're going to walk back through and we're going to put a little bit of pressure on the way Mark writes this because I think he did it on purpose. I don't think he wrote it out this way by happenstance. I think he was led and through the leadership of the Holy Spirit wrote it out specifically the way he did. And so we're going to look at this.
Okay, go back to verse 16. So he tells us what they were. This is who they were. They were fishermen. That's how they understood their place in the world. That's how other people understood their place in the world.
That's how they knew who they were. They were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, follow me and I will make you become fishers of men. And immediately they left their what? They left their what? Yeah, this is participation time.
And I know like we don't usually do this. Nets. Yes, they left their nets. They were fishermen and they left their nets. Okay, let's keep going. And going on a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee and John, his brother, who were in their boat, mending the nets.
Okay, how does he describe James and John? Does he tell us they're fishermen? No. What's he tell us about them? What's their identifying marker? Son of Zebedee.
So are they fishermen? I would assume so. They're in a boat working on nets. But he doesn't call them fishermen. He calls them son of Zebedee. And then he says this.
And immediately he called them and they left what? I got a lot of time, guys. I'm good. They left what? Yeah. They left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.
So they left him in the boat. They left him with the other people who were fishing. They left him with the nets. But that's not what Mark says they left. What Mark says they left was their father Zebedee. So what he just did was he said, Simon and Andrew were fishermen.
That's their identifying marker. And when Jesus called them, they left their nets. And James and John were the son of Zebedee. That's their identifying marker. And when he called them, they left their father Zebedee. Jesus is not only disruptive.
He walks into your life. He takes whatever you use to identify yourself. Whatever is absolutely primary to you. And he says, I'm taking the place of this. You have to let go of this for me. That's how Jesus works.
The only position he accepts in your life is first place. That's why it was important for Mark to write down that the fishermen left their nets and the sons of Zebedee left their father. Because if you ask them, what was the hardest thing to give up that day? Simon and Andrew are going to say, we were fishermen. We had to give up fishing. We had to give up our nets.
We had to give up possessions. We had to give up our career to follow him. That was what was going through their mind. That was what they had to let go of. That's what they were looking at and thinking about when Jesus said, follow me. But if you ask James and John, what did you leave?
They say we left our father. Because that's how they understood their existence. That's how they understood their identity. Let me explain something to you. We were designed by God. We were created.
So we're creatures. We're designed because we're creatures to have something be primary for us. Something has to be foundational. Something has to be the most important. It's just the way we're made. And everyone in this room has something in that spot.
And whatever you use to find your identity, whatever you use to say, this is how I fit in the world. This is what makes me okay. This is what gives me purpose. This is what makes me want to wake up tomorrow. Whatever you put there is God functionally for you. Whatever is your purpose, your identity, how you would describe yourself, how you know you're you and that you matter.
Whatever you put there is God because that was the role he was designed to fill. When he created us, that was the spot that he's supposed to be in. What gives us life and purpose and worth and value is him. That's why when Jesus shows up, that's the spot he claims. It's the only spot he'll take. So when Jesus comes into your life, not only is he disruptive, he is aggressively disruptive because he wants to claim primary role in your heart, in your time, in your life.
So for a Christian, we talked last week about life being a life of repentance, continually turning away from sin. We honestly don't sin until we've put something else in that spot. Until we've looked at Jesus and said, I'd rather have this than you. That's what leads us into sin. Thinking that something else matters more than Jesus so it's worth pursuing more than he is. So that we'll say no to him to say yes to that.
When that happens, we've moved that to the spot of superiority. Does that make sense? Anything that goes in number one slot, everything else ultimately serves that or everything else ultimately can be bumped out of the way, out of life for that. So let me give you an example. On your budget. Let me go back real quick.
A budget is a thing that you use to know where your money goes. Some of y'all. Talk with our toast team. They will help you make a budget. They are helpful. Okay, on your budget, there are things at the top on your expenses that matter more than the things at the bottom.
Unless you like alphabetize it, but just you realize there's a rank system here. There are things you're paying for first before you pay for other things. So when you start to run out of money, there are things you say no to. You pay your rent before your Netflix bill. If you've got that backwards, our toast team will help you make a budget. This is how this works.
