Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Trinity
Sermons. This week we're launching a brand new
teaching series called This is the Way. But what
is the way? What are we following? What are we
chasing? Everybody is chasing something. Maybe
it's a career. Maybe it's a dream. Maybe you're
following a set of rules and expectations. But
what would it look like to follow the way of
Jesus? That's what we're going to start exploring
today and continue throughout the rest of Lent.
Today's reading is from the Gospel of Mark, chapter
1, verses 9 to 20. In those days, Jesus came
from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by
John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of
the water, immediately he saw the heavens being
torn open and the Spirit descending on him like
a dove. And a voice came from heaven. The Spirit
immediately drove him out into the wilderness,
and he was in the wilderness forty days being
tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals,
and the angels were ministering to him. Now,
after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee
proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, The
time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is
at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. Passing
alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and
Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net into
the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said
to them, Follow me, and I will make you become
fishers of men. And immediately they left their
nets and followed him. And going on a little
farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and
John, his brother, who were in their boat mending
the nets. And immediately he called them, and
they left their father Zebedee in the boat with
a hired servant and followed him. The word of
the Lord. In the good old days when someone called
you on your phone, you didn't know who it was.
You just had to take your chances and you answered.
Now, of course, today we look down and we have
caller ID and that kind of gives us some indication
of, you know, the person that is calling and
therefore we're able to respond based on who
we know that person is. So, for example, if your
spouse were to call, you can pick up and you
can say, hey, honey, how's it going? And if you
can see that it's one of your children, You can
say, hey. kiddo, what's up right away? You know,
if let's say it's your, you know, your ex -boyfriend
that's calling, it allows you to answer and say,
what do you want? Right? First off, it's a power
move right from the very beginning. Or maybe
it's the bishop calling. Has that ever happened
to you? In which case you're like, you can sit
up straight, take a deep breath and say, hello,
it's Robert Herkman speaking to, you know, what
do I owe this pleasure, bishop? Right? So you
can tailor your answer depending on who you know
is calling. calling. And for, you know, you would
never, for example, want to, your ex -boyfriend
is calling and pick up and say, hi, honey, you
wouldn't want to do that. And if the bishop calls,
you don't want to pick up and say, what do you
want, right? But so the thing is, the way you
categorize the caller enables you to respond
to them in a certain way. Well, the same is true
of Jesus. The way you categorize Jesus determines
how you respond to Jesus. Hmm, you say. Well,
here's what I mean about that. So say, for example,
You believe that Jesus is a crazy lunatic sort
of person. Well, then your response to Jesus
is going to be kind of to laugh him off. Oh,
this guy is off his rocker, right? Let's say
instead you categorize Jesus as a liar. He's
this person who is deceiving people and going
around and he's a con man of sorts. Well, if
that's the category you put Jesus in, then the
appropriate response for you is to hate this
guy because he's totally deceiving people. manipulating
people. Now, on the other hand, if you were to
categorize Jesus as a myth, this is just some
made -up guy, a legend, a fictional character,
then the appropriate response to that would be
to ignore him, right? Because it's just a story
like so many other stories. If you were to put
Jesus in the category of God, then the appropriate
response for that would be for you to fall down
and worship this Lord of the universe that has
shown up in the form of Jesus, okay? But, so...
So if there's some of us here this morning, and
you might be like, well, no, I'm not exactly
sure what category I would put Jesus in. In fact,
I think some of you would say, I do think he's
crazy, or I do think he's a myth, or some of
you are convinced that he's God. And so that
allows you to respond to him in different ways.
And there's others of you who you're not sure
which category to put Jesus in right now, and
that's okay. But what that means is that you
maybe don't know exactly how to respond to Jesus
on this Sunday morning. You don't know the kind
of person that you're dealing with. But if you
had encountered Jesus 2 ,000 years ago, the category
that you would have put him in was the category
of rabbi. And rabbi is a Jewish word for teacher.
