HOW FAR WILL YOU FOLLOW 

JOHN 6:35, 59-69

          After declaring to the people that He was the bread of life sent down from Heaven, Jesus heard mumbling in the crowd.  For even his disciples felt that what he was teaching was hard to receive and to understand.  Why wouldn’t they struggle with what he was saying?  He was saying things like “But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world (John 6:50-51)."  He was talking to them about eating his flesh.  Now we today know that He did not mean it literally and that in fact what he was saying was ‘that he who was willing to take on as his life’s sustenance the salvation provided for mankind by the death of Christ’, will live forever.  We know that now, but to them this eating his flesh things was a bit hard to swallow.  Because of that verse 66 says “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”  When Jesus was feeding and healing the masses, occasionally stepping on their toes, and making the Pharisees look like idiots, the masses were excited about following him.  However, when the teaching got tough, they quickly gave up and turned from following him.  I want to ask the question this morning “How Far Will You Follow?”   You see it is easy to follow Jesus when your needs are being met, when all seems and feels great, and life seems to be favoring you.  But the question ‘how far will you follow’ relates to what you will do when God is withholding a desire from you, or your needs are not instantly being met, life does not feel great and it appears as if you have no favor.  Under these circumstances, ‘how far will you follow him?’ 

MATTHEW 8:18-22

This young man, seeing all the great things that Jesus had done probably thought it would be great to hang out with this man.  Jesus was very popular.  The masses of people crowded around him everywhere he went desiring to see what he would do next.  He probably thought following Jesus would be a great, fun filled adventure.  Jesus’ reply to the young man, ‘The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has no where to lay his head (Matthew 8:20)’ was intended to help the man see that the road Jesus was traveling was not glamorous and fun filled.  It was a road of complete sacrifice, surrendering everything, even the desire to be liked and to follow family and cultural customs.  Will you follow Jesus to poverty?  The Son of God, creator of the universe had no place to call his own.  Today he would be called homeless.  He had a trade as a carpenter so he could have spent his time earning riches that would provide a comfortable living for him.  But for the sake of the call of God on his life, he chose to be poor.  Will you follow him to poverty?  Or will you be like the rich young ruler of Mark 10:17-22 who desired to followed Jesus but could not give up his possessions in order to do so. 

MARK 10:28-30

          The promise from Jesus is that we will receive 100 times whatever we chose to sacrifice for him and we will receive it in this world.  Note that we will also receive the persecutions or problems that they bring also.  As Christians we must be willing to give up all and follow Christ to poverty recognizing that God can return to us much more. 

Will you follow Christ to rejection and total heart break?

MATTHEW 13:53-58

          Here is Jesus, the Son of God, a great healer and deliverer among the people, being thronged by the masses everywhere else He went, but rejected at home among his own people.  Do you know that the fear of rejection is one of the greatest attacks of the enemy on our well being and rejection itself is one of the hardest disappointments for us to get over?  We suffer with rejection when it comes from someone that we barely know.  But when it comes from someone who we expect to love and accept us it pains us greatly and seems unbearable.  Jesus faced this harsh rejection from his family and friends, his own community.  Notice that when the people were questioning who Jesus was and what authority he had, his brothers and sisters, though they were in Nazareth never came to his defense.  Nothing hurts us more than when our own family will not stand up for us.  Jesus was a man rejected by many.  Are we willing to follow him to rejection that we might do the will of God and so that others might come to know him? 

MATTHEW 27:45-46

          Will you follow him to total heart break?  Verse 46 makes it painfully obvious to me that Jesus was not expecting God to leave him.  Can you imagine the heartbreak of feeling totally abandoned?  David said in Psalms 27:10 “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.” But where do you turn when the father who is forsaking you is God Himself.

          When we start to live for God our friends and our family may not receive our new lifestyle too well.  You may find that people are separating themselves from you faster than you can spend your paycheck.  Or you may find that you are forced to separate yourself from friends because of their life styles and the effect on you witness.  In either case the question then becomes can you leave them behind and follow Jesus to rejection and/or the feeling of total abandonment.  When we make the decision to let them go and follow Jesus, surely it will hurt, but Jesus has promised in Hebrews 13:5 to never leave or forsake us. 

Will you follow Jesus to the masses?

MATTHEW 9:35

          Jesus spent 3 years walking from one city to the next, sometimes with a great number of people following him and sometimes with just those 12 men.  But where ever he went and whatever he did it was with the goal of spreading the gospel in mind.  He did not go all over the world, for during the short time that he was here the mission field appointed to him was the House of Israel.  However He has left word for those of us who say that we will follow him to go into all the world and preach the gospel.  That does not mean that we must all go everywhere, but we must all preach everywhere we go.  There is a mission field for every individual, some distant and some near.  But I guarantee that if you seek God, he will show you your mission field because “the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are but a few.  God is certainly looking for laborers to send into the harvest fields.  Will you follow Jesus to spread the gospel to the masses? 

Will you follow Jesus to the cross?

MATTHEW 16:24

          For Jesus the cross meant death and so it does likewise for us.  His death however was both physical and spiritual.  Though we may experience physical death, the more important death for those who will follow Christ is the death of our will and of our old nature or the flesh.

ROMANS 6:6-8

          Jesus allowed no other desire to enter his will than to do the will of the Father.  In John 4:34 Jesus said “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work.”  If that is truly our desire today, then it can only be accomplished by our choosing to surrender our will to God.  Our cross is where our wills cross with the will of God.  At that time we must allow our will to be crucified.  Our old nature which suggests that we should surrender to our own fleshly desires and do as we desire must be denied.  Each time we deny our flesh we move it closer and closer to starvation which leads to death and a manifestation of the fructification of our old nature as lord of our lives.

EPHESIANS 4:22-24

          Though our old man was crucified with Christ, it does not act dead.  Though our old man has been dethroned as the lord and ruler of our lives, he fights to restore himself to power.  Our new born again spirits are in a constant battle with our old man, what we call the flesh.  Our spirit is constantly directing our soul or our will to stay away from our old lifestyle, our old way of thinking, behaving, and acting.  Our new born again spirit is constantly urging us to redirect our will to follow after that which is righteous and holy.  But in each event we must make a choice to take up our cross by denying our will and our lustful desires and surrender to the will of God.  So the question again is will we follow Christ to the cross with each decision we must make.   

ACTS 1:9-11

          When Jesus had finished all that God had for him to do he ascended back to Heaven and Stephen in Acts 7:56 testified that he saw Jesus standing on the right hand of God.  Jesus told his followers in John 14:1-3 “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.  In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

So the final question is “Will you follow Christ to Heaven.  For heaven is the reward for those who choose to follow him through poverty, rejection and heartbreak, into ministry to the masses and unto death of the will and body.  Heaven is the reward for those who follow Christ.  How far will you follow Him?