Following Jesus

Amidst the hundreds of questions which constantly burn in my mind, one has been become increasingly pesky to me. Though I don't want to write simply for writing's sake, I do want to take some time to examine a concept which Jesus hints at in the form of a command. It's littered all over the New Testament, and though it's only two words, it's an extremely rich, complex command. It is the command that Jesus utters to some fishermen on a boat, among others, and it is this: "Follow Me."

Jesus uttered this command to a good number of people, and, if he had uttered it to me, I'd picture my response to be something like, "Follow You, a first-Century Jewish peasant in a small Jewish town controlled by Imperial Rome? You trying to be funny?" But, amazingly, this is not the response of most of the ones Jesus uttered this command to. Their response continues to perplex me, and it should perplex every person who reads it.

Matthew 4:18-22

"While 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.' 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 he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him."

What?! This Jewish peasant just walked up to other Jewish peasants and said, "Follow me", and they followed him? Is that not crazy? Not only did they follow him, "they left their nets." The fisherman's net was his livelihood, their sustenance, what they depended on to survive. And they left them. They left their job to follow Jesus. Now, I want to avoid using the word "radical", simply because Platt has stolen that word and made it unusable in normal conversation. (I mean, think about it. If I say the word "radical" to a crowd full of evangelicals, they're going to respond with something like, "I read that book, and it was so good! You gotta get radical with your faith!" I can't use that word.) But, the action which Matthew says they take is, in a word, stark. It slaps you in the face and says, "Yeah, I just did that." What's even crazier is the response of the next two men Jesus calls, James and John. They didn't just leave their nets...they left their dad. "Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him." They stepped it up, leaving their job AND their family. Whoa. And this is what Jesus bids us to come and do in a conversation with his disciples (more like a speech to his disciples).

Matthew 16:24

"Then Jesus told his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.' "

If anyone wants to come after him (Greek word here translated as "after" is opiso, meaning "after, behind"), this is what it looks like. If anyone wants to come after, or behind, Jesus, these three things are the natural outgrowths of that "coming": denial of self, taking up one's cross, and following Him.

So, if I want to follow Jesus like the disciples did, then I have to leave my job and my family? Well, a couple of points to combat this. The first is that these men were literally and physically following Jesus wherever he went. He was theirs, and they were His. It would have been equally ridiculous of them if they had said to Jesus, "We'll follow You with our hearts, but we want to keep our jobs and stay with our families." They saw Jesus, and the natural response to his call was not a half-hearted, keep-everything-we-have-but-give-you-our-heart kind of following.

The second point is that it was considered an honor in the 1st century for a Jewish rabbi to give a young boy the same command as Jesus gave to these men. When a rabbi told a boy to "follow him", the boy would do it with eager abandonment of self, and sacrifice of self to that rabbi. It was both an honor and a privilege for the young boy who'd been called to discipleship under the rabbi. So, for these men, it was the norm to come under a rabbi, a teacher of the Scriptures, especially when that teacher expresses his desire for you to come under him by commanding you to follow him.

However, we do live in a different context, a different culture, a different "horizon" if you will. Now, at some point, being a follower/disciple of Christ does lead to some form of sacrifice. If nothing else, following Christ is sacrificial in that we are called to sacrifice the old self and, as Paul described, "put off the old self with its practices". This is sacrificial for us because, frankly, we want our old self to stay with us. We want to feed it crumbs under the table, we want to hide it and let it grow and fester like a scab on otherwise good-looking skin. So, if we don't sacrifice anything else, we sacrifice both our old self and our desire to let our old self live to GOD every moment we breathe.

But, the point which I'd like to make at the outset is that following Christ does not mean practicing ascetism, leaving our families, and quitting our jobs. The way we follow Christ is a different way than the 1st century, but it is just as effective. Instead of quitting our jobs, we attach a higher, more meaningful purpose to them, that purpose being the glorification of GOD through the dedication we show to our jobs, and another purpose being the proclamation of the Gospel in the workplace. Since we don't have the physical manifestation of Jesus, we don't follow him physically; we follow him spiritually.

Now, more often than not this spiritual kind of following should lead to a physical manifestation of said following. When we give ourselves up to GOD and his purposes, it leads to us both physically and spiritually showing the fruits of those purposes which are now both GOD's and ours. We proclaim the Gospel physically with our mouths, and its hearers respond to it spiritually and physically. (Am I using those two words too much? If you can identify what those two words are without me telling them to you, then I probably am; shame shame Patrick...shame shame.)

