Church isn't perfect, it has many problems, probably so many problems we could spend a day or two just describing them all, but nevertheless His church is His church. It's His bride, it's the one He came for and He will make His church perfect. We can't follow Jesus and not be engaged with His people, and the cause He has in changing a community. Life is not all about you, and the sooner you realise it, the happier you will become.
Open your Bible with me in gospel of Mark 1. The last message I preached was a message called Follow Jesus, so we're going to pick that up. I feel challenged on that one, on Following Jesus. People are following many things today, and I want to challenge you to follow Jesus. This is something we do corporately, but it's also something that is very individual, and so I want you to think.
You can be following all kinds of things. We saw last week a number of the things we could be following. Let's just start with a key verse to trigger off with. Then I want to share with you a message which I've called the Princess Syndrome, and you'll see what it's about, and how it connects to following Jesus in a moment. I didn't even know there was such a thing. In fact, it wasn't until after I'd thought about it, and got some ideas together, and felt the Holy Spirit quicken some things, I thought: I wonder if that is something? I should look it up - and then it turns out that it's well known in psychologist circles: the Princess Syndrome. I'm not going to be talking about that. I'm going to be talking about discipleship, following Jesus, and about one of the issues that stops us, so let's have a look.
Mark 1:17-18, Jesus said to them: follow Me. Here it is. He hasn't changed, He still calls us to follow Him, not follow an experience, to follow Him. It's a person, not follow a doctrine - follow a person. Not follow celebrities - follow Jesus. We're called to follow Him, and I feel the Holy Ghost pressing on me, the church needs to return to the very foundations of what our faith is about. It is about following Jesus; and it says it was the disciples, the followers of Christ, that were called Christians. Today we call lots of people Christians, and it doesn't say anything, it doesn't really mean anything much at all. You can call yourself what you like. What counts is that you follow Christ, and that is not just a decision you make, it's a lifestyle. Jesus said: Follow Me, I will make you to become fishers of men. If you follow Jesus, your life will become something it isn't now. He will make you something you're not. He will change you, to become something He wants you to become, and that is someone vitally interested in the salvation, and welfare, of people. That's what He'll make you.
People who get caught into experiences, and forget the lost, forget the needs of people, have gone astray from the faith. We're called to follow Jesus, and He will make us a fisher of men. He will make us someone who engages people who don't know Him, and gathers them up in different kinds of ways. It doesn't mean you'll be all evangelist. It does mean engaging people where they are, and helping them progress in their relationship with God, is what all believers are called to do. So to follow, just define it again, what it means to follow Jesus; I'm still trying to get a handle on it, so every week as I study, I'm looking for more insights on it. So the word comes from a word that means union; it's two words coming together - union; and the second one is in a road; so it means being united on a journey, or a road, with Jesus. So notice here to follow Me, it means literally to be: on a road, with someone as your companion; that's what it means. To follow Jesus, you are on a journey with Him through life, so following Jesus is about the journey, not just about where you're going to get. It's actually about learning how to have a day to day relationship, and walk with someone through life.
It's sharing the journey. He comes as a companion to you, to share your life with you. You walk with Him in life, sharing your life with Him, and so it's a journey on the same road. The word means literally to enter someone else's world and journey with them. So if we're going to follow Jesus, we're going to enter into His perspectives on life. It's thinking life differently to the way you've thought it. If you want to follow the world, it follows a course; but when we follow Jesus, we begin to think about how He sees life, what is His perspective on life? What is important? What isn't important? What is of value, and what's not of value? So our values begin to change. We begin to shift how we think about life. One of the challenges that the church faces is, the lifestyle of so many believers is so similar to the world, and the anxieties and pressures and problems they have are so identical, it's hard to find someone following Jesus. There's plenty of people going to church; it's someone following Jesus that'll provide the answer.