Not a Fan: Becoming a Completely Committed Follower of Jesus
wherever.
what about there?
If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me (Luke 9:23).
When you read this invitation of Jesus, there is a tendency to read it as being poetic. Even as we break it down word for word, the dramatic and radical nature of the invitation tends to draw an emotional response. But as you step across the line and commit to being a follower, it’s important to understand and think through the personal and more practical implications.
At the end of Luke chapter nine, after Jesus offers an invitation to follow him, we are introduced to three people who initially seem eager to be followers. However, as they process how following Jesus will impact their specific situations, they begin making excuses. As they try to negotiate the terms of their commitment to Jesus, it becomes clear that they were really just fans.
We meet the first of these fans in verse 57. He approaches Jesus and his disciples:
They were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
Those words certainly sound impressive. He seems to understand what Jesus was looking for. He knows the right words to say. He states his commitment to Jesus and says, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Wherever. That sure sounds like a follower. No restrictions. No boundaries. No borders. Wherever. But look at verse 58:
Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
Jesus turns to this man, and I’m guessing with a bit of a smile, says, “Hey bro, I’m homeless.” My guess is that this revelation was often a deal breaker for a lot of would-be followers. Jesus is making it clear up front that following him won’t mean going from town to town staying at the Ritz and ordering room service.
The man says, “I will follow you wherever.” And Jesus points to a place that will be a threat to this man’s comfort and security and asks, “What about there?” We’re left with the impression that this wannabe follower quickly rescinded his offer. “Did I say ‘Wherever’? That was meant to be more of a poetic expression. Figuratively speaking, I will follow you ‘Wherever.’ ”
It’s much easier to speak about following Jesus when you are making a general statement without any specific commitments. But the most obvious and basic definition of following Jesus will mean making some significant life changes. Following Jesus literally means that you go where Jesus goes. When you think of it that way, suddenly those poetic words have some huge implications.
I grew up as a preacher’s kid. My dad would often do the old school revivals at different churches and bring me along with him. Every night when he would finish preaching he would use the same invitation hymn, “I Surrender All.” People would often respond by walking forward during this song and putting their trust in Jesus to be their Lord and Savior. I knew the song backwards and forwards: “All to Jesus I surrender; humbly at his feet I bow. Worldly pleasures all forsaken; take me Jesus take me now. I surrender all.” But one night when I was about 10 years old, while this song was being sung, I decided to surrender all. My heart was pounding. My hands were sweating. My stomach was in knots. I finally took a step out into the aisle and I walked forward. My dad was standing up front waiting to talk to anyone who might respond. I stood next to him down front and sang along with the church to the final words of the song, “I surrender all. All to Thee my blessed Savior, I surrender all.”
But as I got older, I didn’t. It was one thing to sing those words as a general commitment, but when surrendering became more specific, the song I was singing with my life wasn’t “I Surrender All,” it was “I Surrender Some.” I didn’t surrender my pride and I was often motivated more out of a desire to impress people than to glorify God. I didn’t surrender my plans; God was welcome to come along, but I did what I wanted to do. He was welcome to the co-pilot seat, but I kept a firm grasp on the controls. I didn’t surrender my selfish desires. I didn’t surrender my lustful thoughts. I didn’t surrender my entertainment choices; I watched what I wanted to watch and listened to what I wanted to listen to. I didn’t surrender my money; God got the leftovers. I didn’t surrender my time to God. Early on, I didn’t surrender my marriage; my wife wouldn’t say it, but I was sarcastic and selfish (OK, she might say that). I didn’t surrender all.
Like this first man, we may be quick to say to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever . . .” But let’s move it from the general to the more specific. Where is the one place you find it most difficult to follow Jesus? If you said to Jesus “Wherever,” where do you think is the one place he would point to and say, “What about there?”
Wherever? What about in your own home? There is the tendency to carry a cross and follow Jesus, but before we walk in the door of our own home, we leave the cross on the front porch.
Instead of submitting, you stand up for your rights. Instead of serving, you sit around.
Instead of being patient, you are demanding. Instead of being encouraging, you are constantly critical.
Instead of being a spiritual leader, you are passive and apathetic in your own home. So what about there?
Wherever? What about at work? At 9 a.m. during the week, you’ll find many fans getting out of their cars and saying to Jesus, “You wait here. I’ll be back to get you around 5.” When they clock in to work they clock out of following:
You justify greed by calling it ambition.
You rationalize dishonesty by calling it shrewd business.
You stay quiet about your faith at work and call it being tolerant.
