What does Jesus’ call to follow him mean for Christians today? Abandoning the things of the world and holding onto Jesus is a radical calling. However, this calling is what we are called to. In this video, Pastor David Platt challenges Christ-followers to radically hold on only to Christ.
- What Does it Mean to Follow Christ?
- How Do We Hold Onto Christ?
When I think about just the essence of what it means to live radically, I think about Jesus’s initial words to his disciples. Matthew chapter four, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” Now, those two words, “Follow me,” were just loaded with meaning because what this meant for those four guys and then others who would come after them, this was, in a very real sense, an abandonment of all the things of this world that they held dear. This was an abandonment of safety and security, possessions, for a while, their professions, family, friends.
Living Radically Means Holding On to Christ
I mean, they were letting go of things in order to hold to one thing: Christ. And that’s really the essence of what it means to be a follower of Christ. So this is a sense in which radical is normal for every follower of Christ, that we hold loosely to everything this world offers us, and we deny ourselves, we turn from sin, and we trust in Christ as the king who is someone who is worth letting go of everything for. Now, what happens in the process of grabbing hold of Christ and clinging tightly to Christ in our lives, the net transforms the way we look at all of these things in this world.
It’s not that, okay, we leave behind our family and our friends, we just never talk to them again because now we’re followers of Christ. Instead, the way we lead our families and the way we love our friends is all based on Christ being supreme. And the way we handle possessions is radically changed because Christ determines how we live, not the culture around us, not the expectations of wealthy middle class, upper middle class American dream culture.
Christ Determines How We Live Our Live
No, Christ determines these things, and Christ determines how we use our money. Christ determines what we do in our spare time and our work. He’s Lord of everything. We’ve surrendered the right to determine the direction of our lives, and therefore, in submission to Christ, he’s free to use us however he desires for the spread of his fame where we live and to the ends of the Earth. And when that is our driving perspective of the Christian life, then that changes everything about how we live.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
