Every year the movie industry comes together for a massive celebration and awards ceremony. All of Hollywood looks forward to the night early in the year where they can come together and honor one another for the work that had been done during the previous year. It’s a really a fascinating thing to watch. Dresses and tuxedos worth thousands of dollars are bought. Limousines are rented. Red carpets are rolled out. Photographers swarm. Millions of people all over the country tune in their televisions to watch thousands of people gather together and give gold statues to one another; honoring and praising them for...pretending to be something that they are not.
The pinnacle of success that every big-screen actor or actress strives for is to win the coveted Oscar at the Academy Awards. It is this moment of recognition that forever immortalizes their name in the minds of movie fans throughout the generations. And that moment of recognition is granted to those who have done the best job of … pretending to be something that they are not. Screenwriters, directors, and producers are also honored and immortalized on this night and awarded with an Oscar because of their talent in … creating a world that doesn’t really exist.
Now I have nothing against quality entertainment, but if you’re as cynical as I am, it seems a little ridiculous that so many millions of dollars would be spent, such a fuss would be made, and so many people would be elevated to god-like status, for pretending. For playing make believe. Why should anyone be so recognized, so praised, and so looked-up to, even idolized for pretending to be something they aren’t? But the reality...you and I are no different. Think about it. In almost every aspect of our lives we live as performers, hoping to be recognized, praised, and rewarded for our performance; for appearing to be someone that we may or may not actually be.
Beginning in childhood, we are told by our parents to behave in a certain way; and if we’re smart, we do … not because we want to behave that way, but because the big person who has money in one hand and a leather belt in the other tells us we have to. There is a code of behavior established by our parents, and we are either rewarded or punished based on our ability to perform according to that code of behavior. One part of the code is that it is unacceptable for me to blow up my sister’s Barbie dolls as a combat exercise for G.I. Joe. Now, everything in me wants to blow up those stupid dolls. I’ve got the m-80 firecrackers. I am ready for some serious Barbie-land carnage! The reality of who I am is a kid that takes great pleasure in and derives great satisfaction from blowing up Barbie dolls. But you see, I’m going to perform in a way contrary to who I really am for two reasons: One, I don’t want dad to take off his belt. And secondly, if I can convince him and mom that I am delighted to follow their rules and be a good little boy, I am likely to be rewarded with more allowance, a later bedtime, or maybe even a box of Count Chocula cereal.
Our school years are no different. Letter grades are assigned to us based on our performance. Every quarter report cards divulge our performance or lack thereof to our parents. We are promoted from one grade to the next based on our performance. In the latter school years, college choices are increased or diminished based on our performance. And in the end, the two who perform the best get to give speeches to their classmates on their final night together as a class. Part of our performance is genuine, naturally flowing out of who we are. I had no trouble whatsoever making straight A’s in history. I love it! But when my teacher perceived me as a good algebra student because I got a B, trust me, that was a hard-fought performance; and I don’t remember a thing about algebra today. There is not a fiber of algebra passion to be found in me anywhere. I would actually sign up for a mission to eliminate algebra from the world.
Those of us who have been in the work-world are probably well-acquainted with the annual performance review. Pay-raises and promotions all come to us as the result of how well we perform our job. We may genuinely do well at our jobs because we love our work and our good performance flows out of who we are, or we may act our way through each day and through the annual performance review because deep down inside, we have no passion whatsoever for what we do each day.
When I think about performing through life, I think probably the most pretending occurs on Sunday mornings. Somewhere along the line many of us have reduced our relationship with God, our walk with Christ, and our relationships with our church family to a performance. We are convinced that our acceptability before God depends on how well we perform according to a religious code of conduct. We have this incredible need to convince everyone at church that life is great and our act is together. I would be so bold as to suggest that most, if not all of us, to some degree, act differently in here on Sunday mornings than we do at work or at school, or at home. As this song plays, take a few moments and think about what ways you are a different person here than you are everywhere else? (Play “No More Pretending”)
We’re in our final week of this series of messages about our core values as a church. I want to finish this series by talking with you for a few minutes about discipleship. Our core value statement concerning discipleship is this: “We believe that God has called us to be and make devoted disciples, not mere converts.” Discipleship is the process of making disciples or becoming a disciple. So what is a disciple? The original Greek word for disciple used by the writers of the Gospels is mathetes which means learner. In the most complete sense of the word, a disciple is one who fully accepts the views of another person, and then puts those views into practice. A true disciple is one who demonstrates his acceptance of a person’s views by the way he lives his life. To take it a step further, a true disciple so clearly reflects the person he follows that another person can identify the one the disciple follows by observing the life of the disciple. And it is in this area of discipleship that we so easily fall into performance mode. Ask about discipleship in many churches and you’ll most likely be presented with a structure. Be faithful in attending church services. Read your Bible for 30 minutes everyday. Pray for a certain length of time everyday. Don’t do anything sinful. Give money. Find an area in the church that needs help and volunteer. And all of these things will show that you are a good disciple with whom God is well pleased. This, my friends, is a performance. True discipleship is not about doing. It’s about becoming. One of my favorite quotes is from the Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard. “And now, with God’s help, I will become me.” I believe this quote captures the heart of true discipleship. Discipleship is about me becoming me, and you becoming you.
