This time last year I was in India. The trip came together quite quickly in the fall, and I gradually became more and more excited as the day of my departure neared. Then just a few days before leaving, something happened that always happens. I started feeling like I didn’t want to go. Maybe you’ve felt something of that too. New experiences are scary, risky, uncomfortable and awkward!
Throughout this relationships in the church family blog series, the emphasis, week after week, has been the words “together,” “each other” and “one another.” Our topics have included: encourage, meet, hold accountable, pray, care, speak life, study God’s word. Each of these are important elements of a church family, and we studied each them from the perspective of “together, each other, one another.”
By practicing all those habits together, we will grow in faith together. When I went to India, I was so thankful to have a travel partner, my friend Jeff. Being together made a world of difference. This week, as we look at growing in faith together, we’ll examine one important way that Scripture teaches us to grow in faith together. Scriptures teaches us grow faith together is to follow Jesus into the great unknown together.
One of Jesus’ famous phrases beckons people into the great unknown. What phrase do you think I might be referring to? If you thought of the phrase “Follow me,” you’re right! Let’s look at a few times Jesus uses that phrase in the Gospel of Matthew.
First, turn to Matthew 4:18-22. This incident is right at the beginning of his ministry,
“As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’ At once they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.”
This is the story of Jesus calling his first disciples, “Follow me,” and they do it. Based on what we read in the Gospels, it’s hard to know how much they knew Jesus prior to him calling them to follow him. Clearly, though, he is not yet a noteworthy rabbi that people are falling over themselves to follow. He will become that soon enough. But at this point, these disciples are his first followers, and yet, though they likely know very little about him, they still followed him! On that first day, did they decide “Ok, I will follow you for the rest of my life?” I doubt their decision-making was that thorough. Maybe that first day they were just thinking, “Sure I’ll follow you over to the grassy area and have a little chat.” What we do know is that they would, in short order, walk right out of their comfort zones, leaving the comfort of jobs and families to follow him. Their following him into the great unknown would last a lifetime.
Let’s meet some others who have a very different response to Jesus’ invitation to follow him.
Turn a few pages forward to Matthew 8:18-22,
“When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, ‘Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.’ Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.’ Another disciple said to him, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus told him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.’”
I read that and think, “Yikes, Jesus. The guy needs to bury his father. Why are you making it seem so difficult to follow you, with all that talk of having no place to lay your head.” Apparently, whereas the disciples left jobs and family to follow Jesus, Jesus seems to indicate that these other people were not really committed to following him. They were like the people who talk a good game, but when it comes time to step out of our comfort zone and follow Jesus, they don’t. Many times we can choose to participate in seemingly good activities to avoid what is better and best.
Check back tomorrow for the next post, as we continue our study of Jesus’ “follow me” invitations in the Gospel of Matthew.
Photo by Alice Yamamura on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 