Main Idea: Essential discipleship begins with a decision at the point of my most difficult sacrifice.

A few years ago Sony Music Corporation began releasing a series of CD’s called The Essential Series. The idea was to put together basically a greatest hits package of an artists’ music on two CD’s. It would be music you "just can’t live without" by a certain artist. If you like Barbara Streisand, you have got to have "The Way We Were." If you like Johnny Cash, you have got to have "Folsom Prison Blues." If you like Bruce Springsteen, you have got to have "Born in the USA." If you like Bob Dylan, you have got to have "Like a Rolling Stone." Amazon has over 1400 CD titles with the words "essential" but you get the idea.

Webster defines "essential" as something that "implies belonging to the very nature of a thing and therefore being incapable of removal without destroying the very thing or its character." When it comes to spiritual growth in the Christian life, discipleship is essential. Discipleship is so essential to our spiritual growth that it is impossible to grow or mature without it. You can’t have spiritual growth without discipleship. You just can’t live spiritually without it!

What is a disciple and what is discipleship? The word as it was used in the New Testament refers to someone who is the master of something. If someone wanted to become skilled in a particular craft they would find a master in that area and then learn that craft from them. Jesus would call those who followed him exclusively as his "disciple." They were persons who sought to model the life and character of Jesus, doing his will obediently. So a disciple is a follower. Discipleship, then, might be defined as becoming a complete and competent follower of Jesus Christ.

Simply to say a disciple is a follower of Jesus Christ doesn’t mean that I am also a complete and competent follower of Jesus Christ. For instance, I can say I follow the Atlanta Braves baseball team. What that means is I look at the score in the newspaper, where they are in the standings and occasionally watch a few innings of a game on TV. Several years ago Amy (my youngest daughter) and really our whole family were real followers. Amy memorized the line up; we bought T-shirts, tried to watch all the games, went to a few ball games in person and endured for the usual post season let down. We never reached the status of Ray and Diane Prince, who named their cats after players, but nevertheless we were followers.

That distinction in following is the way most Christians view their relationship to Jesus Christ. You claim to be a follower, you check out how the team is doing a couple of times a month, you comment on the success or failure of the management, check the "score" for the last Sunday in the Newsletter and own a copy of the media guide. You do all of that for a few hours a month and then get on with your life. Yet when it comes to being a fan, a true fanatic—a paint-your-face, name-your-children, live or die with the team—you are not even close! Jesus said, "If you want to be my follower you must love me more than your own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, more than your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple. And you cannot be my disciple if you do not carry your own cross and follow me…So no one can become my disciple without giving up everything for me. (Luke 14:26-27, 33)

What is essential discipleship? Essential discipleship is the things that you just can’t live without and be a disciple of Jesus Christ. There are many that are found in the New Testament but for the next several weeks I want us to explore Romans 12 to see what Paul would define as essential to our life as a follower of Jesus Christ.

Romans 12 is a chapter that applies the practical aspects of being a Christian. It is what I call a "hinge" chapter because it turns the very theological material of Romans 1-11 toward the very practical application of that theology in Romans 12-16. In this chapter Paul moves forward from talking about the significance of the Christian’s union with Christ because of his death and resurrection (Rom. 6) and the spiritual life that flows from this union (Rom.8). Our living out these things in our lives practically is what he is concerned with teaching. Yet it is key for our understanding to know that it is only because of what has been done for us through Christ’s death, resurrection and the giving of the Holy Spirit that Paul can command our spiritual growth. Becoming a complete and competent follower of Jesus Christ is based on God’s grace through Christ’s work and the Holy Spirit and my desire to be a disciple. It takes both things!

Paul begins this chapter by saying, "I plead with you to give your bodies to God." Now you and I know that in one way what Paul is saying is to give my whole person to God. Yet too quickly we forget that my being a person is defined by my body. I am more than a physical body. I am a person with a will, with feelings, with a mind for thinking, with a spirit—an ultimate dimension and a person who relates to other social relationships. However, all of that is contained in my physical body. My physical body then defines all the rest of me. I am more than physical but without the physical none of the rest of me exists. So when we say we have to offer our bodies to God we mean we literally offer all that we are as a body to all that God is.

