Again, welcome. My name's Chris. If you don't know me, I'm a teaching pastor here at Watermark.
And we're going to be starting a new series today. If you've got, has everyone picked up
one of these little things? This is going to be helping us to think about, you can stick this in
your bathroom, you can stick this anywhere in your home. This is going to be a reminder for you
of some of the things we're going to be talking about as this series. And just to help that,
just to really inform and shape the way that we view ourselves. When I was a kid, I went to church
quite a lot. And the people at my church, they were nice, okay? They were kind of nice people,
nice church people. And every Sunday I'd meet them and then I'd say hi to them. And they would come
and say hi back. And we'd all be very pleasant. And then afterwards, they'd go away, go off to
their life. I'd go off to my life. And then next Sunday would happen and we'd say hi to each other.
And we'd be very pleasant to each other. And everyone seemed sorted. Everyone seemed kind of
nice. And then right into our middle class, kind of nice middle class church, came a few different
people who didn't quite fit in. There was an ex-football hooligan. There was some ex-drug addicts.
There was a gym owner who was kind of pretty rough. And everyone in their nice kind of middle class way
avoided them. Or just kind of had very polite conversation and then tried very quickly to
kind of move off to the people they were comfortable with. But there was one thing that was different.
My parents didn't do that. My parents, they actually invited them to come over to our house for Sunday lunch.
Every Sunday, we would have random people come into our home just for lunch. Sometimes my dad would do a
Bible study with them. We had all these kind of interesting characters coming in and out of my home.
And people asked me, are your parents pastors?
Because, you know, pastors do that kind of thing. And I'd say, no. My parents just teach us ordinary
people. And I stopped to think about why people would think that only pastors would do that kind
of thing. And I realized that for many of us, the idea of Christianity, of what we read in the Bible,
of a radical discipleship, which changes the way we focus on our priorities in life, which for many of
us seems very scary, is actually when you read the Bible, this is what life is all about. And our modern
Christianity often does not mirror what Jesus calls us to. You know, we've reduced discipleship to an
eight-week course that you do. Christianity becomes very manageable. You know, sacrifice means giving up
chocolate at Lent. Okay? And what I notice in my own life, and I think in the life of the church,
is that even for us, we've been through a period of transition. And when you go through a period of
transition, like rocking on a boat, what happens? You want to hold on to the rails of comfort and
security and stability in your life. We want to stay with the people we know. We want to be comfortable
with the things that we feel okay with. We want to stay safe without taking gospel risks.
And yet, Jesus is going to say to us, this year in our lives, I don't want you to stay safe.
I want you to come and follow me. I want to stretch you in ways that you could never have imagined that
are going to be stretched, so that your faith will grow in ways that you could never imagine your faith
could grow. And so this year, what we want to do is, we want to root ourselves in the truth,
biblical, theological truth, to get us deep down in the roots. You know, like we talked about the vine
last week, to really understand, get the sap of God's word flowing into us, so that we can be people
who learn how to bear fruit as we're trying to follow along with Christ and make disciples of other
people. That's why, who was there at the CG together on Friday? Yeah, it was great. If you weren't there,
you need to come this Friday. We had just an amazing time. There was amazing food. There was, and we just
said it was a great time, because what we're trying to do with the CG together, we've pulled the community
groups for five weeks intentionally, because we see this as a crucial time for us to really get back
at the heart of what it means to be disciples of Jesus, and also, how do we help others to become
disciples of Jesus? So we want to be shaping our community life. That's why we want you to be there
on Friday nights for the next few weeks, because this is a time where we want to shape the way we're
living as a church, and really learning how to do what God calls us to do. Does that make sense?
