Gospel in two words: REPENT and BELIEVE . (Mk 1:14-15)
Discipleship in two words: FOLLOW JESUS . (Mk 1:16-20)
What does it mean to follow Jesus?
1 Peter 2:21 - For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.
How do I follow Jesus?
- Do it IMMEDIATELY.
- Leave some things BEHIND.
- Be in the WAY.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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this year at Harvest Bible Chapel?
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What are we going after?
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"Follow the leader." Right, who said that?
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All right, thank you, Deb.
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Follow the leader, right?
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Did you see our sign?
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Did you see our sign?
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Did you know?
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Did you know Darren made this?
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And if you get close enough, you can see the crayon scribbles.
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And he designed this, and it was made locally.
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But we look at this sign, and we, "Well, where did we come up with that?
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Where did you come up with this 'follow the leader' thing?" From the Bible.
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And this message today I'm very excited to share with you.
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This message is really the message that sort of is the marquee sermon of the next year.
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So turn to Mark chapter 1, and we'll pick up where we left off last week.
01:01-01:05
Where did you get this idea of "follow the leader," "following Jesus Christ"?
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What does that mean?
01:09-01:15
Well, we're going to pick up in verse 14 today, just sort of a review from last week.
01:15-01:23
We saw the first part of Mark, how Jesus prepared for His ministry.
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You know, think about what you do.
01:26-01:30
What did you do to prepare yourself to do what you do?
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Some of you right now are in a stage of life where you are preparing yourself for what you're eventually going to do.
01:36-01:38
Maybe some of you did on-the-job training.
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Maybe some of you went to a trade school or a college.
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How did Jesus prepare for what He was going to do?
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Well, that's what we talked about last week.
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He was announced by John the Baptist.
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He was baptized to fulfill all righteousness.
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He was affirmed by God the Father, and then He was immediately tempted by the devil, and He emerged victorious.
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Let's pick up verse 14, after Jesus' training.
02:14-02:16
Now he's getting to the work of ministry.
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It says, "Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God." Now that phrase, "after John was arrested," that's an important phrase because that gives us a timetable.
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So if you take the baptism of Jesus that we talked about last week, earlier here in chapter 1, to this point in verse 14, six months would have passed.
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Okay?
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So you're like, "Okay, question.
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What happened during those six months?" Right?
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That's a fair question.
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Well, if you want to know what happened during those six months, you have to read the gospel of John chapters 1 through 3.
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talks about some of the things that happened in that time.
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Mark's not really interested in that.
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Under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he just decided to cut that part out, okay?
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I don't have a problem with that.
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Do you have a problem with that?
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I don't have a problem with that, okay?
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Mark in writing what he wrote, understand the Gospels weren't biographies.
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Do you know that?
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When the Gospel writers sat down to write down the life of Jesus, they weren't like, "I'm going to write down every single thing that he did starting at his birth." That wasn't how they wrote.
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When they wrote, they had this in mind.
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What can he teach us?
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We talked a little bit about this last week.
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Each of the gospel writers took a little different approach in describing Jesus Christ.
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So Mark, for whatever reason, wasn't interested in what happened for the first six months after Jesus was baptized.
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He's just like, "Okay, now boom, we're going to fast forward.
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After John was arrested, let's talk about when Jesus went to Galilee." All right?
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And what did Jesus do?
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What does your Bible say?
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He came into Galilee, what was He doing?
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Proclaiming the gospel of God, right?
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Not a trick question.
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By the way, no trick questions up here, okay?
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Let's get that on the table, no trick questions.
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He was proclaiming the gospel of God, that's what Jesus did.
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And I would just add, if it was good enough for Jesus, I think that's good enough for me.
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That's why I don't stand up here and say, "Here's what I was thinking this week, Bob.
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Would you like to know my thoughts?" That's not why you're here.
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You're here for the gospel of God, right?
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That's what Jesus was about.
