Jesus Together: Apprentice of Jesus

Introduction/Scripture

Hook: Growing up I thought Christian was a lot of things.

I thought Christian was the grumpy woman that didnt like children being loud in church and that would let you have it if you set in her pew.

I thought Christian was an angry pastor yelling about abortion in the pulpit.

I thought Christian was the cool FCA jock who prayed at lunch but also slept with his girlfriend

I thought Christian was a conservative republican.

Perhaps less obscene but perhaps more damaging, I thought Christian was learning to be nice and be less bad than the next person.

What is a Jesus person to you? We call them Christians, disciples, followers. Christians is a phrase we are most familiar with and one we probably use the most, but it is hardly used in the NT....3 times and usually in a derogatory way.

There is a pattern that emerges as we look at the calling of the disciples to follow Jesus and the ways in which the NT refers to those that are with Jesus.

Mark 1:16–20 NIV

As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed him. When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

Mark 2:13–14 NIV

Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.

Mark 3:13–19 NIV

Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons. These are the twelve he appointed: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter), James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means “sons of thunder”), Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

Mark 8:34–37 NIV

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

Pray.

Do you see the patter that emerges. Jesus calls his disciples to follow me.

Story after to story the invitation was not to believe in me. Come and make a decision that you think I am what I claim to be.

Follow me. Be my disciple.

The word for follow and disciple really go hand in hand.

Follow could mean any one of three things in english:

To follow someone going in same general direction. Following someone you dont know on the road

To follow someone generally connected to. Like a tour guide

To follow someone and you are shaped because of the following.

Disciple: Mathetes

This word could mean student. But it is more than how I was as a college student.

Many think a better word here would be apprentice...

In other words, what makes you a disciple is not turning up from time to time. Discipleship may literally mean ‘being a student’, in the strict Greek sense of the word, but it doesn’t mean turning up once a week for a course (or even a sermon). It’s not an intermittent state; it’s a relationship that continues. The truth is that, in the ancient world, being a ‘student’ was rather more like that than it is these days. If you said to a modern prospective student that the essence of being a student was to hang on your teacher’s every word, to follow in his or her steps, to sleep outside their door in order not to miss any pearls of wisdom falling from their lips, to watch how they conduct themselves at the table, how they conduct themselves in the street, you might not get a very warm response. But in the ancient world, it was rather more like that. To be the student of a teacher was to commit yourself to living in the same atmosphere and breathing the same air; there was nothing intermittent about it. -Rowan Williams

Williams, Rowan. Being Disciples (p. 2). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.

To be the student of a teacher was to commit yourself to living in the same atmosphere and breathing the same air; there was nothing intermittent about it. -Rowan Williams

Apprenticeship.

So let’s bring this all together:

Now to be an apprentice in Jesus’ day was more than some intellectual belief. It was about leaving behind this other life and following the rabbi teacher. It was about staying with them non-stop, every moment. To listen and learn, to orient and reorient. And in the being with the rabbi, you would become like the rabbi. Taking on characteristics. Eventually you would be released to go and do what the rabbi did in the world.

Which side note you can see this very thing in the gospels....look at it next time you sit down to read Mark.

Translate that to today....

To be an apprentice of Jesus:

Be with Jesus

Become like Jesus

Do what Jesus did

Be with Jesus

The disciples upon being called, they left everything and went to be with him. There are some things missed if you see the disciples leaving their homes and families and jobs as a virtuous endeavor of bravery and courage and faith. This is not exactly what is happening. These fisherman, common zealots, tax collectors, they have had no opportunity like this at all. Very few would be able to experience education, that is reserved for scribes and teachers of the law. None would have ever been in the running to follow a rabbi around.

So of course they leave everything.

And this is the invitation to all of us:

Mark 8:34 NIV

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

This is the most important piece of all of this because it begins right here. Everything else flows from this place of being with Jesus.

