A couple of weeks ago at church I finished a 4 week series on 'Discipleship'. I had way too much in my last talk and so I cut out my last two points. So here they are in summary form. If you want to listen to the talks go to http://www.norwestanglican.org.au/sermons/
The main point of the whole talk was that Discipleship is about your allegiance to Jesus.
And we are unpacking the radical nature of following Jesus on our lives and the text is Mark 8:34-38 and we have just seen that following Jesus is an all or nothing deal.
Priorities
Jesus doesn’t want to be 2nd in your life
He hits hard us to what I prioritise in my life
This passage keeps telling me
Jesus is number one
And he deserves to be number one.
A little later after Luke’s account of this incident he writes
Lk 9:57-62
As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." 58 Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." 59 He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." 60 Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." 61 Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family." 62 Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."
Doesn’t it get any clearer than this?
Jesus sounds harsh and confronting
You want to follow me?
Then he goes first in ALL things
You don’t make up what it means to follow him
‘I will follow you, but first let me go and do this and this….’
or
'If I follow you then I'll still get to do this and this, won't I?'
There is no going back
Following Jesus is about leaving the old world behind
The old person behind
Denying all those things
And walking the road to the cross behind our Lord Jesus
And pursuing these priorities FIRST
will start to unpack for you what it means to 'take up your cross'
The priorities can be explained like this
What profession do you do?
Whatever it may be
You are not that first
You are a Christian first and your job second
Even amongst our church family
A great question to ask ourselves as a church is
What is our priority?
I am arguing and have been for the last 4 weeks
that our priority as a church family should be about discipleship and all that it entails
An ashamed disciple?
This can be a big one for a lot of people
V38 can pack a massive punch
If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels
Think of how Peter took them as he denied knowing Jesus later
The founder of McDonald's, Ray Krock, was asked by a reporter what he believed in. "I believe in God, my family and McDonald's," he said. Then he added, "When I get to the office, I reverse the order."
It's easy to be ashamed of Jesus
It's easy to deny you are a Christian at work, school, uni, wherever
B/c people will assume you are somewhat normal
But say to people that you love Jesus
You live your life in total service of Him alone
People think you are weird
And no one is really putting up their hand to take on that job description
Wanted: one weird dude
Do we lack the courage to do it?
Are we scared?
Are we ashamed of Jesus?
Our tendency is to go towards acceptance and the status quo
But following Jesus is normal for Christians
It is my prayer that we would be rocks in this area
That when we walk away from our church family and friends
Go to work on Monday
That we wouldn't change
That we wouldn't be ashamed
That we would openly and freely confess our allegiance to Jesus
'Be strong and corageous brothers and sisters'
Conclusion
As I said at the beginning I feel like I’ve been saying the same things over the last few weeks
Just in different ways
So let me summarise
A disciple is someone who
Loves the Word
Loves others
Bears fruit
And puts Jesus first
What can you do now?
Work on your allegiance to Jesus
