The Heart of a Disciple
Matthew 5:8 and 1 Corinthians 13:1-8, 13
“Come, follow me.” When Jesus spoke those words to the Galilean fishermen, it changed the course of their lives. They dropped their nets and left everything and everyone behind. Over the course of the next three years, they grew in faith and obedience. Once overlooked and considered to be ill-suited to continue their rabbinic studies, when Jesus called they beame disciples of the rabbi Jesus. A disciple is someone who seeks to be like their teacher and do what their teacher does. So the disciples sought to be like Jesus and do what Jesus did make disciples. To send the point home, Jesus’ last words to his disciples were, “Go forth and make disciples…” making it clear that if you want to follow him, you have to be a disciple maker. If you aren’t a disciple maker, then you aren’t following Jesus. You may believe in him but you aren’t a disciple following him. It’s kind of like saying you’re a weightlifter but you never go to the gym or a truck driver but you don’t drive a truck.
Today, we’re going to look at the heart of a disciple maker. It’s one thing to change a person’s behavior but quite another to change their heart. In the very first sermon Jesus preached, he said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Matthew 5:8 Jesus wanted his disciples to be pure in heart and that meant pure in motives. Jesus spent three years with the disciples, teaching them and mentoring them to act and think like he did. But just before Jesus started toward Jerusalem and the cross, two brothers who were disciples named James and John asked Jesus: “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” Their request was to sit in the place of highest authority and power in the kingdom of God. One sees this and has to ask, “Why did the 12 really want to become disciples of Jesus?” That question is a heart matter.
In God’s eyes, following Jesus isn’t just about doing the right things because Jesus commands them, it’s also about having the right motives. If we don’t have the right motives, then we’re wasting our time. God tells us repeatedly that he cares more about the heart than our actions. If God only cared about religious activities, then the Pharisees who sought to fulfill the law perfectly would have lauded and praised for their efforts. Yet Jesus criticizes them because of their motives saying everything they did was for show. He goes on to say: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” (Matt. 15:8–9) From the outside looking in, the Pharisees must have been impressive to look at: their commitment, passion, zeal and attention to detail in following the law! But Jesus and God see them from a different perspective. “The Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).
So why do you want to be a disciple who makes disciples? For some of you, you’re still wrestling with the idea that to follow Jesus means to be a disciple maker. And so there may still be a question as to whether you really want to make disciples. The truth is most of us might call ourselves reluctant disciple makers. When we’re in that mindset, it’s so easy to go to default mode and make disciples out of obligation. “Well, Jesus commands it so I guess I just have to do it.” But when we do that, we miss out on the joy God wants us to have in doing his work. In Luke 15, Jesus shares three parables: the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin and the Lost Son. Each story of the resulting joy of finding that which was found represents how God feels when one of His children return to him in faith. As the Shepard rejoices over the return of his lost sheep, and the woman over the return of her lost coin and the father over the return of his lost son, Jesus says, “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” This is the joy that God wants us to experience as we are used by him and when we experience the Holy Spirit working through us when we share our faith and lead and mentor others to become followers of Jesus Christ.
So what does the heart of a disciple maker look like? First, a disciple’s heart sees others as children of God. Let me ask you a question: how do you look at others? What do you think and feel when you are in a group of people? Are you overly aware of the ones who are wealthy, attractive, or have something they can offer you? I have a friend who’s the owner of a business which has grown so dramatically so much so that it’s become the largest in its field in the nation. He comes from a humble working class background and now has millions of dollars. We went to dinner in December and he confided how happy he was to get to know me because he doesn’t feel like he can trust anyone. He’s worried that the people in his life always want something from him. How sad is that? But the reality is a lot of times we look at people consciously or unconsciously in terms of what they have to offer us whether than be love, friendship, affirmation, etc. A sure sign of a loveless heart is seeing people as a means to your own ends—what you can get out of the relationship. Or when you look at others, do you see them as a child of God who needs to be reconnected to the Father? Instead of looking at what you can get from someone, do you look at what you can give? Do you look for ways that you might be able to serve them, heal them or minister to them.
Second, a disciple’s heart has a burden to pray for others. Before Jesus would reach out and talk to others, he would always talk to the Father. Before you act and speak, pray! A fellow pastor tells the story of a baptism service. A man and his wife had come to support a family member being baptized. As the baptism was occurring, the pastor was praying and felt a prompting to ask the man, “Do you know Jesus?” Tears welled up in his eyes as he shook his head no. “Would you like to?” Yes, he said. The pastor led the man in a prayer of repentance and forgiveness and then baptized him. At the end of a service, a woman threw her arms around the pastor in thanksgiving crying out, “9 years! 9 years! 9 years!” “What?” the pastor said. It was the man’s sister. “For 9 years my husband and I have been praying for him. We have seen no movement and then look what happened today!” This story reminds us we first need to be praying for our oikos and others who are far from God. No matter how long you’ve been praying, don’t ever give up! Keep praying. Pray every day for them until your prayer is answered. Prayer always lead to action that action is….
