Why Follow Jesus?

What's so compelling about following Jesus?

Mark 1:16-20—As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him. When they had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

Mark 2:14—As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me, “ Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.”

These are almost unbelievable stories. Jesus is walking along, and he comes up to people and invites them to follow him. And these people without hesitation drop everything, get up and follow him.

What would cause fishermen and tax collectors, and other ordinary people like you and me, to follow this man?

I believe there is only one reason that they would do this. And that reason has to do with the person who invited them. There was something about Jesus that was so compelling to them that you ask them to choose between following Jesus and any other life option, and it’s a no-brainer.

Why? Why was this such an easy decision for them?

One important answer—first introduced to me by Dallas Willard—has to do with the fact that Jesus is flat out smart. Correction: He was brilliant.

We’ve probably all played the game of word association before. Someone says a word and the other person responds with the first thing that comes to mind when they hear it. For example if the word is GREEN the response might be GRASS. Or if the word is WET you might respond WILLY. Or if the word is BEAUTIFUL you might say SUNSET or perhaps the name of a man or woman you find attractive.

But what if the word is BRILLIANT. What word comes to your mind?

In almost any setting you would probably hear some familiar names in response to words like ‘”brilliant,” “smart,” and “intelligent.” Einstein, Newton, Edison, Bill Gates, scientists, world leaders and thinkers would stand out. Maybe even the name of a college professor or other teacher.

But one person who almost certainly would not come up in this connection is Jesus.

In our culture Jesus is not associated with intellectual capacity. Few think of him with words such as knowledgeable, well-informed, smart or brilliant.

BUT “SMART” and “BRILLIANT” describe precisely how his earliest followers thought of him.

Dallas Willard writes:

"The first Christians thought he held within himself 'all of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge' (Col 2:3). This confidence in his intellectual greatness was the basis of the radicalism of Christ-following in relation to the human order."

Willard reminds us that one time Jesus turned water into wine. Jesus knew how to transform the molecular structure of H2O into fermented grape juice .

Multiple times in healed people of diseases. Jesus knew how to transform the tissues of the human body from sickness to health.

He took five pieces of bread and two little fish and fed thousands of people. He knew how to create matter from energy.

He knew how to suspend gravity, alter weather patterns, and eliminate unfruitful trees without an ax.

Willard adds:

“We need to understand that Jesus is a thinker…Often we see and hear his deeds and words, but we don’t think of him as one who knew how to do what he did or who really had logical insight into the things he said. We don’t automatically think of him as a very competent person. He multiplied the loaves and fishes and walked on water, for example, but, perhaps he didn’t know how to do it, he just used mindless incantations or prayers. OR he taught on how to be a really good person, but he did not have moral insight and understanding. He just mindlessly rattle off words that were piped into him and through him…..and so we distance him from ourselves, perhaps intending to elevate him, and we elevate him right out of our minds.”

Willard concludes that it is not possible to trust Jesus for counsel in our daily life if we do not believe him to be competent. We cant' pray for his power and count on his wisdom for dealing with real-life matters we think might surpass his knowledge or abilities.

But, of course, Jesus does know about all these things. He really knows more about the newest digital camera than Consumer Reports. He really knows more about computers than Bill Gates. He really has more information than Google. He knows more about life on Mars than NASA. He knows more about love and marriage than Dr. Phil.

And he really knows about your life, too.

God is smart about life. He is not just nice, he is brilliant. He is the smartest man who ever lived.

He’s more than that. But he’s not less than that.

And, by the way, Jesus is alive today and doing quite well! And his wisdom and power are available to us all the time—when we wake up, when we eat, on the road, at the office, on the playground, in the classroom. Jesus is with you today and he asks you and me to follow him, to learn from him how to live like him. To experience life the way it was meant to be experienced.

The decision to follow Jesus, then, was not an agonizing decision for His first disciples. It was a no- brainer. Why do they drop everything to follow him? Because they’ve just received the offer of a lifetime.

The choice to follow Jesus and to rely on his wisdom for everyday life is the only sane option. It’s like the merchant who found a pearl of great value and sold everything he had to buy it (Matthew 12:45). It’s like a man who finds a treasure hidden in a field. When he found the treasure, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field (Matthew 13:44). It’s like that great, old TV show. You know, the story of a man named Jed, a poor mountaineer who barely kept his family fed. But then one day he’s shooting at some food, and up from the ground comes bubbling crude.

What does Jed do? He cashes in, loads up the truck and moves to Beverly Hills.

I agree with Dallas Willard, that if we truly consider Jesus the premier thinker of the human race then we also would be wise to honor him as the most knowledgeable person in our field, whatever that may be, and to ask for his wisdom and guidance with everything we have to do.