First, you're paying your electricity before you're going to Frankie's Fun Park. There are things that go to the top of the list that when things get tight, when money gets tight, you're choosing what are we paying and you're paying what's most important. And if anything gets above Jesus, ultimately he serves that or he'll get bumped out of the way for that. So if you said, my family, my children matter most to me. And Jesus, I love Jesus and I worship Jesus and I follow Jesus, but ultimately my children are at the top. And maybe you wouldn't say it that way, but your life says that.
Here's what happens. Jesus is a means to an end for you to have a good family, to have safe children. Oh, it is so wonderful to know that the God of the universe loves your children and you can ask him for things. And you can ask him to protect your children and watch over your children and help your children. It's so good to know that the God of the universe will help provide for your children. So you're using Jesus for the safety of your children.
Your children are well behaved if they actually follow what the Bible says. They don't cause problems. They treat their parents well. That's one of the ten, you guys. Honor your mother and father. That's in the Ten Commandments.
It actually has a promise. It'll go well with you if you do. Like, that's great. And so if you have children that are in Sunday school and they're reading their Bibles and stuff, it makes them happier. It makes them better. It keeps life good for them.
And Jesus serves your children. But if your family starts falling apart, if your children become rebellious, if their health fails, if God says, I want you to be a missionary, to Africa, suddenly it's a, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I got kids. Can't. I didn't sign on for this. I got to worry about their safety. I got to worry about, like, their primary.
I got to, I started following you because I thought you were going to help me have a good family. I started following you because I thought you were going to help me protect my kids. I started following you because you were, like, what? You see, Jesus is serving them the whole time. And this happens with all kinds of things. So I, I know in my own life, when I have, in my marriage, I've sinned.
I've sinned against God. I've sinned against Anna. And I found, that I know the Bible says you should repent and confess. You should tell your wife what you did. And my response to that is, no, thank you. Kind sir.
Like, this is, this has been a real thing in my life where I have had very big things I needed to talk to her about. Because I have found that when you tell your wife you sinned against her, she doesn't like it. That's something I picked up on. And so I wasn't really willing to talk about it. And here, here's, here's what I came to realize. I was saying no to Jesus.
No to our relationship being good. No to me following him. Because I really wanted to protect the relationship I have with my wife. I was defending that one because I was more afraid of her being upset with me. More afraid of her leaving. More afraid of her, the discomfort that that would cause.
And so what I was saying was, no, no, no, Jesus, you're great for a lot of things, but in my marriage, I'm going to let her kind of rank above you. And we can do this with anything. You can do this with success. You can do this with pleasure. You can do that. I mean, you name it.
So if, if pleasure is primary for you, then your time and your money go towards what brings me the most enjoyment. What makes me the happiest? What, what do I enjoy the most? Like that's, that's how I understand the good life is that I can do what I want. I can eat out when I want. I can go to, to movies.
I can go on vacations. I can, that's the good life. And then Jesus shows up and says, Hey, uh, your money isn't meant to terminate on you. You should actually start giving some away. And you go, Ooh, I really can't. My budget's really tight.
When, when Jesus says, follow me. And when pleasure says, follow me, you follow pleasure. Work. Get your time, your energy. You spend your money on things that help you work better, that make work better, that I need this clothes for work. I need this suit for work.
I need this equipment for work. And, and then when Jesus steps in and says, no, this is how your family life is supposed to work. This is how following me is supposed to work. You say, no, no, no, no. When work says, follow me, or Jesus says, follow me, you follow work. Because the, the one thing Jesus is going to call you to drop is the one thing you're using to give yourself an identity.
And he's going to call you to, to get rid of sin. And he's going to call you to turn away from a lot of things. And a lot of that may be hard. You may like it. The thing that, that you're going to have to wrestle with the most and the thing you're going to want to pick up the most. And the thing that in your story, you're going to say, I had to leave behind is the one thing that you were using.