So, instead of us following Christ by practicing a rigorous ascetism, leaving everything behind and traipsing about the world after a Jewish peasant-turned-rabbi-turned-rebel, we give our lives to Him and have Him do in us what He wants to do. If He wants us to leave our jobs, our families and our friends to follow Him, then that is exactly what we do. If He wants us to invest in our co-workers, our families, and our friends, then that is what we do. What's important now for the Christian as it relates to following Jesus is what he/she does with the things he/she has, not getting rid of them. Rather, we give them a new purpose, a new goal, a new mission, and in that way we do sacrifice them/give them up to GOD, for His uses...not ours.

Christian, you are called to give up everything you have to follow Christ. But what we Christians must realize is that there are many different ways to "give something up" to GOD. You can sell it to someone else, or you can give it new meaning by giving it a spiritual purpose. Either is effective, and either is acceptable.

Let's look at one more story that, in my judgment, illustrates this truth well.

Luke 18:18-23

"And a ruler asked him, 'Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' And Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and mother.' And he said, 'All these I have kept from my youth.' When Jesus heard this, he said to him, 'One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.' But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich."

Though this story (along with the rest of the Bible) is incredibly rich and dense with truth, there's just one thing that I want to point out about it. This ruler is pretty confident in himself after Christ gives him some commands from Exodus 20 in response to the original question, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" And he shows it by his confident statement, "all these I have kept from my youth." But (and I may be wrong), the rich ruler seems to say it with a tinge of expectancy. It's as if he's saying, "I've done all that stuff since I was a boy. So that's it?" He knows that this isn't all he has to do; it's not that easy for anybody. Then Jesus levels him with "Sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." This statement makes the man increasingly sorrowful, "for he was extremely rich." But money isn't the problem here; it's the fact that he goes away sad about the fact that he has to sell his stuff. That's the problem. Jesus, after hearing the man's statement of his own ability, strikes at the throne of the man's heart with the "sell all you have" command. The man's wealth was the crown jewel of his heart, the thing the man was most attached to, and Jesus tells him to get rid of it...and then follow Him.

So, what's important is not the stuff we have, but our attachment to this stuff. Money is an inanimate object, and by definition it can neither be good or bad in and of itself. It can be used for good or bad, but it itself is not good or bad. Christ doesn't arbitrarily call the man to just get rid of all his stuff; he tells the man "to distribute it to the poor", to use it for a good thing instead of hoarding it...but the man couldn't do it. He was too closely attached to the things he had; they were on the throne of his heart, the seat of his affections. If women had been on the throne of the man's heart, I'm certain that Jesus would've told him to give up his fornicating ways and stay faithful to one woman in covenant marriage...and follow Him. If drunkenness was the man's vice, the thing which the man loved so much, I'm certain that Jesus would've told him to give up the wine and get sober...and follow Him.

Christian, who/what is on the throne of your heart? What do you care about most? What do you think about most? If the answer to these questions is GOD, then you are following Jesus. If it is not, then pray that GOD would do a work in you, and when you get to the point when GOD is all you want, all you need, all you desire, then you, my friend, are following Christ. Follow him.

