Title: Wanted, True Disciples
Text: Various
We've seen a lot about people being wanted lately. America's Most wanted did an
episode of the FBI's list of most wanted terrorist. The so called wanted poster
of Osama Bin Laden has been on TV and in the newspapers in editorials and on the
late night talks shows.
But, there is another wanted poster out. This one from God that says,
"Wanted. True Disciples." You won't find this one in the Post Office,
but you can find it the Bible worded in a number of different ways.
Lev 11:44 'For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and
be holy; for I am holy. (NAS)
Matt 5:48 "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is
perfect. (NAS)
1Thes 4:7 For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.
(NAS)
1 Pet 1:15-16 ". . . like the Holy One who called you, be holy
yourselves also in all {your} behavior; because it is written, "You shall
be holy, for I am holy." (NAS)
Mark 8:34
34 And He summoned the multitude with His disciples, and said to them,
"If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his
cross, and follow Me.
God desires, seeks and wants consecrated, surrendered people to be true
disciples. People who are willing to deny their own desires, and yield
themselves to God in total allegiance. To be consecrated means to surrender your
mind, your body, your heart, and your will, to God.
God wants believers with yielded minds.
When you come to Christ, He says you are to surrender your mind to Him. That
doesn't mean you check your brain at the church door. It doesn't mean you give
up the ability to think and reason when you become a Christian those are part of
the humanity God created. He gave you those abilities and He expects you to use
them. As Elton Trueblood said, "Faith is not belief without proof, but
trust without reservations. To says God wants believers with yielded minds does
mean what you believe is important, and the development of your mind is
important. God wants us to grow intellectually as well as spiritually in Christ.
."
Paul said in Romans 12 we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
The word translated renewing is similar to the word translated transformed, it
means to renovate or change to something new. When we commit to Christ we are to
yield our thought processes to Him through His Holy Spirit. That means the basis
for our understanding and our reasoning is God and His revelation.
The consecration of our mind results in a new way of thinking. It is a new
way of thinking first of all about God. That He exists, we look at the evidence
of His existence in a new light with a new perspective. I just bought a book
called In Six days. It's a compilation essays from fifty scientist in different
fields who examine the evidence of creation using their minds and agree the
evidence supports the Bible.
Not do we use our minds in recognizing the existence of God but also in
understanding that He is personal, and holy and just and righteous and worthy of
our devotion and dedication.
A new way of thinking about ourselves, who we are, what we are, why we are;
We are His people, created in His image by Him and for Him. We are the crown of
creation. That means each of us are of infinite worth, not because of any
externa criteria i.e. race creed color nationality gender, social or economic
status but because He gives us worth.
It is a new way of thinking about others, seeing them as God sees them,
loving them as God loves them. And it's a new way of thinking about our world.
That we have a responsibility towards nature because God has given us dominion
over all the earth.
God also wants a dedicated body. Your body is the temple of
the Holy Spirit, as we have seen before that means your body is to be an
instrument for God's service. A genuine disciple must dedicate, or commit his or
her self completely to not only knowing but also doing the will of God. We must
be willing to following Jesus, no matter what, no matter where; to trusting that
His will for our lives is perfect.
Paul wrote to the Romans in Rom 12:1-2 about commitment. He said, "I
beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable
service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and
perfect will of God."
Someone once said the only problem with living sacrifices is that they keep
crawling off the altar. But that's the kind of a commitment necessary if we, as
disciples, expect to accomplish what God has called us and assigned us to be and
to do as His body in this world.
Too often we get caught up in the mind set of the world and believe such a
commitment is too great a sacrifice. We are deceived into believing the only way
to find completeness and fulfillment is to or even happiness is through the
activities and possessions and pleasures of the world. That's what we talked
about last week, letting our possessions posses us.
The truth is just the opposite. Jesus said whoever loses his life on the
altar of commitment to Christ Jesus will save it. As disciples of Jesus Christ,
we must come to the realization that a full commitment of our lives to Christ is
nothing to fear, and we have nothing to lose by making that kind of commitment.
We have to recognize that experiencing true fulfillment, completeness and joy
means being completely sold-out to Jesus.
Jesus said in Mark 8: 36-37 "For what will it profit a man if he gains
the whole world, and loses his own soul? "Or what will a man give in
exchange for his soul? The pleasures of this life are temporal, by contrast the
pleasures of following Jesus are eternal. As we saw last week discipleship
doesn't necessarily mean can't experience the rewards, or the benefits of the
world. Rather it is a matter of where our priorities lie.
