What is a disciple? Jesus will give his followers an answer to this question that wasn’t very popular then, and still isn’t today.
Messy Definitions:
- Follower – “not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord…” – Mt 7:21
- Believer – “even the demons believe and shudder…” – Ja 2:19
- Disciple – Judas – “better if he had not been born…” Mt 26:24
- Christian – political – Acts 26:28
- Convert – “you make him twice a son of hell as you are…” Mt 23:15
- A Disciple is a (true) follower of Jesus
- Discipleship is the process that matures believers through right thinking and right living for the purpose of making more and better disciples
Observations:
- The “self” is the primary idol of our world – with power, pleasure, and pride being the main shrines
Conclusions:
- The greatest threat to our discipleship will be thinking according to the “things of men”
- The “things of men” are governed by the “self”
- The “self” is a false authority (god)
- To follow Jesus, you must deny the “self” by rendering it destroyed (dead)
Application: How do I know if I’m a disciple?
- Put to death the old self – “Who is in control?”
- Daily put on Christ – “Who are you following?”
Ephesians 4:11-13
“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
Deuteronomy 6:1-9
“These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you. Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
Deuteronomy 6:13-14
“Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you.”
Deuteronomy 7:1-2
“When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you— and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.”
Exodus 23:24
“Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces.”
Deuteronomy 12:2-4
“Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains, on the hills and under every spreading tree, where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places. You must not worship the Lord your God in their way.”
Romans 8:3
“For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh.”
Romans 6:6
“For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.”
Colossians 3:5-10
“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”
2 Corinthians 5:17
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”