[0:00] We're continuing a wee series that we began a couple of weeks back on looking at the invitations of Jesus, not so much going through a book, but looking at those times, which there are quite a few, where Jesus offers an invitation. It's great that we have a God who doesn't just sit enthroned and make demands. His desire is to draw people to Himself, and this is another one of these invitations to come, to come to the Lord. So, let's read from Matthew's Gospel, chapter 19, and we'll read from verse 16. It's a well-known account of the rich young ruler, the rich young man, and the kingdom of God. Verse 16 of Matthew 19.
[0:43] Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life? Why do you ask me about what is good? Jesus replied. There is only one who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments. Which ones? He inquired. Jesus replied, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honour your father and mother, and love your neighbour as yourself. All these I have kept, the young man said. What do I still lack? Jesus answered, if you want to be perfect, go sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
[1:39] Then Jesus said to his disciples, Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, Who then can be saved? Jesus looked at them and said, With man this is impossible. But with God all things are possible. Peter answered him, We have left everything to follow you. What then will there be for us? Jesus said to them, Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or fields, for my sake, will receive a hundred times as much, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first. We'll end our reading at the end of God's Word there. Let's stand and we'll sing. Let's use this song as a prayer. Speak, O Lord, as we come to you, as we seek to make sense of this passage before us. For his help as we come to study his Word together. Let's pray. Our loving Heavenly
[3:22] Father, we thank you for your Word. It truly is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. We thank you, Lord, that in it, Lord, there is life, there is instruction, there is wisdom. And Father, we pray, Lord, as we consider the teaching of your Son, Lord, at this time. We pray, Lord, that the Holy Spirit, whom we were considering this morning, that he will be our teacher, that he will take these great truths of Jesus, apply them to our hearts and minds. Lord, some of these things are very familiar to us.
[3:51] So, Father, we pray that he would cause them to come to us afresh, that we would hear clearly the voice of Christ. Lord, if we lack in any way, like this young ruler, our young man lacked, Lord, we pray that he might put his finger on that particular thing, that we might have that better walk with our Lord and with our Savior. So, Father, bless us this evening, we pray, and we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Interesting, William mentioned this, this social media. I'm so impressed, William, the fact that you're at Facebook. These things are a black art to me. I keep well out of the road, don't take anything to do with them. I just, just out my depth with the whole thing. Facebook and Twitter or X or whatever it is and have a following and so forth. There's various types. In my day, when you followed it, it was usually just a football team you followed. It wasn't individuals or an organization. You simply followed whatever team that was. And this is all about followers, about people who follow certain things. They subscribe to certain things. Here is the definition of following.
[5:06] It's very different from my day. It's a whole new definition. In social media, a follow represents a user who chooses to see all of another user's posts in their content feed. In other words, people post things online. It might be articles or images or ideas or whatever. And people think, I like this person. I like what he's got to say. I'm going to keep an eye on them. I'm going to follow them. And they subscribe to whatever that is. I have a cycling app and this is the people that I follow. And it's just out of boredom. You cycle on this thing. You've got a big screen and it's in real time. So you can be pedaling away, cycling when next to somebody from Russia or Germany or America, whatever. And you find yourself maybe cycling at the same speed of somebody else. And I feel you know it for a whole hour. You've been cycling next to this person. It tells you afterwards, you rode with these people. These were some folk that at some point I must have been riding with. And I thought,
[6:13] I think I'll follow them. I don't know why. Nothing about them. I just keep an eye on how they're riding as well. And you'll see a wee thumb up in the corner, the wee blue thing. When you're cycling, they might just look at their app at a different time, might be in the office and they go, I'll just send you on a wee ride on thing. And a wee thumb comes down above your head when you're riding. You go, oh, there's one of them sent me this. These are the only people that I really follow. There's, I think there's maybe about 50. And then I think, who are these folk? Why am I following? I'm not remotely interested in them, really. And the regular folk that follow me are three people. I have three followers. Three, everybody. I have got three. None of them are my family. A friend. They're all three friends. One's in Dumfries, one's in Musselbrook, funny enough, and one's in the States.