And by the way, out of the 90 conversations that
Jesus has with people in the Gospels, in 60 of
those conversations, the people refer to Jesus
as a rabbi. And so really that is... the category
that Jesus was in in those days. He was a young,
he was brilliant, he was a little bit radical.
He was a rabbi from Nazareth. So here's the question.
If that's the category you put Jesus in, then
what is the response? What is the response to
a rabbi? Is it to laugh at him? Is it to hate
him? No, it's not to ignore him. It's certainly
not to worship him. That's not what you do to
a rabbi. What you do to a rabbi is you follow.
him. You follow a rabbi. The proper response
to a rabbi was to follow him. And that is exactly
what we see people doing with Jesus. So for example,
Jesus is walking along the seashore and he sees
Simon and Andrew and he says to them, hey, follow
me. And guess what? They get up and they follow
him. Why do they follow him? Because that's what
you do to a rabbi, right? Another time, Jesus
is walking along and he sees a man named Levi
sitting at a tax booth, collecting taxes. And
he says, to Levi he says Levi follow me and Levi
got up and followed him well why would Levi do
that because that's what you do for a rabbi,
when a rabbi invites you, you know, and then
there's, you know, other disciples, like in John's
gospel, when Andrew and John start following
Jesus, they start following Jesus, and Jesus
turns around and says, hey, what do you want,
right? He picks up the phone, what do you want?
And they say, rabbi, right? They're following
him because they see him as a rabbi, and that's
what you do for a rabbi. In fact, even in Jesus'
own words, Jesus says, listen, whoever wants
to be my disciple, must deny themselves and take
up their cross and follow me. So it's fair. If
you think Jesus is a lunatic, if you think he's
a legend, if you think he's a liar, if you think
he's the Lord, you can follow him, you can hate
him, you can love him, you can ignore him, whatever.
But the thing to understand is Jesus truly fit
the category in those days of a rabbi. And that
response was therefore to follow him, to follow
him. Okay, so this Lent, we're doing this teaching
series all through Lent called This is the Way.
And we began on Ash Wednesday. And by the way,
if you missed what we talked about on Ash Wednesday,
I would encourage you to go swing over to YouTube
or go to this website, trinitystreetsville .org
slash this is the way. That's where we're going
to put all the material that emerges throughout
this series. But what we're going to see throughout
this is that Jesus's invitation for us is not
just an invitation. invitation to say, hey, believe
in me and I will show you a way to get to heaven.
No, his invitation is to follow me and I will
show you a way to live your life right here and
right now. So if you're one of those people and
you feel like you've lost your way in life, or
if you're out there and you're looking for a
way of life, Jesus comes along and he says, this
is the way. Let me show you a way to live your
life. Now, here is something truly fascinating.
If you go back to the very beginning of, you
know, before there was any such thing called
Christianity or Christians, people were calling
the Jesus followers by another name. They were
calling them the way, the way or followers of
the way. So, for example, when Paul was out there
hunting down Christians, oh, wait a second, sorry.
He wasn't hunting down Christians because there
was no such thing as Christians. What he was
hunting down were followers of the way, right?
That's what he called them. Or when Christians
caused this great big riot in Ephesus. Oh, again,
I'm sorry. Sorry, I shouldn't have said that
because there were no such thing as Christians
in those days. It wasn't Christians that caused
that riot. It was the followers of the way. right?
Even judges and officials like Felix, they knew
all about Christians, but no, they didn't call
them Christians because that's not what they
were called. What they were called were followers
of the way. So on top of that, though, on top
of that, early Christians actually referred to
themselves as the way as well. So, for example,
Akilah and Priscilla were one day they were talking
to Apollos and were told that they were explaining
to Apollos the way of God. Or Paul, in that same
exchange he had with Felix, he confessed that
he was a follower of the way. And some people
thought it was a sect, you know, a crazy sect
of Judaism. But no, he says, this is a way. This
is the way I'm following. Or the writer of Hebrews
says that in Jesus' broken body and in his blood,
we have a brand new and living way. A way for
us to enter God's kingdom. And then, you know,
in 2 Peter, Peter refers to Christianity again.
