Richard Ellis Talks

Richard Ellis: If you are following Christ, then Christ is going to lead you into the world where you live, where you work, everywhere you go, and you are going to encounter people that he is trying to catch and he is going to use you to tell his story in your life.

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Richard Ellis: The title of today's message is "I Followed." It's a very simple thing and I'd like to start in Deuteronomy 13. Today we will not completely go left to right. We'll jump around, so I hope that doesn't screw anything up for you. Deuteronomy 13:1.

If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams and he gives you a sign or a wonder—now this is very interesting. So this guy, someone shows up and he claims to be a prophet or a dreamer of dreams and even backs up what he's saying by a sign or a wonder. You go, "Wow, but he did something miraculous, seemingly miraculous."

And this sign or the wonder comes to pass of which he spoke to you saying, "Let us go after other gods which you have not known and let us serve them." You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him, and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him.

You cannot listen to just everything you hear. You say, "Wow, but it sounded so cool and they promised all this and something amazing happened to go with it and we're going to go chase that." The Bible talks not only of people who follow Christ and follow God, but it talks a lot about people who follow idols and false teachers.

You can get sucked down some vortex and be gone for years and some people never get out because it just all sounded so good and appealing. "I'm going to be rich and I'm going to be healthy and I'm not going to have any more problems." And that is not true. If you give your life to Christ, you follow Christ, you are going to suffer.

You're going to suffer whether you follow him or not, but the book says it's better to suffer for doing the right thing than the wrong thing. So he is testing you to what? To see whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul. And then it just simply says, "You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him."

You say, "Well, this is not very complicated." If you're following someone, then you stay with them, you stay right behind them. And that's true. And part of the question today will be this: who are you following? Besides all the crazy people on Facebook or whatever social media you're following people.

Go to Matthew chapter 4. Now this is one of the simplest passages and I think I kind of need to be careful because I don't want to read this and beat anybody up. That is not my intent. But part of what we're going to do today is find out whether you're following, where you are in the process, and give you some indicators as to what your life will look like if that's what you really claim.

Matthew chapter 4, let's start here in verse 18. And this is Jesus starting his ministry and it says, "And Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. Then he said to them—and this is a command—follow me and I will make you fishers of men."

They immediately left their nets and they followed him. Now if someone tells you to follow them and they don't follow that person, they are not a follower of that person. Okay? You say, "Well, duh." Okay, well duh back. You say, "Well, I'm a follower of Christ." Then that should mean something. Then that means wherever he is, that's where you are.

And that means if he says something like he did to these two brothers, "I see what you're doing, you're fishing. I'm telling you to follow me and I'll make you fishers of men." So one of the things that results out of following Christ is at some point he will turn you into a fisher of men.

And then what does it say? What did they do? They immediately left their nets and they followed him. You say, "Well, I just couldn't walk away from my life and follow some guy." No one's going to give you the life that he's going to give you, even if you stay where you are and hold on to all your nets. Sometimes you get tangled up in your own nets.

Now, so where I'm going right here is number one, he said, "Follow me." And he's saying that to you. If you are a believer, he says this repeatedly, "Follow me, follow me, follow me." If you are not a believer, he's asking you to follow him as well. But that following begins by entering into a relationship with him, that begins by understanding that you're a sinner, that Jesus died on the cross, was buried, raised from the dead, and that the only hope you have of heaven and eternal life is him, and trusting him completely for that eternal life.

Now, we're jumping ahead here a little bit, but let me ask you a question based on these verses. If you say you're a follower of Christ, then I ask, are you a fisher of men? You say, "Well, I've only been a Christian for a few months." Okay, I'll give you that. But as it turns out, sometimes the people who just got saved are the best fish people.

And when we cool down and when we kind of get assimilated and say, "Well, you know, not going to go out there and do all that. Don't want to embarrass Jesus." Really it's myself I don't want to embarrass and don't want to be uncool and then people unfollow me because I follow him. You say, "Well, what do you mean by this fisher of men?"

If you are following Christ, then Christ is going to lead you into the world where you live, where you work, everywhere you go, and you are going to encounter people that he is trying to catch and he is going to use you to tell his story in your life. You say, "But what if I don't catch them? What if they're not saved with me?" I can't control that.

It doesn't even work out that way always with me. But I have discovered that the more I fish, the more fish I catch. Funny thing how that is. You can ride a boat across a lake and catch nothing. Why? Because you're not fishing, you're just riding in the boat. So something happens when you follow Christ. He turns you into a fisher of men.

So you say, "Well, are you trying to make me feel bad?" Maybe. How long you been a Christian? 20 years, 30 years? And I go really broad. If I said this: stand up if you're a follower of Christ and you stood up. And then I said: remain standing if you have seen someone saved personally, you with them, in the last 10 years. Remain standing. You'd be amazed at how many people sit down.

I think Jesus assumed we'd catch the world if we followed him, because he'd turn us into fishers of men. Keep reading. "Follow me, I'll make you fishers of men." They immediately left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets.

He called them and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. Very fascinating to me here, he didn't call the father. He just called the brothers, and the brothers left the boat and the dad in the boat. You say, "Well, what about dad?" If he didn't call dad, don't worry about dad. He called you.

"Well, I'm not going if my brother doesn't go or my dad doesn't go." You've got to decide what you're going to do. Are you going to follow him or not? You say, "Well, where's he going? Tell me where you're going and I might follow you." He doesn't tell you where he's going all the time, does he?

And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. Then his fame went throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them.

Great multitudes followed him from Galilee and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan. That's very interesting. You say, "Well, looks like great multitudes followed him." I'm going to show you in a minute that those great multitudes ditched because the following got too tough.

Look at Matthew chapter 26. Now this is where they've done the Passover meal, Jesus has been arrested, they've been to the garden, he's been arrested, Judas betrays him, and now they're taking him to the Sanhedrin to face trial there, a bogus trial. In verse 57 of chapter 26:

And those who had laid hold on Jesus led him away to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled. But Peter followed him at a distance to the high priest's courtyard, and he went in and sat with the servants to see the end. Now this is a terrible verse. You say, "But he followed him."

How closely are you following him? Are you following at a distance? "Well, you know, yeah, I'm kind of following, but I'm not really with him. I'm just kind of back here and I can still kind of see him, but I'm not really with him anymore. But yeah, I'm kind of following, but at a distance."

Let me tell you something about that. That is not going to work out well for you or for him. It is increasingly easier to get lost the farther you are away from the person you are following. "Well, I'm just going to keep it safe back here because I don't want to be pulled into the fray with Jesus." You know, it gets complicated the closer you get to him, the crazier it gets.

Okay, let me give you another "I followed." The first "I followed" is—it sounds like it's a past thing—but you say, "Well, I followed so-and-so." And on Facebook at least, that means you are currently following them. Because if you say, "I followed someone," until you unfollow them, you are still following them, even though you say, "I followed. I followed you on Facebook."

So you got the first category of people who say, "I followed," so that must be currently going on. Then you get people who say, "I followed," which means past tense. Go to Luke chapter 22. Luke 22:31. Now this is jumping back a little bit where Simon Peter—which is very interesting, if you want to do a great study, go back and look at what Jesus called his disciples.

Sometimes it's Simon, Simon; sometimes it's Peter; sometimes it's Simon Peter and there's a meaning behind all of that. It's kind of like if my dad said, "Richard Perry Ellis Jr.," I knew I was near death. So not a good thing to get your full name unless you're winning an award.

Luke 22:31: And the Lord said, "Simon, Simon, indeed..." now look at this. This is the relationship. We talk about the relationship that Jesus has with the Father, but look, he has some kind of relationship with Satan, some kind of communication, because Satan had access to him in the wilderness to tempt him before he started his ministry for 40 days.

"Simon, Simon, indeed Satan personally has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. Let me have at him. But I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail." And then look at this phrase: "And when you have returned to me, strengthen your brethren." It's not going to go well, Simon, Simon. And you may pull off—and you see that he did—denied him three times.

I am a big proponent of being very careful not to be broadcasting that you're all that. All that I am is a servant of the most high God that needs Jesus every day. And without him, I can go astray so fast it'd make your head spin right off your body. I know what I have capacity for and I know the enemy. I'm a target of hell. Posters up everywhere: "Take him out, don't waste troops, put a sniper on him, take him out." And the second you go to follow Jesus, you become a target.

