Being A Disciple Series

Sermon preached on 2/3/02

PARKVIEW CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE

J. Richard Lord, Jr.

BEING A DISCIPLE OF JESUS

Matthew 4:12-25

What drew you to church today? What was it that caused you to get out of bed on your day off, go to the trouble of getting dressed and coming to church this morning when you could be at the Waffle House having a pecan waffle with bacon and eggs, coffee and orange juice?

I hope when you drove up to the church to the church today, you came because down somewhere in your heart and mind you have heard the call of Jesus to “Come, follow me.”

I hope that just as Jesus called Peter and Andrew from their nets, you are following the Savior wherever He leads you.

I hope you have left your former lives because Jesus beckoned you from a life of sin and your motivation for coming this morning was a desire to worship the Savior who means so much to you and you wanted to praise His name with other saints who also love the Lord. You have heard the call, “Come, follow me.”

This call to follow Jesus is not passive following. His call for us to follow was not a call for us to be “Jesus groupies.” It was not His intention for us to just to follow Him around to just sit at His feet and eat from His hand. His call for us to follow Him was so we could learn how to be what He was, to do what He did. Jesus knew that He had a limited time on this earth. If the good news was to be perpetuated from generation to generation and to grow in scope, He had to pass on who He was and His purpose on this earth and send each of His disciples to the “ends of earth” to do the same.

My question for you this morning is this: Are you a disciple or a “Jesus groupie?” Do you come to church because you want to worship the Savior, to receive encouragement and instruction and increase your learning so that you can be a better servant of Jesus Christ during the week? Or do you come because you like the music or the preaching or the fellowship; or out of sense of duty or habit or guilt when it would be just as easy to have slept in or gone to the Waffle House this morning?

If you are the latter, you come to church because it makes you feel better, you enjoy the benefits of church attendance, or just out of sense of duty, and you don’t have any real mission in life, you are not involved in an active ministry and reaches out and touches the lives of others, then I’m afraid you are a “Jesus” or “church groupie.”

But if you came this morning with joy in your heart, with praise on your lips, with the intention of restocking your “spiritual weapons and ammunition,” to share victory and battle plans with other soldiers of the cross, to kneel and praise our Lord and Savior and Master and thank Him for His sustenance and power in our lives and the privilege of serving Him, then you might just be a disciple.

My prayer for you this morning is that you are a disciple. If you search your heart and discover that you are just a “Jesus groupie,“ I hope before you leave today that you will have a transformation of heart and mind and decide to follow Jesus as a disciple.

Are you a disciple? What is a disciple? A disciple is one who follows Jesus and learns how to duplicate the life, spirit and work that Jesus came to do. We are to become Jesus to the world around us.

A disciple is anyone who follows Jesus. It is not about whether you are a laymen or a pastor. It is not about whether you have a formal education. Everyone who claims the name of Jesus, if they expect to get to heaven, must be a disciple.

As we follow Jesus, we see a pattern of His ministry and work. This passage of scripture shows the basic pattern that we are to follow as His disciples.

This was His pattern. Jesus went. . .

I. TEACHING

Jesus taught in the synagogues. He went to the church of that day and instructed others on the word of God. Luke 4:13-20 gives us a sample of how Jesus taught. “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: