Following Jesus

Among those people who had an encounter with Jesus in the Gospels were those we call the Twelve Apostles or just the Twelve. We have met some of those individuals in my current sermon series “You Can Meet Jesus.” However, it is worth paying attention to them as a group and how their individual encounters with Jesus affected them as a group and drove them to carry out the mission of Jesus.

A post this week on his Internet site by Mel Lawrenz, minister-at-large of Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, WI, set me to thinking about this. He posted a column titled “Leadership — So What?” as an introduction to a year-long series of discussions by himself and others regarding spiritual leadership today. One comment about Lawrenz’s post and one sentence in the post itself particularly caught my attention in regard to how the Twelve encountered Christ.

First the comment: The comment said, “Spiritual leadership begins and ends with our ‘followership’. As leaders, we must first, and always, follow our Savior and Lord.” That is certainly what the Twelve did. They followed Christ first and sought to model him in how they served. In fact, the essence of Jesus’ “recruiting” them was to call them to follow him.

The term first appears in John 1:43 when Jesus said to Philip, “Follow me.” It appears again in Mark 1:16 when he encounters Simon and Andrew as they were fishing, and he said “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” The phrase appears again in Matthew 9:9 when he called Matthew to follow him. In each case, when called, the Twelve followed Jesus.

We cannot avoid this call if we are going to be known as Christians. Jesus calls us to follow him before we lead or serve. We are to emulate his character and service by how we live.

If we are to follow Jesus, we should understand this comment by Lawrenz: “When we look at the first generation of Christian leaders, they definitely pursued the mission Jesus left them with power, authority, and truth.” That is, the first followers of Christ made it their priority to carry out the mission of Jesus. So, as their story progresses, the Gospels tell us how Jesus sent them out in pairs to minister as he did, and later he would send them out again as part of a group of seventy. Eventually, they would be the early leaders of the church.

Meeting Jesus, encountering Jesus as his early followers did, means we are to carry out his mission. As we continue meeting people in the Gospels for the next few weeks, but more importantly as you live your life, consider what you are doing to contribute to the mission of Jesus. Are you making it your priority to introduce people to Jesus? When you do that is when you really meet him.