He doesn't refer to Christianity as Christianity.
He refers to it as the way of truth. So track
with me here. People called Christians, not Christians,
but they called them followers of the way. And
Christians themselves didn't refer to themselves
as Christians. They referred to themselves as
people who follow a certain way. They follow
the way of Jesus. And it's also important to
note, I think, that in fact, Jesus himself called
himself the way, right? In John 14, 6, this very
famous line, Jesus says, I am the way and the
truth and the life. And so, so. Christians didn't
go by Christians in the beginning. They were
the way. They were the way. And I think this
is so, so very important because it lets us know
that right from the beginning, when this movement
began, it was about living your life in a different
kind of way in the world. And I don't know about
you, but when I think about whether I would rather
be called like a Christian. Or a follower of
the way of Jesus. There's something that resonates
with me about that. I like that. You know, it
strikes a core with me. Yes, I want someone to
show me a way to live my life. And I want to
follow the way of Jesus. I think studies are
showing this resonates with millennials. This
resonates more with Gen Z. People who are looking
for a way to live their life. David Fitch. who
is a Canadian scholar, although he's working
at a university in the States, he writes this.
The phrase, the way of Jesus does something positive.
It refocuses discipleship away from merely learning
and assenting to certain truths to actually living
a certain way, a more rigorous life of engaging
the ethical demands of life under Christ's reign.
And he goes on to say that people who follow
the way of Jesus, they stand up for justice.
They stand up for the oppressed and the marginalized
and the poor. And I don't know. I like it. I
like it. And I don't know. Maybe you like this
language too. You aren't just here at church
because you're looking. for a certain something
to believe. Rather, you're looking for a certain
way to live your life, a way of life that makes
a difference in the world. You're not looking
for a religion. You're looking for a way of life.
I'm really excited about this. But before we
can know what it really means for us today to
follow the way of Jesus, we actually need to
go back 2 ,000 years ago and say, what did it
look like for a person to follow the way of a
rabbi in Jesus' original day? Now, it's important
to know that the follower of a rabbi in those
days was a Talmudim. which is very commonly translated
and all throughout your Bibles, it's translated
as disciple. But Dallas Willard and the amazing
writer and spiritual thinker, he said actually
the best translation of the word Talmudim would
be apprentice, apprentice. So that means that
to follow Jesus. was to become his apprentice.
It was to apprentice under Jesus. That's what
it meant to follow the way. of jesus and i just
want to say as a side note it's funny while i
was preparing this i came across like an ad that
was promoting all the benefits of doing apprenticeships
today right like i've got uh you know kids that
are moving through post -secondary education
right now and i was just like shocked when i
read this you know you know you can either you
know get four years of apprenticeship and 250
000 plus benefits plus work experience in your
industry or you can go to university come out
with $50 ,000 worth of debt and mostly have classroom
education and have a hard time finding a job.
I'm like, ooh. This is the way. This is, apprenticeship
is the way. Now, we didn't invent the idea of
apprenticeship, and Jesus didn't invent the idea
of apprenticeship. There were lots of rabbis
in Jesus' day that were teaching their way to
their apprentices and their disciples, right?
For example, Rabbi Hillel had 70 disciples that
followed him around. Rabbi Akiva, Had five famous
disciples, but there are really thousands of
people in Israel who were following the way of
Rabbi Akiva in those days. Plato, remember Plato?
He was the apprentice or the disciple, if you
will, of Socrates. So apprenticeship was part
and parcel of what it meant to live in the first
century world. And to apprentice or to disciple
under a rabbi was a high, high calling. It was
like the pinnacle. of the Jewish education system.
And very few kind of made the cut and were selected
as Talmudim apprentices, disciples of rabbi.
