Faith to Follow Christ
Golden Text: Matthew 16:24
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me”

Focus: Following Christ without reservation leads to abundant life

Objectives:
1. explain why people follow Christ
2. consider actions or changes that God has called us to make and commit to making these changes
Faith is an ongoing part of each of our lives. You exercise faith every day. You get on a elevator, you exercise faith that the equipment is going to work properly. You exercise faith in the person who maintains the equipment. You stop at a restaurant to pick up something to eat. You exercise faith that the food has been prepared properly. The same for when you pick up groceries. When you stop at a gas station, you exercise faith that the fuel is clean and not watered down in any way. And we could go on and on but you get the point. The greatest power that a person can exercise is faith in God. It is the spiritual resource that connects humanity to God. Think of it, faith connects finite with infinite, temporal with eternal, powerless to omnipotent.

But let us be honest with each other. In order for us to exercise faith in God, we must have a right picture of God. God is revealed in scripture as creator, sustainer, redeemer and Father. He is true and just in all His ways. And He has chosen to love with an everlasting love. Even in this aspect, we must be sure that we have a clear picture of God. In Romans 11:22 we read, behold then, the goodness and the severity of the Lord.
So we cannot pick and choose or makeup the character and nature of God. Rather we must go to scripture.

The focus of this time that we are going to spend together is to look at the life that following Christ results in. Does following Christ lead to an abundant life? It can. It has the potential to do that. Gods desire is that following Christ will inspire you to live for Christ wholeheartedly. Let’s take a look at the record.

John 1:29-31
Matthew and Luke begin their gospel with the account of Jesus birth.
The gospel of Jesus according to John begins with a theological statement about the divine Son of God. Then John immediately goes to the account of John the Baptist.
Think of it, there has not been a prophet in Israel for almost 400 years. John the Baptist appears on the scene like a prophet of old. He challenges people to change. Repent and be baptized. When asked if he was the promised one, John the Baptist states that he is a forerunner of the one who would save the people from their sins. He says that one is coming of such spiritual stature that he is unworthy to untie his sandals.

When John the Baptist sees Jesus coming down the road, he points and says, “behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”

Is there any significance to that title?
As lamb of God, Jesus would fulfill all the requirements of all the sacrifices Israel used to make. The animals were a sign that sin had to be removed.

John 1:32-34
When John announced that the Son of God had come, he also told how he had come to be sure of this., God directly told John that it would be the one upon whom the Holy Spirit descended as a dove from heaven.
The dove was significant in Jewish history. Noah sent out a dove from the ark to determine if it was ok to open the doors and return to living on the earth. The dove was one of the animals that could be used for a sacrifice in the temple. The presence of the dove implied peace and the beginning of a new life. John saw this symbol as more than that. It signified that the one upon whom the dove descended was the Son of God sent to take away the sin of the world.

In Jesus, God himself is with us. He became a human being so He could restore a broken relationship. When we get the right picture in our heads, how can we resist Him?

John 1: 35, 36
Did you ever wonder why Jesus came when He did? After all, the message of Jesus could be shared so much more effectively with today’s media-right? The world wide cable news, the internet, the radio all reach to the ends of the world.
Did you know, even today with our mass multi-media the best way to truly impact another persons life for Christ is through personal involvement with that person. I don’t have the statistics this morning but I have heard that people coming forward at an evangelistic rally are repeaters. In other words, they have gone forward before. Maybe hoping that this time it will be different.
Let’s just examine closely the record we have of John the Baptist. Do you suppose he spoke to the crowds that came to hear him? What do we know of the effect of such proclamation? Nothing. But one day we read about him talking to two close followers.
One of those men was Andrew who would become a disciple of Jesus. After hearing John say that Jesus was the lamb of God, Andrew went to see Jesus.

John 1:37-39
John challenged people not to assume that they were ok because of their religious heritage. He told them of their need to repent of their sinful way and turn to righteous living. There is a difference between someone who is seeking the truth and someone who is just wanting to hear the news of current events. The difference is our response. The truth is the truth, there is no getting around it. But two people can hear the same truthful message and respond differently.

Last week, I tried to emphasize the link between our relationship with God and our obedience. The two disciples acted on the message they heard. But when they came to Jesus, their question indicates they were flabbergasted in His presence.
“where do you live”! Think of all the great theological questions they could have asked.
How did you create the world
How did you make life
The flood, the fire consuming Sodom and Gomora
The best they could come up with was, where do you live
Now after spending time with Jesus, Andrew goes and gets his brother, Peter.
That is the secret. Share what you have found.
John’s preaching stirred their hearts and it caused them to search for Jesus
When they came to Jesus, they found that he accepted them
Even today, He welcomes all who seek after Him.

John 1:43-45
John did not tell the stories of every person who followed Jesus. He only mentions a few names: Andrew, Peter, Philip and Nathaniel. All were brought to Christ by someone pointing the way except for Philip. It’s still the most effective way today. We have a great responsibility to do this work.

John 1:46-49
Nathaniel seems to be a skeptic. He knew the scripture, but he wasn’t so sure about this guy who had just came on the scene. He knows about the promised Messiah and all that stuff BUT
Philip does what we must do. Challenge people to come and see. What a simply invitation. The result of that meeting was Nathaniel proclaiming that Jesus is the Son of God and the King if Israel.
You never know what is going to happen when you talk to people about Jesus. The Holy Spirit is doing a work. You and I get to share in that work and when we do, it can lead to exciting things.

John 1:50-51
Jesus commended Nathaniel for his belief based upon such a small thing as knowing where he was when _Philip found him. He promised that if he stuck around he would see greater things than this. In fact, Jesus said that he would see the windows of heaven open.

When we decide to follow Christ, we begin a new life. If we give Him our lives, with nothing held back, we gain a richer life than we could ever imaging. With time, our concept of what God can do changes and we become unafraid to ask Him anything.
The God who made you, calls you just as Jesus called His first disciples. You are a witness to the changes they under went as they spent time with Jesus. He’ll do the same for you. You know the changes God wants you to make. You know the people God wants you to reach. Respond as those early disciples and go make the invitation – come and see.

Jesus made it clear that we must leave the stuff of this life behind if we are going to be His disciple. “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

It is at this juncture where the will of God cuts across our own will that a cross is formed. Jesus presented the conditions by which we can follow him. We must deny ourselves. The essence of this is, we must obey Him. Our will must become subservient to His will. His way must become predominant to continued living life our way.
Jesus knew that it would be impossible for Him to give us guidance to any disciple who would refuse to obey him. There must be obedience and commitment to the will of God
Then and only then can we experience the abundant life that God promises to those who truly follow wholeheartedly after Him