The Christian Life – Part 2: True Discipleship

In last month’s post, we discussed how the Christian life does not come without problems. In fact, Scripture tells us both that God is our salvation (Isa. 12:2) and that Christians will face opposition, even death. We mentioned our brothers and sisters across the globe who have suffered for their faith.

A Question to Consider

So how do we now live? Our now, our present, is the eternal presence of God that lives in us, in the midst of a body that is often subject to disease and illness, to circumstances that can sometimes be neutral, sometimes go well, sometimes actually be an assault of the evil one, sometimes the very blessing of God operating in our lives. All are laid out like a banquet.

So the question becomes, how do we live in the midst of all of that? Because I, for one, want to live on the side of faithfulness. I want to live on the side of endurance. I want to live on the side of knowing the promises of Jesus amidst all the upheavals going on in my life. I want to continue to be faithful whether things go well for me or not.

Because if I’m not stepping into that kind of life, what I’m stepping into is what Paul describes in his second letter to the Thessalonians as “idleness,” or people who don’t work. And Paul says this: In the body of Christ: We should all put in our fair share. Everybody works; everybody gets to share the table.

But idleness in the Bible is much bigger than whether you’re working for a living or not. Idleness has to do with a kind of self-centeredness where you don’t know what to do, so you don’t do anything. Or if you are doing something, you’re a “mere busybody” (another word straight from Thessalonians, 2 Thess. 3:11). You’re not a busy person, you’re a busybody, because you’re more interested in what’s going on in the lives of other people than in doing the work.

Busybodies usually have too much time on their hands. But what’s true for the idle, regardless of who they are, is that they have no purpose. And that’s at the heart of why they gossip, why they aren’t particularly productive. They’re the ones who are the most vulnerable to the fear factor that comes through the newscast, because nothing grounds them. They have no sense that they’ll be taken through the turbulence. They have no assurance of the companionship of God.

An Attitude to Adopt

Now believe me, if the choice is whether to live with endurance and purpose or to be an idle busybody, that’s an easy choice. But you can also work 24/7 at your job and still be an idle busybody if you don’t have a life that is committed to the purposes of God.

It starts straight from the beginning in one of our collects: “Blessed Lord, who causes all Scripture to be written for our learning.”

In other words, what we’re saying in that prayer is, “You know, I don’t really know a lot about the Bible. And I need to be a learner.” And I want to say to you as somebody who is a seminary graduate, who’s done doctoral work, who has been ordained for more than 40 years: I feel like I’m just getting started. In fact, I know less now than I thought I knew when I was just getting started.

And out of that, I’m invited into a place of learning, which means I’m hungry to know. I’m hungry to know not the content of a book, but a person. I want to grow in my relationship with Jesus. The attitude of a learner invites us into a kind of gentle humility. Childlikeness, you see, is the model for discipleship in the Bible. Not “I know who I am; I know where I’m going; I got this.”

A 4-year-old, unless she’s a spoiled brat, never says, “I got this.” Childlikeness is the very expression of dependency, of a need to be led, of a tremendous amount of curiosity. A child has a hunger to learn and to know.

That’s really the attitude of a disciple. Humility, hunger, curiosity, the desire to know and the desire to draw closer to the one who is discipling us, who is Jesus himself. And it is in that vista that I become the one who is being shaped by Jesus, made more like him. And out of that gift of God, I receive a level of inner stability and character that allows me to continue to move forward even when life is at its worst. Not as I define “worst,” but as the Bible defines it: persecution, famine, sword, rumor, war—all those things.

And I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it in the faces of believers I know who have faced all of these. There is such a sweet gentleness about them. There is a quiet joy.

It’s exactly the opposite of what you might expect, which would be tough. Embittered. Cynical. Instead, God has worked in them that kind of childlike dependency that allows them to trust even when they’re facing the point of a gun.

A Decision to Make

So what do you want? Whom do you want to become? Are you interested in God working in you—and he does so with infinite patience—that kind of childlike humility, that kind of hunger to learn and to grow? The willingness to lay aside the childish things, which in this case are that cynical independence and that tendency to be way too interested in what’s going on in the lives of other people?

Some people take a perverse pleasure in knowing the latest, and they’re happy to tell you. But that is not the mark of a believer. It’s the mark of an idle busybody.

When we make a commitment to Christ, we are saying, “I want the former, not the latter. I want God to work in me what it means to be a disciple. I want to be a follower of Jesus. I want the changes to happen.

“And even if it means tough circumstances, I’m willing to continue to step forward. It’s no surprise. I knew what was coming. I’m not being relieved of that. Instead, I’m experiencing the supernatural presence of Jesus right in the midst of it. And I know he’s going to get me through.”

I want to live this life in such a way that when my time comes, the body will get shed, I will stand before the presence of God, there will be that place where there is no pain or grief. I’ll be welcomed in, and I will say, “It was worth every minute.”

So heed the call to the choices you make. Ask God to give you all that you need to be that kind of humble, joy-filled, curious disciple, a learner who is being made like Jesus.

That’s the invitation, and I hope you, with me, will say to those commitments, “I will, with God’s help.”

 

How is God working in you what it means to be a disciple? Share this blog and your response on Twitter. Please include my username, @revgregbrewer.

(This post is an adaption of Bishop Brewer’s sermon on November 13, 2016, at Church of the Messiah in Winter Garden, Florida.)

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.