In verse 21, Jesus is speaking, there's quite
a crowd around him, and in verse 21
he starts to speak, he says, actually look
back at verse 12, he says, Jesus speaking
and saying, I am the light of the
world, he that followeth me shall not walk
in darkness, but shall have the light of
life.
Jump down to verse 21, then Jesus said,
I go my way and you shall seek
me and shall die in your sins, whither
you go, you cannot come.
And then in verse 24, I said therefore
unto you that you shall die in your
sins, for if you believe not that I
am he, you shall die in your sins.
Then verse 30, he says, as he spoke
these words, many believed on him.
And then this is the verse I'd like
us to think about this morning, many believers
here, many believe these amazing words Jesus was
preaching.
And then in verse 31, he says this,
Jesus said to those Jews which believed on
him, if you continue in my word, then
are you my disciples?
Indeed, then are you truly, really my disciples?
You know, is there a difference this morning?
Let's think about is there a difference between
a Christian and a disciple?
Is there a difference between a believer and
a disciple?
He said this, if you notice to the
believers, the ones that believed in him, the
ones that thought he was sent from God,
they believed his message was from God.
And yet he turned to those people and
said, if you keep on remaining in my
words, if you keep on abiding, this is
the same word for abide in John chapter
15.
If you abide in my words, then you
will really be my disciples.
You know, as we were driving up here
this morning, we passed church house after church
house, after church house.
And I thought to myself, so many disciples
of Jesus.
Right.
As we came, are they all truly, really
disciples of Jesus?
Well, Jesus gave us the answer.
He said, if we continue in his word,
then we are really his disciples.
In fact, it's kind of an interesting thought
to think about that the word Christian wasn't
even coined.
You know, these early disciples of Jesus, they
weren't Christians.
It wasn't even coined till the book of
Acts.
Jesus called them disciples.
Later, people in the book of Acts, they
said the Christians in Antioch were called the
disciples were called Christians.
And so this was a later term.
Yet we go around and we say we're
Christians, but really Christians are disciples.
I'd like to read something for this meaning
of the word disciple.
I found this an encyclopedia kind of interesting.
Now, if we were to look at the
Strong's definition of disciple, it just means a
pupil or a learner, somebody you might think
that goes to school.
But listen to this.
The meaning of the word disciple is not
primarily derived from its root meaning, but from
its widespread usage in ancient in the ancient
world.
Disciples are found in the world outside of
the Bible.
For example, among the ancient Greek philosophers, disciples
learned by imitating.
The teacher's entire way of life and not
just by remembering the spoken words, you know,
we come here this morning and we read
Jesus's words and we remember him, but the
disciples in this time, in the early times
when Jesus was walking this earth, the disciple
mentality was you pick somebody and then you
walked with that person, you imitated that person.
I'll keep reading in the world of the
Bible.
A disciple was a person who followed a
teacher or a rabbi or a master or
a philosopher.
Even Plato and some have you say his
name, that Greek guy, he had disciples.
The disciples desire to learn not only the
teaching of the rabbi, but to imitate the
practical details of their life.
A disciple did not merely attend lectures or
read books.
They were required to interact with and imitate
a real living person.
A disciple would literally follow someone in hopes
to eventually becoming what they are.
A Christian disciple is a believer who follows
Christ and then offers his own imitation of
Christ as a model for others to follow.
A disciple is first a believer.
Who has exercised faith.
This means they have experienced conversion and put
Jesus at the center of their life and
participated in the rights of Christian imitation.
A full developed disciple is also a leader
of others who attempts to pass on the
faith to his followers.
So a disciple was somebody like pick somebody
in the world that you know, that you
admire.
Maybe maybe somebody would say, I want to
be like Elon Musk.
You know, he owns SpaceX.
He owns Tesla.
You know, he owns a couple.
He owns a boring company that can put
tunnels in.
Now he owns Twitter.
Maybe you said to yourself, I want to
be successful in this world like Elon Musk.
So you get in and you follow him
everywhere he goes, not just read about him.
You get you call him up and you
say, I want to be your disciple.
I want to be your apprentice.
And you follow him along everywhere.
You watch the way he makes decisions.
You watch the way he sits down at
board meetings.
You even watch the way he sends out
Twitter messages to people.
And you take mental note of these things
and you slowly develop becoming more and more
like Elon Musk.
And pretty soon, you know, if you're successful
in this.
Imitation, maybe you could own a bunch of
companies like him.
That's the idea of what a disciple is.
Now, Jesus said here in our passage that
we're reading, he said, if you continue in
my word, then are you really my disciples?
It's something we all have to ask.
You know, one of these days, this whole
world's going to be over for us.
We're going to stand before the Lord.
And, you know, at that point, the question
will be, are we really his disciples?
Something we all need to ask ourselves.
