Message, and I know some of you say, well, 73 messages in John
is really not that many when you look at some others I'll bat.
But it's been a lot and a lot of it has been spent talking about what it
looks like for us to follow Jesus.
In fact, the longest subset series that.
The series called Disciple.
What does it look like to be a disciple and what does a
disciple do but follow Jesus?
When we were as a staff together this two weeks ago now at this conference, they
talked a lot about leadership development at the conference, and one of the things
that they talked about there is how to train up the the person that you
want to be able to delegate things to.
The person that you wanna be able to have them do what you have been doing.
And so they, they walked through this process that I thought was
super helpful so that it begin to say to this person, you know what?
I'm gonna do it.
I want you to watch it, and then let's talk about it.
And then from there you go to the step two, which is, you know what?
I'm gonna do the thing and then you're gonna help me do the thing this time.
And then afterwards, Hey, I want, I want us to talk about what we were doing.
And then you get to the next step and you say, you know what?
I'm helping.
You are gonna be the one that's, that's doing the majority of the task
here, and then still afterwards, Hey, let's, let's get together, let's,
let's talk about what that looks like.
And then the, the fourth step there is, you know what, I'm gonna watch,
I'm gonna supervise, now I'm gonna watch, you're gonna do it all.
And then we'll, we'll debrief afterwards.
And then eventually the goal is you get to this place of
saying, okay, now it's your turn.
You're, you're the one, you're in charge.
I'm here.
I still wanna talk, I still wanna debrief, I still wanna follow up, but you're
the one I, I thought that was super helpful and it made this idea of how do
I train somebody up for what I'm doing?
Really relevant and really practical.
But this week I found myself thinking about this as it relates
to this idea of following Jesus.
In some ways, this is what Jesus has done with us in the Gospel of John.
We've been looking at the life of Jesus and the life of the disciples
throughout these 21 chapters, and we've seen the ups and downs of the disciples,
and basically we've been watching as Jesus has been trying to prepare us
for where he's gonna land together in the the end here in chapter 21.
With these two words, follow me.
We've been looking at the disciples and watching what it's been like for them
to have the, the mountaintop moments of, of Peter's confessions, of following
Jesus or the, the, the high points.
And then we've also seen the very bottom points of what it
looks like to follow Jesus, for example, Peter's denials in Christ.
And now we come to the end and Jesus is saying, okay, I'm, I'm leaving now.
It's your turn.
Now it's the, you do and the task at hand here is to follow Jesus.
See this morning whether you are here as a Christian and you've been
a Christian for the the last four or five decades, or you're here this
morning and you're still trying to figure out what do I do with Jesus?
Wherever you're at this morning, I want you to hear that it's
your turn to follow Jesus.
Take your Bibles if you will, John, chapter 21.
I'm gonna do something a little bit different 'cause why not?
We've done a lot different this morning so far.
I'm gonna read the whole text together and.
Says this, uh, truly, truly, I say to you, verse 18, when you were
young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when
you're old, you will stretch out your hands and another will dress you and
carry you where you do not wanna go.
This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.
And after saying this, he said to him, follow me.
Peter turned and saw the disciple who Jesus loved following him, the one
who had been back against Jesus during the last Supper and said to him, Lord,
who is it that is going betray you?
When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, Lord, what about this man?
Jesus said to him, if it's my will that he remain until I come.
What is that to you?
You follow me?
So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple
was not to die yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die.
But if it is my will that you remain until I come.
What is that to you?
This is the disciple.
He's bearing witness about these things and was written things,
and we know that testimony.
Now, there are also many other things that Jesus did where every one of
them to be written, I suppose, that the world itself could not contain
the books that would be written.
So to catch us up, Peter has just had his threefold restoration with Jesus.
Peter, do you love me?
I love you, Peter.
Do you love me?
I love you, Peter.
Do you love me?
I love you.
And Jesus had said, Hey, feed my sheep.
10 my block.
Feed my sheep.
And right on the heels of this, Peter says To, or Jesus says to Peter, Hey Peter.
I have more for you, a as you're gonna be tending my sheep, as you're gonna be
obeying me in this, uh, you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself
and, and go wherever you wanted to, but when you're old, you're gonna
stretch out your hands and someone else is gonna dress you and carry
you where you do not want to go most.
Look at those two verses and agree that this is talking about Peter's death,
and that's what verse 19 says, but specifically a death by crucifixion.
As Jesus says, they're gonna stretch out your hands.
Even the word, they're gonna gge you.
They're gonna dress you.
That word dress is the same word that was used when Peter was in the the boat.
And you'd see Jesus on the, the shore and he had jumped, he had
girded himself up and jumped from the water to swim the shore.
It's a word that can mean gid like a rope.
It can also mean tie.
And so there are some that believe that Jesus is alluding here, there when it says
there were you used to dress yourself, but when you're old, you'll stretch out
your hands in another world dress you.
That were being dressed can also mean tie, meaning this could be the
implication that as the, the, the victim of the crucifixion was tied to
the crossbeam and made to carry his crossbeam out to the place of execution,
that Jesus was alluding to the death that Jesus, that Peter was gonna die.
Uh, being crucifixion.