Here's just so you know what the Jewish education
system kind of looked like. It had three main
categories. Grade school, if you will, was called
Beit Sefer. which translate house of the book,
the book being, of course, the Bible. And so
basically, that's where children would go to
learn their basics, like, you know, math and
to learn how to read and write and that kind
of stuff. But they studied the Bible. In fact,
after your years in Bates' affair, you would
have memorized the first five books of the Hebrew
Old Testament, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy. They would all have been memorize,
which is such a feat. It's so hard to imagine,
but that's how it worked in oral cultures like
that. And most children, after they had finished
that, they were done. And they would maybe then
go and work in the family business, or maybe
even at that age, 14 years old, 15 years, they
would go and get married and start a family of
their own. But my point is, that's where most
kids kind of ended. Now, there were, I guess,
the cream of the crop in that graduating class
would move on to something called Beit Talmud.
Now, Beit Talmud means a house of learning. And
what they would usually have on a synagogue in
those days was they would build a little kind
of lean -to off the synagogue, and that became
a classroom for Beit Talmud. And now what you
did was you kind of full -time with a paid teacher,
you studied and studied and studied from like
ages like 12 to 15 or 16. And during that time
of study, I can't even believe this is true,
but you would end up memorizing like the rest
of the Hebrew Old Testament, like all the way
through to like Malachi, which is crazy, crazy.
But I have to say, once that had happened, just
about every single person was done. I mean, that
was a huge accomplishment, right? To have memorized
all that and then off you go and whatever life
brings you. But there was yet a cream and even
more. cream of the crop, like the best of the
very best of the very best, would be invited
to continue into something called Beit Midrash.
And that meant the house of study. And this was
only for the elite. This was only for the Rhodes
scholars, if you will. And what would happen
is you would be invited by a rabbi into this
level of education. Rabbis would come in and
they would sit down and they would grill you
in the finer points of Jewish law and history
and interpretation. And if one rabbi took a liking
to you and they said, you know what? I think
this kid's got the smarts. I think this kid's
has got the drive. I think he's got what it.
takes then that rabbi would turn to you and say
come follow me be one of my talmudim be one of
my disciples be one of my apprentices and let
me show you my way and it was an honor to be
invited by a rabbi it was also very demanding
As you now had to kind of completely submit your
life to the way of this rabbi. Right. So what
does it mean to submit yourself fully to a rabbi?
It sounds kind of scary. Well, maybe it was kind
of scary. Because in the first century, following
your rabbi meant complete devotion. You would
be with your rabbi 24 -7, all day, every day,
eating, sleeping, waking, walking, learning,
following. You were completely, completely devoted.
There is this old kind of Hebrew blessing out
there that says, may you be covered in the dust
of your rabbi, which means may you be following
your rabbi so closely down those dirty, dusty
Palestinian roads that the very dust Dust that's
coming up off of his sandals is landing on you
and caking all over you. That was a wonderful
thing because it meant that you were completely
devoted. Following your rabbi meant complete
and absolute devotion. But it also meant education.
Rabbis were great, great teachers. And so you
would sit at your rabbi's feet and you would
listen to his teaching. And a rabbi's set of
teaching in those days was known as that rabbi's
yoke. Okay, so disciples would take on them the
yoke of their rabbi. Like animals are kind of
bound together in like a yoke, right? So an apprentice
was bound together with his rabbi and obeying
that rabbi's teachings. And they would study
everything that the rabbi had written. They would
memorize everything that the rabbi was teaching.
Every word that came out of his mouth. It was
complete devotion. education but the other thing
related to this was imitation The goal of a Talmudim
was to imitate their rabbi. I know that today
we say, hey, you should just be you and you should
be one of a kind and you're unique and go and
do your own thing. But that is not how it worked.