And I know it is easy for us to think, well I dont live with Jesus. I couldnt leave the nets of my life and follow him, how do I do this?

"The first and most basic thing we can and must do is to keep God before our minds. This is the fundamental secret of caring for our souls. Our part in thus practicing the presence of God is to direct and redirect our minds constantly to Him. In the early time of our "practicing" we may well be challenged by our burdensome habits of dwelling on things less than God. But these are habits — not the law of gravity — and can be broken. A new, grace-filled habit will replace the former ones as we take intentional steps toward keeping God before us. Soon our minds will return to God as the needle of a compass constantly returns to the north. If God is the great longing of our souls, He will become the pole star of our inward beings." -Dallas Willard

Spiritual practices:

Scripture

prayer

worship

fasting

transformative community

We share a problem at Marvin with the rest of the church in the America. There is a serious deficiency of transformative discipleship community. We largely do not have mechanisms that help us to practice being with Jesus. We have a lot of programs that talk about it, but few that have the main focus and goal of being with Him and orienting our lives in this way.

In the coming weeks I will be introducing you to a community called the Class Meeting from our Methodist Heritage. So you need to be here for it. But for now, the challenge is consider the number of people that are in your life that know you, really know you, and encourage and ensure that your life is staying with Jesus. How many people are you that person for?

Become like Jesus

Now as you follow the teacher around, hopefully you become like them. You develop the skills and vision that they do. Except as Christians, we believe this is not just a metaphorical expression, but that we can actually become like Christ. That as we are joined to him:

Philippians 2:5 NIV

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

1 Corinthians 11:1 NIV

Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

1 Peter 2:21 NIV

To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

Romans 8:29 NIV

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

Galatians 2:20 NIV

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

This is possible, this is sanctification. Spiritual Formation. Being formed into the image of the son.

This is not behavior modification, this is transformation. I dont think we fully grasp this all the time. We think we are just supposed to try harder and be better.

Discipleship has been equated with bible study and service and some other things along the way. Those are included. But discipleship is supposed to be helping us to live the way of Jesus. It isnt just learning stuff.

You are being spiritually formed.

Do what Jesus did

As we become like him, then we are able to do his work in the world.

Look at Mark again....

Mark 3:14–15 NIV

He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.

He appointed them, that they would be with him and that as an outpouring of that very reality....they would go out and preach and to have authority to drive out demons.

Later on in Mark 6:6-7, he sends them out giving them authority over evil. In Matthew, they have authority to heal every kind of disease and illness.

And of course Matthew 28:18-20

Matthew 28:18–20 NIV

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Go and make disciples: Mathetes .... go and call people to follow him. To learn to be with him.

Closing

I want to tell you about a blunder I had in my doctoral work. I am near completion of a doctorate of Ministry degree. It is a terminal degree for pastors. And what you are supposed to do is define a problem in the local church or your ministry context and design a project to work towards that problem. There is a bunch of research and writing involved and then there is a ministry project. My second semester I was to begin writing towards this. I wont bore you with the details, but in the very beginning, I made a big mistake. I defined the problem wrong. I misread the problem, I was close but my initial premise was wrong. Now at first this was not that big of a deal....but as I put a hypothesis in place, as I began research and writing chapters towards this problem....if it had played out further, my dissertation would have been miles away from where it needed to be.

The initial premise meant everything.

Here is the thing. Currently, we have the initial premise completely wrong in our churches. We believe that Christianity is about an intellectual belief in some construction. We adopt to some soft adherence to practices but it is largely because we think being Christian is about helping us to be better people, feel better, and maybe do some good in the world.

Even currently 75% of Americans say they are Christian. 3/4 Americans.

But only 1 in 4 are practising Christian, meaning they say that their faith is very important in their lives and they have attended Church at all in the last month. (this is a low bar).

There is a huge gap, because we misunderstood what following Jesus meant. But if we can get the premise right....then we can reorient again. We can become like him, and we can do what he did in the world.