To identify yourself, to give yourself value and worth. Whatever it was in your heart that was primary. So here, here's our goal today. If Mark was writing about you, what does he say? Jesus walked up to, blank, and he said, follow me. What, what does he say was your identity?
And what does he say you left behind? Now here, I want to point something out to us. James and John stay the son of Zebedee. Simon and Andrew do fish again. Fishing isn't bad. That's not the point of this passage.
Having Zebedee be your dad isn't bad. That's not the point of this passage. Honoring your father, understanding your life in relationship to your father isn't bad. That's not the point. Your children, your spouse, working heart, pleasure. Pleasure isn't bad, y'all.
It's actually really enjoyable. Have y'all noticed that? God made it that way on purpose. The Bible actually says that pleasures are at his right hand forever. Like, he's the one who made pleasure pleasurable. It's good.
All those things are good. Most everything that we would put as primary in our life is actually a really good thing. A gift from God. The issue Jesus has is they can't be number one. And you're going to have to say no to them to say yes to him. That's why he says stuff like, if you come to me and you don't hate your father and mother, your children and your wife, and it's like, whoa, hate?
What? How do you say that? Like, that's crazy. You said to love your enemies, to love those that hate you. How are you then going to tell me to hate my wife? That sounds like really bad marriage advice.
His point isn't to actively hate. His point is that he has to be so far above everything else that nothing else compares. That's why he says if you don't deny yourself and take up your cross, you can't follow me. That's why when people come to him and say, Jesus, I'm going to follow you. And he says, come on. And they say, well, let me go bury my dad.
And he says, no, let me go back and tell my family goodbye. No, it's crazy. What he asks of us, how disruptive he is, but what he steps into every single follower of his and says, this thing right here that you used to make your identity out of this thing right here that you used to say, this is what makes me. Okay. This is what gives me value. This is what gives me worth.
This is how I know life makes sense. That thing right there has to move. That's the place I get. And so for those of us who have said, I'm following Jesus. It's pretty, pretty simple. Not real hard.
I'm not sure he's shown up and done that for you yet. I'm not sure you've moved that out of the way for him yet. So what would, what would your story be? What is it that you sacrifice for? What is it that you give your time and energy and money for? What is it that you use to understand your existence and light up?
You don't have to have it. You can be really poor and it can be money. You just know that once you get money, you'll be happy. You can be single and it can be your future magical spouse that rides unicorns and comes down from rainbow, rainbow land. Like I, I don't know. You could have some future.
Once this happens, I'll be happy. Once this happens, I'll be good. This is what'll fix me. And I'll bend heaven and earth to get to it. And if following Jesus helps me get there, great. I'll let Jesus work for me.
Proverbs 14, 12 says this. We're gonna have it on the screen. I love this verse. It is so helpful to me. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. It's not a very uplifting verse, but it is very helpful.
Some of you maybe have been sitting here going, no, no, no. The thing I'm chasing after Jesus would be totally on board with. It's good. If I get that, it would be good. It's not a bad thing. That's true.
It probably isn't, but this is true. There's stuff that we look at and say, if I just got that, I'd be happy. If I could just do this, it'd be fine. If I could just reach this, achieve this, be this, have this title, have this amount of money in the bank, have this type of success or this type of family or live in this type of place. And what Proverbs says is there's a way that seems really right to you and ultimately leads to destruction. Won't fix you.
Won't save you. Won't save you. Leads to death. So when Jesus steps in and says, I want to be primary, he's actually offering us joy. He's actually pursuing our joy. So, Jesus, if he wanted your begrudging submission, could get it.
Are you aware of that? I don't know. A lot of people just understand Jesus as being really nice. He controls everything and is in charge of everything. He could show up and immediately be like, bow down and you would. Did y'all know that?
We know that? We good on that? He can do that. He can put you in a submission hold. He can do it. That doesn't bring him a lot of glory.
It brings him glory because he's ultimately in charge of everything. But that's not his desire for you. His desire is that you would enjoy him. That you would love him. That you would respond to him. You see, begrudging submission isn't his desire for you.