I received an email from a lady who asked me to pray for her because she wanted to take seriously this challenge of following Jesus anywhere. Though she had worked in the same small office for seven years, no one knew she was a Christian or went to church. She decided that she needed to start being bolder about her faith. There was a co-worker who had the space next to her. Over the years they had become good friends, but she had never talked about her faith in God. Her plan was to invite her co-worker to a special event we were having at the church and to talk to her that night about her faith. A few weeks after I received the email, I hadn’t heard anything and wondered how things had turned out. She wrote back and said it was a really embarrassing and convicting moment for both of them. She went to her friend and invited her to church, and her friend laughed and said, “That’s where I go to church, and I was going to invite you.” What initially struck them as funny quickly made them feel sick. For seven years they worked next to each other, and neither of them realized the other was a Christian. They both called themselves followers, but they weren’t following at work. So what about there?
Wherever? What about at the game? What about in the neighborhood? What about when you’re back home with old friends? Or what about this, what if God points to a place like Burma or Thailand and says, “What about there?”
Anne Judson was the wife of America’s first foreign missionary, Adoniram Judson. Adoniram was 24 when he decided to leave America and sail to Burma. Burma didn’t have a single missionary and was an extremely hostile environment. He was in love with Anne, who was 23 at the time. Adoniram wanted to marry Anne and then move to Burma to spread the gospel. Before he married Anne, he wrote her father the following letter asking for her hand in marriage:
I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of Him who left His heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteousness?
Her father told him that it was her decision to make. As Anne thought about this decision, she wrote the following note to her friend Lydia Kimball:
I feel willing, and expect, if nothing in Providence prevents, to spend my days in this world in heathen lands. Yes, Lydia, I have about come to the determination to give up all my comforts and enjoyments here, sacrifice my affection to relatives and friends, and go where God, in his Providence, shall see fit to place me.
So in 1813 they left for Burma. They would experience one hardship after another. In 1824 Adoniram was put in prison. He was there for 18 months. At night his feet were tied up and hoisted up into the air till only his shoulder and head rested on the ground. It was often 110 degrees, and the mosquitoes would eat him alive at night. When he went to prison, Anne was pregnant, but she walked two miles every day to plead that Judson be released. After a year in prison, eating rotting food, Adoniram had wasted away, with hollow eyes—dressed in rags and crippled from torture. His daughter, Maria, was born while he was in prison. Anne was as sick and thin as Adoniram. Her milk dried up. Mercifully the jailer actually let Judson out of prison each evening so he could take the baby into the village and beg for women to nurse the baby. Eventually Adoniram was released. Not long after that Anne died at 37 from spotted fever. Because of Adoniram and Anne’s efforts though, the entire Bible was translated into Burmese. Today there are 3,700 congregations that all trace their beginning to when Adoniram and Anne Judson said to God, “Wherever.” God pointed to Burma and said, “What about there?”
This man in Luke 9 was happy to say wherever, until God said, “There.” One of the reasons we don’t follow Jesus wherever is that when he says there, we take that more as a suggestion than as a command. Larry Osborne points out that in many areas of our lives we treat God like our personal consultant, rather than the Lord of our lives. He writes [in A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God]:
“Now, a consultant is someone whose wisdom we highly value and listen to, but at the end of the day, we make the final decision. That’s why they’re called consultants. Here’s the problem: God doesn’t do consulting. Never has. Never will. He does God. When we treat him as a consultant, he simply stops showing up for the meetings.”
Jesus wants followers who will say yes to him before they even know the request. A follower of Jesus says, “My answer is yes, now where did you want me to go?” Jesus may point to Burma, or he may point across the street.
This week I listened to a story about a family that dates back to an ordinary day more than 50 years ago. It took place in a small town, St. Joseph, Ill. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon at home for this family. Two men knocked on the door. One man was named Orville Hubbard. Orville used to work in the oil fields. He had minimal education, and was just a very normal, ordinary guy. The other guy was named Dick Wolf. Dick met this young family when their wives were in the hospital giving birth at the same time. They asked if they could come in because they wanted to talk to this family for a few minutes about something really important to them. There was not much else to do, and so the husband invited them in. He sat on the couch with his wife as Orville and Dick Wolf began to present the gospel. They talked to this family about what it really meant to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. The couple sat and listened. There is one small, but important detail I don’t want to leave out. There was a young boy playing with his trucks on the floor. He was about 8 years old. Everyone thought he was just playing with his toys, but that little boy was hanging on every word. That day changed everything for that family. The next week the mom and dad, along with their young son, gave their lives to Christ and were baptized. Two ordinary men said “wherever,” and Jesus pointed them to this family’s house.
I think it’s fair to say that I wouldn’t be writing this book in 2011 if they hadn’t done that in 1956. The couple that answered the door that day I call Grandma and Grandpa. That little 8-year-old boy playing on the floor with his trucks was my dad. So some day in heaven I’m going to thank Orville and Dick for being followers instead of fans. I’m sure they could’ve found other things to do that day. My guess is they were pretty nervous when they knocked on that door. I’m sure it was uncomfortable. But two men I’ve never met decided to follow Jesus wherever and they ended up on my grandparents’ front porch.