Father, your word is powerful. I pray that your word would speak to us. I pray that we wouldn't
just be people who hear your word, but people who do your word. I pray that you would show us Jesus,
and let us live in the light of how beautiful you are, and learn to follow you with where you're
going. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so if you have your passage open with you,
the series we're going to look at, if you, do you know those new scanners at airports, you know,
where you have to put all your hand on them? You know, you've got to put all your fingers
on the scanner just to verify your ID. Well, what we're looking at over the next five weeks
is five different biblical titles which show what our identity is as Christians to show us and help
us to see what it means to follow Jesus in our lives. And you need all of them to understand what
your ID is. And so that's why we have this, to kind of remind you of some of those things. So we're
going to look today at disciple. Then we're going to look at saint, family, servant, ambassador,
and because I'm perverse, I'm going to add another one as well, which is member. Okay, but we're going
to go for the five key ones to start with. So today we're looking at disciple. Okay, disciple. It's a
strange word. We don't use it very often, but my definition of a disciple is this. Someone who is
growing in trusting Jesus as Savior and growing in lovingly obeying him as Lord in every part of life.
Okay? Growing in trusting him as your Savior and growing in lovingly obeying him as your Lord.
Okay? In every aspect of your life. And what I want to do today is just kind of unpack that a little
bit and looking at the passages that we have. And I just wanted to say, just to point out,
that word growing. Because being a disciple is about a journey. It's not a destination.
It's a journey which starts with a call, which has then a cost, and it takes place on a mission.
So we're going to look at the call, the cost, the fuel for responding, and then the mission that he
calls us on. Okay? So Mark chapter one. You see the scene. Jesus, before this has come. He's announced
that the kingdom of God has arrived. He's called everybody to repent and believe. And it seems like
we're on the crest of something amazing about to happen. Maybe there's miracles. Maybe there's
healings. Maybe incredible things are going to happen. And then Jesus goes down by the lake of Galilee
Galilee and calls some fishermen to follow him. And it seems a bit like an anticlimax if you actually
read through Mark. Because Mark is telling us, though, that if you want to see what God's kingdom
looks like, it starts in the call of Jesus to ordinary people like you and me. You see, he comes up and he
sees Andrew and Simon. And they're in the middle of fishing. Okay? They were fishermen. Now, I don't
know if you know about fishing in the first century, but being a fisherman in the first century was a
good job. Okay? Because basically, fish was in massive demand in the Roman Empire. It was the food of
choice. Okay? If you have rice here, it was fish there. And so the fishing business was a great business to be in.
Okay? And we know from Luke chapter 5 that James and John were also business partners with Simon
and Andrew together. And so they're running their own little SME. It's a little family business. Okay?
Together. And they've got hired servants. They've got employees. Okay? So this business seems to be
doing pretty well. And scholars even think that after Jesus' resurrection, you see Peter, who
Simon, who's later called Peter, goes fishing again. Okay? Do you know that story after his
resurrection? And so they think that actually he still is running his fishing business even while
he's going out discipling as a disciple of Jesus because he still has his own boat and things are
still going on. So you see Simon, they've got his fishing business. But then you also see he's got his
own house. That's in verse 29. It's not in your bulletin. And his mother-in-law was staying with
him. Okay? Just imagine what that was like. And so Peter's married. James and John, later on we find
out they have an embarrassing tiger mom who comes up to Jesus and says, can you make my sons sit at your
right hand and left hand? And they're going, no. Why do you have to say that, mom? That's the kind of
families they were. These people, if you look at them, they're just ordinary people like you and me
who have got families, they've got homes, they've got jobs, they've got careers, they're just trying
to get on in life. Ordinary people. Not super Christians. Not super people. But in their ordinary
world, Jesus comes and he calls them. And he calls them. And he says, follow me.
Follow me. Now, you've got to understand the significance of what he is saying when he says,
follow me. Because in Jewish culture, basically the way that education worked was like this.
Until you were about 13, young Jewish boys would go to a local synagogue, the school there, and they
would learn what's called the Torah, which is the first five books of the Bible. In fact, they wouldn't
just learn them. They'd memorize them. Okay? So you look at your Bible, look at the first five books,
they had them down, memorized by the age of 10 to 13. After that, what would happen was that most kids
would then just go off to be an apprentice in their family's business. That's probably what happened to
Andrew and Simon and James and John. But then the brightest kids, okay, would then go on to further
study, learning the rabbis' traditions and things like that. And then after 17, and by the way,
they would have memorized the whole of the Old Testament by then. Okay? You get a little picture.
