Be a Disciple #NotJustAChurchGoer

Scripture Passage

Luke 9:23–25 NLT

23 Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me. 24 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. 25 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed?

Focus Statement

You were meant to “get lost,” so that the true you can be found.

When we lose ourselves in following Jesus,

our true identity is revealed as a beloved child of God,

created to love and serve alongside God’s beloved children.

Point of Relation

Wait? Get lost! That’s the message?!?!?! Get lost?!?! Let’s not and say we did...

Getting lost can be a frightening and painful experience, and can ruin our plans.

Have you ever gotten lost?

Let me tell you a time I got lost. I have many stories.

There was this time when I was a teenager that I had a couple hours before work and figured I would go on a joy ride with my friend.

So, we drove down to Stokes State forest and then decided to explore one of the roads off of 206 just past the entrance of Stokes State Forest and...

being this was a time that pre-dated GPS and I had never ventured off onto any of those back roads before...

I got myself and my friend good and lost.

Now, my father always told me that it is hard to truly get lost in NJ because every road (besides dead ends) leads eventually to somewhere familiar.

This may be true…OVER TIME...

but when you have to be at a job…and you get lost in NJ…

You’re still LOST! LOL!

Still, my dad was right and eventually I ended up at the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation area off Rt. 80 and....

eventually got home…and called my job to let them know what happened and that I would be coming in.

Needless to say, I was super late and…when I came in, the manager sat me down gave me the riot act and fired me.

Granted, I had never been late before, was always a reliable worker, did a good job…all of that…but because of this one mistake...

FIRED.

A few months later that same manager, who knew my mom, asked her to ask me if I wanted my job back...

Let’s just say, as a person of principle, I gladly declined.

Still, while getting lost can be scary it can at other times be amazingly freeing,

by giving us the opportunity to see and notice what is really important in our lives.

Getting “lost” can sometimes lead to a greater blessing than remaining on the known path.

Things to Consider

Think of a time when you have gotten lost in something

Perhaps a song,

a sport,

an experience of nature,

or in the act of creating something.

Now, let me ask you this: Have you ever had that experience in or with a church community

For example, getting lost in the spirit of worship,

in connection with God or others,

in mission or in service).

What feelings did that experience evoke?

What was the effect personally or corporately (as a congregation)?

Friends, while getting lost in the eternal sense is not a good thing, and certainly getting lost in a phyiscal sense, such as losing direction can be quite scary,

But getting lost in the moment, as in letting go of all things that keep us from worshiping and serving God can and DOES connect us to something greater than ourselves.

What Scripture Says

In Luke 9: 23-25, Jesus gives us a paradox:

we will find true life only when we let go and lose our life in order to save it.

There are four movements in this passage:

1) deny yourself,

2) take up your cross,

3) follow Jesus,

4) and find true life.

So let us look at first movement: Deny yourself:

Jesus’ call to deny ourselves strikes at the struggle between pursuing our own human desires and those of God.

Self-denial is about moving away from self-centeredness, selfishness, and the need to maintain control,

as much as it is to die to sinful nature.

Self-denial can manifest as a choice to think, act, and react in the way Christ calls us,

For example, there have been many times in church and in life that people have said some pretty careless, thoughtless and hurtful things to me...

The same is true in terms of some people’s actions to me.

I am a human being like all of us here and, in those moments,

I often feel the need to rebut, to give them a piece of my mind, or to even be hurtful back...

But because of Jesus, because of his prayer, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”,

i often find myself praying the same thing in those moments.

The hurt does not go away immediately, but the anger, the need to respond or to lash out, goes away.

In other words, we can make these types of choices to deny ourselves and follow Jesus.

If I can do it, we all can do it. Amen?

Next, lets look at the second movement: Take up your cross:

The cross was a symbol of guilt and death,

yet Jesus chose death on the cross rather than retaliation.

He went against the prevailing values and realities of the day

to embrace what would have been perceived as failure and defeat.

Jesus calls his disciples to defy culturally defined values and aspirations

by choosing the pattern of living God has set before them

(embodied and proclaimed in him).

Consider what crosses we as a congregation are being called to bear today.

What are the needs in our congregation that need to be met?

What are the needs in our communities that need to be met?

And let us also consider the fact that our church has been alive, well and ACTIVE in our community throughout the entire pandemic.

Sure, much of that we did remotely...

But we can celebrate today the fact that, though we too were suffering in many ways, we as a community picked up our cross to alleviate the suffering of others...

Such as the suffering of isolation, the suffering of healthcare workers, the suffering of hunger, the suffering of poverty, etc.

The Third movement is: Follow Jesus:

A disciple’s goal is to learn from and emulate their teacher.

Following Jesus is to be remade into his image so that we can live as our true selves, freed from self-centered pursuits.

Jesus becomes the guide when the disciples let go of their own agenda.

Finally, the last movement is to Find true life:

The paradox in losing and finding our lives confronts us with the question:

“how do we define life?”

For Jesus, true life is the life God made and saved us for--

life as a child of God that thrives in perfect communion with God, one another, and all creation.

It may sound like an impossible ideal but that is the path Jesus invites his followers to take up --

his way, values, and the greater mission to serve others.

How do we lose our life for Christ?

For the disciples it meant that they were no longer their own,

but they now belonged to a new family with a new purpose that not only changed their lives for the better

but helped countless others find true life through Jesus Christ.

Their identity as Jesus-followers affected every area of their lives. It made their lives what they were.

That transformation would have been impossible had they tried to save parts of their old lives.

The same is true for disciples today.

What This Means for You

What might it look like for you to not resist loss but to purposely lose yourselves

(your own pursuits, desires for control, achievement, etc.)

in a journey of discipleship?

When you lose yourselves in discipleship, I want to remind you of what will be found: your true selves, your true purpose, and true joy

in serving and walking with others,

in what God is already doing in and around you,

and in Jesus as guide and companion.

Friends, the more you pray, read scripture, worship, give, serve others in Church and community, and witness your faith to others

through your presence,

through clothing the naked,

through sheltering the homeless,

through visiting the sick and imprisoned,

through working for justice and peace,

trhough feeding the hungry,

through caring for the afflicted,

and when necessary, through your words.

What This Means for Us

What ways can we as a church help one another to get lost, deny ourselves, and live more into actually following Christ?

What are we afraid to lose?

What are we called to lose?

What we seek to find

- love, joy, peace, freedom –

can only be found in letting go and denying the usual patterns ofresponding, judging and controlling.

Let us be a community not of Church-Goers, but of Christ-Followers. Amen? Amen!