The Marks of a Disciple: A Heart for Christ Alone

January 6, 2013

Luke 14:25-35
Rev. Jim Capps

Today, as I begin a new sermon series on the “Marks of a Disciple,” we are privileged to have the help and participation of the youth in a really creative way. Give them your attention as they share artistically what it means to have “A Heart for Christ Alone.”

Song- “In Christ Alone” and Artwork depicting those areas of our lives which keep us from having “A Heart for Christ Alone.”

Did you notice that the things which keep us from having “A Heart for Christ Alone” are not bad, but can easily keep us from total allegiance in being Christ’s disciples? In fact, many of those things which keep us from being all that God wants for us are actual gifts from God. It’s a very subtle thing.

The 6 Marks of a Disciple are a part of the very DNA of ZPC. They are so important to us that we have them pictured in our Gathering Space. We talk about them in every Inquirer’s/New Member’s Class. They are listed in our bulletin each week. They are a crucial part our founding pastor, Glenn McDonald’s book, The Disciple-Making Church, which not only recounts some of our past but is a paradigm for us in the present and a blueprint for our future.

By God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, it is my pray that this is a hard-hitting, intensely practical series. We will be talking about the biblical expectations for faithfully following Jesus.

For some of you, this will be a review and a good time to re-evaluate your relationship and commitment to Jesus Christ. For others, it will be a first time look in detail about what is expected of us as disciples.

As we consider these 6 Marks of a Disciple, while the last 5 could be taken in different order, the 1^st one, “A Heart for Christ Alone,” must be considered first. It is the foundation on which the other 5 are based.

While there are several places in the Bible we could turn to flesh out this first Mark, we are going to use Jesus’ passionate words in Luke 14:25-35 as the basis for our thinking today. This passage comes directly after Jesus’ familiar parable of the Great Banquet, when several people are invited to partake in the banquet or kingdom Jesus has come to usher in, but many are pre-occupied with others things and reject the invitation.

Just to give a few more words of introduction, this takes place as Jesus is traveling to Jerusalem for the Passover where He will die on a cruel cross. He has become so popular that He is the main topic of conversation for those pilgrims who are making their way to the Holy City. Many have seen and heard him in action and believe that this could be the moment when He will overthrow the Romans and set up what they believe will be a new political order. There’s great curiosity and deep anticipation.

With all this as a context, Jesus directs the words which we are about to read to His disciples, some of whom are conjecturing who is going to be given positions of power and prestige in the new order He comes to bring.

Read: Luke 14:25-35

It seems to me that Jesus make 3 main points about what it means to have “A Heart for Christ Alone.”

FIRST, THE DISICPLE’S RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS MUST BE THE HIGHEST PRIORITY IN THAT PERSON’S LIFE.

Jesus passionately makes that point by speaking the first and what should be the most committed relationship in a person’s lie- one’s family. It is within the context of the family that one is cared for, nurtured, and taught the most formative lessons of life. The family unit is meant by God to be the primary unit of one’s life. If our priorities are in place, the family should be second only to God.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you were troubled by Jesus saying that we must “hate” our families or we cannot be His disciples. Along the same line, with our families, He includes hating our own lives. You might ask, “How could he be asking for such a thing if our families are gifts from God and didn’t Jesus say that we should love our neighbors as we ‘love ourselves?’”

The late Bruce Larson, much loved pastor and a friend, deals with this very question when he says that the word for “hate” in Aramaic means “to love a great deal less.” He shines further light by saying, “I think Jesus means that if God and His kingdom are of all-consuming importance, then all other loves are far less by comparison.”

If God is really God, He must be worshipped above all others. If Jesus is Lord, then we must have “a heart for Christ alone.” Jesus is stating emphatically that nothing can come close to competing for the supreme loyalty or allegiance of our lives. Everything else is in its proper place when, as the youth have pictured it, everything falls under the Lordship of Christ.

In fact, if the truth be known when we put someone or something before God, we put that person or thing in an untenable position and we are doing them a great disservice. Only God can deliver in the place of supreme authority in our lives.

C. S. Lewis understood that truth and wrote these words in a 1952:

“When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. Insofar as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.”

A Texas pastor, Jim Denison talks about serving as a summer missionary in East Malaysia. While there he attended a small church. At one of the church’s worship services, a teenage girl came forward to announce her decision to follow Jesus and be baptized.

