Discipleship According to Jesus

And I wanna ask the question this morning: when you tell someone that you are a Christian, what does that mean to you? What do you envisage when you say that? Does it mean that you believe in the saving power of Jesus Christ? Does it mean that you go to church? Does it mean that you read the Bible?

Or that you act in a certain way? The truth is, it means all of those things, right? It means all of those things. But this morning, we'll be discovering that by saying we are Christians, we are saying that we are Christ followers.

And that is a very specific term. That is a very specific term. We are disciples of Christ. In the Christian church, the term discipleship gets thrown around a lot. You know, like I said, we've just been to a conference where we talked about discipleship.

It can mean many different things to many different people. For some, the term discipleship means an outward physical duties, what I do with my life, what I do for my church. Others believe that discipleship is about training someone's personal knowledge about scriptures, about theology, about doctrine. And again, all of those definitions aren't wrong. But it misses perhaps.

If you were to say that is what discipleship is, it misses perhaps the cracks, the centre of the meaning. This morning, I'd like us to have a little bit of a look at how Jesus saw discipleship. He's given us a very good definition, I believe, of what he wanted his disciples to be, what he wanted them to do and to believe. So this morning, we're going to look at Luke chapter 9.

And we're going to see, in essence, the turning point for the gospel of Luke. Luke 9:18-27. Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, who do the crowds say I am? They replied, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life. But what about you?

He asked. Who do you say I am? Peter answered, the Christ of God. And Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. And he said, the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law.

And he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Then he said to them all, if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world and yet lose or forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

I tell you the truth. Some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God. So far the reading. For Luke, this is the centre of the gospel. Everything before this leads up to this, and everything quickly leads from this.

This is where the disciples finally realised that this is the Messiah that they are following. And he says that the Messiah must suffer and be put to death by the chief priests and the elders. So after Luke 9, commentators point out that the tempo starts increasing and things start escalating to the point where Jesus is finally crucified. So this is a very important part in the gospel of Luke. And in fact, if you were to go to Mark 8, where there's a parallel conversation, and Matthew 16, it's the same thing.

Everything leads up to Mark 8. Interestingly, Mark, the gospel, is 16 chapters, and Mark 8 is right in the middle. So it leads right up to that, and then it quickly leads out of that. The term disciple that we use, the term that we often use in church, comes to us in English from a Latin root. Its basic meaning is learner or pupil.

In the Greek word, disciple normally referred to an adherent of a particular teacher or a religious or philosophical leader. It was the task of the disciple in those days to learn, to study, and to pass along the sayings and the teachings of the master. In Judaism, which is a little bit different to the Greeks, the term disciple referred to one who was committed to the interpretations of Scripture and the religious teachings and traditions given by one particular person, the master or the rabbi. Through a process of learning, which would include a set meeting time, a very disciplined meeting time where the disciples or the followers of these rabbis would spend time in educational methods such as question and answer, to-ing and fro-ing dialogue, instruction from the master to their pupils, repetition, memorisation, and through this process, the disciples would eventually become more devoted to the master and to their teachings. In time, the disciple, in fact, would start to sound like their rabbi.

They would talk like their rabbi. They would interpret Scripture like their rabbi. They would teach and they would act just like their rabbi did. This morning, I want us to focus on one verse in this whole passage that we read, which is the summary verse to this entire passage. I want us to be spending time on verse 23 because it gives us a summary of the entire passage.

And we'll see that in this verse, there are three statements Jesus makes about being a disciple. And then from that, basically, Jesus fleshes out these statements in verses 24 to 27. So what does it say? Jesus says, if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. So let's first have a look at the first statement.

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself. It's said oftentimes, and we reflect every now and then about this in church as well, that we live in a world of opulence. People living on the Gold Coast especially know this. We live in a time and a place of indulgence. If there were such a thing as the seven deadly sins, then gluttony would be Australia's highest ranking sin.

