Discipleship

Well good morning, I have to tell you that over the last several weeks I have been praying for and strategizing, and thinking about this message most likely more than any message I have done before. Here at Journey we say we want to reach wider and walk deeper with God and others, and today is a walking deeper message. As we begin I want to let you know that I am for you, I love you and I care for you, and today’s topic is so important that it will challenge you, it will confront parts of you as it confronted parts of me and Lord willing it will be a catalyst for change in your relationship with Jesus as we discuss discipleship.

Discipleship as we see in the Bible and specifically in the books of acts is the life time process of thinking like and becoming more like Jesus. In the church world today discipleship tends to be a buzzword that is normally accompanied with a class, group or a book that you read and once the class is done, group ends or you finish the book people will think they have graduated the discipleship course. Which is not the case, discipleship in its purest form is a process that is life long. We never arrive at the summit on this side of heaven, why? Because we are not perfect, we are never going to be perfect because of our sinful nature. Following Jesus doesn’t make us sinless, but it makes us sin less.

All throughout the book of Acts and really the entire New Testament we see that discipleship is what sets Christian’s apart in this world. In fact the Apostle Peter in his letter 1st Peter describes Jesus' followers as “strangers, sojourners, aliens” of this world, that we are to be in the world but not of the world. Basically he says that this earth is not our home so don’t make yourself at home. This is a hard place to be asked to live - as aliens or foreigners in the very places we live.  But Jesus gives us a calling card to have a purpose that is different and is better than the world’s purposes.  But it IS uncomfortable because it is a challenge to be distinctly different.  That's how the early Jesus followers viewed their faith in Jesus, in fact the original word Ecclesia means a gathering of called out ones. Being a disciple of Jesus means that you are called out and called up to live like a citizen of heaven, not a citizen of America, or this world. It is an intentional daily decision that overtime will help you follow Jesus and make you into a disciple maker, meaning you are supposed to help others in their faith as well. In fact it would almost be impossible to be a disciple of Jesus without having relationships with other Jesus followers.

Being a disciple isn't something that we do, it is who we are.  So it changes our hearts, our minds, our worldviews, our political ideologies, our personal identities, our desires and our focus. It’s a call for Jesus followers to deny themselves and pick up their cross, it is a call as Jesus would say to come and die to your old self and old way of life and find new life in Jesus. It is a wholistic takeover of  your life by the Holy Spirit where he changes you from the inside out to look like, act like, think like, speak like and live like Jesus, and most importantly it is very very difficult.

Right? Lets be honest, church, pastors like me or Carlyle can come up on a stage and say, “all you Jesus followers have to do is just be more like Jesus” we can make it sound easy and simple and you think “yeah thats right” and then as you pull out of the church someone cuts you off and you do a one finger wave or cuss them out. You get home and you and your spouse are arguing, you lie at your work, watch inappropriate videos, have lustful thoughts, be snarky on social media. Then you have the temptation of culture vs. aligning yourself with what scripture says which we will get too in a minute.. It is hard, it is difficult. But that does not mean it isn't worth it.

Throughout the book of Acts we see discipleship, we see people coming to faith in Jesus and being transformed by Jesus and the Holy Spirit and live a life of a disciple. I don’t think we see a better image of this than in the Apostle Paul. If you know the story you can flip to Acts 7 where we are first introduced to Paul before he became a Jesus follower and in fact his name was Saul.

In Acts 7 a man named Stephen who was a Christian was giving a message about Jesus, and as he was finishing his message it angered the crowd they began to stone him. Now I’ve given some bad messages before luckily none of them have ended like his. But there is an interesting line in Acts 7:58 where it says, “They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. And the witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul” This is where we first meet the author of 2/3rds of the New Testament. He watched and approved of the killing of a Jesus follower. …Thats about as far way as you can get from Jesus, that's a mindset that you don’t think is ever going to change. And then in the beginning of chapter 8 we see massive persecution broke out against Jesus followers and it says this in v. 3 - “Saul, however, was ravaging the church. He would enter house after house, dragged off men and women and put them in prison.”