The goal of a disciple was to become a carbon
copy of the rabbi they were following. Imitate
his every move, even his tone of voice, his mannerisms
of teaching, his dress. Plato's disciples were
said to walk with hunches. A lot of Plato's disciples
had hunches. And why was that? It's because Plato
himself was a bit of a hunchback. And so they
so wanted to imitate their rabbi that they said,
oh, I guess we should bend down like this as
we're following Plato, right? They imitated his
every move. And then the final step, of course,
would be that one day, once they've been with
this rabbi for a good long while, the rabbi would
be replicated in the student. And on that day,
the rabbi could turn to the student and say,
guess what? You're ready. I think you're ready.
It's time for you to step up to bat. I believe
in you. It's time for you to go and make disciples.
So he had devotion, he had education, imitation,
and replication. So that was 2 ,000 years ago.
What does this look like today? Let's bring it
back to the 21st century. What does it mean for
us who want to follow our rabbi, Jesus, today?
Well, here at Trinity, we've kind of taken that
ancient pathway and we've changed the language
a bit and we have created a mission statement,
which I'm sure you've heard many times by now,
but it is a pathway. That helps us follow the
way of Jesus here and now. So here's what I mean.
Here's what I mean. We already spoke about how
being devoted to your rabbi was essential in
the first century. Well, here at Trinity, we
talk in the language of love. And our mission
statement calls us first to love Jesus. To follow
the way of Jesus means first to love Jesus. Then
Jesus invited his Talmudim. He invited all his
disciples into a relationship of loving devotion.
And that is why he says to his disciples, he
says, as the father has loved me, so I have loved
you. Now remain in my love. That is the first
and the primary goal of apprenticeship to Jesus.
Loving relationship with Jesus. And that's where
it starts. That's the baseline. And like all
relationships, that love takes work. But truly
the best part of following Jesus was being with
Jesus and experiencing Jesus, right? And this
Lent. We're going to learn more as a church community
about how to nurture that loving relationship
with Jesus. And I would say the key practice
to this kind of devotion that we're going to
be highlighting in just a few moments is the
practice of prayer. That's how you grow in a
loving relationship with Jesus. But secondly,
there was the education piece. Well, here at
Trinity, we like to talk about learning from
Jesus. So there's loving Jesus and then learning
from Jesus. I think it's fair to say that one
way you could understand what a church is, is
that it's like a school. It's a school of Jesus.
And here we get together on Sundays and at life
groups and throughout the week. And we sit at
the feet of Jesus. And week by week, we learn
his yoke. from him jesus actually said take my
yoke upon you and learn from me so to so to follow
the way of jesus means you've got to be willing
to learn from jesus and jesus was the greatest
rabbi ever he was the greatest teacher ever his
teachings to this day are unmatched right and
and jesus knows everything jesus knows absolutely
everything. He knows all about you. He knows
how to live your life better than you know how
to live your life. So we need to learn from him.
The third thing we talk about here at Trinity
is not just loving Jesus and learning from Jesus,
but living like Jesus. Remember the whole imitation
thing, right? If we want to embrace the way of
Jesus, Then we've got to learn to do what Jesus
did. And Jesus did come, not just to teach us
all the stuff that's in the Bible, but he came
to show us with his life. How to live life in
the kingdom of God. And that's why he would say,
I don't want you to just go love people. He said,
I want you to love one another just as I have
loved you, right? To do it the way that I do
it, right? When we imitate Jesus, we do what
he did. And that might mean that we heal the
sick because Jesus healed the sick. It might
mean that we do justice because Jesus do justice.
It might mean we make peace with people. We reconcile
with people because that's what Jesus did. Jesus
did. And we will eat and we will drink with people
who are far from God. Why? Because that's what
Jesus did. And we want to live like Jesus to
imitate our rabbi. And then fourthly, and finally,
here at Trinity, we don't just want to love Jesus,
learn from him, live like him, but we also want
to lead others to him. Remember that whole piece
around the ultimate goal of a student of a rabbi
was to be told that you're ready to go and make
disciples yourself. Isn't that what Jesus' final
words to us on earth were? Go and make disciples
of all nations. So friends, so friends, here
is an invitation to a way of life. Devotion,
education, imitation, replication. Loving Jesus.