In Christ and His Love,

Patrick

Salvation's Joy

It has been a while since I've written, partly because I feel like I haven't had much to say. I spent much of my teenage and early adult years writing notes, hopefully under the inspiration of the Spirit, but probably, and sadly, under the inspiration of my prideful, self-seeking, arrogant heart. I spent my time proclaiming truth that I was not willing to apply to my own life. It was truth which I understood, not truth that I knew enough that I could allow it to work on me. The work that GOD desires to do in my life, and in yours, is painful; it's as if he's cutting chunks of fatty flesh off of my heart, refining it, molding it, shaping it into the kind of heart that glorifies him, and this process hurts. Paul calls it sanctification, the process by which we are made more and more like our Maker. What makes this process so painful is the dichotomy between GOD and sin; the two are mutually exclusive, and if sanctification is simply the process of becoming more like GOD, that requires the destruction of any sin in my heart. The pain is there because this sin is so deeply entrenched in my heart that it takes the bulldozer we call GOD to remove it. The sin in my heart is like a series of poisoned roots connected to a tree. The tree relies on the roots, and they feed him; but the very act of feeding, thought it may bring temporary, fleeting life, actually acts as an agent of death, killing the very thing it feeds by its feeding. This is what sin is like. When we allow ourselves to become rooted in sin, it may give us temporary gratification of fleshly desires; but in that temporary gratification it quietly injects poison into our souls in an attempt to kill any life in it. This is why Jesus said in the tenth chapter of John, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." The life Christ gives to us by his death is abundant life, life full of joy; this abundant life is not a life full of the temporary goods that this world continually offers us. This abundant life is the ability to walk with GOD, to have the veil in our hearts ripped as the veil in the temple was ripped, so that we can have a continual, daily relationship with the highest good, the most eternal good, our GOD. As Piper says merely by the title of one of his works, GOD is the Gospel. The ability we have to walk in close proximity/relationship with the Maker of the universe is the good news at the end of this love story we call the Gospel. It is good that through Christ we have forgiveness of sins; it is good that through Christ we are saved from eternal damnation and torment; it is good that through Christ we are continually being made new. However, what is the most good out of all these is that GOD is at the heart of the Gospel, and that relationship with Him is now possible, not in the way that the Law offered, but in the way that Christ offers through the New Covenant ushered in by his work on the cross. That is truly good news, and without that all the other pieces of good news are worthless. We must return to this truth if we are to be called Christians. Communion with GOD is the highest good which the Bible offers, and all else pales in comparison. He is the abundant life which Christ offers to us.

That is a tangent we will return to later. However, the point on which I aim to write is simple. In Psalm 51, David is found in prayer to GOD, and this prayer is abundantly full of truth as it relates to what salvation is, what repentance is, and how all this relates back to the relationship between a holy, perfect GOD and sinful, imperfect man. A statement is found in Psalm 51 which has gnawed at my heart and mind since it came into view. To properly handle it, we must look at the situation in which David pens this prayer. It is written shortly after Nathan rebukes David in 2 Samuel 12 for sleeping with a married woman and sending the same woman's husband to the frontlines of battle, essentially sentencing him to death. Nathan comes to him and rebukes him, and after his rebuke David says in verse 13 "I have sinned against the LORD." Then Nathan says to him in the same verse, "The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die." However, the child which came from the affair did die, and it is somewhere during this time that Psalm 51 was written. So, David finds himself in an incomprehensibly emotional state; he has sinned against the LORD, and the LORD has punished him greatly by taking his child away from him. I aim to focus on one of the eighteen imperatives which David asks of GOD, one of the eighteen actions which David begs GOD to take, for it is my humble estimation that it will impact you as a nuclear bomb impacts the earth. In verse 12 David asks GOD to "restore to me to the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit." What is important to note at the outset about this thing which David asks GOD to do, the restoration of the joy of salvation, is that it is GOD's salvation in David which David longs to recall, and in this recollection he is hoping to find the joy that it brings. Here, David is remembering specific times in his life when GOD has delivered him from enemies like Saul, Absalom, and Goliath. This is not something which has not happened yet; David is recalling the times in his life when GOD has delivered him from very real, very frightening people and the tense, terrifying situations which they brought with them. This is important for us to know, for we cannot recall situations where GOD has delivered us if they do not exist. In order for GOD to restore to us the joy of His salvation, we must have been saved from something. This can either be some physical, earthly situation where GOD stepped in and stamped his name on the problem, destroying it. However, for most of us who consider ourselves Christ-followers, the salvation which we must remember is the salvation from our spiritual destruction which we heaped on ourselves by our sin. We recall the time when GOD called us to repentance, to a continuous walk with Him, and we are overjoyed when we remember the price which GOD paid, His Son, His Beloved. This is the situation most of us Christ-followers find ourselves in when we recall GOD's acts of salvation in us. For David, however, this distinction between physical and spiritual salvation did not exist, so it should not exist for us either. When David was delivered from the hand of Saul, that act of deliverance is as much spiritual as it is physical; there is no distinction to make. This is the same way in which we are delivered by the blood of Christ; the salvation which Christ brings to us is just as much physical as it is spiritual, for by that salvation the process of sanctification begins, and it begins in our physical selves. In the Hebrew mind, there is no disconnect between the physical and spiritual sides of one human being; they are two sides of the same coin, the person, and it is in this view in which the story of GOD's salvation in Christ is cast.

