Disciples are made not born AM Sermon 6/26/11

Pres. Teddy Roosevelt once told of a very interesting incident in his own life.
He wrote, "On the beautiful little island of Islamorada, there are several hundred homes that belong to people who come to stay for the summer. I fell in love with that island & spent 4 summers up there."
To give you perspectives the little town of Islamorada is found in the Florida Keys near Key Largo.
"I had often heard of a salty ‘down easter’ who lived up there & was called ‘Uncle John’ by everyone.
He was so quaint & such a character that he was a welcome guest in the homes of all the prominent families.
Once when I went to visit in one of those homes, I was asked if I had ever met Uncle John & I told them, ‘No, but I’ve been wanting to meet him.’
‘Well, he’s in our kitchen right now. Come on out.’
"They introduced us & we liked each other right off, so we sat & chatted for nearly an hour. When I got up to leave, I held out my hand & said, ‘Uncle John, I surely am glad I got to meet you. If ever I can do you a favor, I want you to feel free to call on me. Will you?’
"He answered, ‘I certainly will, Mr. President. In fact, there is a favor I would ask of you right now, something that you can do & I so wish that you would do it.’
Then Uncle John smiled. ‘Look,’ he said, & he pointed to a little white church up on the hill.
‘Pres. Roosevelt, you’re a Christian, but I haven’t seen you up there at church. If you, the President of the U.S., would come up there to church, all of the people on this island would flock up there. Don’t you want them to go to church? Don’t you think they need to go to church?’”
Teddy Roosevelt wrote, "I hung my head in shame & told him, ‘I’ll be there this Sunday.’ Sure enough, there was standing room only in that church the next Sunday. I never missed another Sunday in that little white church while I stayed up there. I was ashamed of myself before my Heavenly Father that I had been such a poor witness for Him."
You can sympathize with Roosevelt because it never occurred to him.
1st of all he needed to be in church- that is beside the point.
2nd his presence in church would have drawn other people to worship God because he was there.
We look at that and say – man that is obvious – you are the president of the U.S. of course people will be drawn to church by your example.
But I will make a case today that we have missed the point.
Me included – we are making something complicated that is very simple.
What if I told you today that you could rid yourself of anger, resentment, hatred, and just plain unhappiness?
What if I told you that you could find real purpose in life and your purpose for living?
What if I told you that you could be changed where you no longer care about what people think about you or wealth and possessions?
Sounds crazy doesn’t it? But that is exactly what the Bible tells us happens when we become true Disciples of Jesus – Now don’t turn me off yet, you may think this is impossible. But I want to start today with a series of sermons that will get to this very motivation of finding fulfillment in Christ.
What is the purpose of the Church ?
What is the purpose of the Church here at Mimosa?
Last week as we closed out John’s Gospel we simply stated that we come here to encounter the presence of the Living God.
Christ Risen and triumphant is among us, with us, and fellowshipping with us through the Holy Spirit here this morning.
That is a major theme found in John’s Gospel, Romans, and Ephesians.
Worship of God and being in the Presence of Christ is one of our purposes for existing as a congregation.
Worship in the Lord on the Lord’s day should celebrate and exalt God as our Creator and Redeemer as we find in the book of Revelation.
The Heavenly worship on a Sunday that John the Seer is caught up in focuses on these two aspects of God as our Creator and God as our Savior in Christ.
Now- this morning I would like to kick off a series of sermons that focus on the next aspect of what our role as a Church really is.
We need to be sharp about this and have ambiguity at all.
Let us turn to a part of the Bible that is read so much that we know it by heart but I guarantee you that this is one of the most misunderstood passages in all of the Bible.
The Great Commission
Matthew 28: 18-20
18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always , even to the end of the age."
Let us go to the Great Commission – the Risen Christ giving marching orders to His disciples.
Now we are familiar with the idea of baptizing and going into the nations and even maybe teaching but we have become woefully short on Disciplemaking.
Now don’t detach this verse from our reality and make it for some remote part of Africa – the world but change it for our current situation.
Our current situation is Fayetteville, TN and all the circles of travel that we take.
Now let Jesus say to us, Go unto Fayetteville, TN, the Mimosa Community, Huntsville, AL, etc. – and make Disciples.
What is a disciple in the first place?
We got to strip this term away and learn what it means first of all in a 1st century context. The Hebrew term for Disciple is Talmidin.
This term Disciple refers to the relationship of a student with their Rabbi. In 1st century Palestine it doesn’t mean learning a bunch of facts but BECOMING the TEACHER.
You want to be like the teacher in every way possible.
In our Western educational system we have messed this all up. We see learning and Discipleship as just getting the right answer on a test.
Imagine that I give a test to my Chemistry students and one gets a 100 percent on the test. What if I asked them after they turned in their test DO YOU BELIEVE IN YOUR ANSWERS?
My student would think I was crazy. What do you mean by do you believe in your answers all I care about is getting the right information.
In the Church this is totally different. Discipleship is getting the correct answers and then living them out because you believe in them that much.