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So like, why would I think my thing could be any better than the thing that Jesus was preaching about?
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Like, "Well, I thought it was the gospel of Jesus Christ." It's the same thing, right?
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We saw that in chapter 1, verse 1.
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It's the same thing.
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The gospel of God is the message about His Son, Jesus Christ.
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It says in verse 15, "And saying," okay, so what is the gospel of God?
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Well, here it is.
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"And saying, 'The time is fulfilled.'" Wow.
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And at this point in history, the Jews were waiting for the Messiah to come.
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All through the Old Testament, God promised that the Messiah was going to come, and He was going to reign, and He was going to be glorious, and the Spirit of the Lord was going to be upon Him, and He was going to revolutionize everything.
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So you have this history of these people waiting for this one man to show up, and Jesus shows up and says, "It's time.
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It's time.
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The Messiah has come." He says, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand." I shared with you last week that word "gospel." It's used in the Bible, but it was also used in secular ways.
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But it describes the good news that a king is bringing in a new era.
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That's what gospel means.
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They used it to describe Caesar.
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"Hey, we got good news.
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The king is coming, and he's going to usher in a whole new era, a whole new way of living." And certainly it pertains to Jesus more than any other king in history.
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understand the gospel was about a kingdom, okay?
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The gospel was about a kingdom.
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And you join this kingdom.
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How?
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He says, "The kingdom of God is at hand." This was Jesus' sermon.
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Repent and believe in the gospel.
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Underline those words in your Bible, "Repent and believe." the sermon.
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"The King is here.
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All of history's waited for this moment.
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I'm bringing in a new era, so what do we do about it?" Jesus said, "Here's what you do.
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You repent and you believe." That's the gospel.
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You repent and you believe.
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Jesus doesn't call you to evaluate the message or to critique the Bible or to debate God or try to explain things away.
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He calls you to do two things, repent and believe.
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That's why in your outline, first of all, gospel in two words, repent, believe.
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That's the gospel in two words.
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Like, well, what does repent mean?
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Well, repent literally means think afterwards.
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That's what the word means, think afterwards, or think differently.
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Or we would say repent means this, it means to change your mind.
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That's what repentance literally means.
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A lot of times we associate repentance with action, but action is the fruit, okay?
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Action is the fruit.
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Aaron can train our dog to do things, okay?
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That's the action.
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You can train a dog to do things.
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That's not really repentance.
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Repentance gets where?
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Well, repentance starts here, and it means to change the way you're thinking about things, to illustrate, "Here's how we are by nature.
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By nature we're walking in our sin." And what do we think about our sin?
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I'll speak for myself.
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When I was walking in sin, I loved my sin.
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And all this sin makes me so happy, and I'm fulfilling the lust of the flesh, and my back was towards God.
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But this was me by nature.
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I love sin, and this is so good for me.
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And the message of repentance says, "You know what?
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You need to change the way you're thinking about your sin." And you step back and you look at sin from God's perspective and say, "This isn't fun.
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This is destructive.
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This stuff that I thought was making my life so happy is actually making me miserable.
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It's hurting other people.
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It's hurting myself.
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And you're sort of reevaluating here.
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"I need to change the way I'm thinking about my sin." The Bible says sin is pleasurable for a moment.
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It is in the moment, but sin is never pleasurable long term.
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And repentance literally means this, "You know, I'm changing my mind.
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I'm not going after this.
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Instead, I'm going after God." That's repentance, changing your mind about sin and changing your mind about the Lord.
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It's important because repentance is always, always, everybody say always, repentance is always the first part of the message, always.
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Over the years I've offered people $500 for anybody that can show me anywhere in Scripture where God offers forgiveness without repentance.
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Never had to pay up.
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You don't see anywhere in God's Word where God says, "You know what?
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You just keep living in sin.
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I'm just going to forgive you anyways." It's not there.