Third, a disciple’s heart has a love for others. 1 Corinthians 13 is one of the best known Scriptures in the Bible. Paul is writing to the church at Corinth which is experiencing great division and in-fighting. His answer to all that? Love. The Greek word he uses is agape which means sacrificial love, a love that puts the needs of others ahead of your own. So the question we all need to ask is this: how much do you care about the people around you? When you stand in a crowd, interact with your family, or talk to people in your church or even in a room crowded with strangers, do you love them and long to see them know God, share your faith, have the assurance of everlasting life and glorify God in every aspect of their lives? Love is not a feeling. It’s action. Paul is challenging us to consider whether we acting lovingly to others.
The most loving thing we can do is share our faith with someone hoping to change their eternity. Our love for others moves us to become servants of others, seeking to minister to their needs to show them the love of Christ. It moves us to make the time to invest in them and your relationship to them? Jesus always took time to speak with people like attending Matthew’s party or having dinner at Zaccheus’ house or speaking to the woman at the well. To be a disciple of Jesus, you need to make the time and put in the effort to get into the world of irreligious people, get to know them and earn the right to speak about spiritual matters.
Honestly assessing your heart and asking God to purify your motives with others needs to become a habit in your life. Take some time to consider your existing relationships—family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, etc. Are they about what you get or what you can give? The way you think about and interact with the people that God has placed in your life can tell you a lot about your heart. How well are you loving the people around you?
Fourth a disciple’s heart has a sense of urgency. One of things we need to recognize is that there’s an eternity on the line. Jesus makes it very clear that those who believe in him will receive eternal life but those who do not will be condemned to hell. Do you believe that? If so, do you feel a sense of urgency to share the good news not knowing when Jesus will return or how long someone will live? Jesus tells the story of a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus. The rich man didn’t pay any attention to the needs of Lazarus even though the Jewish faith made the care for the poor a requirement. The rich man dies and ends up in hell while the beggar ends up in heaven. From hell, the rich man said, “Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ There was a sense of urgency in his plea: today, now, in this moment, send him, send anyone to let him know they don’t want to end up here in hell. In his life, the rich man had no sense of urgency to seek eternal life or to be concerned about anyone else’s destination either. But now that he is condemned to hell, he is begging and pleading for his brothers to be warned to change their lives and make different decisions.
The reality of hell is real. We can’t gloss it over. There is a heaven and a hell and an eternity which hangs in the balance for everyone. If we don’t take this seriously then our friends and family will not spend eternity with us in heaven. The moment we lose the reality of hell, we lose the urgency of the Great Commission and being a disciple of Jesus. Every person matters to God. He wants more than anything else for all of his children to spend eternity with him. We have never locked eyes with a person who does not matter to the Savior. May this light the fire of urgency within us to move us to get up out of our pews and seek to save the lost.
Fifth, a disciple’s heart is willing to take spiritual risks. Jesus was constantly taking risks for the sake of irreligious people. Just talking to the Samaritan woman at the well was a social risk. Jews didn’t talk to Samaritans and men didn’t talk to women in public. He took a risk by eating dinner at a tax collector’s house, the most hated persons in Israel. Jesus risked his reputation and name for reaching another. Don’t wait for spiritual risks to present themselves, because you will hesitate and miss the opportunity. Make a commitment to risk it all for Jesus. Taking spiritual risks should be central to our life together because Jesus risked it all on the cross for us and calls us to do the same.
Greg Laurie tells the story of being a new Christian for just two weeks. He didn’t know much about the Bible or how to live as a Christian but he did know that he was to share the Good News. So he went to the beach one day to find someone ewho wouldn’t argue with him or get angry when he started to talk about Jesus. He found a woman sitting on a bench who was aboutn his mother’s age and said, “Excuse me, can I talk to you about something?” What’s that, she asked. About God and stuff like that. She told him to go ahead and sit down. He didn’t know what to say so he pulled out an evangelistic tract and began to read it to her. He read the entire booklet, thinking , “This isn’t going to work.” At the end of the tract, he asked if there was any reason why she should not accept Jesus Christ now? She fell silent. “is there?, he said. No, she said. “OK, would you like to commit your life to Christ now?” yes I would, she said. He was so shocked that he didn’t know what to do. He frantically searched the tract for what to do and found the sinner’s prayer so he led her in it. After, the woman said, I felt something powerful happen in me. And then he writes, “At that moment, something happened in me too. I got a taste of what it is was like tom take a risk and be used by God. I had completely underestimated the Gospel. But I was determined from that point on, no matter what else I did in life, I wanted to share my faith with others. “
