Follow - week 1

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The Way – week one: initiation/invitation“Follow Me”PBC February 3rd  Act One: Luke and The Way Hello everyone, I have a friend that goes way back in my life, to times before I was a Christian, before I went to church. In many ways our stories are the reversal of one another. He grew up in church and something happened within that church – I don’t know what – but his family left. He was young at this point, probably no more than 11 or 12. Whereas I on the other hand, started going to church when I was 16, and well… I’ve never left. I became a Christian at 16 because I was astounded by how different Jesus was to common, and my, perception of him, particularly how he connected with people that were unlike him. It was astounding to me how much Jesus broke the mould and caused a stir. I could see that following Jesus was not about becoming less of a person but becoming more. I was astounded that Jesus told me how to know God as father, not our earthly fathers but our perfect heavenly father. But my friend doesn’t have a faith. He had something as a child but after leaving church that soon disappeared which means that we have interesting conversations now. It’s often after he’s had a few drinks – maybe you’ve got friends like that – they seem to open up a little, something deep inside of them, after drinks. And my friend has no concept of God as father. God is a distant, mysterious, cosmic God. When we talk about church and I invite him along, I can see a desire in his eyes that he’d really like to, but he gets stumped on this one thing. And it is often phrased something like this: ‘God doesn’t like me.’ Maybe God loves me because he’s supposed to love everybody but he probably doesn’t like me. You know the things I do and the life I lead, well, I’d have to change all those and I couldn’t come to church until I did and I’d be sitting there and I’d feel like everyone would be looking at me and well, God wouldn’t like me. I’d be a hypocrite. God doesn’t like me. Now I don’t know whether you relate to that or whether you know someone who thinks similarly, but one of the most fascinating things that you discover when you start reading the gospels, that is the stories of Jesus (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) is that people that were very unlike Jesus, liked Jesus. And the more shocking thing is that Jesus liked people that were nothing like him. So like my friend many people have concluded, and often churches have accidentally given that impression that church is for church people, the church is for people who all connected to Jesus and God in a super-spiritual way and if you’re not a church person or religious person the church doesn’t have anything for you. But when you read the story of Jesus it’s a completely different story; what I discovered at 16 and I’ve been seeing ever since is that the people that were nothing like Jesus, liked Jesus. And Jesus liked the people that were nothing like him. Now it’s a surprise to many people, but it shouldn’t be a surprise because its one of the reasons Jesus came, to explain God in such a way so that people could realise they could have a personal connection with him. He showed up in a very religious system that was just a system and a system and a system, that caused people to feel very far away from God. And one of the things he came to do, and these are his words, is to explain God or explain the father. Why? Because he wanted people to know that as a result of what he was about to do, you and I could have a personal connection with God, not through a religious system or church but through him. And this was a brand-new concept to the world. Jesus spoke time and time again about good news, good news of the Kingdom of God.
  • The KOG is at hand, its coming, its here…
  • Many Christians reduce what Jesus came to do to be just about helping us to get to heaven when we die, but Jesus’ good news was about the KOG, which is this: life in God’s presence and power.
  • Jesus came to show us, open up the way for us to know life in God’s loving presence and power, as our heavenly Father
  • And Jesus wanted people to know who felt a million miles away from God, and there were many in his time who did, and there are many today who do, like my friend, that in His person the Kingdom of God has come to Earth, it’s available to anybody who wants to come in.
 For those of you who are unsure about what this term “Kingdom of God” means, it’s simply this - it is the range of God’s effective will.
  • Jesus taught us to pray, ‘Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.’
  • It is wherever God’s will is done, the sphere in which everything that happens meets with God’s approval and delight, where everything is precisely the way God wants it to be.
  • It’s where people choose to allow their hearts to be transformed and there is no pride, arrogance.
  • It’s where people constantly look out for anybody who might feel lonely or rejected so they could be celebrated and loved.
  • A society where no one does anything petty or small minded, no gossip, cruelty, no fear – and where watching over all this creativity and goodness as its greatest servant and most joyful inhabitant is this magnificent God and Father of Jesus, who is endlessly celebrated for His infinite love.
  • This, Jesus says, is the KOG and its going on right now – and you can be a part of it.
 And Jesus spent his life showing what that looked like, teaching what it was like, showing how up there could come down here, in your life, in mine. Jesus was saying that when we pray that prayer, when we live that, God’s Kingdom, where what God wants to happen will happen, will break into our lives
  • Oh God, may up there come down here, in my life, into my home, into my family, into my mess, into my street, village, country – into this whole sorry dark world.’
 The question is – do you think that could happen? Do you think God could really do that? That was Jesus’ plan. That was the good news that he proclaimed.
  • That Jesus would form out of ordinary people like you and me, a Spirit-empowered new community that would model for the world a radically different kind of life
  • A people that would align their lives with Jesus and thus with God and his Kingdom.
  • That God’s plan was that the world would be changed one life at a time through people discovering God as father, responding out of freewill to His invitation and being part of this Kingdom of God breaking in.
  • That Jesus would encourage people like my friend and maybe like you that God has an intense desire to relate to you like a father and a son, or a father and a daughter, that he isn’t distant and disliking but close and inviting you to join this movement of a different kind of people living a different kind of life.
 Over the next five weeks we’re going to be looking in the gospel of Luke to see that Jesus calls each one of us, whether we’ve been in church 45 minutes or 45 years, to be part of this Kingdom breaking in all around us, to be part of this movement than can live the Jesus-life and be a part of transforming this world.
  • And Luke has a phrase to explain what this Jesus, Kingdom life is
 [Ever been embarrassed to call yourself a Christian?] In a number of places Luke refers to the community of God’s people, following Jesus, as ‘The Way’.
  • Jesus is our way to God, but at the same time Jesus is God’s way to us.
  • The way we come to God is the same way that God comes to us. God comes to us in Jesus; we come to God in Jesus. It is the same way, the Jesus way.
  • God comes to us in Jesus speaking the words of salvation, healing our infirmities, promising the HS, teaching us how to live in the KOG.
  • On earth, Jesus is the way of faith, obedience and prayer – to God. From heaven, Jesus is the way of God’s revelation, salvation, blessing – to us.
 Luke shows how following Jesus is the way to salvation in its fullest sense God here, God now, God for eternity, and in time that led to calling the Christian community The Way, which eventually came known as the church.
  • From Luke’s perspective, disciples must enter into and stride along that Way in the footsteps of their Master.
 And whether you’ve been in church 45 minutes or 45 years, the invitation we are all given to be part of the Way, that we’re going to be looking at this morning, that is intensely relational.
  • In fact this is term that he used with his first followers, how he got the ball rolling, this was his first invitation to his first followers, and as we read Luke we discover that this is an invitation extended to every single one of you and to every single person that has ever lived to all the generations in all of time.
 If you’ve been in church 45 minutes or 45 years this is an invitation extended to you. The name of this series is The Way, about learning to connect with God the Father through Jesus the Son to live the Jesus-life. If you have a bible I’d love you to follow along with me if you don’t we’ll be bringing them up on the screen. Luke chapter 5:27… This is the story of how Jesus first meets Levi and this is their first interaction, let me tell you why this is so important.
  • If you’re here today and you’d consider yourself a bad person, you really need to listen up because Levi knew he was a bad person, Levi was a bad person.
  • If you’re someone who has disconnected from God because of baggage, a past, lack of belief, God will never listen, you need to listen because that is who Levi was.
  • If you’re a person who has been hurt in the past by a church somewhere, and the thee’s and thou’s and do’s and don’ts, you need to listen because Jesus approaches him and extends one of the most intimate, persuasive invitations anybody could ever have, an invitation extended to every single one of us.
 Listen to these words: Luke 5:27 – ‘After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth.”
  • Now I have to pause there because that is what makes this story so intriguing.
  • In Rome, they sold the right to collect taxes in the different provinces that had been conquered by the Roman Empire, so you as a Roman citizen could buy the privilege to tax people in Jerusalem or Palestine.
  • Somebody who had bought this privilege would go to this province, hire other people from the region to work for you, and you would basically set up a system in order collect money from the people.