Think about let's imagine a little bit back
when Jesus called his disciples.
Think of those fishermen out on the out
on the Sea of Galilee.
And in one account, Jesus is walking along
and they're just fishing and they're mending their
nets.
And he comes up to him and he
says, come follow me.
Think of the things that would have gone
through their mind.
Think of Peter.
Think of Andrew.
You know, they grew up maybe all their
life with their dad as fishermen.
Maybe the smell of the sea, you know,
the the wind that came off of that
lake, maybe just the sight of fish and,
you know, the warm breeze coming just brought
back all these memories.
I remember going hunting with my dad and,
you know, he'd take me out, pick me
up from school.
We go get jerky, get a root beer.
And, you know, just those memories still come
back to me.
Think of them.
You know, they had these dreams.
They had bills to pay.
They had families.
Peter was evidently a married man.
And Jesus walks up to them in the
book of Luke.
He performs a miracle.
It's the miracle where they can't pull in
so much.
They pull in so much fish, it almost
sinks the ship.
And Peter falls on his knees and says,
I am a wicked man.
And what does Jesus say to them?
He says, come, follow me.
And what do they say?
It says they left their nets and followed
him.
A little later, he talks to James and
his brother, the sons of Zebedee.
And it says he told them the same
thing.
Come, follow me.
And they said, it says in the scripture,
they immediately left the ship and their father
and they followed him.
In Luke, it says they forsook all and
they followed him.
Matthew was sitting at a table collecting taxes
for the Roman government, I suppose.
And as Jesus came by, you know, he
probably had the dream job.
He had a great salary, probably had great
health care.
I'm sure Rome was offering great benefits.
And Jesus came up to him and said,
follow me.
And Matthew, it says in the book of
Luke, it says he left all.
Rose up and followed him.
Think of their commitment, the things they had
to give up.
As I read these passages, I see that
followers of Jesus forsook their jobs.
They forsook their families, Zebedee, right there, their
father.
They also forsook their possessions, ships, nets, fishing,
jobs.
All of this they forsook because they knew
Jesus was the rabbi to follow.
You know, they to them, Jesus was so
much more than Elon Musk.
And so Jesus actually gives us some of
his requirements for being his disciples.
Now, I don't know if you notice before
we go on any further, did you notice
with all of those disciples, pupils, apprentices that
he called, what was the common word that
he said to each one of them?
There's a common word, but you pick it
up, follow, follow, follow, follow.
Did you notice that to every one of
them?
He said followers.
So it's it's no wonder we call ourselves
followers of Jesus.
In fact, we sing a song this morning.
I serve a risen savior.
He walks with me and talks with me.
He lives within my heart.
So these early disciples, they were followers, and
Jesus even told them, he said this, he
says, whoever be of you that forsakes not
all he has.
What a what an incredible teaching of the
one we call our master.
If we don't forsake all that we have,
you cannot be my disciple.
You cannot be my follower.
He also told them in another passage in
Luke, he said, unless you hate your father
and your mother.
And your wife and your children, your brother,
and even your own life, you can't be
my disciple.
And then he goes on to say, and
whoever does not bear his cross or take
up his cross every day and follow me
cannot be my disciple.
Now, you know, that's a big that's a
lot of requirement.
But Jesus wants to give us in exchange
for that.
He wants to give us all the things
we sang about this morning.
He wants to give us eternal life.
He wants to give us his Holy Spirit
to comfort us and to cheer us and
to guide us along life's narrow way.
So what is a follower?
You know, if we're truly a disciple, which
is a follower, what is a follower?
Let's think about those disciples, those three and
a half years they left their nets, they
left their father and they just walked with
Jesus.
Now, I'm sure many of you remember playing
the game.
Follow the leader, right?
Remember that?
What did you do?
Person walked and everybody followed him.
If he turned, everybody followed him.
You know, if he went this way, he
went this way.
If he sat down, we all sit kind
of a fun little game as a child.
I don't know if it'd be fun anymore,
but.
But, you know, that's what a follower does.
He follows his master.
If we want to be like Jesus, that's
the goal of a Christian.
We have to follow him.
We have to imitate him.
We have to practice what it's like to
be a follower of Jesus.
Now, we Christians, we disciples have a serious
flaw in us.
It's in me.
I'm sure it's in everyone in this room.
And that is we sometimes like to have
our we like to split up our lives
into two little groups.
One group is our secular life.
You know, it's our life where we do
our jobs and we we we have our
fun and our pleasures.
And then we have our spiritual life, our
other half, right?
That's where we come together on Sunday and
we sing songs and we worship the Lord.
And I asked this question this morning, and
this is what the Lord's been laying on
my heart as of late.
Is that what disciples do?
What do what did those three and a
half years, those disciples do as they walk
with Jesus?
