James Armour, my friend from England who preached here several months ago recently wrote me about a problem. One of his closest friends in the church was also the one who handled the church’s money. He was a trusted friend. They had vacationed together as families. But he embezzled the church’s funds and left the church nearly bankrupt. The church’s ministries had to be seriously curtailed, and Jim’s mission trip to China had to be cancelled. The church is in turmoil. How does something like that happen?
How do you explain a pastor friend of mine from another place who had an inappropriate relationship with a woman in his church? And what about a faithful church member who succumbs to another fit of rage leaving his family devastated by his explosive anger? Someone else withdraws, seething in silent, cold rage. An insecure woman cuts, criticizes, gossips and destroys someone’s reputation. A young girl in church seeks for love and affirmation anywhere she can get it, due to the emotional isolation in her home. A young man who comes from a Christian family becomes involved in drugs and cannot seem to resist the desire to belong. How do these things happen in the lives of people who are supposed to be Christians?
There are many dynamics involved, but I am more and more convinced that much of this is due to a basic misunderstanding of the Christian life. Many Christians live at a very shallow level in their spiritual lives because they understand the Christian experience to be a one-time event — you come to the altar, ask Christ to forgive your sins, and that’s it. Now you are a Christian, and you are just here waiting for heaven. You get baptized. You try to be a good person and go to church. And we live as though that is all there is to it. But any of these things by themselves misses the point of what Christ has in mind for us. There is more — so much more.
True discipleship is absolutely necessary if we are to progress in the Christian life beyond spiritual infancy. Let me begin by defining discipleship. True discipleship is the intentional development of spiritual disciplines for the purpose of personal growth and the transformation of one’s character into Christ’s likeness. Discipleship is not what you do to help someone else, it is what you do for yourself to take on the character of Christ. It is an inside job as we surrender to the work of the Holy Spirit within us. It is entering into God’s life. And this life is possible, because as we read in the Scripture today, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (2 Peter 1:3-4).
How do we become disciples of Jesus Christ? Let me first say that: True discipleship requires us to be intentional. The work of God is not something that happens automatically or accidentally. It happens as we engage our will and seek the fullness of God in our lives at every level. We do the things that are necessary for spiritual growth. We surrender our will to the will of God, so that God’s will becomes our will. We deliberately and consistently make time for God. We develop our prayer life. We read God’s Word and listen for him to speak to us. We think about him through the day, and pray that we will be able to love him more tomorrow than we do today. We want to obey him. We learn his heart and pray that he would develop his character in us.
There does come a time when we have to say to God: “Okay, Lord, I’m yours. I’m through fighting. I want everything you have for me. Have your way in my life. I’m no longer holding anything back. Take away anything that is not pleasing to you. I want to be like you, Father, and I don’t want there to be anything in the way. I willingly give you every area of my life. Take my life and use it for your glory. Begin the process of purifying my heart.”
This leads to the second point: True discipleship requires us to be passionate for God. We cannot be passive, we must be passionate. You will have exactly as much of God as you want.
Jesus told two parables illustrating this. He said, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:44-46). What we notice here is that both individuals sold everything they had to get what they wanted. So often we hear about the “cost of discipleship” as though discipleship only comes at great personal loss to ourselves. But what we notice here is that these individuals who sold everything they had did not think they were giving up anything, they thought they were gaining something which had far more value than everything else they owned. They were more than willing to give up everything they had to gain something that was worth more than everything they possessed.
Imagine yourself standing before God with a nickle in your hand. God asks you to give him your nickle, but you are reluctant because it is the only money you have. After all, it is your nickle You jerk it away and hold it behind your back. You pout and cry because God is asking you to give it up. But what you do not understand is that when you give it up, God places a billion dollars in your hands. Or see yourself holding a mud pie and God asks you to hand it to him. But you like the mud pie, and you made it yourself. You are angry that he wants the mud pie you have made. But what you do not understand is that God wants you to empty your hands so that he can place in your hands a fresh pecan pie, still hot from the oven. How foolish we are to keep what little we have from God when he wants to give us something greater than anything we have ever dreamed.
C. S. Lewis preached a sermon in 1941 where he said, “If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
God wants us to want more — more of life, more of him. But we think God has come to take things away from us. We think of all we will have to give up. God asks us to give up our cursing, our carousing, our addictions, our racism, our anger and abuse, and we cannot imagine living without those things. We worry that God will make us weird, or ask us to do something strange like going to Africa or becoming a preacher. We think that if we really take this seriously, we will turn into some kind of religious fanatic. I think it is unfortunate that people so often think that fanaticism is the true picture of a life totally committed to God. The truth is that the more we are committed to God, the more normal and healthy we become. It is also unfortunate that people think of a person who commits their life to God as someone who quits smoking, swearing, drinking excessively, doing drugs and partying. It simply misses the real point. God does not come to clean us up on the outside, he comes to transform us on the inside. The point is that God wants us to take on his character. He wants us to learn to forgive like he forgives, and love like he loves. Because he is a God of grace, he wants us to exhibit grace in our relationships. He wants us to learn to suffer the difficulties of life patiently and faithfully. He wants us to do the right thing, even when it is difficult and unpopular. He wants us to love our enemies and do good to those who despitefully use us. He wants us to have humility. He wants us to provide the necessary emotional support for our families because of a changed heart that moves from selfishness to selflessness. He wants us to spend our lives doing as much good as we can, even if it means sacrifice on our part. He wants us to model his patience with people. He wants us to prefer giving to getting. These are the things that take place on the inside of us.