This is what makes marriage so sacred and holy. When two people come together in marriage that marriage is not complete until the man and the woman are joined physically to one another. The physical sexual expression is an absolute surrender and giving of one’s very self to another person. It is the expression of love, devotion, commitment and desire all wrapped up in human skin. The marriage ceremony is the outward expression of surrender but the physical union is the actual moment of surrender. That is why the Bible teaches that physical union is to follow the outward ceremony of marriage.

In a similar way my love, devotion, commitment and desire to follow Jesus Christ is all wrapped up in my human body. If I want to be a complete and competent follower of Jesus Christ, then it will mean a decision to offer all I am to all of God and that’s tough! It’s a difficult sacrifice to make when I think of giving up all of me to all of God! We want to compartmentalize or organize our spiritual life like we do everything else. We think because we put our body in church a few times a month then that pretty well takes care of it. Your mind or your emotions could be a million miles away but your body is here. Try doing that with your spouse, your children and your job. The same thing applies to us and discipleship—either it is all of you or not!

Paul says that our giving our bodies to God is to be continual ("living"), complete ("holy") and it is to be without regard to cost ("sacrifice"). It is something that we are always doing, completely doing and doing in such a way that it’s worth everything to make it happen. The question is does that describe your discipleship? I know it is hard. I know we think we have done that. Yet have your deeply and wholly offered all that you are to all of God. That is where your discipleship begins.

Paul continues by saying, "When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask?" I realize that this is different than other translations, yet it brings together the thought in verse one by combining two ideas into one sentence. The NIV and NASV say, "I urge you…by the mercies of God or in view of God’s mercy." That statement means the tender, compassionate riches of God toward us in Christ. He is saying respond so willingly and totally to God because of how much God has done for us because of his love and grace.

He adds at the end of verse 1 that this offering of yourself is "your spiritual act of worship" or your "spiritual service of worship." The word that he uses for spiritual is only used here in the New Testament. It doesn’t mean some intangible element of worship but means something that is reasonable, rational or involving the mind and intellect. It is worship that you think about clearly and deliberately resulting from your heart. It is the difference between something that is mechanical and automatic contrasted with something that is personal and sincere. So the NLT combines these two thoughts and says, "When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask?"

It’s the difference say between a frozen pizza that has been mass-produced and one that is made to order according to your specific directions. A person making frozen pizzas doesn’t put a whole lot of thought into their production. Everything is so exact that there is little thought. A private restaurant makes your pizza with the specific ingredients that you have asked for, the specific crust and sauce. There may not be a lot of heart in your pizza but there has been some thought.

Our offering all of ourselves to God is to be the result of what I call reasoned reflection. It’s something that you intentionally think about as you do it. It is to be done as an act of worship. It is probable that your being here today is intentional—you didn’t just wander in here—but it may not be very thoughtful. You are like someone at a factory just making sure that all the pieces are there—music, choir, prayer, sermon, offering, solo or anthem—bam! You’re done. You have been to a church service but have you thought about worshipping God out of a heart that has been moved by the depth of God’s love? Which do you think God accepts?

The point is you can’t do that with your discipleship either! You can’t follow completely and competently by merely being mechanical. "I go to church. I read my Bible. I pray, I go to Sunday School" – bam! You’re a disciple! No! It is something that touches us deeply because we see so fully the cross of Jesus Christ and out of that we offer all that we are to all of God. Is that possible? It was for Paul! He said in I Timothy 1:15-17, "This is a true saying, and everyone should believe it: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—and I was the worst of them all. But that is why God had mercy on me, so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life. 17Glory and honor to God forever and ever. He is the eternal King, the unseen one who never dies; he alone is God. Amen." Isaac Watts would say that surveying the cross of Christ connects him with love, "so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all." (When I Survey the Wondrous Cross") "When you think of what he has done for you." Is your all too much to ask?