[7:12] And they keep an eye on what I'm doing. And if I cycle and I do 60 miles or something, 20 miles, two miles ago. Well done, John, following you. And it's encouraging. And it's, I don't know if folk follow you. Please tell me. If somebody comes up, tell me before you leave. I've got 50 folk following me. I've got no folk following me. I've got to have a wee hand count on it, 5, 10, 20.
[7:34] I've got three. That might be three more than the rest of you have. Three followers. Here is a business thing, a business website. Businesses want people to follow them.
[7:46] They want folk to show an interest in what they'll do. Here are nine proven tips. We're not going to look at them. But they want more social medias to follow them. And that's really what it's all about.
[7:59] Follow me. Look at what I'm all about. Buy into what I'm into. And show an interest. And I'll show an interest in you. And together, we will move on. This evening, we're going to look at an invitation to Jesus. And he invites this young man to come and follow him. It comes with conditions. But that is Jesus' desire this evening. Doesn't have a website. Doesn't do. But he's things to say that he wants us to buy into. To think, I love Jesus. I love what he's all about. I want to follow him. That's what being a disciple is. So, you might not follow on Facebook. But if you're a Christian here, and a good Christian, and a disciple, a follower of Jesus, you are following somebody. You may not follow the pastor, or the elders, or other members of your church. But you should be following Jesus.
[8:53] And here is an invitation that goes out to this young man to follow him. And that's what we're going to look at. He tells him to sell his possessions. Then come and follow me. Buy into who I am and what I am all about. And that's what we're going to look at in the moments that remain to us. We began this short series about the invitations of Jesus. The last time you remember, we looked at the invitation to come to the wedding banquet. Remember, Jesus tells a parable about the kingdom of heaven.
[9:22] The offer goes out to folks. Some folk refused it. They were too busy. And he says, go into the highways and byways, everything is prepared, come to the wedding banquet. And they needed to respond. Some didn't respond. Some did respond. Not only that, there was a dress code. There were rules to the kingdom. You couldn't come in wearing your own righteous garments. You needed the righteous garments of Christ. Some were rejected. They rejected the call. Some were ejected. They were kicked out of the place. And some were elected. And they were called. They were chosen by God, and so forth.
[9:57] Now, that was what we looked at last time, the invitation to the wedding banquet. And I'm sure every one of us, if we are Christians, we've accepted that invitation. We're on the way to that wedding banquet. But here is this other invitation, come and follow me. So, I want to look at that this evening. And I want to look at it just in two things, two simple points I want to look at. The first thing is this, that comes directly from the passage, and it's this, unsubscribing Jesus. Unsubscribing Jesus. That's the first thing. Unsubscribing is something that you do after you've subscribed. You have to subscribe before. You can unsubscribe. And it's something I do a lot. I'll do a lot of subscribing to certain websites, usually about Christmas or on Black Friday. And the reason I do this is because, I think I've said to you, I do a lot of research if I'm going to buy something, and I think, make and model, I know what I'm after. Oh, there's a website. They sell this. They sell it reduced. Lo and behold, if I subscribe to their newsletter, I get 10% off this thing.
[11:04] So, I subscribe, johnatlowries.co.uk. Boom. There's your 10%. Enter the code in. I've saved myself 10%. Very soon after, when the thing comes, and I go, whoop-de-doo, I love this thing. This is great. I'm not interested in the website, so I unsubscribe. And I just go, I'm not really interested in all the stuff that you've got to send me. Here's other things that you might be interested. I go, thank you. I've got what I wanted, and I move on. I unsubscribe. And this is basically what somebody does when they no longer wish to receive emails, or they're no longer interested in what this company, this person, is really all about. They were at one time, but now they are not.
[11:47] And this is what this young man basically does to Jesus. He's wondering about whether he should subscribe to Jesus, whether he should follow him. He recognizes he's a teacher. He's impressed by Jesus. And he feels that Jesus could help him. And he has a big need. And he wants to make sure that this big area of his life, the boxes are being ticked. It's a massive area. He wants to know that he has eternal life. He's not just interested in football, whether it's a website that supports the same team as him, and we can share thoughts together. This is a big thing. He needs to know that he has eternal life. So he's wondering whether to subscribe to Jesus, to follow Jesus. And he comes and he says, teacher, he gives him his right, you know, teach me. What good thing must I do? He feels he's coming short in some way. And he just wants to know, what is this thing that I need to do to make sure I have eternal life? Jesus answers his question in verse 17. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments, he says, which ones? And Jesus focuses on the second half of the Ten Commandments. Now, he focuses on the second half, because in the second half of the Ten Commandments, you have quantifiable ways of judging whether you're successful or not. How can you judge love the
[13:09] Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? That's very difficult. But do not steal. Do not murder. These are things you can tick the boxes in. So he mentions them. He mentions the second half, he mentions the sixth, the seventh, the eighth, the ninth, and the fifth commandment in that order. And then he also adds Leviticus 19, 18, love your neighbor as yourself.
