A Holy Task
That which is holy is that which is set apart for God’s special use. There are many tasks that we as Christians and we as a church are to do in this world and in the body of Christ. However in the midst of all our doing, there is one that is preeminent and eclipses all others, and that is becoming and making disciples.
It is holy is that it is a priority task. It is holy in that it is a godly task. It is holy in that no other group will be about becoming and making disciples except God’s people. The Cancer Society, the Kiwanis, the PTO, and the American Red Cross—as good as they are—do not make disciples. This is a job left up to the body of Christ and it is only ours for the doing.
How do we become and how do we make disciples. As you may have picked up, this is a two-track priority: first becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ yourself and then in turn helping others to become Jesus’ disciples. Discipleship begins with evangelism, ie sharing the good news of salvation in Christ. This is how we become Christians, but it doesn’t stop at “just becoming Christians.” The call, the end goal, is to become and to make disciples. Jesus said, “Go, and make disciples….”
How does discipleship come about? It comes about through education and learning—both cognitive learning and learning by way of experience. That only happens when we are intentional about it. This is why Bible studies, Sunday School classes, personal Bible study and any other way to get God’s Word into our hearts, minds and souls. We must make sure that we educate ourselves as disciples and then in turn go about discipling others.
It was Paul’s lament to the Galatian Christians that though they were Christians, they were so easily turned away from the gospel. For Paul salvation was an absolutely free gift that could never, ever be earned or worked for. And now in verse 6 Paul writes that these early Christians were quickly deserting the true gospel for a different gospel that was really no gospel at all. The word gospel means “good news” because the free gift of salvation was truly good news. But some teachers came onto the scene and began to insist that Gentile Christians, to be true followers of Jesus, had to first become Jews before they could become Christians. These early Galatian Christians feel for it and believed what they said. How could they be so easily persuaded? The answer is simply that they were young Christians who hadn’t yet been grounded in their faith and understanding and became easy prey to false teachers. Times haven’t changed much since those early days.
Many claim the name of Jesus yet what they believe about God, eternal life, sin, salvation, the Church, humanity, God’s creation, how relate to other people is far from orthodox Christian teaching. The question before us is this: how can we live as Christians if we don’t know how we are supposed to live as Christians?
The situation in Galatia had gotten to the point that prompted Paul to write this letter. The focus of this letter deals with justification by faith, ie we are saved by faith alone and not by our works or good deeds.
This same danger is always present for us Christians if we are not grounded in a solid understanding of the Gospel, our experience with Jesus, and of God’s Word. Most of us know that Jehovah’s Witness and the Mormons are quasi-Christian, but do we know why? Do we know enough about the Bible to have an honest discussion with those who knock on our doors? Those who buy into their false teachings are those who know a little about the Bible, but not enough to raise issues and questions and so they think that just because people open the Bible and use God-talk or spiritual language that they must be speaking truth. Be careful. The Bible encourages us in 1 John 4:1, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” The worst kind of false teaching is that which is close to the truth but so very far from the truth.
The only real antidote to false teaching is the real thing. Unless you know the real thing you won’t be able to recognize the false from the counterfeit. Is it real or is it Memorex? The interesting thing is that anything of value is subject to counterfeits—from Super Bowl tickets to Rolex watches to Coach handbags to 20-dollar bills. I have read that those who are trained to detect counterfeit money do not focus on the qualities of the counterfeit bills; rather they spend so much time with the real money that when the counterfeit bills come into play, it is quite obvious to them. So it is with truth. The best way to discern truth from lies is not to focus on that which is false, but on that which is true.
This is why it is so important that we know what God’s word and God’s will is. And that is not always easy. But if we are going to be able to discern the truth from falsehood, knowing the voice of the Good Shepherd is imperative otherwise as James tells us we will be “tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.”
So our holy task is 2-fold: it is first to be discipled ourselves so that secondly we in turn can disciple others. The reality is that we cannot teach that which we do not know. We cannot take someone else somewhere where we have not been. In the early church most of the early converts came straight out of pagan religions. Their worldview and life philosophy were totally counter to the Judeo-Christian ethic. Even those converted Jews needed to understand that Jesus was God’s Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. Ironically our supposedly Christian culture today is similar to that of the ancient world. More and more people are coming to Christ, as many of you have, with little or no church background and even less knowledge of God’s Word.
Some years ago I was speaking to Dr. Frank Stanger, President of Asbury Seminary and he told me that more and more students entering seminary do so as second career. They are converted and feel the call to ministry but have very little basic Bible knowledge. The seminary has to begin more of their teaching at the Sunday School level with the basic stories of Noah and the flood, David and Goliath, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, et al. Many of you did not attend Sunday School as kids and know very little about the Bible. What I am saying is that each and every one of us needs to go beyond just attending worship. Each of us needs to be involved in either a Sunday School class or Bible study/small group or ideally both of them so that we can be faithful to God’s call upon our lives both individually and as a church.
For 6 ½ days the world bombards us with secular pagan humanistic worldview. You owe it to yourself, to your family, to your church family, and ultimately to the Lord to take seriously Jesus’ call not just to believe in Him, not just to be born again, but to become Jesus’ disciple.
The second aspect of this holy task is the making of disciples of people beyond the walls of our church. Elton Trueblood (not to be confused with Elton John) commented, “Ours is a time when the Gospel must be taught. Each one of us is surrounded by vast numbers of women and men who constitute a genuine mission field. It is not that our neighbors have consciously rejected the Gospel; they have never heard it!” People innately know that God exists, but they don’t know Him as a God who is involved in this world, and that He is a God who loves and cares about them and wants to bless and prosper them. They know about the Bible but to them it is on par with King Arthur’s Camelot rather than a book that speaks to their very real human need and situations. They have heard the name of Jesus Christ, if only by way of profanity, yet they do not know Him personally or even know that they can know Him personally.
It goes without saying that Jesus is our model teacher for He taught with authority. Jesus taught in the temples and synagogues, by the seashore, in boats, walking through fields, at wedding feasts, beside sickbeds, in the homes of tax collectors and sinners, and on hillsides. Whenever and wherever Jesus took the opportunity to teach God’s eternal truths. In fact two-thirds of Jesus’ ministry can be classified as teaching. For Jesus it was a high priority. Is it a high priority for you? Is it a high priority for our church? Keep in mind that being a disciple is not first and foremost something we do, rather being a disciple is something we are.
Let me encourage you to move on up from simply being a follower of Jesus to that of being Jesus’ disciple. Ask God to give you a hunger and thirst for righteousness and the personal knowledge of Jesus. Ask Him to deepen your desire to know God’s Truth through His Word. You will be better because of it. Your kids and family will be better and certainly our church will be better.
What a powerful impact we could have for Christ in our community and in people’s lives.