There was a man going to work one morning, when he was pulled over by a state trooper, the trooper walked up to the man’s car and said, sir did you not see the stop sign? The man replied I have been traveling this highway for 20 years, and have never stopped at that sign, the trooper said well you will now, and handed him his ticket. The very next morning the same trooper was called to investigate a wreck at the same stop sign, much to his amazement, when he got to the first car, it was the very man he had given a ticket to the morning before, for not stopping at the stop sign. The trooper ask what had happened, he said don’t ask me, ask the man that hit me from behind. The trooper walked back to the second car, and inquired of the second man what had happened. The man exclaimed, it’s not my fault I hit him, I have been following him for 20 years, and he has never stopped here before.
We all have our ways don’t we? We often live out our lives in ruts of complacency and pathways of sameness. Rare is the person who steps back and evaluates his or her life, especially in the area of our spiritual journey. We “got saved” and that is that. Or is it?
"To serve God in order to gain heaven, is not the teaching of Christianity. Satisfaction cannot be found in gain, but only in a personal relationship to God. The presentation made by false evangelism is that Jesus Christ taught a man must have his own soul saved, be delivered from hell and get a pass for heaven, and when one is taken and the other left, he must look out that he is the one taken. Could anything be more diametrically opposed to what Jesus Christ did teach, or more unlike the revelation of God given in the Bible? A man is not to serve God for His sake of gain, but to get to the place where the whole of his life is seen as a personal relationship to God." - Oswald Chambers – 1917
The only ultimate disaster that can befall us, I have come to realize, is to feel ourselves at home here on earth. -- Malcolm Muggeridge
Today we are going to try to crack open the secret to authentic Christ following. What does it mean to follow Christ or be His disciple? What does it mean to me personally? How little or how much does my discipleship touch my life? Am I a Sunday only Christian? In other words, have I compartmentalized my life to the point that Christianity and faith is good for Sunday and Sunday only? Do you live by two sets of rules? One set for Sunday and another set of ethics and standards for the rest of the week? You might be tempted to think that this sermon is not about you or for you but it is. It is for all of us in this room. I can’t think of anyone including myself that doesn’t need to hear it.
A gray-haired old lady, long a member of her community and church, shook hands with the minister after the service one Sunday morning. "That was a wonderful sermon," she told him, "-- just wonderful. Everything you said applies to someone I know." Bits & Pieces, November, 1989, p. 19.
In 2007, if you choose to continue to be a part of this fellowship or church you will be called to examine your life in alignment with the word of God. We are going to do our best in every venue, bible study, small group, outreach, and celebration service to hold up the mirror of God’s word against our motives, will, and choices we make in the administration of our lives on a daily basis.
Let’s begin today with a look at the teaching of Christ about discipleship. In Luke 14, we read these words:
“A large crowd was following Jesus. He turned around and said to them, 26 “If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple. 27 And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.
28 “But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? 29 Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. 30 They would say, ‘There’s the person who started that building and couldn’t afford to finish it!” Luke 14:25--30 NLT
What is a Disciple or Discipleship? The Greek word for disciple is an individual that is a learner or a pupil. We would use the term student today. That definition is good news to every believer because:
There is a second, and I think more important question we need to answer today and that is:
How does one become a disciple?
[Luke 5:27 NASB] After that He went out and noticed a tax collector named Levi sitting in the tax booth, and He said to him, “Follow Me.” And he left everything behind, and got up and began to follow Him.
The Greek word follow comes from the word roadway. As I read that definition I thought about how different roadways present different possibilities. Jesus is asking Matthew to take a different roadway in life.
God has a way of doing that when He calls you to a life of discipleship. I hesitate to use my own story as an example because I wound up in full time ministry. In reality God calls every one of us to surrender every area of our life so that we might do His will and not what we think is important.
I had planned to go into business with a family that had taken me in as one of their own in many ways. They had secured an apartment for me and promised that I could go into management in their company.
This was four years into my being surrendered to Jesus Christ and committing to follow Him. He asked me to take a different road for my life. Christ asks us to follow Him in many different ways, and at different stages of our lives.
Whatever it is and whenever it comes, when Jesus calls us we must set everything aside and follow Him.
You know why we struggle so much today? Most of us in this room are from generations that are some of the most self serving, self focused and self centered in recent history. Baby boomers
We have been raised to think that life is all about us. Tom Wolfe labeled the 70’s as the “Me Decade.” While the boomers laid the ground work, the generations that have followed are stuck with a world saturated with “me theology.” Generation X, Generation Y, and the Millennials have all followed in the footsteps of the “I” driven concept.