During the service Denison noticed some worn-out luggage leaning against the wall of the church building. He asked the pastor about it. The pastor pointed to the girl who had just been baptized and told Denison, “Her father said that if she was baptized as a Christian, she could never come home again. So she brought her luggage.”

In a startling manner, Jesus goes on to say in verse 27, “And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Again, remember, Jesus is speaking to disciples who are expecting some kind of wonderful triumph and not to be crucified. In essence, He is saying you must be willing to die for me, just as I will soon die for you. To follow in the steps of the teacher or mentor means willing to do what they do.

I really like these words of Darrell Bock, author and seminary professor:

“Discipleship is not possible if Jesus is not the teacher. This is why bearing the cross and coming after Jesus is the issue of discipleship. Learning from Jesus means following him, experiencing the rejection he experienced and so bear the cross he bore. We cannot “learn Jesus” without being prepared to walk this path. Discipleship is basically allegiance.”

Just between you and God, who knows you better than you know yourself, is your relationship with Jesus the highest priority of your life?

THE SECOND MAIN POINT JESUS MAKES IS THAT A DISCIPLE MUST COUNT THE COST.

In order to make this point Jesus uses two very helpful metaphors. The first has to do with building what was probably a watch tower in a vineyard used to make certain the grapes weren’t stolen at the time of harvest.

Jesus says that if one is going to build such a tower, he must sit down and calculate the total cost of the building before he starts the project. Let’s say he doesn’t cost out the project in advance, lays the foundation and then can’t complete the tower for a lack of funds. He will be ridiculed by all who see it.

I’ll never forget being in Leipzig in what used to be East Germany. From quite a distance outside of the city, I could see a building, 20-30 stories high. I marveled at it and wondered what took place there. Later when we were doing a tour of the city, I asked our guide about the building and she began to make fun of it. That building stood as a monument to the communist regime. It was started with the outer part finished, but was never occupied. They didn’t have the finances to finish it. It was the laughingstock of everyone who saw it. It was exactly like Jesus’s first metaphor for counting the cost.

The second metaphor has to do with a king who is about to go to war with another king. He must stop and take an inventory of his forces or suffer overwhelming defeat. If he has 10,000 soldiers and his scouts tell him that the opposing king is coming with 20,000 soldiers, he must do all he can to in act a peace treaty or else face great loss.

In the case of following Him, Jesus is telling His disciples that they will face opposition and it’s not going to be easy. In just a few days, they would scatter in fear when a group of armed soldiers, probably outnumbering them 20 to 1, would be led by Judas to arrest Jesus in Gethsemane. They must be willing to count the cost. It wasn’t going to be easy.

Chuck Swindoll picks up on this idea when he writes:

“A number of religious groups have climbed on the yuppie bandwagon. They tell us, ‘If you want anything bad enough, just claim it and God will give it to you. He’s a good God, and He’s certainly a prosperous God.’ …

Sounds so appealing, so right. But when we examine it closely we find that it is light-years removed from everything Jesus taught and modeled. The kingdom He represented and urged His followers to embrace was a kingdom altogether different from the ‘me-ism’ world of today.”

Consider the reality of the situation in Romania under Communism. John Oros tells of a gathering where there was preaching and people came to the front after the service and said, “We have decided to become Christians.”

They were told by the Christian leaders, “It is good that you want to become Christians, but we would like to tell you that there is a price to be paid. Why don’t you reconsider what you what you want to do, because many things can happen to you. You can lose, and you can lose big.”

Most of those people chose to take a three month class to prepare them for baptism. They were warned, “It is really nice that you want to become a Christian, but when you give your testimony there will be informers who will jot down your name. Tomorrow the problems start. Count the cost. Christianity is not easy. It’s not cheap. You can be demoted. You can lose your job. You can lose your friends. You can lose your neighbors. You can lose your kids who are climbing the social ladder. You can even lose your life.”

Oros writes, “Let me tell you my joy when we looked into their eyes, and their eyes were in tears, and they told us, ‘If we lose everything but our personal relationship with my Lord Jesus Christ, it is worth it.’”

Have you counted the cost of having a heart for Christ alone?