Enjoyment of him is desire for you. See what? The reason he comes in and says, I have to be primary is because he is primary. He's the best thing you could ever get. He's the best thing he could ever offer you. If Jesus showed up and said, Hey guys, just want to let you know you should all be chasing money.
Then money would be God. And Jesus should serve it. When Jesus shows up and says, you should all get rid of everything and love me. He's saying, this is the best way to happiness because I'm the best thing that exists. And it's actually in our enjoyment of him that he gets a lot of glory. Do you, if some of you are married, some of you are dating, some of you aren't dating yet, but maybe you want to date or want to get married or something.
Do you imagine that when you, before you were married, did you imagine, I can't wait till I meet a person who begrudgingly submits to marrying me. Oh, I can't wait for the day that we celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. And they look over at me and say, I did my duty. And every day was drudgery. Because you're the worst. But I stuck with it.
I can't, I just cry just thinking about it. Like, did you do that? Do you think about that? Is that your goal? Would that be enjoyable? Would you get a lot of pleasure out of that?
No, that, that what you want is someone who loves you for you, who appreciates you, who enjoys you, who wants to be around you because they enjoy you. They like it. 50 years in, they say it didn't feel like 50 years. Some of it, some of it did, but it felt, it was mostly good. We've been married for 50 years, 42 good ones. Like, whatever.
That's what you want. And that's Jesus when he says, I want to be primary. It's not, I want you to begrudgingly submit to you, submit to me. It's, I want you to understand that I'm the best that could ever be offered to you. And Isaiah 55, we'll have this on the screen as well. There's a prophet's writing and he says this, come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters and he who has no money, come buy and eat, come buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Um, this, this is reused, rephrased in the book of Revelation, talking about coming to God, coming to heaven, that that's, he freely gives good things that you don't have to have money to come get from him. That's grace that Jesus dies and freely gives us himself. And he says this, why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? You know, the, the two commodities you'll have in your life that everybody has, you have some money. That's one of them. That's one of the ways that we place value is money.
The other one's labor, your time and energy. And what the prophet's saying is why, why do you spend your money and your time and energy on something that ultimately will not satisfy you, that ultimately will not bring life, that ultimately cannot hold the weight of being the foundation of your life and your identity? Why do you do that? Why does your, why does your labor and your money go to something that will not fix you, will not make you okay, will not satisfy you? Listen diligently to me. Pay attention and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear and come to me. Hear that your soul may live. See, I love that. He says, eat what's good, eat rich food. The call of Jesus to us to come to him is not, Hey, I've got a worse offer. You like that good stuff.
How do you feel about terrible things? That's not what he says. He says, come to what's better. Come to what actually satisfies. Come to what actually fills you up. Come to what actually fixes you.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant. My steadfast, sure love for David. In the Old Testament, God came to David and said, I'm going to love you and I'm going to make a king out of you forever. This promise is fulfilled in Jesus. The prophet Isaiah is saying, come to Jesus. And he'll make the same promise with you that he'll welcome you and love you forever.
And he'll give you rich and good food, which is ultimately what your soul needs. You see, we all have something. We all have something that we're using to say, this is who I am. This is what makes me okay. This is what makes me good. This is why I get up in the morning.
There's a journalist named Malcolm Muggeridge. He's talking about political hopes and failures in his book. And he, he talks about that. They had this political guy that they just really wanted to get into office. And they said, we, he said, we got exactly what we asked for. And then he has this quote.
He says, the really terrible thing about life is not that our dreams are unrealized, but that they come true. So the worst thing about life is not that we don't get what we want, but that we do get what we want. And ultimately doesn't satisfy, doesn't fix us. The worst part about life is that all our little dreams come true and it wasn't good enough. Jim Carrey says this. In our culture, I got, I got quotes from a couple of different famous people because in our culture, we've really bought into the idea that if you were really rich, good looking, uh, and had like people knew you, then you, that would be great.
That would be the best. Like we, our culture's kind of just bought into that idea. I know that I've bought into that idea every time the lottery gets really big and I go buy a lottery ticket. And I'm filling out my little Numbers and bubbling them in. It's like the, you know, first time I've done a scantron since high school. And I, I think, wouldn't it be so great to get $43 billion or whatever it comes up to?