He did not just hate Jesus at this point he had a personal vendetta to capture anyone who followed him. But as you may know, no one is too far gone for Jesus. Saul is on his way down the road to Damascus and you can read it all in Acts 9, but he is on the road and he has an encounter with Jesus. He believes in him but he is blind. So now Jesus tells a disciple of his named Ananias to go to straight street, meet a man named Saul, who Ananias has heard of his reputation but Jesus tells him that Saul is now Jesus’ chosen instrument and this is how Ananias greets the man he knew killed and imprisoned Jesus followers, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” He greets him as brother. Hours before he would have hidden from Saul, but now being a Jesus follower himself he welcomes him a apart of the family. And they baptized him.

Now Saul instantly changes his thinking and his way of life because he has been saved and changed by Jesus. Because as we will see in a moment, a part of following Jesus is changing your mindset to be like Jesus. It says in Acts 9:20 - Immediately he began proclaiming Jesus in the synagogues: He is the son of God. All who heard him were astonished and said, “isn't this the man in Jerusalem who was causing havoc for those who called on this name and come here for the purpose of taking them as prisinomer to the chief priests? But Saul grew stronger and kept confounding the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving the Jesus is the messiah.”

Then as the rest of the story in acts unfolds Saul gets a new name in Paul, is an Apostle and disciple of Jesus, take a young man named Timothy under his mentorship to disciple him (he wrote 2 letters to him) and would write letters to the church and others about how to be a disciple of Jesus also. How is it that a man who hated Jesus became the most famous disciple of Jesus? How is it that everything he thought was changed, everything he did was changed, how is it that he abandoned his old way of life to now follow Jesus? It’s an easy answer but hard application, because when you give your life to Jesus and become his disciple, everything about you should change. And that is the hardest part because everything about us hates change. Honestly, some of you are sitting in a different spot in this room right now than you normally do because someone else got there before you and you are not happy about it. If that makes you upset, imagine having to change your political views to align with Jesus…putting limits on your life style…having boundaries that honor’s Jesus in your dating life…so…when it comes to being a disciple and living a life of discipleship, which once again is beginning to look and think more like Jesus. I have one main point, I could go into a lot of different areas but here is the one main thing I want you to understand when it comes to being a disciple of Jeuss.

1: A Disciple has a Renewed Heart and Renewed Mind:

The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Roman church says this, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” - ‭‭Romans‬ ‭12:2‬ ‭It is interesting that Paul says only after we renew our minds to have heavenly thoughts and not be conformed to the culture around us that we are then able to understand God’s will for our life. It is as if our minds needs to be re-taught, realigned, re-focused, renewed to start thinking in the ways of God and not the ways of man.

I look around at churches, and I look around on social media, and I look around in our country and world and one of the biggest concerns I have especially for the church and Christians alike is that we have a lot of people with renewed hearts without renewed minds. That if we were to die today we would go to heaven but we do not think like God thinks about the world. That we want who Jesus is, but we don’t want to follow what he says.  You will miss out on what God’s will is and what He has for you and your life if your mind is not renewed to think like he thinks.

And having a new mind begins with asking the question, “What is God’s opinion about the day and age in which I live?” Not what is your opinion, not what is your worldview, not what is your desire, rather when we become disciples of Jesus we declare that his opinion is the only one that matters.

Beginning to have our minds changed to think more like citizens of heaven not citizens of this world. To begin thinking what is moral, right and just through the sight of God not what is acceptable in the eyes of culture. Start having a renewed mind that allows us to call evil evil and not call it good or fundamental human rights. To speak truth and love to a culture who truly wants neither. A renewed mind where our political ideologies, sexual identity, personal beliefs, and worldviews are formed and shaped by a proper understanding of Scripture, not our scripture being formed by our political ideologies, sexual identities, personal beliefs or worldviews. A mind set where Christian’s resume lifting the mantles of being evangelists to their family and friends and change agents to the culture around them. A renewed mind that begins to see sin as sin and calling it as such but not condemning the sinner in the process.

Unfortunately for the American church we have decided to forgo the renewal of our minds, and instead we have decided to try to renew scripture or renew-Jesus and this is where we find what we call cultural or progressive Christians. The Bible says in the fullness of time Jesus came, meaning God knowing everything in the past, and everything in the future he placed Jesus exactly where he needed to be when he needed to be there. It also says that Jesus is the same, yesterday, today and forever more. Which means that Jesus is not progressive he’s the promise.  He’s the promise of God’s love and God’s truth and he is the promise of what’s to come when heaven meets earth. Which means, if Jesus would teach today he would teach the same view on sexuality and marriage. The same view of the sanctity of human life as it was the unborn John the Baptist who first jumped at the unborn presence of Jesus. The same view of anger, lust, greed, he would call evil evil, and he would love deeply and call people to leave their sinful life and lifestyle. He is not progressive he is the promise. Why do I bring this up in discipleship?