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You look at every preacher from the Old Testament, you look at the writings in the New Testament, and you have to look no further than Jesus Christ Himself that the message of the gospel starts with repentance.
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You need to change your mind, man.
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You need to change the way you're thinking about sin, and change the way you're thinking about God. There's no salvation without repentance, there's just not. God will take you just as you are. He's not going to leave you that way.
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So Jesus said, "The time is fulfilled, the kingdom is at hand." He came to establish a kingdom, and gloriously it's still happening, isn't it?
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It's still happening.
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Are you in?
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Are you in this kingdom?
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Are you in?
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Are you in the kingdom?
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Which king are you following?
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We talk about follow the leader, you know, you're following somebody.
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Who's your king?
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Who's seated on the throne of your heart?
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Who's sitting there right now?
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For a lot of people, the answer is me, and I would say, "Well, you need to get off the throne.
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Let the rightful king sit there." It's still happening.
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He's still advancing his kingdom.
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We're seeing it in our church.
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We're seeing it across the world.
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Have you repented and believed?
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So that's the gospel in two words, repent and believe.
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Let's talk about discipleship in two words.
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Discipleship in two words is this, I want you to write this down, follow Jesus.
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That's discipleship.
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That's discipleship.
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They're like, "Well, Pastor Jeff, you've said so many times that this church is about making disciples, so you're going to have to define what it means to follow Jesus." So let's look at the text, and then we're going to go back and make some comments.
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It says, "Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon," that's Peter, Jesus actually renames him later, "he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon." I'm like, "Andrew, man, I feel your pain.
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Do you feel Andrew's pain?" He's the brother of Simon.
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Like he doesn't even have like his own thing.
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Like I felt that growing up.
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Oh, you're Darren's brother.
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Oh, you're Darren's brother.
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I'm just like, yeah, Andrew, I know what that's like.
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Forever identified just as being somebody's brother.
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It's okay.
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It's okay as long as you have a brother like Simon.
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I'm going to lighten up, welcome to church.
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Casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.
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And Jesus said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men." And immediately they left their nets and followed Him.
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And going on a little further, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets.
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And immediately he called them, and they left their father, Zebedee, in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.
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So what does it mean to follow Jesus?
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Well, interestingly, do you know that's the first and the last thing that Jesus said to Peter?
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Did you know that?
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The very first thing Jesus says to Peter is, "Follow me." You get to the end of John's Gospel, John 21, verses 19 and 22, Jesus says it to Peter two more times.
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And it must have stuck because when Peter wrote his first epistle, 1 Peter chapter 2, Verse 21 says, "For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might," what?
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"Follow in His steps." So Jesus shows up to the fishermen, and He shows up to us today with a command, and that command is "Follow Me." And I don't know about you, but when I hear that command, my response is this, "I'm just so unworthy of that." Anybody with me on that?
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Anybody feel the unworthiness of that?
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Jesus has followed me, and I'm like, "I'm just some loser from Shecorah.
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I feel so unworthy.
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I am so unqualified.
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How can I live up to what He's called me to?" Well, the answer is found in one phrase.
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Look at verse 17 again, and if you miss this, you're going to miss everything we talk about for the rest of the year.
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So you have to underline this in your Bible.
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We will have ushers at the door checking your Bibles to make sure this is underlined.
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Look at what Jesus said, "Follow Me and I will make you become fishers of men." Follow Me and I will make you become fishers of men.
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Jesus isn't calling you to follow Him because of who you are, but because of what He can make you.
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Jesus isn't looking down from heaven saying, "See Bob Wilber?
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He's got some stuff going on.
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There's a guy that I can use.
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Look at all that Bob brings to the table.
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That's the kind of guy I'm after." That's not how it is.
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It's not because of what you are, it's because of what He's going to make you.
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Follow me, Jesus says, and I will make you.
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The problem is, Christians, we get our formulas all mixed up.
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And when somehow we turn it into something like, you know what, you need to make something of yourself.
