Come Follow Me

September 14, 1997

Mark 8:27-38

Lead-in ... John Filsak, a minister in Nottingham, was watching his son play with a 'virtual pet.' He came up with a very funny, yet sad and very biting piece of satire— he wrote about a "Cyber-Jesus," a virtual salvation that could be hung on a chain and manipulated with buttons.

OF course the reason this is so absurd is that we know Jesus is NOT someone we manipulate. Yet how often we think of him only in terms of what he can do for us. The whole point is: if you have a Savior, a Messiah that you can use for your own convenience, you do not really know the Savior.

In our Gospel lesson today Jesus asked the disciples two questions; (1) who do people say that I am? and, (2) who do YOU say that I am? These questions come very close to being the most important questions we will ever have to address. I would rephrase them just a little bit and ask them again just now:

THE TWO GREAT QUESTIONS

WHO IS JESUS?

If you really want to know who Jesus is, this becomes "a revelation question." It does not come from much study, and human persuasion. It comes from God the Father revealing the truth: JESUS IS THE CHRIST, THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD.

The correct answer is that Jesus is who he said he is: the Son of God, the living Word. But believe it or not, to answer this correctly is NOT the end of the search for salvation.

WHO IS JESUS TO YOU?

To answer this one is not quite so simple. For to say who Jesus is TO YOU requires a moral decision. It is a gift of God to have the faith to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. but that faith does NOT, I repeat, to believe that Jesus is God's Son does NOT in and of itself save you. Jesus is Messiah! The devils know that and believe it, even though they hate it.

To answer "Who is Jesus to ME?" is to make a statement about whether or not we are willing to act on God's revelation. To follow Jesus is more than believing Jesus is who he says he is, but it is saying that we want to follow him, and trust him for our salvation. In some wonderful, even mysterious way, God gives us the power to respond— to choose 'Who will Jesus be TO ME!'

A THREE-FOLD INVITATION

[An OPEN invitation: "If any one will come after me... " ]But, too, the scriptures say Many are called— but few are chosen. The reason is— this is not merely a "mental assent to propositional truth." It is a response to a Living Lord: a three-fold challenge:

DENY SELF

"I am NOT my own God!" "I give up my own attempts to save myself!" The most difficult master to escape is the tyranny of self-rule. To deny self is to accept the fact that Jesus is the Way, Truth, Life— and say, "God helping me, Jesus shall be my Lord! I will obey HIM!"

EMBRACE THE CROSS

"Come and die!" A willingness to follow Jesus to the very death!

The world ridicules the cross. Even children can get the wrong idea. "An elementary teacher in a public school was a devout Roman Catholic. She had studied to be a nun but decided that she was better suited for a lay vocation. She was teaching a class in reading, but she told the children, "You don't have to write or talk sometimes to get your point across." By way of example she stuck out her thumb and asked, "What does this mean?" The students all said, "I want a ride."

Then she asked, "What does this mean?" (She held her finger up across her mouth.) They all said, "Be quiet." Then she turned to one child and asked, "What can you say using signs?" He held up his hand flat to say stop. She asked another little boy to do one, and he gave the Catholic sign of the Cross, touching his forehead and crossing his chest. That just thrilled this devout teacher. She said, "Jerry, what does that mean?" He said, "That means I'm gonna shoot a free throw." 2

To take up the cross is more than wearing a religious symbol— however seriously we take it. To take up our cross is to accept the fact that there will be hard times, and suffering in the pathway of obedience.

[Believe me— you will not be able to dodge suffering, no matter what road you follow. But following Jesus transforms life's hard places into opportunities to lift Him up.]

There is a third part to this challenge to follow Jesus. It is the BEST part:

FOLLOW JESUS

We don't have to simply DENY SELF and TAKE UP THE CROSS. We also have the privilege of FOLLOWING JESUS. And as we follow, that relationship becomes closer, and more and more precious. Not necessarily EASIER.. but

JESUS HAS PROMISED NEVER TO LEAVE US .. TO THE VERY END!

CONCLUSION

It is hard to come to the close of a sermon this morning and not think of the events of this week: I'm speaking, of course, of a certain Roman Catholic nun whose funeral was this Saturday Mother Theresa.

In following Jesus Mother Theresa incarnated this three-fold invitation: deny self, take up the cross— follow Jesus. Following Jesus for her meant that she devoted her life to the poor and sick. She went through the streets of Calcutta in India, physically picking up the skin and bones people and carrying them into her hospice. She went around the world setting up hospices where her many followers could do the same.

Mother Theresa didn't complain when she found a sick person. Like St. James, she counted it all joy that she could be there to help that person, for in that person she saw Jesus. She often said that she was so happy because she was able to do the work she was doing, caring for the sick and poor.

A reporter asked to see Mother Theresa. The nun who answered the door said Mother couldn't come. The reporter waited and finally asked what Mother was doing. The nun said, "Mother is cleaning the toilets and has asked that she not be called away from her work.

When reporters went to interview Mother Theresa, she immediately put them to work in her hospice. They ended up feeding a dying person by hand or washing someone, or in other ways performing the same work that Mother Theresa did, and her nuns do day by day. In this way only, Mother Theresa believed, could anyone come to an idea of her work.

When opened up a hospice in Brooklyn with her nuns, the authorities were worried that there was nothing like central heating or television. Mother Theresa said they would not need such things, for the poor did not have them.

Someone asked Mother Theresa once about being successful and Mother Theresa answered, "We are not called to be successful; we are called to be faithful." She followed Jesus!

Jesus wasn't some kind of masochist who enjoyed suffering. He even said in the Garden of Olives before his passion and death: "Father, if this cup [of suffering] can not pass, but I must drink it, then your will be done, not mine." But the point Jesus would bring us to in our following him with our cross is that we become so pliable to the Holy Spirit in our life that we welcome whatever comes along, because by accepting it, we become like Jesus. Jesus will transform our lives and join them with his own— and we will know HIS JOY!

"If any want to become my followers

There is an open invitation. Whosoever will may come!

552 O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee