The Life of a Disciple
Sermon on the Plain • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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12 In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. 13 And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles: 14 Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, 15 and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, 16 and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. 17 And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, 18 who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.
In this series we will be going through Luke Ch. 6 as we seek to answer this question:
What does Jesus expect from His disciples?
If we are to call ourselves disciples of Jesus, what does that mean?
How does He expect us to live, what does He want us to know and do?
After all the word disciple simply means “learner”.
To Jesus, we haven’t truly learned something until we have actually put it into practice.
Since there are about 1,050 commands in the NT, one may wonder, where do I even start in my pursuit to live out those commands.
Wouldn’t it be great if there were a place in the Bible where the most fundamental and essential teachings of Jesus were condensed into one place?
The good news is: There is!
It is what we have so commonly referred to as the sermon on the mount. Matthew 5-7
The lesser known companion to that work is Luke’s version, which is commonly called the sermon on the plain.
We find it in Luke 6:20-49
Luke’s version is more concise, containing fewer subjects, and the context is somewhat different.
How seriously did Jesus take this task that He spent all night in prayer before choosing these 12 apostles.
In both contexts however, the recipients of this very important message are primarily Jesus’ disciples.
So it stands to reason that if we are to call ourselves disciples of Jesus, He wants us to learn these things as well.
This is Christianity 101.
These teachings are so fundamental to the christian faith that we find them repeated throughout all the gospels, emphasized through parables, incarnated in Jesus’ life, and then in the lives of the apostles in the book of Acts.
Once you familiarize yourself with this Sermon of Jesus, you will see the elements of it all throughout Scripture.
This is what Jesus expects from all who claim to be His disciples!
The problem we face within our own culture is that we set our standards based on the lives of those around us, rather than the Word of God.
Barna Pole:
No wonder the world calls us hypocrites!
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
40 A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.
2. What Jesus expects of His disciples is impossible!
You can’t live the kind of life He calls you to live, without the Holy Spirit.
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
We need the Helper because the life we’ve been called to live is not humanly possible without divine help.
It’s never about what you can do, it’s about what He can do through you.
If the life that you are currently living doesn’t require dependence upon the Holy Spirit than you are living less than the life of a disciple.
3. You have a very real enemy who wants nothing more than for you to fail.
8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
That’s why temptations are so great for the one who is trying to live for Jesus.
41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
And what if I fail?
The disciple’s life is not one without failure, but it is one where we persevere in spite of our failures as we cling to the grace of God.
When you truly understand the grace of God it doesn’t make you want to sin more, it makes you want to sin less.
We must keep pressing on toward the upward call and by God’s grace we will make progress toward that goal.
The christian life is hard, if it’s not hard then your not doing it right.
The life of a disciple is a hard life but it is a blessed life. In fact, it is the most blessed life you could ever imagine.
Next week, we will look at how Jesus defines the blessed life, which is much different than how we usually think.
We weren’t created to live complacent and comfortable lives.
We need to be challenged, to struggle, to suffer even, that is all part of life in this world, and it all has it’s purpose in God’s plan for us.
1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
How do I receive the Holy Spirit, so that God’s love may be poured into my heart?
38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