  • So somebody had bought the opportunity to tax Israel, and then you would add a surcharge to the taxes and make as much money as you want, and you would hire the locals to work for you.
 Levi was one of those people – there were over a dozen taxes;
  • Bridges, ports, income, property, wine, fruit, bread, just about anything you can imagine the Romans taxes, and the Roman citizens who had the opportunity to tax Palestine would hire Jews to do it.
 Consequently, if you were a Jewish person, hired to work for a Roman tax collector, you were despised of all the despised people.
  • You were a traitor
  • You were a constant reminder that Israel could not control its own destiny
  • You were an outcast from the synagogue
  • You were ceremonially unclean – meaning literally your sin was seen to contaminate others
  • In fact, if you were a hired tax collector, you had a category all to your own – you weren’t even lumped in with the term sinners, meaning all the people considered unclean, bottom of the barrel, bottom of society, worst of the worst, scum of the scum as sinners and tax collectors.
  • Tax collectors were so bad, you didn’t even get lumped in with sinners, you had your own classification; ‘tax collectors.’
 So Levi was a tax collector, and often time they’d sit at their port or bridge, with Roman soldiers behind them to back them – that’s who Levi was, the bad, the bad, the bad. He knew he was bad, his family knew he was bad – everybody knew he was a traitor to his people. Toll-collectors were despised as snoops, corrupt, the social equivalent of pimps and informants. He was enriching himself through the power of Rome, and Jesus walks up to him no doubt with his disciples murmuring to themselves and to Jesus about another, Jewish, tax collector. Here’s what Jesus said, middle of verse 27… “Follow me” Jesus said to him. 'What did you say?' – Jesus let’s back up a second.o       What did you say? You’re not getting Levi to join us?o       John’s saying, ‘No, no…. he ain’t joining us.’o       Time out – let’s have a conversation – listen up. [Walking] ‘I had a legitimate fishing village me and my brothers that left to follow you… we had a reputation, and our father… when our father here’s that you, are you sure.’ ‘If you’re going to talk to this guy tell him what he’s done wrong, give him a list… I’ll talk to him. Do you want us to remind him of what he’s done, what an embarrassment he is to his family, what a traitor he is to his country, do you know the kind of people this sort hangs out with? He’s not an accidental sinner, he’s an on purpose sinner – he makes a living in sin. He has gone public with the fact that he’s abandoned the law, abandoned the synagogue and he couldn’t care less. Are you sure you want to invite him to follow you, because if he follows you he ends up with us, and that’s a little bit of a problem.’ Jesus looks at Levi and says, ‘Here’s what I’d like you to do. It won’t require anything on your part, you won’t need to write anything down… Levi – would you follow me?’
  • I’m not asking you to change anything
  • I’m not asking you to stop doing anything
  • I’m not asking you to give up anything
  • I’m not asking you to rededicate to anything
  • Levi – I’m asking you to do the one thing I know you can do. Would you slide your chair back and stand up… and would you just follow me?
 Listen – this is how it always begins. This is how it was intended to begin.
  • This is the initial invitation that our heavenly father extends to every single one of us every single day, so that we might be a different kind of people bringing in a different kind of world – God’s Kingdom.
 Jesus could have said a lot of things to Levi and be exactly right.
  • He could have said Levi, here’s what you’ve done, done in the past, why you’re no good, not acceptable, here’s how many years you’ve missed making your sacrifices at the altar, he could have dumped the whole load on Levi and Jesus would have been exactly right.
  • But Jesus didn’t come to this earth to be exactly right, he came to this earth to be followed, because in being followed, Jesus would have the opportunity to show us the Father, and we would be able to connect with God, and his Kingdom.
 He could have read Matthew his whole history, he could have buried him in guilt… but he says, ‘Levi – I want you to take one simple step. Will you follow me.’ Today
  • No matter what your church experience has been like, no matter what you’ve done in the past, regardless of what you’ve done, what state your marriage is in, that last conversation with your wife, what you’ve done financially, here’s what we know from this simple exchange
  • There is every single day an invitation to you from a saviour who loves you to take one single baby step in his direction and just follow.
