If you’ve ever walked into a new bike shop these days, you’ve noticed the prices for a bike can be pretty high. It’s not unusual to find bicycles selling for $10,000 or more. I’ve seen some listed for $30,000. It’s hard to comprehend a bike that costs more than many new cars, especially when it doesn’t have air conditioning, heated seats, a stereo, or even a motor.
A lot of people in bicycle advocacy are concerned about what the high cost of bicycles does to discourage people from cycling. The perception of high cost can be a barrier to entry for those who don’t have the resources to buy such expensive bikes.
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Sometimes we must ask ourselves if we create a high barrier to entry into faith. Do we set standards and insist on things Jesus doesn’t insist on?
As we examine the life of Jesus in this Following Jesus series, we ask what Jesus did, what he said, and where he went, in an effort to dig deeper into what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Pay special attention in Matthew 9:9-13, to where Jesus went.
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Matthew 9:9-13
Following Jesus means spending time with and loving people who need Him.
When I pastored in some very small towns, I realized that people were different around me. Everyone in those communities knew who I was. People were generally on their best behavior. It was very different when I started working such as in factories or driving a taxi, where people were themselves.
To be honest, I liked it better that way. People were real. But it was very different going outside my bubble of Christian faith.
As we follow Jesus, we follow Him to places that are very different than you’d expect a religious leader. He would hang out with sinners. We read here of Him spending time with tax collectors, people who the Jewish society had determined to be traitors.
Jesus spoke with a Samaritan woman who had a long history of indiscretion. He allowed a woman of bad reputation to wash his feet with perfume, her tears, and her hair. All of these were considered scandalous in His day.
I appreciate the song “My Jesus” by Todd Agnew. He writes some challenging things that ask us where we go in our faith. Some of what he wrote in that song includes:
Which Jesus do you follow?
Which Jesus do you serve?
If Ephesians says to imitate Christ,
Why do you look so much like the world?Cause my Jesus bled and died
He spent His time with thieves and the least of these
He loved the poor and accosted the comfortable
So which one do you want to be?Cause my Jesus would never be accepted in my church
“My Jesus” by Todd Agnew
The blood and dirt on His feet might stain the carpet
But He reaches for the hurting and despises the proud
and I think He’d prefer Beale Street to the stained glass crowd
And I know that He can hear me if I cry it out loud
We aren’t as inclined today to go where Jesus went. Too often we take a “come and see” approach to faith. We want to bring people in on our terms and to our territory. In contrast, Jesus was less about “come and see” as he was “go and be.”
Following Jesus leads us to tearing barriers down between Him and others
Do you notice that Jesus never told the tax collectors that they needed to get right first before He could hang out with them. He never demanded they fix certain things first before he could be with them.
Instead, Jesus met them where they were. And He meets us where we are.
This is the problem with our “come and see” approach to evangelism. The church today creates barriers by saying “you need to be one of us.” Jesus tore the barriers down by saying “I’ll go to you.”
The Pharisees in this story were into barriers. They felt there should be conditions to be met first. The problem with conditions is, once we say that you have to act a certain way, feel a certain way, or be a certain thing first, we’re ultimately saying we don’t need Jesus any more.
This is why Jesus declared it’s not the healthy who need a doctor. And ultimately, that’s what faith is all about: realizing that we can’t do this alone. We need the Great Physician.
Jesus told Matthew to follow me. Full stop. No qualifications. No prerequisites. Just follow me.
If we are following Jesus, we should be tearing down the barriers, not erecting them. We should be the ones who want to take away anything that stands in the way of people coming to know Jesus.
Following Jesus where He went
We recently went through the Sermon on the Mount. On its face, the teachings of Jesus are hard. He doesn’t make it easier, but He raises the bar. He demands far beyond simply doing the right things.
Ultimately the message of the Sermon on the Mount was that it’s about our heart, not our actions. God looks for people to follow with the right motive. In the end, it came down to the great commandment: Love God, Love others.
Where did Jesus Go? He went to those who needed Him. He went where they were, and loved them as they were. Jesus loved.
As we follow Jesus, He begins to rub off on us. He changes us. Perhaps the most significant change is, as He makes us more like Him, His love rubs off on us.
In the end, following Jesus leads us to loving our neighbors.
When we love Him, we desire what He wants: To seek and save the lost. We get out into the neighborhood because we love them. We meet people where they are because we love them and we know Jesus loves them.