For those kids born in the eighties, Whitney Houston was singing the fact that the greatest love of all was loving yourself. (Wonder how that worked out for her.)
According to Dr. Jean Twenge in her book, Generation Me, education has played a hand in furthering the, “it’s all about me,” concept. “Teacher training courses often emphasize that a child’s self-esteem must be preserved above all else. A sign on the wall of one university’s education department says, ‘We Choose to Feel Special and Worthwhile No Matter What.’” Perhaps as a result, 60% of teachers and 69% of school counselors agree that self esteem should be raised by “providing more unconditional validation of students based on who they are rather than how they perform or behave.” (pg. 57)
The bottom line is that we live in a selfish centered feel good society. Even those of us in leadership have been conditioned to never make anyone feel guilty or bad for unacceptable behavior. Where does it all stop? Where do we ever take time to get real and quit playing feel good games especially in the area of our spiritual lives?
While I don’t discount their benefit I can think of a couple of books even in Christian pop writing that flirted with this whole me centered teaching. I like to think that they were both unintentional in their writing but they were sure picked up by society as life changing books. Here they are: The Prayer of Jabez and The Purpose Driven Life. Both of them have merit as being legitimate books based on scripture, but the content and popularity of both was centered on self blessing and self centered thinking. Please don’t run out of here and think that I am against these books because I think there is some merit in them but they both played squarely into the popular self promoting, self loving propaganda of our day. A couple of years ago someone wrote a Christian book entitled, The Pressures Off. Truer words were probably never spoken.
Dallas Willard, professor at the University of Southern California’s School of Philosophy, offers this observation about the church - "By the middle of this [twentieth] century, [the church] had lost any recognized, reasonable, theologically and psychologically sound approach to spiritual growth, to really becoming like Christ."
Some of you may remember comedian Yakov Smirnoff. He said when he first came to the United States from Russia; he wasn’t prepared for the incredible variety of instant products available in American grocery stores. He says, "On my first shopping trip, I saw powdered milk--you just add water, and you get milk. Then I saw powdered orange juice--you just add water, and you get orange juice. And then I saw baby powder, and I thought to my self, what a country!" James Emery White, Rethinking the Church, Baker, 1997, p. 55-57
Discipleship is not easy or instant. You don’t just add water. Let’s look a little closer at Christ teaching on the matter.
Three applicants for discipleship
A First Interview
“57 As they were walking along, someone said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 But Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head.” Luke 9:57,58
We are not told whether this disciple followed Jesus or not because that was not important. The emphasis here is Jesus wanting those who follow Him to know that the things of this world are no longer important. Just follow Jesus and He will take care of the necessities of life.
It is also important to notice that Jesus did not call this man. We cannot just decide we are going to be disciples on our own. We will soon turn back when faced with the cold reality of discipleship. But when God calls us we know that nothing else in life matters. We follow no matter what because we believe in Him.
Remember Matthew? He left everything immediately and followed Jesus without a thought for the things of this world. Even though he was a wealthy man and his source of income would have to change. It caused him no concern; in fact he celebrates with friends because he cares about one thing now--following Jesus at any cost.
A Second Interview
“59 He said to another person, “Come, follow me.” The man agreed, but he said, “Lord, first let me return home and bury my father.” 60 But Jesus told him, “Let the spiritually dead bury their own dead![l] Your duty is to go and preach about the Kingdom of God.” Luke 9: 59,60
This disciple was concerned about legal matters. Jesus wants him to know that He is the law and the man just needs to follow Jesus.
Go back for a moment to Matthew the tax collector. Can you imagine the legal procedure that one had to go through to leave his tax booth. Somehow I think that just getting up and walking away was not the proper procedure. Somehow I think there would have been Roman soldiers involved in looking for someone who did that. Matthew just got up and walked away. He clearly had a “throw caution to the wind attitude,” about following Christ.
A Third Interview
“61 Another said, “Yes, Lord, I will follow you, but first let me say good-bye to my family.” 62 But Jesus told him, “Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.”
This man wanted things on his own terms, his own schedule. Jesus is clearly teaching that we are to move forward in following Him. Going backwards is clearly not to be a part of Christ following.