The Western world is wealthy, more wealthy than ever before. I'm taking economics as a class at the moment and I can guarantee you that what we're experiencing these days is something that has never been seen before in the history of humanity. We are more wealthy than we have ever been before. Now wealth is not a necessary evil.

According to the Bible, wealth is a blessing that God gives on people. He bestows that upon them. Wealth is not evil. But what happens often with wealth is that it often leads to evil. We absolutely can overindulge ourselves and believe that everything we have is because of our hard work and because of what we have put into it.

We live in a world of excess. And two weeks ago as a youth group, we did a social justice night and we saw, if you guys remember, we watched the video clip of how people live on less than $2 a day. The person narrating it showed us and told us that we live in a world as well that although there are people living in extreme poverty, we are producing enough food to feed the world twice or three times over. If we were to spread that wealth, we were able to spread that food around, we would be able to feed ourselves twice over, at least. Now I always thought of myself as living in a middle class family, mostly average income.

That is to say, until I read somewhere that if you have spare change lying around, rattling around in the car, or somewhere in a pantry, or whatever, any loose change, if you have loose change lying around at home, then you are in the top 10% of the richest people in the world. 90% of the world would not even dare to have any money lying around. They couldn't afford having money lying around.

For some of them, when Jesus said that they are to pray for their daily bread, for some of these people, they literally pray for their daily bread. We in Australia have plenty, but that means we have plenty to deny. When Jesus said deny yourself, I think for our context, it's got a lot to do with this. One of my lecturers, when I was studying at Bible college, was heavily involved in China. He was a Chinese missionary in part, and he spoke of the fact that it was easy to teach the Chinese Christians on denying themselves because they didn't have much to deny.

Now, he would talk about Luke 9 and say, this is what Christ's followers do, and they said, that's fine, easy. But for us, for us, it is one of the most difficult teachings to swallow. It's one of the most difficult teachings to follow. In fact, the more wealth we have, the more trouble we have sharing it statistically.

We continually see the poor giving more money percentage wise than the rich. And we have to note what a strong warning Jesus gives in verse 25 when he says, what good is it for a man or a woman to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit his very self? A strong theme in the gospel of Luke is on looking after the poor and denying, and the rich to deny an inordinate or an obsessive pursuit of wealth. It's a very strong theme for Luke. And the reason commentators speculate is because Luke was a doctor.

He was a physician. My brother is a doctor. And I can tell you, for a guy two years out of uni, he's doing pretty well. And it wasn't too much different back in those days. Luke, as a Christian, was challenged by what he must do, the responsibility that he had as someone that was wealthy.

And it comes out in his writings in the gospels. What good is it for us to gain the entire world, to have all the cars, all the wealth, and yet lose ourselves? Note what Jesus says here with the verb deny. He says we are to deny ourselves, things that are related to you. Jesus doesn't say deny others.

Jesus doesn't say deny your girlfriend or your wife, your friend, that annoying neighbour down the street. He says deny yourself. Now, this safeguards against a hypocritical approach that says, look at me, look how I have denied, how much I have denied compared to Johnny. There's no comparing taking place here.

We don't deny ourselves in comparison to anyone else. Jesus says we deny ourselves. This teaching is especially a tough one for us in Australia. It takes a lot of discipline to master. And interestingly, the word discipline comes from the term disciple.

But according to Jesus, to be a disciple, to be a Christian means you must deny yourself. What's your greatest challenges in your workplace to be a Christ follower? What's your greatest challenges in being a boss, being a sole trader, being an administrator? In what areas in our life is it difficult to deny ourselves? It can even be something like our rights.

I don't know if I should share this, but I will. I was at a classes meeting yesterday, a meeting of all our local churches, and we have two churches at the moment that are without a pastor and are struggling. And there was a very emotional debate about the other pastors needing to step up and to help these guys. Now they are in the West of Brisbane. They are over an hour away from here.

And an hour away from most places, it seems. And these pastors are sitting here and are being encouraged by their elders and people sort of around them saying that they must do this. It is their responsibility to be looking after these struggling churches. And these poor overworked pastors were getting really, really emotional about this. You know, they said we've gotta look after our own churches.

