Disciples of All Nations

What is a Disciple?

What is a Disciple?, I have spent the majority of my life in some sort of education or another. I spent a year in pre-K, thirteen years from kindergarten through graduating high school. Then I did two years of undergraduate, paused for a number of years, did two years to finish an associates degree, paused again. Then I did two more years to finish my bachelors degree once I decided that ministry was the path for me. Then seminary beckoned me and that was three years of graduate school. But I was a glutton for punishment and I wanted to continue my studies and earn my Master of Theology degree, but that took me eight years of part-time study. So, let’s add that up and we get thirty-one years of education. And not to mention that while completing my Master of Theology degree I also completed the United Methodist Course of Study and am now working through the Advanced Course of Study to be ordained…But why am I telling all of you this? To prove somehow that my Bible knowledge is more than yours? To show-off my fancy erudition by using big words like erudition? No. The reason I make pains to lay out my educational resume is to make a point about discipleship. Christian Discipleship.

Discipleship is the topic that we need to discuss during our message time today. What is a disciple? How are they made? What do they do? Those will be the things that occupy our time today. But first, I need to lay out a few things that disciples are not. First off, disciples are not professional ministers…at least not all of them. On paper at least, I have the requisite qualifications to do a few things with my degree. I am qualified to be a pastor in nearly all denominations and I have the qualifications to teach at the undergraduate and graduate level. That’s all well and good for as far as it goes, but that doesn’t make me a disciple. Are most pastors disciples? Yes, I think that’s a fair statement—but not all.

Secondly, disciples are not merely people who think Jesus is nice and have portraits of him in their home, read their Bibles, and maybe wear a gold cross around their nick—silver if their modest. It’s all well and good to like Jesus, to think that he is someone special, someone to be admired, listened to, and shared with others. These things are all true. But there are plenty of people who do all of these things that aren’t disciples. You can even adhere to another religion, like Hinduism, for instance, and like Jesus. Lots of folks in India who are not Christians have images of Jesus too. But like Gandhi who liked Jesus’ teachings, they aren’t disciples.

Finally, you can know a lot about God, Jesus, and the Bible—what it says about how to live your life—and put it all into practice without being a disciple. That sounds almost like a contradiction in terms doesn’t it? Knowing a lot about God seems like it would lead to being a good disciple. And putting it into practice sounds very “disciple-y” doesn’t it? Well, I have to admit that it is part of it. But it’s not the whole thing. There is something missing here.

Friends, discipleship is not about your profession, not about being a professional minister. It’s not about liking Jesus, though that usually goes with the territory. It’s not even about following the teachings of God in and of itself. No, discipleship is being part of a network. It’s being part of a community.

Disciples, then, are those who strive to follow after Jesus, looking to him as the Master Teacher and then becoming part of a network of fellow disciples whose mission Jesus gave us to go into the world and as we go, we are to make new disciples thus expanding the network of those who have devoted themselves to Jesus and following his commandments—including the commandment to make disciples.

How Are Disciples Made?

Folks, we have a crisis in the church today. And I’m not talking about the decline in church membership through death and walking away. Nor am I talking about the crisis many churches are having because they can barely afford to pay the light bill to keep the building open. Nor am I talking about the many scandals of leadership that have rocked the church over the past few decades. No, these are only symptoms of a deeper problem.

No, the crisis I see in the church today is that we have for generations abandoned the main thing in Christianity. We have abandoned Jesus’ main task of making disciples—and we’ve substituted something less in its place. Instead of making disciples, we have been satisfied with making converts.

Maybe to many of you this sounds like the same thing. Conversion, after all, is a central part of our faith. To be converted is to come to a new understanding of God, of Jesus, and of ourselves. It is to be intellectually convinced of the truth of Christianity and its claims about these things. It is to accept a way of life different from what we previously lived.

This is all well and good. But conversion and discipleship are not the same thing. While all disciples are converted, not all converts are disciples. Why? Because often conversion is a relatively short-term process provoked by a crisis in which our old view of the world is challenged and very rapidly replaced when we see the truth of Christianity. But discipleship is a long-term process. In fact, discipleship is a lifelong practice of growth, maturity, and most importantly, replication—pouring into the lives of others.

But most people are content to stop once they’ve reached the first stage. Most people are content to stop when they reach the knowledge stage of conversion. They believe the truth of Scripture, they confess Jesus as Lord, come to church, sing the hymns, pray the prayers, and then go about their lives. In short, many folks live a compartmentalized existence in which faith occupies one part of our being and we can take it off and put it on again at will.