You know what I'm saying? Like it's, it's been crazy recently. You remember the one this past summer or whatever, when everybody was going crazy past spring? Like I think I'm running around thinking, oh, it would be so good. And really what I think in those moments is if I had a lot of money, I'd be fixed. I wouldn't want anything else.
I'd be happy. I'd be content. Everything would be good. I'd skip everywhere. I'd giggle. I'd just giggle.
And people would be like, why are you giggling? You're a grown man. I'd be like, I'm so rich. You don't even know. I giggle anytime I want to. Here's a thousand dollars.
Don't tell nobody. Like I could do whatever. Our culture, we really believe that. We really believe that if you had power, if you had fame, if you had money, you'd be happy. You'd be fixed. So I've got a couple of quotes from people.
Because really, celebrities should be the happiest people we've got, right? They should be so content and so happy and joyous and fun to be around, right? Okay. So here's Jim Carrey. I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed so they can see that it's not the answer. Jim Carrey says, I wish all your dreams could come true so that you could know that wasn't it.
Okay, but maybe you're like, well, Jim Carrey, really? Liar, liar? That's who we're talking about here? Here's Brad Pitt talking to the Rolling Stones, like the Rolling Stone magazine. Like, it doesn't get cooler than this, you guess. Brad Pitt, Rolling Stones, this is amazing.
So some of you, I know you've just thought, man, if I could just have Brad Pitt's money or if I could just have Brad Pitt's, maybe his wife or his face or his like abs, life would just be better if I just had a little bit of Brad Pitt. Like if I could just be kind of as cool as Brad Pitt in even his bad movies, life would be better. Here's Brad Pitt talking to Rolling Stones. What does it mean anyway? I had an idealistic thought of what fame is. I thought, yes, lovely, I'm going to be famous and everything will change, but it doesn't.
If you ask me, I say toss all this. We have to find something else. The emphasis now is on success and personal gain. I'm sitting in it and I'm telling you that that's not it. I'm the guy who has everything. I know.
And I'm telling you that once you have everything, then you are just left with yourself. It doesn't help you sleep any better and you don't wake up any better because of it. See, the problem with us is that we won't ever get everything. I'm not going to win the lottery, so I'll continue to believe that it'll fix me. See, these guys have it and they're going, guys, this isn't going to fix you. At best, once all your dreams are fulfilled, you're just stuck with you and there's got to be more to it.
I got one more from Tom Brady. He says this, why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there's something greater out there for me? I mean, maybe a lot of people would say, hey man, this is what it is. You know, I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Me, I think, God, it's got to be more than this. I mean, this can't be what it's all cracked up to be.
I mean, I've done it. I'm 27. What else is there for me? When Jesus walked up to Andrew and John, when he walked up to Simon and James, and he said, follow me, his invitation was one of joy and life and hope, even though it ended in hardship and death for them. It was the best invitation they ever got. Because he said, even if this all works out for you, it ends in death.
It doesn't end in joy and satisfaction. It's not what will fill you up. Your only hope is me. And the only position I'll take is first. If you're a Christian, that's the position of Jesus in your life. That's why we continually repent, because we continually see that we put something else up there.
So our goal today, I've got a few questions to just try to help us identify. What do I have as primary right now? What, what's in that spot for me? What have I placed in that spot? So if you're a note taker, take some notes, write some stuff down, and then we're going to end a little bit differently today than, than we usually do.
But I think it'll be helpful. So I've just got some questions, some things to run through pretty quickly to try to help us find, if Mark was writing your story, what would he say? This is, this is her name, this is how she identifies herself, and this is what she's got to let go of for Jesus to be primary. What would he say? This is his name, this is his identity, and this is what he's got to let go of. Okay, what's Jesus not allowed to mess with?
It's pretty straightforward. What in your life can he not touch? What is it he reached for, reaches for, and you pop his hand? Say, no, no, no. I didn't invite you here for that. What's your, can I still go to heaven if?
