BE

Intro

Last week we began our study on the “Great Commission” in order to see what our response to Jesus’ final words on earth should be. Last week we saw how we are called to “GO”. We looked at why it is important for us to go (so that the Gospel is proclaimed to the lost) and some ways that we can go (by praying, giving resources and going to the front lines). This message sets the stage for today’s lesson as we will begin to shift our focus on “going” into “being”. Today we will see how we are not just called to go or give, but we are called to “BE” disciples. As a St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan, it is easy for me to spot other Cardinals fans whenever they wear a Cardinals jersey or baseball cap. I can see them wearing this attire from a significant distance away and realize that we share some common ground! When it comes to our faith, though, it can be a little more tricky to show the world around us where our “fandom” lies. As I talked about last Sunday, Christianity is not spread around like the flu or a disease, it requires work and effort! This means that we have to “BE” disciples on a daily basis and allow our actions and words to highlight the difference between us and other people. In the words of Jesus, we “pick up our cross” as disciples of Jesus. We do this in order to seek first the things of God instead of the things that bring ourselves satisfaction. Does this mean that we cannot have other passions, hobbies and interests? Of course not! One of the best ways to evangelize other people is through our passions, hobbies and interests! The key in being a disciple is that we focus first on living with a kingdom mindset (as we talked about last week) and using our spiritual gifts (as we talked about Sunday night) to expand the Kingdom. What good would it be to “GO” if we were not passionate about the reason that we were going? We are called to “BE” disciples of Jesus Christ and to grow in our knowledge and understanding of Him. Whenever we do this, we are able to “GO” and live an authentic life that reflects the love of Jesus to those around us. With that in mind, please open back to

Matthew 28:16–20 ESV

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

What does it mean to be a disciple?

By the grace of God, He uses sinners like you and I to tell others about Jesus Christ. That does not mean that we are perfect instruments or vessels, far from it! Thankfully God can use a broken piano to play Mozart or Beethoven. We saw last week that we have a responsibility to “GO”, however what good does it do this if we do not believe what we are talking about and sharing to others?

In the New Testament, the word for disciple comes from the Greek word “mathetes”. Over 90% of the times this word is found in our Bible, it is in the Gospel accounts. This makes sense as we see Jesus calling men to leave their past behind and to follow Him. In the most literal sense in the Greek language, “mathetes” means a student who adheres to and travels with a teacher in a teaching relationship; especially used of students of spiritual leaders. This makes sense because another word that we think of often times when we think of the word “disciple” is “follower” or “pupil”. In the 1st century world, many people would have “pupils” who would shadow them in their occupation in order to learn the skills of whatever trade they were studying. When it came to Jesus, though, He called fishermen, tax collectors and a zealot to follow Him in order that they could learn from Him and eventually share His message whenever He ascended back into heaven. If he had wanted to have “expert” pupils then he could have gone to the synagogues and called Pharisees. If he sought human power then He could have gone to Rome and called the mightiest commander to leave that behind and follow Him. However, what Jesus did was call normal people to leave behind their past completely. These individuals left their families and their jobs in order to follow Jesus. The reason that the disciples had to do this was because the call of Jesus demands and makes it possible to leave the past behind in order to seek a new future. Discipleship in the Bible meant to enter into a lifelong relationship with Jesus. This meant that the disciples would participate in an uncertain life on the earth and suffer as He suffered. In Biblical times, a disciples was not there simply to learn from the teacher but to also share in their entire life with them without hesitation.

Discipleship is characterized by establishing a fundamental life relationship to the person of Jesus. We know that we will never become the “master” like other students aimed to be of their master (such as in trade school), instead our aim is to live like Jesus and to realize that His call is for humanity. Disciples embodied not just the words that Jesus said but also His actions. A disciple, therefore, is dependent upon Jesus Christ in order to be equipped to do the work of the ministry. Just as we see in , the disciples received power from Jesus

Mark 6:7 NASB95

7 And He summoned the twelve and began to send them out in pairs, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits;

If we look at the word disciple in scripture, even in reference to Jesus, there are several groups that we see mentioned. First, “disciples” often refers to the “Twelve”. Twelve is an interesting number in scripture as we see that there are 12 tribes of Israel, 12 disciples and 12 is found all throughout the book of Revelation as the number is said to have represented completeness. As we know, Judas would eventually betray Jesus but we see in the book of Acts that Matthias was chosen to be added to the other 11 disciples. There are other references to “disciple” in the New Testament and many scholars believe that both men and women fell into this category as they had observed the teachings and miracles of Jesus and they followed Him and listened to His teachings. We also see the word “apostle” in the New Testament and this term is used of someone who had no connection with the earthly Jesus and were not disciples or a part of the original Twelve. Paul is an example of an “apostle”. Paul met resistance in calling himself an apostle, though as we see in the Jerusalem council in Acts. Paul, though, was called by the resurrected Christ to be the apostle to the Gentiles. Aren’t you thankful for this call?

