1. Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The text is from Mark’s Gospel, chapter 8:34: “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me.” Today is the second message in our Stewardship series, “Stewards Living a God-Pleasing Life.” Today our theme is, “Discipleship is the Path.” Many people don’t know what they’re living for. They lack a sense of worth, purpose, and direction. Sometimes you may feel as if you’re just a number, just a social security number, or as if you’re just a small cog in a great big piece of machinery. Maybe you feel like the person who works at a machine 8 hours a day making some small part for a car but not having any idea as to what the purpose of that part is.
2. In a book called The Christian Calling, the author tells of a group of laborers who were working every single day, digging holes 5 feet deep in the street. The boss didn’t tell them why they were digging the holes. After they were done digging, he would come over and he’d look at the holes and he would say, “OK, fill ‘er up.” They would fill the holes back up again. Finally at noon the men said, “We quit, this doesn’t make sense. Give us the money you owe us; we’re quitting.” The boss asked why they were quitting, and they said, “Well, digging holes doesn’t make a lot of sense just to fill them back up again. It’s really dumb, and furthermore we look like fools.” Then he told them why they were digging the holes. They were trying to locate a water main.
3. Every human being wants to know that there’s some point to what he’s doing. God has called us to a life of discipleship. A disciple is a follower of Jesus Christ, a believer in Him, a student of His. The word disciple occurs some 260 times in the Gospels and in the Book of Acts. When we think of a disciple, we probably think of one of the 12 apostles as disciples. But the word is only used 30 times in reference to them. Today we’re more likely to use the word “Christian” instead of the word “disciple,” although the term “Christian” comes into use much later and is only found in 3 verses in the Bible. Maybe that’s because a disciple is much more than just a “Christian,” a believer, a church member.
4. Being a disciple always involves a personal relationship. It literally means “to be a devoted follower of a person.” In the Bible, there were people who were disciples of John the Baptist, disciples of St. Paul, and others. Among the philosophers, there were those who were disciples of Plato and disciples of Aristotle. Discipleship means to follow a person.
5. Martin Luther understood discipleship. He said, “If anyone were to rap at the door of my heart and ask who lives there, I would have to say ‘Martin Luther used to live here, but he doesn’t live here any longer. Now it’s Jesus Christ who lives here.’ ” This is a personal relationship. A disciple recognizes that man doesn’t live by bread alone, sports alone, entertainment alone, fast food alone, computers alone, investments alone, work alone, or whatever, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
5. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ isn’t something you choose to be. We don’t choose Christ, but He chooses us. Jesus said to his disciples in John 15:16, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit.” By His grace, He enables us to do what He calls us to do, to take up the cross, to follow Him, to be His disciple. He is the One Who gives us the reason – the purpose for living. It’s Christ who calls us to carry out His mission. To be called by God to follow Him is both humbling and exhilarating. It’s humbling in the sense of why He calls us, sinful, weak human beings, to carry out His message, and yet, it’s exhilarating to know that He calls us to carry out His holy work and empowers us to do so. The One Who calls us is also the One Who enables us to fulfill that calling in faith and trust and obedience. When God calls a person through the Gospel to follow Him, He calls the whole person. You can’t separate your life into little segments. You can’t say, “Well, this part here will be faithful to Christ and ignore Him with the other part of my life at the same time.” Martin Luther said that we live in two kingdoms, in two worlds – the kingdom of grace and the kingdom of this world. He says both of those are God’s – we serve God in both of them.
6. The life of discipleship isn’t for everyone, because being a disciple involves commitment. It’s not about seeing what options you have, but it’s devoting your whole life and service to Jesus. That’s true whether you are a husband or wife, a father or mother, a son or daughter, whether you’re a man or woman, neighbor or friend, employer or employee, or whatever.
