What Disciples Do/Who They Are
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· 5 viewsMidweek devotional given at the 4Cs Board of Directors meeting
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What does the word Christian mean?
Is it the word that describes members of a religion?
Does it describe a set of beliefs?
A way of life?
Or a follower of someone?
Probably all the above.
As you may known, the book of Acts is volume II of Luke, the doctor, who was a follower of Jesus, and a recorder of the history of the early church.
In the King James Bible, this book is known as “The Acts of the Apostles”
Luke’s opening statement of Acts says a lot. Acts 1:1-3
1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
Then, after Jesus ascended into heaven and the angelic promise of His return was given, the apostles gathered in Jerusalem to pray and wait. Acts 1:12-14 tells us:
12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. 13 And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. 14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
What is interesting is that with these eleven, which would then become 13, along with sojourners, Jesus would change the world.
As you read Acts, there is one Day of Pentecost in Acts 2, but then there are other Pentecosts throughout the book, as the Spirit came upon others and the Gentiles come into the family of God.
As the church grew and signs and wonders took place and the preaching of the gospel to thousands, to small groups, , to whole households, and to individuals, there began to form a much larger group of followers of Jesus, that were known as being a part of “The Way.” (Acts 9:2).
Jesus’ followers were first designated as “Christians” in Acts 11:19-26, and that’s where we’ll spend the majority of our time this morning.
19 Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. 20 But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. 21 And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. 22 The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23 When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, 24 for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. 25 So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 26 and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.
It says that in Antioch, the disciples were first called: “Christians.” What does that word mean?
And that is the primary task of discipleship, to impart the true meaning of what it means to be a Christian.
Originally, it was probably a derogatory term. It is used elsewhere, like in Acts 26:28 where Paul appears before Agrippa, defending himself after being brought up on charges for preaching the gospel. There, it is recorded:
28 And Agrippa said to Paul, “In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?”
It is also used in 1 Peter 4:16 where Peter is encouraging followers of Christ to remain steadfast in their faith. The name is associated with persecution.
16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.
But going back to Acts, what can we make of this label, “Christian”? What is associated with it? I think that Christians and disciples should be synonyms. But we know that it is not used in this way today.
Christian can be a tag for someone who
loosely believes a few things;
belongs to a political party;
born in a particular country (Greece);
Or something else that is far from what Acts associates with the term.
But in Acts 11, it is identified with
being persecuted;
preaching the gospel;
receiving the hand of God;
believing prayer;
and trusting in Jesus.
It is traditionally thought of as a person who belongs to or follows Jesus Christ.
My daughter attends Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She is a second semester Junior and has to start taking her electives, to round out her program.
Being a PK, she decided to take a class in religion.
The professor recently said that believing Jesus was 100% God and 100% man was a paradox. For him, somehow believing what the Nicene Creed teaches is nonsensical.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end (found at The Nicene Creed).
And yet this is what Christians have always held to, even before 325 A.D.- that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. John 14:6
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
C.S. Lewis is known for many quotes, but this one may stand out from the rest. In his book Mere Christianity, Lewis wrote:
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [that is, Christ]: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse…. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
On Monday evening, after the prayer and share time, a group of us were talking about the immigrant church and how times are not easy for diverse congregations, as Mutima described earlier in the evening.
But Sam said: “This is the way it has always been.”
I believe he is right.
The church is the only organization that I know of that has prospered as a result of the efforts of others to stomp it out.
It has also been said that the church is the only organization that does not exist for itself.
It exists for a world that is lost and on its way to a sinner’s hell.
It exists even at the risk of persecution in all forms.
It is quite the opposite of how poet Steve Turner puts it like this in his satirical poem:
We believe there’s something in horoscopes,
UFO’s and bent spoons;
Jesus was a good man just like Buddha
Mohammed and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher although we think
his good morals were bad.
We believe that all religions are basically the same,
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of
creation, sin, heaven, hell, God and salvation (Is Jesus the Only Way? - C.S. Lewis Institute).
So why am I sharing this? Because I think we must recover the true sense of what it means to be Christian- doctrine and ethics.
And it must influence our sense of discipleship that we teach to others. Be careful of the “great crowds” that are looking for only comfort, only prosperity and only fire insurance.
I end with the words of Jesus in Luke 14:25-33
25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
