That You Might Follow in His Steps
1 Peter 2:21-25
May 4, 2025 anno Domini
Follow me! Jesus said to Simon and his brother Andrew … and immediately they left their nets and followed him. That’s how Saint Mark describes the call of Peter to be a disciple of Jesus. Jesus called and Peter followed, leaving his fishing nets behind.
Follow me. That’s the call of the Good Shepherd Jesus Christ. He said, “My sheep hear my voice .. and they follow me.” (John 10:27)
Follow me. What’s your response to that request? I know mine. Where are we going?
Jesus says, “Follow me!” We replay, “Where are we going Jesus?” To that He says, “We’re going to die.”
When God called Moses to follow Him down to Egypt, Moses had to die to the easy life of shepherding sheep and put his life on the line to shepherd sinners and face their enemy Pharaoh.
When God called Abram to follow, Abram had to die to his pagan gods and his established home. When God called him and Sarah to be parents in their old age, they had to put to death the fears and disappointments. When God called Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac he had to die to the love of his son and live by the promises of God.
When Jesus called Peter, Peter had to die to his fishing business. He would no longer catch fish for a living. He would catch men with the Gospel that they might live, and for his preaching Peter would die.
Jesus says, “Follow me” because we are lost without Him. “You were straying like sheep.” That’s how Peter describes you. Sheep wander. Sheep scatter. Sheep follow their appetites away from the Shepherd and safety. They don’t even know they are lost or alone until a wolf pounces on them, or rushing water sweeps them away, or they are caught in some brambles.
That’s you in your sin. Like a wayward sheep you’ve followed your belly, your appetite for pleasure or satisfaction or life. By nature, because you are born sinful. You wander away from God and His Word. Sin leaves you all alone – apart from God and divided from the flock. The Lord God, the Son of God, has come to rescue you from your sin and bring you back into the safety of God’s pasture, but here’s the rub. When the Shepherd calls you to follow Him, He’s calling you to die to your belly, to your passions, to going your own way.
Let’s say you’re a sheep. Baa Baa Bruce. You’re out in the pasture and you find some really sweet grass. You nibble your way down to a quiet stream and across the way on a little island you spy the greatest looking flowering grass you’ve ever seen. If sheep drool, you’re drooling. So, you wade carefully through the stream, reach the island, and start nibbling and it’s everything you dreamed off. Then there is a thunderclap, and the clouds open up and your island shrinks as the water rises, and soon the current carries you into some brush. You’re trapped, you’re dead. And then you see Him coming. Fighting the current. Shepherd’s crook in His hand. He gets that crook around your neck. Pulls you free. Carries your very plump, waterlogged body out of the river and back to the sheepfold. Now, are you going to die to your belly or are you heading back down to that island again?
For this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His steps. The text begins with Christ’s suffering. That’s Him plucking you out of the waters, snatching you from death, saving you from your helplessness. Perhaps my illustration would have been better if the Shepherd dies just as He gets you to safe ground, but that’s the weakness of illustrations. There’s nothing that illustrates completely what Christ Jesus did for you. One Shepherd laid down His life for this whole world of sheep. By His death all our wandering sins are forgiven. But the Shepherd didn’t stay dead. He rose again.
So, when Jesus says, “Follow me” and you ask, “Where are we going?” He says, “We’re going to die.” But thne after a pause He continues, “and then we’re going to live like you’ve never lived before.”
You have been rescued from everything that would kill you. You have been saved from yourself and your passions. You don’t have your sins anymore and that means death can’t keep you down and the Devil cannot possess you.
Christ alone saves you, but that isn’t the end. You aren’t taken from the raging river of sin and death right to heavenly pasture. You’re left here on earth, to follow the Shepherd, that you might sharpen you sheep kills in listening to the Shepherd and acting like His flock. Christ’s death and resurrection save you, but also set the example for you. The Shepherd leads you out of sin and sets the course for the way you walk. The Shepherd’s way is the way of selflessness, the way Christ walked. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
Follow Christ’s example. He saved you from yourself, so don’t live to yourself. Don’t sin. Tell the truth. Don’t get angry when people get angry at you. Don’t seek vengeance when you suffer. Entrust yourself to God who judges justly. He took care of sin and death and the Devil at the cross. On the last day you and all the world will see that with your own eyes and hear it with your ears.
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. Where are we going? We’re going to die and then live like we’ve never lived before. Some sheep foolishly believe that they don’t have to follow Jesus. They believe once they are saved they are always saved. They look on faith as a one and done deal. Once baptized, once confirmed, once a Christian always a Christian. Once He plucks you from the river of sin and death you can never drown again. You can go wherever you want, but you’re still His sheep. That is not faith. That is folly. That is not following Christ.
The Christian life is dying to sin and rising to life. You’re going to wander, and unless You listen to His voice you might not even know you are sinning. No one else is going to tell you when you’re wandering into danger, and no one else is going to save you from yourself. Christ is risen from the dead. Your Good Shepherd laid down His life and took it up again. When you believe that you are raised from the dead. Live like it. Live like you’re forgiven. Like you’re living forever. Like God and your neighbor matter most and you don’t.
Christ is calling, “Follow me!” Where are we going? We going to death and then to life like you’ve never lived it before. In the name of Jesus. Amen.