When we think about them walking every day,
following him, whatever he did, you know, they
watched what he did and how he reacted
to people that made him angry.
They watch how he reacted to food.
You know, when he got tired, they watched
how Jesus reacted.
They didn't just study his words.
They walked with him.
They they watched how he reacted to the
religious Pharisees.
They watched how he prayed, how he went
and fasted.
They watched all of his actions for three
and a half years as they walked with
him.
It wasn't just a once a week meeting
where they, you know, came and praised him
and then went on with their lives.
It wasn't a 15 to 30 minute time
in the morning where they said, OK, I'm
going to read some of your words, Jesus,
and then I'm going to go live the
rest of my life today.
It was a commitment of following him all
day through the whole day.
Now, I ask this question as a soul
searching question.
Have the requirements for being a disciple changed?
Think about that, if these were the requirements
for the early disciples, have they changed for
us?
Is there somehow some that don't need to
follow Jesus all day or is Jesus wanting
our whole attention?
How do we follow Jesus as his disciples
every day?
Obviously, we don't have Jesus here standing here
that we can follow like the early disciples
did.
But somehow Jesus said this.
He said, it's better than I go away,
that the Holy Spirit could come into your
heart and he could guide you.
And he even told his own disciples he
would do greater works than him.
Think about that.
How does a disciple today, each one of
you that maybe raised your hands, I'm a
disciple of Jesus.
How do you follow Jesus every day of
your life?
And all through the day, how does a
disciple start each day when you woke up
this morning?
How if you're truly a disciple of Jesus,
how should we have started our day this
morning?
What about good morning, Lord?
What about I'm not my own?
What about I'm going to take up my
cross today because that's what disciples do.
And today is going to be your day.
Thank you, Lord, for giving me another day.
You know, we're all so tempted to whip
out our phone or whatever it may be,
and immediately start into our day.
What about starting off the day with him
as our master, with him as our focus?
I want to be more like Jesus today
than I was yesterday.
You know, if you were trying to be
like Elon Musk, I'm sure you'd wake up
in the morning and think, where is he?
You know, we got to make some more.
I got to become more like him because
your goal is to, you know, own something
like SpaceX or Tesla.
How does a disciple start each day?
How does he face the responsibilities?
You start your job, you go to work.
How do you, how does a disciple, a
follower of Jesus face his job?
You know, some verses came to my mind.
It says in Proverbs, in all our ways,
acknowledge him.
It says, do everything for the glory of
God, whether you eat or drink.
You know, this is my encouragement.
Can we somehow work our jobs with the
Lord?
Can we somehow commune with him while we
work?
Can we start off our day, Lord, today's
yours and walk with him through the whole
day?
What happens when we come across an interruption,
a problem?
You know, it doesn't go the way we
were hoping today.
You know, maybe you get a flat tire
or maybe that person just really annoys you.
Can we somehow commune with him and say,
Lord, tell him our, bring in, casting our
cares on him and ask him for grace
to help us.
And like, we're walking with him just like
the early followers did.
The early disciples would have watched Jesus and
okay, how does he handle this?
And how does he handle work?
And how does he handle relationships?
What about when you need to buy something?
You know, maybe there's that new thing, that
new toy you want to get, or that
new whatever, fill in the blank.
Should a disciple of Jesus even go to
him for that?
Should he even submit all of that to
him and say, Lord, show me what I
should buy, what I shouldn't buy?
What about when we interact with difficult people?
Those can be difficult relationships.
So my whole, my heart here is, maybe
in your own heart, you're identifying.
Do I have a split heart, a secular
life where I just kind of, maybe even
I'm my own rabbi, maybe I am my
own master.
And then I have these set times of
when Jesus is my master.
But is that really what followers of Jesus
are supposed to be?
Is it possible that followers of Jesus are
supposed to follow him all the time?
Here's a question, a soul searching question.
Can you be a follower of Jesus and
not follow him?
Kind of a strange oxymoron, but a good
question to ask our hearts.
Here's a quote I was reading in a
book this last week, and it said this.
The average Christian today does not make much
spiritual progress at all.
He is converted, joins the church.
And five years later, he is right back
where he started.
10 years later, he is still where he
was.
Or he was even slipped back a little.
That is not satisfactory to those who seek
and thirst and hunger after God.
This was from a man who his whole
life hungered and thirsted after God.
So can we divide our lives into these
sections?
Can we divide our lives into secular and
then our spiritual life?
The Bible says we're to pray without what?
Does anybody know?
Ceasing, amen.
The Bible says in everything, give thanks.
The Bible says rejoice in the Lord, what?
Always.
It says as you've received the Lord, so
walk ye in him.
Walking has an idea of movement, constant movement.
See, these all of these things indicate to
me that it's a moment by moment walking
with God.
