Discipleship - Following to Imitate
Have you ever wondered what it means to be a disciple of Jesus? It is not a word we use, especially outside of the church context. That’s because discipleship is a very old learning practice that isn’t often practiced today. A disciple was someone who followed around a spiritual teacher to such a degree that most of the day, and even sometimes the night were spent together. This meant that a disciple would learn everything from their teacher. Of course, they would learn huge things like great theological ideas, but they would also learn how faith is lived out in mundane, in everyday conversations, in work and play, in waking up and going to bed, in eating, everything. Paul implies this kind of discipleship in both his letter to Timothy and the Philippians and Jesus implies it when he talks about building our lives and actions on His word. To be a disciple of Jesus, we are meant to follow Him everywhere He goes, watching, learning, and living out what we see, hear, and experience.
Jesus is the primary one we need to follow at all times. If we ever turn anything else into our main priority then we are not acting as disciples of Jesus. As anyone who has really tried will tell you, this is not easy. It takes practice, training, devotion, and discipline to live out Jesus’ Godliness. Think how hard an athlete trains to become stronger, more agile, skilled, or faster than most other humans. These athletes train their bodies to such intensity for rewards that will disappear, but we train for a greater reward that will never fail or be taken away from us. As hard as athletes train, our training is even more intense, because it is training to become like God Himself in every moment of our lives, so only imagine the training, dedication, and practice that it would entail. Thanks be to God that we have the best teacher in Jesus and that he does a lot of the work.
The hard part is that this isn’t like the discipleship of old either. We don’t have Jesus walking beside us. So, how do we follow Him, watch Him, listen to Him, and learn from Him? You probably already have a few ideas. We heard some of these obvious ways in our readings - dedicating ourselves to humble prayer, Scripture reading, words of faith, and sound teaching. These are all immensely important. Prayer is our conversation with God, where we can reach out to Him and hear Him. Scripture reading shows us how God has revealed himself and acted through history. Scripture is a way we come to know God and when we read and discuss it in community, we hear how others have seen God through it as well. Scripture is words of faith, but words of faith can come from anyone, and so we can learn from anyone who speaks in faith. Sound teaching is a way in which we get to piggyback on someone else’s relationship with God. When it would be more difficult or taxing, we get a leg up, a quicker start, though we must make sure that it truly is sound teaching. What we hear from Paul is that these things when coming from God, can be truly nourishing, they can sustain us, giving us life and energy to live our lives.
This truth and soundness of something becomes an essential thing that we are meant to discern as we follow Jesus. It is too easy in this life to hold onto half-truths, simplifications, a nice idea, or something that just feels right - or to just not look for truth at all. I would say that most of the agnostics I have met are so because they just don’t want to find or aren’t searching for the truth. It is when we aren’t discerning the truth, that we create wives tales or profane myths. We tell ourselves that we were unlucky, or that a bad morning means a bad day, or that the full moon is making me act this way, or its okay for me to be angry because I am tired or hungry. There are any number of things we can tell ourselves that aren’t true and that too often we follow or let lead us. So diligence in seeking God and truth is essential to becoming a disciple of Jesus and ultimately to become like Jesus.
This seeking and discerning truth then becomes important for how we see and follow Jesus in our midst. We have to do this discernment in most things. When someone does something loving or kind, we have to discern, what was good in that act and what was not - most likely, because we live in a broken world that is also full of God’s grace and creation, we will see both. We shouldn’t have to do as much of that discernment at church, but it is still important, even with me or any spiritual leader. I am not Jesus, but I do try to follow Him. There are definitive things that I hope to pass on to you that I have been given through this faith, but there are things that I hope that you don’t learn from me, things that I hope will become more godly. I try my best to tell you about these things, like my anger, or my addictive personality, or my hero-complex, but I try my best to work with God to not let them hold sway over me and there are often things that I am not thinking about and miss. So, I hope that you learn from me and others in this church, but at the same time I hope you are doing it by discerning with God what is truly good.
Paul gives us a helpful list of things to try to discern. Whatever is true (we’ve talked about that one already), honorable (both those acts that give honor when it is deserved and those acts that deserve honor), just (that which creates justice, mercy and peace), pure (that which is actually wholly good unto itself, unbroken, untarnished), pleasing (that which brings joy, contentment, peace), commendable, excellent (that which exceeds expectations or the seeming reality), and worthy of praise (that which contains elements of God’s holiness and praiseworthiness). When we experience, see, or remember these things, Paul tells us to think about these things. We are meant to spend time on them, discern their reality, their truth, their relationship with God, and more. Paul also tells us to think about them, because if these good things live in our minds, they will shape our thinking, which shapes our hearts and actions. In fact, Paul tells us that if we follow these things and the good examples of disciples in our midst God will be with us. If we discern and follow what is truly a Godly good, then we don’t have to worry that Jesus isn’t walking beside us, because He is.
