2.1 Follow Jesus

It all starts right here, following Jesus. And following Jesus, it's both a moment and an ongoing journey. We're constantly asking, is God first in my identity, devotion, and obedience to him and his ways? That following Jesus, it's about full surrender to him, that we make him the Lord of our lives, meaning he calls the shots, that we model our lives after Jesus. His way's the best way, which I don't know about you, but that goes against everything that comes naturally to me. What's natural to me is my way or the highway, but that thinking makes me the Lord of my own life. Making Jesus Lord means we're saying yes to following his ways over our own. In Matthew 4, verses 18 through 22, it says, while walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon and Andrew, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he, Jesus, said to them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Immediately, they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in the boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets. And Jesus called to them, and immediately, they left the boat and their father and followed him. In Luke 9, verse 23, it says, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself

and take up his cross daily and follow me. Few verses later, what does it profit a man to gain the world but lose his soul? So right here, Jesus called, they answered immediately. And when they answered, notice they first got new identities, from fishermen to fishers of men. And then in Luke, we see that following Jesus is about picking up our cross daily, meaning following is denying ourselves. Luke says, what good is gaining everything the world has to offer if we lose our souls? Culture, our world, it tells us to get all that we can, that life is all about me and my happiness. Jesus tells us that we deny ourselves and follow him and his ways. And following him and his ways, it isn't about rules, it's about relationship. So then, how do we do that? How do we follow Jesus and enter into this relationship with him? Well, first, it starts with surrender, with salvation. Romans 10, verse nine says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. You make him Lord. You accept what he did on the cross was a gift given freely for you, not based on how good or bad you are,

but based on the goodness and the grace of Christ. That is the gospel. Then, the follow-up to salvation is baptism. Baptism is going public with your faith, making the decision to follow Jesus. It's very personal, but it's not meant to stay private. And baptism is a public declaration that you are a believer, a follower of Christ. This is a physical symbol of the death, burial, and resurrection, that Jesus set this precedent during his time on earth and calls us to do the same. From there, our following Jesus, it's a lifelong journey of becoming more like Christ, turning from ourselves daily, like it says in Luke, and turning towards Christ, that we would live our lives like Christ if he were the ones living our lives, learning scripture, letting Christ shape our priorities, decisions, our values. Again, this is a lifelong process of surrendering things that we put above God. Right here at the beginning, following Jesus starts with accepting the free gift of salvation. Take that next step in baptism, and then daily take up our cross as we become more like Christ over the course of our lives and follow Jesus.