Essentials Part 7 - Challenge
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Introduction
So far in our series on discipleship, we’ve covered quite a number of topics...
We’ve looked at the encounter with Jesus - where we meet Jesus for the first time and it’s like our lives will never be the same again.
We’ve looked at the call, where Jesus calls us to leave our old way of life behind and enter into a new way of life with Him.
We’ve looked at the community that is the church, where we can build each other up and encourage each other in the faith.
We then looked at the culture in which this community lives and breathes - the places where we work or live or play - knowing that we can flavour the world for Jesus in these areas.
We looked at the courage we need to go into these places and tell others about Jesus and the cost that following Jesus takes on our lives - that the life of a disciple of Jesus is not a easy one and Jesus tells us it won’t be easy.
So with all of that behind us, we now turn to the challenge - the challenge to put all of this together and go and make disciples.
And that’s where most of us are at…myself included.
Most of us HAVE met with Jesus, most of us HAVE given their lives to Jesus and have asked him to forgive us for our sins. Most of us meet together as a community of believers and encourage each other and build each other up.
Most of us are living and working in a culture that is worldly and need courage to go and engage with this culture. And MOST of us are aware of the cost of discipleship.
…but perhaps it’s also true to say that most of us aren’t really experiencing much cost and are at the starting line, but haven’t actually made the move to going and making more disciples, as Jesus commands us in Matthew 28.
We can go to church, we can also tell others with whom we work or play that we believe in Jesus, we give some money into the church, but for the majority of people in this country, that’s about where it stops.
It’s like we’re on the starting line in a race and we’re ready to go, but we haven’t started running.
[Show starting line pic]
We’ve put on the shoes and we’ve put on our shorts and T-shirts. We’ve even got a 1980s sweatband on our foreheads. It’s like we look the part, but we are just standing on the starting line and we aren’t going anywhere. The gun has been fired and we’ve taken the first step OVER the line by saying YES to Jesus, but for so many people, that’s where we stay.
Pause
Let’s take a step back and ask ourselves what all this is leading to? What’s the point of knowing the cost of discipleship, and the culture within which we live and work and play? What’s the point of the church community? What’s the point of having courage? What is ALL of this leading to?
Because we can know that we need courage, and we might have the courage that comes from knowing that Jesus has given us the power and authority to heal the sick and raise the dead, like we looked at 2 weeks ago - because there’s more than one way to be sick, and there’s more than one way to be dead.
And we might know what our gifts our, and we might know the culture well, but so what? What’s the use of having courage, and knowing our gifts, and knowing the culture where we live and work and play if we don’t also GO and make disciples in these cultures?
And that’s the challenge that we have as Christians…Now that we know the cost of following Jesus - that it won’t be easy. Now that we know the culture where we work. Now that we know that we need courage, once we KNOW these things we need to ask the Holy Spirit to equip us and empower us to take all our head knowledge and put it to use by going into our cultures and making more disciples.
We’ve stepped over the starting line, but we haven’t really started running the race of discipleship…because discipleship, among other things, means making more disciples.
Pause
A quote from the video says something like this...
Jesus doesn’t want converts, he wants disciples.
And that comes from the passage this morning - both in Matthew 28 and in Acts 1...
19 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,
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Now, perhaps one of the reasons why we are where we are is because the gospel has been miss-sold. When I was growing up it was all about giving your life to Jesus. Every sermon I heard, especially on a Sunday evening was hell, fire and brimstone - you must be born again.
It was like hungry hippo sermons. You know the game, hungry hippos - where there are balls in the middle and you have to frantically press your button to make the hippo grab as many balls as it could. The object being the one who has the most balls in his hippo is the winner.
That’s what it was like - let’s grab as many people as we can to get into heaven and whoever has the most is the winner.
And it was like the whole mission of the church was to get people over the starting line and then leave them there.
But what happens to them after they get over the line? They’re on their own with no sense of direction.
I remember a clip from Monty Python of the 100 m sprint for people with no sense of direction?
If anyone has seen this sketch, it’s part of the silly olympiad - where there are different silly games, like the marathon for people who are incontinent and so on. Well, part of it is the 100m sprint for people with no sense of direction. People line up at the starting line, the gun is fired, and people run off in different directions. Here it is...
[Show Clip]
And that’s what many people are like in this country. We bring them into the kingdom and then we leave them to fend for themselves.
And then we wonder why people drop out or why they struggle as a Christian, or we wonder why the next generation are NOT bringing people into the kingdom - and part of the reason is because nobody knows what they’re doing or what the Christian life is like - because all that’s been done is that people have been told that they’re going to hell and they need to ask Jesus to forgive them of their sins.
And so people have done that, and they’ve stepped over the line...but where’s the follow up?
