Three Obstacles to Being an Effective Disciple

Introduction

We continue in our series through the life of Christ titled The Way, the Truth, and the Life: Following Jesus through the Gospels. In it, we are doing our best to follow the life and ministry of Jesus as chronologically in order as possible through the 4 Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We have thus far covered from Jesus’ birth up to a point two-and-a-half to three years into His 3 - 3.5 year ministry.

What I’m trying to say is that Jesus is now just over 6 months away from being crucified. For the majority of His ministry, Jesus and the disciples have used the city of Capernaum in Galilee as their headquarters, but today we will see Jesus leave Capernaum and Galilee for the last time as He heads into Jerusalem in Judea. From now until His crucifixion, Jesus’ headquarters for His ministry will shift to that region.

This morning, we will look at the journey to Judea from Capernaum, and as we look at this journey, we will see three groups of people that represent three obstacles to being an effective disciple, but before we look at that, I want to go over some things about our church.

Church Vision

A vision is a goal that you would like to accomplish. For example, you might have the vision of breaking record speeds in a street-legal vehicle. Many car manufacturers have that vision and have built their production, or part of their production, around that vision.

The current, actual (as in not theoretical or simulated), fastest, street-legal vehicle is the U9 Xtreme that reached speeds of just over 308mph on a track in Germany in September of 2025.

As a church, we have a vision. I often share our church’s mission, but I have not often shared the vision that we hold to as a church, and that vision is to see the city of Cedar Rapids transformed into a beacon of the Gospel.

That vision is something that may happen in our lifetime, and it may be something that we set the foundations for now, and God accomplishes in future generations. This vision is a long term goal for us. Hopefully, and Lord willing, it is not too long term. We as a church want to be a beacon of the Gospel, but wouldn’t it be amazing for our church to be the catalyst of this whole city becoming a beacon of the Gospel, not just in Iowa, not just in the United States, but to the uttermost parts of the world?! It would be amazing.

Church Mission

Having a vision is great. It is necessary for a church. But it is meaningless unless we have a mission that will that will accomplish that vision.

You may have a vision to reach record-breaking speeds in a car, but if you’re driving a minivan, it ain’t gonna happen. And if we have a vision to see the city of Cedar Rapids transformed into a beacon of the Gospel, then we must have a mission that will accomplish that.

That mission is this: to make disciples that impact Cedar Rapids and the world with the Gospel of Christ.

This is the mission. This is our short term goal — the thing we need to continue to accomplish before we see this vision fulfilled. The vision is for Cedar Rapids to be transformed into a beacon of the Gospel to the world. But that vision will not be accomplished, by this church at least, if this church does not have a mission to make disciples that impact this city with the Gospel. This mission, if accomplished, could very well lead to Cedar Rapids becoming a beacon for the Gospel.

We cannot lead where we have not been, so that means if we, as a church, are going to make disciples that impact this city, we must first be disciples that are impacting this city. Are you being a disciple that impacts this city with the Gospel? An easy assessment tool to use that would be this question — if you were to die right now, how would the kingdom of God in Cedar Rapids suffer?

So we have a vision, and we have a mission. But if the vision is accomplished by the mission, then what ensures the accomplishment of the mission?

Church Culture

To accomplish our mission, there must be a certain culture among our church. The culture of a church is how we live together and interact. If the vision of the church is accomplished through successful pursuit of the mission, then the mission of the church is driven by its culture. Regardless of the stated mission, if the culture does not align with that mission, the mission is a pipe dream.

Culture is what is under the hood. The U9 Xtreme is powered by 4 electric motors. Not gas, not diesel, electricity. If you were to switch the motor out to any other motor from any other car, it would not go as fast. If you replace its motor with that of a minivan, the car is still gonna look cool, but it will not perform the way it is supposed to.

Our culture, therefore, will be this:

We love God and love others. We show this love by submitting to Jesus and by serving others.

We are faithful to this community in our attendance, in our service, and in making disciples.

We examine ourselves often and also hold each other accountable in love. We encourage each other emotionally and spiritually, pray with each other, and forgive each other.

This is who we are. Or rather, this is who we need to be in order to accomplish the mission. The mission of making disciples that impact the Cedar Rapids and the world cannot be accomplished without this kind of culture.

But what drives the culture? What feeds this culture?

Church Values

Values are what we believe and protect. Values feed the culture. Without the right values, the culture dies. Without the culture, the mission fails, and without accomplishing the mission, the vision is just a nice dream.