Jesus also said in Matt 6:31-33, "Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What
shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' "For
after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that
you need all these things. "But seek first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
It's a matter of what we seek first. As true disciples when we deny self and
become completely committed to Him first, we discover He will fulfill our
deepest needs.
God wants a devoted heart. Is your heart surrendered to Him?
When we read the Bible we understand the heart is spoken of symbolically as the
center of our being. It represents our inner most desires and feelings. Jesus
said lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven because where your treasure is
your heart is there you will be too.
The greatest desire of our heart should be to please God, to bring honor and
glory to Him through all we do. Paul wrote to Titus in Titus 2:11-12 11 For the
grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, 12 instructing us to
deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly
in the present age. (NAS)
A devoted heart desires to live sensibly, righteously and godly in this
present age. That's not easy to do in our world, there are obstacles in the way.
To follow through on that kind of desire means we have to make a determined
decision to do it. That's an act of the will.
God wants a committed will. The will is powerful it can make
a forceful or determined Christian. That's what Jesus means when He demands His
disciples deny self. Billy Graham says the will is the hinge on which the
Kingdom of God swings. There is so much we can do when we are consecrated to
Him. So much needs to be done in the world today. We need to feed hungry people,
solve racial problems, go into the world with the Good News of the Gospel -- to
reach our world for Christ."
We have talked before about the attitude of self , enlightened selfishness,
is not new to this generation. We see it in the book of Genesis chapter 3 in the
garden when the serpent came to eve. The temptation he presented was to elevate
self. He suggested God had an ego problem, God didn't want them to be equal to
him, and he tells her she can be that important. You will be like God, and that
started the wheels of selfishness turning, by a deliberate act of her will she
sought to elevate herself. Of course in trying to elevate herself she brought
herself great harm.
When Jesus encountered the rich young ruler in Matt 19 the young man wanted
to know how to have eternal life. He was proud that he had kept the law, but
when Jesus told him to give all he owned to the poor, the Bible says he went
away. Jesus used this encounter to teach the importance of wealth. It was also
about the will of this young man. His possessions made him important they
elevated him above others. He went away the Bible says sorrowful because he
decided by an act of will he would not deny himself the benefits of his wealth.
In each case there was a deliberate decision a deliberate act of the will, to
go against God rather than with Him. Denying self does not mean that I have to
do without something or even many things, it doesn't mean I have to take a vow
of poverty, as a matter of fact a great many individuals who followed Jesus we
people of considerable wealth, such as Joseph of Aremaetha, and Abraham the
father of faith was a man who had a great deal of possessions. .
Self denial means I willfully choose to be obedient to God. That sounds
contradictory, but it is the soul crying not my will but they will be done.
Jesus says disciples are to deny self take up our cross and follow him. The
idea of taking up our cross reflects the practice of compelling a condemned man
to carry the cross on which he was going to die. Jesus was compelled to carry
His cross. It is a stronger way of calling disciples to self denial, to willful
obedience. It requires a willingness to give up everything dear in life and even
life itself for the sake of Jesus, a willingness to suffer for the cause of
Christ. Not that it will be required, but that you would be willing if it were.
We see examples of this consecrated will in the lives of the apostles and
Paul whose lives were indeed required of them. But, our greatest example is our
Lord Himself. He could have called down as the song says he could have called an
army of more than 72,000 angels to rescue him from the cross, but the Bible says
He humbled himself becoming a man and was obedient even to the cross. That was
true self-denial the ultimate act of willful obedience.
My Commitment as a Christian'
Written by: A Young African Pastor
I'm a part of the fellowship of the unashamed. I have Holy Spirit Power.
The dye has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has
been made. I'm a disciple of His. I won't look back, let up, slow down,
back away, or be still.
My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, my future is secure. I'm
finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth
knees, colorless dreams, tamed vision, mundane talking, cheap living and
dwarfed goals.
I no longer need pre-eminence, prosperity, position, promotions or
popularity. I don't have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised,
regarded or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean on His presence, walk by
patience, lift by prayer and labor by His power.
My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my
way is rough, my companions few, my Guide reliable, my mission clear. I
cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, deluded
or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the
presence of the adversary, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at
the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.
I won't give up, shut up, let up, until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed
up, paid up, preached up for the cause of Christ. I am a disciple of
Jesus. I must go till He comes, give till I drop, preach till all know,
and work till He stops me. And when He comes for His own, He will have no
problems recognizing me - for we will have walked together all the days of my
life!
The marks of true disciples are: yielded minds, dedicated bodies, devoted
hearts and committed wills. If they were to post a wanted poster that said
"Wanted, True Disciples," would your picture be on it? Are you willing
to surrender your all to Him to become a true disciple? (275)