So look what he says to him after Jesus tells him all that. But he said to him, "Lord, I'm ready to go with you both to prison and to death. I'll do everything you do. I'll follow you to prison and then even death." Then he said, "I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you deny me three times and you don't even know me." Not just deny me, like you don't even know me.

And if you go read that, he's cussing and, "I told you I don't even know the guy." So we all by the way have capacity for that. John chapter 6. And this is a tough day. And when I get down to the verse, you'll be fascinated by what the number on the verse is even, which is very fascinating.

So Jesus in John chapter 6 is teaching some very heavy stuff that they thought was something else that sounded like cannibalism. "Unless you eat my body and drink my blood, then you know it's not going to work." And they thought, "Well, how are we going to eat his body and drink his blood?" It wasn't—it was a spiritual thing of having him literally in their lives, part of their lives.

So in John chapter 6, verse 60: "Therefore many of his disciples, when they heard this, said, 'This is a hard saying, and who can understand it?'" When Jesus knew in himself that the disciples complained about this, he said to them, "Does this offend you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascending where he was before? What if you see me go back to heaven?"

"It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing. The words I speak to you are spirit and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe and who would betray him.

And he said, "Therefore I said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him of my Father." And then in John 6:66 of all verses, it says this: "From that time many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more." We're out.

You say, "Well, that couldn't possibly be me. I'm sitting here in a church service or I'm listening, so it must not be me." Lots of churches filled with lots of people sitting but not following. It may make you feel better, may make your mama feel better, your wife, your husband feel better, and I'm not against you coming and sitting and singing and doing what you do.

But I'm going to tell you what, if this is all you got, if this is what you thought it was about, you're missing a whole chunk of the deal. Because this is for encouragement, for challenge, for fellowship, just to huddle up together and then go back into the world and do what he called us to do and follow him out there where he's taking us to change the world.

So from that time many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more. Then Jesus said to the 12, "Do you also want to go away? You guys out?" Now this is a very interesting question. And I've actually for decades almost asked this question and have like an "if you're out, you're out Sunday."

Kind of like Gideon said, he's got 30,000, he says, "Anybody afraid wants to go home?" Voom. You know, 20-something thousand, boom, they're gone. You say, "Well, are you not trying to get rid of people?" No. It's hard to lead people who ain't following. You say, "Well, I'm following." Are you? Then your life is going to be completely transformed.

And he says to the 12, "Are you guys going to also leave me?" But Simon Peter answered him—and this needs to be your answer—"Lord, to whom shall we go? Where are we going to go? Here's my problem: I actually know I have nowhere else to go. Because I lived a long time and I didn't really know that he loved me like he loves me, and that the forgiveness that he makes available is real, and that he cares for me and he personally wants a relationship with me."

"And once I realized all that, I got nowhere to go. There's nowhere to go back to. Every once in a while I go back to something stupid, but I realize this is never going to work." And Peter, although Peter did later betray him, Peter says, "To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the Son of the living God."

Jesus answered them, "Did I not choose you the 12, and one of you is a devil?" He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he who would betray him, being one of the 12. So they all stayed, but Jesus said one of you is a devil. Just pray you're not that one. What a nightmare to wake up and find out you're that one.

This was really supposed to be really encouraging. So believe it or not, it really is if you'll think about it. Because what I'm talking about is you're getting in tight behind him. You say, "Well, I'm so far away I can't even find him anymore." If you're a Christian, you don't have to go looking for him because he never left you, even though you might have left him.

He will never leave you or forsake you. So when he moves in, he moves in to stay, and all you got to do is say, "I'm back. I'm sorry, I'm wrong, you're right. I don't want to follow from a distance. I don't want to get so far away I can't even see or hear you anymore." Now let me talk briefly about something that you would hopefully be able to say at the end of your life: "I followed."

Go to John chapter 12. John chapter 12, verse 26. Now if you will slow down when you read your Bible by yourself, say a little prayer before you read it and say, "Lord, show me what you're trying to show me." You'd be amazed how simple things just jump off the page. One verse.

If anyone serves me, let him follow me; and where I am, there my servant will be also. If anyone serves me, my Father will honor him. Now this is so basic. When you follow someone, you end up where they are. You say, "Well, duh." So what's a better place to be than that?