Dale Hays tells of a Haitian pastor who told his congregation this gruesome parable:
A certain man wanted to sell his house for $2,000. Another man wanted very badly to buy it, but because he was poor, he couldn’t afford the full price. After much bargaining, the owner agreed to sell the house for half the original price with just one stipulation: he would retain ownership of one small nail protruding from just over the door.
After several years, the original owner wanted the house back, but the new owner was unwilling to sell. So first the owner went out found the carcass of a dead animal, and hung it from the nail he still owned. Soon the house became unlivable and the family was forced to sell the house to the owner of the nail.
The Haitian pastor’s conclusion: "If we leave the Devil with even one small peg in our life, he will return to hang his rotting garbage on it, making it unfit for Christ’s habitation." [Dale A. Hays, Leadership, Vol. 4, no. 2]
A little boy constantly fell out of bed. No matter what his parents did, the boy couldn’t sleep without rolling out of bed. An uncle came to visit and in the middle of the night the usual thump and cry was heard. In the morning the uncle teased the boy and asked him why he fell out so often. The little fellow thought for a moment and then said, “I don’t know, unless its because I stay too close to the place where I get in.”
The Rich Young Ruler
[Luke 18:18 NASB] A ruler questioned Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” [19] And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. [20] “You know the commandments, ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not commit murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’ ”
Jesus tells the rich man, you don't need the advice of a good teacher, you need to obey God. Note that these commandments all deal with the man's relationship with his fellow man.
[21] And he said, “All these things I have kept from my youth.” [22] When Jesus heard this, He said to him, “One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
Now Jesus talks to him about his relationship with God. Jesus asks this man to do what Matthew had done, leave it all and follow me. Why did He make this drastic demand? Jesus knew this man kept the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law. To keep the letter of the law is to be a good man but to keep the spirit of the law is to be a spiritual man.
[23] But when he had heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.
This man is asked to follow just like Matthew was. What a sharp contrast; one man leaves everything and follows Jesus, one man walks away with great sorrow. What was the difference between them?
There are three things that you must believe to be like Matthew and leave everything and follow Jesus.
1. Jesus will take care of your needs.
2. Jesus will take care of the commandments in your life.
3. Jesus will take care of the terms of your life, your life schedule.
Our question, How does one become a disciple, as revealed in Scripture? It is very simple. We are to follow Jesus. A disciple is one who has set every agenda aside, every priority, every interest, and by the pull of the Holy Spirit has decided to follow Jesus, to be His student.
A disciple is one who makes other disciples. Jesus said this was the mission of the church. We were to go and make disciples of all nations. We were to teach them to obey everything He commanded us to do.
Whose job is that? Yours, Mine or Ours?
I want to suggest to you this morning that while this sermon is not on making disciples it is a tell tale sign of our personal discipleship. It may happen at work, at home or at school but it will be a natural product of our life when we are following Christ the way we should.
Let me give some kudos and props this morning to the many people who make this church happen. Every job, no matter how obscure is critical to the process of disciple making. I thank you for your time and talent and also the resources you give to make it happen.
There’s an old story about St Augustine. Early on in his Christian life, he was intensely absorbed in the writings of Cicero. And around this time, he had a dream that he had died. And now he was standing at the pearly gates. And the keeper of the gate said, "Who are you?"
And he said, "I’m Augustine." Then the keeper said, "What are you?" Augustine said, "I’m a Christian." The gatekeeper said, "No, you’re not a Christian. You’re a Ciceronian!"
Augustine said, "What are you talking about? I’m a Christian!"
And the gatekeeper said this: "All souls on earth are judged by what dominated their interests. In you, Augustine, it was not the Christ of the gospel. It was the Cicero of Roman literature. You are not a Christian. You cannot enter here!"
Augustine was so startled that when he woke up, he resolved then and there to be fully committed to Jesus Christ for the rest of his life and to live for Him.
"Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ." Bonhoeffer, Dietrich
A church member went to his pastor, Phillips Brooks, to tell him he was going to the Holy Land. He said that it was his intention to visit Mount Sinai. "In fact," the man told the minister, "I plan to climb to the top of that mountain and when I get there read aloud the Ten Commandments." Thinking this would please Dr. Brooks, the church member was surprised to hear his pastor say, "You know, I can think of something even better than that." The man responded, "You can, Pastor? And what might that be?" Brooks replied rather bluntly, "Just this. Instead of traveling thousands of miles to read the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, why not stay right here at home and keep them?"
May the God who called you fill you with enough of His presence to keep you as you walk in His footsteps this week.