[13:33] These are external ways of judging whether you are doing well. So he mentions this, and the man responds, all these have I kept, he says. What do I still lack? In other words, he still feels insecure. I don't know if I have eternal life. Is there something that I really need? And Jesus now causes him to face up to his real difficulty, the real situation. He's not perfect. He says, if you want to be perfect, sell your possessions, give to the poor, and then you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me. In other words, he gives two commands to this young man. He tells him to go sell all his possessions and give to the poor, then to come and follow Jesus. That is the conditions that Jesus presents to this man. In other words, it's an invitation to go on the road with Jesus.
[14:31] Come, follow me. Buy into everything that I'm about so that there's no hindrances. It's just you and me. Follow me. Join me in what I am all about. And this whole attitude about being perfect is basically wholeheartedness in the service of God. It's not a new commandment. Jesus already said this to the disciples. Remember fishermen. They were fishing, and he says, come follow me, he says to them, and I will send you out to fish for people. At once they left their nets and followed him.
[15:04] Matthew, the tax collector, has his job. He's doing well in his job, making loads of money, living the dream, and Jesus simply comes up to him and says, come follow me. Matthew got up and leaves his booth and follows him. They left all they had. They were prepared to sacrifice everything for following Jesus, whereas this young man could not rise to that challenge. He was happy to do these other things, but to give everything for the Lord. In other words, to accept Jesus as Savior and Lord, he couldn't do. He really struggled in this area. Now, you contrast this with the man earlier in Matthew chapter 13. You remember, you assume he's quite a rich man. We are told that Jesus tells a parable. He says, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field where a man found it.
[15:58] He hid it again. Then in his joy, he went away, sold all that he had, and bought the field. That's a complete difference. This just a man with no prepared to sell anything or get rid of anything.
[16:11] He wants to keep that and still get the treasure. And whereas this man, I'm getting rid of everything because the treasure, the kingdom of heaven, eternal life is worth losing everything for.
[16:23] This young man couldn't see that. He wanted eternal life, but he wanted it in his terms. He failed to recognize that you cannot love God and serve God and money at the same time. That is one of the commandments that he just couldn't seem to get his head around. He made a God of his wealth, and he could not forsake that God. He'd come to Jesus looking for some great new insight, something that he could do and add to his other things. He wasn't prepared to lose in order to gain.
[16:59] And many people are like this today. And Jesus, this must have saddened Jesus. He had so much to offer, this young man. In Mark's account, I like Mark's account, Mark tells us that when he answered in this way, I don't know if you remember what Mark says, Jesus looked at him and loved him.
[17:22] That's very powerful. Here is this young man. I've kept the Ten Commandments. I'm as religious as anyone. Nobody is as religious as me. I love God. I love this, that, and the other. I want eternal life. He was a spiritually minded man, but he couldn't do this. There was so much to commend him to Jesus. Jesus loved him.
[17:45] And it must have sanded him when he says, no, but I'm not prepared to give up this in order to follow you. And Jesus puts his finger on this man's problem. Basically, yes, I was prepared to subscribe.
[18:00] If you said the right thing, I would buy into what you are all about. I'll subscribe. I'll get all your teaching and what have you. I'll follow you in every way. I'm looking forward to subscribing. He chose to hit unsubscribe. And when I unsubscribe, they often say, why are you unsubscribing? I am no longer interested in these emails. I've found it cheaper elsewhere or whatever. This young man would have said, it's too much. It's just, I can't buy into what you're all about. I want eternal life, but I want to keep my life here. It really is a big, big problem. It's commendable that this man wanted to do this, but eternal life cannot be gained by anything we can do. The only thing that gains us eternal life is when we come to Jesus and recognize him as our Savior. It's belief, it's faith that results in eternal life. John 3, 16, God so loved the world, whoever believes in him shall not perish.
