I grew up in Nebraska, where there’s a popular food called “Runzas.” They’re made up of a cabbage and hamburger mix baked inside of a bread wrapping. Skyline Chili is a delicacy in Cincinnati: a sort of sweet chili over spaghetti.
Where you live can rub off on you. It’s crazy how food tastes and even personalities can vary so much from one country to another, from one state to another, and even from one city to another.
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A disciple follows Jesus.
This is the beginning of a series entitled “Following and Fishing.” We’re looking at a definition of discipleship that comes from when Jesus called Simon and Andrew in Matthew 4:19.
And He said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Let’s define a disciple as someone who:
- follows Jesus (“Follow me”)
- is changed by Jesus (“and I will make you”)
- is committed to the mission of Jesus (“fishers of men”)
We begin this series by looking at Jesus’ call to follow Him. We recently finished a series where we examined the book of Matthew, looking to answers to the questions: What did Jesus do? Where did Jesus go? What did Jesus teach? We discussed how those answers help us understand what it means to follow Jesus.
Instead of repeating all of that, let’s take a look at the bigger picture. What does following Jesus do to us?
Living as Jesus lived
John’s method of writing in his first letter is to explain. Twelve times he says “This is how” and most of those he continues it as “This is how we know.”
He sets the stage by talking about how we know if we’re truly walking with Jesus.
This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
1 John 1:5-7 (NASB)
Then John gets to the first “this is how we know,” in chapter 2:
By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. 1 John 2:3-6
How we live shows whether we are truly follow Jesus. That’s a sobering thought.
This is reminiscent of Matthew 7:15-23 and both that passage and John’s message make a distinction between those truly walk with Jesus and those who say they walk with Him.
John defines the distinction clearly: If you abide in Jesus you live as Jesus did.
Abiding in Jesus
There’s a depth in those words. Abiding in Jesus means we live in Him. We dwell with Him. This isn’t merely converting to a religion. This is dwelling in and being attached to Jesus.
This is where we spend our time.
Where we live rubs off on who we are.
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
John 15:4-7 (NASB)
When you walk with Jesus, live with Him, dwell in Him, He has a way of rubbing off on who you are. As Jesus said, it shows up in the fruit.
Influenced by Jesus
You are the average of the five people you spend most of your time with.
That’s a popular quote in the business motivation world. Whether it’s specifically true or not is debatable, but the general impact of who you spend your time with is real.
If you spend your time with angry people, you tend to be more angry. If you spend time with negative people, you will probably have a fairly negative attitude yourself. However, if you spend more time with effective, proactive, positive people, they influence you into being more effective, proactive, and positive.
So what happens if you spend more time with Jesus?
Who you hang out with has a way of rubbing off on you.
Where do you live?
John Mark Comer’s book “Practicing the Way” speaks of being a disciple (or as he likes to phrase it, an “apprentice”). He says that following Jesus and being an apprentice to Jesus leads to three goals:
- Be with Jesus
- Become like Jesus
- Do what Jesus did.
“We will make our home somewhere, the question is “Where?” And this matters because whatever we abide in will determine the fruit of our lives, for good or for ill.”
John Mark Comer: Practicing the Way
There’s that word “fruit” again. I like that Comer prefaces it with the fact we all make a home somewhere. There are many places we can live and a lot of influences that can be had over us.
The question is, where do you live?
The apostle John, likely remembering Jesus’ words about abiding in Him, says we can know if we’re truly a follower of Jesus by whether we live like Him. If we dwell with Him and follow Him and learn from Him and sit at His feet, you can’t help but become more like Him.
Where you live rubs off. Who you spend time with rubs off.
The snowball effect of Jesus rubbing off on us
When we follow Jesus, he rubs off on us. And this is where it gets really powerful: When we follow Him together in community.
If I’m following Jesus and He’s rubbing off on me, and you follow Jesus and he’s rubbing off on you, and then we get together, what happens? The impact of your following Jesus on your life has a way of rubbing off on me, and the impact of my following Jesus in my life has a way of rubbing off on you.
And then we hang out with others and it just snowballs.
Where you live rubs off on you. Who you hang out with rubs off on you. Are you living with Jesus and in Jesus. Are you hanging out with Him?
When Jesus rubs off on us, we find ourselves walking the way Jesus walked