And as a result, we’re running in all different directions thinking this is the right way, but we don’t know, because nobody has told us.
Pause
Now, this is not the case for everyone...
…but Paul talks about running a race - it’s not about getting over the starting line, it’s about keeping running, pushing on - pressing forward to get over the FINISH line...
13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Paul is pressing on to win the prize.
Jesus doesn’t want converts, he wants disciples. He wants people who are pressing on for him, who are accepting his mission and COMmission to be disciples who go and make more disciples.
Pause
So why isn’t there more of a push for discipleship in our churches?
There are probably many reasons for this, but here’s one suggestion...
Perhaps, if we ARE just over the starting line and we’re not sure where to go, or we’re happy to stay there because at least we’ve got our ticket to heave... maybe what we need is a renewing of the mind.
Paul talks about this in Romans 12, which we read earlier...
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Now, let’s look at this for a second…
Paul urges us, in view of God’s mercy towards us, to offer up our bodies - our whole lives - as a living sacrifice.
Now stop there.
A sacrifice is something that is given up - something that you could really do with having, but you give it up. In terms of the bible, the sacrifice was a bull or a goat - a perfect specimen…the BEST of your flock or herd - the one that you really could do WITHOUT giving up. That was the one that was to be given up and sacrificed for the forgiveness of sin or whatever.
And this links to last week when Jesus says we need to deny ourselves - to say NO to ourselves and our own ambitions and goals and look towards Jesus’ ambition for us.
Paul says, ‘offer yourself up - YOURSELF - your whole self - as a living sacrifice. In other words, give yourself up - Give every bit of yourself up to God as a living sacrifice.
THAT’S your act of worship.
Going to church and singing songs is part of worship - but Paul says, there’s more to worship than singing a song or going to church. In fact, our whole lives are an act of worship…and we take a step further on this race.
Pause
But how do we do this? Because this isn’t natural… And Paul continues, here’s how you can give yourself up as a living sacrifice - you need to renew your mind.
Paul says, don’t let the world squeeze you into its mould - don’t be conformed to this world. Don’t be like this world. Don’t act like the world, don’t be the same as the world. Don’t be NO different to the world.
Because if we are just like the world, then we will THINK like the world and we will therefore live for ourselves and for our own worldly ambition. Because that’s what the rest of the world does.
They live for themselves, their own ambitions. And if you conform to that then you’re not going to want to deny yourself - you’re not going to want to say NO to your own success and ambition, and you’re NOT going to want to sacrifice your whole LIFE as an act of worship for Jesus.
The only way you can do this is if you have your mind renewed by God. And if you do that, then you’ll be able to discern what God’s will is.
Pause
So if we think of the race analogy - it’s like there are many people who have heard the gun fire, and they’ve crossed the starting line - they’ve become a Christian - but they’re just loitering around the starting line and they have no idea where to go or what to do.
But there are some who have started running, and they are heading towards the finish line. These are the ones who have their minds renewed and have given themselves up as living sacrifices. They know the direction they should head because they are aware of God’s will for their lives and they are running towards that.
Let me ask you, do you want that in your life?
Are you sick of loitering around the starting line? Do you want to start running and knowing where you’re heading, knowing what your mission is?
Ask for a renewing of your mind, to get you to stop focusing on the worldly goals and ambitions and start focusing on what God’s WILL is for your life.
Pause
So what is God’s will? God’s will is that we will be disciples, who learn from our master, who want to go deeper and further with Jesus, and who GO and make more disciples.
God’s will, generally speaking, is that we don’t just bring people into the kingdom and leave them there, but we run with them…that’s called discipleship.
You see, we are disciples of Jesus, but we are to disciple OTHERS for Jesus - in other words, we are to mentor others on their walk of faith too.
Pause
If you think of a different type of race - if you go down to the Lagan on a Sunday morning, you’ll see loads of rowers rowing up and down the Lagan. But alongside the Lagan, on the toepath, you’ll often see someone on a bike with a megaphone, shouting to the rowers.
That’s the coach, the mentor - the one who is spurring them on and training them.
Or like a runner or a footballer, or pretty much any sport - there is a coach who teaches and trains and shows the players or runners what to do and how to do it. That’s what Jesus is like to us - and we get that from the word of God...
But Jesus asks us to be that person for others too…so that when we GO into our culture with courage and knowing the cost, the challenge is to tell people about Jesus, but not just leave them at the starting line, but to run with them, to mentor them, to disciple them too.
Pause
Think of the 3-legged race…the mentor is the one who straps his leg onto yours and helps you run your race for Jesus. They sit alongside you, pray with you, study the bible with you - help you work through some of the difficult questions you might have, help you walk through the challenges you have as a Christian at work, or at play or in your street.
