Pastor Tim begins our new series, “Follow Me.” God calls us to follow Him. The best part? As we follow him, we learn more about the one whom we follow.
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
The sermon opens with the image of a tour guide saying “Follow me” versus trying to navigate alone. Who or what have you been following instead of Jesus in a particular area of your life, and what would it look like to turn back to him there?
When has hardship tempted you to believe the lie that God doesn’t really understand your situation? How does Hebrews 4:15–16 challenge that lie?
The sermon highlights that we often cut corners or compromise when we think our circumstances are uniquely difficult. Can you identify a corner you’ve been tempted to cut, and what would it mean to trust God’s goodness instead?
Peter calls us to add virtue and excellence to our faith (2 Peter 1:5), but the sermon emphasizes that this excellence is already God’s character. How does knowing we’re being shaped into God’s goodness—rather than achieving it on our own—change the way you approach following Jesus?
What practical habits can help you meditate on God’s character, recognize false guides, and follow Jesus more faithfully this week?
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
Well, good evening and welcome to Steadfast. I am so excited to be with you here again tonight. We’re beginning a brand new series entitled Follow Me. If you were watching those videos we showed right before it began, different scenes of travel, it probably reminded you of a road trip you’ve been on at some point. Sometime that we’ve gone down the road and you’re exploring an area and you go down little bitty windy roads, you go down interstates, you see billboards, you see road closed signs occasionally if you’re going the wrong way. You go through towns, you go through storms, all kinds of different things.
One of the challenging parts though of a road trip is if you get to some place you don’t know very well and you start trying to navigate through say a city or out really far out into the wilderness in a place that you don’t know and you’re trying to read the maps and if you’re like me you’re probably reading them incorrectly, and then you run into someone who just loves the area, who’s passionate about it and says, “Well follow me, I’ll show you. Hop in your car, I’ll be right in front of you in my car, here’s my cell phone number, you can call me and I’ll tell you about the whole area as we’re going about getting you to where you’re trying to go.” That would be wonderful. And you’d start to see all these beautiful things and you’d learn the history and you could really just appreciate where you were. When we have a moment like that where someone is willing to lead us, it’s so great. And especially if they take the time to really describe it and care about it. They’re not just someone who hops in the car and takes off and we can barely follow them.
When Jesus called his disciples, he said, “Follow me.” And he says to us, “Follow me.” When Jesus says that to us, he takes us on that scenic tour, but not a tour of some place. He takes us on a tour of the very nature of God. As we become more like him, as we follow him and do as he has called us to do, we understand more about God’s love and his goodness. And that’s what we’re going to go on a journey that we’re beginning tonight. We’re going to go and see more about the goodness of God as he calls us to follow him.
So as we do that, let’s go ahead and begin by opening in prayer.
Let’s pray.
Father, thank you for your goodness and your love. Thank you for providing us with your word and sending your son that we might know more about who you are. That you don’t simply tell us to do something, but we get to experience the wonder of who you are as your spirit enables us to do the things you’ve called us to do. Lord, as we come to your word tonight, would you help us to see more about who you are and through that, to feel the wonder and the excitement of the calling that you’ve given us. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
It really boiled down what we’re about to dig into. It really comes down to this, that the call to follow Jesus is an invitation to see the wonder and the love of our God. If you’ve been with us over the last few weeks and you’ve been going through the scriptures with me, we’ve been in 2 Peter, and we’re going to start there. We’re going to go divergent from there. We’re going to start there and then go and see the scenic overlooks and see the wonder of who God is.
Because if you recall, a few weeks ago, we went to 2 Peter 1, verse 5, and Peter describes what we’re called to do. And as he does, he describes who God is. We’re going to start there and then explore. So let’s go ahead, return to 2 Peter for a moment, and see where we’re headed tonight. Peter writes this:
“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”
We see this list of things that we’re called to exhibit in the Christian life, and we talked a little bit about how that is the fruit that comes out of the salvation that God’s given us a number of weeks ago. But we think about each of these things, and it’s more than something that God enables us to do. What he’s doing is he’s calling us to follow him. Because these things describe who God is. And that’s what’s so wonderful about this calling. That as we seek to do the things that he’s called us to do, he’s enabling us to experience more and more of who he is.
