Walking Together

* Welcome to worship today! For those new to the church this month, I am Jay Fraze, the Senior Pastor here at FUMC… and it is great to be back worshiping with you. Over the past 4 Sunday’s I have been on Sabbatical. I have visited other churches, I have helped people experience the beauty of God’s creation underwater in a pool and at Spring Lake in San Marcos, and I have had my proposal for my dissertation approved! So, even though I ended the month with a sinus infection, it’s been a good month!

And I have to give a huge shout out to everyone who preached over the past month.

* Joey, Mark, Alex with his presentation on the youth, and Priscilla – You know, Priscilla wanted some advice on her sermon, all I told her was to start working on her next one!

* Thank you to each of them, we are so blessed to have such amazing talent here at FUMC and I am so proud to be a part of this amazing team.

One last thing before we get into today’s message, I think it’s time for us to get back out there… COVID may not be eradicated, but today – with vaccines and people’s immunity growing, it’s time for us as the Body of Christ to get out into the community and offer Christ. One way I am going to do that is by getting back out and visiting… visiting in your homes and in the nursing homes.

So, at the back of the sanctuary are sign-up sheets for you to sign up for a pastoral visit. There are also places where you can let us know if a loved one or friend is in nursing home. Over the past 2 years, we have lost touch with so many. We have had people go into nursing homes, or move to new communities and we haven’t even known it. I don’t want that to continue… so… Sign up for a visit or make sure we know about our loved ones in the nursing home.

For those of you online, you can call the church office on Monday and sign up for a visit… and I look forward to seeing and visiting with each of you over the next weeks and months.

Now, for our message… Today we are in our final week of Lent! Next week will be the Easter Egg Hunt and Palm Sunday, then Holy Week, Maundy Thursday, and Easter! But before we get to Holy Week, we have today, and we are going to talk about Discipleship – or, said another way, walking together.

Title Slide

As Max Lucado put it in the commentary of The Inspirational Study Bible,

“In our faith we follow in someone’s steps. A parent, a teacher, a hero – none of us are the first to walk the trail. All of us have someone we follow.

In our faith we leave footprints to guide others. A child, a friend, a recent convert. None should be left to walk the trail alone. It’s the principle of discipleship.”

Discipleship is walking together, me with you – you with me… you with your Sunday School or small group… we walk the road together in love. That is discipleship.

Turn with me to John 13. When Jesus taught about being a disciple, this is what he talked about

John 13:34-35

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.

That love isn’t just having good feelings toward one another, it is the action of sharing God with one another. It is the action of caring for one another. It is the action of becoming like Christ and helping others do the same… and in that love, the world sees that we are His disciples.

<Prayer>

Title Slide

I was probably about 10 years old and dad was taking me hunting for the first time. I remember wearing some of his old camo, that didn’t fit, but we rolled the sleeves and pants legs up and cinched the waist with a belt and suddenly I was a hunter. And yes, I took a gun. I had my Red Rider BB gun. I know, Yusain Bolt can probably run faster than a BB fired from a Red Rider, but I didn’t know that at the time. Suddenly, I was a hunter – just like dad.

We got to the woods and headed out into the vast wilderness. I wanted to do everything the way dad did it, so, I walked like dad walked, I stepped where he stepped. The only problem was that my legs weren’t quite long enough for his stride, but then, I guess he noticed and adjusted his stride for me… so there I was, walking in his footsteps, copying his every move. He would stop and look up into the trees for our prey, the elusive Red Fox Squirrel, and I would do the same. And so the day went, me copying his moves through the woods, literally walking in his footsteps. I remember we stopped and ate our sack-lunch leaned against a big oak tree, talking about the hunt and how to move slowly and quietly… how we should stand still in the woods, moving only our head to watch for movement. It was moments like that, that helped me to become who I am today. It was as though I was the apprentice and dad was the master…

But, isn’t that what Discipleship is? Walking in the footsteps of the Master?

Discipleship is a lot of things, and one of those is an apprenticeship.

Discipleship is an apprenticeship.