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You need to get your act together, and then you follow Jesus.
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And then we, sometimes we carry that over into our evangelism, like get your act together, get your life in order, and then you can follow Jesus.
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And that is not what Jesus said.
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Jesus said to follow Him, and He will make you become what He wants you to be.
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Jesus doesn't call who is qualified.
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Jesus qualifies who is called, okay?
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And Jesus isn't calling the people who can follow Him, Jesus is calling the people who will follow Him.
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It's not based on your intellect, your talents, your expertise, your charisma, your pay scale.
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It's not based on any of those things.
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It's based on one thing, really.
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It's your will.
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Are you willing to follow Jesus Christ?
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And if you are, you have to know that He's going to make you something.
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And I really think that might be scary for some people.
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If I follow Jesus, He's not going to leave me as I am.
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Jesus is going to make me something.
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Well what does He want to make you?
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What does He want to make you?
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Well Jesus said, "Follow me and I will make you become," what?
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What does your Bible say?
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"Fishers of men." Okay, it's easy to miss this picture.
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When I think of fishing, you know what the first thing is that I think of?
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What do you think of when you think of fishing?
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Don't get all biblical on me, okay?
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Don't give me Sunday school answer.
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Yeah, right, Sally, right.
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You think of the reel and the rod and the hook.
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That's what I think of when I think of fishing.
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Actually, I think of my father because when we were kids, remember, Darren, we'd go to Binks' Pond.
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And I'll be honest with you.
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my dad to death, but I just, I didn't get the fishing thing. I just, I didn't get it.
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Because I remember going and we'd, you know, well first you're gonna like, first you're gonna impale the worm. At the risk of sounding like a sissy, gross, don't Don't judge me.
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All right, I'm a bit of a sissy.
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It's okay.
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It's all right.
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You got to impale this worm, not just like once, but you have to impale it like five times to get this wad of worm goo.
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And then you cast it.
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And I remember going with dad, "Oh, Jeff, the bobber went down." You give it a yank, you pull it in.
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Fish.
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And I remember saying, "Dad, doesn't that hook hurt?" Because the hook is through their face.
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I'm like, "Dad, doesn't that hurt?" I remember Dad always said, "Oh no, Jeff, they can't feel that." I'm like, "How do you know?" We've surveyed 100 fish.
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How does that feel?" But anyways, a lot of times I'd have to have Dad help me take it off of the hook because I just didn't have the, it made the sound and
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(flapping)
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the fish is all flopping, but I'm still convinced they're like, twitches out of pain, like, oh!
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Hook in my head.
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Well, I remember throwing the fish back, and I'd be like, all right, I'm done.
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Dad's like, you're done?
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I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna go take a nap.
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Like, we're not done, we just got here.
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And I'm like, no, we're done.
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No, we're not done.
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Well, dad, what'd we come here to do?
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We came here to catch a fish, right?
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Mission accomplished, okay?
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I'm going to call this a victory and I'm gonna go take a nap.
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And I just didn't get the fishing thing.
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Maybe it's because I didn't get the hunting thing either.
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And people don't do that hunting, right?
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Like you shoot a deer with an arrow and then you just go up and you pull the arrow out and throw the deer back into the woods, catch and release, right?
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"Oh, Pastor Jeff, you're so outdoorsy." I know.
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I'm practically Duck Dynasty up here.
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Well, when Jesus was talking about being fishers of men, his disciples weren't thinking about being with my dad at Binks' pond.
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Actually, did you know that they actually fished at night?
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Did you know that?
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Actually, Luke chapter 5 and verse 5 says that they were fishing all night.
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Why did they fish at night?
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Well, actually, what they did was they cast nets, but they would actually shine light in the darkness, and that light would attract the fish.
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So when they got the fish to come attracted by the light, they'd pull their nets in and have a haul of fish.
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And right now maybe some light bulbs are going off over our heads, because that's what Jesus was calling the disciples to, and that's what He's calling us to.
