The Invitation To Follow - Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. It says, Behold, many tax collectors and sinners came in and were dying with Jesus and his disciples. That's his friends.

Really? You see, Jesus is always very comfortable with people who are nothing like him. You ever notice that all the way through the Gospels? He's very comfortable with people who are nothing like him. Now, if he's our Lord, shouldn't we be the same way? The question is, are you? You see, if we're not comfortable with certain kinds of people who are among us, that's on us.

That's not on them. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world. What does it mean to be a Christian? How do you define that? What is Christian?

You hear stats all the time. There's one and a half billion Christians on the planet. What does it mean to be a Christian? In many cases, it means that you're a member of a church that makes you a Christian.

Sometimes people say, I was born in a Christian family and that makes me Christian. In fact, there are even ceremonies to christen you. In other words, the ceremony make you Christian.

Others say you need to be a member in good standing of some local church or denomination. And then there's the whole list of people that really think Christianity is just, it's the do's and don'ts Christians. They sort of combine the Ten Commandments and then the things Jesus said. And if you do the Ten Commandments and you do what you should do and you don't do what you shouldn't do, and you do the things that Jesus said to do, but you don't do the things that Jesus said not to do, that's Christianity. But that's not Christian. There are others that say, oh, if you only pray this prayer, if you pray the prayer, then you're Christian. But, you know, if you went to the gospel accounts and all you had were the gospels and all you had were the words of Jesus, you might be amazed at how simple it is to understand what it means to be a Christian. Open your Bibles to John Chapter 10, the Gospel of John Chapter 10. The words of Jesus Christ beginning in verse one. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep but climbs up some other way.

He's a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him, the doorkeeper opens and the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and he leads them out. And when he puts forth, he says all his own, he goes ahead of them. And then it says this, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow but will flee from him because they do not know the voice of strangers. Jesus defines us as relational, shepherd, sheep.

His voice, they follow. Drop down to verse 22 of John 10 and it says, and at that time the feast of dedication took place at Jerusalem and it was winter. And Jesus is walking into the temple, he says, in the portico of Solomon. And the Jews then gathered around him and they were saying to him, how long will you keep us in suspense?

If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. By the way, up till then he had told them over and over and over and over and over again. And Jesus said, I told you, but you do not believe the works that I do in my Father's name. These testify of me, but you do not believe because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.

And then notice what he says if those who follow him is sheep. And I give eternal life to them and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one.

Jesus says, those who follow me, I give them eternal life. You see, they're my sheep. It comes down to something that simple.

That's what I want to illustrate this morning. And keep asking the question, I'm going to begin a short series on simply following. And the question I have for you is, are you a follower? Do you follow?

Don't really care what family you were born into or where you attend church or anything else. Are you a follower of Jesus Christ? Turn with me now to Matthew chapter 9. And here is a story of one of the first times we run into this idea of follower. In verse 9, and Jesus went on from there and he saw a man called Matthew. And Luke, Dr. Luke says that he calls him Levi, two names not uncommon for scripture.

And he saw a man called Matthew sitting, he says, in a tax collector's booth. Now, let me give you some sense of this. Jesus is in Capernaum at this time. And I want you to understand, that's right on the Sea of Galilee. And Jesus has been doing incredible things. One miracle after another. And he's been teaching.

Now, please understand something. The city of Capernaum at the time of Christ, the population was right about 1,500 people. That's a small, small town. You could imagine that someone like Jesus showing up, doing the miracles that Jesus was performing, teaching the way Jesus taught, everybody in Capernaum knew about Jesus. You couldn't go and live in Capernaum and not hear about it.

It's the most exciting thing that probably ever happened in Capernaum. So, Jesus finds this guy and it says his name is Matthew. And he's sitting in a tax collector's booth. When you think about tax collectors, and most of you know, they're not very popular then, as they're not really that popular now. But he is a tax collector and according to Alfred Edersheim, in his work on the life of Christ, he says that there are two kinds of tax collectors.

There are those who are really bad and then those who are worse. The really bad ones collecting taxes, they collected taxes on land, income, and a poll tax. Now, tax gatherers, by the way, or collectors, were called publicans because they work for Rome. So, they viewed them as publicans. When you see publicans and sinners, that's what we're talking about.