Jesus is NOT calling us to GO and make converts - he’s calling us to GO and make MORE disciples - people who are new apprentices, who can learn from us and can be encouraged and mentored in their faith.
It’s how the working life is - it’s no surprise that it’s how the Christian life works too.
Pause
For example, when I started Almac, I was honest in my interview - I said, I knew nothing about analytical chemistry. They must have been desperate to hire me, but they did and I was shown the ropes by senior analysts…people who had been there for a few years and knew their stuff. They taught me and trained me and made sure I was competent.
Then, after a few years, I was the senior analyst, and I was given new-starts to train and mentor and make sure they knew what they were doing.
So if it’s done like that in work, why does it look like the mission of the church is to just get people in the door - over the starting line - and then leave them there?
That doesn’t make sense…because it’s nonsense.
That’s not our mission - our mission, as Jesus commands us, is to GO and make disciples.
To strap our leg around another person’s and run WITH them. To train them, to coach them, to mentor them in their walk with the Lord. That’s what discipleship is.
Pause
If you think of life being like a maze it might help. Life is difficult to navigate - and this Christian life is difficult to navigate. And if you’ve been to the maze at Castlewellan then you might know what I’m talking about.
[Show maze]
In Castlewellan, beside the main car park there is a maze - it’s a hedge maze and it’s quite big. It’s impressive for something in Northern Ireland. Once you complete the maze you’re taken to a raised part right in the middle of the maze.
And when you’re there you have a fantastic view of the maze below you.
And what we do when we go, is that Kate and I take one girl each and we split up and see who can get to the middle first. Normally it’s me cos I’m better than her. But whoever gets to the middle is in a great place to guide the other through the maze to the middle.
When you’re in the middle of the maze and ground level, all you can see are hedges and decisions.
When you’re above the maze you can see the correct route.
When it comes to our Christian lives as disciples, we can navigate this maze because Jesus has been through it and he knows the best route for us - but we’ve got to trust him in that.
And we can also help others get through the maze too, by guiding them on their Christian life too.
But it takes us to have a different focus - it takes us to have a different end-goal in life...it takes us to have a renewed mind.
Because when we don’t have a renewed mind and we’re thinking like the world - we will make decisions in our lives that we think is the best decision for US - or it’s what everyone else would do.
But with our mind renewed we will know God’s will - we’ll see HIS direction and follow it instead - even if it seems illogical.
Because, in the maze in Castlewellan, there’s a part that takes you right beside the middle section. And the logical thought is to keep heading towards the middle of the maze…but what you actually have to do is to go further from the middle of the maze in order to find the right path that takes you to the centre.
But that doesn’t seem like the right thing to do.
It’s like that with us - the world wants us to take a certain path, and the world is taking it too, and they think it leads to life and success and greatness. Instead it’s leading them to death.
And if our minds aren’t renewed then we might also think that’s the right way to go too…
But the renewed mind is able to discern the WILL OF GOD - the renewed mind is able to think like a disciple and take the route that the rest of the world thinks is ludicrous, but actually, it leads to the prize at the end of the maze - it leads to life.
Pause
But don’t keep the route a secret - tell others about it too and don’t just take them to the start of the maze and leave them there, strap your leg to theirs and walk with them through it - disciple them too.
If you want ideas on how to do this, there are loads…study the bible with them, read a Christian book with them, invite them to small groups, invite them to the midweek where we look at the word in a little more depth. Or start with inviting them to church and then discussing the sermon with them afterwards.
Disciples are people who have the courage to GO into the culture, knowing the cost, but who take up the challenge to make more disciples - not converts - disciples....and they stay with them, they coach them, train them, mentor them and help them on their journey with Jesus.
Pause
Maybe there are people here who are sick of being just at the starting line in their Christian life and they want to go further and go deeper. Maybe they’re running in different directions like we saw in the clip and they’ve come to the point where enough’s enough - I want to go forward with Jesus.
Come to Jesus and pray about it and ask him to renew your mind and reveal to you what his will is for you. And then come and see me and I’ll be happy to disciple you, to walk through this with you, or I’ll lead you to someone who is best suited to disciple you.
We don’t have to do this alone. We are a community - different people with different gifts to be used for the common good and to build up the body of Christ. We have literally been given the tools and the command to do this.
So we CAN do it.
17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.
Jesus’ command was to ALL his disciples, even those who were scared and doubted.
Let’s ask God for an outpouring of his Spirit to renew our minds so that we can see the route ahead and know where to run on this race for Jesus and know how to bring others with us in this race.
Are you sick of not going anywhere? Do you want to go deeper with Jesus? Are you ready to take up the challenge?
Let’s pray.