Word of Salvation – Vol.24 No.02 – October 1977

 

On Being Disciples

 

Sermon by Rev. J. H. Derkley on Mark 3:13

Scripture Reading: John 1:35 51.

Psalter Hymnal: 170, 66:1-4, 407, 459, 485

 

Boys and Girls,

Do you already know what you want to be when you grow up?  Some children know it already when they are quite young.  Others take a long time to make up their minds.

It would be good to know soon what you want to be.  Because, you know, if you want to be good in anything, you have to know a lot about it.  You should become an expert.  You could read lots of books on your future job, talk with people who are already in it and see films and T.V. programmes on it.

Of course, at school you concentrate on the same thing – you try to learn whatever you can about it.  And later on, at high school, you choose the subjects that will be most important in your future work.  I mean, if you want to be a doctor, you will go for biology and chemistry and so.  If you want to be a secretary, you’ll have to study English and typewriting and shorthand and perhaps accountancy, and maybe even a foreign language.  If you want to be a carpenter, well of course, you will take woodwork.  And maths, especially geometry, is very important.  And if you want to be a teacher, then you will have to study everything!  Because they say that teachers know a lot about anything you can ever think of.

Now there are times that people enter jobs in different ways altogether.  There was a boy who always wanted to be a vet.  However, when he was old enough to leave high school, he heard of an opening in a government department – plain office work.  He applied for it, got it, and is quite happy in his job.  Sometimes you may see an advertisement, or somebody talks about a job, and you just walk into it.  You could be very happy even though you don’t become the fire brigade truck driver or the animal trainer in a circus you have always dreamed of.

This morning the sermon also talks about something people are called to be.  It is a ‘job’ called ‘disciple’.  Who knows what a disciple is?  Perhaps some bright fellow says: “I know it has something to do with going to church and to Sunday School, or to catechism class.”  You are on the right track.  But let’s be a bit clearer.  What about this: “A disciple is someone who follows the Lord Jesus.”

Now perhaps that was easy for the people who lived when the Lord Jesus was here on earth.  They could actually follow Jesus.  That is, they could walk where He walked, sit down where He sat down, visit the homes He visited, and so on.  We cannot do that.  The Lord Jesus has gone to heaven now.  Of course we know that the Lord Jesus is also with us, in fact He is with us at this moment in church.  But though you look everywhere, you cannot see Him.  He is invisible, so we cannot actually walk after Him, because we cannot actually see where He is going.

Perhaps you could put it this way: “To be a disciple means that you belong to the group of people who belong to the Lord Jesus.”

The problem is, how do you become a disciple?  That is a problem, not only for children, but also for some grown-up people.  So we are talking to everybody, young and old alike.

Perhaps there are some people among us who are not so much wondering how to become disciples, but whether they are disciples.  What is involved in being a disciple?

Sometimes people believe that before you are allowed to be a disciple you have to learn a lot, to go through a long, long period of instruction.  You have – they believe – to go to Sunday School for years.  After that you have to attend catechism classes, first junior, then intermediate, then senior, then finally confession class.  If you have learned enough – and you will be examined by the minister and elders to find out whether indeed you do know enough – then you are permitted to make public profession of faith, and that – they believe – makes you a disciple.

Oh no, others say, it is not what you learn and know, but what you do that makes you a disciple.  You must live an exemplary Christian life.  You must pray a lot, read your Bible a lot, go to church a lot.  You must do your very best and never do anything wrong.  They say that you must be master of yourself, a lovely and loving personality.  You must care for other people, never gossip, and so on and so on.  Only people like that have the right to regard themselves as being disciples.

Well, let’s have a look.  Is that what the original disciples were?  In our Bible passage we meet the twelve closest disciples.  (There were many more, hundreds, if not thousands, but these twelve were the closest, and full-time at that!)  They should be the most learned and/or the cream of the Christian life.  Well, let’s look!

The first one we meet is Simon – Jesus gave him the name Peter, which means ‘rock’.  Sometimes you wonder whether Jesus had ‘tongue cheek’ when He in called Simon ‘rock’.  For Simon Peter was not always firm as a rock.  Big-mouth, yes; bit of a braggart, yes; but also scared stiff at the rustling of a tree leaf.  One day he said, “Jesus, you can count on me!”  A few days later he cried, “Count me out; I don’t know that man!”

James and John, sons of Zebedee.  Jesus called them Boanerges – sons of thunder because when things didn’t go the way they thought they should, they wanted to mow down everybody in their way.  Of course, they did it out of love for Jesus, but boy oh boy, what temper!

Andrew and Phillip.  They started off all right.  As soon as they had met Jesus for the first time they immediately won others for Christ’.  But that seems to be the only gain, soon they settled down, not to appear overly active.

Bartholomew, another one of whom we know next to nothing, just one of the crowd, a pew-sitter with nothing to distinguish him.

Matthew, there’s a different kettle of fish.  A former tax-collector.  Maybe he was not the cut-throat like the rest of them, but he did belong to that despicable breed.  Bad company and all that.

Thomas was one of the disciples.  An arch-pessimist, the man who gave up before he had even started.  “It won’t work,” was his philosophy of life.

James and Thaddeus were, again, people we don’t know much about.  Unobtrusive, not marked by great ‘pushfulness’ anyway.