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He says, "I want you to go fish for people," and that doesn't mean we're going to go, stab people and drag them to church on a line.
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What he's saying is, "You're going to have light shining through you, and that is going to attract people to my kingdom." So do you see the picture?
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Do you see the picture?
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Jesus said, "Follow me.
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I'm going to make you into something.
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I'm going to shine my light through you, and that's going to attract people to me." That's what He's calling us to.
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Jesus wants to be alive in you and through you.
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And just like the moon reflects the light of the sun, our job as believers is simply to reflect the light of Jesus Christ, to let Him shine through us.
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That's what attracts people, okay?
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That's what attracts people, and we can do all kinds of gimmicks in the church to, you know, we'll get big inflatables up here and dunking booths, and you know, we'll do caricature sketches and all these other things, and you know, we'll put on this big carnival and we'll try to attract people.
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That's not Jesus' plan.
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Jesus' plan is, "I'm going to live through you, and when people see the light of me through you, that's what's going to attract people." So when Jesus said, "Follow me, I will make you fishers of men," the disciples would have been thinking of the attraction of the light.
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So that's what it means to follow Jesus.
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It's allowing Him to make us something.
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Follow me and I will make you.
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So the question on our minds as we head down the homestretch here is, "How?" How do I follow Jesus?
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How do I do it?
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Well, a little preacher insight for you.
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Some weeks putting the sermon together is harder than other weeks.
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And looking at this text, this one was a no-brainer.
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How do you follow Jesus?
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Look at verse 18.
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Just look at verse 18.
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How did they follow Jesus?
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Do you see three things in there?
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Go ahead, shout them out.
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first one? Immediately, right? Okay, this is like a little Bible college seminar. Here's how the sermon gets put together. What's the first thing? Immediately, ding. There's something to that. What's the next thing? Shout it out. They left their nets. Ding, that's number two. And what's the third thing? They followed Him. Right. Ding again. So how do I follow Jesus, this is 101, but this is a lot easier to understand up here than it is to do.
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So the first thing is this, do it immediately.
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Do it immediately.
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If you're sitting here today and you're not following Jesus Christ, I say with as much love as I can muster, what in the world are you waiting for?
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Because the truth is, you have no reason to wait.
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Every time the Bible talks about the day of salvation, the day of decision, the day of response, do you know what day that is?
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We want to say tomorrow, right?
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Like when our diet starts.
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My diet starts tomorrow, right?
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A lot of people do that to Jesus.
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I'm going to get real serious about Jesus tomorrow, or after the first of the year, Or once I get through this chapter of my life, I'm going to get real serious about going back to church and… No, the answer is today.
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Do it immediately.
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Jesus says, "Simon, Andrew, follow me." We'll get back to you on that.
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Can't wait until the penguin season is over.
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Immediately.
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Put it in perspective, you can't do anything about your past, and you don't need to.
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Some people are hesitant to follow Jesus because, "Oh, Pastor Jeff, you don't know all the horrible things I've done.
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When John the Baptist said, 'This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,' Jesus deals with your sin.
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He takes your sin away.
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That's what the cross is all about.
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That's what we're celebrating.
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You can't do anything about your past, and you don't need to.
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Jesus took care of that.
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But you can't put it off until tomorrow because you may not have it.
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All you can focus on is what you're going to do about Jesus today.
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So I would just ask you, are you following Jesus today?
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If I asked you, if I was standing at the door, grab each one of you, line up, single file, I'm not going to do this, don't run out scared, but are you following Jesus today?
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Well, you know, Pastor Jeff, I made a decision to follow Jesus back in 1982.
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Fantastic.
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Are you following Jesus today?
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Yeah, you know what, I was involved in ministry way back when, but are you following Jesus today?
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Immediately.
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Get on it.
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Secondly, it says that they left their nets.
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I have down on my outline, write this down on yours, "Leave some things behind." Leave some things behind.
