Sermon 5 in Walking With Jesus: Maturing as Disciples Series
February 8, 2015
I want to
teach you two hand motions. Before I
tell you what they are – let me demonstrate them for you.
[Motion 1: Hands
folded at chest – move upward – vertical]
[Motion 2: Hands
folded to chest – move outward – horizontal]
I want us
to use these hand motion to reflect on why Jesus calls us to follow. What is the purpose of Discipleship?
First –
there is a vertical purpose. Jesus says
it like this in Matthew 22:” ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’” [Motion 1].
We are called to a life of discipleship to love the Lord Our God. We follow Jesus so that God’s way of living
will become our way of living.
There’s
another purpose though – this is a horizontal purpose. Jesus says it like this immediately after he
give us the first commandment: “A second
[commandment] is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” [Motion 2].
We are also called to a life to a service to others – this is our
mission in the world.
Unfortunately
– too often, Christians like us – fail to remember these two purposes of
discipleship. When we do – we make one
purpose greater than the other. For
example, let’s say Vertical discipleship [motion 1] feels comfortable to
us. Then, We spend our time in
prayer. We read and study the
scriptures. We listen to preachers on
the internet and Christian music on the radio.
We love sitting around small groups of friends talking about God and
theology and the Bible. We embrace
worship and never want it to end. The
vertical nature of discipleship gives us strength – and makes us feel like we
are doing just what Jesus wants us to.
And we forget about the horizontal purpose of discipleship [motion 2]
For others
of us – we are just the opposite. We
live our lives in horizontal discipleship in service to others or the church
[motion 2]. We invest our lives in
people and in service. We work at the
soup kitchen and camp agape. We love to
tell others about Jesus. We go on
mission trips and volunteer on committees at church. We love a good mission story in worship. The horizontal nature of discipleship feels
just right – we don’t really see the need of Bible study or days of extended
prayer or worship services. We too
forget about the vertical nature of discipleship [motion 1]
We have
made vertical discipleship [motion 1] and horizontal discipleship [motion 2]
either/or and convinced ourselves that if one doesn’t come naturally – we don’t
need it.
Losing the
dual purposes of discipleship is not just for those of us in the pews. In 1985, Robert Mulholland wrote a beautiful
book where he defined discipleship as “the process of being conformed into the
image of Jesus.” A clearly vertical
purpose. 8 years later he wrote his next
book on discipleship and added one key extra phrase. Discipleship is “the process of being
conformed into the image of Jesus for the sake of the world.”
Jesus
didn’t make this mistake. Jesus
interwove these two purposes into his life with his disciples. In Luke 6 we him teaching his disciples on
the sermon on the plain lessons in living in his kingdom. In Luke 11, he trains them in how to
pray. When we think about discipleship –
this is usually what we focus on – the vertical nature of our relationship with
God.
Yet – Jesus
also spent time training his disciples in their mission in the world. First in Luke 9 and then in Luke 10, Jesus
sends his disciples on mission in the world.
Long before we ever educated through action and reflection – Jesus
taught his disciples how to love the world by sending them out into the world. This horizontal purpose of discipleship often
gets misunderstood as not being about discipleship. We assume mission trips and mission service
are what we are supposed to do without realizing this is how God is forming us
into the image of Jesus.
Discipleship
is both a journey upward and a journey outward.
[Motion 1 leads to motion 2.
Motion 2 leads to motion 1]. We
can’t miss the horizontal nature of mission.
In our passage from Luke 10, Jesus trains his followers in horizontal
discipleship by sending them ahead of him to prepare the way of the Kingdom.
Scripture Passage
Look at
Luke 10:1: “the Lord appointed
seventy[a] other [disciples] and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every
town and place where he himself intended to go.”
In the
middle of his teaching and healing ministry in Galilee, Jesus stops what he is
doing and sends his disciples out into the world.
He chooses
70 of his followers for this mission. He
appoints them in order to send them out on a task – a mission
Task: Go in front of
Jesus to prepare the Way.
This mission requires his disciples to out from where they
are to the places where Jesus will go.
Their work is to prepare the way for Jesus in each of the villages. In this role they are very similar to John
the Baptist who came as an evangelist to prepare the way as a forerunner to
Jesus.
In today’s political world, all of national political
leaders have what they call “advance teams.”
Advance teams stay one city or town or state ahead of the principal
politician. They spend their time with
local political leaders scouting sites for rallies, encouraging the local
volunteers, and setting up arrangements.
They do their work by preparing for the principal politician’s arrival.
Jesus sends his disciples out as an advance team – but with
much greater responsibilities and power with this promise – Jesus intends to go
behind them.
As disciples, Jesus has a mission and task for us as
well. Listen to how Jesus commissions
his disciples as he sends them on their way in v. 2-3: “The harvest is plentiful,” Jesus says, “but
the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out
laborers into his harvest. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like
lambs into the midst of wolves.”
As we consider our mission as disciples of Jesus – living
out the horizontal purposes of our life with Jesus – Jesus says, stop
overthinking this and just move. The
world greatly needs the love Jesus offers – the harvest is plentiful. This creates an urgency to the Christian
mission.
It’s time to go! It’s
time to get moving. It’s time to put
action in our discipleship.
This mission is not for the faint of heart, though. As Jesus sends us, he reminds us of the risks
we will encounter. We are sent as lambs
in the midst of wolves. No one needs to
remind our church – after our experience with our cold weather shelter – about
the risks of doing ministry in our world today.