What we see at the very beginning of this is that call to, sometimes it’s translated, moral excellence or virtue. Goodness. And all the others kind of pull out from that, expand from that. And that calling to that goodness, that virtue, is at the center of who God is. What we learn as we learn more about God is that we follow a Savior who is good.
We’re called to be what God already is, and we see that going back just a few verses to 2 Peter 1, verse 3. Here’s what Peter wrote:
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.”
That word excellence used there is the same word that Peter then uses that’s translated virtue in verse 5. So we see that the very thing that we’re supposed to take in as we partake of the divine nature, as we take in who God is, is what we’re called to do. Not first, but second. Following Jesus.
In answering that call, that very same call that he gave his disciples at the very beginning of their ministry together, Jesus said, “Follow me.” And as he does the same to us, as he calls us to follow him, we start by seeing God’s goodness and following him in goodness.
Now this word, whether we call it goodness or virtue or excellence, holiness, this isn’t like a worldly virtue. There’s lots of virtues that are even good things that we see in this world. Things that we can do.
But if you think about someone who teaches how to be virtuous, who says, “Okay, here’s a list of ethical things to do,” inevitably it’s setting the bar too low. Because if anyone is teaching us how to do it, they have to have achieved it, or at least achieve an appearance of it. And the sort of goodness that is being talked about here, genuine, complete excellence, is something that only God can do.
But we partake of God himself. We get to partake of the divine nature. We get to follow the one who does it. And so as we do, we get to experience his goodness and his love for us.
We see this pattern throughout scripture. For example, we’re not going to turn there, but if you went back to Leviticus chapter 19, or a number of other places in the story of the Exodus, we see over and over again how God reminds his people that he is holy, and he is calling them to be holy like he is.
These are the things that we need to think about, and we see it over and over again in scripture, the demonstration of God’s holiness and his goodness. And as we see these things, we’re called to think on them. That’s what Paul says in Philippians chapter 4.
Paul writes:
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence—there’s that word again—if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
What are we called to do? We’re called to think about excellence. We’re called to think about God’s holiness. Because as we look to his holiness, as we think about who God is, what do we find? We find that we start to exhibit imperfectly that same excellence. We start to follow Jesus. We start to be shaped by him, and then we can show that goodness too.
Maybe you’ve had an experience that I’ve had, probably many of us have at this point, where you communicate with someone primarily through electronic means, and you need to meet them for some reason. Through various forms of work that I’ve done over the years, I’ve had the need to communicate with someone for a period of time, and then to have a meeting in person, perhaps at a coffee shop or something like that.
Or maybe it’s on the phone, you’re talking to them on the phone, you kind of start to get a mental picture of what they look like, but you’ve never seen them before. Now, if I’m going to have one of these meetings, oftentimes I’ll try to go on social media and find the person so I know who I’m looking for in the coffee shop. Although when I type in their name on, say, Facebook, I might end up with the wrong person, I have a completely wrong picture, or maybe I hear their voice on the phone, and the picture in my head forms of what that person looks like is nothing like they actually look like. It’s nothing like they actually do.
And so you go into the coffee shop and you start looking around, and one time I was looking to meet someone and I worked my way through the restaurant that we were supposed to meet at, and I got all the way to the back and I couldn’t find the person. Turns out the person had been waiting for me all the way up at the front, at the chairs right by the door. I had no idea what that person looked like, he had no idea what I looked like. And so it took a really long time before I realized I was going completely in the wrong direction.