Imagine if we approached riding a bike to how many churches do church work. What if we walked up to a kid and told them how valuable it is to ride a bike.
What if I did a slide show presentation as to how bike riding was fun and important to their life and success.
Would that help them to learn to ride a bike? It would be much better to show them how to ride the bike and then they will take off with it.
But that is how we do the Gospel message many times. WE talk about being disciples and tell people hey it is great to be a disciple. Come on over and be a disciple with me and we will just grow grow grow.
How absurd – most people have no clue how to become a true follower of Jesus and churches are doing a terrible, horrible, job at showing them how to.
Disciples are made, not born.
A Russian comedian, Yakov Smirnoff talks about when he first moved to America, he was amazed at the variety of instant products he could buy in the store.
There’s powdered milk: just add water and you have milk. There’s powdered orange juice: just add water and you have orange juice.
Then he saw Baby Powder and thought, “What a great country! If you want a baby, just add water!” Some people think that’s how discipleship works.
You take a believer, add a little baptism water, and “poof” you have a fully-devoted follower of Jesus–a real disciple. But it takes more than water to make a disciple. DISCIPLES ARE MADE, NOT BORN
C.S LEWIS SAID THE FOLLOWING IN HIS BOOK MERE CHRISTIANITY
“For mere improvement is no redemption, though redemption always improves people even here and now and will, in the end, improve them to a degree we cannot yet imagine. God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of men.”
SO LET US TAKE A STEP BACK AND SEE HOW JESUS DEFINED DISCPLESHIP IN HIS KINGDOM
Definition of Discipleship according to Jesus:
Luke 14: 25-35
25 Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, 26 "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. 27 "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. 28 "For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? 29 "Otherwise , when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' 31 "Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand ? 32 "Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 "So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. 34 "Therefore, salt is good ; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned ? 35 "It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile ; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
From this text I would like to pull out a few examples for our benefit:
There are stages of followers around Jesus at this point:
1) The Crowds – Large crowds that followed Jesus –
These were the same groups that only came around when times were good, but when Jesus gave a difficult teaching like In John 6 – they would leave Him.
These are like the people in our present day that show up for Easter service and then you don’t see them again until the next year.
Not much commitment but just there because they might feel obligated to be there once per year.
2) There more inner circle of general disciples that are there for the most part – these are the ones that go with Jesus for the most part but don’t have the level of commitment that the 12 men that are the intimate disciples have.

3) The 12 or better the 11 that are there with Jesus everyday and even though they abandon Him at the crucifixion they are the ones that get going strong after the resurrection.

But look at the level of commitment that Jesus is calling us to.
1) HATE your family over Christ –
Jesus uses Hyperbole and is a comparative term.
Jesus uses a harsh term that one must hate his own life and even his closest family to be His follower.
The word Hate is a strong translation and should be understood as a relative term.
In other words what Jesus is saying that we should love Him more than our own life and even our own family.
2) Verse 27 Carrying our own cross – to these folks this would be absurd. Whey would anyone want to carry the Roman device of execution and torture on their back?
HOG and HEN EXAMPLE OF DISCIPLESHIP
A hog and a hen sharing the same barnyard heard about a church’s program to feed the hungry. The hog and the hen discussed how they could help. The hen said, “I’ve got it! We’ll provide bacon and eggs for the church to feed the hungry.” The hog thought about the suggestion and said, “There’s only thing wrong with your bacon and eggs idea. For you, it only requires a contribution, but from me, it will mean total commitment!” That’s the cost of discipleship.
This is what Jesus is talking about as Discipleship – giving up of our own lives.
3) He gives an example of a person building a tower and a King. Jesus would have been familiar with both of these metaphors.
Jesus being a craftsmen and carpenter would know how crazy it would be to start the building of a house and not have the materials and finances to finish it.
The example of the king that sent 10,000 to fight 20,000 was something that Herod had done just a few years before.
He sent out 10,000 men to fight 20,000 Egyptians and was whipped bad, his advisors had told him to send a delegation out and sue for peace before the battle but he didn’t listen.
Jesus uses this example to drive home His point.
Disciple building is a well thought out program of study. This is not a fly by the seat of your pants undertaking.
You think it out carefully before you embark on becoming Jesus disciple – This is serious business.
How many times do we slow down and think about this – we will spend more time in learning about our favorite sports team, or buying a car and do all the research but do church as if we fly by the seat of our pants.
The amount of time we take to put into it amounts to the drive over and have forgotten about it by the time we are on the way home.
This is absurd in light of Jesus teaching on Discipleship.
So how do we build Christians like this? This is tough to become like Jesus is saying but how do we go about it?
HERE IS OUR SIMPLE ANSWER – LOOK AT HOW JESUS DID IT
I WILL PROPOSE THREE THINGS THAT JESUS DID TO MAKE DISCIPLES
Making Disciples the Way Jesus did:
1) Proclamation of the Gospel
This could be called – good ole fashioned preaching.