We have to be concerned about that. And in a sense, we can say, well, they are standing on their rights. You know, as pastors, we also have a right to only work forty-five hours a week. Why should we be writing extra sermons that take up eight hours or whatever? But as I'm saying this, I'm thinking this is exactly that.

Deny yourself, even to the point of your rights. It's a tough, tough thing to swallow. Then Jesus says in his second statement that we are to take up our cross daily. It's not someone else's cross. It's not someone else's responsibility.

It is your responsibility to take up your cross. But you're going to have to do it regularly. How regularly? Daily. It doesn't just happen at a short term mission trip.

Daily. But what is the meaning of the term cross that Jesus uses here? Remember when Jesus said these things, no one had any idea that he was going to die on a cross. No one had any idea of the significance crucifixion was going to have in the story of Christianity. Sometimes when people read this, they think of Jesus' death and his crucifixion and how we should be like him and carry our burdens like he did.

That is absolutely true, but I believe that there is more to it than this. No one had any idea what lay ahead of Jesus when he said this. No one had any idea of the Passion story. So when Jesus said that his disciples had to carry their crosses, it would have been a terrible shock. It would have been like the most horrific metaphor that you could use.

The image of the cross stood for the most vile methods of torture and death that had ever been imagined at that time. What? You want us to take up a device of torture daily? What on earth does that mean? And Jesus, like he often did, was using shock tactics.

Yes, it was a hideous device of death. But also, when people were crucified, they rarely carried their own crosses. In fact, usually they just carried the horizontal beams like a yoke across their shoulders on their way to being crucified. We know that the two criminals who were crucified next to Jesus probably didn't carry their own crosses like Jesus did.

And now Jesus tells his disciples that they don't have to carry just a cross, but their cross. And not just once, but daily. And now here's the interesting thing. Jesus showed what he meant when many months later, he carried his own cross. So unusual, so out of the ordinary, and he carried his cross to be crucified, not only the cross beam, but the entire cross.

Being a disciple is not always fun. That's what Jesus is saying. It's not always fun. It's not always easy. And actually, it is sometimes hideous.

But Jesus said in order to be a disciple, we must pursue, we must persevere through that pain. There was a German theologian and a pastor by the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. You may have heard of him. He was a man who stood against the Nazi regime of the genocide of Jews and of people in Nazi Germany in World War Two, or before World War Two, really.

Because of his resistance against this regime, he was captured, he was taken as a political prisoner and put in jail. During his time in prison, however, he wrote some of the most influential writings on discipleship, especially on suffering as disciples, the world has ever seen. It was during these difficult times that he was able to discover what it really meant to be a disciple of Jesus. And I just wanna read an excerpt from a letter that he wrote towards the end of the war in 1944. He writes, I discovered, and I'm still discovering up to this very moment, that it is only by living completely in this world, immersing ourselves in this world as disciples of Christ, that one learns what it means to really believe.

One must attempt to abandon every attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be as a saint or as a churchman, the priestly type, so called, a righteous man or an unrighteous one, a sick person or a healthy one. This is what I mean by worldliness: taking life in one's stride with all its duties and problems, its successes and failures, its experiences and helplessness. It is in such a life that we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God and participate in His sufferings in the world and watch with Christ in Gethsemane. That is faith.

That is repentance and that is what makes a person a Christian. How can success make us arrogant or failure lead us astray when we participate in the sufferings of God by living in this world? I think you get my meaning though I put it so briefly. I'm glad I've been able to learn it and I know I could only have done so along the road that I have travelled. So I am grateful and content even with the past and even with the present.

Perhaps you are surprised at the personal tone of this letter, but for once, if I want to talk like this, to whom else should I say it? May God in His mercy lead us through these times, but above all, may He lead us to Himself. This is a man who was tortured in his faith. And then I read this of his life.