Why do we meditate on the things of God? So we know what we’re looking for, we know where we’re headed, so we can follow Him, so that we’re not wandering through the restaurant of life thinking, “Well, that person sounds like someone who communicates goodness and excellence,” or “That person seems to be the sort of person I should be following,” but we read in Scripture and we see exactly who Jesus is, and we see that we’re called to follow Him. We know what He looks like, we don’t find some imposter that looks sort of like Him, we don’t type in a name and get someone who has the same name but is completely different. We follow Him.
That’s our first question tonight, for us to really think about. This is something that we need to ask ourselves regularly, which is, who am I following? The things I’m doing and the things I’m saying are important in my life. And the things that I communicate to others, who am I following?
And so often we think that’s Jesus, we think we’re following Jesus, and yet, we realize, on closer inspection, we’ve gone on social media and found the wrong profile picture and we’re looking after the wrong person. Then we can’t do and proclaim who Jesus is.
That’s what Peter says is essential to our calling in 1 Peter chapter 2. He says,
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
There’s that word excellencies again, same word that’s translated virtue in many translations in 2 Peter chapter 1.
What are we? We’re a people. We’ve been formed as the people of God. And as the people of God, we’re called to proclaim that God has taken us out of the darkness and proclaim His excellencies. To say we have seen God and how wonderful He is.
But how do we do that? How do we do what He’s called us to do? We look to Him. We understand who He is. We start by understanding that He is good. Scripture testifies from its very beginning to its very end that He is good.
That’s the underlying point that gives us the confidence in what He does. That God isn’t deceiving us. That God isn’t going to fail us. That God is good. He’s a loving, caring God.
You might say, “Well, that’s all well and good. I understand where you’re going up to this point, Tim, but you need to understand what’s going on in my life.”
And sometimes when we’re talking about something like this, about this calling to be good, to follow the goodness of God and to allow God’s Word and His Spirit to reshape us and to correct us when we’re following other things that we’ve decided are more important, we say, “But my situation is different.”
Maybe you’ve had that experience of someone who visits you and is just complaining and complaining and complaining about all kinds of things and forgets to ask how you’re doing and what you’ve been through in life. How your life situation is. Because they just assume everything is much better for you than it is for them.
And there are times where maybe we feel like that’s what we’re coming to when we’re talking about Scripture and we’re saying, “Well, it calls us to follow Jesus, to act like Jesus to others,” and we say, “Well, that’s what I’ve been through. If only you’ve had the job loss I’ve had, or the health issues I’ve had, or maybe you’ve been through a natural disaster,” and you say, “If only you’d been through that, then you’d understand why I just have to watch out for myself. Why I need to be more worried about looking out for quote unquote number one. Why I need to maybe use less than savory means sometimes at work to get ahead.”
We do this in the church at times where we say, “If only you understood where the church is right now, this ministry is right now, you’d understand why we have to cut a corner right here.”
The problem with these justifications that we come up with is they end up leading us to a path that’s divergent, that we’re going off onto a dirt road that’s going to be a dead end when we’ve missed the road where the tour guide was enthusiastically showing us the beauty of the scenery around us. We’re going off and we’re going to get stuck.
And it’s all because of a lie we believe, which is that God doesn’t really understand what we’re going through.
But what do we find in scripture? We serve a Savior who understands because he has experienced the very bad things that we experience in life and so much more. But he didn’t fall to temptation like we do.
Let’s turn to Hebrews chapter 4. We read these words:
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.”
We don’t follow a theoretical guide. Someone who has looked at an atlas and read all kinds of interesting statistics about where we’re going is telling us how, according to instructions that he or she has never followed, how to do things.
We follow a God who has lived on this earth. He has walked on this land. He has faced temptation yet did not fall into it.
It’s often been pointed out that the doctors that have the worst bedside manner are those who have never experienced the sort of illness they’re walking their patients through. They don’t understand what it’s like. They just have the theoretical knowledge: if you just do this and this and this everything will be okay. Just buck up.
And when those doctors do get sick and they experience the flip side of it, it often changes their perspective.
We all probably experience that in the parts of our life where we may be helping people through things and suddenly we find the tables turned.