Essentially what defined a disciple was someone who was called by Jesus (in the case of the Twelve) and went out and followed Him as He taught others. These individuals lived out His teachings to others and they carried out His mission after Christ ascended back into heaven.

Being a disciple meant putting your entire life on the line in order to follow and obey what your master said and taught. For the disciples who first followed Jesus, it meant leaving their old life behind (including their families and jobs) in order to follow Him full-time. They did not do this so that they would become wealthy or powerful, but instead because there was something about Jesus that was different from the rest of the world. After Jesus ascended, there was something radically different about these men (and women) that caused thousands of people to convert to “Christianity”. That “difference” was the power of Jesus that lives inside each and everyone of us today! In the words of Martin Luther, the great Reformer, “A religion that gives nothing, costs nothing, and suffers nothing, is worth nothing.” Being a disciple of Jesus Christ will cost you something. It cost many 1st century followers their lives. It cost them their earthly relationships that they had before Christ. It cost them their families. It cost them their jobs and income. However, if you could go back in time to ask them if it was worth it, I am almost 100% certain that each person would say “absolutely”.

How do we know if something is valuable? Generally, we ascribe value to something based on how much time someone put into something or how much money it is worth on the open market. We know that gold is valuable because society tells us that it has a high value. We know that time with our family is valuable because one day we will not be able to have family get-togethers due to kids going off to college, getting married or moving across the country. How do we know that a relationship with Jesus Christ is “valuable”? Is there monetary value associated with a relationship with Jesus? No. Is there a special status that comes with being a Christian that allows us to get into a special club here on earth? No. What makes being a Christian valuable is the relationship that we have with Jesus Christ and His church. We see that these first disciples were willing to die for their relationship with Jesus. People were willing to die because they had faith in Jesus and they desired to share the Gospel with others. People still are willing to face persecution and death because of the impact that Jesus Christ has on their life. What I want to stress this morning is just as these disciples in the 1st century were followers of Jesus, we are as well! Even though we haven’t seen Jesus in person as they did, we are filled with the Holy Spirit and we are called to “BE” disciples.

So how can we do this? This brings us to our second point.

How can we be a disciple today?

There are three key ways that we can be a disciple today. First, we are called to worship Jesus exclusively. If we are going to follow Jesus, we must worship Jesus! Think of the story of Jesus and the Woman at the Well in . Jesus tells this woman that Father is seeking “true worshippers” to worship Him in spirit and in truth. We worship because He is worthy of our praise and in worship, we gain a better picture of who He is. Nothing will irritate our pluralistic society more than exclusively worshipping king Jesus alone. As we are going to be looking at on Wednesday nights as we look at the book of Revelation, there were people in the 1st century that were worshipping the Emperor and various pagan gods (such as Artemis). These individuals could not understand Christians because they believed that they believed in an invisible God and that they were a threat because they would not participate in worshipping other gods. Rome was very tolerant of other religions so long as you worshipped their emperor as well. Christianity stood in open defiance to this rule, though, and became a threat to their way of life. Because of this, Christians became persecuted because of their unwillingness to conform to the ways of the world. What a testimony that believers like you and I can look back on and attempt to emulate! We will worship Jesus, not a man or a nation but king Jesus and Jesus alone.

Now I want to stress one final point on worshipping Jesus. Many people in our country and around the world believe something true about Jesus. Maybe that He was on the forefront of societal changes or that He was a great teacher or prophet. These things are true, however whenever we treat Jesus as the “cool teacher dude” or the “judge not lest you be judged” motivational speaker we accept a manmade Jesus rather than the actual Jesus found in scripture. Worshipping Jesus does not mean accepting what society says about Jesus or tolerating what other people say about Jesus, it means worshipping Him and Him alone and having joy in our heart when we do so.

