(I want to listen to this sermon)

The privileges and responsibilities of discipleship.

A.       Accompanies his Master – cf. Jn.2:2 “Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.” Other privileged times when Jesus withdrew from the crowds to be alone with his disciples.

B.       Has ready access to his Master – cf. Jesus’ promises always to be with his disciples and never to abandon them: Mt.18:20 “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” Mt.28:20 "And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” And in the visions of the Book of Revelation Jesus is seen as walking amongst the golden lampstands which represent Christian churches – the Lord in their midst!

We notice in reading the gospels just how frequently the disciples are to be found in the presence of the Lord.

C.       Jesus consider his disciples as being close to him – Mt.12:49 “And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!”

D.      The Master keeps his eye upon his disciple: he knows what they do: Mt.10:42 “And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”

E.       The disciple is associated with the work and the mission of His Master – consider how Jesus sent his disciples out – the 12 then the 70. Mt.28:18-19 contains the Great Commission which Jesus gave to his disciples. In allowing his disciples thus to participate in His work the Master was bringing them (and us) to see and to share his concerns! Eg. Mt.9:37-38 “Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” And at the feeding of the 4.000 Mt.15:32 “Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

F.        The Master defends his disciple from criticism and attack:

 Mt.9:14-17 “Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

Mt.12:1-8 “At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

Mt.15:1-9 “Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, What you would have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”’

G.      He teaches them. This might seem a bit odd as Jesus taught the crowds which came to him and he instructed those who were hostile as well as those who were sympathetic but we do read that he explained everything in private to his disciples! Mk.4:34 “He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.”

It isn’t easy to teach someone who thinks he knows it all already! The disciple has to come to the Lord humbly recognising the limitations he himself has and his real need of being instructed. He needs to be prepared to receive uncomfortable truths and he needs to pay attention.

The disciple must remember what our Lord said in Mt.10:24-25 ““A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household.”

The disciple can learn from his Master in two ways and he must not pick and choose between them. The disciple learns by listening carefully to the instruction brought by the Lord in various different teaching contexts. But equally he must learn in observing the way in which the Master behaves and acts.

Peter illustrates how the disciple is not to behave!

Mk.8:32-33 “And he (Jesus) said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

When Jesus announces that Peter will deny knowing Christ this is how Peter responds Mk.14:31 “But he said emphatically, “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And they all said the same. ”

In the Acts of the Apostles we see that Peter was still struggling with the impetuosity of his character. Receiving instruction in a vision he is still prepared to answer “Not so, Lord” “By no means, Lord”. See Acts 10:14. Let’s be careful not to be too hard on Peter – are we so very different?

We obviously can’t look into this in great detail but I do want to highlight some major areas.

A.       How must I think of God?

Jesus considered God to be personal, one who can be known:

Cf. Mt.11:27 “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

Jn.1:18 “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”

Jn.17:6, 26 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word… I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

In the light of this teaching of Jesus we conclude then that God is personal, he loves and is full of compassion. Far from being indifferent to what happens he is passionately concerned expressing mercy in total harmony with his justice.

B.       How must I come to God?

We must come by and through our Lord Jesus Christ – it is impossible to come in any other way to the true and living God!

Jn.14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Cf too Acts 4:12 “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” The entire letter addressed to the Hebrews focuses upon the person of Christ and his superiority over all others eg. Heb.2:3 “how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard,”

C.       How should I speak to Him?

Jesus teaches us to speak to God as our Heavenly Father – we’ve already looked at Jn.14:6 but in this single chapter Jesus refers explicitly to God the Father some 23 times!  Jesus himself has left us an example to follow. When he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane just before he was betrayed and handed over to his enemies to be falsely tried and judged then cruelly crucified he prayed thus: “And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (Mt.26:39)

D.      What should I speak to Him about?

Here too Jesus has left us in no doubt as to how we ought to pray – we have the model prayer he gave to his disciples when they asked to be taught how to pray. In what we call the Lord’s Prayer we all told to pray:

·       For God’s glory and the extension of his reign – we have earlier seen how Jesus urged his followers to join him in praying that more workers might be sent out into the Harvest.

·       For our own needs – both physical and spiritual

·       For our relations with others

·       For direction and deliverance

·       And again for his glory!

The true disciple is not content simply to know the Lord’s teaching, he wants to act upon it putting it into practice in his everyday life. And Jesus himself has indicated just how important this really is: Mt.7:21 ““Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

                      1. He is to be associated with the Master’s work and mission

                      2. He is to exhibit the same practical compassion

                      3.He is to pray for more to become workers for the Lord

                      4.He is to make other disciples

                      5.He is to joyfully accomplish any of the various tasks the Lord may attribute to him

                      6.He is love the Lord’s other disciples.

I wonder where this might block for some of you?

1.       Perhaps you haven’t yet become a disciple of Jesus – no time like the present so why not begin today?

2.       Perhaps your understanding of the Master to be followed is too defective – take time to carefully consider the qualities of this wonderful person as revealed in the Bible. In so doing how will you be able to continue to doubt his goodness and the wisdom of his instruction?

3.       Perhaps you think he asks too much. Please note that Jesus asks you to consider everything very carefully. He does not press you to take some uniformed or emotional leap. Your problem may well lay elsewhere – you may not yet have started thinking seriously enough!!

4.       Perhaps your problem lies in a different place altogether. You agree with all that’s been said but you’ve become smug and self-satisfied believing yourself to have arrived. Those who know the most are usually the ones who are most aware of their deficiencies! It’s generally the ignorant who think they know all there is to know!!

5.       Perhaps you’ve become a mere taster of sermons and messages etc. The extent of your discipleship is measured by your ability to give a score out of ten for everything you hear. Be careful, my friend, the disciple is one who puts the word into practice and are you really so sure that there is no room for improvement in your own life?