This is more than Hong Kong education going on here. Okay? And then by the age of about 17,
most people would go off to work, get married, do all the normal things. But then the most elite,
brightest of the bright students would go and look for a rabbi, a teacher, who would then go and be
able to train them to become the kind of people who really knew and lived out the Word of God.
And what would happen is they would go and ask the rabbi, can I be your disciple?
And the rabbi would basically give them the equivalent of like an interview. Like he would
grill them on all the kinds, it's like an entrance exam to get into Harvard or Cambridge. He would just
grill them with all these kind of questions to see whether they're suitable or not to be his disciple.
And if he thought they were bright enough, what he would do, he would then say to them at the end of
it, follow me. Follow me. And what that meant was, come with me as my disciple and submit to the
authority of my teaching in your life and let it shape every part of your life. Because the rabbi was
this ultimate example of someone who'd saturated his life so much with the scripture and was following
God that the disciples wanted to learn not just stuff about the Bible, they wanted to see
how he lived it out in his life. And they would then imitate him. So the really interesting thing is,
they were so devoted to their rabbi that they would copy everything he did. So if he walked with a limp,
you could tell who his disciples were because they'd start walking with a limp. If you like baseball,
they'd like baseball. In fact, we even see stories of a disciple hiding in a rabbi's bedroom to see how he
made love to his wife so he could learn later on. Okay? This was serious. You know, this isn't a
five-week course in, okay, come and be a disciple. This was a whole life commitment. Because their
rabbi was their master, was their lord. And if the rabbi's father, sorry, if the disciple's father
needed help at the same time as the rabbi, do you know who he would prioritize?
The rabbi would come first.
That's the level of commitment.
He's saying,
it's a totally new set of priorities you have when you follow me.
And what Jesus does here is absolutely revolutionary, though.
Because he doesn't wait for his disciples to be good enough, to kind of pass the test.
You see, what he does, out of pure grace, he comes out to them.
Do you see that? He initiates the call to them right where they are.
And he says, follow me.
And when he's doing that, he's giving them the highest privilege available to them
without any entrance requirements except come and trust me and obey me.
That's what he's saying.
You know, it's the ultimate apprenticeship.
When I was young,
one of my guitar heroes,
and I've said this before, was a guy called Van Halen.
Who here knows who Van Halen is?
Okay, there's some educated people.
Obviously, the rest of you,
it just shows the lack of education that there is here.
So go home after this,
and go on YouTube Van Halen.
You'll see somebody who knows how to play the guitar.
Okay?
But when I was learning guitar,
what I would do,
I would go down and I'd get these books
which had tabulated all the music in them.
And as I was learning,
there'd be these songs,
songs which I didn't know.
And some of them would buy this guy called Van Halen.
And you know,
I'd try and kind of work out what some of the notes were
and things like that.
But I didn't know what it sounded like
until one day,
I got a VHS videotape.
There was no internet in those days.
Of Van Halen playing.
And my goodness,
I was stunned.
It was like,
this was guitar playing as I had never heard it before.
And I was going,
I want to know how to play like that.
And you see,
I had got the book there
which showed the notes,
but I couldn't fully understand
how to play like him
until I actually saw him playing.
Until I actually saw him
and saw how he operated.
And then I was like,
I want to study this guy.
I want to know how to do it like he does it.
I want to play like that.
That's actually the call of a disciple
is actually to say,
I want to learn Jesus.
I want to,
because he lives life
like nobody else lives life.
He's compassionate and yet bold.
He's strong and yet humble.
He's everything you want to be.
And so he says,
I want to learn Jesus.
Come and follow me
and learn me with every fiber of your being.
Learn to play life like I play life.
And the thing is,
if Van Halen personally came into the room
and said,
follow me,
man, I'd be there.
