Sermon Tone Analysis

Disciples All

Reading:Luke 14:25–33

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.

And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower.

Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?

For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’

“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king.

Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand?

If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.

In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

Be honest, which of us has NEVER made a wrong call.

I think we all do it.

We misinterpret something we see, something we hear or something we read and we can mess up as a result.

• It is so easy to make a completely wrong judgement about someone based just on what they look like?

• It’s so easy to take something personally, or to completely over-react, simply because as it turns out, we’ve got hold of the wrong end of someone else’s stick?

• It’s so easy, to take something written in a letter, a text or an email the wrong way because we misconstrue the underlying tone or intent of the message.

But why do these things happen?

Well, in part at least, I think it is because of what is going on in our heads.

Our responses to our individual life experiences somehow become “hard-wired” within us and shape our unique and highly subjective outlook towards the people, the events and the circumstances around us.

Psychologists describe these subjective misinterpretations rather grandly as “cognitive appraisal errors”.

But the bottom line is – we just get it wrong.

And perhaps even more

worryingly, we are continually widening and deepening how wrong we are with every wrong assessment that we make.

This morning I want to explore the question of whether many in the church as a whole, particularly perhaps in the church here in the west, are guilty of a serious “cognitive appraisal error” when it comes to our practical understanding of Biblical DISCIPLESHIP.

Now while I think it is a particular feature of the pampered and economically prosperous western church today, I do think we can discover both when and where the seed of this error was sown.

Perhaps surprisingly, I don’t think, we can really blame it on anyone’s intentional or unintentional misinterpretation of doctrine.

Rather, I think it’s a problem that may have arisen, almost naturally, when those Early Church converts fleeing persecution arrived in Antioch and as Acts 11:26 tells us, “. . .

disciples were called CHRISTIANS first at Antioch.”

I want you to notice two things from that snippet of scripture.

First, of course, it tells us that Antioch was the place where disciples began to be referred to, perhaps derogatorily at first, as “Christians” – followers of the much maligned Jesus Christ.

But secondly, and very significantly in my view, that verse is also telling us categorically by implication, that “disciples” and “Christians” are in fact one and the same thing because the verse says: “. . .

DISCIPLES were CALLED CHRISTIANS first at Antioch.”

So “Christian” is just an alternative name for exactly the same thing.

Disciples are Christians and Christians are disciples.

Obvious?

Yes.

But significant, because I think that subtly, over time, we have used that difference of name to provide ourselves with a means of avoiding, and eventually of not REALLY hearing, some of the most demanding aspects of our call, and our responsibilities as followers of Jesus.

And this has opened the door to a serious self-deception, or “cognitive appraisal error” because when we read about “disciples” in the New Testament, I think we can put up a mental drawbridge between ourselves and the truth which the Word intends us to hear.

When we read “disciple”, we can be thinking “them”, not “me”.

We can think of ourselves as “Christians”, and not primarily as “disciples”, and so we can weaken the power of the Word to touch and challenge our lives.

And that’s a serious problem because the term “disciple” appears 307 times in the New Testament while the term “Christian” appears only 3 times!

To illustrate my point, here are just a few examples of how distinguishing “them” as disciples, but thinking of ourselves as “Christians” can warp our thinking, and undermine and frustrate

God’s purposes for our lives.

• Disciples see in their call an imperative to act in love and obedience like their master; but Christians CAN sometimes settle for a call that amounts to little more than membership of an exclusive club.

• Disciples will have a clear focus on opportunities to SERVE other people; but Christians CAN sometimes find themselves side tracked into focussing simply on their church SERVICES.

• Disciples will seek to demonstrate their believing by practicing OBEDIENCE to their Lord; but Christians CAN tend sometimes to gauge the quality of their Christian lives by showing how much they KNOW, rather than how much they actually put into practice.

But the reality is, there is no Biblical distinction between a disciple and a Christian, they are one and the same.

If you are disciple, you ARE a certified Christian.

And, if you are a certified Christian, you ARE a disciple.

And, perhaps most challenging, if you are NOT a disciple, then you are also NOT a Christian.

So to correct this particular “cognitive appraisal error” we need to set straight in our head that there is no distinction between a Christian and a disciple.

We need to appreciate that disciples are NOT some kind of special group within those called Christians OF WHOM MUCH MORE IS REQUIRED.

Nor are Christians those who, while benefiting from the same salvation, are somehow exempt from the demands that Jesus makes of His disciples.

Christians, ALL Christians, ARE DISCIPLES – that’s what a Christian is, a disciple of Jesus.

Look at those first two verses of our reading, Luke 14:25-26: LARGE CROWDS were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.

Jesus wasn’t talking here then to his immediate group of 12, or even to that bunch of 72 who were sent ahead of him to share the good news and heal the sick.

Nor, probably, was this even just the wider entourage of inquisitive followers, or “fans” who were hooked on hearing His ministry.

These verses describe them as “LARGE CROWDS” and very probably they were just the multitude of ordinary Jewish pilgrims headed for Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, who simply stopped to hear what Jesus had to say.

But what was Jesus speaking to these large crowds about?

