Sermon Tone Analysis

Disciples – to be or not to be, that is the question

 

Mark 8:27-38

November 19

 

*Introduction: Defining “Disciple”*

It used to be that you could talk about being a Christian and people would know what you meant.

But then just about everybody who was born in a “Christian” country regarded himself as a Christian.

Most Christians realize that simply being born in a Christian country—if you can find one—wouldn’t make you Christian no more than being born in a hospital will make you a nurse..

They had to put distance between themselves—the real Christians—and those who just thought they were.

Very confusing, don’t you think?

Back in the 70’s when Jimmy Carter was running for president of the United States, he said that he was a born-again Christian.

At the time very few people knew what he was talking about except one reporter, Wesley Pippert, who had been to seminary.

So he made a list of the terms Jimmy Carter was using and sent it out on the wire service.

Soon every person on radio and television was talking about being born again.

The problem then was that those people who were born-again Christians began to discover everybody who just called themselves a Christian was now calling themselves a born-again Christian.

/Born again/ meant a new start.

So if you had arthroscopic surgery, you were a born-again athlete.

And if you were an alcoholic and got dried out, you were a born-again alcoholic.

So the term /born again/ got devalued.

The people who were the real Christians had to put some distance between themselves and all these “born agains” because frankly everybody and his auntie was getting born again.

So they started to call themselves Spirit-filled born-again Christians.

The problem with that was as soon as you said Spirit-filled, people would say, “Do you mean Reformed Spirit-filled or charismatic Spirit-filled?”

If you’re Reformed, then of course you are separated from the charismatic, and so on.

So real Christians, in order to clearly distinguish themselves from coat-tail Christians began to define themselves as a-mil, pre-mil, or postmillennial, Reformed, charismatic, Spirit-filled, born-again Christian.

It became terribly important to get all your adjectives in a row like ducks.

The trouble with this was that whilst it got everything clarified, it meant that you spent all your time clarifying!

So I started a movement.

Nobody has joined it yet, but my wife may consider joining.

The movement is that we stop talking about Christians, born-again Christians, Spirit-filled born-again Christians, charismatic Reformed Spirit-filled born-again Christians, and all that stuff—we don’t have time for all that—and that we go back to using a term that was in vogue long before the term /Christian/ was ever invented.

Do you know what people were called long before they were ever called Christians?

This is what the Bible says: “The /disciples /were called Christians first in Antioch.”

I suggest we stop all this adjectival Christianity and just decide whether we are disciples of Jesus Christ or not.

People can debate the adjectives at great length and with considerable heat.

But ask them a simple question—”Would you call yourself a disciple of Jesus Christ?”—and then watch the reactions start.

Sometimes they back off as if they were slapped.

Some people think a disciple a notch or two above them – a Billy Graham- a first-class Christian, a Christian with special status.

Since they do not aspire to be put on a pedestal; they prefer to remain simply a lowly Christian.

Other people have the idea that a disciple is somebody who has come through a seminary course where you get up at some unearthly hour in the morning and go one-on-one with somebody debating scriptural doctrine over interminable cups of coffee.

Other people have got the idea that /disciple /is a term you don’t have to worry about if you just want to be a Christian as they think a disciple is an apostle – someone who was with Jesus.

And since we can no longer join Jesus’ earthly band of followers, the term no longer applies.

Regardless as to whether being a disciple is first century or 21st century, there is wrong-thinking going on.

As you can see, this thinking about what a disciple is needs to be reevaluated.

So what is a disciple?

I asked a young woman once, “What do you do?”

She said, “I am a disciple of Jesus Christ very skillfully disguised as a machine operator.”

I liked that!

Would you call yourself a disciple of Jesus Christ?

Let me encourage you; ordinary folks make great disciples.

All a disciple is, is somebody who has a relationship with a teacher.

That is the simplest definition of a disciple.

Do you have a relationship with a teacher?

You should!

In New Testament times, all kinds of teachers had disciples.

The Greeks had disciples.

The Jews had disciples.

The rabbis gathered a little group around them and taught them the law.

They called those people disciples.

A disciple is somebody who has a relationship with a teacher.

They learn from him in order that they might pass their teaching on.

Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ?

Are you passing on the teaching?

Are you sitting at his feet, hearing his Word?

Are you discovering his truth?

Are you identifying with him personally?

Are you applying his principles to your life?

Are you gladly sharing these principles with your children?

Your grandchildren?

Your neighbors?

The Lord Jesus showed us how important discipleship was by doing two things.

The first thing he did in his public ministry was go out and gather his disciples.

And, the second thing he did was to say to His disciples, “Go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations.”

Started with discipling.

Finished with discipling.

Go into all the world and make disciples is called the Great Commission; as you may have heard me say before, it was The Great Commission, not the great suggestion!

We are to make disciples, who make disciples, who make disciples, who make disciples!

We are to replicate ourselves.

*I.

Disciples Confront the Issues Christ Raises*

The Lord Jesus in Mark 8 outlines some basic things about being a disciple.

I want to identify them for you.

Here are the three things I want you to notice: First, the disciples had to be serious about the issues Jesus raised.

Turn with me to Mark 8, verse 35: /“Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.

What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” /The issue is this: What on earth are you /, /doing with your life?

It’s hard to imagine a bigger issue than that.

Then he identifies your two choices: You can invest your life, or you can waste your life.

What a horrid thought—that it is possible for a human being to live the whole of life and waste it!

On the other hand, it is possible for you to invest your life.

Jesus said, “What determines whether your life is wasted or invested is your attitude toward me.

If you want to hang onto your life for yourself, you’ll waste it.

But if you want to hand over your life to me, you will invest it for eternity.”

In other words, Get serious about your faith!

Confront the issues Christ raises here.

Stuart Brisco says “I met with a young business lady recently.

I pointed out these Scriptures to her, and she said, “You mean to say that Jesus Christ wants me to confront the possibility that I might be wasting my life?”

I said, “Right!”

“And you are trying to tell me that if I hold onto my life, I will waste my life?”

I said, “No, /I’m/ not trying to tell you.

/He/ said it.

And not only that, he said the only way to make sure you really invest your life for eternity in the divine economy is to hand it over to him.”

She said, “No way.”

That was last Tuesday morning.