In our car analogy, the values are the fuel that feeds the motor of culture. For the U9 Xtreme, that fuel is electricity. Feed it gasoline, and it will not go anywhere. Let it run out of charge, and it will not go anywhere.

When I was 19 or so, I was living with a family, the Wasiks, from my church while I went to college. They charged me minimal rent, but they became like a second family to me. Occasionally I would mow there yard. Well, one day, I grabbed the lawnmower and began to mow. It ran out of gas, so I went to the shed to look for a gas can. I saw a couple of cans there that were empty, but I saw a smaller, 2-gallon can that was blue. I took that blue gas can and filled up the lawnmower. I started it up, an a few minutes later, the lawnmower stopped and refused to start back up.

At 19, I did not know that different color fuel cans meant different types of fuel. Red for gasoline, yellow for diesel, and blue is for kerosene. I filled that lawnmower up with kerosene, and Greg Wasik has not let me live it down ever since. I believe I ruined his lawnmower, but Greg was gracious enough not to make me buy him another one.=, not that I could have on what I was making.

What I mean to say by all that is that the wrong type of fuel will cause out church to not be able to live out its culture or accomplish its mission.

So what are our values? What do we believe? What values do we protect above others?

We are Bible-centered, Spirit-led, surrendered, sacrificial in our giving and in our service. We are faithful and mission-minded.

I have had the vision for what our church could do for a long time. We have had the mission statement of our church for about 3.5 years. As I preach and teach and lead us, I have tried to direct us into a certain culture with certain values.

If you notice this list of values and the previous slides dealing with culture, and you have also noticed that I the majority of my sermons have been on one of these things lately, you are not mistaken. But a few weeks ago, I had a lightbulb moment while I was in a conference call with several pastors. It reminded me of a conversation I had with a pastor friend of mine about 10 years ago. He said this — “Clearly communicated expectations leave little room for misunderstanding.” I would add to that that clearly communicated goals and expectations leave little room for surprises.

In that meeting with the various pastors that I had recently, I was encouraged to write our our church’s vision, mission, culture, and values and to share them regularly. By doing so, I don’t have to wonder why some people don’t seem to be catching onto these values and culture. And by sharing them with you, you don’t have to wonder what I’m driving at or what direction I am trying to lead us.

So, before we get into the sermon this morning, I’d like for us to read these statements together.

I will the question, “What is our vision?” and as a response, we will all read the vision statement together, and then follow that pattern for the rest.

What is our Vision? to see the city of Cedar Rapids transformed into a beacon of the Gospel.

What is our Mission? to make disciples that impact Cedar Rapids and the world with the Gospel of Christ.

What is our Culture? We love God and love others. We show this love by submitting to Jesus and by serving others.

We are faithful to this community in our attendance, in our service, and in making disciples.

We examine ourselves often and also hold each other accountable in love. We encourage each other emotionally and spiritually, pray with each other, and forgive each other.

What are our Values? We are Bible-centered, Spirit-led, surrendered, and sacrificial in our giving and in our service. We are faithful and mission-minded.

The big question is this — Can you get on board with it all? I hope you can. It will not always be easy. It will be difficult to live this out at times, but I honestly believe with all my heart that when we do, we will see our stated mission being accomplished.

So why all of this before today’s sermon? Well, this is a necessary thing for us to be on the same page. And someday, I may take each of these statements and teach about each point or do a sermon series on them or something, but instead of waiting for that to be fully developed, I believe it is important for us to know these things now.

Secondly, as we progress through the sermon this morning, I hope you will notice that there were, among different groups of people, misunderstandings of the values and culture and mission and vision that Jesus had, even among the very disciples that had been accompanying Him for nearly three years now.

Our mission is to make disciples, and to make disciples, we must first be disciples of Jesus. In our endeavor to follow Jesus closely in our lives, we will come upon many obstacles to being an effective disciples. As you seek to disciple others, you will notice different obstacles in the lives of others that must be dealt with for them to ever be effective disciples Some of these obstacles deal with the culture and values that Jesus was trying to establish in His disciples.

Three Obstacles to Being an Effective Disciple

This morning, our text takes us through 3 obstacles to being an effective disciple. Go with me to John chapter 7. Between the first two verses, there is quite a gap, about 6 months time. Lets begin with verse 1.