You say, "But I think he's leading me over here. This is going to be a nightmare." And sooner or later Africa shows up in the conversation. What if Jesus—everyone thinks Jesus is in Africa all the time. I don't know why they pick Africa. If I follow Jesus, I'm going to end up in some terrible place.

What better place could you end up than where he is? Because if you don't follow him where he's going, then where are you? You're not where he is, and where he intended for you to be and what your life is about. Now you say, "Well, how am I going to follow him if I don't really know him that well? Or if I don't know his voice?"

You got to get to know his voice. And I've mentioned this recently: there are people in this room that if you call my phone, my cellphone, and I answered it, I'd know just immediately who it is because I know your voice. There are other people here I would not have a clue who you are. And vice versa.

There are people that say, "Oh, that's Richard. Hey, what are you doing?" We've been—"who is this?" Hopefully you're not on a "who is this" basis with Jesus. "Hello? Who is this? Oh, Jesus. Wow, I feel terrible, man. I didn't recognize your voice. Been a long time. What's up with you, dude?" It should be an all-day every-day thing.

John chapter 13. There's a tons of examples of this. I'm just going to give you a few and then we'll be done. John chapter 13. This is going back to after dinner—or at the dinner the Passover before he's arrested, betrayed, arrested, crucified, that whole mess ensues. John chapter 13, verse 13.

You call me teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. That's who I am. If I then, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. You say, "Well, now we're going to have foot washing in our church." It's not that it has to be actually foot washing necessarily, though it could be. It's serving someone else.

You say, "Well, I want someone serving me." Then you're not following Jesus because that wasn't him. He did not come to be served but to serve and give his life a ransom for many. So when you're following Jesus, you're giving your life away. You're going to lose your life, but then he says when you lose it, that's when you find it.

For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. You follow Jesus, your life is going to change and your life is going to change the lives of everyone around you.

It's not possible for it not to. You say, "But people hate Jesus." Not as many people hate Jesus as you think. What people don't like is people who claim to follow Jesus and don't. People don't like hypocrites in any category. But when Jesus shows up, the only people you find wanting to kill Jesus are a bunch of religious crazy people.

Pilate's trying to wash his hands of it, but there's religious people pushing to get him taken out. The world we live in is desperate for Jesus, and we are his body. We are his hands, we are his feet, and I got a long way to go on this.

Luke 9. So this is a pretty cut-to-the-chase one. Luke 9:23. Then he said to them all, "If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and is himself destroyed or lost? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes into his own glory and his Father's and the holy angels."

You say, "Well, it sounds like I'm going to lose my life." Let me tell you something: if you're not following Jesus, you're already losing your life.

Guest (Male): We'll get back to Richard in a moment to close out today's talk. But first, I want to share something with you about the program. Our mission is actually very simple: to take the planet. So it's our prayer that these daily talks from Richard aren't something you only hear and enjoy, but that they inspire you to share with others.

Together we can do this. The message of the gospel is something everyone needs to hear, and that's why it's a huge priority to us. And you can join us in this important mission. Call us at 855-6-RICHARD to say you're in, or you can get on board with us through our website, RichardEllis.com. Well, here's Richard with some closing thoughts for us.

Richard Ellis: So the question is pretty simple today. Can you say at the end of your life, "I followed"? Let me read you something Paul said in 2 Timothy chapter 4:7. Paul said, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved his appearing."

So you meet Jesus, could you look at him and say, "Good to see you, I followed you close to the finish line"? Or is it, "I followed you—I started out following you, then it was from a distance, then I ditched," or, "I didn't follow you and I jumped back in"?

I saw a young woman early 20s yesterday that I've known since she was born, and she had a rough patch through her teenage years. And I told her probably three times, I said, "I've known you since you were born and it's not been all easy." But I said, "You are not the same person. Because I used to look in your eyes and there was darkness, and now it's life, it's light."

She would not have a hard time convincing anyone that she's following Jesus. Because wherever she is, he is really close by. And when you become a Christian, it's even better than having Jesus close by. It's not beside you, it's inside you. And unless you've covered him up and disguised him so much nobody can see him anymore, if you let him live in and through you, you can't imagine what will happen.

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