Those who are loyal to Rome. The one who was just bad, he was called a goodbye. Okay? The tax collector was called a goodbye. Isn't that kind of appropriate when you pay your taxes, you say goodbye?

To your money, right? But that's not the type he is. He is amicus. And amicus is much worse. Amicus has his own little business set up. He's a franchisor and he's able to tax people for anything he can come up with as long as Rome gets the lion's share of his taxes. So, they would tax you. Amicus may tax you for everything imported or exported. You may be taxed for traveling. You may be taxed for crossing bridges.

You could be taxed for all kinds of things. The amicus was the most vile person a person could be. They were extremely unpopular. The only way I could describe someone like Matthew, amicus would be, how do you feel when you hear about somebody who's a drug dealer, who spends all of their time in junior high school selling drugs to middle school kids? That's what Matthew is like. He's that person. That's how the people felt about him. And notice he has his booth kind of set up.

It says there he was sitting at the tax collector's booth, probably at some intersection. Now, Jesus is going to go up and talk to him. Now, what could have Jesus said to him? Does your mother know what you do?

Really? You should be ashamed of yourself. An instrument of Rome fleecing your brothers and sisters in Judaism?

You should be ashamed of yourself. I mean, Jesus could have said an enormous amount of things to him, all condemning him, and they'd have been true. Notice, though, and Jesus said to him, and he said, follow me.

That's it. Follow me. Same thing he said about the idea, if you're one of my sheep, follow me. I'm the shepherd. Just follow me.

Wow. Notice what he didn't say. Well, we would often say, if you are willing to do this blank, then you can follow me. Jesus doesn't do that.

You see, he just says, follow me. Now, what could have Matthew said? Wait, wait, do you know who I am?

Do you know what I do? It can't be that simple. Just imagine how Matthew felt. But please understand something else here.

Something else is going on. Jesus invites apparently all kinds of people, and later we'll see why. But the point of it is, Matthew has a lot of information that when you read in this text, you're not aware of at all. I am certain that he's heard Jesus teach. I am certain he has talked to people who heard Jesus teach. He also is very aware that right around in that little 1500 population town, Jesus has done extraordinary things.

He's shown his power over distance. That's where the centurion came to him and said, my son is ill. And from a distance, Jesus healed him. He didn't have to be there.

He didn't touch him. He just healed him. He was also a place where he showed the power he had over disease with Peter's own mother. She became ill. And he just went in and he healed her. He also showed that he had power over nature.

It was right at Capernaum where they were going to put out. Remember the sea turned into turmoil and the disciples thought they were going to. He had done that. He calmed the sea by words.

You know how that would spread through a town of 1500 people? He exercised demons. The demoniac of Gadarenes across the sea. They heard about this.

This guy was a legend. Said Jesus took the demons out of him. See, Matthew had a lot of information when Jesus spoke to him. And he said to him, follow me. And he got up and followed him. That's it. Wow, how complicated was this? You know, you need to join our organization.

You'll be interviewed by people to see if you're worthy. He said, follow me. He just got up and he followed him. And then in Matthew it says, and then it happened that Jesus is reclining at the table. Wait a minute, what happened?

How can he be reclined? Well, Luke tells us again, Matthew decided to have a banquet. Matthew was so happy that he's following Christ, he said, I'm going to have a banquet. And guess what Matthew does?

Just what you would do at a banquet. He invited all of his friends. Now, guess what Matthew's friends are like? It says, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came in and were dying with Jesus and his disciples. That's his friends.

Really? You see, Jesus is always very comfortable with people who are nothing like him. Have you ever noticed that all the way through the Gospels, he's very comfortable with people who are nothing like him. Now, if he's our Lord, shouldn't we be the same way? The question is, are you? You see, if we're not comfortable with certain kinds of people who are among us, that's on us.

That's not on them. You see, Jesus just had a comfort level with this. He was fine with it. But by the way, the religious types weren't fine with it at all.

Notice. He says, then it happened that Jesus reclining at the table in the house behold, many tax collectors and sinners. He says, we're dining with Jesus and his disciples when the Pharisees saw this. They said to the disciples, why is your rabbi eating with tax collectors and sinners?