So, there is this aspect to the joy of GOD's salvation in us, this remembrance of past instances in which GOD delivered us from the sin which so easily ensnares us, as Paul wrote. However, this is only part of what David is speaking of when he speaks of the joy of GOD's salvation. Remember, David has just committed sin, not against Bathsheba, not against Uriah, but against the LORD (Ps. 51:4). This sin is akin to David replacing the torn veil in his heart with a new veil, so as to sever any relational tie which he has with GOD. So, before GOD can do anything else in David, this veil must be ripped from top to bottom, and the door of David's heart must be open to GOD, for he wants to come in and do major work in it. This is why the first half of Psalm 51 consists of David asking GOD to do something about the sin which resides in his heart, the sin which David has fed, clothed, and given a roof to live under. This is fundamental to GOD's working in us. Before he does anything else in our hearts, he removes the sin and rips the veil of our hearts, giving him full access to our deepest desires, our deepest fears, our deepest motivations, our deepest wants, our deepest sin. This full access which GOD has in us is scary, for it is a scary business to be that vulnerable to someone, especially to the GOD of the universe who vehemently hates sin. This is why the promise of GOD, that he "will not leave you nor forsake you" is so comforting, especially when wrapped in this blanket. It is a promise that in spite of the fact that our very hearts are filthy, stained with the nastiest dirt called sin, he will remain in it. However, this is also a promise that, since he will remain in our hearts, he will continually be working holiness in us. It is a promise that he will never leave us, and this remaining with us requires that he work on us.

So, the second aspect to GOD's restoring of his salvation's joy in us is the present tense aspect. If we Christ-followers are becoming more and more like GOD through sanctification, this means that GOD must continually deliver us from sin, temptation, and failure. This is part of sanctification, this deliverance from none other than ourselves. It is as if David is asking GOD not to just remind him of the times in which he has delivered him, but to keep delivering him, to keep saving him from the dominion of sin. This is an invitation from David to GOD, after the veil of sin has been ripped in David's heart, to keep purifying him, to keep purging him with hyssop as he begs in v.7. This is a beautiful truth which we must know and not simply comprehend. For GOD to restore the joy in his salvation in us, he must not only remind us of what he has done in the past, but he must do the same for us in the present. For, if you O Christian are like me, you fail and sin in your life, and the battle between your spiritual desire to be holy and your fleshly desire to be a sinner is ever-raging in your soul. We cannot fight this battle on our own if we expect to find victory; we must allow GOD to deliver us from the fight and allow him to fight for us. This fight is as internal as it gets; it is the battle the two sides of the same coin, the spiritual desire in us and the fleshly desire, which is also in us.

In the interest of brevity (a quality which seems to elude me), let me wrap this together by getting at the heart of what I wanted to communicate to you. If you are a Christ-follower; if you have repented of your sin and have given your life over to Christ based on what he did on the cross for you, and if you have been credited with the righteousness which Christ possessed as he bled and died on that wretched, beautiful instrument of torture...there ought to be some amount of joy in your life. It may not have to display itself by a continuous smile coloring your face, or a generally giddy temperament in your life; but, there should be some evidence of this joy in your life regardless. I constantly see so many Christians, people who have turned from their sins and given their lives to Christ, who show me no joy in their lives, in their worship (which is their lifestlye), and in their character. It is as if they have left the Gospel and the joy which it brings and moved on to deeper, smarter, more intelligent truths about GOD. My reply to this thinking is simply this: the Gospel is the deepest, smartest, most intelligent truth which the Bible offers to us. You can go as far as you want to in the search for smart truth, and you will not leave the Gospel. The love by which GOD sent his Son into the earth to live a perfect life & die a death which no man wants to die will boggle your mind every time you consider it, and you will never outsmart it. You will never go deeper into truth than the Gospel; it is the fundamental truth of the Bible, that GOD has made a way for you to return to him and all he has to offer, that "all" being himself. Let the salvation which GOD has wrought in your life bring you immeasurable joy. Let this joy then lead you to a deeper, more passionate pursuit of GOD, and I assure you that you will get the desires of your heart...only if the desires of your heart remain subsumed in the desire which your remade, renewed heart has, that desire being more of GOD and deeper, more intimate relationship with him. This is the Gospel, that GOD is called Immanuel, "GOD with us." Live in that, rest in that, and allow that truth to penetrate into every part of your life.

In Christ and His Love,

Patrick Goode