But he hasn't done that.
And I don't think he's ever going to do that.
But the amazing grace
of the call of Jesus
is that he has called
each one of you personally
to come and be his disciple.
And the thing is,
that is grace.
You didn't deserve it,
didn't earn it,
that's grace.
But when we dumb down Christianity
to say,
just pray a prayer,
believe that Jesus died
to forgive you for your sins,
go to church every Sunday,
be a good person,
pray occasionally
to kind of get some help,
and then you'll go to heaven,
we're not talking about
biblical Christianity there.
That is not the call
of to be a Christian.
Because if Jesus is actually
the creator of the universe,
the savior of all,
as the Bible claims,
just think about it.
The nearest star
is about 4.26 light years away
to us,
other than the sun,
it's the nearest one.
And to get to that star
with the shuttle Voyager 1
traveling at 36,000 kilometers an hour,
it would take us
over 70,000 years
to get there.
Okay?
How long am I going to live?
Well, 70, 80, 90 years maybe.
And if you think
that that star
is only just a speck
in the whole of the universe,
and if Jesus is really creator
of all of that,
are we seriously suggesting
that we invite him
into our lives
just to be our personal assistant
to kind of help us out
in trouble?
When Jesus calls,
it's his incredible grace.
But when he calls,
his call is for you
to center your entire life
around him.
It's like how you parent,
how you approach your work,
your family,
your relationships.
It's a totally new priority
in every area of your life.
That's the call of a disciple.
And you see Simon,
Andrew,
James,
John,
they leave immediately
to follow him.
They see the privilege.
That's the call.
What about the cost?
I discovered last week
in talking to a guy
who's an ex-headhunter
that good headhunters,
when looking for someone
for a post,
they approach somebody,
they invite them
to come and have the job,
and then they pull the offer away
and say,
hmm,
I'm not sure you're the right person
for this job.
And if the person says,
no, no, no, no, no,
I really want this job,
they know that that is
the right person
to come and have the job.
They know they really want it.
And now Jesus does
a little bit of the same
kind of thing
because he says,
in Luke 9,
he says,
if anyone wishes
to come after me,
let them deny themselves,
take up their cross,
and follow me.
Whoever wishes
to save his life
will lose it.
Whoever loses their life
for my sake
will save it.
But what does it profit a man
if he gains the whole world
but loses or forfeits himself?
You see,
what he's saying is,
if you want to follow me,
you've got to count the cost.
Because where do you
follow Jesus to?
Where's Jesus going?
The whole of Luke,
the Bible story,
is actually Jesus
is heading to the cross.
And what does the cross represent?
The cross represents
everything in our culture
that we want to avoid,
which is death.
And so what he's saying is,
if you want to find yourself,
you don't find yourself
by eat, pray, love.
Okay?
You find it
in dying to yourself.
Now that's not a very
popular message.
The guy,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
who was a guy
in the Second World War,
he had a safe career
in the U.S.,
but he chose to go back
to his home in Germany
to help people there
because of this call.
And he said this,
when Christ calls a man
or a woman,
he bids him come and die.
If grace cost God
the life of his son,
what has cost God much
cannot be cheap for us.
Wow.
You know,
Luke tells us
that this cost,
this dying,
is not a suicide mission.
This is a daily death.
Every single day,
the disciple is learning
how to die to himself
and how to walk with Jesus.
You see,
when you seek to save your life,
we're trying to gain
everything for ourselves.
We're trying to make ourselves
as the first priority.
And he's saying,
denying yourselves
is denying you
as the number one
and saying,
Jesus,
you're going to be number one.
You know,
it's not dying to fun.
Some people,
you know,
they take this
and it's like,
okay,
we never have fun.
You know,
Jesus is accused
of being a party animal.
You know that?
He turns water into wine.
Okay?
He knows how to have a good time.
It's not that.
No,
you're dying to be
on the throne of your life.
You're dying to find
your identity
in anything other than Jesus.
Do you see what the,
Andrew and Simon,
they leave behind their nets.