But our God is not a doctor with a bedside manner, someone who hasn’t experienced it.
Jesus doesn’t say, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Jesus says, “Do as I say just as I do.” Because Jesus has done it. Jesus has gone through the things that we face. But he’s triumphed over them for us. Jesus knows temptation even better than we do.
I’ve read that this week in one commentary on this passage from Hebrews, and I just had to stop and pause for a moment. I’d never thought about it that way, but think about this for a moment.
Jesus experiences temptation or experienced it on earth more acutely than we do. Why? Because unlike us he never reached into it.
Why do we cede to temptation? Because we finally don’t want to have to put up with that tension of fighting that temptation anymore.
What did Jesus do though? He never ceded to temptation. He went to the cross. He died for us and never gave into temptation. So he’s experienced an aspect of temptation far worse than we ever will.
But he was without sin for our sake, and he tells us to follow him as he’s that guide showing us the wonder and the splendor of who God is. He does so perfectly.
But critically too, we see in this passage Jesus doesn’t say, “Well, I did it so what’s wrong with you that you’re not doing this so well?” That’s the temptation that we have as human beings, speaking of temptation, that if something is easy for us—not that this was easy for Jesus—but even if something’s hard for us but we succeed, then we look at someone else who’s struggling and we say, “Well, what’s wrong with you? Why don’t you just get it?”
But Jesus doesn’t do that. We’re told instead that Jesus is our High Priest that he goes before the throne of the Father and intercedes for us as we fail. That even as he has gone through life perfectly for us, then when we’re doing terribly at following him, he intercedes for us. He says, as he calls us to do as he has done, “I’ll help you up when you fall.”
And in that we see this beautiful picture of that goodness of God. A God who is perfectly good, perfectly holy, perfectly excellent, and yet is merciful for those of us who are very imperfect and often lacking deeply in excellence.
That brings us to our second question: Where have I given myself permission to not follow Jesus because I have believed those lies that God doesn’t really understand? If only Jesus had to go through insert my current situation, he wouldn’t have said what he did. Where have I bought into that sort of lie?
If we look at fallen leaders of the church, and unfortunately in any given year you can find headline after headline scattered throughout the year of fallen leaders in the church, I really believe that the basic lie that they believe is that one. That they can cut this corner, that they can walk away from what Jesus has called them to do in a particular situation because that situation is unique. That situation is particularly difficult. Somehow the ends will justify the means.
What did we find? What do we see in scripture when Jesus was in the most difficult situation anyone could ever be in? He was faced with the cross to take on the very sin of the world, to take on your sin and my sin. He didn’t cut a corner. He didn’t say to the Father, “Well, let me just work this out and kind of do this deal and sort of kind of follow your will because at the end it’s going to look really great for you God.” He didn’t do that.
He went faithfully as a servant onto that cross and bore the sin that didn’t belong to him for our sake to fulfill the will of the Father to redeem the world.
As we run from those areas, our temptations are those areas where we want to diverge a bit from following Jesus to make things easier, or because we think we know better.
As we run from those things, the world gets to see God’s goodness as we face faithfully the path that God has placed before us.
I think it’s really telling that at the very beginning of the ministry of the disciples, Jesus called to them, called to Peter and to the others, he said to them, “Follow me.” And throughout his ministry, at least on 11 different occasions that we find in the Gospels, he called to people, “Set aside these things that are causing you to quit following God, set them aside and follow me.”
What did Jesus say to Peter as he restored him after Peter had denied Jesus three times? He said, “Follow me.” And in that we see the call for us too.
What do we do when we’re scared and life is uncertain? Jesus says, “Follow me.”
What do we do when everything feels like it’s crashing down? Jesus says, “Follow me.”
What do we do when nothing seems to work? Jesus says, “Follow me.”
What do we do when we’re completely broken? Jesus says, “Follow me.”
What do we do when everything is going wonderfully and everything feels like it’s coming together and everything is exactly how we want it in life? Jesus says, “Follow me.”