JESUS’ FINAL POINT IS THAT A DISCIPLE MUST BE SALT IN THE WORLD OR BECOME WORSE THAN WORTHLESS.

In Jesus’ day, salt was used in several ways. Without refrigeration as we know it today, salt was used as a preservative for many of their foods. It was a flavoring much like we use it today. Salt was used on the land as a kind of fertilizer to make things grow better. Finally, salt was used medicinally as an agent of healing.

In each of these usages, salt would lose its own identity, as it were, as it was being used up. The purpose was to get outside of itself and accomplish the purpose for which it was intended in the setting in which it was placed.

Jesus is making a powerful statement to his disciples who have visions of grandeur and aggrandizement swimming in their minds as they contemplate Jesus setting up His Kingdom. In speaking of them as salt, He is saying that just the opposite will be true if they accomplish their God-given purpose.

If Christ is the highest priority of their lives, if they have counted the costs, and are willing to take up their cross and follow Jesus, they will be completely used up. The outcome will be that they will be like preservatives, arresting the decay that is so much a part of their world. They will bring a positive flavor to lives often bland and meaningless. They will be a catalyst for growth as people come to know their savior and Lord. Like Jesus, they will be agents of healing and wholeness to people who are battered and wounded by life.

In losing their lives for Christ in the Kingdom, they find far greater joy than anything they could possibly imagine. What they would experience was far more meaningful then being a high-ranking official in a new political kingdom.

The British journalist and writer, Malcolm Muggeridge vividly reflects their experience when He writes: “I can say that I never knew what joy was like until I gave up pursuing happiness, or cared to live until I chose to die. For these two discoveries I am beholden to Jesus.”

Jesus makes it very clear in this illustration of salt, that if salt has lost its saltiness or purpose, it is worse than worthless and it is thrown out. I have a feeling His disciples understood what He meant immediately. If they aren’t willing to accomplish the purpose for which they were called, they would do more harm than good. They would be worse than useless.

Haven’t we seen this be true, when disciples aren’t accomplishing what Christ has called and shown them how to do, they do more damage to the Kingdom than they do good. In fact, many have decided not to follow Jesus because of disciples who weren’t like salt.

The story is told of a young Mahatma Ghandi who really was drawn to the Jesus he read about in the Gospels. When with great expectation he attended a church, he was told that he wasn’t allowed to sit where he wanted to. His “kind” had to sit in their prescribed place. He never returned and said, “I will never become a Christian until Christians act like Christians.”

When we aren’t like salt, we are worse than useless, doing more harm than good.

APPLICATION

Picture with me Jesus standing here, before us, speaking to us about this first mark of a disciple, a heart for Christ alone. What would He say to us?

Just as He spoke passionately to His followers that day, I believe He would make these points with us:

Jesus would first say that having a heart for Christ alone starts with receiving the gift of God by making Jesus our Savior. That happens as we confess our sins, repent, and invite Christ to be in our lives. If you have never done this, it starts with a simple prayer which can take place at any time. For me, it was in a church service where I sat. This is where the journey of discipleship begins for each one of us.
· Next, Jesus would say that we must worship Him with all of our hearts, minds, souls, and strengths. Falling down in humble allegiance before the Risen and Reigning Lord not only on Sundays, but throughout the week is crucial. Without intentionally worship, other people and slip into that place of highest priority.
In addition, I believe Jesus would say that we must be students of the Bible, which is our handbook for being a disciple. We must know and apply the Bible in our everyday lives.
Jesus would go on to say that we need other people to walk with us. From the very beginning, the disciples were to be at least in pairs. We need others, whether in a one to one or in a small group relationship who will hold us accountable as well as inspire and encourage us. If you are not in a mentoring relationship or a small group, this is a must! You can’t do it alone.
I believe Jesus also would that we must increasingly entrust our whole lives to Jesus. That means those dearest to us, our time, our finances, our jobs, our futures, and it goes on and on.
Last, I believe, Jesus would want us to step out of our comfort zones and look for ways to become salt in the world where we live. That means emptying ourselves and our identities to serve and care for others in our world.

A heart for Christ alone is a minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day pursuit of the One who first loved us.

Today, we are privileged to experience the baptism of Chandler Orbaugh, one of our senior high youth, who wanted to demonstrate his desire to have a heart for Christ alone.