John 7:1 KJV 1900

1 After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry [that is to say, Judea], because the Jews sought to kill him.

Jesus, knowing it was not His time to die yet, stayed away from Judea because the Jews there were actively seeking to kill Him. This avoidance of Judea happens a little before the Passover celebration, a celebration that is 6 months before the feast of the Tabernacles. During these 6 months, Jesus doesn’t spend a lot of time in Galilee either, He spends it in places like the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, Caesarea Philippi, and on the outskirts of Galilee. But now, as we read in verse two, it is the time to prepare for the feast of the Tabernacles.

John 7:2 KJV 1900

2 Now the Jews’ feast of tabernacles was at hand.

The Feast of the Tabernacles is celebrated in the Jewish month called Tisri, on the 15th day. This usually falls sometime around September or October (this year, the first day of this 8 day celebration will fall on the 25th of September and will end on October 2nd). The Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Booths was a very joyful celebration. It commemorated the time when Israel lived in the wilderness in tents, and it also the harvest. It was a time of thanksgiving for both crops and for God bringing them into the promised land where they had permanent dwelling. Throughout the 8 days of the feast, it looked a lot like a joyful time of camping out and picnicking.

So, the feast time is coming, and Jesus’ brothers happen to be in Capernaum, perhaps to relay this particular message to Jesus.

John 7:3–4 KJV 1900

3 His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judaea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest. 4 For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world.

Jesus, for the last 6 months or so now, has been performing miracles in Gentile lands and among small crowds mainly. He has not been to Judea, where there are people that believe in Him, for over six months. So Jesus’ brothers tell Him that He ought to go there and perform miracles publicly so that His disciples there will see more miracles and keep the faith, so to speak. Now, at face value, this seems like his previously unbelieving brothers now believe in Him and even want Jesus to be known publicly.

However, this is still coming from a point of unbelief, and that is the the first of the three obstacles we will see today.

The Obstacle of Unbelief

The first obstacle that we come across is the obstacle of unbelief. Those that do not believe cannot be disciples of Jesus at all. But it sounds like they are trying to get Jesus to promote His ministry, why do we think they still don’t believe? Well, the answer to that is in the next verse.

John 7:5 KJV 1900

5 For neither did his brethren believe in him.

His own siblings did not believe Him. There “encouragement” for Jesus to go and perform miracles in Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles was, at best, a sarcastic taunt, or, at worst, an attempt at getting Him arrested by trying to convince Jesus to go into hostile territory.

So Jesus responds to them. John 7:6-8

John 7:6–8 KJV 1900

6 Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come: but your time is alway ready. 7 The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil. 8 Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come.

Jesus’ brothers want Him to openly go and expose his power to perform miracles, and Jesus tells them, “It is not my time. It is not my time to manifest myself there.” Jesus would manifest His true self through His crucifixion and resurrection, and that would be preceded by His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, but now was not the time.

His brothers, however, could come and go to Jerusalem without any consequence whatsoever, as they had no message and no manifestation and no belief in who Jesus said He was.

They were so departed from Jesus, that Jesus tells them, “The world cannot hate you, because they hate me.” The world could not hate them because they were in line with the world’s philosophies. Their hearts and minds were agreeing with the world, and the world cannot hate itself.

The world hates Jesus because Jesus had no qualms about calling their works evil, and the world hates those who rebuke its ways.

So Jesus says, “You go up to the feast, I am not going the way you want me to go because my time is not fully here.” Yes, Jesus has manifested Himself to a few, but the time to completely manifest Himself with the sign that He gave the Pharisees, the sign of Jonah, had not yet arrived.

So Jesus does not leave right then. His brothers leave to go to Jerusalem, but Jesus stays back for a little while. I say a little while, because He does end up going to Jerusalem, just not in the way that His brothers had suggested. He goes up there quietly, privately.

John 7:9–10 KJV 1900

9 When he had said these words unto them, he abode still in Galilee. 10 But when his brethren were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.

So the first obstacle of being an effective disciple is the obstacle of unbelief. This does not just make someone an ineffective disciple, it prevents them from being a disciple altogether. You cannot be a disciple of Jesus if you do not believe in Him. If you have not personally put your faith and trust in Him and accepted Him as the savior that He claims to be, then you will not be able to be a disciple. You may want to be, you may want to adopt the same lifestyle as Jesus. You may want to do the same things, but those things are outward things only. It’s like putting a Lamborghini body kit onto a Smart car. (Y’all know the Smart cars I am referring to, right? The little two-person cars that look like if you sneezed hard enough in their general direction, they would fall over? They make Lamborghini body kits for those cars!)