You may have heard that Peter was actually not crucified
right side up, but upside down.
And that comes from church history.
We are hundred percent sure that Peter died martyr death.
The, the church father's church tradition from the earliest era testifies to
that, that he died under Nero's reign.
That he was a, a martyr.
In other words, that he died for his faith in Jesus.
But this story that he died crucified upside down, began to come to popularity,
and the, the story goes, then he died upside down because he didn't consider
himself worthy to be crucified the same way that Jesus was crucified.
Rather than doing that for fear of bringing shame on that 'cause Jesus,
his savior, had been cr crucified that way that Peter had said
instead, no, crucify me upside down.
I'm not worthy to be crucified the way that my savior is.
That was a story that first emerged about 180 to one 90 AD in the acts of Peter.
Turn the acts of Peter in your Bible.
If you have it, I got a new Bible for you afterwards.
Okay.
Execute is what we call an apocryphal book.
It, it's not a book that's inspired, it's not the, the word of God.
Okay.
And it doesn't mean that everything in there is unreliable.
That's why this took off.
People said, oh, well, it's in the acts of Peter, but we can't be absolutely
sure that that actually happened.
The first church father to testify to this is origin in two 30 ad.
And so if Peter was killed in two, in, in about 60 ad, then we're at
least a hundred if, if not more than that, years after this saying
that he was crucified upside down.
All that to say, uh, we know that he, he died for his fate and that's
what what Jesus is telling Peter.
Jesus is looking at Peter and, and after he's had this great moment with
Peter saying, Hey, Peter, listen, you're gonna feed my, you're gonna tell
my wife you're gonna feed my shoes.
Peter follows this up.
Or Jesus follow this up and says, and, and also Peter, it's gonna cost you.
You're gonna die for your faith.
You're gonna die for this love that you're professing, that you have in me.
And then Jesus says to Peter, right on the heels of that, he says.
Follow.
Hey, Peter.
Uh, your future looks like a, a, a a painful death.
In fact, the word excruciating comes from the Latin word for crucifixion.
Peter, you're gonna die a horrifically painful, awful death for following me.
Follow me.
It's, it's sobering the word.
Follow me, the word for follow there.
Originally meant to just follow, like following the leader, the leader, the
leader, following the leader, right?
But then it came to take on this metaphorical sense of following
in the sense of the, the, the disciple following his master.
And, and that's what Jesus is after here, and that's what Jesus has been after.
Throughout the whole book of John, some of the first words out of
Jesus' mouth, that John records are the words, follow me to fill it.
And the very last words that John records of Jesus in the Book of John
and John chapter 21 are the words.
Follow me to Peter.
See the book of John has been about, yes, us believing that Jesus is the
Christ and not believing in him.
We might have life and life in his name, but it's also been about following
Jesus in that and, and here Jesus wants us to know through his words to Peter,
that sometimes following Jesus doesn't always put us where we want to be.
But nonetheless, we'll call to follow.
For most of us, if not all of us in this room, it's probably not
gonna end in our, for our faith.
Nonetheless follow.
And Jesus sometimes leads us to places we'd rather not go.
Point number one this morning is this.
Follow Jesus wherever he leads, follow Jesus wherever he leads.
Salvation is free.
Sanctification is not.
Salvation is free.
Meaning there is nothing that we bring to the table in God's equation of
what it looks like for us to be saved.
Even the faith that we have to believe in Jesus is my conviction is a gift of God.
Sorry, I read Ephesians 2, 8 9 For by grace, you have been saved through faith,
and this is not of yourselves, but it is a gift of God that no one may boast.
See, I believe the way that God gets the most glory in our salvation
is when we realize we couldn't even bring the faith to the table.
Salvation is free, in other words.
But what salvation does is it launches us into a life of following Jesus.
A life of sanctification and salvation is free, but sanctification
is not See following Jesus costs.
And there's a few ways to think about this.
I, I'd like you to look at Matthew chapter 16 verses 24 through 26, where Jesus has
talked about the cost of following him.
Matthew 1624 it says, then Jesus told us disciples, if anyone would
come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
For whoever would save his life will lose it.
But whoever loses his life, for my sake will find it.
For what will the prophet of man if he gains the whole
world and forfeits his soul?
Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?
And so again, in our context, Jesus has just told Peter, Hey Peter.
Following me is gonna mean you're gonna die following me, but
still I want you to follow me.
Following me is gonna cost you, Peter's gonna cost you everything.
And to some extent, all of us need to embrace that same mindset.
And, and, and to get there, we need to understand a few things.
First, following Jesus means dying to self.
Look at the words that are highlighted on the screen there.
Let him deny himself.
Let him die to himself and take up his cross And follow me, the the
cross is an instrument of execution.
It's not an instrument of adornments.
It's okay for us as the church to wear the cross around our neck so long as
we remember what the cross represents.
So for Jesus to say to his followers, especially in this time when people
were still being crucified, Hey, if you wanna follow me, take up your
instrument of executions daily.
And follow.
Die to yourself daily and follow following Jesus means dying to self again.
Most of us in this room are not gonna realize that literally the
way that that Peter did, but all of us need to realize it spiritually.
