The Discipleship Challenge

Read John 15:18-16:4

Introduction

The Oxford Safe Church list

“So here's how the church is ranked. It is ranked level 1. Now, level 1 is the worst. Level 5 is the best according to this LGBTQ+ advocacy group. Rated number 1 is St. Ebbe's. Here's what the statement reads. "St. Ebbs and their leadership are outspoken in their beliefs on the impurity of same-sex marriage, relationships, and LGBTQ+ identity. There will be an expectation to remain celibate and as your gender assigned at birth, and this will be supplemented by guidance, prayer, and teaching as shown by their indirect support for conversion therapy and/or practices. For these reasons, St. Ebbe's is rated as a 1."

This is coming to a city and nations near you soon!

Luke 14:25–32 ESV

25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.

Jesus has not saved you so that you can have an easy life....he has chosen you out of the world, you are no longer of this world, and but he leaves us in the world as his agents

Jesus lays out the challenges of discipleship in a plain, straightforward manner in our text.

The Challenge of Discipleship

Disciples are hated. (18,19)

Disciples will suffer. (20,21)

Disciples will be black balled. (16:2a)

Disciples will be killed. (16:2b)

Why Does the World Hate Disciples?

The world hates followers of Jesus because the world hates God and Christ. (18,23,24)

The world despises anything or anyone that does not conform to its godless ideologies and practices.(19)

Disciples are called to live counter culturally and with a message that exposes error. This is viewed as intolerance.

We are not called to make people like us by avoiding truth!

Remember - every false religion is a part of the world system. The the only religion the world truly despises is Christianity.

The message of Christianity is like no other message. It attacks the heart of pride and calls on humanity to do nothing except to turn away from sin and to trust in the world of Christ - the gospel is an assault on human ability, ingenuity, and effort.

The world will try to conform you into its likeness - it will you every cultural form - music, movies, art, television, youtube - it will use its institutions of education and corporations....it will even use certain portions of the church who are held in the world’s sway. Romans 12:1-3

Romans 12:1–3 ESV

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

Disciples Must View Themselves 3 Ways in Relationship with the World:

Disciples are strangers or foreigners in the world.

Disciples are sojourners, meaning that we are passing through awaiting our final destination.

Disciples are sowers.

Disciples are chosen out of the world, and then sent back into the world to make disciples.

Jesus Helps His Followers Live In the World

Preparation (16:4)

Power (15:26)

Preservation (16:1)

Conclusion:

To count the cost is one of the first duties that ought to be pressed on Christians in every age. It is no kindness to young beginners to paint the service of Christ in false colors, and to keep back from them the old truth, “Through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom of God.” By prophesying smooth things, and crying “Peace,” we may easily fill the ranks of Christ’s army with professing soldiers. But they are just the soldiers, who, like the stony-ground hearers, in time of tribulation will fall away, and turn back in the day of battle. No Christian is in a healthy state of mind who is not prepared for trouble and persecution. He that expects to cross the troubled waters of this world, and to reach heaven with wind and tide always in his favor, knows nothing yet as he ought to know. We never can tell what is before us in life. But of one thing we may be very sure: we must carry the cross if we would wear the crown.

Ryle, J. C. (1880). Expository Thoughts on John (Vol. 3, pp. 131–132). Robert Carter & Brothers.