Like Jesus | Being With Him
About this series:
Jesus calls each of us to become more like him - by being with him, learning from him and imitating him. This is sometimes known as the process of spiritual formation or the process of sanctification, where we progressively leave a self-focussed life and adopt a Jesus-focussed lifestyle. That’s because, just as he called his first disciples, he calls us to “Come, follow me” (Matthew 4:19), a journey John Mark Comer describes as being with Jesus, becoming like him and doing as he did (see Practicing The Way).
And deep within every true Christian is a desire, put there by God, to change in a Christ-like direction. In the new covenant we are transformed into people who want to be with him and want to become like him - “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33); “I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” (Ezekiel 36:27).
But this process of transformation is not only the work of the Holy Spirit within us. In partnership with God, it is the fruit of us aligning ourselves with his plan to transform us to be like Jesus. How this all works and how we are changed to become more like Jesus will be explored through this series.
About this talk:
A disciple is not only someone who is doing certain things for Jesus, but someone who is being with Jesus. Any doing flows out of being. The disciple has chosen to follow Jesus, be with Jesus, becoming like him in lifelong apprenticeship to him. Jesus is the prize, the end, not a means to an end. Matthew records Jesus calling his disciples not to a task, but to a relationship; to “Come, follow me” (Matthew 4:19). Mark records Jesus’ formal appointing of the 12 by saying, “He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach (Mark 3:14).
Three things stand out in the Matthew 4 passage:
Whereas disciples commonly chose to attach themselves to a rabbi in first century Palestine, here it is Jesus who seeks and calls his disciples.
In calling them to follow him, Jesus called them to be with him and promised that he world “send you out to fish for people.” The two parts are clearly connected there - being with him would, for them, mean becoming connected to his mission.
Both sets of brothers make a decisive break in responding to Jesus’ call: “At once they left their nets and followed him” / “immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.” What that immediately looked like in practice we’re not exactly told (though they clearly attached themselves to Jesus permanently), but the idea of a decisive and costly following is implied.
Audio only