You hear people ask that question, can I still, well, can you still go to heaven if blank? Sometimes it's a genuine question. Other times it's, hey, can I love this thing more than Jesus and still get there? What's the one thing you've been arguing in your head about? The whole time we've been talking. What's the thing that keeps popping up and you keep going, no, no, no, no, that's not that.
Jesus loves that. That would be great. That's not, that's, that's not it. What's the one thing you don't want me to bring up? What's the thing if I started talking about it right now, you'd be like, okay, this is the worst sermon I've ever heard. That's probably it.
That's the thing you're really afraid he'll come take from you. That's the thing you really have to have. You don't want him to mess with it. Okay. So these are a little less straightforward.
If you're having a hard time thinking about it, really trying to figure out is Jesus in that spot or is something else there? So this is just, is he there? Is he not? Are you reading your Bible? Do you have a prayer life? Is that something that takes up your time?
If we're trying to figure out are we following Jesus? Are you more discipled by Netflix? Or ESPN? Or YouTube? Or some other app I haven't heard about? Does he take up your time or is there something else?
Something else talking to you more, teaching you more about how life should work, about how you should understand your worth and your value? When you see your sin, how do you respond? Do you repent? Are you heartbroken over it? When you see that something else matters more to you than Jesus, what do you do? Do you care?
What's the easiest thing for you to spend your money on? See, there's some things when it comes to your money you have to think about. There are other things where it's like your wallet magically appears in your hand. What will you spend your money on? Where do you place value when it comes to your, when you look at your budget? Is it your own comfort?
Is it most of your money goes to savings because that's one of the best ways to control your future? Is it status symbols like clothes and cars and houses? Something that makes it look like you've arrived? The opposite side of that is where does Jesus fit into your money? Does some of your money go to his church, to his people, to people who don't have money or food? How much of your budget looks like Jesus was radically generous towards you?
So of course you're radically generous towards others. What's the thing you organize your schedule around? And what's the easiest thing for you to organize your schedule around? When there's scheduling conflicts or time conflicts, what wins? Do kids win? Does your own leisure time win?
Does work win? Does work win? What's easily put in the schedule? What gets easily bumped? What are you laboring for? Where's your time and energy go?
All right, let's look at your emotions for a second. What are you angriest about? What do you have the hardest time forgiving? You see, our emotions are usually tied to things we love. What are you most afraid of? What are you most afraid of losing?
Here's the last one, and this is a big one. When you and Jesus disagree, who wins? And is there a specific category where you always win? You see, there's some things Jesus is going to show up, you're going to read in the Bible you already kind of agree with, and so when he says you should do this, you just say, yeah, smart, sounds good. And there are other things he's going to say, you should do this or you shouldn't do that, and you're going to go, whoa, I'm going to need you to explain. I'm going to need you to win me over.
So maybe some of you, when he says, hey, you should be generous, you go, yeah, we should. We should be generous, and we should be giving to the poor, and we should be helping the homeless, and the people who aren't probably don't really follow Jesus. And when he says you shouldn't have sex if you're not married, you go, whoa, but we're in love. But we really, like, we care about each other, plus I'm also pretty sure that passage probably doesn't really mean what people say it means, and they didn't really, you know, it's translated from other, like, you know, and some of you are like, no, no sex.
That's right. We shouldn't have sex unless you're married. And then the Bible says you should have sex if you are married. But, like, those are the rules. But it's like you should give up some of your money, and you're like, well, some, how much, what's the percentage?
It's really tight. My money's tight right now. When you and Jesus disagree, who wins? And is there a category right now where you just win? Jesus died for you. Because he loves you.
When Jesus invited them to follow him, he was already on his way to give up everything for them. And when Jesus invited you to follow him, he had already given up everything for you. He'd laid it all down so that you could be related to him, so that he could bring you back to himself. He's ultimately trustworthy, and he is absolutely after your joy. And that's why he won't let you have the harmful things you want. And that's why he says, I have to be primary, because that's the only thing that leads to joy and life and satisfaction and hope.