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You know, it's funny when you study the Bible as opposed to just like reading it like a magazine or whatever.
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For some reason, I used to think that these men, you know, Simon and Andrew and James and John. I used to have this, let's be honest, tell me if you had this too, but I used to have this picture that they were like these four dirty like tattered guys, they were wearing like this, you know, like tattered burlap sack, and they were filthy, and they didn't even have any shoes, and they were like, all four of them were in like one canoe, right?
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Did you ever have that picture? Or is it just me? Anybody else? Just me? Oh, Jane Auer, Thank you, Jay.
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All right, Jay, listen.
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I used to think that too, that they were just like, they had nothing else going on.
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That's the picture I had.
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They were just like hanging out at the docks, and Jesus shows up, He's like, "Follow me," and they're just like, "We really don't have anything else to do.
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We might as well follow Jesus." Side note, I heard, you remember the guy giving the testimony about people coming to Christ in Africa, and I remember him saying, "You know, we're seeing all these people come to Jesus in Africa because they don't have anything else to do." I'm sure there's more to the story than that.
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But I used to think that's what was happening with the disciples.
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Like they just had nothing going on.
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They sat by their canoe for 18 hours of the day, and then they'd go out for an hour and catch a couple fish to eat, and then they'd go home and take a nap.
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And actually, this is why it's important to study God's Word, actually these disciples would have had some money.
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Like, how do you know that?
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Well, look at verse 20 again.
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It says, "James and John left their father in the boat with," who?
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hired servants.
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That meant that they had some money.
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Poor fishermen didn't have the income to hire servants out to help.
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So these weren't like guys hanging out fishing telling stories.
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Fishing was their job.
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Fishing wasn't just their job, it was their business.
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And they were successful businessmen.
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Actually in John's gospel we find out that the high priest knew who John was.
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How did he know him?
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He must have had some level of influence and success.
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He must have had a few bucks.
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He must have been… fishing business must have been good to him rather.
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So to these people who were, picture shift here, these people that were working and earning and had their thing going, their thing was working and they had this successful business, Jesus walks up to them and says, "Follow me because I'm going to make you something." Well, it says that Simon and Andrew left their nets, verse 18.
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I'm sure that was difficult, but do you know what I think was much harder?
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Verse 20, it says, "Immediately called James and John," immediately called them, it says they left their father.
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That sort of ratchets it up a bit, doesn't it?
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Sort of raises the stakes.
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It's one thing to leave a pile of fishy nets laying on the ground, it's another thing to walk away from dad.
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But that's what they did.
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This is the paradox.
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Jot this down.
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It's a paradox.
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Don't ask me to explain it, this is just reality.
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But following Jesus costs you nothing, but it costs you everything.
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And Jesus costs you nothing, but it costs you everything.
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And as we see with Simon and Andrew, as we see with James and John, sometimes it looks different from person to person, but the call is still the same, right?
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Well, if I follow Jesus, does that mean that I'm going to have to go sit in a tent in Africa and be a missionary?
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My answer is maybe, but not necessarily.
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I don't know what He's going to call you to.
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I don't know what He's going to make you.
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But following Jesus costs you nothing and it costs you everything.
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Here's what I do know.
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You must be willing to drop anything that inhibits or prohibits following Jesus.
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Anything that is in the way of you following Jesus, and we define what that is, anything that's in the way, you've got to drop it.
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And you know what it is for you.
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You know what that is.
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I'm sure if we sat down and talked for a while, we could figure it out.
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I could figure it out just in conversation what it is, but you know what it is for you.
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If I asked you right now, is there anything in your life that is keeping you from following Jesus Christ the way that you know that you should?
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Is there anything keeping you from allowing Him to make you what He wants you to be?
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Are you holding on to something that you need to drop?
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You know what it is.
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The people get more concerned about what they give up instead of what they can gain, and that's the problem.