But discipleship isn’t like that. Discipleship is a whole person kind of thing. Following Jesus for the disciple isn’t something done merely during times we set aside for religious observance. It’s not about praying before meals and doing our devotions in the morning and then going about the rest of our lives. It isn’t even some sort of checklist at all. It’s not just conversion of the head. It’s a conversion of our being so that everything about us changes. It is a change that infuses our lives to the point that everything we do, from sunup to sundown and all through the night is controlled by the teachings of Jesus.

And most importantly, discipleship isn’t merely about me and Jesus. It’s not about you and Jesus. It’s about US and Jesus. Disciples are active parts of Christian community. Disciples want to learn more about Jesus through Bible Study and Sunday School. Disciples want to be around other Christians in small groups to have accountability for how they live their lives. Disciples pray for one another, care for one another, can’t stand to be separated from one another. Disciples—in short—are busy making disciples by pouring out their own lives sacrificially so that others can grow. Disciples follow Jesus who said that we are to make disciples as we go about our lives.

So, in short, disciples are made by other disciples. Disciples pass on the teachings of Jesus to other growing disciples through individual mentoring, through prayer, through teaching, sometimes formally like our Sunday School teachers and Bible Study leaders, but other times informally by sharing life stories and testimony. Disciples are made by disciples.

What Do Disciples Do?

So far we’ve seen that the church has a crisis in discipleship. We’ve settled for making converts instead of making disciples. And we’ve seen that many would-be disciples have stopped short of full discipleship by failing to pass it on—pouring into the lives of others on the same journey in Christian community. But their is a third crisis connected with these other two. It is a failure to act. A failure to act on the word that has taken root in our hearts. You see, Christianity is not merely a philosophy. Philosophy can be accepted with our head, philosophy is a way of thinking. And Christianity is not merely a religion. Religion can be accepted by our heart, a way of loving. No, Christianity is a way of life, a way that takes into account our whole being: head, heart, and our hands.

Many people stop short of this whole-life dimension of Christianity. They stop when they run up against teachings of Jesus that cost too much. Jesus tells us to leave everything behind and follow him. That means not to be overly attached to things of this world and trust him to provide what we need. And yet, in moments of panic, we find ourselves trusting more in things than in God.

Jesus tells us to give sacrificially to the cost of doing ministry in the local church. But too many people are satisfied to give a fraction of what they could because they don’t want their faith to cost that much. I don’t think it’s because they don’t value their faith. But sometimes it is the fact that they value money more—what it can do and what it can buy. And to these folks I say that they have a sense of godliness without the power and perhaps have not tasted the full depths of discipleship. These folks need to taste and see that the Lord is good and try something new. Give a little more and see how God moves. It’s not a correlation, God doesn’t necessarily act more if we give more, that’s the Prosperity Gospel. But acting in faith yields more faith, however it is expressed.

Disciples are followers of Jesus. Disciples are followers of Jesus who don’t pick and choose what portion of his teachings they like and others they find less palatable. Disciples take the sweet along with the bitter. And disciples know that when the bitter fruit crosses the lips that they have come across not a stumbling block but a growing edge.

Because disciples know that when discomfort comes along the journey, then the possibility for growth is nigh. It is only as the rose bush is pruned that the rose grows more lush and vigorous. It is only through growing pains that children’s bones grow and lengthen. Those who search only for comfort and an easy journey will not go far in their Christian life. Like a wild vine that grows randomly, their growth will be uneven, often leaving them misshapen or even stunted.

But if these wild vines submit themselves to the discipline of being a disciple—of following Jesus even when it hurts—of being part of a Christian community not just on Sunday morning, but in Sunday School, Bible Study, small accountability groups, and even individual mentoring with a pastor or spiritual director—then those wild vines will flourish. Then those wild vines will grow and bear much fruit.

Bearing Fruit

And it is in the bearing of fruit that we will be judged. We will not be judged by our Bible knowledge. We will not be judged based on the correctness of our doctrine, whether our confession of faith lines up in neat rows. We won’t even be judged based on what we do in isolation. No list of naughty and nice things with God.

No, we will be judged by the kind of fruit we bear. Do we bear the fruit of righteous living? Have we sown seed to the wind or planted it deeply in the ground of other lives such that they grow into the full stature of the persons God created them to be.

Sisters and brothers we are called to bear much fruit. Just as God told the first humans to be fruitful and multiply, so he tells his church to be fruitful and multiply. The first commandment involved sexual reproduction. The second commandment involves spiritual reproduction as we pour into the lives of all we meat, urging, pleading, cajoling, teaching, learning, and teaching again what it means to live a life of character and following after Jesus.

As we prepare to leave this place today. May you go, bear much fruit for the kingdom. Amen.