7. When a person becomes a U.S. citizen, he must renounce all allegiance to the country of his birth and pledge 100% commitment to the United States. Only then will the U.S. government grant him citizenship. That’s the way it is with Jesus. When you become a follower of Jesus, you renounce Satan completely and entirely. You can’t divide your loyalties, splitting half the time with Satan and half the time with Christ. When you were baptized, you, your sponsors, and your parents made that same commitment – to be a follower of Jesus all your life and renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways.
8. The call to follow Christ Jesus isn’t for everyone. At one time there were 5,000 men as well as women and children who were fed by Jesus. When He told them what was involved in following Him, there was only a handful left. Oh, the people listened and some of them even agreed with what He said, but they weren’t willing to pay the price – the cost of discipleship. Following Jesus isn’t some half-hearted effort. It takes courage, commitment, and determination.
9. Our Lord doesn’t force us to follow Him. By His grace, He simply invites us to follow Him – to deny ourselves, to take up the cross, and to follow Him. To follow Him means that we have to deny ourselves. We would much rather focus on ourselves, our issues, problems, and challenges, rather than on the call of Jesus. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and follow Me.” That’s hard to do, because, you see, the self is contrary to Jesus. The self wants the things that the self is interested in—what I can get out of it and what’s good for me. The self doesn’t want to put itself aside in favor of God. To deny the self is more than just giving up your favorite food or entertainment. It’s fully giving yourself to Jesus in willing obedience to follow His call of discipleship.
10. As disciples, there may be times when we have to suffer for Jesus. Jesus Himself knew that He would have to do that for us. Jesus was going to have to die so that our sins could be paid for and forgiven. It would be ugly, it would be painful, and it would have to hurt. The cross was filthy, full of all the muck and the mire of all of the people of all the times in all the world, including your sins and mine. He knew that the cross held our greed, our pride, our self-righteousness. It held our deception and disobedience and everything else, and yet Jesus still chose to go the way of the cross. Jesus was perfect, sinless, and yet He would suffer for all of our crimes. In fact, He knew that He must suffer rejection at the hands of many. It was absolutely necessary for Jesus to do this. There were no options, no choices, and no alternatives. He simply must. It was necessary. In fact, it was necessary for the forgiveness of our sins and our salvation.
11. You know, that day when you told your mother that you had already cleaned the bathroom sink and you hadn’t. That’s one of those times it was necessary for Jesus to die for your sins. That night when you were sexually intimate with your boyfriend or girlfriend, it became necessary for Jesus to give His life for you. That time when you fudged on your income tax by taking a deduction you really weren’t entitled to, it became necessary for Jesus to give His life for you. That day when you made fun of a classmate in front of the whole class, then it became necessary for Jesus to die for you. That day when you were mad at your brother or sister and wished they were dead, then it became necessary for Jesus to die for you. That Sunday morning when you woke up with no thought towards God or towards worship, then it became necessary for Jesus to die for you.
12. You see, for Jesus, it was total commitment. He knew that He must die. Jesus had to do it in order to pay for the forgiveness of our sins. Now He calls us to deny ourselves, to take up the cross and to follow Him. He enables us to do that by His Word and Sacrament. He empowers us to live our lives for Him. Through Christ’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper, we get a new start. We start again as disciples with a new life. Jesus assures us that all our sin is forgiven, so that we can start all over with a clean slate. He gives us the strength so that we can live a God-pleasing life. Jesus gives us courage to invite others to become disciples. There’s a desire to make disciples of all people.
13. Jesus calls us to a life of discipleship. The first disciples heard the call and followed Him. When we’re uncertain, unclear about our purpose in life, some things get fuzzy. It's the same with our congregation. If we think only of ourselves and are uncertain about the mission Jesus has given us, then we flounder and fail. Our lives are given to us for only one purpose – to follow Christ wherever He leads. We only have one life to give and discipleship is the path. So let us deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow Him. Amen. Now may the peace of God, which goes beyond all of our understanding, keep our hearts and minds safe and secure in Christ Jesus, so that we are enabled and empowered to follow Him all the days of our lives, committing ourselves to Him, even to life everlasting. Amen.
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