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We're concerned with what they have to give up instead of what they can gain.
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And here's all I know about that, two things.
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If that's you, if you're like, "Hey, I'm struggling.
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I know I need to give stuff up.
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I know there's some things in the way of me following Jesus." I only know two things about that, and the first one is this, number one, it's worth it.
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If you have to drop something to follow Jesus, it's worth it.
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I have never in 16 years of pastoral ministry, being with Christians all over the world, To this day, I have never met one Christian who has expressed any level, any degree of regret for something they gave up to follow Jesus Christ.
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I've never heard it.
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I have never heard it.
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If that's your testimony, gosh, I've never heard it.
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And I've talked to a lot of Christians over the past decade and a half.
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I've never heard somebody say, "Well, you know what Jeff, way back when, Jesus, you know, I responded to the call to follow Jesus and you know, sometimes I kind of look back and think, I'm not really sure it was worth it." I've never heard that.
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And not speaking for other people, but if I can speak solely for myself for just one One second, that was my story back in 1995.
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I had not a clue about anything.
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The only thing I knew in my life was that God was calling me to preach.
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I didn't even know how somebody became a preacher.
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Then I found out they had Bible colleges.
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Did you know about this?
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Did you know they have Bible colleges?
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Did you know that?
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Yeah, thanks for telling me.
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I didn't know that.
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And all I knew was He was calling me to do this, and I just kind of dropped everything and went to Bible college, have not regretted one second of it.
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Not one second.
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So first of all, it's worth it.
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The second thing I would tell you about this, certainly the Bible says that you need to count the cost of following Jesus.
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I would add to that, you need to count the cost of not following Jesus.
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Because that is always regret.
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That is always regret.
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And I could keep you here until the Pittsburgh Steelers win a game this season, which is looking like it's going to be a very long time, but I could tell you stories of people that knew what they were supposed to do, knew how they were supposed to follow Jesus, knew what He was calling them to, and they didn't, and it has been nothing but tears and regret.
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If only, if only, if only, if only I would have been obedient to the gospel.
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If only I would have trusted Jesus in this area.
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If only I didn't insist on getting my own way.
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That is always the story of regret.
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God help us so many times we're just like, "You know what Jesus, I do love you, but I'm just so into nets right now.
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I'm just really into nets, and nets are kind of my thing right now, and the disciples got it." It just says they left their nets, they left their Father, they dropped everything.
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Following Jesus means you're going to have to leave some things behind.
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You know what that is for you.
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Finally, okay, it says, "Immediately they left their nets and followed Him." Number three, write this down, and you'll understand why in a second.
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Be in the way.
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Capitalize the word "way." Be in the way.
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This is important.
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I'm not saying get in the way.
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Like, yeah, Jesus wants to do something, but I'm like getting in His way.
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Be in the way.
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You know there are two different words for the word "follow" in this passage.
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Did you know that?
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I didn't know that.
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I'll be honest with you, I learned something this week.
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While you're doing what you're doing throughout the week, this is the stuff that I'm discovering.
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There are actually two different words for "follow" in this passage.
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And sometimes we just, reading the Bible in English, certainly we get what God's communicating to us, but sometimes we get a much deeper sense of what's happening when we do a little homework, and that's why I want to share this with you.
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But verse 17, "Jesus said, 'Follow Me.'" Now that word in the Greek, "follow," literally means "pursue," literally.
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literally pursue, like you're going after someone, like you're chasing someone.
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That's what that word means.
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Jesus shows up and basically says, "Walk behind me." Interestingly, though, in verse 18 it says, "They left their nets and they followed Him," but that's a different word in the Greek.
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And what that word is literally means, "to be in the same way." You know, back in Jesus' day, there were people that that was their job.
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They were called followers.
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It was actually a title.
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"Hi, what do you do for a living?" "Hi, I'm a truck driver." "Hi, I'm a chef." "Hi, I'm a veterinarian." There were people that their job, like, "Hi, what do you do?" "I'm a follower." What that meant was they attached themselves to a rabbi.