To make sense of this, we have to ask the question: “Who am I?” “Who are you?”
So what is the answer to “Who are you?” You are a human being created in the image of God. This is where discipleship begins. At some point, shortly after creation, humanity sinned against God. The entire created order was corrupted. As a result, the image of God in every human being is marred, twisted, broken, stained, and dysfunctional because of that original sin. It is not absent. It is not totally destroyed. It is corrupted, groaning to be restored. And this is where discipleship begins. From the moment the first man and woman sinned, God set into motion a plan to make it possible for me to once again become “me”, and you to once again become “you”; human beings bearing the image of the God who created us. And all of this revolves around us becoming disciples of Jesus Christ. Why? Listen to the words of Hebrews 1:1-3:
“Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. But now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son, Jesus Christ. God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he made the universe and everything in it. The Son reflects God’s own glory, and everything about him represents God exactly.”
For us to be restored to what God originally intended for us to be; a human being bearing the image of God, we must first recognize that Jesus Christ IS the image of God. He is God. From there we move to Romans 8:29. “For God knew his people in advance, and He chose them to become like His son.” We become like His son through becoming a mathetes, a disciple, one who believes what Jesus taught, that he is the Son of God, and allows the words of Jesus to fully shape him into a person whose very life reflects the character of Christ.
The result of this life of discipleship is the answer to Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, 24 “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is the one who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.” Belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God who is the exact representation of God, and a life of discipleship will result in a total transformation of our spirit, our mind, our will, our emotions, and ultimately our body when Christ returns. You will have truly become you. A human being, bearing the image of God through your talents, your hobbies, your personality, the way you dress, your relationships, and through what you do with your possessions.
So what about all of the things we usually associate with being a disciple of Jesus Christ? What about church attendance, Bible reading, prayer, avoiding sin, giving, and serving? Aren’t these the things that disciples do? Yes, they are. Here’s the difference. All of these things are nothing more than an empty performance if we do them to try to make ourselves acceptable to God. Or if we do them for the purpose of making others think that we are spiritual. This is pretending. This is play-acting. This is nothing more than doing spiritual things outwardly to impress God and/or other people. So why should we do these things?
Let’s read again the passage from 1 Thessalonians 5: 23, 24. “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is the one who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.” Did you catch the end of that? You do not sanctify yourself by performing spiritual disciplines. Because of Jesus Christ, God already accepts you! And it is God who sanctifies you as you cooperate with Him through spiritual disciplines. As a church with discipleship as one of our core values we believe in incorporating spiritual disciplines into our lives, because we know that God has instructed us to do so, in order that he might sanctify us (make us more like His son) through those spiritual disciplines.
As a disciple of Christ, why should you attend church? Because God tells us in Hebrews 10:23—25 that we will become more like Christ as we are encouraged by one another to express love through good deeds and keep our hope alive. This is why we have a weekly gathering on Sunday, small groups during the week, and spontaneous times of fun and fellowship together.
Why should we read, study, and memorize the Bible? Because God tells us in Psalm 119:11 that when we hide His word in our hearts, we are more able to resist sin. And we become more and more like Jesus Christ as sinful behaviors become less and less a part of our lives. This is why our sermons are from the Bible and this is why we offer a Sunday afternoon class in which we teach you how to read, study, and understand the Bible.
Why should we make prayer a regular part of our life? A tree branch remains alive and bears leaves and fruit only because it is attached to and draws nourishment from the rest of the tree. We are like a branch, and God is the tree, and we draw nourishment from him through intimate conversation with Him. Jesus promised in John 15 that if we will remain attached to him in this way, he will remain attached to us, and we will live fruitful lives which are the evidence that we are indeed his disciples.
What about avoiding sin, pursuing a life of holiness? Sin is entirely inconsistent with Christ’s character. There is no sin in him. And if we are his disciples, we are to be holy, just as he is holy. God has given us the Holy Spirit to empower us to resist sin, and become more like Jesus Christ.
When we incorporate giving to and serving others into our lives, God makes us more like His son by changing our priorities, removing our hearts of stone and giving us a heart of flesh that is caring and compassionate toward those around us.
My prayer for us as a church...my prayer for you, is that this community of believers will live up to our motto: Real people, with real hope, in a real world. That we will be a people who are devoted disciples of Jesus Christ, being changed from day to day to be more and more like him. That our activities, our spiritual disciplines will not be a performance, but a sincere expression of hunger and thirst for the things of God.