Did I Say “Wherever”?
The way Jesus answers this fan in Luke 9 reveals some of the reasons it’s difficult to tell Jesus, “Wherever.” Jesus speaks of following him as a journey of risk and uncertainty. If the man decided he was going to follow Jesus, he didn’t know where he would be going, or if he would even have a place to stay. He says no to following Jesus in part because he’s afraid to say yes. Whenever we are afraid of what a commitment will lead to, our instinctual response is to say no. Fear always asks the question, “What if?” What if I get married and he doesn’t change? What if she does change? What if I take the job and it doesn’t work out? What if I’m not successful? And this is what often concerns us about making a commitment to Christ. What if he wants me to share my faith and he points to my neighbor’s house? What if he wants me to serve and he points to a homeless shelter? What if he wants me to adopt and points overseas? What if he wants me to reconcile and he points to my childhood home? Psychologists tell us that the number one way people deal with fear is avoidance. We just stay away from the people and places that cause us anxiety. The Old Testament prophet Jonah was told to go preach to the people of Nineveh, but Jonah was afraid and we read in chapter 1 verse 3, Jonah ran away from the Lord.
Another reason this man in Luke seems to say no to Jesus is because Jesus calls him to something uncomfortable. If you say to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever,” you can be sure that where he points will be out of your comfort zone. “Out of Your Comfort Zone” could be defined this way: “The places where saying yes to God means saying no to me.” I sent out an email to some friends and I asked them to finish this statement for me:
Saying yes to following Jesus meant saying no to . . .
Here are the responses I got:
Saying yes to following Jesus meant saying no to my kids growing up in a comfortable home in America. (From my friends who are missionaries in Africa)
Saying yes to following Jesus meant saying no to hanging out at the club with my friends I grew up with.
Saying yes to following Jesus meant saying no to continuing to live with my boyfriend.
Saying yes to following Jesus meant saying no to retiring and moving to the home I was having built in Florida.
Saying yes to following Jesus meant saying no to raising my children near their grandparents.
Saying yes to following Jesus meant saying no to a quiet life of privacy.
As I read through the responses, I realized that in one way or the other everyone was really saying the same thing: “Saying yes to following Jesus meant saying no to comfort.”
It’s not only us, but it’s often our families that are pushing us to lead comfortable and safe lives. They may want you to follow Jesus, but they have a hard time accepting that Jesus might lead you to a place that requires risk and sacrifice. When I was 21 years old, I knew God was calling me to go plant a new church. But I’ll never forget a conversation I had with my grandmother when I told her that we believed God was calling us to plant a new church in Los Angeles. You need to know that she is a committed Christian lady, but I think it’s fair to say that she thought we were crazy. She had all kinds of questions for me. She asked, “What if you get out there and no one comes to the church? What if you can’t find any place to meet? What if the church doesn’t have enough money to pay you and you can’t take care of your family? Are you sure you’re ready for this? What if it doesn’t work out?” And I know she was asking out of concern for me. She didn’t want me to take any risks. My grandma means well, but if she had her way, I’d move into her spare bedroom and she’d make me cinnamon rolls and bring me a glass of milk every morning. She was happy for me to follow Jesus “wherever” as long as “wherever” was someplace safe and secure.
Defining Wherever
The man stands before Jesus and says “wherever,” but I’m not sure he really understands what he is committing himself to. And Jesus puts a little skin on his words, so he can see what the word “wherever” looks like. Jesus helps the man understand that “wherever” very well may involve traveling from town to town living as a homeless person on the street. I doubt that’s what the man was thinking when he committed to “wherever.”
It reminds me of when I sit down to talk to a couple before performing their wedding. I’ll try and give the bride and groom the unedited version of marriage. Many of them go into marriage with a romantic fairytale mind-set and really have no idea what they’re committing to. I’ll try and paint a picture of what the vows they will speak to one another look like once they’re a year into marriage. I’ll tell the wife, “About a year into marriage you are going to be ready for bed and come into the family room and realize your husband has gained about 15 pounds. He’ll be sitting on the couch watching SportsCenter and slurping a huge bowl of cereal. Between bites he’ll take the spoon and use it to scratch an itch on his back.” And then I turn to the soon-to-be-husband and say, “About this time she is going to start sounding a lot like your mom, telling you not to slurp and to eat your cereal at the counter. Then you’ll look at her and she will look like your mom. She will be wearing the most modest nightgown ever made and have zit cream on her face.” I want them to understand what they are signing up for. One of the things I will often do is go through the vows word for word and paint a scenario of what it means. These are more than poetic words that you recite on your wedding day. These words have implications:
For better or for worse. When he gets the promotion. When he gets fired. When she finds out she is pregnant. When she loses a baby. When you buy your first house. When you can’t sell your first house and have to move into an apartment.