And every season of life and every aspect of life comes down to that one simple call: follow me. And as we do, Jesus takes us on that tour. He says, “Follow me.” He shows us the wonders of the God who loves us, the goodness of the God who loves us. And then as we do that, we proclaim God’s goodness to a world that doesn’t know who to follow.
Let’s make that our prayer this week that we can do that. Let’s pray.
Lord, on our own, that calling is impossible. How could we follow you? Even in good times, it’s hard to follow you. Lord, there are things that distract us that seem to promise happiness and rest, much less when we get to the hard times and it seems like we have to find our own way, we have to fight to the top, we have to protect ourselves. Sometimes we just don’t know what to do.
But in all of those situations, Lord, we know that you call us. That same call that was given to the disciples 2,000 years ago is the call that you give to each and every one of your followers today which is, “Follow me.” And you don’t just give us that call, we know as we turn to Jesus and look to Jesus we see one who, though the very form of God fully deserving of all the honor in the universe, went through the things that we face and so much more so that as we follow Jesus, we follow one who understands what we face and intercedes for us when we fail and has sent a spirit to strengthen us.
Would you constantly remind us of that, that you were with us? And then as we follow you, would you help us to rejoice as we look to your goodness? We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well next week we’ll continue. We’re going to continue this road trip. There’s so much more to see. We’ve thought about God’s goodness today, and the next exit that we’re coming up to is going to be the exit to go and look at the knowledge that God calls us to hold on to. What does that look like? What does it look like to seek after the sort of knowledge that’s pleasing to God?
I think for some of us, we get really excited when we talk about knowledge and we think, “Oh boy, I get to learn stuff.” And then others of us will think, “Well, that’s just stuff that distracts us from loving God. We’re too busy filling up our heads and not busy enough showing God’s love.”
But God calls us to a particular type of knowledge that kind of restrains both of those impulses that pulls us in and helps us to focus on who he is. And that’s where we’re going to turn next week.
So I really hope that you’ll come back at 7 p.m. next Monday night and join me for that. If tonight’s been an encouragement to you—and I sure hope it has—being on this journey has been so encouraging to me so far, I hope that you’d take a moment and would you please like and subscribe when you use those sorts of social media tools. You help get the word out about what we’re doing here with these Steadfast messages.
If you know someone in particular who could use that sort of encouragement, would you share it? Would you email it? Would you call them up and invite them to watch it? It’ll be up online for them to watch in the archive. And of course, next week to join us once again at 7 p.m.
You can help us share in this journey. You can be one of God’s tour guides that points out his goodness as we go through God’s word together.
Speaking of God’s goodness, part of God’s goodness is that he invites us to come before him and pray. And we have a prayer walk coming up again on August 20th. It’s going to be all day, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. It’s an online prayer walk. We did one a few months ago; it was amazing. You can come online anytime during the day, pray for a few minutes. There’ll be slides going up that give different prayer prompts for different prayer needs.
There’ll be a chat where you can go ahead and post a prayer request and others can pray for you. And there’ll be little very short devotionals from area pastors and lay leaders from different churches that will help us to focus on God, to follow Jesus, to focus on our tour guide who shows us the beauty of who God is. And as we do that, to bring before him the prayer needs of our community, our nation, and our world.
I hope that you’ll set aside August 20th and be there for that. If there’s a way that you’d like to get more involved in that, if you have any questions, if you have prayer needs in the meantime, you can go ahead and shoot me an email. I’d love to hear from you. Or you can post something right in the comments below this video, then we as a group can pray for you together. So great when we get to do that. We get to enjoy this tour of God’s goodness together as we pray for one another and recognize that we have a God who loves us and is good, who’s with us.
Well, once again, please follow us on social media. You can like us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and subscribe on YouTube. And then I hope that you’ll join me once again next week as we dig into more of what it means to follow Jesus. And as we do, to understand who he is and how wonderful he is.
I hope you have a wonderful and blessed week in the meantime. Thank you again for joining me tonight.