[19:02] There's nothing you can do to earn eternal life. John 5, 24, very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He will not be judged, but is crossed over from death to life. That is very powerful. John 6, 40, for my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life. This is what this young man needed to hear. This is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. This young man thought he could earn or do something to gain eternal life. He didn't really like what was being presented, and he chose to unsubscribe. Many people are like this today. We want, who doesn't want eternal life? Who doesn't want Jesus as Savior? That's why when we preach the gospel, you remember last time I preached, last Sunday morning, about the lame man that was healed. And Jesus says to him after he's healed him, stop sinning or something worse will happen to you. When God, when we recognize Jesus as Savior or somebody who saves us, it comes with a desire to live a holy life, to please him. This young man didn't want Jesus as Lord. He liked him as Savior.
[20:26] He wanted eternal life, but it was on his terms, and people are like this today. Secondly, then more positively following Jesus. How do we follow Jesus? Following is different from liking something. You can like something. You go, like it. It doesn't involve any commitment. Following involves commitment.
[20:49] If you choose to follow somebody, it means you're going to read all their stuff, their blogs. It comes, you invest time into them. You listen to what they say. You buy into what they say. You agree. You thrill at what they say. If they get annoyed, you get annoyed. You're almost one with them. You're following them. It's more than liking. There are many people, sad to say, like Jesus, but they do not follow Jesus.
[21:15] They do not want this invitation to get rid of all your own self-righteousness and come for his righteousness. It's that following is a different level of engagement. And Jesus makes absolute claims on a disciple's life. Discipleship is not just following Jesus because you're interested in him.
[21:38] To be a disciple of Jesus is to slowly become like Jesus, to think what he thinks, to agree with him, to thrill at what he thrills us, to be heartbroken at what breaks his heart as well. Being a disciple is not just doing things, coming to church. I used to think that I used to party at weekends, but I somehow thought that if I died and my mates on a bus on the way to a nightclub that I'd get into heaven because at least I'd been to half a dozen services. They hadn't been to any. And I thought I could wait all up in that way, not realizing I needed Jesus as my Savior. I needed to buy into his death on the cross and not something that I could do. To be a disciple is not only to know who Jesus is, what he is all about, what the gospel is, what God's Word is, who he is, but it's to become actually more like him.
[22:34] These three people are 30 or whatever it is I follow. I'm not becoming more like them. I'm only liking them. Yep, like you. Well done. You did. That's all. That's the depth of the engagement that I have with these people, but our depth with Jesus is far, far more. We listen to Jesus' own words to his followers. What does Jesus say? He doesn't just say to us, click the box at the bottom and become a follower. I've got so many followers. He says, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. To follow me, you need to deny yourself. You need to put me first and foremost in your life. That's a big challenge, isn't it? At the start of 2025, we want the Lord to bless us. We want the Lord to grow this church in 2025. But do we want to be the best followers of the Lord that we can be? Our sanctification is very much in our own hands.
[23:35] We can decide whether to read God's Word, whether to pray, whether to have regular readings, whether we've chosen to read the whole Bible in a year, whether you've got to, what's this, the 12th of January and you're stuck in Genesis 3. You've kind of hit the buffers after you started off okay in the first and second, and now you've wandered onto Netflix or something, and that's taken up all your time.
[24:01] And we're not the disciples that we should be. We're not denying ourselves, taking up the cross. It's not easy. I don't know any organization, I don't know any person that makes the conditions for following as hard as Jesus. I think that's why they said, who can be saved with man? These things are impossible. Whoever does not carry their cross and follow me, Jesus says in Luke 14, cannot be my disciple. You cannot follow me. He says in Matthew 10, whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. To be worthy of Jesus, that's something. Do you worthy to be a follower?
[24:45] You're proud to say, I'm a Christian, I'm a disciple of Jesus. It's the best name you can have for yourself. Some followers have wacky handles. This is who I am, Blue Falcon or whatever. But to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus, really is quite special. It's a matter of accepting Jesus as Savior and Lord. We all want salvation. We all want heaven. We all want eternal life. But discipleship sometimes is more difficult. Following anything or anyone makes demands on us, and certainly following Jesus. And the conditions for following, some things will be easy for us and hard for others. There'll be come times in 2025 where the Lord will say, John, you've been a Christian now for 30, 40, 50 years, might be 14, might be 8 years, and you've been a good follower up till now, but you could be much better.