For richer or poorer. When you’ve got a little extra for a nice meal. When you’ve eaten nothing but ramen noodles for the last week. When you’ve saved enough to talk retirement. When you’re overdrawn and bills are due.
In sickness and in health. When he’s strong enough to carry you through the door. When he’s older and needs to be pushed in a wheelchair. When she’s young and energetic. When she’s older and tired.
When we were first married, my wife and I went to see a couple in our church who were going through a difficult time. The husband had cancer and was being treated with an extremely aggressive combination of chemotherapy and radiation. Over the last several weeks, he had just wasted away. We were in his bedroom, reading Scripture and getting ready to pray for him, when we noticed a strong smell. It was obvious he’d had an accident, so I quickly prayed and we excused ourselves. I stood in the waiting room holding hands with my wife. I realized what was happening on the other side of the door. This man was too sick to control his bowels and too weak to clean himself up. His wife was changing his diaper. After a few minutes she came out and I’ll never forget what she said. With a slight smile on her face she said, “In sickness and in health.” And I remember thinking, “Oh. That’s what those words mean.”
That’s what happens to this man in Luke 9. He says to Jesus, "I will follow you wherever." Jesus says, "I have no place to lay my head." The man thought, “Oh. That’s what that word means.”
Contrast this man’s response in Luke 9 with what we saw when Matthew decided to follow Jesus. Matthew, as a Levite, knew that following Jesus meant leaving everything behind. He knew he was walking away from a comfortable and predictable existence to follow Jesus down an uncertain path.
When a Talmid was finally accepted as a follower of a rabbi, they would leave their homes, their jobs, and whatever else might hold them back and they would follow the rabbi, literally wherever he went. “Wherever” was not just a word used to express a commitment; “Wherever” was a way of life. So if the rabbi decided to go to market, his students would follow. And if a rabbi decided to go to another town, his students would follow. If the rabbi needed to visit someone sick in the area, his students would follow. When the rabbi slept, his students would sleep. When the rabbi ate, his students would eat. They were with him every step of every day. This idea of following the rabbi closely is captured in a Jewish saying that has become popular in Christian circles: “May you be covered in his dust.”
The most literal way to define a “Follower of Jesus” is “Someone who goes where Jesus goes.” I’m not sure how you can call yourself a follower of Jesus if you refuse to go where Jesus went. If you are following Jesus “wherever,” He will take you towards a sinner that others wouldn’t want to be seen with. You will find yourself among the sick that others tried to avoid. If you follow Jesus, expect to find yourself being criticized by some of the religious people in your life. If you follow Jesus you may find that your family thinks you’re crazy . . . his did. You may find yourself being unfairly accused and unjustly treated by those in political office. Ultimately if you follow Jesus “wherever,” you won’t just end up covered in His dust, you will end up covered in His blood.
not a fan story
Rachelle Starr
As a girl raised in a Christian home, I had never been inside a strip club in my life. But I felt this calling from God to reach out to women in the sex industry. I didn’t really know how I was going to do this, but I knew that God had given me a passion for these women to know how much He loves them and how precious they are in His eyes. Still, I was definitely nervous to share the idea with others. I mean, going to a strip club isn’t exactly typical for a church-raised girl. But whatever my doubts, I knew God was calling me to take action. He wanted more out of me than just having feelings of compassion for women in the sex industry. He wanted me to do something about it.
In 2008, I started Scarlet Hope, a ministry that reaches out to women involved in the sex industry. We take big, southern-comfort-style dinners to strip clubs. Our prayer is that we’re not just feeding their stomachs, but we’re feeding a deeper spiritual hunger. In some clubs, we fix hair and make-up so we can get some one-on-one time with the girls. It gives us the opportunity to pray with women in the middle of a strip club. How often does that happen?
Through this ministry, I’ve seen hearts changed and lives touched as many of these ladies have turned to Christ for forgiveness and a new beginning. Honestly my heart and relationship with Jesus have also been drastically changed. I have seen Jesus show up many times in the back of a strip club dressing room. Many dancers have opened up to us, sharing their struggles, asking for prayers, and some have even accepted our invitations to church.
It’s funny, but the dancers have taken to calling us “the church ladies.” I never thought I’d end up with such a traditional title doing radical work for God, but I think that’s the kind of church lady God was calling me to become. My name is Rachelle Starr, and I am not a fan.
Kyle Idleman is the teaching pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky., the 2010 No. 5 Largest and No. 27 Fastest-Growing Church in America. He is the author and presenter of the award-winning video curriculum H2O: A Journey of Faith and The Easter Experience.
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