There's fish there.
There's money to be made there.
And they're saying,
my world is not going
to be centered.
My identity is not going
to be centered around
just getting stuff for me.
James and John,
they leave their father,
their family.
And yet,
it's not that everyone
has to leave their jobs
to be a disciple.
The call is different
for every person,
but the call in one sense
is the same,
which is,
find your identity in me
and make me number one
with whatever context
I've placed you in.
Because you see,
Simon seems to keep
his fishing business going,
but there's a radical shift
in his priorities
and where his comfort
is found
and his hope is found
and his security is found.
You know,
when you come home
in the evening
and all you want to do
is put your feet up
and watch TV,
but your spouse needs
the dishes to be washed,
what does it mean
to die to yourself?
When,
like,
for me,
I was just very convicted
by this,
just this week
thinking about this passage.
Procrastination.
Anyone good at procrastinating?
There's a few.
I am.
You know what I procrastinate
and I procrastinate
on administrative things.
Okay?
If there's a list
of ten things I've got to do
and there's stuff to do
with like banks
or internet companies,
all that kind of stuff,
that's going down
right at number ten
on my priority list.
And yet,
it affects others
when I don't do
those things on time.
God says to me,
if you want to take up
your cross daily,
one of the things
you need to do
is start putting
those administrative tasks
higher up your list
out of love
because your procrastination
is simply self-seeking,
comfort-seeking,
you being on the throne
of your life.
And a disciple
is willing to die
to their comfort
for Christ's sake
and for others' sake.
C.S. Lewis said,
keep back nothing.
Nothing in you
that has not died
will ever be raised
from the dead.
Look for yourself
and you will find
in the long run
only hatred,
loneliness,
despair,
rage,
ruin,
and decay.
But look for Christ
and you'll find him.
And with him,
everything else
thrown in.
And he's saying,
die to yourself,
you'll find yourself
because you'll find
the true life in me.
There are three people
Jesus meets on the road.
It's really interesting
if you actually look
at how discipleship works.
Go through the Gospels
and you see how Jesus does it.
It's really interesting.
Three people.
And one person says,
hey, I'm going to follow you
wherever you go.
And Jesus says to him,
foxes have holes,
birds of the air have nests,
son of man has nowhere
to lay his head.
And he's saying,
okay,
are you sure?
I'm not the kind of savior
who's just the kind of
political campaign manager here.
Let me bring this down
to your level,
he's saying.
Okay,
you have a home,
you've got a nice
standard of living.
Are you willing
to lay that down for me?
Or are you just going
to put that before me?
That's what he's saying.
Are you willing
for people to not invite you in
because they know
that you follow me?
That's what he's saying
to this guy.
He calls another guy,
he says,
follow me.
But his reaction
is different.
He says,
let me first bury my father.
Which makes you wonder
why he wasn't burying him
beforehand,
but anyway.
And another,
he says,
let me first say farewell
to those who are at home.
And notice that
in each of the occasions
he says,
let me first.
You see that?
Because he's saying,
listen guys,
I know that our culture
tells us family comes first.
But when I call you,
I come first.
That's hard.
But that's what he's saying.
And some of us know
the opposition from family
when you've chosen
to trust in Christ
and the toughness
and the cost of that.
But you only sacrifice,
you're only willing
to pay that cost
for something
that is truly precious
to you.
If Christ is precious
to you,
you'll pay that cost.
You know,
some of us,
when we were single,
didn't even know
that 5am existed.
And then you got married
and had kids.
Right?
And, you know,
I was speaking to someone
last week
and they said,
hey, I'm just exhausted
from bringing out my kids
and everything.
But my kids bring me
so much joy.
I wouldn't trade it in
for the world.
And you're looking at them
and thinking,
really?
But because
they're not sacrificing
everything in their life
just to kind of
cut themselves off.
No, it's because
they love their kids.
And they want
their relationship with them.
That's what drives them.