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And they're like, "Yeah, I base my… what do you do for a living?" "I follow this guy around and learn from him.
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That's what I do." And that's the sense in which this word is used.
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Jesus says, "Walk behind me," and it says they left… immediately they left their things and they were found to be in the same way of Jesus.
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Earlier we said gospel means there's good news, this king's bringing in a new era.
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Like, "Yeah, pastor, you said that a lot the last couple of weeks.
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What does that mean?" Here's what it means.
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This new era is an entire new way of life.
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Like, "What do you mean by that?" Here's what I mean by that.
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There's the world's way of doing things.
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There's the law's way of doing things.
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Jesus said, "Now," what?
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There's my way of doing things.
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And this is what it means to follow Jesus.
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This is what it means to be found in the same way of Jesus.
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You're like, "Can you give me some examples?
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I would love to." What does the world tell you to do with your enemies?
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What does the world say?
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Hate your enemies, right?
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Get even.
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I don't get mad, I get even.
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Revenge is a dish best served cold, right?
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And that's what the world says.
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says, "Don't let anybody take advantage of you." And Jesus says, "I'm here to usher in a new era." And what does Jesus say to do with your enemies?
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"You have heard that it was said, but I say to you, love your enemies.
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Pray for those who persecute you." Do you see how this is a whole radical new way of living?
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This is the new era that Jesus Christ has brought in.
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What does the world say about position or power?
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You got to look out for number one, right?
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You got to look out for number one.
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You got to exalt yourself.
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You got to put people in their place.
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You got to throw your weight around.
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You've got to let people know who's boss.
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You've got to know who the pack leader is.
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That's the world's way.
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Then Jesus says, "But I say unto you," what?
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"The greatest among you shall be your servant." This is a completely radical, different way of living.
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This king is bringing in a new era unlike anything that anybody's ever dreamed of.
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What does the world say when someone wrongs you?
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Don't forgive.
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Don't forgive.
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Hatred.
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Jesus says, "But I say to you," not seven times, seventy times seven.
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Jesus says, "You forgive until you lose count." You forgive because you've been forgiven.
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This is the new era.
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You're like, "Yeah, this new era, this new way of living seems awfully hard." And you're right.
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That's why we need Him to make us become what He wants us to be.
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You can't live this new way of living in your own strength.
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That's why He says, "I will make you.
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I will make you." Our worship team would make their way forward.
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We're going to close.
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And right now you're saying, "Okay, follow Jesus." Got it.
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What's the next step?
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What's the next step?
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There is no step two.
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There is no step two.
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Your priority is to follow Jesus Christ and allow Him to make you what He wants you to be.
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Somehow, and I've been so guilty of this, if I can confess before you, somehow we get a few miles down the road, we go a few laps around the block, and we start to say things like, "You know what?
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I've got to be a good leader.
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I've got to go to this seminar, this conference, this workshop.
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I've got to read this latest book or manual about being a better me.
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You know, I've got to improve my people skills.
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I gotta try harder.
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I don't have the right friends.
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I need to learn how to win friends and influence people, and I need to be this celebrity pastor or the veterinarian of the year, or I need to, I need to.
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Now, what you need to do is to go back to the original call and the original promise.
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Right now, drop everything, follow Jesus, and let Him make you into what He wants you to be.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Mark 1:14-20
Is it possible to receive salvation without repentance? How would you describe repentance to someone? (Mark 1:14-15)
What does it mean to “follow Jesus”? (Mark 1:17-18)
Note: Remember the word “follow” in Mk 1:18 means “to be found in the same way”. What does that mean?
Breakout Questions:
Is there anything in your life right now that is inhibiting your walk with Jesus? That is, “I believe I would be following Jesus better if I stopped ______________________.” What “net” do you need to drop? (Mark 1:18)
Pray for one another.