[25:40] And he might put his finger on a particular thing. It will be different for each one of us. It might be, for this man, it was money. Matthew tells us, he went away sad because he had loads of wealth. It's easy for me. I don't have much to give up. It was a big thing for him. He had loads to give up.
[25:56] It may be something different for you. It might be time. You're so busy doing other things that are precious to you that you love, but you don't have much time for the Lord. And the Lord maybe said to you in 2025, I want more of your time, better quiet times, better service for the Lord in the local church. You're serving your employer well. You're serving your family well, but you're not serving me well. It might be that. It could be anything, anything that we want, but we will not give up for the sake of following the Lord. We hinder his lordship in our lives, and he will sometimes put his finger on us because why? He wants us to be perfect. John, if you would be perfect, you're going to have to do this. You don't get all these. I was saved in May the 12th, 1980. I never got the whole lot one night. I never got it in May the 13th. John, these are all the things you need to sort out if you would be perfect, but peace me. The Lord is gracious. And one year you get away thinking, I've done pretty well. I'm a great disciple. I'm a great follower. I buy into everything that the Lord saying. I read his word. I pray. But the Lord might say, but you are the man. You need to do this. You're angry. You're bitter. You're jealous. You're proud. You're this. Big things in our life that the Lord can sometimes do. So I want to challenge you as I challenge me at the start of 2025. How well are you following? I'm not interested in whether you're following Robbie Williams or whoever you might be following, but how well are you following Jesus? Have you just ticked a box in your mind? You subscribe to Jesus, but are you really following him? Jesus said to this man, sell your possessions.
[27:45] If you would be perfect, this is an area you need to sort out. And he never did this. We can make time for all the things we want. I remember going to London and at my very first fraternal, there was about 200 pastors there. I knew the guy who was heading up the meeting. It goes, nice to have John here from Derbyshire. Up you come. Great that you moved to London. And he said, how are you feeling about working in London? And I remember standing up saying, well, it's going to be hard. I know life's busy in London, blah, blah, blah. It's going to be hard. But yeah, we'll give it a good bash. I'll try and make them disciples in the church. And a couple of pastors come up to me afterward and says, John, I agree with what you say, but the thing is this, we can all find time for the things that are important to us. In other words, yes, London's busy, but people are busy doing good things, but not the best things. We can find time for the theatre, for the museums, for restaurants, but how much time will we find for the Lord? And the simple truth is this, we can all find time.
[28:45] Sometimes I think, well, I've had an hour's quiet time. I've done great, but I'll watch the telly for two hours. I'll watch a football match. I'll watch it in extra time and so forth. And the football season comes up on a Tuesday night or Thursday night, I'm sitting there watching Rangers play some team and I'm going, wow, what a waste of my life. I could have used it for something. We can determine how well we follow. How we follow is very much in our court. Give up this and follow me.
[29:14] Be a better follower. The early church, Acts 2, 42, I think the ladies are doing something. I think if I could tattoo one verse to my body, it would be that. They devoted themselves. Note the word devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the breaking of bread, to fellowship, to prayer.
[29:36] They devoted. That's a follower. You're not a follower if, I mean, when I do my wee exercise, 16 miles, I've only got three followers. If one of them doesn't come on and go, well done, John.
[29:47] First, he's not been following me. Oh, dear. Wow, dear. I've been baptized. How did that happen anyway?
[30:00] They're not devoted followers. Somehow they've been napping. They've missed my cycle journey. I don't need a follower like that. I want somebody to be there. These early church devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, breaking bread and fellowship. I wonder, are you only liking Jesus, or are you following him, giving everything to follow him? Time, work, family, money, leisure.
[30:28] Are you keep following him? Do you read the posts? Here is all the posts of Jesus that he gives us. See, every day you can read these posts, and it's great. A few folks said to me, John, I did the five-year reading, five-day reading plan last year. I'd be looking for something else. So I said, just stick with the same thing. You're in a different place, different time. The same verse that you read last year will light up this year because you're in a different place. And that's the Lord's post to you that day. It just comes through and goes, boom, it's like a wee email, boom, John, read this.
