Let's pray. Lord God, we are always blessed with your word at our fingertips. We thank you for your word. We thank you for how available you are to us. We thank you for what you teach us in and through your word. And this morning we have a unique and special, even though it's regular, it's a unique and special opportunity to reflect on your word here together in this place. Lord God, we ask that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be pleasing and honorable to you, O Lord our God, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
All right. We have the opportunity to be part of the Great Commission here this morning. "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations." Make disciples. That's something that happened here this morning. It's a process that's been ongoing for this family. They're all in different stages of this, and we're a part of it as well. And so, as we carry on through our series of church words, churchy words that sometimes we use and throw around and maybe don't have a full and complete understanding of, we will reflect this morning on what it is to be a disciple. If we are called in the Great Commission to be making disciples, we better know what that means. We better understand what that is about.
All right. So, what is a disciple? What is a disciple? Well, we get some evidences in and through scripture. We're going to look a little bit at Matthew 4, where the title is "Jesus Calls His First Disciples." The title says disciples in that piece even before it's used in scripture. The translators have identified this for us. And so this is a story that comes straight out of the early chapters of Matthew.
"As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 'Come, follow me,' Jesus said, 'and I will send you out to fish for people.' At once they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him."
These are disciples. So what we see in this passage is that there is a calling. Jesus steps up to these normal, average people inside normal, average circumstances and he says, "I am choosing you and I'm calling you to follow me." Step one. And this is the gospel. This is the good news that Jesus Christ puts on display through his whole life. This is the good news that God was teaching through the entirety of the Old Testament. This is the restoration that God is making new and true after the fall in the Garden of Eden: that God is choosing people to follow him and to be in relationship with him. That is the good news that brings us back here week after week.
And step two, they respond, and they drop what they're doing and they follow. This is also the good news of the gospel. And sometimes we think this is work that we're doing in and of ourselves, but it's the Holy Spirit that spurs us into these decisions and choices. It's God's work in us that leads us into this type of calling, this type of response. And yet we do see, if we look at scripture and if we look around us in the world, that there's different levels of what it looks like to follow the call to be a disciple.
And we see Jesus also as he trains up these disciples. These disciples are students. Jesus is teaching them, so they're gaining head knowledge, but it's not just head knowledge. They're also called to live in conformity to Jesus. They're called to change. Their lives have to look different as they begin to understand who Jesus is, what his heart is, and they start changing their lives to conform themselves to the life of their teacher.
But when we think of disciple, I think we often think of the twelve disciples, right? These ones, like we just heard in the story. These twelve who Jesus walks up to in their normal circumstances, and he calls them, and they just drop everything and follow him. But there's actually a lot more disciples than the twelve. Disciple is a term that's really used for anyone who is following Jesus. And that ranges from those that give up their whole life to follow Jesus, the ones we hear a lot about, to maybe the ones who show up occasionally for a sermon or two, or the ones that come and have questions. These are also disciples.
And we see a varying degree of disciples. And there's evidence of this in Matthew chapter 8. And so I'll read you a story from that as well. All right, Matthew chapter 8. And the title here is "The Cost of Following Jesus."
"When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, 'Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.' Jesus replied, 'Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.' Another disciple said to him, 'Lord, first let me go and bury my father.' But Jesus told him, 'Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.'"
Now, we can only assume that these two disciples, who remain nameless, are not part of the twelve. These are disciples who show up for this moment in scripture and disappear again. We don't know much else about them, but they're definitely not at the epicenter of Jesus' ministry, yet they are identified as disciples. There are varying degrees of what a disciple looks like.
Now, why is that? Why is it that we see some who are giving up their entire lives and some who maybe show up when it's convenient, or show up for a little bit of teaching, or are willing to conform slightly to what Jesus is calling people to? Well, it's because discipleship is hard. There's the gospel, which is where God calls us, and the gospel, which is where we respond, and then there's this part of continually dying to self, changing, growing, setting things aside, and conforming to who Jesus is and who Jesus is calling us to be. Discipleship is hard.
Discipleship requires something. Something that we know about. It's a word actually very similar to disciple. It's the word discipline. Discipleship requires discipline. Discipleship requires discipline. And discipline is something that we understand. In fact, it's something that we admire. It's something in our society. We see disciplined people and we look up to them.
For example, someone like Michael Phelps, one of the most... well, the most decorated Olympian of all time, 28 medals in the Olympics. Arguably the greatest... well, not even really arguably, the greatest swimmer of all time. We hear things like Michael Phelps had to consume 8,000 calories every single day so that his body could sustain the training regimen he put it through. That's incredible. That takes a high level of discipline.
Or maybe someone like Larry Bird, one of the best free throw shooters of all time. Still to this day, over 30 years since he retired, he's still in the top 15 of all free throw shooters of all time. And when he was asked in an interview, "How do you do it? How did you get so good at free throws?" he didn't talk about his innate ability. He didn't talk about being chosen. He didn't talk about how he must be just specially gifted. No, he said, "I throw 100 free throws at the end of every single practice." That's how he finished every single practice, every single day. That takes discipline. It takes discipline, and it shows up in his life. It changed him. It conformed him to who he wanted to be.
We look up to people who are disciplined. In fact, sometimes we're even envious, if not maybe just of the results of their discipline, but we're often envious of what we see in disciplined people. Those are extreme examples, but we see it around us, too. The people who get up at 5:00 a.m. to go to the gym, and they do it all the time. And what's the result of that? Well, they're fit. They're in good shape because they're at the gym regularly. So we see this around us.
Now, this is one way of seeing and understanding discipline. But there's another perspective as well. Another perspective that is probably not as positive. Maybe not as desired. Certainly something we're not envious of. And I'll put one word in front of the word discipline, and I want you to think about how this changes your perspective on that word from the examples that I just gave for discipline. I'm going to add one word in front. Church discipline. Church discipline.
