Follow You? – Where Are You Going?

Today’s Passage – Philippians 1 – 4; (Click on the references to listen to the audio – click here to view the text from the Blue Letter Bible website)

(Second Milers also read –Psalm 56 – 60; Proverbs 12)

Memory passage for the month of November – Luke 1:26 – 38

Listen to this morning’s Scripture song – Micah 6:8

“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample.” – (Philippians 3:14-17)

“Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” – (1 Corinthians 11:1)

“Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.” – (Hebrews 13:7)

Have you noticed that there are a lot of people out there in this world who are trying to get you to follow them. They want you to follow them on Facebook, or on Twitter, or on some other social media site. Some people want you to follow them politically. Some people want you to follow them as they perform for you in athletics, or in the entertainment world. But, where do these people want you to follow them to? Just where are they going? Did you ever stop to think that the people you may be following are going in a direction that you do not want to go?

Paul exhorted several different groups of people in the Scriptures to follow him also, but Paul was very careful to point out that people should only follow him as he was following the Lord. I do not have a problem with following the example of other men (or women), as long as they are going the same direction that I am going:

“Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” – (Amos 3:3)

The Apostle Paul was going in the right direction. He was pressing toward the mark. What was his mark? What was He aiming for? Where was he going? He wanted to get close to Christ:

“That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;” – (Philippians 3:10)

Paul was following hard after the Lord. He was, as A.W. Tozer would put it, “in pursuit of God”. I can follow a guy like the Apostle Paul. I can also follow some men that are alive today that are also pursuing God, and are a little further down the road than I am. I must be careful though: my goal is not men, but Christ; and if one of my mentors veers off of the path, I must forsake him, and keep my focus on the Lord. Paul teaches us this principle also in Philippians 3:18 – 19

“(For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)” – (Philippians 3:18-19)

We need to be careful who we are following. Many of the leaders in Christianity are not going in the right direction.

I also need to keep in mind that I have an obligation to the ones who may be following behind me. I need to lead them in a straight path to the Lord. I need to be the right example. Paul admonished Timothy that he needed to be the right role model for the people who followed him:

“Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” – (1 Timothy 4:12)

So we need to be careful to only follow those who are leading us to the Lord, and then we must also make sure that we are being the right example to those who are following after us.