And if we're not careful, if we just
allow ourselves to fall back into what's normal,
we will do the split in our own
hearts.
Here's another soul searching question.
Would someone define you or me?
Would someone define me as a person trying
to imitate Jesus?
Will they look at me and say, you
know, Jeremy, he when he's making a decision,
he he is trying to go to Jesus
to find out.
When Jeremy is trying to work through a
problem at work or at home, he's going
to Jesus.
I can see he relies on him when
he is thinking about what to eat.
He's going to Jesus when he's deciding what
to buy.
He does it with Jesus.
You know, I was thinking on the way
up here, I was talking to my family
about this.
And I had this little, you know, Jesus
told parables.
And I had this little parable.
I'll call it the dad parable.
Imagine if I jumped into my car, you
know, to go with my son for the
day.
I was going to spend some time with
him.
And I was excited.
We're going to spend the whole day together.
So I jumped in the car and he
jumped in right alongside of me.
And he goes, good morning, dad.
You are the greatest dad ever.
You know, I thank you so much, dad,
for the night's sleep last night.
And dad, please make sure I get food
today.
And and glory to your name, dad.
And have a good day.
And then he pulls out a book and
starts reading.
And we drive mile after mile.
Then he pulls out his phone and he's
looking at his phone.
And I'm sitting there thinking, I start talking
to him.
Hey, did you see that beautiful rainbow?
And I look over and he's still, you
know, embedded in his book.
And he doesn't even hear my voice and
can't put his phone down.
And finally, about lunchtime, he comes around and
he goes, dad, thanks for this.
Thanks for this food.
And please bless it to my body, dad.
And thank you again.
And amen.
And, you know, and then he goes back
to looking at his book and looking at
his phone.
What kind of relationship would I have with
my dad or would that boy have with
his dad?
Now, imagine the same story.
Boy jumps in the car.
Good morning, dad.
How are you?
And, you know, dad, I hope we're just
going to spend the day together.
And I'm hoping that by the end of
today, I hope to be more like you,
dad.
Just show me things that teach me things
that I don't know.
And then through the drive, you know, he
points out the rainbow.
And yeah, maybe he looks at the book
some, but then says, dad, you know, I
just read this.
What do you think about this?
And the dad points out the rainbow.
It's a communion all day.
Which one do you think should be what
followers of Jesus do?
Should we commune with the Lord all day?
That's my heart.
That's my heart for the church, that we
don't fall into religion.
And console ourselves that we are walking in
right relationship with God.
But Monday through Saturday, we're just living for
ourselves.
You know, in first John, it says, whoever
claims to live in him must walk as
Jesus did.
Jesus said, I abide with my father all
the time.
He says, I can't even do anything without
my father.
My father does everything through me.
You know, he shows me everything.
And that's what we're supposed to imitate.
We're supposed to imitate this communion, this abiding.
He said, if you abide in me and
my words abide in you.
Remember, we started off this.
He said, whoever wants to be my disciples
and be a true disciple must continue or
abide in my word.
Remember, he is the word.
He's the word of God, right?
He lives in our heart.
I serve a risen savior.
He lives within my heart.
He walks with me and talks with me.
That's the relationship he wants to have with
us by his Holy Spirit.
This is the blessing of the new covenant
in Hebrews chapter two.
It says this looking unto Jesus, the author
and the finisher of our faith.
The answer for all of these things.
How do you deal when you first wake
up in the morning?
How do you deal with problems?
How do you deal with your job?
How do you deal with how you eat
your food?
All these things.
A disciple of Jesus looks to Jesus who
is the author and the finisher of his
faith.
I want each one of us to be
honest with ourselves and allow the Holy Spirit
to show us in our hearts.
Because one day we won't be able to
change.
One day we will stand before him and
it's either going to be, I know you.
You are my follower.
You're my disciple or I never knew you.
So each one of us should look now
while we have the time and say, are
we really followers of Jesus?
Are we really in love with him?
Is he really the highest treasure in our
life?
I have a song here.
I just want to read you some of
the words.
It says living for Jesus, a life that
is true, striving to please him in all
that I do.
Yielding allegiance, glad hearted and free.
This is the pathway, a blessing for me.
Oh, Jesus, Lord and Savior, I give myself
to be for thou and thine atonement.
It's give thyself for me.
I own no other master.
My heart shall be thy throne.
My life I give henceforth to live.
Oh, Christ, for thee alone.
I'll read you the last verse living for
Jesus through Earth's little while.
My dearest treasure, the light of a smile
seeking the lost ones he died to redeem,
bringing the weary to find rest in him.
Oh, Jesus, Lord and Savior, I give myself
to be for thou and thine atonement.
It's give thyself for me.
I own no other master.
My heart shall be thy throne.
My life I give henceforth to live.
Oh, Christ, for thee alone.