“Dull Disciples”
Matthew 16:21-28
Intro: It’s summer time, and for many that means it’s family vacation time. Have you ever had a bad experience on a vacation? If you’ve been on many vacations then you know what I’m talking about. Things don’t always go as planned, people and weather doesn’t always cooperate. Sometimes the packing, traveling, and expenses aren’t worth the experience. So do we avoid vacations altogether? Never go on another? Do we just say I’ll pay someone else do all the packing, traveling, see all the sights, experience all the pains and enjoyment? Then when they return I’ll just listen to their experience.
Sometimes we do the same thing with pastors. We realize that we need to spend time with God praying, reading our Bible, and listening. But it’s much easier to let someone else who has more experience and is better at it than us just give us what they have. Besides isn’t’ that what we pay the pastor for anyway? God doesn’t want you just to settle for living through another person’s experience. He wants you to experience first hand the pains and joys of intimacy with Him.
Illustration: In a chapter about rethinking discipleship James Emery White states:
Some of you may remember comedian Yakov Smirnoff. He said when he first came to the United States from Russia; he wasn’t prepared for the incredible variety of instant products available in American grocery stores. He says, "On my first shopping trip, I saw powdered milk--you just add water, and you get milk. Then I saw powdered orange juice--you just add water, and you get orange juice. And then I saw baby powder, and I thought to my self, what a country!"
One of the most basic assumptions made about life change is that it happens instantly at salvation. According to this belief, when someone gives his or her life to Christ, there is an immediate, substantive, in-depth, miraculous change in habits, attitudes, and character. As a result disciples are born not made.
. . .The question for rethinking discipleship is this: Are these assumptions valid? If they are, then working this formula in the life of the church should consistently give the same result: new communities of people who are becoming increasingly like Jesus in their life and thought. If that is not the answer a church gets when it works the equation, then it needs to rethink whether the formula is sound.
Unfortunately, many churches are not getting the correct answer. In fact, a Search Institute study has found that only 11 percent of churchgoing teenagers have a well-developed faith, rising to only 32 percent for churchgoing adults. Why? Because true life change only begins at salvation, takes more than just time, is about training not trying, and is a team effort.
James Emery White, Rethinking the Church, Baker, 1997, p. 55-57
1 Tim 4:7-8
7Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. 8For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.
1. Ignoring God. No desire to hear God’s truth.
Amos 8:11"The days are coming," declares the Sovereign LORD, "when I will send a famine through the land- not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.
a). Sometimes we ignore God simply because we’re too busy with our own things to be considerate of God’s Word.
Illustration: During the Revolutionary War, a loyalist spy appeared at the headquarters of Hessian commander Colonel Johann Rall, carrying an urgent message. General George Washington and his Continental army had secretly crossed the Delaware River that morning and were advancing on Trenton, New Jersey where the Hessians were encamped. The spy was denied an audience with the commander and instead wrote his message on a piece of paper. A porter took the note to the Hessian colonel, but because Rall was involved in a poker game he stuffed the unread note into his pocket. When the guards at the Hessian camp began firing their muskets in a futile attempt to stop Washington’s army, Rall was still playing cards. Without time to organize, the Hessian army was captured. The battle occurred the day after Christmas, 1776, giving the colonists a late present--their first major victory of the war. Today in the Word, October, 1991, p. 21.
--Some times God is warning us about our spiritual situation but we’re too busy with worldly stuff to hear Him.
Ex 20:18-19 When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance 19and said to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die."
b). Then sometimes we don’t want to hear from God because we don’t want to be under the obligation to obey Him. We would rather listen to someone’s personal testimony than to God directly. When God speaks either we obey or disobey. But if His servant speaks we can say, “that’s just your opinion, or I don’t share your convictions on the matter”.
2. Natural desires (v23)
a). Peter was speaking from his natural desires when he opposed the cross. The natural life in us is not spiritual. It can only be made spiritual by sacrifice. If we do not resolutely sacrifice the natural, the supernatural can never become natural in us. There is no royal road there; each of us has it entirely in his own hands. It is not a question of praying, but of performing.