So you may look like a disciple on the outside, but there is nothing on the inside that says Jesus. In the words of Jesus, “You must be born again.” And that new birth comes through a faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and the only one who can forgive sins.

So unbelief is not so much an obstacle as it is a disqualifier for being a disciple.

The next obstacle is the obstacle of misunderstanding.

The Obstacle of Misunderstanding

As we get into this journey that Jesus takes to Judea, we will see that He does not take the normal route. Obviously, he did not go with his family, and because the Bible tells us that He goes secretly, then we know that He would not have been traveling in the caravan that would have left from Capernaum to go to Jerusalem.

Notice the section labeled Galilee. On the eastern edge of Galilee is the Sea of Galilee. On the NW side of that sea we can see the city labeled Capernaum. The most direct route to head from Galilee to Jerusalem was to go strait south, through Samaria, and end up in Jerusalem of Judea.

But remember, the Jews did not like the Samaritans, so much so that they would choose to take a longer route, crossing the Jordan River, heading south through Perea, and then crossing the Jordan River once again to be in Judea, all so that they would not have to pass through Samaria.

This is the route that Jesus’ brothers would have taken along with any caravans that were headed south to Jerusalem from Galilee.

Jesus and His disciples, however, leave to Judea and go through Samaria. But I want to point out the manner in which Jesus goes that way. Luke 9:51

Luke 9:51 KJV 1900

51 And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem,

This phrase, “received up”, is here to let us know that when it was time for Jesus to enter into what we refer to as His passion. The word passion in Latin, pasio, means to suffer. The passion of Jesus Christ is the suffering that Jesus endured leading up to and including the crucifixion.

Jesus is fully aware that the time is approaching for Him to die. He’s got just over six months before His arrest, and He knows it is going to happen in Jerusalem. Just days before, He told His brothers that it was not His time yet, but Jesus understands that as He travels out of Capernaum, the city which always had received Him well, as they travel south through Galilee and pass Nazareth, the town in which He grew up, as He made His way through many of the places where multitudes had gathered to hear Him teach and to experience miracles, this would be the last time He would set foot in those places.

I believe there were feelings going on here. Not just feelings of apprehension of His upcoming arrest, trial, conviction, torture, and crucifixion, but sad feelings of departing those that loved Him and had received Him well. That feeling of leaving your home one last time before moving into another house, knowing you won’t be back. Why do I believe that Jesus dealt with these feelings, because He felt the need to “steadfastly set his face toward Jerusalem.” That means that He became resolute in His decision. He established Himself and became mission oriented - with the mission being to leave Galilee for the last time, go to Jerusalem, and there, six months later, suffer not only torture and death, but the wrath of God so that mankind could be saved through His sacrifice and so that the Father would be glorified.

So He sets out with mission in mind, and He sets out resolved to go through Samaria.

Luke 9:52–53 KJV 1900

52 And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him. 53 And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem.

He sends some messengers, possibly a couple of the 12 themselves to go and arrange lodging for them in one of the Samaritan towns. This should not have been a problem, as Jesus had been received as a prophet in Samaria, and even as the Messiah in one of the towns already. However, as the messengers went ahead, they found that Jesus was not welcome in their midst. The reason was that Jesus was not coming into Samaria to minister, but He was passing through to go to Jerusalem, a place that was inhabited by all the people the Samaritans hated.

This is where we encounter our first misunderstanding. Had Jesus come their way as a missionary, with the purpose of ministry to Samaria, as He had done before, doubtless the Samaritans would have received Him. But what we have here is the Samaritans recognizing that Jesus is heading for Jerusalem, He is traveling, in their minds as a Jew. In their minds, Jesus is using their highway as a convenience. It is likely that they see Jesus as any other Jew that would dare travel that way, as someone just trying to take a shortcut through their lands, even though there was no respect.

It is because Jesus is not sticking around Samaria and because He is intent on making it to Jerusalem that the Samaritans do not receive Him. And the reason is because they misunderstand His mission.

According to the Samaritans, Jesus is just taking advantage of the road through Samaria to go and be a Jew, participating in Jewish culture and feasts. They resent this, but had they known that Jesus was actually going into a place, not to be accepted by the Jews, but to be rejected and scorned and murdered, they probably would have responded differently.

