Section 1: Why Should I Follow Jesus?
If you're skeptical, cynical, or just curious—you’re in the right place. We get it. Many people have walked away from Christianity, not necessarily because they’re anti-Jesus, but because of things associated with Christianity:
You’ve known Christians who were awful.
You’ve seen religious hypocrisy.
You’ve watched Christians mix politics and faith in weird ways.
You’ve experienced prayers that went unanswered.
You’ve asked hard questions and got shallow answers.
You’ve had real pain, and religious people gave you religious clichés.
But here's the thing—the foundation of the Jesus movement does an end run around all of those objections. Not because they don’t matter, but because the foundation of Christianity is not about Christians.
It’s not about the behavior of believers.
It’s not about answered prayer or spiritual experiences.
It’s not even about the Bible.
The foundation of the Jesus movement and the Christian faith is one historical event: the resurrection of Jesus.
The Mystery of History
Every year on Easter weekend, around one-third of the world’s population—literally billions of people—will celebrate a 1st-century Jewish carpenter named Jesus who never wrote a book, never traveled more than thirty miles from His hometown, never held political office, never led an army, and died as a Galilean day-laborer-turned-Rabbi and crucified criminal.
That’s incredible.
Think about it:
Nero, one of Rome’s most powerful emperors, is known mainly for feeding Christians to lions.
Caesar Augustus, who ruled for 40 years and reshaped the Roman Empire, is mostly remembered today as a historical footnote in the story of Jesus’ birth.
And yet Jesus—executed by Rome—is worshiped, followed, and sung about all over the globe.
Why? How?
This isn’t how movements usually start.
Most movements follow a pattern:
Cultural unrest.
A charismatic leader rises up.
That leader introduces change or new values.
The movement gains traction.
The leader dies.
A group of followers carries the ideas forward and makes him a legend.
That’s what happened with Islam. It’s what happened with the civil rights movement. It’s how nearly every revolution begins.
But Christianity doesn’t fit that mold.
Jesus didn’t fight oppression or advocate for liberation. He wasn’t anti-Rome. He didn’t try to overthrow the government. He didn’t even try to start a new religion.
Jesus’ message wasn’t about revolution—it was about Himself.
He didn’t just give us good ideas. He claimed to be the idea.
That’s what got Him killed.
Jesus made it personal.
Throughout His life, Jesus made staggering, personal claims:
To His disciples: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
To John the Baptist: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”
To Lazarus’ grieving sisters: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though he dies.”
To His disciples again: “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”
He didn’t say, “Follow my principles.” He said, “Follow me.”
He didn’t say, “Believe in what I teach.” He said, “Believe in who I am.”
And that was the problem.
Because when Jesus died, all hopes died with Him. You don’t follow a dead Messiah. You don’t build a movement around someone who claims to be the Son of God and then gets executed by the state. Jesus put himself squarely at the center of the movement. Jesus was the movement. Jesus was the message. So, when Jesus died the message and movement died with him.
WHEN JESUS DIED, THE MOVEMENT DIED
At the cross, no one was standing by saying, “It’s okay… He’s going to rise!”
No one was waiting outside the tomb with a countdown like New Year’s Eve.
Every one of His followers abandoned Him. They all unfollowed him because when he died, there was nothing left to follow.
They ran. They hid. They denied even knowing Him.
The guys who brought us the story of Jesus wrote themselves as cowards. Peter—Jesus’ boldest disciple—denied Him three times and then disappeared. Mark ran out of the garden naked. That’s in the Bible.
Why include those details?
Because they weren’t trying to make themselves look good.
They were writing what actually happened.