 Whatever you have done, like my friend, that thinks you can’t do that, I assure you you have been trumped by Levi, or many of the other people that have chosen to follow Jesus, perhaps sitting next to you, or somebody sitting on the same row as you. Listen to what happens. V28, ‘and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.’  Now let’s just pause here.
  • If you didn’t know the story and guessed where Jesus had taken Levi after asking him to follow him, where do you think he’d have gone?
  • Let’s have a small group the disciples probably would suggest and let’s tell Levi where he’d have to change, let’s start with the 10 commandments – he’s obviously forgotten the ten commandments.
  • Let’s have a learning session Levi – you need to review some things.
 Where would you guess he might be going? Here’s what is so amazing. V29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, Who – wait a minute – now you’re following him, he’s not following you.
  • Levi threw a party for Jesus and his disciples.
  • And guess who Levi invited to his party, the same people you invite to your parties, people you know will come to your parties, who had such a good time at your party – he invites his friends
  • And Jesus, can you believe this, Jesus went to his house.
He said, ‘Levi – follow me.’ Where are we going? Let’s start at your house The disciples are going, ‘we can’t go there, we have our reputation, what will our parents say, this is all wrong!’
  • This is guy is ceremonially unclean – he’s not even clean enough to go into the outer court of the temple and now we’re going to go to his house?
  • We’re going to be contaminated, his sin is going to get on us.
  • His sin is going to get on us.
 Jesus says we're not just going to go to his house, we're going to have dinner, and have a party. Pause - if that seems weird to you maybe you don't know Jesus.
  • This is exactly the kind of scene that blew me away when I first started looking into who Jesus was.
  • This is exactly the kind of thing I long my friend to know.
  • If this is new to you, perhaps you’ve never heard the full story.
  • Perhaps you’ve been confused by people like me, in a place like this.
 The truth is - even if you're nothing like Jesus, he likes you very much, and he goes in your direction, and he says this to you every day of your life, this invitation - would you follow me?
  • Perhaps first place we'll go is somewhere you're comfortable.
 What happened next?  V29 And a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them.
  • When this story is told in Matthew’s gospel he adds the detail that many tax collectors and sinners were there.
  • ‘Many’ – this is a big party.
 Let’s remind ourselves, these aren't accidental sinners - these are we make a living in sin, in public sinners - we know we're going to hell, try to enjoy life as much as I can until it happens. We know God is angry with us based on what we've heard at church and we don’t care and who cares what happens when this life is over.  They were reminded every day they were living a life displeasing to God – that’s who is at the party. Apparently Jesus is not uncomfortable, even if his disciples might have been, because Jesus liked people who weren’t like him and people unlike Jesus liked him.
  • If there's something in you that is repulsed by the name of Jesus - you don't know him.
  • If there's something in you that you think is repulsive to Jesus that he doesn’t want anything to do with you - you don't know him.
  • If you think that, its because someone told you that, I don’t think you read that, I’m sorry about that.
  • I hope that settles in on you in a very convicting and uncomfortable way.
 Let’s see where the rest of this moment goes. V30 'But the Pharisees "don don don don”
  • Now if you’ve grown up in church or got some church background the Pharisees really tried hard, and some understood and could see who Jesus was and put him together with the law and the OT prophecies, but many missed it – they were so caught up in the law that they got confused 'if he's from God, he should like us - the most righteous people, if he's holy, he should hang out with us holy people, if he’s from God he should like the law-abiders and we’re the law-abiding people.
and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
  • This is great – proving the point that if you’re trying to start a new movement, these are precisely the people you wouldn’t want your photo taken with.
 In other words, they’re confused – if he’s holy, if he’s from God, if he cares about the law, why, how can he be with these law-breaking, God haters? V31 ‘Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick,
  • Let’s just pause there - that could have been offensive, if Matthew overheard that, 'Are you saying we're sick, better than us?'
  • Do you think we’re better than us?
  • Jesus says, ‘Let me tell you why I’m here.’