3. High expectations (v. 24)
a). Following Jesus’ expectations of discipleship are kind of like walking a tight rope. It takes a lot of practice, experience, and concentration. You don’t just jump up on the tight rope without any experience and have no problems with it. True discipleship takes an enormous amount of concentration, experience and effort. We shouldn’t get discouraged about the difficulty of discipleship because beneath the tightrope of Jesus’ expectations is the net of His acceptance and forgivness.
b). We must be sure to separate Jesus’ expectations of discipleship and His expectations of love. Does Jesus only love us when we master the Christian walk? Far from it! Christ love has no strings attached, no expectations, no hidden agendas, and no secrets. His love for us was, and is, up front and clear. “I love you,” he says, “Even when you let me down. I love you in spite of your failures.”
Expectations alone are bullets that can kill; but buffered by acceptance and forgiveness, they can bring out our best.
c). Unless the disciple lives a life hidden with Christ in God, he is apt to become an irritating dictator instead of an indwelling disciple. Many of us are dictators, we dictate to people what they must do in order to deserve our love. Jesus never dictates to us in that way. Whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He always prefaced it with an “IF”, never with an emphatic assertion-“You must.” Discipleship carries an option with it.
4. Loosing through gaining (v. 26)
Illustration: Clovis Chappell, a minister from a century back, used to tell the story of two paddleboats. They left Memphis about the same time, traveling down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. As they traveled side-by-side, sailors from one vessel made a few remarks about the snail’s pace of the other.
Words were exchanged. Challenges were made. And the race began. Competition became vicious as the two boats roared through the Deep South.
One boat began falling behind. Not enough fuel. There had been plenty of coal for the trip, but not enough for a race. As the boat dropped back, an enterprising young sailor took some of the ship’s cargo and tossed it into the ovens. When the sailors saw that the supplies burned as well as the coal, they fueled their boat with the material they had been assigned to transport. They ended up winning the race, but burned their cargo.
God has entrusted cargo to us, too: children, spouses, and friends. Our job is to do our part in seeing that this cargo reaches its destination. Yet when the program takes priority over people, people often suffer.
How much cargo do we sacrifice in order to achieve the number one slot? How many people never reach the destination because of the aggressiveness of a competitive heart? (“In the eye of the Storm”; Max Lucado)
a). Discipleship is not requirement of salvation it is a result of salvation. We don’t follow Jesus to be saved we follow because we are saved. Discipleship is not just some mediocre, middle of the road experience. Those who were most intimate with Jesus knew the greatest joys of being on the mountaintop with Him, and knew the greatest sorrows of denying Him. Intimacy with God is what we were created for, it’s living to the fullest, it’s “truly life”.
1 Tim 6:18-19
19In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.
What makes a Christian a Christian is not perfection but forgiveness.
b). You may not feel worthy. Neither was Judas, but Jesus washed his feet. Neither was Peter, but Jesus fixed him breakfast. Neither were the Emmaus-bound disciples, but Jesus took time to sit at their table.
John 18:37
Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."
Conclusion:
Mark 4:3-8
4As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. 8Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times."
In this parable Jesus likens our ears to ground and the word of God to seed.
Some of our ears are like hard packed ground – unreceptive.
Some ears are like rocky soil – hear the word but don’t allow it to take root.
Some ears are like a weed patch – too overgrown, too thorny, with too much competition for the seed to have a chance.
And there are some ears that hear: well tilled, and receptive to God’s word.
How to develop a listening heart.
1. A regular time and place with God.
2. An open Bible.
3. A receptive heart.
In a craftsman’s shop he has all kinds of tools. Some are stacked in the corner covered with dust and cobwebs. These are the tools he once used but have become dull and ineffective for his work. Then there are tools in the box that are ready to be used at any time but at the moment are in limbo because the tasks they’re designed for is not being undertaken. So they sit and wait for their turn to be put to use in the master’s hands. Then lastly there are the tools that are on the master’s work table, these are the tools he uses with everything he does. They never go in the box, and are far from having dust, and cobwebs covering them.
We’re all designed for the Master’s worktable. To be useful in spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. But it’s our choice where we appear in the Master’s workshop. Whether it be in the corner, out of His will. In the box, always in spiritual limbo waiting for some place of service to come along that doesn’t demand too much sacrifice. Our place in the workshop relies on our decision as to were we want to be with God. If we desire intimacy with Christ, it takes sacrifice, discipline, and perseverance on our part.
Disciples aren’t born they’re made.