And this is anchored to what's called the doctrine of regeneration, which
is what happens when we're saved.
Second Corinthians five 17, the Apostle Paul says, if anyone is
in Christ, he's a new creation.
The old has passed away.
Behold, the new has come.
Or in Galatians two 20, Paul put it this way, he said, I
have been crucified with Christ.
It's no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me and the
life I now live in the flesh.
I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.
Following Jesus means dying to self.
And that's not a once in time moment for us.
Church we're gonna talk about a little, but that's something that we.
In fact, when Luke records this interaction that Matthew's
talking about here, Matthew 16, he, he throws the word in daily.
Let him deny himself and take him his cross daily.
When we come to faith in Christ, the spirit comes and takes up resonance within
us and hangs a shingle out front of our life that says under new management.
But see, there's a lot of us that still remains the vestiges of
the old man that's been crucified with Christ that doesn't like the.
And so every single day we have to decide to follow Jesus.
We have to understand every single day that that we have to die to ourselves.
That part of us that doesn't like the new management has to die
as we submit ourselves to Jesus.
Everything, in other words that you were, is now subject to the ownership of Jesus.
Your dreams, your ambitions, your hopes, your desires, your
plans are all now surrendered to him and his will for your life.
Lemme put it this way, for those of you who remember checkbooks.
Salvation is giving Jesus the checkbook of your life with every check
signed, but everything else blank.
In other words, Jesus gets to decide how to spend your life.
You're giving him that full authority.
You're handing it to him saying, Jesus, every check is signed.
Fill it out however you wanna fill it out.
For those of you two young to remember checks that you never
wanted, a blank check with your signature floating around anywhere.
It because that meant that anyone could fill it in however they wanted to fill
it in with whatever amount they filled it in and the the bank would honor that.
'cause it's got your signature on it, y'all.
When you come to faith in Jesus, you are handing him the blank
checkbook of your life with your name on every check already printed.
You're saying, Jesus, do whatever you want with my life.
In other words, you are dying to sell.
Lord.
You want me to move to be closer to the church?
Okay.
I will.
Lord, you don't want my kids to be so involved in athletics that
it's, it's making it unable for us to be involved in the, the church.
Okay, fine Then, then they won't.
Why?
Because my kids aren't my kids.
They're your kids.
Lord, you want me to take a pay cut and switch jobs so that I
can be a better dad and a better husband and and be more present?
Okay, I will.
You want me to say no to this relationship that I did?
'cause it's been leading me into compromise of my purity
and my integrity before you.
Okay, I will.
That's what it looks like to die daily and to follow Jesus every
single day denying our self.
But again, if we're gonna follow Jesus where he leads, it's also more than this.
It's, it's second as we go back to our 16.
It's realizing that following Jesus means that we have to redefine life.
We have to redefine what life really is.
Jesus says whoever would save his life will lose it.
Whoever loses his life from my sake will find its okay.
If I wanna save my life, I'm gonna lose it, but if I lose it, I'm gonna find it.
We're talking about two different views and perspectives on life in this.
Some of you may know the name Johnny Eon.
When Johnny Erickson title was a young woman.
She was not a quadriplegic as she's now, but when she was a young
woman, she had dreams and ambitions and hopes, and she abused for her
life, and she was following Jesus.
And then she happened to be at a, an event where there was a pool and she decided
to go swimming, and she jumped into the water or she jumped into the lake.
I can't remember which one.
The water was too shallow.
And, and so when she hit, she suffered a, a severe spinal injury
that left her as a a quad lesion.
Listen to what John Sata said in the, the hospital room.
She looks back and, and describes her view 'cause following Jesus has led her
to paralysis and listen to what she says.
She says, I hissed at heaven.
I hissed at heaven saying, God, I can't live like this.
I will not live like this.
Now, I knew that I could not take my life physically, and so I was tempted to end
it emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
I told my mother to pull my bedroom drinks to turn off the
lights and to shut the door.
And there in the darkness, I laid in bed for weeks.
She goes on, she says, behind that closed door, my life, my self
pity literally became suffocated.
She says, I mean, the dark morbid thoughts were worse than my paralysis.
And so somewhere along the line into the dark, I whisper For God, if I cannot
die, then please show me how to live.
She said I was the most evil fainthearted prayer I had ever
offered up, but it's all it took.
If you know the story of Johnny Erickson, you know that from there, God has taken
her and done amazing things with her life, that, that God has used her in
phenomenal ways, but he had to lead her through this battle of not being
content with where God led her, with what followed Jesus had led her into.
So she can get to this place of redefining what life really is.
And that's what her prayer was.
Look, show me how to live.
Some of y'all are in the valley right now, this morning, so frustrated where
Jesus had led you this morning and your prayer needs to be something similar to
Johnny's prayer to say, Lord, show me how to live where you've led me right now.
'cause right now I don't.
I don't see you to be able to see.
Psalm 1611.
Lord, show me the paths of life and your presence is fullness of joy.
Paths of life.
The paths of life, not as the world defines it, but as God defines it.
So follow Jesus wherever he leads is gonna be that we've gotta die ourselves.
