Called and Redefined: Being a disciple of Christ

Introduction

So you know whenever you try to be productive, somehow after like 5 minutes you always end up on YouTube? Well this happened to me last week as I was preparing for this sermon. I was trying to find a really good story for what it means to be a good disciple of Jesus, but somehow I ended up on YouTube, and I ended up watching a YouTube video that showed a clip from the TV show ‘The Chosen’. And you know what’s even worse? I ended up in the COMMENTS section…

Now… the comments section of YouTube is a dark dark place… it is literally filled with either (1) trolls, who are just spurting nonsense about whatever they are talking about. And if they are not trolls, they are (2) keyboard warriors, who seem to all of a sudden be experts in everything, but I’m pretty sure they are just like an 8 year old kid who didn’t even exist when I went to university.

But there were a few comments that caught my eye, and I thought it would be a good idea to look at them together, because I want to show you what the world fundamentally gets wrong about Christianity

First screenclip:

Funny name lol

‘Educating myself’ - to this person, the bible is just a self-help book, just to make my life better

‘good life’ - just for my own benefit

‘a good person’ - for a lot of people, Christianity is about being a ‘good person’.

Second screenclip:

Funny name lol

‘Your not an atheist, you’re afraid and unsure’ - now I would be pretty annoyed if I was the atheists reading that. Who are you to tell me what I am??

‘CHOSE TO RELEASE YOUR FEAR’ - can’t spell. Also, what does that mean anyway?

‘Let go of your past, let the light in....just ask…in the language and understanding of your heart.’ - what does that even mean?? It’s all so vague and weird.

‘That is all you have to do’ - thanks lol. Sounds all very easy with your very clear, easy to understand, well spelled instructions!

Now in all seriousness, I am poking a bit of fun at these people. These people’s comments are actually very sincere and genuine, and they are not like the trolls and keyboard warriors that I was talking about before. But their comments do show that a lot of non-Christians and even some Christians, seriously misunderstand what it really means to be a Christian. They think Christianity is just about being a good person, or living a good life, or in the words of our friend @secretehouse7163 ‘letting go of your past and letting the light in’.

But true Christianity is about discipleship, because we are disciples of Jesus. What does it mean to be a disciple? A disciple is someone who has made a decision to follow Jesus, as their teacher, but not only as their teacher but also their LORD and SAVIOUR. We don’t follow a teaching, we follow a teacher. We don’t treat Christianity is not like a self-help book. As disciples of Jesus, we follow him, and our main focus and goal is Jesus Christ himself.

Discipleship: Calling & Redefining

Calling

So then what does the life of a disciple of Jesus look like? I think this passage shows us that the life of a disciple is characterised by calling and redefining.

What do I mean by calling? Several verses speak about Jesus calling and leading his disciples:

John 1:39 ‘Come and you will see’

John 1:43 ‘Follow me’

John 1:46 ‘Come and see’

Now, if someone today, a man with long hair and a long beard, said to you, ‘Come, follow me’, what do you do? You definitely DON’T follow him. In fact I would suggest you would run the other way. Now I’m not suggesting that Jesus is some sort of predator, but even 2000 years ago, for a Jesus to call a disciple like this was quite unusual. During the time of Jesus it was the disciple that would first seek out a famous Rabbi to follow, rather than the Rabbi calling them. Another different aspect is that it was usually the exceptional special students that were mentored and discipled 1:1 with a famous Rabbi. But here, it is Jesus himself calling his disciples, and Jesus calls his disciples not based on their qualifications; it’s not as though the disciples of Jesus were special in anyway or better than anyone else. Jesus doesn’t take into account your weaknesses, sinfulness, or your unworthiness; He calls you to be his disciple based on who He is alone, and his perfect grace and love overcomes whatever brokenness may be inside us.

