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Introduction
This week and next week we are going to dive into our last two topics in our journey through the Gospel and the life of Jesus.
This week we are talking about discipleship
Next week we are talking about lordship.
Lordship is where we began this series, and lordship is where we will end this series.
The Gospel is translated as “good news”
That is what it means.
But as we approach today’s topic, I want to separate the language of “good news” from “easy news” or even “fun news”.
I want you to imagine that I fell off of a ladder and broke my leg.
And I want you to imagine that it is a nasty break, where my bone is sticking through my skin and there is blood everywhere.
Let’s say we call the paramedics (please do!) and they take a look at me and say, “We need to reset this bone”
For them to reset the bone, it will be painful.
But they need to do that.
It is the right thing to do.
We may even say that it is good to do this so that I can again heal properly.
This is the snapshot of sin I want us to carry.
The Gospel is not for good people.
The Gospel is for people who know they are sinful and broken.
The Gospel calls for lordship.
We will talk about this next week.
But setting aside the direction and purpose of my life, is good.
It may not sound good.
I don’t get to do what I want, when I want, and how I want.
I try to do what is good for me all the time.
But lordship says, “You don’t, and it is good for you to let it go.”
Good news may be painful.
It may be difficult, but it is not only good, but best.
As we have looked at the topic of the Gospel, we have tackled the idea of Gospel.
Looking at the reality of our sin and separation from God. Coming to this humbling reality…is good.
Understanding that our choices in life were wrong and often sinful…is good.
So today, we are going to tackle the Good News and how discipleship fits with that idea.
I am going to open up with the word “disciple” or “discipleship” and we are going to break this down.
Going all the way back into the OT times (before Jesus) there was a process of teaching the law in Israel
Rabbi and disciples
The disciples would follow the rabbi, listen to the rabbi and one day they too would become a rabbi.
There was a phrase that said, “May you be covered in the dust of your rabbi.”
implying that you would be walking so close, learning so perfectly from the rabbi that the dust coming off of his shoes would cover your body.
When Jesus began His ministry, one of the first things he did was call some guys to be His disciples.
Matthew 4 tells about this story
There were guys who were sitting by the lake mending their nets with their family.
Jesus called to them and said...
When Jesus called them to be His disciples, he laid the entire path out in front of them in one sentence.
They would have to leave their families, their nets and their professions and follow Him.
They would be changed in the process as Jesus would take them from being fishermen of fish to becoming fishers of people.
They would have to leave their life
They would have to change
The would have to live that change out
After Jesus’ ministry, when He was crucified and resurrected from the dead, He identified an important transition in this process for His disciples.
They had left their nets
They had changed
Now He would send them out to fish for people.
In condensed form, Jesus said, “What I did with you, now you go do with others, and teach them to do the same.”
From this we have the word “discipleship”
It is a word that describes the process of being a disciple of Jesus, growing as His follower, and going out to make other disciples of Jesus.
Perspectives of Discipleship
You may be here today and as I say the words “disciple” or “discipleship” it may sound foreign to you.
You may be here and think, “I am a Christian.
I come to church.
I have done the things I need to do or that someone told me I need to do to become a Christian.”
“I don’t know what a disciple is”
You may be here and you have been in other churches where ‘discipleship’ is a 4-6 week course that you take and once you take that course, you are good to go.
You may have grown up in a church like I did where being a Christian was the emphasis and discipleship was a sort of extra credit.
Say the prayer, get dunked, and try to get other people to say a prayer and get dunked.
Discipleship was for the pastoral staff and the higher ups that seemed to know all of the answers.
Discipleship seemed like a million miles away.
Today, I want to bring some clarity to this word and the importance of it.
Discipleship
Jesus did not have a single Christian following him.
If we look at Christianity as a world religion, it didn’t exist during the life of Jesus.
Jesus was walking around doing ministry and he had 12 disciples.
No one was converting.
They either became a follower of Jesus (a disciple) or they rejected him
We can see a snapshot of that from a story we told a while back about a blind man who was healed by Jesus.
The religious leaders were interrogating him and finally he said...
He didn’t say, “Do you want to be a Christian too?”
He didn’t say, “Do you want to join His religion?”
There were only two options.
Be a disciple or reject Jesus.
This is why Jesus only called disciples.
That is why He sent His disciples to go make disciples.
The word “Christian” comes much later in the early church
To be called a Christian meant you were a disciple.
Somewhere in the pages of history, these two words became separated.
They formed different meanings.
But we are not here to study church History, we are here to study Jesus.
Jesus wants disciples.
If you are not a disciple of Jesus, then you have missed the whole point of what Jesus asks
He does not ask for behavior modification to follow Him
He asks for something far more personal.
Relationship.
Transformative relationship.
The Call to Discipleship
We have the tendency to look at verses like the Great Commission and say, “Piece of cake, all we need to do is go make disciples”
And we begin creating strategies for going around and making disciples.
We talk about the importance of relationship in making disciples- and it IS important
We talk about the importance of teaching God’s Word in making disciples- and it IS important.
But there is a step that comes before these things that I want to talk about today.
Today is a very hard sermon.
But I believe it is entirely necessary.
If we don’t speak the entire truth about these topics, we misunderstand and/or mislead others into a discipleship that looks nothing like what Jesus created.
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