Disciples Or Dabblers?

Intro – Part 1

1. Jesus came into the world to “seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10). In doing so, he changed people from being the disciples of Satan to become His disciples. Jesus did what Rabbis do, they make disciples.

2. To be a disciple, one must follow the precepts and instructions of the one we follow. In fact, one must want to be like his or her rabbi. Paul was a rabbi and urged his disciple to “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ” in 1 Corinthians 11:1 (NKJV).

3. Jesus made discipleship even plainer Matthew 16:24 (NKJV):

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” Then Luke 14:33 (NKJV):

33 So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.

Do you feel the seriousness of following Jesus?

4. America’s Founding Fathers were not just politicians or statesmen who wanted to establish “a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” as Abraham Lincoln reiterated in his Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863.

5. The Founders were men of integrity who devoted themselves to Jesus and His words. As a result

a. They knew the difference between a government that was good and a tyrannical one.

b. They knew the inalienable rights God had given and were set to defend them, not just to enjoy the luxury of liberty, but to do the right thing.

c. It is always right to resist the evil that opposes God. Rebellion to tyrants IS obedience to God!

d. Let me remind you of the words of two of our Founders, John Adams and Benjamin Rush.

Can we win? John Adams to Benjamin Rush

Upon my return from the army to Baltimore in the winter of 1777, I sat next to John Adams in Congress, and upon my whispering to him and asking him if he thought we could succeed in our struggle with Great Britain, he answered me, “Yes, if we fear God and repent of our sins.”

Benjamin Rush’s view of his political stance – “Christocrat”

I have been alternately called an Aristocrat and a Democrat. I am neither. I am a Christocrat. I believe all power...will always fail of producing order and happiness in the hands of man. He alone who created and redeemed man is qualified to govern him.

President John Adams – the strength of our government

“We have no government armed with power capable of continuing with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Greed, ambition, revenge, or seduction would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Disciples or Dabblers? Part 2: Testing Discipleship

On January 9, 1816, in a letter to Charles Thomson, who had published the "Thomson's Bible" (1808), Thomas Jefferson wrote regarding his book, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, which he had recently translated into other languages:

I have made this wee-little book...which I call the Philosophy of Jesus. It is a paradigm of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time and subject.

A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me an infidel, and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its Author never said nor saw.

I had always heard that Thomas Jefferson cut out what he did not like from the Bible and arranged the things he approved of into a little book. I found that he actually believed in the power of Jesus’ words and put together a book of the sayings of Jesus, which he hoped would touch the hearts of people.

Unlike what we have heard about Jefferson, he fancied himself as a disciple of Jesus. We may not approve of some of his life choices, but it seems he wanted to serve and follow Jesus.

In this second part of our series, let’s consider the idea of “testing discipleship” from Luke 9:57-62 (NKJV).

First, there is an allure to being a disciple of Jesus. Christianity has been socially acceptable for much of America’s history. We went to church to “fit in” or be accepted in society.

Even more, there is something mysterious and appealing about being one of Jesus’ followers. People recognized that in the first century and today. Notice Luke 9:57-58: