Today we begin a short series entitled Jesus and His Disciples. There will be three talks and hopefully through them we will remind ourselves of what we are about as a church. From time to time it is good to state our vision and purpose as a church for in any walk of life we can get into bad habits and ways of going that drift away from the essence of what we are about. So hopefully this series will bring us back to the centre and the purpose of what we as christians are to be and do individually and as a church.

As I reflected on this passage a couple of questions came to my mind as I thought about Jesus and his disciples. The passage in Mark 1:14f tells us that right up front Jesus gave the disciples an idea of what he wanted them to do for him. He gave them the goal which was to become “fishers of men”. So he states this right up front at the beginning of a three year ministry and training time with these men. We see that Jesus was true to his word for if you turn back to Matthew 28:19 at the end of his three year ministry and the last verses there we see what is called the Great Commission. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them…and teaching them everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age.”

My question to myself was this. Is this statement in Mark 1 about being fishers of men and the commission in Matthew 28 just for the original twelve disciples or is it for all believers? In other words does the great commission apply to today, to us here and now? Now I think the answer to that is yes. There are clues in the passage in Matthew itself – the command is to make disciples in “all nations”. I assume Jesus did not expect this bunch of men to reach all the nations of the world in their lifetimes. Secondly he tasks them with teaching people “all that he had commanded” and a major part of what he commanded was about evangelism and reaching people – about making disciples. And the third clue in the Matthew passage is that he says his presence will be with them to “the end of the age”, or in other words to the end of time or the end of the world. So as the world still goes on that means the commission and the promise still stand today and apply today.

Now a second question I asked myself was if the commission still stands, if the goals of disciples are to make other disciples does that apply to all believers today or does it apply just to an elite corp of believers, a kind of SAS group of really keen believers who are trained and equipped for the task? Well as I read through the rest of the New Testament I do not find this kind of distinction anywhere. I see no difference being made between believers, they are all called followers of Jesus, or followers of the Way, or disciples. This is the most common terms for Christians, disciples. The original disciples did have some differences of course, they saw the risen Jesus, they were leaders of the early church and were pioneers and some were involved in writing parts of what came to be the New Testament, but aside from these things no difference is made. All disciples are to make disciples who make disciples and this applies to all of us.

So as we go through this series together called Jesus and His Disciples I want you to make a careful mental note – the disciples we are talking about here are us, we are applying this to believers today. So let us hear Jesus talking to us, let’s not mark this off and say well that was for the original twelve and does not apply to me. Sure there will be some distinctives for the Twelve – Jesus may not call us to leave our current work, as he did for these men, but he will call us to be disciples in our work. He will not call us as he did Peter to write letters to the persecuted church which become scripture, but he may call us to write encouraging emails or letters to a friend going through a difficult time.

There are principles here that we should not miss. There are aspects of being a disciple that transcend time and it is these I want to concentrate on. There is a strategy Jesus employs here with these men which we can also use today to make disciples. Jesus knew what he was doing. He only had three years with these men and at the end of time he would leave them to carry on the mission of changing the world. We can learn something from Jesus here that we need to be applying in our churches if we are to be more effective in reaching our world.

The Call is radical

So we begin by looking at Jesus calling these disciples to follow him. It was a radical call to follow a person. Leon Morris says “The Master is not giving a command that will secure nominal adherence to a group, but one that will secure wholehearted commitment to a person.” So when a person comes to that point in their life where they profess faith in Jesus Christ and become a full member of a local church as far as I am concerned it is not a nominal ticking of a box just saying I will be part of this church, it is a statement of conviction – I want to follow Jesus for the rest of my life and I am committing to this local body of believers. I will work with them to make more disciples.

There is a radical side to being a follower of Jesus which we can miss very easily. When Jesus calls and we answer that call our whole lives start to revolve around a new centre, around Jesus and what he requires. These first disciples would find that their world would be totally changed. Jesus says to them “Come follow me” and they drop their nets, which represents their livelihood and they follow immediately. Kent Hughes says “In these few lines we have one of the most famous acts of obedience in history. Christ came with a radical message and then a radical call, and these four responded in radical obedience”. But there is still something radical about the call of Jesus today. Come follow me says Jesus, come centre your lives around me and dear knows where you could end up. Have we lost something of that radicalness and that cost today and that excitement.

When we hear the call and accept it we have got to realise that we could end up anywhere in this world, our horizons will expand. These young fishermen would find that their world would expand. Up to this point their world was Galilee, full stop. But in the future John would become Bishop of Ephesus, Peter would end up as a church leader in Rome, Andrew would end up near Russia. They would become theologians, thinkers, evangelists, writers, strategists – their world would expand. Jesus calls and he equips but it is a radical call, it can totally change your life circumstances.

There are people today who accepted the call of Christ not knowing what it would mean and the direction of their lives totally changed. It may not mean that of course. It may mean working away in the same job in the same town, but who knows where the call of Christ could lead.  But even if you are still in the same job in the same town and in the same family circumstances when Jesus calls it will have a massive impact on that as well, or it should, but more of that another time. The call is radical.

The Call is individual. Jesus knew these men, he knew their hearts. He had a kind of supernatural knowledge about them. I have no doubt these men had heard about Jesus and had heard him. The Galilean community was small, everyone knew everyone else. This is a culture where people did not have second names, we have James and John, we have Peter and Andrew. If you wanted to identify someone it was by who their father was. James and John the sons of Zebedee. We are talking small town, small life, people knowing people. And when Jesus comes into this people do not miss him. But he does not miss people either. He is observing, he is watching, he is on the look out for disciples and he chooses the ordinary, he chooses the common, he chooses men and women. Here he chose men who had a big heart. They were far from perfect, they were uneducated but he saw something in them that he could use to change the world in the power of the Spirit.

And Jesus is looking today. He is looking out for people to be part of his kingdom. You may be surprised that Jesus has called you, why did God choose me you may be asking. What’s different about me? You are not especially clever, or gifted or influential. But he has seen something there. He has seen a willing heart and sometimes that is all he needs.

Jesus chooses ordinary people. One of the great things about the church is that it has such a wide range of people in it, old and young, smart and not so smart, strong and weak, male and female. God is calling people to himself from all kinds of backgrounds and maybe we need more faith to take the gospel to those who are different from us and we might be surprised at how it is received. The important thing is that we respond to the call and we are willing as those first fishermen were willing. Note in Acts 4:13 where two of the disciples are called to give an account before the religious leaders of the day it says -“When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realised that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus”.

We are ordinary people and they were ordinary people but Jesus can make such a difference to our lives. He calls us as individuals, with our unique personalities and the experiences of life that we have gone through. In the power of his Spirit he will wants to make you into a disciple who makes other disciples.

The Call is to make disciples

I want us as a church to think disciple and discipling. At a pre-communion service when we have people standing at the front of the church professing that Jesus is now saviour and Lord of their lives we are seeing the formation of disciples first and foremost. It is just the start of the journey. In our church we talk about people going through the process of 4 M’s. We become a Member of the church and a member of God’s kingdom. We then begin a process of Maturity, where we grow as disciples, we grow through bible study, prayer, the spiritual disciplines. Then we come to the third M which is Ministry. We are here to serve each other. Each person, the Bible tells us, has a spiritual gift and that gift is not there to bless you, it is there to bless someone else. A disciple is a minister. And then fourthly we have Mission. In all of our lives there is a missional aspect – an outward looking aspect, a reaching aspect. Going back to Mark ch.1 and Matthew ch.28 whether you are a preacher or a plumber, a lawyer or a farmer, a teacher or a pastor, a shop assistant or a home maker, we are all called to be witnesses to others. Sometimes that witness will be a helping hand, sometimes providing a meal, sometimes taking someone to hospital, sometimes doing a job with honesty and integrity, sometimes giving a tract or a Christian book to someone. But our lives have a missional point to them. We are fishers of men and women. We are here on a mission, that is what the church is. We are not a cruise liner, we are a lifeboat.

Here are some questions I want you to reflect on. If you are a believer, you are a disciple, so here are some questions you need to answer for yourself. As a full Member of this local body ask am I growing as a disciple, am I Maturing? Am I regular in attendance at church; am I regular in my private devotions with the Lord. Am I growing in understanding of God’s word. Am I praying more or less? A disciple is maturing  -are you more mature in your Christian faith now than say five years ago.

Another good question to ask is what area of ministry am I involved in?  A believer is a disciple, is a servant, is a minister. Each year we run a course on how to find what your gift might be. That would be a good course for you to come to.

Are we on mission? Am I thinking missionally about reaching people in my work place, in my family. Are we praying for people to come to faith? Are we thinking of books, or articles we can give to people to get them thinking. Are we caring that people are going to hell around us. This is the way a disciple thinks you see.

A believer is a disciple who wants to make more disciples. You see if we are not thinking like this then we need to ask some hard questions. If I am not thinking like a disciple maybe it is because I am not a disciple, and if I am not a disciple, then I am maybe not a follower of Jesus, and if I am not a follower of Jesus then maybe I am not a believer at all. Maybe I am fooling myself and when I appear before Jesus he will say I never knew you, I never called you, depart from me. How many have grown up within a nominal Christian environment thinking they are Christians when in fact they are not for there is no fruit of a changed life, there is no discipleship, there is no maturing and ministry and mission. These are some of the marks of a believer. Jesus said you will know my disciples by their fruitfulness, not by the mere fact that their name is on a church roll or they sit in a pew.

A disciple is someone whom Jesus has called and they have responded. Robert Coleman wrote a super little book back in 1963 about the strategy Jesus used to make disciples. We will refer to this from time to time in this series. Within the first part of that book which really corresponds to becoming a member of the church, he talks about selection, association and consecration.

Selection: Jesus called or selected a few to follow him. He takes the initiative - he calls us and we have to respond. He selected ordinary men and women and he does that today. Association – as his ministry went on although he preached to the crowds he spent most time with a few. The closer he gets to Calvary the more he invests his life in the Twelve. He knew his time was short. Note his strategy – it was not to preach to bigger and bigger number but to teach and train a small number with a view to releasing them and multiplying the ministry.

If disciples are to make disciples then they need to be taught and trained. In our church life we seek to do that, we provide training courses for small groups of people at each stage of discipleship. A Foundation Course, then Improving Your Serve, then course on how to read and study the bible and how to pray. Currently Gareth is training a few in a course called Dsicipleship Essentials and then they will lead that with other s and so the work multiplies. It starts small, but it builds and builds. Jesus concentrated on a few and spent time with them, time that they were willing to give. How much time are you willing to give to be discipled?

And finally Coleman talks about consecration. There is a cost, a commitment to be a follower of Jesus. There is a cross at the heart of the Christian life. When you sign up a as a full member in this church there should be a cross at the centre, there is a sacrifice, there is the putting of others needs before your own, there is a commitment to the church. You are not joining a club, you join the church of Jesus Christ which was bought with blood. We are a family, a bride, a body, an army. But we are on mission – we are the hope for this world and Jesus says to us today “go and make disciples, and lo I am with you always even to the end of the age”.

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