Second means that we need to redefine life, and then finally it means
that we've gotta believe that Jesus is worth it, that he's worth it.
In mean In Matthew 1626, what will a prophet of man if he gains the
whole world and forfeits his soul?
Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?
The answer is, well, it's not gonna profit him at all if he gains
the world and forfeits his soul.
Let's do the inverse.
What will it profit a man to gain his soul, even if it means
he has to forfeit the world?
The answer is everything.
'cause we'll have Christ.
So we have to believe that we're gonna follow Jesus wherever he leads.
We have to believe that he's worth.
We gotta die to ourself.
We've gotta redefine life, and we've gotta believe ultimately the
following of Jesus is worth it.
Randy Alcorn has this statement that I, that I've always thought
is, is, is sobering and, and hopeful for the believer.
The sobering for the, the unbeliever.
He says this, for the Christian, this present life is the closest
they will come to hell Christian.
Whatever suffering that you're going through right now, or have been through
the pain that you've gone through.
Is the closest to hell that you will ever be.
The verse of that goes on to say this though, for the
unbeliever, it's the closest to heaven that they will ever come.
Those pleasures that are so sweet, the things that you chase, the joys,
the highs, the everything that you're after that you like Solomon, you,
you grab and realize where did it go?
Vanity of vanities life is
Al Corn is saying that's as close to heaven as you'll ever give without Jesus.
To believe it's worth it following Jesus wherever he believed.
And it says Jesus was inviting Peter to count the cost before
fully committing to decide whether or not it would be worth it.
Hey, Peter, following me is gonna mean you're gonna die.
You're gonna die for following you and not die of old age, warming your bed
at home, surrounded by your loved ones.
You're gonna die a painful, but follow.
Something for all of us to do as well.
In other words, to count the cost of discipleship.
Am I willing to follow Jesus wherever he leads?
If you're a believer, I trust you've already decided that it's worth it, but
from time to time, we need the reminder of why as we follow Jesus wherever he leads.
Look at verse 20 though, and I want you to notice the movement here back in John.
John 21.
Jesus has just told Peter, Peter, follow me.
Which would mean if, if you're gonna follow someone, well,
where do your eyes need to be?
Your eyes need to be on the one that you are following.
And so I think it's intentional here, this scene and how John
describes Jesus just told Peter.
Peter, follow me.
Notice the very next words Peter turned and saw.
In other words, his eyes are not on Jesus, but Peter turns
and he looks somewhere else.
Peter turned and saw the disciple who Jesus loved following him, the
one who would also lean back against him during supper and said, Lord,
who is it that's gonna betray you?
This is John, our author.
And when Peter saw him again, his eyes are not on Jesus, but on John, he
said to Jesus, Lord, what about him?
What about this man?
Jesus said to him, if it is my will that he remain until I come.
What is that to you?
You follow me?
Verse 23 is providing some clarification.
John writing this wanted everybody to know that he wasn't gonna live forever.
So he's like, Hey, look.
The same spread abroad among the brothers, that this disciple was not to die.
That's not what Jesus said.
He just said, if it is my will that he remain until I come.
What is that to you?
So that's just a commentary from John, just so everybody knows that
John didn't sit there and think that he was gonna live forever.
That wasn't Jesus' point.
It wasn't about John.
In other words, it was about Peter.
Jesus is in another act of mercy and grace here with Peter being patient with Peter
because Jesus says, Peter, follow me.
And Peter immediately is like, yeah, but what about this guy over here?
What about her over here?
What about them?
Are you gonna tell them the same thing Jesus.
And Jesus says to Peter, Peter, follow me.
You follow me.
This, this is about you and me right now.
There's a scene in the line, the witch, or not the line, the witch in the wardrobe.
The series, the, the Chronicles of Narnia.
Um, I think this is in the Bueno force where Shasta meets the lion, and
there's an interaction between Shasta and the lion, between Shasta and Alan,
and Alan being the Christ figure.
And Alan says this, Alan says, I was the lion.
And it says open mouth and said nothing.
The voice continued.
I.
Arrogance.
I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead.
I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept.
I was the lion who gave the horse's new strength of fear for the last mile so
that you could reach King loon in time.
I was the lion.
You do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay a child near death so
that it came to shore where a man sat wakeful at midnight to receive you.
Shasta says that it was you who wounded Arvis.
That's when I said it was.
I.
Says, but what for?
Why did you do that in her life?
In other words, why did you hurt her?
Alan says, child, I'm telling you your own story, not hers.
I tell no one any story but his own.
It's the idea of Peter and Jesus.
Peter's like, yeah, but, but what about John?
Okay, what gonna death is John gonna die?
Jesus says, Peter, I'll take care of John.
You follow me?
Jesus repeats that.
Call those two words.
You follow me?
And, and Jesus is done now talking in the gospel of John.
With those last two words, follow me.
I wonder this morning, what's distracting you from following Jesus?
What's impeding your walk with Christ?
What are the obstacles that are causing you to turn and take your eyes off?
Jesus.
We have our own rabbit trails that get us off track from following
Jesus, which we need to forsake in order to return and follow him
whenever two this morning is this.
Follow Jesus without distraction.
