As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector's booth; and He said to him, "Follow Me!"  And he got up and followed Him. (Matt. 9:9)

There is a lot of false information, sometimes even in the church, about what it means to be a Christian.  There are those who say that “Anyone who believes in Christ is a Christian,” while resisting every attempt to see who the Bible applies the term to, every effort to define the verb “believe in,” and every attempt to determine from the Bible who Christ is.  There are those who hold that joining a church – some would insist that it be their church – is what makes one a Christian, though the Bible never says any such thing.  There are people who claim that one becomes a Christian by receiving certain ordinances or sacraments.

Jesus has a very different notion of what makes one a Christian.  And we can see that in this verse.

I. What Jesus commands

Jesus does not, here or anywhere else, command anyone to be baptized, to join a church, to submit to a human authority, or anything else out of the long list of things that people like to name.  He doesn’t command Matthew to do good works.  He doesn’t tell him to receive ordinances or sacraments.  He gives a simple two word command: “Follow me.”

First, then, we must follow.  Human beings cannot lead in Christianity.  Now this obviously doesn’t do away with the officers whom God placed in the church, the pastors and deacons who are to teach the word and care for the poor (and who in some churches are conspicuously derelict in their duty).  But the leadership that these men provide is valid only if it is the way in which they follow Christ.  A pastor who decides which way he will go, and what he will teach, is false to his profession; a deacon who thinks he can determine what his role in the church is, has departed from Scripture.  No matter how humble or how elevated, Christians have exactly one calling – to follow the Lord Christ.  Everything we do must spring from that, and if it does not, then to that extent we’re betraying our profession.

And we must follow Christ.  There are reasons for congregations and denominations, and some of those reasons are perfectly valid.  “Lone Ranger Christianity” has nothing to do with the Bible; those who separate themselves from the fellowship of the saints are hurting only themselves, and defying Biblical teaching.  But those congregations and denominations are not our Lord.  If my church goes in a way that Christ does not lead, then it is wrong, and I’ll be wrong if I participate in the departure.  If a denomination steps off the narrow way that leads to life, then godly members of that denomination have a duty not to follow, but to call the denomination back to the path of righteousness, and to separate themselves from the denomination if it refuses t listen.

Jesus is Lord.  Our churches aren’t the lord, our preachers are not God, our parents are not divine.  We ought never to think lightly of other Christians’ opinions, for it’s quite possible that they better understand the mind of the Lord than we do.  I’ve experienced that myself more than once.  As Charles Spurgeon remarked, it’s not terribly wise to boast about what the Holy Spirit has said to you while ignoring what He’s said to others.  But when it comes down to it, we must follow Christ, and no one else.

II. How we must respond

We see in this verse that Matthew didn’t argue, he didn’t say aye, yes, or no, he simply got up and followed.  Jesus commanded, and Matthew responded.

That’s what God expects of us.  We are right to never blindly follow any human leader, for human beings are fallible and even the best of us can be wrong – and there are many who will deliberately lead us into sin if we let them.  We certainly see this in politics today, with a president, a Cabinet, and a Congress who surely understand that what they’re doing will not work, cannot work, has never worked in all of history, yet do it anyway.  And if we follow these politicians, we’ll wind up in despair, without any hope at all, and so the wise course is to resist them, clinging to our freedom – even if they tell us we’re bitter for doing so – and voting them out as soon as we possibly can.

But God demands obedience of us.  And He deserves it, unlike those who in this world either are sincerely wrong, or cynically so.  We are indeed not to follow Christ blindly; there is no such command in the Bible.  God asks us to reason together with Him, and He gives us many clear and cogent reasons to follow Him (e.g. Psalm 23, Matt. 11:28).  But though we are not to follow Him blindly, follow is precisely what we ought to do.  Matthew the tax collector heard the call, and without question or argument he arose from his seat, left his living behind him, and followed Christ.

Can we do less?  Jesus is not calling us to leave our jobs, and follow around a teacher with no home, only the clothes on His back, and an absolutely certain appointment with death.  He allows us to remain in our jobs, to keep our residences, to enjoy life – but He does want us to follow Him.

III. What it means to follow Jesus

This isn’t a mere matter of casually asking “What would Jesus do?” and then doing whatever we imagine He might have done.  For one thing, we already have the record of what He did do, and what He commanded us to do, and that question rarely if ever needs asking.  If people were familiar with the Bible, they wouldn’t need to ask it; they’d already know what He’s told them to do.

The word for “follow” in this verse literally means “to walk in the same way.”  Ideally, then, when we follow Christ we go in the direction He’s going, we believe the things He wishes us to believe, we do what He desires and don’t do what displeases Him.  In defining this word Spiros Zodhiates writes, “The first thing involved in following Jesus is a cleaving to Him in believing trust and obedience, those cleaving to Him also following His leading, acting according to His example.” (Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible, Greek lexicon, #190)  Certainly works don’t save us, as Paul makes very clear (Titus 3:5), but those who claim to be Christ’s followers but never do anything that pleases Him, and habitually do things which displease Him, make their claim very doubtful.

How do I know my children love me?  Well, now that they’re grown things are different, but when they were growing up they showed it by their obedience.  Rather than telling me where to get off at when I told them to do something, they did what I told them – not, of course, every single time, for they’re fallen human beings just like I am, but consistently.  And they still treat me with respect, rather than rejecting me out of hand – because they love me.

Do we love Jesus?  Then we will follow Him.  Someone who says “I love the Lord” but does what Christ explicitly forbids, or refuses to do what He explicitly commands, is lying.  You don’t beat up a woman you truly love, you don’t abuse a child you love, and if you really love the Lord you don’t defy Him at every opportunity.