You know,
if you prioritize
the wrong things in life,
even if you prioritize
your kids above Jesus,
when things go wrong,
you'll be stressing
and you'll transfer
that stress
onto your kids.
And the greatest way
to disciple your kids
is for you
to be learning
how to be a disciple
of Jesus.
But what denying yourself
means is this.
My focus is not
on the denial.
My focus is on the one
that I'm following.
So it's focused
with your kids.
It's on your kids,
not the cost.
And when we focus
and follow Jesus,
we're not just focusing
on, oh, look at all
the costs I've got to pay.
No, we're focusing
on Christ.
And every day
you're going to have
choices whether you
choose to die
or live for him.
Whether you choose
for self or you live
for him every day
and he says,
follow me.
Count the cost.
I've called you
and I'm going to
change you to be
who I've called you to be.
So that's it.
The call,
the cost.
First,
thirdly,
the fuel.
Being a disciple
is not an option.
Did you get that?
If you're a Christian,
there's not this two-tier
kind of,
here's the really
keen Christians
and here's just
the ordinary Christians.
He says,
no, no, no,
everyone is called
to be a disciple.
There's no kind
of get out clause.
But here's the thing.
You never earn
God's love
by being a committed
disciple.
people.
Jesus doesn't say,
follow me
and then I'll die
for you.
He says,
I'm going to the cross
now for you,
now follow me.
And do you know,
here's the interesting
thing.
When you're really
committed,
when you commit
to a cause,
what often happens,
if you're really
hardcore,
you become hard
on yourself
and you become hard
on the people
around you.
Okay?
Think of how
terrorism works.
people who are
fanatical for
something become
very harsh towards
other people.
The story,
which is not in
your bulletin,
but just before
him meeting those
three guys,
James and John,
who had left
everything to follow
Jesus,
they enter with
Jesus into a
Samaritan village.
And the Samaritan
village rejects them,
tells them to get
out.
And Jesus has no
place to lay his
head as he told
the others.
And it's
interesting,
James and John,
recalling an Old
Testament example
of Elijah,
they say,
basically,
let's call down
fire on that
village in
judgment.
They're hard,
because they're
committed and
these guys are
just wasters.
Do you know
what Jesus does?
He rebukes them
and says,
that's not the way
we roll around
here.
He says,
if anyone wants
to save their
life, yeah,
they'll lose it.
If you don't
follow me on
judgment day,
you'll forfeit
everything you
wanted to keep.
But for the
Samaritans who
had wanted to
keep themselves
as their
priority,
Jesus is saying,
I'm not going
to send fire
on them now.
Why?
Because I'm
going to take
the fire of
God's judgment
on myself.
Because that's
where I'm headed
to the cross.
You see,
Jesus is so
much more tender
and gentle
than often we
can be with
other people.
And in a
world where,
you know,
we're so
suspicious of
leaders with
too much
power because
they're all about
self-interest
grabbing for
themselves and
then they create
cultures where
everyone in the
workplace is trying
to throw other
people under the
bus so that they
can get themselves
promoted.
Jesus says,
I'm a leader who's
willing to lay down
my life for even
the most hard-hearted,
mistake-ridden,
sin-infested
person.
Like the
Samaritans,
he's willing to
be shot down for
your hard-heartedness
on the cross because
he's so committed to
your good.
He's so committed.
And if you have
someone who you
know loves you that
much, a boss who
would be willing to
take the hit for
you, isn't that
somebody you're
willing to undying
loyalty to?
Because you know,
in Acts, after
Jesus is raised
from the dead, he
sends, the gospel
is to go out.
Do you remember
from the Acts
series where the
gospel goes?
It goes from
Jerusalem to,
what does it go
next?
Judea to
Samaria.
Isn't that
interesting?
You see, the
same people who
had rejected
Jesus, he
sends out his
word again to
call them back to
himself because
that's the kind of
God he is who
keeps calling again
and again because
he longs to show
you grace.
The gospel call
goes out to us.
He is gracious
beyond compare.
He calls us to
obedience.