Peter was distracted by John, but But what are we distracted by?
What is keeping us?
What's hindering us?
What's holding us back?
What's impeding us?
What's slowing us down from following Jesus?
The way that Jesus wants us to be following
a couple of areas to think of first would be lateral comparisons.
I think we do that a lot in the church.
We look side to side and we gauge how we're doing following Jesus
based on other people around us.
We might look at someone and say, man, why do they have a life that looks so
perfectly put together when look at mine?
We retreat into this mode of self pity, feeling like we, we don't measure up.
This is especially insidious on social media.
Nobody's putting the real life out on social media.
In fact, so much so that they created a brand new social media app called
Be Real to try to get people to stop being fake on social media.
I don't even know how that thing's doing anymore.
I don't know if anybody's still being real.
But my, my wife showed me this week something, this ballerina farm.
Yeah.
Some of y'all ladies out there are not north, south, up, down.
Like, you know what, what?
Like, this lady woke up, she says to make her own pork
shoulder sausage for breakfast.
Like she's grinding the meat, she's milking her cow, she's making a home.
And, and, and so women look at this and they're like,
I'll never measure up to that.
That's okay.
You're all buy great value and love your family.
Well get off.
All that to say, those lot comparisons carry over into our spiritual lives too.
We look at other people and we're like, I don't measure up to that person.
I'm not following Jesus good enough because I'm not following Jesus the
way that they're following Jesus.
Or maybe we do it the opposite.
We look at somebody, we're like, man, I'm, I'm so much more godly than that
person is, but they're getting promoted and work, and I'm getting laid off why.
And all of a sudden, instead of following Jesus in humility, we're following
Jesus in self-righteousness and thrive.
Or we look at somebody and go, man, I discipline my kids well and I do
family devotions all the time with my kids, and yet their kids are way more
well behaved than my kids off of Why?
Why
Ronald comparisons take our eyes off Jesus and put them on everybody around Jesus.
If we begin to measure ourselves as part of what it looks like for us to follow
Jesus based on how other people are following Jesus, then we missed a point.
Our eyes are beyond Jesus serving.
Comparisons too creep into the church, don't they?
I can't believe that person doesn't do more to serve.
I'm inherently better than that person because I'm serving on multiple teams.
My role is more significant than their role.
Well, why did that person get asked to serve INow?
Well, when I wanted to serve INow, it should have been me
and our eyes have gone to the horizontal comparisons again, instead
of being fixed on Jesus, my job to serve Jesus the way that Jesus called
me to serve Jesus, to follow Jesus.
The writer of Hebrews in a familiar text that you probably know well, says, Hey.
Let's lay aside every way you can see which clings so closely.
Let's run with endurance the race that is set before us.
Listen, Christian, you're running your race.
You're not running my race,
you're running your race.
You're not running your spouse's race.
My dad.
You're running your race.
You're not running the blanks race and in your lane.
I did track on accident once in middle school.
I remember enough of it to remember that I had a lane and I was really
good at looking at the backs of everybody else that was running.
I knew who they were because I saw them all in front of me, but I
knew my job was to stay in my lane.
Christian, stay in your lane and realize at the end of your lane is Jesus.
Right?
Over Hebrew says, looking to Jesus, fixing your eyes on Jesus, the author
and perfector of our faith, and for the joy that was step before him.
Endured the cross, despising the shame, and de seated at the
right hand of the throne of God.
Follow Jesus.
Keep your eyes on Jesus.
Listen, if, if God wants that person to have a nicer job, what is that to you?
You follow me?
If, if, if God wants that person to serve in that role instead
of you, what is that to you?
Jesus is saying, you follow me.
If God wants that person to be married with the family, you've always.
What is that to you?
You follow me?
If God wants that person to live in the neighborhood that you've
been I that you would love to live in, what is that to you?
You follow me?
One of the best ways for you to work on following Jesus without distractions is to
focus every day, each day on where you are today and what he's giving you to do here.
Jesus was teaching the disciples to pray.
And you remember when he told 'em about food?
He said, give us this day what our daily bread.
He didn't say, I pray and say, God, give us our daily bread and I'm also, I'd
like you to gimme my, my daily bread tomorrow and I'd like you to gimme
my daily bread in the next week, in the next month, the next five years.
I, I need my daily bread all lined up for me so I know exactly where it is
and what I'm gonna be able to have.
He also didn't say, Hey, come to God and say, Hey God, the daily
bread that you gave me yesterday.
It's kind of sta over there.
I didn't like it.
I don't know where you got that daily bread, but if you could shop somewhere
else, Lord, for my daily bread today.
That'd be great.
Who says, give us this day, our daily
elsewhere?
Jesus said, why are you anxious about tomorrow and today?
He's got enough problems.
A great way to follow Jesus without distraction is just
to say, where am I right now?
What is, what does today have for me?
What am I facing today?
What do I need to be doing today?
When I was at Master Seminary, they would often remind us so many times
it, it became, it developed a complex within us that we're not John MacArthur.
They would look at us and they'd be like, there's only one John
MacArthur, and you're not him.
Some of y'all are out there and going, amen.
That's great.