[31:02] Wow, that's great. And as you take that on board, you follow him. You cannot be a good disciple if you're not reading the Bible. I remember reading an article called, if you read half your Bible, you're only half a Christian, half a disciple, and so forth. Read all the posts. Get to know the posts that he has there. Follow him. Why is he worth following? Very quickly, and with this, we're finished.
[31:27] Follow him because he's Lord. He is God the Son. He is worth following. Teaching them to obey, he says, oh, I've put all authority in heaven and earth that's been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples. Teach them to obey everything. He is, that is the one we are following. He's not, we're mate.
[31:47] He is God the Son, the second person of the Godhead. If he's not Lord of all, he is not Lord at all. Follow him because he's Lord. Follow him because of his teaching. No one teaches like he does. No one speaks the way he speaks. He knows everything about us. He might chastise us. He might comfort us. No one can comfort us the way he comforts us. Jesus asked Peter, will you too leave me? Where will we go?
[32:17] You have the words of eternal life. There is no bloggy person got the words of eternal life. No matter how much you follow them and how much you like them, they are not that impressive compared to Jesus.
[32:31] Christians know this. His word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Follow him because of his person. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice. He loves us. He cares for us. He knows what is best for us.
[32:52] And not only that, we have benefits. Jesus says, if you give up all these things, you have treasure in heaven. This man didn't want treasure in heaven. He wanted treasure now. He wasn't interested in so much that. He wanted treasure now. Peter says in the passage we read, we have left everything to follow you. What then will there be for us? And he says, anyone who's left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, wife, children, fields for my sake, will receive a hundredfold and does as much and will inherit eternal life. It is the best way to live. It is the best place of blessing when we give up all and follow him. And that day they came up with the feeling was, if you were rich, you were blessed by God. And therefore, so blessing, you're driving a BMW, you're blessed. So if you're blessed, the only folk that's going to heaven are rich folk. That was basically it. Because how do we know that?
[33:56] Because they're already blessed. So they're just going to be blessed again. That's when, so when Jesus says it's difficult for a rich person to enter into heaven, they just go, boom, blows their switches.
[34:07] How is that? They thought it was hard for the poor to get into heaven. The rich were going there because God's obviously blessing them. The rich have got a big business. They'll get into heaven. Jesus turns that in its head. It's nigh impossible for the rich to get into heaven. Rich people are not interested in the afterlife. They're only interested in this life. They have it all here and now. And Jesus says, the last will be first and the first will be last. So here's an invitation from Jesus. Come, follow me. Sad to say, many people unsubscribe from that. They don't really want Jesus. They don't really buy into what he's all about. They're not interested in heaven, glory, reading his word, praying, serving him, following him. They have chosen to unsubscribe. But the rest of us, God has worked on our life. We see who Jesus is. We have chosen under the influence of the Holy Spirit to follow God, to follow Jesus. We follow him because he's Lord, because he's not just our Savior. He is our Lord. He has every right to our life. He is desirable, his teaching, his person. He offers us eternal life. He offers us glory. And he is very popular. There are many folks, say, well, I've got 5.2 million. I don't know how many, how folk can get millions of followers anyway they have it.
[35:26] It's short-lived. When they are dead, they don't have any followers. It's short-lived. And whereas Jesus has more followers than anybody's ever had or ever will have. Are you not pleased to be numbered among them? To be a follower of Jesus. I don't know about you, but I want 2025 to follow him better than I followed him in 2024. May that be the case. Let's stand and sing, Jesus, what a beautiful name.
[35:54] Jesus, what a beautiful name. We thank you that we have come to know him. We have come to love him. And we have come to follow him. So, Father, we pray, Lord, as this command went out to this young man who rejected it, who chose to unsubscribe. We pray, Lord, that we will continue to follow, Lord, with all the strength that you give us, that we may hear him, that we may obey him, that we may love him and follow him, and introduce others to him, that they too might become followers, disciples of Jesus. Grant us, Father, that request, we pray. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
[36:30] Amen. Thank you, folks. Amen. Amen.
[37:00] Thank you. Amen.