Just as my name is
Chris Thornton and
you can't say, hey,
I'd like to have
Chris but I don't
think I want
Thornton.
So you can't say, I
want Jesus as my
savior but I don't
want to have him as
my lord.
But when you get
Jesus as your lord,
you get a gracious
lord.
Who is the kind of
lord you want to have
as a leader?
And some of us
here, Jesus is
calling you today
and you've been
wavering, you've been
staying in the boat
of your own comfort,
wondering whether you're
going to commit or not
to Jesus.
There are things that
are attractive to you,
around you,
careers,
relationships,
money, all those
things and that's where
your focus has been.
And Jesus is saying
to you,
will you see how
much I'm worth
following?
Come and follow me
today.
Some of us have been
Christians for a long
time and it's almost
like we've kind of,
we've followed him,
we heard his call but
then we walked kind of,
we'd like to get back
into the boat a little
bit because we want to
just be safe.
Life is busy,
things are challenging
and Jesus says,
I'm humble,
I'm gentle but I've
died for you
so trust me now
and start following me
again as your Lord
and your Savior.
It's grace that he
calls us
but he bids us
count the cost.
The fuel
to be obedient
is to know
the grace that he
has given to us
as a gracious Savior
and the final thing
is the mission.
the mission.
You cannot be a
disciple of Jesus
without being on
his mission
to make disciples
of others.
He says to his
disciples,
follow me
and I will make
you fishers,
I will make you
become fishers of
men.
You've got to
understand that's
a phrase which is
taken from the book
of Jeremiah chapter
16 where God
calls fishers
to catch people
and it's a sign
of judgment.
It's catching those
who are running
away from God
and ready bringing
them for judgment
but Jesus says hey
I'm not coming to
catch people for
judgment,
I'm coming to
save people.
And Jesus says
if you want to
follow me
I want to make you
somebody who reaches
out to others.
When you saturate
yourself in who I am
get to know me,
love me,
see how beautiful
I am.
What's going to
happen is I'm going
to stretch you.
I'm going to
call you to do
things which you
think you could
never possibly do.
If you think your
life is manageable
Jesus says I want
to make it so only
I can do the
things in you.
He wants to give
you a call so
big that it
feels overwhelming
but what he does
is he's going to
say graciously I'm
going to take you
step by step,
day by day,
to be this person
who influences
and impacts
other people
in your life.
And when we
mess up
we're going to
learn to trust
Jesus as our
savior again
and that's going
to fuel us
to obey him.
But if I gave
a five year old
the Van Halen
music
and said I want
you to go and
play it
it's impossible.
I couldn't play
it.
And when you
hear Jesus
play and you
see what he's
like you look
at it and you
just say wow I
can't do that.
But you know how
do you learn to
play a piece of
music?
You take it one
phrase by phrase
by phrase and
what you do is you
learn the one
phrase and then
you learn another
one and then you
keep practicing
that first phrase
keep practicing
do the next one
and then sometimes
you go back
because you've
forgotten the first
one and you
just kind of do
that step by step
by step by step
and eventually
you learn how to
play the piece of
music which you
thought was
impossible to
play.
That's the journey
of discipleship that
God has you and
me on.
He's got this big
call and some of
us say I don't
know how to do
it and he's
going to say I'm
going to take you
step by step.
And when we do
kind of dud notes
on there he says
just come back in
repentance come back
and trust me but
he says my call to
you is I want to
make you a disciple
maker.
And I want to
just kind of leave
us with a couple
of things.
I want to leave
us with a couple
of steps to think
about because I
don't like giving
just steps to do
because the danger
with steps is people
think that loving
Jesus is just about
following a series
of steps.
No it's actually
about coming into
relationship with
Jesus and learning
him.
But here's a couple
of things which I
think can be helpful
to help us to think
what does it mean
for me to be somebody
as a disciple
learning Jesus
to now become
someone who can
make disciples of
others.
So here's a little
diagram and I don't
have time to go
through all of this.
So I'm just going to
kind of give you a
teaser and then we'll
come and look at it
again.