Well, He was sharing about the call to DISCIPLESHIP.

So very clearly this scripture completely punctures any idea that discipleship is somehow a closed door to all but an especially hand-picked few.

In Jesus’ view the call to be a Christian IS a call to be a disciple.

All Christians ARE disciples and discipleship is what being a Christian is really all about.

Also, while the unbiblical distinction we can make between “Christians” and “disciples” may be the root cause of this particular error of cognition on our part, I wonder in fact whether our approach to evangelism is actually reinforcing this serious error of understanding.

So often we speak of leading people to “become a Christian” as our evangelistic goal.

And a multi-step process is suggested that leads to “salvation”.

And of course there is truth in that.

But shouldn’t we rather be focussing more on people becoming servants of God, DISCIPLES; those who will commit to becoming obedient followers of their Saviour, and choose to make doing His will the central purpose and focus of their lives.

Today then, I’d like us to tackle this “cognitive appraisal error” with regard to personal discipleship.

But while in the short time remaining this morning we obviously can’t travel too far in that direction, perhaps we can stir ourselves up a little, and expose some areas where the Holy Spirit may be seeking to bring us vital and life transforming revelation.

And on this point, remember that Jesus says of the Holy Spirit in John 16:14 “He (the Holy Spirit) will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to YOU.”

So putting us right when we get it wrong is very much a part of the job description of the Holy Spirit.

And what’s more, I have it on the good authority of the Apostle Paul, no less, that the Holy Spirit is right here IN each one of us this morning to do just that, because he tells us in 1 Corinthians 6:19 “Do you not know that YOUR body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, WHO IS IN YOU, whom you have received from God?

So let’s all be listening out for the word and conviction of the Holy Spirit within us as we take a brief look at this discipleship that we Christians are ALL called to.

At heart, the Biblical concept of “discipleship” is a commitment to follow a teacher with the intention of becoming more like them, and for Christians of course that involves the process of absorbing the teaching of Jesus through active surrender and submission to the Holy Spirit.

So perhaps the obvious first thing to note about DISCIPLESHIP is that it is NOT about getting to grips with some sort of knowledge based discipleship curriculum.

It’s NOT primarily about what we KNOW.

It is about devoting ourselves to our master and leader.

We are to be “disciples”, followers of Jesus, not EXPERTS on Christianity, or indeed even experts on the Bible – valuable and worthy and vital as that may be, because at the very centre of discipleship is not a requirement for a good grade in Bible knowledge, but rather it’s about developing the quality and closeness of our RELATIONSHIP with our Lord.

The purpose of our daily quiet times with God, for example, is not accumulating brownie points from God.

The purpose is that we are communing, and fellowshipping, with the Lord - getting to really KNOW Him and to understand what He wants from us.

Ultimately, our goal in life is to draw closer and closer to Jesus, so that we get to be more like Him and therefore more able to be used by Him.

As Jesus himself says in Luke 6:40 (ESV) “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained WILL BE LIKE HIS TEACHER.”

And did you notice Jesus’s word choice there?

Jesus didn’t say “everyone when he is fully TAUGHT will be like his teacher.”

He said: everyone when he is fully TRAINED will be like his teacher.”

So, though we are right to really value and prize Bible teaching, and as Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:11, teachers, are a part of God’s five-fold ministry in the church, discipleship is actually about us allowing ourselves to be TRAINED by the teaching we receive.

It is about US putting what we know and believe into action and so changing our lives.

And, if we don’t put what we are taught into action, we may have mastered the Bible knowledge curriculum, but we haven’t yet been fully TRAINED!

But IF the first thing about discipleship is that it is a RELATIONSHIP - a closer and closer relationship with Jesus, then I think the second thing must be the recognition and active acceptance of the truth, that our discipleship is going to be COSTLY and that to seek to escape that cost is in fact to step right out of God’s will and purpose for our lives.

It is costly because much of what Jesus teaches us is essentially counter-intuitive to the self-centred, discomfort-avoiding, gratification-seeking focus that for most of us is our default position!

Let’s face it, being a Christian, being a disciple, is just plain difficult and challenging!

It is often NOT what we naturally want – it is about doing what God wants and being what God wants us to be.

It’s no wonder then that the idea that we could be “Christians” with all the blessings of salvation, but without all the uncomfortable demands of being a “disciple”, appears a very attractive proposition.

But sadly, as I’m seeking to suggest, it is a completely untenable one that takes no account of the nature of what happens when we are born again and choose to follow Christ.

Now history provides numerous examples of the level of personal commitment that people are capable of and the case of, Hernando Cortes who set out from Spanish held Cuba with just a small band of around 500 men on a “do or die” mission, is just one such example.

And, although particular details of the event are a source of some dispute amongst historians, Cortes with his men did land in Mexico on a mission to attack the capital of the great and wealthy Aztec Empire with the intention among other things, of relieving them of some of their fabled riches.

And such was Cortes’ zeal to succeed, that on arrival on the shores of Mexico, some claim that he literally “burned his boats”, so that retreat would become impossible.

In fact, it now seems that the truth was that he ordered all but one of his ships to be scuppered rather than burned.