Christ says, “Follow Me.”  Let us, then, do exactly that.

Normally I write these things on my computer at home, and then post them at the library (my home computer works fine, but the modem is a dinosaur).  But between being sick this past week, and then thinking I had something available when I didn't, I'm going to write this "on the fly," and then resume my series on the Bill of Rights within the coming week (Ken Maddox, in inviting me here, asked to post at least once a week, and I try to do that).

Today I just want to talk about how I came to be a Christian.  I shall attempt to be brief - but as a preacher, I know that brevity is not among a preacher's greatest talents.   

I was born in 1960 in Calfornia, and by the time I was four I was in foster care (from what I've learned from relatives, that was a good thing).  I bounced around a little bit, and then wound up with the family that raised me from the time I was five till I graduated from high school.  This wasn't a religious family.  Though my dad (for so I call him) claimed to be a sun worshipper, I never saw him worship the sun or anything else.  My mom was equally indifferent to God, or to any gods.  No one in the family cared enough about God to hate Him.

But I became the family atheist.  Using my human reasoning, I thought thusly: 1) If there is a God, He must of necessity be good, and would desire that good exist in the world.  But 2) there is great evil in the world - war, murder, rape, abortion (even back then I understand the atrocity of killing unborn babies), theft, lying, etc. etc. etc.  Therefore, 3) God can't actually exist.

That reasoning proved only that I wasn't thinking clearly, for it failed entirely to consider the possibility that God was in the process of doing something, but hadn't consulted me on what action to take, how to take it, or when to take it.  It did, however, seem conclusive to me, and so I quite calmly concluded that there is no God.  I wasn't angry about it, I didn't go around trying to convert anyone - indeed, no one in the family even knew it for a few years - but I was as thoroughly atheist as Vladimir Lenin.

Later on, in 1978, I got religious, but it didn't last.  I won't go into the story here - it's a long one all by itself, and isn't the point.  It was just a brief interlude that I have to mention in the interest of telling the whole tale, and not leaving puzzling gaps.

In 1978 I joined the Air Force and wound up in Korea, 1979 I got married and brought my wife back to the States, in 1980 my first daughter was born, and in 1982 I got out of the Air Force and found, and then lost through lack of transportion, a civilian job.  I couldn't find anything else in traveling distance, for I had no car and couldn't afford to replace the one I'd wrecked, and Oklahoma City had no bus system.  I wound up moving to Cisco, TX, to live with my aunt and grandmother while I looked for work.

Now they'd been Christians forever.  And they made it very clear that as long as I lived there, I would go to church on Sunday...and Wednesday, for that matter.  I ddin't want to, but I wasn't in a position to protest, so I did.

And though I didn't want to, I found myself taking in what I heard.  I didn't believe a word of it - after all, there was no God (I thought), and so none of this religious nonsense could possibly be true.  Nevertheless, it began to work on me.

And one Wednesday night, on the way to church, I looked out the window of the car as my aunt drove, and saw the moon in the clouds, and it suddenly hit me that - as my untutored mind put it - if Jesus returned right then in the clouds, as I'd heard He would, I was in big trouble.  That was not the easiest service to sit through that I've ever encountered.   

After the service, as everyone was filing out the door, I told the pastor I needed to be baptized (as I've said, I was very ignorant).  He hurriedly got everyone else out, told my aunt what was going on, and took me into a Sunday School room behind the pulpit.  Now this was January, and the heat was off in the room, and it was cold.  But he asked me a few questions to find out what I understood.  When he realized that I understood nothing, he began from scratch and preached the Gospel to me.  I don't remember any details of what he said, and he was brief, but I know for a fact that he had to have covered the following points:

     1. Everyone is a sinner

     2. The righteous penalty for sin is death

     3. Jesus came to earth, and died, to save sinners

     4. Every person who trusts Jesus, He will save

     5. I had the opportunity, right then and there, to trust Him and receive His salvation

Well, I did.  I hardly knew what I was doing, and a lot of what I can say about that moment comes from later understanding.  But I can't tell you much about my birth, and none of it from memory, yet that was a very real event that has consequences to this day.  And so was that moment in that Sunday School room.

At the time I just knew that I wasn't in trouble anymore.  But that was in 1983, and while I've never been perfect, I've never looked back either.  Ever since that night, I can't be an atheist.  I can't go back to the sinful ways in which I had been walking.  I can't regard the Bible as unimportant, and I can't treat Jesus lightly.  What happened to me that night was as truly a birth as was my physical birth in 1960.  In the first birth, my body emerged into the world - but it was already dying, though from the appearance it looked as though it would grow forever.  In the second birth, my spirit came to life - and that is a life which will never end, and moreover my dying body will one day partake of that life as well, in the resurrection if not when Christ returns for His living church.

I can preach sermons, and discourse semi-learnedly, in an amateur fashion, on theology.  I can fake a little knowledge of Koiné Greek.  But that all means nothing, without Christ.  And it all comes from Christ.  If I hadn't trusted Him that night in 1983, I wouldn't give a care about the rest of it.

And knowing myself as I do, I can guarantee that if I hadn't trusted Jesus, I wouldn't be nearly as good a husband, a father, an employee, a person, as I am now.  It's not that I'm all that great, for I'm not; I'm the wretch that "Amazing Grace" talks about.  But Christ in me has improved me, and because of Him I'm better than I ever possibly could have been otherwise.

Heaven is going to be nice.  I won't complain a bit when I get there.  But if the only result of my faith were that I'm a better person than I would be without it, that's a good deal.  And I know one thing for sure - in 26 years, I have never once been sorry I turned to the Lord Christ, not for an instant.