I'm glad my pastor is not John MacArthur, others of you going, and I, I wish
my pastor, what is John MacArthur?
I'm not, they, they told me enough times.
I'm not.
Um, but they were always followed up with this, and I've always loved this.
They said, grow where your plant.
Don't try to be here.
Follow me.
Following Jesus isn't what it looks like for, for Pastor John
MCC Carpenter to follow Jesus or any other pastor to follow Jesus.
I gotta be Pastor PJ following Jesus.
That's my job.
You follow?
Jesus is what it looks like for you to follow Jesus, for
what Jesus called you to do.
That's left and right, Lord, what about, what about them?
What's their life doing?
What about this person?
What's, what's their life?
What's that to you?
You follow me?
You don't need to know why someone's in a different place from where
you're at in order to make the decision to follow Jesus on a daily
basis, which is where we're going.
Finally, look at verses 24 through 25.
John lands his gospel.
He ends the book with these two verses.
He says, this is the disciple who's bearing witness about these things.
And who's written these things, and we know that his testimony is true.
So in other words, John's saying, Hey, just like he did in the cross
in John 19, he who saw as one witness, his testimony is true.
John 1935.
So here he's saying, again, I'm the one, I'm an eyewitness.
I saw these things.
You can rely on these things.
The things that have written are true.
And says in verse 25, he says, there are also many other things that Jesus
did or every one of them to be written.
I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books.
That would be written.
A lot of people have said, well, that's a hyperbolic statement.
That's an exaggeration.
And, and yeah, sure, okay, but how much of an exaggeration?
Think about this.
The average person for an average adult, the average reading speed is anywhere
from 200 to 250 words per minute.
Okay?
200 to 250 words per minute.
So if you take the slow end of that, that.
At the slower end of that range, a person could still read all four
gospels in just under seven hours.
Okay?
Just under seven hours.
Jesus was on earth for 33 years.
His early ministry alone that we have was three years,
which ama to seven hours of our time in the gospels.
In other words, John didn't write all that he could have written as he's saying.
And maybe if he had written everything, he would've come close to fill out the
word we're talking about the son of God.
But God incarnate, God in the flesh.
A sneeze is noteworthy from the son of God.
And John's just saying, I, I didn't write everything that Jesus did.
So this is now the second time in a handful of verses that John's, I've been
very selective about what I've written.
And if you go back, he said, I, I wrote these things back
to the purpose of the book.
That you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by
believing you might have life in His name.
And now he's saying, I, I've written a select amount of things.
And you can believe these things.
You, you can take these things to the bank.
I'm an eye witness of them.
You can believe that they're true.
And I think John does this because this is where he wants to leave us.
He wants to leave us with one more call in the book to.
Book, what are you gonna do with Jesus and what's Not Stated?
Finally, I mean, it would've been great for John, not that I'm gonna criticize
the Holy Spirit's inspiration here, so I gotta be careful how I try this.
I, I would've loved John just to end the book with a follow.
Jesus.
I've written what I've written, you can trust in it.
Now, follow Jesus.
I, I think that's what's being implied here.
So my final call on us today is, I think as, as John ends the book, he leaves us
with the question, are you gonna do it?
Are you gonna follow Jesus?
I open it by saying, no matter where you're at, sees a believer,
somebody who's been a believer for decades, or somebody who's just
recently come to faith in Jesus.
All of us in this room have an opportunity today to answer the call, to follow Jesus.
And so, third and finally this morning, follow Jesus today.
Follow Jesus today
as we wrap up this study of the Gospel of John after 73 messages in two years.
The question is the same as it was at the beginning.
Will you follow Jesus
again?
Peter's opening words or or Jesus's opening words at the
beginning of the gospel of John, essentially to Philip follow him.
Jesus is concluding words at the end of the Gospel of John to Peter.
Follow me.
I think that's our takeaway this morning.
Follow Jesus.
Will you follow Jesus today?
Many of you in the room have answered the most essential component of that question.
In other words, you have surrendered your life in faith and repentance to
Jesus as your Savior and your Lord.
You said, Jesus, I'm all in with you.
I trust in you for the forgiveness of my sins.
I trust in your resurrection.
For eternal life.
You've made that decision, that transaction where God took your sin
and put it upon Jesus at the cross, and God gave the full righteousness
of Jesus and has transferred it into your account through faith.
That's the beginning moment of following Jesus, but it's not
a once in time following it.
It transcends a moment and becomes something that we
have to do on a daily basis.
That's why Luke in Luke 9 23 says.
It records Jesus saying this, if, if anyone would come after me, let him
deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me daily and follow me.
I, I don't know, but I, I once heard Romans 12 preach that the, the passage
present yourselves as a living sacrifice.
That, that, that was presented and said, you know what?
We have to do that every single day because you know what a living
sacrifice wants to do, don't you?
A living sacrifice wants to crawl down off the altar.
I don't wanna be sacrificed.
And, and, and that's our flesh.
Our flesh is, man, I don't wanna die to myself.
What's the path of least resistance to follow Jesus?
That's a question so many of us often ask on a daily basis.
Jesus, I wanna follow you today.
Just don't make it too uncomfortable for me.