 Jesus says, 'I'm here for people who in their very hearts of hearts know something is wrong. I'm here for people who look in the mirror and can say nobody knows this but me, there's something wrong.'  'I'm extending this invitation who have a habit and they’ve done everything they can to save themselves from a habit and they need saving, I'm sick, not right.' No body knows but me. 'I'm here for the couple that got married but they can't fix it now, and they'd say in an honest moment - it's sick.'  'My relationship with my children, its sick.' ' My finances is on life-support, I'm sick.' Jesus says I'm not here for people who have it all together, but the sick. Jesus is saying 'my priority is mercy - i.e. I'm more interested in rescue, redemption, people who know something isn't right, than people who think they have nothing to learn. Look at how he closes – this is like Jesus’ mission statement: I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” So what?  Jesus has extended invitation to you me, regardless, whether been in church 45 minutes or 45 years.
  • He doesn’t say change, try harder, do better, pray – no – “follow me.”
  • Do what you can, baby step… would you follow me?
  • This is an invitation to sinners. It fact it is for sinners, because people who think they're fine aren't going to listen anyway, but if there is ever a time  or moment and you look into your heart and you can say 'you know, there’s part of me that’s not correct, part of me not well, part of me in bondage" Jesus says, “I want you to know, you’re who I came for, so you might know God’s Kingdom break into your life, his light, his peace, his salvation… and it begins if you 'follow me.' This is an invitation.
 Now my friend, somewhere he learned that God is for good people, church is for good people, Jesus is for good people, that you need to be good before you can come to God and if things are bad you need to stay away...
  • But many of us here have discovered that Jesus allows us to start following him, baby step, with all our sins, junk, habits... and step, by step... we go His way, The Way, The Way.
  • This is an invitation to sinners - not righteous people.
 This is an invitation to relationship. [Of course I will]
  • If you begin to take baby steps to follow Jesus, do you know what will happen?
  • You will begin to see yourself differently, the world differently and God differently, because that's why Jesus came - to help us see God differently.
  • You know what will happen? You'll begin to change, not because you get a list, but because over time you will fall in love with Jesus, you do crazy things, things you never dreamed... not because 'Thou shalt'.
  • Of course I will! Look what he's done for me! That's why Jesus came to explain the father, because when you see God as he is, 'how could I not?'
 Some of you know what I'm talking about.
  • You've been going to church a few years now and your friends ask 'you still going?'
  • 'I thought it would have worn off by now.’ What they mean is ‘it’ Not relationship, Jesus, but ‘it’.
  • In other words, you did something so bad, felt guilty - balanced back out.
  • They think it is an ‘it’, because someone thinks you've been told to.
  • Instead, and we’ll be seeing this over the coming weeks as we look at how Luke informs us about The Way of Jesus, God’s Kingdom opens up to us, and we make changes not because God will love us more, but we’ll make changes because we’ve discovered God loves us so much.
  [Next few weeks – participate in God’s project…] Luke is concerned again and again about the invitation to all of us to participate in God’s project of changing the world, and over the coming weeks we’re going to learn about some of the practices that define us as God’s community We’ll be looking next week how Luke portrays faith to be an essential aspect of being part of The Way, a follower of Jesus We’ll be looking in a couple of weeks about how repentance, which means to reorient your life around God’s purposes, is an essential aspect of being part of the Way, a follower of Jesus. We’ll be looking in a couple of weeks about how daily following, daily self-denial and daily bearing one’s cross are key to being part of the Way, a follower of Jesus. But this is what I want you to take home with you today.
  • [Change] Jesus invites you to follow him today, because he knows in time you'll be increasingly devoted to him and you'll make changes, not to tick, but because you know he loves you so much.
  • [Follow others] He invites you to follow him because its easy to begin following other things in life, even if we call ourselves Christians
  • [Less judgement] He invites us to follow him because if we all decided to follow, we’d be more able to fully accept those whose lives aren’t ‘right yet’ – which is all of us by the way – and lovingly, graciously, deliberately, Christ-likeness is formed in us.
 Listen - it's not what you're doing but who you're following that God is most interested in.
  • Would you be willing wherever you're from, whatever you're into, like Levi, to push back, stand up and take baby step?
  • If you do, you'll change from inside out, you'll be surprised what God can do.
 [KOG] – If you want to be part of the KOG, different world… you need to be part of The Way… and it begins by…  It's as simple as getting up and saying - I want to follow.   
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