A quick note on prayer: prayer is an essential way that we know, experience, and follow God, because it is a conversation with Him. Prayer like any conversation can look many ways, but today Paul is trying to point us to an essential part of prayer - rejoicing. Too often our prayer is about asking for something, but how often is it about praising God for who He is? How often do we take time to actually recognize the God that is right there in front of us? He is listening to us and responding and yet we can act like we barely notice Him. Paul uses an interesting phrase “supplication with thankfulness”. Paul is trying to direct us to a kind of prayer, where we kneel at the feet of Jesus, begging and yet full of such joy and thanks. It is as if we know our great need and yet at the same exact moment, we know the one who is going to answer it. This is praying with faith, with recognition of who God is and something that we should all be moving towards in our prayer life, our discipleship and our whole relationship with God.
To be a good disciple requires action. The words are meant to live in us and to live out of us. We follow Jesus by becoming like him and living our lives like Him. We are training in nothing less than godliness. So, every moment of our lives becomes a moment to practice and train ourselves in that. When you get stressed out at work - it is a great opportunity to turn to God and respond like Him. When your home life is chaotic and unpredictable or sad and lonely - it is a great opportunity to turn to God and respond like Him. When you are late, when you are angry, when you alone, in public, waking up, going to sleep, eating - whatever you are doing it is an opportunity to practice the discipline of being a disciple of Jesus and we will grow in this faith. It also becomes a great opportunity to show others who you follow, to show your gentleness as Paul says.
We need to have our hope set on Jesus if we ever hope to struggle with Him through this broken world. In fact, this isn’t just about faithfulness, we need to base our lives and actions on Jesus’ words if we ever hope to stand. Jesus tells us that those who hear Him and act on His words are like those who build their house on solid ground. The storms, the hard times, the struggles will come, but that house will stand. Those that don’t may have a nice home for a time, but when struggles, hard times, storms, and floods rise up, that house built upon fickle, untruths, unworthy things will fall terribly short, and great will be its fall.
I want to close by looking at discipleship in another way: what is growing in us? I have often thought about us being the trees in Jesus’ parable of the good and bad trees with the good and bad fruit, but if we are the soil like Jesus’ parable of the sower, then the question becomes what trees are we letting grow in us - or are we actively tending? Are we raising up trees of grief, of loneliness, of jealousy, pride, of addiction, of gluttony? We can imagine the kind of fruit each of these bears, because we have seen it, probably even experienced it. Or are we raising up trees of faith, of devotion, of Godly love, of peace, and unity - ultimately the trees that come from a disciplined following of Jesus? Again, we can imagine the kind of fruit these bear. We know what we want in this life and for this world. Becoming a disciple of Jesus, following Him throughout our daily lives, and putting what we learn into practice is the only way that we can be redeemed to bear this good fruit absolutely. It is only if we are firmly planted and fed by Jesus, that we can stand and live out His love. AMEN
Children’s talk - Have you noticed that you do some things like your parents? What?
My son Matteo copies us all the time, in fact it is part of the way he learns. Science has found that the more we speak, the more he will speak, the more we do something the more likely he will do it too.
Isn’t that interesting? We learn and are shaped by simply being around someone.
We are going to talk about a big word later - disciple - particularly of Jesus. Do any of you know what that means?
A disciple is someone who follows Jesus and learns from Him through watching, listening, and experiencing Him - then acting on what they experience, hear, and learn from Him. The interesting thing from our example of us learning from our parents is that we learn that the more time we spend with Jesus, the more likely we will live and act like Him. So it is important that we turn to Him as often as we can in prayer, in reading, in recognizing His presence or work in our lives, and more so that His love might live in us and out of us.
Outline
The Act of Discipleship - following
What to follow?
Example - Jesus first
Training, practice, devotion, discipline in Godliness or Godlikeness
Not profane myths but truth
Nourished by the word of faith and sound teaching
Watch, listen, learn, receive (Find what is True, honourable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise)
God will be with you if you follow good examples
How to pray? - Humility, rejoicing, thanks - leading to peace (that guards our hearts - we may not have it right away)
Respond with action
Use the gifts given
Hope set on Jesus or else we can’t struggle with him on this road
In fact we won’t just prove unfaithful if we don’t rest on him, our lives will fall short and our house will collapse.
Showing ourselves to be Jesus’ fruit - we are the good fruit that then bears good fruit
What grows in us?
1 Timothy 4 - put instructions before brothers and sister
Good Servant of Jesus Christ
Nourished by the Word of Faith
And by the sound teaching you have followed
Profane myths or Wives tales? - Superstition - But rather truth
Train in Godliness or God likeness
Physical training vs. Godly training - Only one bears fruit in all spheres
We need to have our hopes set on Jesus or else we will struggle for other things
Example of speech and conduct - love, faith and purity
Attention to public reading of Scripture, exhorting, teaching
Gifts through prophecy and laying on of hands
Practice, devotion - for progress
Watch your teaching and words - as you do you will save yourself and others
Philippians 4 - The practice of rejoicing
Show others your gentleness
“The Lord is Near”
Do not worry - but rather with prayer and supplication of thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God
God’s peace that surpasses understanding will guard your hearts and minds
True, honourable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise - think about these things
Duplicate what you have learned, received, heard, and seen in me (and God will be with you)
Luke 6 - You show what you are by your fruit
Is it a stagnant thing? - Definitive? - Good Heart
Abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks
Are we God’s fruit? - Or something else?
Hear my words and act on them
The wise and foolish builder