What's wrong with him? Remember, the Pharisees are the kind of guy that went to the temple and said, I thank you, God, that I'm not like these people. That's who he was. He's just filled with religious arrogance and pride. They said, how could he do this? And it says, but when Jesus heard this, that's kind of funny to me. Every time in the gospel somebody talks, no matter how far away you are, Jesus hears it. You know, you could just imagine him over whispering the same voice.

How come he's doing this, Jesus? I heard that. And I think Jesus said this out loud for everyone to hear. He said, it is not those who are healthy who need a physician. But those who are sick.

I think right now, like Matthew and his friends are there. Wait a minute. Did he just call us sick? Did he just say Jesus looking at him? Absolutely. Oh, yeah, I get it.

I guess we are. You see, one thing that Matthew was never, never had any illusions about at all. He knew he was a sinner. You see, he knew it. He knew it by his profession.

He knew it. So Jesus then goes on and says, after he says that, he says, but go and learn what this means. I desire compassion, not sacrifice, for I did not come to call the righteous. I came to call the sinners. You see, by the way, we know that they're all sinners. Paul makes that clear, all sin falls short of the glory of God.

We know that. But certainly religious types and certainly the Pharisees just couldn't see it that way at all. They didn't see themselves that way.

They saw themselves as righteous, but it was nothing but self-righteousness. But when Jesus says, follow me. By the way, you know this, the cry for Jesus is for everyone.

It's a universal calling. Follow me. Look, you know there's something wrong with you. If you have any integrity or honesty at all, you know there's something wrong with you. In fact, you have your own rules to live by and notice you don't live by them. You have your own ideals and you still don't live by them. We all know what Matthew knew, but the Pharisees didn't. You see, the Pharisee view was this. You need to change and then you can come and join us. Jesus' perspective is, how about this, you follow me and you will change.

He sees it completely different. Another thing I can take from this story, being a sinner of any type does not disqualify you from being a follower of Christ. There is no sin that disqualifies you from being a follower of Christ. And secondly, he is giving you an invitation to a relationship.

He's not asking you or giving you an opportunity to join an organization. Turn to the page with me to Matthew 11 for a moment. Matthew 11.

In verse 28, famous verses, but watch how similar the idea is. And again, there's a calling here. Jesus says, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden. Everybody who's sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Everybody who thinks life stinks and it doesn't seem to get any better. He says, you come to me, everybody, come to me, all you are weary and heavy laden. And then he says something interesting, I'll give you rest. I'll let you rest. You just come to me. He said, you take my yoke upon you and you learn from me.

And we've talked about that in the past, the large ox and the small ox. But he says, you take my yoke and I just want you right here beside me. That's all I'm asking. And he says, when you walk around that grinding mill with me, he says, you will learn from me. He said, but I want to tell you something about me. I am gentle and humble in heart. He said, you'll find rest for your souls.

He said, you have to understand something. My yoke is easy. My burden is light.

Wow, that's Christianity. Just follow me. Just hook your yoke up. Get in my yoke with me. Just walk with me.

I'll do the grinding. Now, remember, he uses other metaphors. I'm the vine, you're the branches. You know, and if you abide in me, you'll bear much fruit. But apart from me, you can do nothing. He said, all you have to do is abide.

All you have to do is stay in the same yoke. All you have to do is follow me. Jesus says, that's all it will take. This isn't the first time in Matthew that this happens. Turn with me to Matthew 4 now. Let's go back to Matthew 4.

In verse 18. Now, as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And immediately, they left their nets and they followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in the boat of Zebedee, their father, mending the nets.

And he called them and immediately left their boat and their father, and they followed him. Did you ever wonder about that when you read it? Like, what does that mean?

How did that happen? It almost seemed, it always reminds me of, like, a 1950s B-movie about, like, zombies. You know, the whole idea is that Jesus just walks by and says, follow me, and they're fishing, and they're just thinking about, and then, oh. They're just following, just blindly following. They can't resist it. They're just following. That's not what happened at all. That's not the way it worked out. You see, Matthew gives you an accurate account, but it's just a summation.

It's not really the whole story at all. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called OnePlace.com. That's OnePlace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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