To be a disciple is to walk in the footsteps of the one leading you. Most crafts are taught this way. My son Garrin trained, and essentially apprenticed under a master watch maker. A mechanic, a plumber, an electrician all apprentice under a master to learn the craft, then they become the master and apprentice another. Then, the craft never dies, as long as the craft is being passed on it never dies.

In Boy Scouts they teach a method of passing on the knowledge from scout to scout. They call it the EDGE method. It is an acronym and the

E- stands for Explain. If you are teaching a younger scout how to build a fire, you explain how you gather tinder and kindling as well as fire wood, you explain how you build a little nest of tinder and have the kindling ready before adding the larger and larger pieces of wood. You explain the safety procedures of having water and sand to extinguish the fire if it gets out of hand.

Then, you Demonstrate the skill. You literally show them how to build the fire, step by step, reexplaining as you demonstrate the nest of tinder and the kindling, slowly adding slightly larger pieces of kindling, then sticks, then limbs, and finally logs. All the while, he sees the safety procedures in place.

After that, you Guide them through the skill. The young scout is building his own fire while you help guide the process. You make sure he has is water bucket and sand bucket… and you help guide him to the types of tinder and kindling.

Finally, it’s time to turn the young scout loose. You Enable or Empower them to build a fire on their own. Now, they will never forget the process of making sure it is a safe place, they will forever be able to build a fire using the method they have been taught.

In other worlds we might say it this way, “I do, you watch, you do I watch, you do and I go somewhere else.”

The challenge today is that we have done away with the apprentice model. We don’t have someone showing us how to be a follower of Jesus and we aren’t showing anyone else how to follow Jesus… we aren’t passing on the faith because we aren’t becoming who we need to be. And that brings us to our second point on Discipleship.

Theologian Dallas Willard once said, “Discipleship is the process of becoming who Jesus would be if he were you.”

I don’t think I could come us with a better definition if I tried. To hear it in Jesus own words, we can turn to Matthew 4.

Matthew 4:19-20

Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!” And they left their nets at once and followed him.

What did Jesus do? He invited them. He didn’t coerce them. He didn’t force them. He didn’t browbeat them. NO, he invited them.

Jesus does the same to you and me. No amount of beating someone over the head with a Bible or forcing them to take a gospel track will “Get Jesus into someone’s heart.” Jesus doesn’t work that way. Jesus simply invites us to follow him, to become who he would be if he were you or me.

And, the Disciples did. They followed Jesus, they learned from Jesus. In the end, they didn’t do everything exactly the way Jesus did them, because they weren’t Jesus. They were James, and John, and Peter, and Andrew. They became who Jesus would be if he were them. Again, it was the apprentice model. Jesus invited, they accepted, they followed, they learned, and they taught others as the Holy Spirit moved in and through them.

That brings us to our 3rd point.

“Our Lord’s conception of Discipleship is not that we work for God – But that God works through us.” Oswald Chambers

So many of us spend our Christian lives trying to earn God’s grace. We try to do the work. We exhaust ourselves working for God, when really, God wants to work through us. We put our effort into what we have to do? What do we need to avoid? What does it take to do for God?

When, really, God wants us to submit, to surrender, to allow God to work through us. As we spend time in fellowship with God and other believers… as we learn from another who follows God… as we grow in or relationship with God… it becomes easier and easier to let God live and work through us, rather than us trying to do God’s work.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Discipleship is simply becoming like Jesus. Author and speaker Brandon Cox explains discipleship this way:

Discipleship is the art and science of helping people find, follow, and fully become like Jesus. Discipleship happens as God’s people show love, share truth, and live life with one another, making new disciples along the way.

We become… and then we help others become like Jesus.

I began, and I will end with words from Max Lucado.

In our faith we follow in someone’s steps.

In our faith we leave footprints to guide others.

It’s the principle of discipleship.

My question for you is…

Whose steps are you following and who’s following your steps?

Who is your master, and who is your apprentice?

Because without that… without having a master you will never become a disciple… and without an apprentice… you will never pass on the faith. It is all about walking together in love…

You and I are to become like Jesus… then walk with someone else and lead them to be like Jesus.

<Prayer>