And for those who Jesus calls, they will feel this call in their life. One of the marks of a true Christian is a deep sense of calling. For some of us, they will know the exact moment they were called and became a Christian, because God worked in their life in a dramatic way. For others, especially for those who were born into the church, they may not be able to remember a specific time when they were called. But this is not the important part - everyone has a different conversion experience. The point is that Christians have a sense of calling; they hear the voice of Christ in their lives saying ‘come’ ‘follow me’ ‘come and see’; for some, this voice may be very quiet, for others this voice might be loud and clear, either way the voice is still there. The life of discipleship is following that voice, and what does that give to the life of a Christian? Direction. The life of a disciple has a direction in their life that is headed towards Christ. And as a result our lives change because we are moving in a new direction in life that is completely different to before, we now have a different path and goal. That path along the way may be bumpy with a few twists and turns along the way. And it is a journey, not an instant transformation - we will surely fall along the way. But in our journey of faith as disciples, Jesus puts guardrails, train tracks on that path for us, so that no matter how much we turn and sway, his voice continually calls us and carries us, and the overall direction and final destination is Himself. We are secure in Christ.

Redefining

We also said that the life of a disciple is characterised not only by calling, but also redefining. Discipleship results in a redefining of who we are. If we look at John 1:42 it says “Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).” Jesus renames Simon to Peter, which literally ‘rock’. What is happening here? This is not just a simple name change, but Jesus is completely redefining who Simon is. By renaming him as Peter, ‘Rock’, Jesus is declaring that Peter is the rock or the foundation of the future church (see Matthew 16:18 “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”).

I think often as Christians, we feel like we need to force ourselves to behave or act in a certain way, we need to present ourselves to other people as ‘good’ Christians. We feel obliged to be nice to others, generous, loving. We feel obliged to not swear, not to do drugs, not watch pornography. And these are all true. But as we do this, we often feel like an imposter, because we get a sense that we are not behaving like our true selves, and we are forcing ourselves to be a certain way, and often we fail anyway. But in the life of a true disciple, we can’t redefine and change ourselves from a ‘bad’ to a ‘good’ Christian by forcing ourselves to act a certain way; it is only Christ who redefines us. Christ calls us, and declares us to be a Peter, not a Simon. God declares us to be good despite all the stuff we are doing wrong. You are not made good by your actions, because if you do, you should feel like an imposter because it’s impossible. We can’t make ourselves good, only Jesus can. So just like how Jesus declares Simon to be Peter, Jesus declares us to be his precious children (John 1:12-13), even though we are so undeserving; this is grace.

And once he makes this declaration of us, he doesn’t just leave us in our sinful ways. Even after Simon was declared to be Peter, Peter is the disciple that denied Jesus 3 times. But who does he go on to become? After Jesus sends the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit empowers and transforms Peter, and Peter gives the very first sermon of the church, one of the greatest and most powerful sermons of all human history, and it is on this foundation that the church has stood for the past 2000 years. Peter who was once too scared to even acknowledge that he was Jesus’ disciple, fearlessly and passionately proclaimed the death and resurrection of Christ on the day of Pentecost. So when Christ redefines us, he not only declares us to be his children, but he also provides the change in us so that we may actually live as his children. And how does this redefining, change, occur? Well, Jesus declared Peter to be the rock of the church, but who is the true rock, who is the true cornerstone of the church? Jesus himself. So although Peter was declared and used by Jesus as the rock of the church, Peter only became this rock because he remained in Jesus, he became like Jesus, who is the true rock of the church. So Jesus redefines us and transforms us by making us become more like Him everyday.

Conclusion

So to recap: the life of a Christian is about discipleship. Discipleship is about following Christ. We are called and we are redefined. Christ calls us and secures our lives in his hands because he loves us and he ensures that we reach our final destination which is Christ himself. And he redefines us, he transforms us into his likeness, even though we are so undeserving of this, and then he goes on to produce the changes in our lives that we need to live as his children. This may mean your life may look different to your friends around you; even the way you think may be different to those around you. People may make fun of you, think your ideas are very strange. But in those moments, think about exactly who it is that you are following: see verse 51 - the one who we follow is the one on whom the angels of God ascend and descend upon, it is God himself, Jesus Christ. What else in life is more good, beautiful, trustworthy, secure, than Jesus Christ himself.