A misunderstanding of what Jesus’ mission was became a stumbling block to them, and became the reason that Jesus had no more intimate encounters with the general Samaritan populace again.

But the Samaritans are not the only ones with a problem of misunderstanding. A couple of the disciples are.

Luke 9:54–56 KJV 1900

54 And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? 55 But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. 56 For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. And they went to another village.

“Jesus,” say James and John, the brothers that Jesus had nicknamed the “Sons of Thunder, “the people of this village do not want to receive you. How dare they!? This is an insult! Do you want us to call down fire from heaven and consume them all?” It was, after all, in Samaria that Elijah called down fire from heaven to consume a sacrifice and then put 850 false prophets to death, so in their minds, there was precedent...

Before we analyze Jesus’ response, I want you to analyze what James and John are asking here. “Jesus, this town has rejected you. Can we kill them?” If fire reigns down from heaven, who’s it going to kill? Not just the men, but the women and the children too. James and John were harboring a hatred in their hearts, willing to slaughter them all like animals.

So much for learning the lessons of humility and consideration, because some of those Samaritans were probably believers. But regardless, John and James misunderstood what the culture and the values were that Jesus had been teaching them for so long.

So Jesus rebukes them. He gets onto them. “You two have no idea what Spirit you belong to. You do not belong to a spirit of vengeance, you do not belong to a spirit of judgment. You do not belong to a spirit of being offended. You belong to the Holy Spirit. I haven’t come to destroy lives, and villages, and ‘teach people a lesson’ for not letting me stay in their their village. I came to save them. They don’t understand that, and you don’t seem to understand it either.”

And they continue their journey.

John and James, brothers and disciples, had become ineffective for the cause of the kingdom because they did not understand the culture that Jesus was trying to instill in them. They did not understand the values that Jesus had been teaching them these past two years. They had completely forgotten about “judge not lest ye be judged. For with whatever judgement you judge others, you will be judged the same.” And it is a good thing that Jesus did not let them call down fire for rejecting Jesus, because both James and John, along with the other disciples, would all run away from Jesus when He was arrested.

So many time, we Christians get the culture and values of Christianity wrong. We get sucked into the culture of performance. We value and protect ourselves more than the things that God wants of us. We get tricked into a culture of permissiveness, that it doesn’t matter what I do, as long as I give God some time here and there and make sure I confess my sins. We value our comfort over God’s command; we value our own wisdom over being led and controlled by the Holy Spirit. We prefer our way over God’s way, and when that happens, we start down a path that ends up so far from what Jesus is trying to do, that sometimes I wonder how many time Jesus ahs said about us, “You have no clue what I would do in this situation. You have no clue what the right thing is to do now, because you have ignored the Holy Spirit within you for so long.”

And when we get to that point, we cannot be effective disciples. If we misunderstand what Jesus wants from us, if we misunderstand why the Holy Spirit placed us where we are and gave us the gifts we have, then we fail to be very effective disciples.

The last obstacle we will see this morning is...

The Obstacle of Unwillingness

We have gone over this passage once before, because something similar happened in the book of Matthew at an earlier point in Jesus’ ministry. Because the two events are so similar, not doubt owing to the style of writing that Matthew and Luke had, caring less about chronology but combining similar teachings and events into groups. Matthew places two of these people in the time right before Jesus crosses the Sea of Galilee and He calms a storm the first time.

Luke, describes 3 people that have a similar conversation with Jesus and places them all here, in the journey to Judea through Samaria. It is likely that two of these conversations happened on one night, and one happened on another occasion. Grouping all of them to convey a message does not detract from the truth, nor does it render the testimonies as false, since neither one of the writers sets our to write chronologically.

As we read this, you may remember the sermon in which we covered this, and if you do not, I will encourage you to listen to the sermon titled Into the Unknown: Calming the Storm. The link is in your notes ( https://sermons.logos.com/sermons/1585551-into-the-unknown:-calming-the-storm ). That particular sermon starts by going through two parables, and then it gets into this passage of Luke 9.

Let’s read that passage together, and I will forgo the long explanation of it all, trusting that if you have not heard it yet, you will listen to that sermon throughout the week.

Luke 9:57–62 KJV 1900

57 And it came to pass, that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. 58 And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. 59 And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. 60 Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. 61 And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. 62 And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

In these interactions, Jesus confronts obstacles in the different conversations.