Second, to be a disciple means to serve others. talks about Jesus Christ kneeling down to wash the feet of His disciples. The creator of the universe knelt down to was the feet of those who were following Him. The object of our worship was washing the feet of those who were worshipping. This does not make sense to our finite minds, yet Jesus told Peter (who told Jesus not to was his feet) “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” Praise God that we receive this washing based on the blood of Jesus poured out on the cross of Calvary! What we see in this story, though, is that Jesus Himself is a servant who came to this earth not to be serve but to serve others! Jesus ends this passage of scripture by telling His disciples to wash the feet of others (v. 14-15). It is not enough for us to have Jesus serve us, we are called to serve others as disciples. We do this for the good of the body of Christ! As we talked about on Sunday night, we are called to play a role in being the body of Christ. We all have different roles in being the body. Some of us are hands/feet while others are eyes and ears. The point is that even though we are different parts, we are all called to serve the church by using our gift to advance the Kingdom of God!

As Jesus states later on in , in verse 35:

John 13:35 NASB95

35 “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

To be a disciple of Jesus means to serve like He served. To put others above ourselves and to “go-low” in acts of love even whenever people are rude or mean to us or whenever it is an inconvenience to us. Even whenever it defies the worlds expectations or social order. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ means to serve others and love one another like Christ loves us.

Third, as a follower we are called to be a witness! As Jesus states in “As the Father sent me, I also send you.” As a follower and disciple, we are on a mission! As we talked about last week, we are called to “GO” however what good is it to go if we are not disciples or followers? Why would we go serve Jesus if we were not followers of Jesus? We must know who we are following before we “GO”. Before we witness, we have to see who Jesus is. Jesus Christ is eternal. states that the Word (Jesus) was with God and was God. He was there at the formation of the universe. He is the Son of God and the physical manifestation of God. He is the was fully God and fully man. He was tempted just as you and I are yet He never once fell into temptation or sinned. He lived a perfect life and He died a death that you and I deserved to die. He was the perfect sacrifice for sin and because of His sacrifice, humanity can enter into a relationship with God and experience forgiveness of sins! Jesus was crucified. Buried and raised 3 days later. Revealed Himself to hundreds of people are ascended back to heaven 40 days later. He is now seated at the right hand of the Father interceding on our behalf. He is coming back again!

Whenever we know who Jesus is then we are able to “BE” a witness. We are called to be missionaries and witnesses for Christ and as we saw last Sunday, we will receive power to do this as we see from . Jesus Christ was sent from heaven for a purpose (to reveal God and redeem sinners) and we see from that Christ would do whatever it took to accomplish this purpose! Just as Christ had a purpose, we as disciples have a purpose and commission as well! We are called to “GO” and tell the good news as state.

To be a disciple of Jesus means to point people towards Him. It requires that we tell the story of Jesus Christ to the lost. More than that, though, it requires that we live this story out in our lives on a daily basis. It requires that we live as Christ lived. We are called to not simply speak of Jesus but to act like Him as well. We are not to hold onto our salvation with pride or selfishness, we should seek to share this hope with the world around us so that all might come to know who Jesus is and the power and peace that He can bring into your life! We do this by being a worshipper, serving others and by being a witness. As we will look at next week, we see how the Great Commission commands Christ followers to make disciples. As we see today, though, we can only “GO” if we are disciples ourselves and we cannot make more disciples if we are not disciples ourselves.

Conclusion

In the words of the great German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “One act of obedience is worth 100 sermons.” What if the church today could go down in the history books as the church that obeyed the teachings of Jesus regardless of the cost. As we go throughout this thing called life, I pray that we are able to be representatives of Jesus Christ both in the words we use and in our daily actions. In all things, we see today that we are called to “BE” a disciple. We are not simply to know things about Jesus or to attend church but we are called to “BE the church!” both inside these 4 walls but most importantly outside of it! As Bonhoeffer goes on to say, “We must say no to sin and yes to the sinner.” If we live our lives in this manner, people will see a difference in us because it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.

We must be ready to be interrupted by God. Evangelism opportunities never seem to come whenever we are ready and prepared, they come at 4am whenever you receive a phone call from a friend who is unable to sleep because of a problem going on in their life. These opportunities often aren’t on your calendar, they randomly pop up. Because of that, we are called to “BE” disciples and be ready to serve others and bear witness of who Jesus Christ is and what He has done for us! In all things, as a follower of Christ, we worship Him because He is worthy and He alone deserves our praise.

It is not enough to “GO” for the sake of going or checking something off of our “list” like we do at the grocery store, no, we must “GO” because we are followers of Jesus Christ. As we will look into next week, we not only are called to be disciples but we are commanded to make disciples. This is impossible to do without “being” a disciple and using our spiritual gift/s.

Let’s pray