What kind of stories and ideas come to mind when you think about church discipline? Are you envious of those who've experienced such discipline? Do you talk about these things with admiration? And do you look at the success that it has produced when we think about church discipline? Now, I have some assumptions about the kind of things that you might be thinking. And as I was preparing for this, I thought maybe I should do a bit of a litmus test on those assumptions. And so I talked to a few of you about your understandings. Basic question: what do you think of when you hear church discipline?
And I'm not going to get into the details, but a lot of what I heard shared were stories of judgment, stories of punishment, stories of authority and control and conformity. These were the kind of things that were shared, which is the assumption that I had. A little less desirable. A little less positive. And certainly not things that we are envious of.
Yet church discipline is important. Church discipline is important. Belgic Confession Article 29 talks about the marks of the true church. What identifies the church as a true and real church? And the answer given was three things: right preaching; number two, administration of the sacraments; and number three, church discipline. Church discipline. Well, if it's important, then what is there to be learned and understood here?
I'd like to make a case that there are some healthy things inside church discipline. Even the first example I gave you was really a self-discipline. It was those who were really setting targets and goals for themselves and then working hard to achieve them. But there is an aspect of communal discipline that is healthy. When people are on a mission together, when they have a shared goal, when they're on a team, a soccer team or any team really, even a business team that's working together, a sales team for example, you have shared goals, priorities, targets. This is true for a sports team as well. And for a team to function well, accountability is important: knowing what your place is, understanding what your role is, and understanding what the expectations are.
Now, the key is all the members of the team have to agree to be held accountable, and they have to know what the goals and the priorities are. And those that are walking alongside them in this also have to know their goals and priorities, and you work together to achieve the kind of success. Or discipleship, working hard towards getting better at something, you do this together. You do it inside authentic, equal relationship, where you're partners and where you have given someone the authority to hold you accountable. To share truth in love. To share wisdom, to share insight, to share knowledge, to disciple you to get better at your craft. That's healthy. And we see it, and it's in there inside this idea of church discipline.
Unfortunately, the church has in the past done a lot of harm with the way that it's lived out church discipline. Instead of coming from a place of relationship and equality, at times it's come from a place of position and power, and instead of trying to walk alongside others, it's done more to hurt. And we lament that. That's sad, and that's hard, and we don't want to see that happen, and we need to own it when it does and apologize for it in authentic ways. But we have to be careful not to throw everything out because of that. There are healthy aspects to accountability.
And so I'm urging you, the church, who are called to be disciples and to disciple each other, to make disciples of all nations, to embrace a healthier form of church discipline. Let's redefine what that looks like in our context. What if when we said church discipline, we thought about living a life that was structured and regimented in such a way that we put God first? What if church discipline looked like saying, "You know what? I struggle with being on my phone too much. I am going to put a system in place, a structure in place, that prevents me from being on there too much, because I'm seeing how my relationship with Jesus is suffering because of my phone."
Or what if you take a look at how you choose to unwind? You find that you're regularly stressed with a busy life, and you find that alcohol, like a glass of wine, is just the best way to calm down, and it's become so normal. And when you look at your life, you don't see yourself spending a lot of time with Jesus. You're not praying a lot. You're not really prioritizing that relationship. You could apply church discipline to your life and say, "I'm going to set some rules and boundaries for myself so that I grow in maturity, so that I give myself opportunity to be discipled in this way."
There are many different examples, and we all have them. This is the thing: when we're being discipled together, we all have areas of weakness. We all have things that we struggle with. We all need to continue to work hard as disciples to grow in relationship, to grow in the sanctifying process where God walks alongside of us, calling us to greater and greater understanding of who he is and who we are. And inside of that, we can also hold each other accountable.
Now, this has to come from healthy and authentic relationship. This has to come inside an invitation to be held accountable. This requires less pride, more humility from everyone, and it requires a very delicate balance of grace and truth, which is challenging for us to do. And it's no wonder that we've gotten this wrong in the past. But I believe that we can do better. We can achieve a greater church discipline for all of ourselves and all of our lives.
The text that I chose this morning, I spent the week figuring out what to do with it, where to put it. I had it at the beginning, then the middle, and now it's at the end. This is a letter to the Ephesians church. And while the word disciple is not found in this text, it's a really good text where Paul is just urging the church to live in the way that they're called to live, which is hard work and requires discipline. And so I'll read this for you now, Ephesians 4:1-16. Paul, as he sometimes does, goes on a little tangent in the middle here. I have a version here where I cut that out, so you'll just have to skip those few verses as I read. It's scripture, it's important, but it just doesn't tailor to what we're covering this morning.
"As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.
"So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and the teachers, to equip his people for the works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work." Amen.
This hard work that we're called to is work that we're only able to achieve, even in small measures, in and through the power of the Holy Spirit. Let me pray for you, for your life this week.
Lord God, every single one of us struggles. Lord God, every single one of us has weakness. Lord God, every single one of us has wisdom and insight. Lord Jesus, help us to work together as the body of Christ to embrace a healthy and holistic version and vision of church discipline. Lord God, as we reflect on what it means to be a member in good standing, Lord God, help us to realize that none of us are in good standing but by your gift of grace and telling us that we are righteous. That being a member in good standing is not just someone who is not under church discipline. Lord God, help us all to embrace living under church discipline inside a healthy definition of what that means and what that looks like.
Lord God, you've uniquely gifted and called each person in this room. They all have relationships and callings and vocations. They all have places of work and friends and school. And Lord God, you can use them in those places. You can form them and make them into a tool that becomes very valuable in promoting your gospel. Holy Spirit, go with us. Go in us and through us as we undertake this mission of hope in your goodness and in your name. Amen.