Sermon Notes 7-30-2017

Part 8 following Jesus

Unfollow

Recap!

·      Being a sinner is a prerequisite

·      Not believing is ok

·      You should have questions

Jesus say:

·      Bring your questions to me

·      Bring your unbelief to me

·      And start a relationship with me

Jesus wants you to:

·      Have faith that overwhelms your fears

·      And every day wear:

o   Compassion

o   Kindness

o   Humility

o   Gentleness

o   Patience

o   Forgiveness

o   And love

And there is some fine print in the contract

·      At some point, you will be faced with a difficult decision

·      You will have to deny your wants and follow Jesus

·      It will be personal

·      It will be specific to you

·      And it will be a time of going against the crowd

o   Might be a job

o   Might be a friend that you need to let go of

o   But it will be your decision alone to follow Jesus, and not your natural desires

We learned that Gods hand can’t be forced, and his will can’t be thwarted!

·      No matter what you do

·      No matter how hard you try you can’t change gods mind

·      You can’t force his hand

·      Basically, you can’t get in Gods way

So, repeat after me

God help be a better follower and;

I really want to want what you want, more than I want to want what I want!

And to follow Jesus you have to lead like Jesus

·      That means leveraging your authority, for those under your authority

·      And we all lead something

o   Family

o   Work

o   Church

·      What can I do to help??

  

Intro
Following Jesus results in overwhelming faith, but at times it can also be inconvenient, costly, and even embarrassing. It can cause us to miss opportunities, lose business, or stand out in the crowd when we’d rather t in. Even Jesus’ earliest followers wrestled with this tension. But one of his disciples asked a question that put everything in perspective: “To whom shall I go?”

No matter who you are or how long you have been following Jesus, at some point you will be tempted to un follow him.

·      Life will get hard

·      You are going to be ask to do something you don’t want to do

·      And at that point you will be tempted to unfriend Jesus

So, let me set this up

·      We are in the book of John chapter 6

·      Jesus just did one of his biggest miracles feed the 5 thousand

·      He left the crowds

·      But they followed

·      And they are looking for another miracle

·      And they found him in a temple teaching

·      They begin to push him for another miracle

o   They want more bread

o   They want more stuff

o   They want to make him king

o   And Jesus lays this on them!

He gives them hard truth

John 6:53–55 (NLT)

⁵³So Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you.

⁵⁴But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise that person at the last day.

⁵⁵For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.

·      Now things just get weird

·      Cannibalism, drinking blood

·      A lot of folks get turned off by this

·      They want miracles

·      Jesus wants followers

·      And Jesus gives them some hard teaching to deal with

The crowds start to turn on him

John 6:60 (NLT)

⁶⁰Many of his disciples said, “This is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it?”

·      The crowds started to leave after hearing this

·      The outer circle started to question why he would even say something like this

·      Everyone wanted him to be king

·      And this was not helping

·      He was not PC, he was not catering to the crowds that had started following him

·      And the ones closet to him started to worry about losing the crowds that would help him become king

And the unfollowing started to happen

John 6:61 (NLT)

⁶¹Jesus was aware that his disciples were complaining, so he said to them, “Does this offend you?

·      To many it did

·      And many of the people that had followed him for a long time turned away

John 6:66 (NIV)

⁶⁶From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

·      Many turned back

·      Stopped following

·      He started to ask to much of them

·      He said things they didn’t like

·      They loved the miracles

·      They loved the healing

·      But this was too much

And then the 12 started to doubt too

John 6:67 (NIV)

⁶⁷“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.

·      Even the 12 closest to him started to doubt

·      They wanted king

·      They wanted power

·      And when the crowds started to leave the reason for staying left with them

·      But Jesus ask the hard question, “you don’t want to leave me too, do you”?

It will happen to us all

We will all be tempted to unfollow at some point in our walk with Jesus

·      It will happen in a transition

o   Maybe we are moving

o   Or switching jobs

o   Our family dynamics changes

o   You won’t stop thinking it’s true, just the people around you change

·      We stop following because it’s too hard

·      To inconvenient

·      To embarrassing

·      Or it just doesn’t matter to the people around us

It will happen because of relationships

·      A new boyfriend or girlfriend

·      A new set of friends

Or you’re just going through a tough time

·      Things are hard

·      God is not answering your prayers

·      Life is difficult

·      Someone has failed you or hurt you

·      Maybe even the church has failed you

And right now, Jesus is asking “you’re not thinking about leaving to, are you”?

It will happen to you

·      There will be a time

·      A circumstance

·      A place in your life when you think about unfollowing

·      All 12 disciples who were face to face with Jesus did

·      You will too

  

So, the next time you’re in doubt let this stick in your mind

John 6:68 (NIV)

⁶⁸Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life

·      So, when you’re in doubt, when you’re ready to hit the unfollow button think about this

·      If not Jesus, who?

·      If not him, what?

Peter figured this much out

·      If we don’t follow Jesus, we will follow something

·      And before we bail on Jesus, we must ask ourselves, who or what will we follow?

·      Things might not be what you want

·      Life might be hard

·      But you have to consider the alternative

This is the issues for us all

·      It’s not easy to follow Jesus

·      It’s not convenient to follow Jesus

·      But we have to consider who or what we will follow

Consider this, who else is offering eternal life?

·      Who else offers us a way to pure joy

·      Who else offer you salvation

·      Who else offers you something more than your insignificant life

·      Who else promises you a life so much bigger than this

·      So who could we follow that offers us more than Jesus?  

Once you had the best, all you can take is a step down

John 6:69 (NIV)

⁶⁹We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

·      Peter knew, you know

·      If you have followed Jesus that he is the son of the holy God

·      And how can we ever find anything better to follow?

o   Who will always love us

o   Who will care for us

o   Who will continue to forgive us like Jesus?

·      Anything or anyone we unfollow Jesus for would only be a step down from where we are now

·      Even if life is hard right now

·      Even if we are in transition now

·      Even if people around us don’t believe

·      Jesus is always the better choice