Jesus says, if anyone wants to come after me.
His cross and deny himself daily, y'all, you feel like, man, I feel like every
single day I have to doubt on myself.
Join the club.
That's what following Jesus looks like, y'all, until the Lord kills us or
calls us home, whichever comes first,
and we stand in his presence fully glorified.
And realize once we're all the absence of the presence of sin, until that day
comes, then every single day you're gonna have to fight the old man.
And our default is towards the flesh.
And so if we aren't daily choosing to follow Jesus, if we aren't daily saying,
I'm gonna deny myself, I'm gonna take up my cross and set myself to follow Jesus.
We're not our day praying and pleading, God, me follow you.
I.
We are just asking to drift towards the default, which is our flesh.
Follow Jesus daily.
Every morning you wake up, you face decisions about whether or
not you're going to follow Jesus.
Some of those decisions might be, are you gonna follow Jesus today?
Am I, am I gonna follow Jesus or my lust today?
Am I gonna follow Jesus or am I gonna follow my greed today?
I'm gonna follow Jesus, or, or maybe I'm gonna follow my anger today.
I'm gonna give vent to my simple anger.
I'm at home with my kids and my wife.
Or when I'm on the road,
am I gonna follow Jesus or am I gonna follow my sloth?
I just don't.
I don't feel like it.
I gotta
follow Jesus or my own ambition.
Can I have that checkbook back that I gave you?
I, I, I'd like to fill out some of those checks.
I've got some things I'd like to do with my,
I'm gonna follow Jesus, or am I gonna follow my selfishness?
I'm dying to self, I'm gonna put self on the throne.
I gonna follow Jesus.
Or am I gonna follow my heart
the hardest, deceitful, and wicked what the scripture tells us.
Am I gonna follow Jesus or am I gonna follow my friends?
Am I gonna follow Jesus or am I gonna follow my boss?
Oh, my boss is asking me to do something that I know is gonna
cause me to have to push pause.
I'm following Jesus in order to do that.
Am I gonna follow Jesus or am I gonna follow my desire for comfort?
And Jesus said, don't lead me to the cross.
Can go to the cross.
Just don't lead me to the cross.
I gonna follow Jesus or my desire to please other people.
I gonna follow Jesus or my fear of man,
I gonna follow Jesus or my laziness.
That's not fair.
I use sloppy and laziness in both of those lists, so I'm not, I just realize that.
All that to say, y'all, we, we face decisions every single day.
Are you gonna follow Jesus?
In fact, more than just that is not even just in the morning to, to wake up and
say, I need follow every single Lord.
I need you every minute of the day, every moment of the day.
I need the spirit to carry a louder megaphone than my flesh.
My flesh yells at me.
My flesh screams at beat.
The Spirit speak louder than the flesh to me.
We have to decide moment by moment to follow Jesus.
And you say, man, I don't know how to do that.
I can't do that.
You're exactly right.
You can't do that.
It's only the spirit in you that enables you to do that.
I always go back to an illustration that one of my old pastors gave me.
He said, you've got a war going on.
There's two dogs warring with you, the flesh and the spirit.
You know which one's gonna win the one you feed.
And so you wanna make more decisions to follow Jesus.
Lean into the spirit, feed the spirit to follow Jesus.
Today.
Some of y'all in the room are facing very specific forks in the road, and I
get that questions that God has on you about whether or not you're gonna follow
Jesus, calling you to leave a job that's increasingly requiring you to do things
that are compromising your integrity.
But you know, that's a, a massive step and really there's nothing else out
there for you to leave that to go do
or calling you to break off a relationship that isn't God honoring.
And yet you think to yourself, man, but I'm so far into this relationship, how
could I ever break up with that person?
Or calling you to confess a sin that you've been hiding for years
and you think, yeah, but if I bring that to the lights, what
are other people gonna think about
or calling you to finally knock on that neighbor's door next door to your house
and invite them over for dinner and you think, yeah, but I've lived next
door to them for three years, and the most I've ever done is just wave and
smile at them as I fall into my drive.
Calling you to have that gospel conversation with your
family member, you think?
Yeah, but I already know they hate God.
They're not gonna respond.
They're calling you to give more, calling you to start serving, calling
you to get up earlier and get in the Word of God and, and listen.
The thing about it is we're always gonna have the, the, yeah.
But.
We're always gonna have the, the, the.
Yeah, but, and, and we need to remember the, the, but God
and, and so as, as we're being called to follow him, we need to
be able to say, okay, Lord, I'm gonna follow you and trust you.
I'm gonna trust where you're leading.
Will you follow Jesus today?
Look, church, I believe he's doing this with our church as well.
You may be thinking to yourself, wow, this whole Move to Prosper thing
kind of came together in a hurry.
This seems kind of halter.
I'm with you.
I I, I'm with you on, I had lunch with the corporate offices.
The, the responsive runs charter.
Just to talk about extending our lease here in Frisco, and when I sat down to
lunch with them, they said, Hey, would you consider moving up to Prosper?
There was a church up there, they moved out.
We'd love to have another church in there.
We feel like it'd be a real strategic location for you.