The first stage if you
want to make a
disciple is you've
got to engage with
somebody.
that means and here's
tricky it means saying
hi to somebody.
Okay did you get
that?
Saying hi it means
going up to somebody
on a Sunday going up
to somebody in your
office going up to
somebody on the bus
wherever you are just
praying say God who do
you want me to say hi
to and then going up to
somebody and just
engaging with them.
For some of us that is
actually scary.
because we only stick
with the people we're
comfortable with.
I'm an introvert or
whatever it is.
But sometimes if God
as you know always
God tells you follow
me maybe you need to
die to your comfort and
move out of your
comfort zone and say
hi to somebody.
It's not complicated.
But maybe some of us
we're fine at doing
that.
No problem.
We've got relationships
with people with
Christians and non
Christians.
We're in that.
Then we've actually got
to understand how do we
invite people into that
next stage in the
relationship.
Because some of them
we've never invited
people.
I remember once having
dinner in the UK and a
Jehovah's Witness came
to our door.
And I had a friend over
for dinner and I was
like hey he actually got
up to go to the door.
I said hey tell him we're
not interested.
We're going to come
back.
I said he's not even
to come back.
Okay.
And he then went to the
door opened it up and
said hey come in.
And he said come down
have some dinner with
us.
And we started sharing
and just saying hey we're
Christians and this and
I was like yeah we're
Christians.
And he was kind of
sharing a little bit and
just getting them to share
a little bit about their
lives.
And after a while he
said hey yeah come back
again.
Here's my house.
And he and he and
after that he said to
me you know do you know
why I did that?
He said you know as
Christians we often just
try and blank out people
in our lives.
The kind of guys we don't
want to we don't want to
see in our lives.
And we don't see that
actually the most
effective way to reach
people is to love them.
And sometimes you have
to just invite people in
to your world.
To go for coffee.
To come for a meal.
To go hiking.
To do something.
To come to church.
To go to your CG.
You invite them in.
So they can see your life.
And in that context you
can then ask about them.
You can ask about what
they think about faith.
You can share what you
think about faith.
But in a context where
you're not just giving
them kind of here's your
four spiritual laws and
then running away.
But they're seeing like a
disciple sees Jesus.
They're seeing a life
lived out.
And you're asking them
questions.
Getting curious about
people.
If some of you struggle
with inviting people
maybe God is going to
say to you.
Come and die.
Get out of your
comfort zone.
Who's that person in
your office?
Who's that person in the
church?
Who's that person that you
need to reach out to?
That you know is there.
But you've never taken
the next step.
There's plenty more I
could say.
But I won't go on for
the rest.
First, Jesus calls us to
costly discipleship.
It's a call of grace to
become like him.
It's a costly grace.
But it's one that he
fuels with his power so
that as we go out we can
go and make disciples of
others and he gets the
glory.
Let's pray.
I want you to stop and
think.
Where is God calling me
to come and die?
Maybe you're at a point
you realize that the
whole of your life is
actually just wrapped up
with a whole lot of
things which are about
you.
Jesus is calling you
right now.
Will you hear his
call?
Some of you, you do
the right things, you
follow the right things
but you've never even
thought about being the
people around you.
Jesus says, okay, who's
that one person that this
week you need to take a
step?
You need to say hi to
them.
You need to invite them to
something.
You need to pray and say,
God, help me to engage
with them.
Take a step out of the
boat.
Maybe you need to ask
them, what do you
actually think about
Christianity?
You've been in a
relationship for so long
with them but you've
never asked.
Maybe that's your step.
Maybe you've never
shared what you do on a
Sunday.
Maybe that's your step.
Every disciple is, God's
going to call in different
ways but he's calling you
now.
Just respond to him.
And again, maybe just
open up your hands as a
sign of surrender to him.
Jesus, fill us.
Show us yourself.
Let us want to be like you.
More than that, let us want
you.
Make us those who see the
whole, the beautiful calling
to be your disciple.
To see how precious you are
and to follow you today.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.