Learning from Jesus. Living like Jesus. Leading
others to Jesus. This is the way. This is a way
of life. And this will give you meaning in life.
But it's a serious invitation. You know, the
way of Jesus is the way of the cross after all.
It's the way of death and resurrection. So following
Jesus can't just be like a hobby. It can't be
like, well, I like to play golf and I like gaming
and I also like Jesus, right? No, following Jesus
only really works when you make... it the whole
point of your whole life when it becomes your
whole way of life i am reminded in the scriptures
jesus was always surrounded by two groups of
people he was always surrounded by his disciples
his talmudim his apprentices but he's also surrounded
by what the scriptures call the crowds the crowds
now If you were one of Jesus' disciples, what
you effectively had decided is that, yes, we
are following the way of Jesus. But if you were
part of the crowd, then you were still deciding.
You were interested in the way of Jesus, but
you wanted to keep your distance a little bit.
You weren't sure you wanted to give your whole
life to this. And I wonder this morning if you
can figure out where you fit in all that. Are
you a disciple? Are you a Talmudim? Are you like...
committed to walking the road with Jesus? Or
are you still in the crowd? And that is totally
okay. And you're curious about this, but you're
not sure just yet. Maybe over this season of
Lent, we can help more and more of us move from
the crowd to true discipleship. But it's not
just a serious invitation. It's also an open
invitation. It's open to everyone. When Jesus
says, whoever wants to be my disciple, dot, dot,
dot, dot, dot, he means whoever, right? To anyone.
Remember, all the other rabbis of Jesus' day,
they had a really, really, really high bar. It
was only for the best of the best of the best.
But Jesus stands up in front of a crowd and he
says, whoever, whoever wants to be my disciple,
which is actually pretty unheard of. What he's
saying, I think, really, it doesn't matter what
you've done. It doesn't matter what you haven't
done. It doesn't matter if you're smart or if
you feel like you're not so smart. It doesn't
matter if you're popular or not popular or successful
or unsuccessful, right? You're here this morning.
You're invited. I mean, goodness, Jesus' first
disciples were fishermen. They were the Bates
affair dropouts, and yet they were obviously
not the best of the best, but God used those
men to change the world. Why? because they embraced
the way of Jesus. And finally, lifelong invitation.
Learning the way of Jesus does not happen overnight.
It'll take your whole life. And it also takes
a community, being part of a church community,
because so much of the learning we have to do
doesn't work if we just try to do it on our own.
So Sunday mornings are important, taking courses
together, joining life groups. We walk this way.
That author, Dallas Willard, said it this way.
He said, the greatest issue facing the world
today with all its heartbreaking needs is whether
those who by profession or culture are identified
as Christians will actually become disciples,
students, apprentices, practitioners of Jesus
Christ. Jesus is not looking for converts to
Christianity. He's looking for apprentices in
the kingdom of God. So love Jesus. Learn from
Jesus. Live like Jesus. Lead others to Jesus.
This might be your first time at Trinity, or
maybe it's your second or your third time, and
you're not sure what you think about all this.
You're invited. Maybe you grew up in church and
you've been hearing this stuff for 20 or 30 years,
but you always sensed you were kind of in the
crowd. You're invited. You know, maybe you, at
some point in your life, you kind of hit a wall
and, you know, maybe you got hurt or burned out
or you're just running on empty, whatever. You're
invited too. And maybe you're saying, well, I
can't really tackle all this right now, Rob.
I'm going through some stuff, sickness or relationship
issues or job loss or I'm moving or whatever.
You're invited too. Right in the thick of it,
you are invited. You don't need to have all your
problems solved. You're invited. I'm invited.
We're all invited to this way, to following the
way of Jesus. Thanks be to God. Amen.