Let’s talk first about being "conformed." Paul says we have a choice between "copying the behavior and customs of this world" and being transformed by God. The words he uses mean doing or becoming like something else that is not because of an inner desire. This tells us two things. One is that the world system—the behavior and customs of the world will naturally force me into its mold or shape. The other is that to not be molded or shaped by the world requires a decision on my part to work against what I will become unless I choose differently. All I have to do to become like everyone else is nothing! If your discipleship is going to be complete and competent, then it will be because you choose against becoming like the behavior and customs of the world. "I will not act, behave, think, live or be like that!"

What’s the alternative? The alternative is to "let God transform you by changing the way you think." The word "transform" is the word we use for what happens to a caterpillar in a cocoon before it is changed into a butterfly. The essence, the DNA, of the caterpillar is the same in the butterfly but you can’t tell it because of the transformation. God wants for us a transformation that results from being changed from the inside out. John Ortberg says that when transformation happens, "I don’t just do the things Jesus would have done; I find myself wanting to do them. They appeal to me. They make sense. I don’t just go around trying to do right things; I become the right sort of person." (The Life You’ve Always Wanted, p. 23).

Where does that start? Paul says it happens from the inside out! He says, "by changing the way you think." Every feeling, emotion and action results from a thought. It may be conscious or subconscious but it comes from a thought. That’s why mental health professionals know that it is absolutely essential for a person’s thinking to change before their emotional condition changes. Unless you and I are willing to allow God to defragment our thinking we will not be transformed into the disciple God desires. Our transformation all begins with our thoughts. Yet it all starts with a choice or an intention to become the person that God wants us to be.

Okay, what is the result of all this? Once I decide to offer all I am to all of God, doing that because of my reflection or what he has done for me and choosing to be transformed from the inside out, what happens? What happens is that this results in the life I really want to live (Rom. 12:2). What is the life I really want to live? A life that knows and does what God really wants me to know and do. Saying that is so simple and doing that is so hard but simply because it is hard does not mean it is impossible! That is to offer the excuse for our living so far below what is available to us. We say, "A life like that is impossible! I can’t do it! I’ll just depend on God’s grace to get me through!" Wrong! First, if a life like this was not possible Paul would never have said that it was possible. Second, you and I expend more of God’s grace by our striving to live the life we really want than by not making that choice.

What is the life I really want? It’s a life where I experience and demonstrate what a complete and competent believer of Christ really is! It is a life based on whatever is good, pleasing and perfect. It’s not saying that my life will always be these things but that when it comes to God’s will that his will is going to be understood as good, pleasing and perfect. And that’s the life I want!

Can you imagine a life like that? A life of such oneness with Christ that what He wants, you want, where He is present, you are present, His thoughts, your thoughts, His love your love and His life, your life. It begins with a decision to offer all you are to all of God. It is motivated by reflection on his sacrifice for me. It is a choice that is intentional and it results in the life I really want.

It’s the life that Karen Watson wanted. Karen Watson accepted Christ in 1997 and joined the Valley Baptist Church in Bakersfield, California. She found Christ after the bottom had dropped out of her life. Her boyfriend to whom she was engaged, her father and grandmother all died within a two-year span. Her experience with Christ became her absolute passion and after several overseas mission experiences, she felt God was calling her into missions. She resigned her job, sold her house and her car and became a missionary with the IMB of the SBC.

In 2003 Karen was assigned to Iraq after the major combat operations had ended. Before she left for Iraq she gave a letter to her pastor Phil Neighbors that was to be opened only if she never came back. She and other IMB personnel were struggling with the fear of the continuing conflict and their faith in God’s protection. On March 15, 2004 Karen and four other IMB workers were in a vehicle that was ambushed in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Karen was killed along with three others with only one surviving.

One article said about Karen, "Karen counted the cost. Then she followed God with her heart and with her head as she entered the war zone of Iraq to share with the people there the message that had made her willing to sacrifice everything" (Baptist Press, 3/25/04). Late on the night of March 15, 2004 Phil Neighbors opened the letter from Karen and revealed this one sentence, "To obey is my objective. To suffer is expected. His glory will be my reward."

Karen Watson was a disciple. She made the choice to offer all that she was to God and it cost her everything. The price for you and for me is no different. "When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask?" That is where essential discipleship begins.

Sunday, July 11, 2004

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org