Having no idea that when we were in California praying about coming out
here to plant here, we were praying about planting in Sali and Prosper
and reaching that area because we knew that's where so many people were moving.
I think God is moving us as a church up there saying, Hey,
church, are you gonna follow me?
But it's gonna be more than us literally, physically just following him by
upbringing our church and, and relocating.
The question is gonna be, are we gonna be a faithful church?
A church that's reaching teaching and training?
Are we gonna look in the world around us?
And the fact that may, God's bringing the nations into our neighborhoods.
He's bringing the Muslims and the Hindus and the Buddhists.
He's already got the atheists here
and he's bringing 'em here and saying, I'm, I'm putting you in the
path where there is a ton of growth.
And so the call on us as a church is to say, Hey, uh, in, in, in five
years, are we gonna be running two to three times as big because we're gonna
answer this call as we move north and say we're gonna start reaching people,
we're gonna start seeing baptisms.
We're gonna start hearing people in the, the, the baptismal tanks.
You know what?
See, I used to be a Muslim until I met so and so from, from Compass Bible Church.
You shared the gospel with me.
And now I'm here to, to testify that I pledge my life to Jesus Christ.
And I get excited about seeing that.
I, I, look, I don't wanna be the Church of Ephesus, revelation
two, the Church of Ephesus.
We read that and y'all, I think we would feel super comfortable
in the Church of Ephesus.
But the problem is Jesus says they left their first love AKA, they
stopped following their doctrine was there, their theology was there.
They had the degrees behind the pastor's names.
But you know what?
They, they, they stopped loving me.
They stopped following me.
Listen, I don't want our reputation to be that they're the church.
That's the most doc.
We sound in the area.
I want our reputation to be that, that the people are getting saved and
showing up and, and that church is growing because people love Jesus there.
Look, if we love Jesus and we follow Jesus the way he's calling us to follow
him, the the doctrine and theology that's gonna take care of itself.
My fear is
that we'll be the church's doc showing sound.
The growth that we're seeing, any growth that we're gonna see is just
because people leave one church and come to our church, and that's fine.
That's not why we're doing it here.
So that's a random sidebar on how I feel like God is calling our church
saying, Hey, are you gonna follow me?
Are you gonna follow me?
Will we follow Jesus?
Again, John's gospel began with that call Philip follow me
and John ends with that call.
Peter, follow me.
And then I think he answered the book saying, Hey, I've written all this stuff.
You can believe it.
There's far more I could have written, but I've written these things and now
the ball's in your court, you've got everything that you need to follow.
Jesus.
We're kind of in that moment Now, will you follow?
You're gonna step into a week where it, it is gonna be like this.
You're gonna have a destination which is following Jesus.
You're gonna have a destination, which is, you wanna end up at the end of the week
and, and you've got a couple options here.
You can follow Apple Maps or you can follow Google Maps and the world is
gonna want you to follow Apple Maps.
It's prettier, it's cleaner, it works better with most of us who
are sanctified and have iPhones.
Cheap shot, but I've got the microphone and you don't.
So,
but if you've ever followed Apple Maps, it takes you places you don't want to go.
And you look at the, the, the direction, the address that you plugged in,
you're like, Nope, that's, that's the exact place that I'm supposed to,
that I'm trying to get, but this ain't in y'all that's following the world.
Or you can plug it into Google Maps and it's not as pretty.
They're excelling your information to everybody and telling them where
you drive and all that stuff, but at the end of the day, it's gonna
get you where you need to go.
May it be what you would've chosen from the moment you got in the car, but after
getting to the wrong destination multiple times, you're gonna finally decide, okay,
it's worth it for me to follow this one.
Church.
My prayer, my hope is that we don't have to follow the wrong direction
too long before we get to that place of realizing the world's
not leading me where I want be.
Jesus.
Lemme follow Jesus.
I'm gonna pray and you'll stay seated because we're gonna have a closer this
this morning and the closer this morning is gonna be the song I surrender all,
which I think is just an apt thought for us as we conclude the Gospels of
John saying, is that where we're at?
If you're here and you're going, yeah, I, I'm, I'm there.
I, and maybe you're here this morning, you're saying, I, I haven't made
the first decision to follow Jesus.
This song is, is what the ask is this morning.
When you come to him in faith, it's to surrender everything.
Say, Lord, here's the check.
I
wanna prepare for my sins and put my trust in you as my Lord and Savior.
Know that even if you lead me through the valleys here on Earth,
you're gonna lead me out of the valleys and into your presence.
For others of you this morning, it may be that that kind of recheck, that
checkup to say, okay, how, how have I been doing in following Jesus in my life?
There's something to to consider, to reflect on, to think about,
to say, am I really committed to follow Jesus wherever he leads?
My ready tomorrow, not even tomorrow, the rest of today, to say, Lord, I, I'm
gonna have decisions the rest of today.
You're gonna drive Preston Road on the way home, so I know you're gonna
have to choose to follow Jesus and not your flesh on that drive home.
Say that tongue of cheek, but there's gonna be all kinds of things that are
waiting from the world to trick you up.
Are you gonna follow Jesus daily, momentarily?
Every single thing you've ever seen.
So I'm gonna pray we
surrender.