One of our tasks of Discipleship is the Preach and proclaim.
This is part of the Great Commission to preach the Gospel – the proclaim to our community through the pulpit and through action in our community that Jesus is King.
The Gospel is simply a proclamation of fact. Many times we simply make the Gospel=salvation but that is not it at all.
It is the Greek word Euangellion and it is really about Jesus being enthroned as King of Israel and King of the World.
It is about Jesus enthronement through the Cross and declared victorious by the Resurrection.
So the Gospel is about proclaiming to the principalities and powers that Jesus is Lord and they are not.
That is one of the roles of the Church in this path of making Disciples is good ole fashioned Gospel preaching.
2) Manifestation of the Gospel and its implications (EXAMPLE)
Works of Mercy and good works would be something that characterizes this category.
James the brother of Jesus says this about how we manifest the teaching of Jesus:
James 1: 26-27
26 If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless. 27 Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this : to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
Pure religion is a religion that gets dirty, it is a religion that engages the world.
Christianity is not something that is supposed to be locked up in the Church house but it encompasses all of our lives.
We are to embody what Christ taught:
Last week we saw that in John 20 Jesus breathed upon His disciples and told them to receive the Holy Spirit – New life and new existence.
As soon as He did this he said to them,
As the Father has sent me now I send you - this is heavy stuff.
Stop or you miss what Jesus is saying. Just as God the Father Sent Jesus to Israel and the lost sheep of Israel, now God is sending us into the World to embody and do as Jesus did.
We become the hands and feet of Jesus.
When Jesus washed the feet of His disciples He said the following:
John 13: 15-16
15 "For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. 16 "Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him.
We become like our Master, we embody what He was to our world.
We want be perfect at this but that is the call nonetheless.
WE AS THE CHURCH NEED TO ENGAGE THE WORLD WHERE IT IS HURTING AND PROVIDE THE ANSWER – WE NEED TO GET DOWN AND DIRTY AND ENGAGE THE WORLD
POVERTY, THE ORPHANED, PREGNANT MOTHERS THAT WANT TO ABORT THEIR BABIES – WE STAND IN THE GAP- WE DO EXACTLY WHAT JESUS DID BY WADING INTO THE WORLD WHERE IT HURTS AND PROVIDE THE ANSWER IN JESUS.
WE LEARN DISCIPLESHIP BY DOING
ALSO THE EXAMPLE OF THE MATURE CHRISTIANS FOR THE YOUNGER AND LESS MATURE – WE NEED MATURE CHRISTIAN MEN AND WOMEN THAT WILL STAND AS EXAMPLES AND SHOW OTHERS – THIS IS WHAT A MASTER APPRENTICE OF JESUS LOOKS LIKE
I NEED TO SEE THAT IN MY OWN LIFE – I NEED A MASTER DISCIPLE TO TAKE ME BY THE HAND AND SHOW ME HOW IT LOOKS – I HAVE A LOT TO LEARN.
THE CHURCH SHOULD BE PRODUCING THESE MASTER APPRENTICES OF JESUS
3) Teaching
2 Timothy 2:2
2 The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also
Paul makes a simple formula here for the Churches that he has planted and the Churches in which Timothy had pastoral authority over.
First of all – you learn these teachings and learn them well.
Secondly – pick out people that are able to learn them and pass them on.
This will develop a class of people in the church called Teachers people that understand God’s word and can teach others.
This is a role that is shared by all and is closely looked over by the Eldership.
The Elders ensure that sound doctrine is taught and adhered to. That is their role.
The Minister or Evangelist is to teach and train under the guidance of the Elders.
This class of people in the Church called teachers are to be sound, knowledgable and able to pass these teachings to others.
The Church should be seen as a university of Christlikeness.
We are creating people that live like Jesus – that are like their Master – that is the crux of our existence.
If we miss this point we have missed why we are here in the first place.
To begin this process we must become helpless – we have people here that may not be Christians and we want to tell you how you start this process of becoming like your Master Jesus.
It has to begin by starting off from nothing – coming to God empty handed needing His salvation.
Pat Summerall spent 50 years with the national Football League.
He was drafted by the Detroit Lions in 1952 and played with the Chicago Cardinals and New York Giants until 1961.
After his retirement from the game, he joined CBS as a broadcaster, and in 1993 switched to Fox. During his CBS years he and a fellow broadcaster partied hard off the field.
"We raised Cain. I was the first guy at the bar and the last to leave." Summerall was told that if he kept on drinking he was going to die.
After checking himself into the Betty Ford Clinic, his counselor urged him to seek a better life through faith.
At age 66, Pat Summerall was baptized. In USA Today he told a reporter that when the minister "leaned me back in the water, I never felt so helpless."
Summerall testified, "I knew I just became a Christian. I can’t tell you how great life has been since then."
You cant say it any better than that – being buried with Christ in baptism into the water that represents the watery chaos found in Genesis 1 and then being raised out of the water to be made anew by the Holy Spirit.
One that happens you start your journey of discipleship and becoming like Jesus.