Simon the Cananaean, what an unusual fellow!  Luke describes him as ‘the Zealot’.  Zealots were, what we would call, ‘freedom fighters’ or ‘liberation movement agitators’.  Imagine having such a man in your company each day.  Troubles without end.

And finally, there was Judas Iscariot, the cheat, the thief, the traitor.

As you could expect, they quarrelled together no end, jealous of each other, each one thinking that he was a cut above everybody else.  You can hardly imagine a more incongruous bunch of men.  Half of them quick to react, the other half undistinguished, plain as pie.  What in the world can you do with people like that?  The one half you always have to keep on a tight leash, the other half you have to keep on pushing.  Which one, by the way, would we want as a friend?  Quite likely not one of them.

Yet, these were the disciples of the Lord Jesus.  All sorts of characters.  With no other qualifications than that they listened when Jesus said “Follow Me!  Even though some, if not most, were not always sure whether they had done the right thing.  Disciples…!

Do you know the difference between a student and a disciple?  A student is a person who wants to learn a certain subject or profession – say medicine, or welding, or shorthand.  For such students it makes little difference who teaches them as long as they get the required knowledge.  Perhaps they may prefer the one teacher or lecturer or professor to another, but their main concern is the learning, not the teacher.

A disciple is completely different.  The disciple does not choose his field of learning, but rather, he chooses his teacher.  For the disciple it does not matter whether his teacher lectures on politics or medicine or music or astronomy or biology or how to boil an egg or the best way to make compost, or whatever.  He will absorb whatever his teacher teaches.  For it is not the subject itself that is his main interest but rather the view of his teacher on that subject.  His teacher matters.  Only because his teacher is interested in a subject, the disciple himself becomes interested in that subject.

That is why a student becomes (or likes to become) an expert in his subject, while a disciple becomes hooked on his teacher’s opinion on any subject.

And now I wonder.  Can we now say that we qualify as disciples?  If it is not the degree of learning that must qualify us nor our praiseworthy Christian character, but a willingness to let Jesus tell us what He thinks about everything, about what is going on in the whole wide world as well as in our own home and in our heart, do we qualify as disciples?  For it means not just that we permit Him to voice His opinion, but that we accept that opinion as the only valid one.  And not just to mentally agree on the truth of His views, but to ACT according to His will, whatever anybody else says, whatever my own desires may be.

Are you, boys and girls…
Are you, fathers and mothers…
Are you, teenagers…
…DISCIPLES?

That is what these men were; disciples of Jesus.  However different in their mental and emotional makeup, whatever their family or sociological background.  They were disciples of Jesus.  They let Him have the say in their lives.  From the moment He said these simple words, “Follow Me”, …disciples.

For that is perhaps the strangest of all.  These people did NOT attach themselves to Jesus; Jesus – as our Bible tells us – called them to be His disciples!  The initiative went out from Him, not from them!  They were quite content in their work, or whatever they were doing.  Then Jesus passed them and said it, “Follow Me”.

He said it to Nathanael, who had said a moment ago, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” And to Peter, and even to Judas Iscariot: “Follow Me”!

In fact, this was not merely an invitation without obligation.  Jesus expected, demanded that they would follow Him.  In fact our Bible tells us that He desired them to be His disciples.  Imagine, Thomas!  Imagine, Peter!  Imagine, Judas!!  Jesus desired them to be in His company for the whole three years He would preach and teach and heal …and suffer.

In other words, Jesus did not want to be surrounded by a crowd of nothing else but ‘yes-brothers’ or gullible fools.  Nor did He want the snobs who could give some social standing.  He did not turn to the lawyers or the men with political pull.  He did not first of all look to the rich and to the organisational wizards and the shrewd money-makers.  Of course, they are welcome in His company, but Jesus did not choose them in order to get started.

Instead He called the plain, the everyday, the thirteen-in-a-dozen, the unimportant people.  Just as you find crowds of them on the wharves and in the factories.  Unlearned, slow on the uptake (it took them ages to understand what Jesus was all about), or so fast that they spoke long before they had used their brains.  All sorts of people.  As Paul the apostle (himself a man with a university degree) said about the disciples of the Lord Jesus, in Corinth and everywhere else, “Not many wise according to worldly standards, not many powerful, not many of noble birth”, down to earth people.  Like you are and we all are!

But they were disciples.  They were the people who were – and are! – vitally involved in what the Lord Jesus is involved in.

They could – and can! – not imagine their lives apart from Him.  He is their one and their all.  Sometimes they may not understand what He is all about.  Sometimes they may be reluctant to follow where the road seems to be rough..  Sometimes they wonder, just wonder, how He can lead them on that particular road; it seems so contrary to what they think is right.  But, because they are disciples, they go, with fear and trembling, maybe, or joyfully, assured of His knowing the way through the wilderness.  So they go.

What does it take to be a disciple?
What qualifications do you have to have?
“Follow Me”, Jesus said!
That is the qualification:

Follow Him!

Are you, brothers and sisters, teenagers, boys and girls…
Are you His disciples?

Do you hear Him call out to you: I want YOU to follow Me.  I want YOU to believe in Me.  I want YOU to put all your trust in Me.
I want YOU to say, YES, now.

AMEN.