“As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, “Follow me,” and he got up and followed him.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When thinking or talking about religion, it is easy to just lump everything into one category. For the sake of convenience we divide the world into the religious and the non-religious, the sacred and the secular. In doing this, however, we can fall into the trap of thinking that all religions are basically the same. After all, they are all religions. How different can the really be from one another? The short answer is incredibly different. And the most different of all is Christianity. It is so very different because at its core it is not about keeping a bunch of rules. It is about following a person. I had a great chance to share this remarkable idea with a bunch of fantastic kids this past week. Let me share with you what we talked about.

Jesus never called anyone to a life of rule-keeping as a means of righteousness. Not even once. Yeah, but what about when the rich young man came asking about eternal life? Jesus quizzed him on the Law. Go back and read the story closely. Those things only got the men close to eternal life. The trouble is, being close still leaves you an infinite distance away from it. What Jesus told the man would get him all the way there was to come and follow Jesus.

This was Jesus’ invitation to people throughout the Gospels. He told us to bear witness to Him and to invite people to be His disciples. And what does a disciple do? Well, perhaps a lot of things, but when you look at the picture we have of Jesus’ disciples in the Gospel accounts, we find them following Jesus. They were learning to be like Him by following Him around, observing what He did, and then working to do it themselves with His help. Following Jesus lies at the very heart of what it means to be a Christian. And we follow Him because we believe that He rose from the dead and is thus the right and proper Lord of our lives as He claimed to be.

And that’s all well and good, but what does it mean to follow Jesus? That’s what I got the chance to help unpack at our Vacation Bible School this past week. (If you’re interested, we used the 2023 material from a youth ministry called Orange entitled “Move.”) Honestly, it was one of the best VBS themes I’ve worked with in I can’t remember how long—maybe ever. I can’t think of another set of material that broke being a follower of Jesus down into such simple terms for the kids to understand and follow. And the Bible stories they used to express these ideas really helped them nail it.

I don’t want to take up your whole day going through the entire series, but I do want to set the three big ideas before you because they really do make getting following Jesus right something that feels much more concrete and apprehendable than the rather amorphous concept it is often presented to be. So then, what does it mean to follow Jesus? Three things.

The week started in the Sermon on the Mount. It made passing reference to some of the individual teachings Jesus gave us there, but landed with both feet on His concluding challenge about the wise man and the foolish man who built their houses on two very different foundations. The wise man built his house on a foundation of rock, and when the storms came, his house didn’t move because it had a strong foundation. The foolish man built his house on a fountain of sand. When the storms came, his house collapsed because of the weakness of its foundation.

Jesus said that the difference between being a wise person and a foolish one is whether or not we hear what Jesus says and put it into action. It is not enough to simply hear, read, observe, take in, or however else you want to engage with it, what Jesus said. If we stop there, it will do us absolutely no good. We have to put it into practice in our lives. We have to do what Jesus says. That’s the first thing. Following Jesus means doing what Jesus does.

The second story took us through Jesus death and resurrection, but it gave special attention to Peter’s role in the story. Most notably, after insisting he would never deny or run out on Jesus, Peter did exactly that when everything was on the line. And he was absolutely devastated by it. Yet Jesus didn’t leave him in his brokenness. He forgave and restored Peter. And He did this because of His great love for him. This is where the lesson landed. Jesus didn’t just restore Peter, He called him to continue His work by loving other people.

Jesus forgives and restores us just like He did Peter. And, just like He did with Peter, He calls us to continue His mission of loving other people. If we are going to follow Jesus, we need to love who He loves. And who does Jesus love? Everybody. Following Jesus doesn’t simply mean doing what He does, it means loving who He loves.

The third story found us journeying with Paul to the city of Athens where he received an invitation to talk about Jesus before the gathered intelligentsia at the Areopagus. There he gave a sermon that is still closely studied by apologists as a model for how to present the Gospel to unbelievers. Where it landed, though, was on the fact that Paul was willing to go where Jesus sent him in order to proclaim the Gospel to others. This is our example. Following Jesus means going where He sends. Indeed, if we aren’t willing to go where He sends, then we’re not really following Him. We may like Him and mostly agree with Him, but we’re not following Him.

Following Jesus sometimes seems like a big and scary or complicated thing to do. It isn’t. It’s far simpler than we imagine. It means doing what Jesus does, loving who Jesus loves, and going where Jesus sends. If you can do just those three things, you are following Jesus. If even a child can understand that, you can too. And when you follow Him, you’ll wind up where He goes. And where He is going is to eternal life in God’s kingdom. That’ll be a good place to be.