This risk cannot stop us – the urgency of Christ’s mission propels – the
harvest is plentiful and the servants are few.
As Jesus sends his disciples on their mission – he also
gives them instructions about how to accomplish their mission. These instructions provide a framework for
each of us – and our church – as we set out to accomplish our mission: to love the world as God loves us.
The Instructions:
Our first
instruction in being a disciple on mission for Jesus is this: Accept your mission field.
In Luke 10:8 – Jesus instructs: “Whenever you enter a town and its people
welcome you, eat what is set before you; Eat what is set before you.”
In a Jewish world where what we eat determines our purity
and religious devotion – this is a rather challenging instruction. There were strict dietary laws that governed
Jesus’ disciples. God will confront
Peter specifically about not allowing these dietary laws to hinder the mission
of God’s Spirit later in Acts when he has a powerful dream on the roof of Simon
the Tanner. Here we see – Jesus already
is setting his disciples up for a broader mission than even they know.
The instruction to eat what is in front of you – also has
implications in how we live out God’s mission in the world in the 21st
Century. Jesus is telling his disciples
to go into the world – not as hosts – paternalistically with all of the answers. Instead, Jesus invites us as disciples to go
into the world as guests. When we are
sent into the world as guests, we do not set the menu or dictate our own
cultural background on others. Instead,
we accept the mission field in which we have been placed and receive that
culture as a gift.
We have not always done missions this way. Instead, we have sought to impose our culture
– along with the Gospel – on the people into which we have been sent. My favorite story about imposing our culture
on the mission field is the story of the first congregational missionaries to
Hawaii. These very brave, young
Christian missionaries sailed from the cold, harsh winter of New England,
around South America and finally arrived in Hawaii. There, on this beautiful, hot, humid tropical
islands – the missionaries directed their first churches to be just like the
ones in New England where were designed for those cold winters. Needless to say in 19th century – pre
air-conditioning – these houses of worship became hot houses of the
Spirit.
Eat what is placed before you, Jesus says – be a guest among
those you have come to serve.
The second
instruction Jesus gives is “Meet the needs around you.”
After we come as guests into a community, our mission field
– let us seek to meet the needs around us.
For Jesus – this means “Cure the sick who are there …” Jesus gives his disciples this kind of
authority. When they find illness and
sickness and need – on the authority of Jesus, they heal. Meet these needs.
In the same way, as Jesus sends us on mission into the world
– as we come as guests into a community, he invites us to look for needs that
need to be met. What needs do we have
authority to meet?
Are people hungry?
Are people thirty? Are they
homeless? Do they need someone to listen
to them? Do they need someone to watch
their children for a night?
Over the last year our church has offered two Parents Nights
out for our community. We hosted one the
first week of December. We had several
community members come up to our staff and thank them. One set of grandparents said, “We are the
guardians of our grandchildren. We want
to thank you for providing this service.
We never get a night to ourselves.” A single mother said the same thing.
When we come as guest and serve the needs of our community –
our community, our neighbors, our friends – notice Christ at work in their
lives.
This leads
to the final instruction Jesus offers:
Preach the Gospel.
After his disciples have received the hospitality of the
host and meet their needs, Jesus commands - “Say to them, ‘The kingdom of God
has come near to you.’” Preach the Good News!
We go in front of Jesus to be his witnesses, his apostles,
his preachers, his instruments. We can’t
forget our mission – we are here to prepare the way for Jesus. This means letting others know why we do what
we do.
There are many wonderful community and national service
organizations that do many incredible things to meet the needs of the
communities around the world. We work
with these groups as we serve. Yet we
are NOT an NGO – a nongovernmental agency.
We are the church. We are on a
mission from Christ to prepare the way for his arrival. In all we do – we must never forget
this. We must always ask how does what
we do point people to Jesus.
Any arts organization can have an art camp in the
summer. We must ask – how does our Camp
Mosaic point budding artists to Jesus.
Many organizations have summer camps for at risk kids. We must ask – how does camp AGAPE point kids
and families to Jesus. Many organization
serve the homeless – we must ask – how does our shelter ministry point people
to Jesus.
Jesus does not say – we must beat others over the head with
the Gospel – but he does say – we can’t leave preaching the Good News out of
our ministry in the world.
As we live out this mission in the world, Jesus reminds us
that the Results are The Work of Jesus
“Whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go
out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our
feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has
come near.” We do not control the
results of our mission – we simply prepare the way. We are called to walk in front of Jesus. This takes so much of the burden off of
us. Our job is not to save the
world. Our job is not to win others for
Jesus. Our job is transform a village in
Nicaruagua. Our job is not to end
poverty. Our job is to walk in front
of Jesus and prepare the way.
This is a powerful reimaging of mission for me – to see
mission as walking in front of Jesus. It
takes so much of the burden and guilt I often carry about my role in the
world. Jesus who comes behind us is the
one who does the work – we are simply to prepare the way. Jesus saves.
We point. Jesus transforms. We invite.
As we think about our purposes as disciples of Jesus – let
us remember our two fold purpose. Yes,
we are to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn his way – this is the vertical
nature of following. Yes, we are also
sent out into the world as disciples on mission to prepare the way of Jesus –
this is the horizontal nature of following
As we live out the vertical and horizontal purposes of
discipleship – we are formed more completely into the image of Jesus for the
sake of the world. Thanks be to
God.
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