Hear this carefully: It is not what you do for God that is important, it is who you become that matters to God. If you were totally paralyzed and never able to do any work for God, it would not concern God, as far as your value to him. What is far more important to God is the person you become. That is holiness. Holiness is not measured by what you abstain from, but by what you give yourself to. It is not just what you do, but who you become that is important. God does not want your activity, he wants you. In fact, if you do all kinds of good things for God, without becoming the person he has in mind for you to become, it will mean nothing.
But in order for this to happen there must be a total surrender on your part so that God is able to work. You must die to yourself and your will, and take up his life and desire to do his will. Jesus said, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39). You can have your mud pie, or God’s pecan pie, which will it be? Let’s be honest. Your idea of life is pretty pitiful. God has so much more in mind for you. It is so much better and so much more satisfying. Your joy will be so much greater, and your life will mean so much more. But it will mean that you must turn over your life completely to him — your mind, you will, your body, your soul, your thoughts, your motives, your emotions, your social life, your everything. This surrender cannot be partial, it requires everything. Jesus said, “In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). And the only way that you can give up everything you have is when you realize that everything you have does not begin to compare to the everything God wants to give. When you understand that at the core of your being, you will become passionate for God.
The third thing we need to understand is: True discipleship requires us to desire to be used by God. We want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. We long for the privilege of being used by God and identified with his kingdom. We cannot stand the thought of a self-centered life where we just want to make as much money as we can and have the most fun we can. We want our lives to have an eternal dimension. We want to invest ourselves in the kingdom of God. We want to discover our gifts and use them for the glory of God. The apostle James asked what good it does if someone is in need, and you have the means to help, and you merely tell them that you are praying for them. He said, “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (James 2:17).
When we serve God in this way, not everyone’s way of serving God will be the same. Some will head out to the streets on Saturday nights or join the neighborhood friendship teams. Some will pray for those who go. Others will call on someone in need. Still others will help people financially. Some will minister in the jails, the nursing homes or in the home of someone who is homebound. Some will serve in the pregnancy center. Some will make things for shut ins, or do small repair jobs. Some will sing on Sunday morning, or teach a class. Some will find people in need, or do what they can to bind up the wounds of those who are hurting. John Wesley said,
Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can
When your life is being changed from the inside out, you will not have to worry about witnessing. People will come to you and ask what is up. When it becomes more important to you to serve than to be served; when you have a positive attitude at work, even when things are not good; when you love your enemies and serve people sacrificially, others will definitely notice. A positive spirit, love and kindness are rare in this broken world, and God has called us to be his people and make a difference.
Discipleship is not an option for the Christian. It is not that some have the choice of being sold out Christians and others don’t have to go that far. Discipleship is not for the “really religious” types. It is a requirement for all who call themselves by the name of Christ. The call of God is for us to grow up and receive our spiritual heritage. The writer of the book of Hebrews said to the people to whom he was writing, “We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:11-14). We are our best selves when we are being transformed by God’s Spirit. And life is its most exciting when we find our fulfillment in him. When we risk trusting God, we find out who God really is — and who we really are.
We are to live up to who we are in God. We are to be a kingdom of priests and kings. The Bible says, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).
C. S. Lewis, in The Voyage of the Dawntreader, part of The Chronicles of Narnia series, tells the story of Eustace, a boy who happens upon a hidden treasure which is guarded by a dragon. He has become alienated from his friends and their values by his own churlishness, and when he finds the treasure unguarded for the moment, he claims it all as his own. He places a gold bracelet around his wrist and fills his pockets with diamonds, and then falls asleep on the pile of gold and jewels, crowns and coins. When he awakens he discovers that he has become a dragon himself. He looks like the devil himself, breathing fire and dragging a long tail. The only cure was if he would submit to Aslan — the giant lion in the story representing Christ. Eustace had tried somewhat successfully to peal off a layer of dragon hide, only to find there was another skin just like it underneath. Try as he might, he could not relieve himself of his dragon skin. The only choice was to lay still and let Aslan do his work. Describing what the great lion did, Eustace told a friend, “The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off.” Eustace had tried to take away his dragon nature by himself, but it didn’t work. The only thing that did work was the piercing claw that tore away everything of his old nature so that he could be transformed into the new nature which God designed and desired him to be.
And so it is with us all. The lion of Judah has come to do his transforming work in our lives. He will pierce us to the heart and begin to tear away our old self. It is up to us to allow him to do it. Only he can put a new heart within us and expose the person we were meant to be in him.
Rodney J. Buchanan
September 29, 2002
Mulberry St. UMC
Mt. Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
True Discipleship
(Questions for September 29, 2002)
1. Read the definition of true discipleship and discuss its meaning.
2. How is this different from what some people commonly understand “being a Christian” to mean?
3. What must you do to be a true disciple?
4. What are some of the objections or excuses that some people have for not becoming wholehearted disciples of Christ?
5. Why does discipleship require us to be intentional?
6. Is discipleship optional for a Christian? Can some just be Christians while others choose to go deeper?
7. Read Hebrews 5:11-14. Why would some choose not to grow? What is the alternative?
8. Does God want us to desire more? Why is spiritual passion a necessary part of this?
9. Read Luke 14:33. What did Jesus mean?
10. Some see the benefits of becoming a Christian as getting blessings from God. What are the benefits of having your life being used by God?
11. Read 1 Peter 2:9. What does this say about who you are?
