Christian vs Disciple

Today I want to talk to you about a message that I think is very important for the church today.

I did a full series on this topic a few months ago and it really challenged me and I think it could challenge you as well.

It’s the idea behind the word Christian.

What’s a Christian?

Because if I were to walk down the street and ask 20 different people what a Christian is I would probably get a lot of different answers.

And to be honest with you, Christians have a bad reputation in the world because there’s so many different definitions of what a Christian is or looks like.

That’s why a lot of people if asked if they are a Christian would ask to clarify what you mean.

What’s interesting about this word is that it isn’t really defined in the Bible.

The word “Christian” only appears in the Bible 3 times.

This word was actually a derogatory name that people outside of the faith would call this community of Jesus followers.

Acts 11:26 “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.”

Followers of Jesus never called themselves “Christians”.

If you were to ask followers of Jesus back then what they are, they would not say we’re Christians.

They would say we are DISCIPLES

The Greek word for disciple is “Mathetas”.

It means, Learner, Pupil, Apprentice, Adherent, Follower.

A disciple is someone who is wanting to learn and get direction from someone.

They are learning from this person and doing the things that they do.

A disciple is someone who is looking to someone else and asking for direction, asking to show me how to live my life.

And the answer, even before they ask the question, is always YES!

You see our definition of Christian doesn’t always look like that.

A lot of people would say Christian just means to believe in God.

A DISCIPLE is someone who says, “show me how to live my life and I will do it”.

To be honest with you that’s why it doesn’t mean a whole lot to me when I hear someone say, “I’m a Christian”.

You see celebrities and other people you know make that claim.

But then you look at their life and their fruit and you can be a little confused.

Because again, we have different definitions of what a “Christian” is.

The question I want us to answer today is, “Are we DISCIPLES?

Or are we just “Christians?”

Are you a DISCIPLE of Jesus?

Or are you just a “Christian”?

You see you can hide behind the word Christian all day long.

You can do whatever you want with that word.

But when you start talking about the word DISCIPLE, it’s a whole new ballgame!

Because the bible talks about what a disciple looks like.

Just an example…

John 8:31-32 “Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. 32 And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Jesus is saying, if you’re a disciple you’re remain faithful, or obey my teachings.

There’s lots of other verses like this or verses that talk about what a “Disciple looks like”.

Nothing about what a “Christian” looks like.

One difference between Christians and Disciples is that “Christians” like to find loopholes.

We as people love loopholes.

We find loopholes anyway we can.

A loophole is like when you say to your parents, “You asked if their parents were going to be home. I knew at some point that night they would. You didn’t ask if they’d be home DURING the party.”

We love to find those loopholes.

Those technicalities.

And the thing is “Christians” LOVE loopholes.

What Christians do really well is take one verse and base a theology around it to justify what they are doing.

For example let’s talk about confession!

If you grew up Catholic you know all about confession.

Confession for the Catholic church is basically, hey I can bring my big bucket of sin and just dump it on this priest and then I’m good and can go back and fill my sin bucket up again.

See Christians in churches like ours do the same thing, we just skip the priest and go straight to God.

Because we look at verses like this.

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

So wait, I can sin all day long and then just go in my room, get on my knees and confess those sins to God and He’ll just forgive me?

Sign me up!

Because the issue is we want the benefits that we think come from being a Christian. (eternal life)

But we don’t want to do the things that the Bible tells us to do.

If you want to know if you are a Loophole Christian here’s a great way to find out.

Loophole Christians ask questions like, “How close can I get to sin, without actually sinning?”

“How bad can I be and still be ok with God?”

Basically, “How close to the edge can I get and still be a Christian?”

Disciples aren’t interested in getting close to the edge.

They’re interested in living the life God called them to live.

And Jesus came across this all the time.

You see Jesus had to deal with the Pharisees.

The Pharisees were obsessed with the law.

They were so obsessed and wanted to make sure nobody broke the law that they made laws to keep you from breaking the law.

Parents do this all the time

Think about if you’ve been or are in a dating relationship.

And you would go downstairs to watch a movie and turn the lights off.

Your parents come down and say, “hey, we don’t turn the lights off!”

What do you mean? You yell at me all the time to turn the lights off!

They’re making a rule to keep you from doing the thing they really don’t want you to do.

So when Jesus shows up they have hundreds of these rules.

At one point in Matthew 15 Jesus calls out the Pharisees over one of these rules.

Matthew 15:3-6 “Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?

You’re accusing me of breaking a tradition that you made up but you break the ACTUAL COMMAND of God.

So what’s happening here is the Jewish people know about the law to honor your father and mother.

What’s hard is Moses didn’t give them a deadline of when you turn 18 you can stop honoring your parents.

So that meant when your parents got older you needed to take care of them and maybe even help pay their bills.

So they found a loophole.

There’s another law that talks about dedicating everything they have to God.

So what they did when their parents were old and needed help paying the rent or anything, they would say, “Oh sorry dad but I’ve dedicated everything to God and if I give it to you I would be taking away from God.”

So they manufactured a rule that enabled them to NOT help their parents and still feel like they are not breaking the law of God.

You’ve found a loophole where you can twist the word of God so it can serve YOUR purpose.

Matthew 15:7 “You hypocrites!

Jesus doesn’t like it when we use his Father’s words to avoid doing his Father’s will!

Unfortunately, Christians do this all the time.

We find other “Christians” who agree with us because they want to be able to do certain things and you feel better about yourself when you surround yourself with other people who think like you.

And right now in this country we have a lot of loophole Christians.

People that want to go to heaven but also want to live life their way.

They want to enjoy the pleasures of this world without feeling guilty.

And because of that we are allowing and accepting more and more sin.

We see what the world is accepting and it looks good to our flesh so we find loopholes to justify us giving into it.

And more and more believers are turning from God than ever before.

And this country desperately needs your generation to rise up and be disciples of Jesus, not just Christians.

Young people who will stand up for the word of God and not just accept what our culture says is right.

Christians don’t make a difference for the kingdom

Disciples do!

Christians don’t reach the lost and hurting.

Disciples do!

Christians don’t stand out to the world.

Disciples do!

And the truth of the matter is when you stand before God you will not be able to use the excuse of, “everyone else was doing it.”

Our culture said it was ok so I thought you would understand.

GOD DOESN’T CARE WHAT YOUR FRIENDS AROUND YOU ARE DOING!

The only thing he cares about is if YOU were obedient to His word.

If YOU did what He called you to do.

He gave us His word so we could study it ourselves and know the truth.

So we don’t have to rely on other people and our society to tell us what’s right and wrong.

YOU decide if you’re a “Christian” or a “Disciple”.

Disciples don’t look for loopholes.

Christians do

Let’s read His Word and DO what it says.

Altar call