And if anything else gets put there, it throws your life out of whack, it robs you of joy, and ultimately it ends in death. Jesus died on a cross so that you could be his, so that you could have ultimate joy and satisfaction and hope in him forever. He's trustworthy. He loves you. And him calling you to put something down is for your own good, for your own joy, even though it's going to be really hard. I think Simon and Andrew forever remembered the day they put their nets down.
And it wasn't just letting go of the nets, it was genuinely deciding, I'm going to follow him and I'm leaving this behind. And I think James and John forever know the day they looked at their father and said, I'm following Jesus. I think they remember it. And I think something happened in their heart that day that every time they saw their father again, they loved him, but he wasn't in the same spot anymore. It wasn't how they defined their life anymore. They were going to follow Jesus.
They were going to go for bust. No matter how that worked out, because they knew Jesus was worth it. And how much more for us on this side of the cross, knowing how much he's going to give up for us to welcome us and to make us his. Can we follow him and trust him? So here's, here's how we're going to end today.
We're not going to play any music. We're not going to make this any smoothier. Here's what I want us to do. If you've been sitting here today and genuinely the Holy Spirit has been pressing on you, this is what you got to put down. This is the thing you're holding on. This is the thing you won't let go of, and you've got to put it down.
You've got to walk away from it. You've got to follow me. If that's you, here's, here's what I want us to do. I just want you to take a minute. I want you to write it down. I want the cards in front of you.
And here's what we're going to do. And here's why we're going to do it. I want us to have the opportunity to walk down and lay the card up here. And here's why. When Jesus came to James and John, when he came to Simon and Andrew, they had the opportunity to make a movement. They had the opportunity to act immediately.
Now, they had to continually reinforce that from then on. It's going to be really hard to stand up and walk over here and lay something down, but it's going to get exponentially harder the moment you walk out of there. This will be the easiest time to lay it down. Because it's just a mental step for you to say, I'm trying to lay this down, Jesus. I want you to be primary. I'm trying to follow you and I'm trying to say no to this.
But every other moment, you actually have to do it. See, James and John and Simon and Andrew had the chance to move. They had the chance to let go of the nets and walk. They had the chance to look at their father and walk. And I want us to have the same opportunity to make a movement, to concretely put this in our brains. This is what I'm trying to do.
I know that Jesus saves me. I know that he died for my sin. I know that I'm free and I don't have to accomplish anything for him and I don't have to earn anything for him. But I know he's got to be primary and I've got to let go of this because it leads to death and it doesn't. It robs me of joy and my hope is found in him. So I want you to have the opportunity to move.
And I want it to not be smooth or easy. We're not cutting the lights off. We're not playing music. I think there was an awkward moment between Zebedee and his sons. And I think if Jesus has been working on you, you need to move. This will be the best time to do it.
And then you'll have to continually do it as you walk this out with church family, as you continually confess and repent this and continually try to set it down. Let's pray. God, we thank you. Thank you that you love our joy and our hope and our life more than we do, that you were willing to die for it, to rescue us, to make us yours. God, we thank you that with you is joy and pleasure and goodness and rich food. And I pray that you'd help us to quit trading it out for something smaller.
Quit chasing after something that won't satisfy us, that won't fill us up. And God, I pray that you'd help us to respond. I pray that you'd help us to respond now. But more than that, God, I pray that you'd help us to respond every day for the rest of our lives to continually follow you, to continue to set something down, to continue to say goodbye to something, and to continue to put you in the place of primacy in our lives. We thank you that you're good and that you're trustworthy and that we can follow you. And we love you in Jesus' name.
Amen. I'd encourage you to respond if the Holy Spirit's been working in you, to know that Jesus looked them in the face and said, follow me, and you have the same opportunity today to follow Jesus, to let something go, and to follow after him where there's joy and freedom and life and hope, ultimate satisfaction. And don't just do it because you feel like you're supposed to, because we're talking about it or because that would be the thing to do. Do it if you actually genuinely are saying, Jesus, I want to follow you and I want you to help me. I'm going to sit down. In a minute, the band's going to come back up and we're going to sing together and celebrate that Jesus is good.