In the first conversation, He confronts the man’s unwillingness to be uncomfortable physically. Matthew 8 tells us that this man is a Scribe. And Jesus, speaking to the heart of this Scribe, tells him what the biggest cost for him will be — there will be no comfortable beds. No guarantee of a pillow. No sure shelter to sleep under at night.

The second man, that Matthew reveals to us is disciple, says to Jesus, “first let me go and bury my father.” And Jesus calls this man to follow Him anyway, because Jesus’ call is more important than any other responsibility.

The third man says, “Before I follow you, let me first go and say good bye to my family and friends at home.”

And Jesus responds that “you cannot follow me with one eye on family and one eye on me.” This may seem to us at first glance to be uncompassionate, but this is exactly what Peter, Andrew, James, and John went through. When Jesus called them, they immediately left their boats, their nets, and their families to follow Jesus.

Again, Jesus responds to peoples’ hearts, and it could be that Jesus understood that if this man were to go back to his family, his heart would not be totally with Jesus, or he would not come back to follow Him at all.

The obstacle that Jesus is dealing with in these three men is the obstacle of willingness. Notice that nothing tells us which one of these men followed Jesus and which ones did not. The question you may want to know the answer to is probably this: Who ended up following Jesus? Who do you think?

Well, the answer, though not given to us, boils down to this: Whoever was willing. Whichever of those men were willing to leave either comfort, familial position, and the pull of friends and family. Those would be the ones that would have followed Jesus.

Willingness to suffer discomfort physically, willingness to leave behind things that the world considers important, willingness to suffer the loss of family and friends and familiarity can all be summed up in one phrase, and that would be the willingness to surrender. To give everything up.

If there is an unwillingness to follow, an unwillingness to surrender, an unwillingness to suffer, an unwillingness to sacrifice, an unwillingness to let go of what we think is important so that God can fill us with what He knows is important, if we are unwilling, we will never be very effective disciples.

Invitation

Today we looked at three obstacles.

The obstacle of unbelief. If you are not a believer, this is your obstacle to being a disciple of Jesus. You cannot be a follower of Jesus if there is no relationship with Him through faith.

This is remedied by coming to Jesus, trusting He is who He says He is. Trusting that His sacrifice alone — His death on the cross — is sufficient to fully pay for your sins. Trusting that He rose from the dead as He said He would and as the Bible records. And in that trust, asking Him sincerely to forgive you of your sins.

For Christians, we saw two other obstacles to being effective disciples.

The obstacle of misunderstanding. This is easy, in theory, to remedy, but it is more difficult to do so in practice. This requires a regular, personal, deep study of the Bible. Not shallow devotionals, not read really fast until you finished your “quota”, but real, intentional study.

It is going to take time, and too many of us are willing to sacrifice that. It is going to take time in prayer and meditation. It is going to take a teachable spirit and humility to ask the questions about things we don’t understand. And it is going to take transformation of what we think to what God thinks.

And then there is the obstacle of unwillingness. Being unwilling to follow, being unwilling to let go of pride and allow Jesus to lead it. Being unwilling to serve God His way instead of your way. All these things will make it to where you become an ineffective disciple.

Life Group

1. What, if anything, stood out to you about the sermon? Any questions or comments?

2. Jesus’ brothers did not believe in Him, yet spoke as if they knew what He should do. How do we see this happen in the world today?

3. Can a Christian have unbelief as an obstacle to being a disciple?

What forms would that take?

4. What are common forms of misunderstanding Jesus’ mission in churches today? Draw out common misconceptions (Jesus exists to make my life easier; ministry equals platform; obedience equals busyness). Point back to the sermon’s emphasis on humility, service, and cross-bearing.

5. In what area of your life are you tempted to relied more on your own intuition, tradition, or outside advice than on careful biblical understanding?

6. None of us are perfect disciples, we all need to follow Jesus more closely than we are now. When you look at the three men in Luke 9 (comfort, family/work responsibilities, divided loyalties), which one most closely reflects your primary reason for not following Jesus more fully?

7. Jesus said, “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” What is one specific area where you need to stop looking back and fully commit to obedience this week? (forgiveness, missing the “good old days”, living in the “what ifs”, etc.)

8. This Week’s Challenge: What is one concrete step you can take this week to move from being a consumer of church ministry to being an active disciple-maker (for example, initiating a gospel conversation, inviting someone into Bible study, or intentionally mentoring a younger believer)?