I have hardly ever seen a man die so submissive to the will of God. Wrote an SS doctor of the last moments of Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer. You see, he was hanged in 1945, two days before the end of World War Two. His last recorded words were to his friend Bishop George Bell. And he said, this is the end, but for me the beginning of life.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in a Nazi prison camp, prayed that God may lead him and his fellow prisoners through those terribly dark days, but prayed that above all, God may lead him to Himself. Discipleship can be hideous. Discipleship can be terrifying. But discipleship is nothing else but following Jesus. It's all about doing what he did.

Praying like he prayed, talking like he talked, being moved by what moved him, even taking up our crosses like Jesus did. And that's why we read the third statement in verse 23. Follow me. Praise God that we can follow Jesus.

Praise God. Why? Because it means we're near to Him. It means we're on His heels, so to speak. We are comforted by Him just as He comforted His disciples in John 14:1.

Comfort, comfort. Do not let your hearts be troubled, Jesus said. We are encouraged by Him. We are taught by Him personally.

We are given peace by Him, John 20. We are saved by Him from our enemies, from ourselves, and even from Satan. The command to follow Jesus does mean that we will share in the sufferings of Christ. If we follow Jesus, if we walk the journey that He walked, we see that we will go through some of the same trials that He did. Jesus said this of Himself and to His disciples in the gospel of John.

He said, if the world has hated me, it will hate you. There's no way around it. If the world hates us, it's because it first hated Him. When we follow Jesus, we probably will need to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses. There's no point beating around the bush.

Following Jesus will mean denying ourselves, sharing in His sufferings. But the third statement is an amazing statement. We will be with Jesus. We will follow Jesus. It means that we are with Him.

We experience the surpassing joys of being close to Jesus. In every situation, even in a Nazi prison camp, we will have unspeakable joy. Our hearts will never be heavy. The burdens of our guilt on our consciences will forever be lifted. Why?

Because we are where Jesus is. We are where Jesus is. Whoever wants to come after me, whoever wants to be a Christian must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. That is Jesus' understanding of a disciple. Next week, we have a special opportunity to be with Jesus, to meet with Him, because we'll be celebrating the Lord's Supper.

If you're new to our church, you may have realised that we don't do Lord's Supper every week, or every two weeks. We do it every eight weeks, which is a long time. But it's because the Lord's Supper is special to us and we don't want it to be a routine, we don't want it to become blase to us. So we make a special point of preparing ourselves for that time. We have the chance next week to share with one another as disciples of Jesus Christ, the promise that Jesus made, that He had completed the work of the Father, He had accomplished the task God had given Him, and He is inviting us to celebrate with Him in the accomplishment of that mission.

That celebration is going to involve breaking bread and sharing wine as a sign that we are breaking the bread, the body of Christ and sharing in the blood that He shed for us. And as we reflect on that aspect of discipleship, on what it means to truly follow Jesus, I wanna encourage us this week especially to be thinking about our walk with Jesus, especially as we come to this moment next week where we will be reminded of the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus for us. As we reflect this week on the aspects of discipleship of following Jesus, let us also remember that He has called us to follow Him, but that also through His death, He has made it possible to enjoy the forgiveness of sins, the release of guilt, and to say with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, death might be the end of the road here on earth, but it's the beginning of life, real life, with the Lord Jesus. This week, I wanna challenge us.

If there is something in our lives that needs to be dealt with, if there's something in our lives that we know that we are not following Jesus the way that He would want us to, if there are issues between us and people in this church, our brothers, our sisters, the Bible says that we are to go and fix it. We are to go and make it right before we come to the table next week. So if there is something that you know of, I wanna encourage you to be that disciple, to be that follower and go and make it right. As we eat the bread, let's commit ourselves next week to once again deny ourselves, to take up the cross that Jesus took up for us. As we taste the wine, let's be reminded that the cup of Jesus was a bitter drink to drink, and that sometimes we are called to suffer and to share in that bitterness with Christ, and to drink from a bitter cup.