Because more than ever Christians are in a tug-of-war with God and culture. (Grab ropes) on one side we have the kingdom of heaven in which the process of discipleship should form and shape you, and on the other side we have the progressive view. And this is what we try to do, we try to bring the kingdom of heaven into a way of thinking and into a lifestyle that does not match up with what Jesus or scripture says, but it makes us feel good because well we have Jesus, but we don’t want to actually change our life for Jesus. So people compromise, they compromise on sex and sexuality and we are seeing progressive chruches affirm all life and lifestyles and simply saying Jesus would never ask you to change like that? Christians who fight for the sin that nailed Jesus to the cross. We see churches and Christian’s openly denying parts of scripture and twisting scripture to fit into the cultural expectations so they don’t offend anyone. And I would say this, anyone who twists the scriptures speak the devil's language - But this should not shock us, for Paul said in Romans “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” - ‭‭Romans‬ ‭1:25, 32‬

And here is the thing if you are a Christian here who you say you believe but then you don’t actually do anything that Jesus says you are not a disciple, you’d actually be called a hypocrite. Thats Jesus saying if you listen to these words of mine but don’t actually put them into practice you’ve built for yourself a house on sand that will crumble away, that won't last, that will begin to  deconstruct at the slights inconvenience. One pastor said it this one, The difference in following Jesus is in the doing…not the saying. You can say that you follow Jesus, but if you don’t actully live according to his word…do you actually follow Jesus or are you jus

We are seeing scripture come true in the Christian community and it should be alarming to us. As Jesus followers we are called to drop the rope, drop the culture, following Jesus is a call to come and die to yourself, to pick up the cross and follow him, do deny yourself and your desires. So stop trying to fit in this world as I have said you are a stranger to it. Begin to be renewed supernaturally by the Holy Spirit and begin to shape our mind and mindset to the things of God not the things of mankind. So I would urge everyone to take a good look at your mind, and ask the question, “Do I think the way that God thinks?” Paul instantly changed everything he thought about and began to align it with who he said he believed in. It will take time, but do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You have a renewed heart, now start having a renewed mind. That is a part of the life long process of being a disciple of Jesus.

This sounds offensive, and it is because it says that you are not the perfect little angel the world wants you to think you are. Jesus arrived on this earth not to just give you eternal life, but to give you an entirely new life. He loved everyone, but compromised for no one. He asked every person he met to follow him, to follow his lifestyle, to follow his standard of living, regardless of what they thought their truth was. He did this because he knows our standards only lead to death and depravity which we are seeing in our world. But he calls us to bring heaven to earth.

This does not happen alone by the way, this happens in fellowship and community with other believers. As we look back into the story in acts 9.We see that Ananias went to Paul and instantly called him brother. From a foe to brother, that's what God does. We have to be in community with one another for support and accountability. When I speak, think, act, in ways that are not according to Jesus we need other people to be there to help and lovingly correct us. When I fall into sinful patterns I need people to confess to, when the world is persecuting us, we are stronger together.

Because look, (pick up the rope again) if this is the kingdom of God pulling me into a deeper relationship with Jesus, even without the cultural influences, I’m leaning away because of my desires for the way that I want to live. But we begin to be apart of discipleship, grow in the faith, grow in the understanding of scripture, grow in the love for one another, we end up realizing that God’s way for our life, is far superior than anything we can think or imagine. You can have peace in a chaotic world, you have can joy in a depressed world, you can have a kindness in a hateful world, you can have self-control, patience, love, gentleness. Basically you have the fruits of the spirit as seen in Galatians 5. All of this begins with a renewed heart and a renewed mind. It begins when you decide to drop the rope of trying to fit into this world and embrace the life that God has for you according to his ways. It begins when you embrace and live in discipleship.

So what is our calling card today? (I will expound a little bit at each point)

Up: Ask God daily how you can start thinking like he thinks.

In: Where are you letting the world pull you off center? Drop the rope.

Out: Live and apply the word of God and be a disciple in the world.

Pray