Discipleship Part 1

Romans 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! 34 For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR? 35 Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN? 36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things To Him be the glory forever. Amen. 12:1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

What is a disciple? A disciple is simply a follower of Jesus. That's what Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and the rest of the gang were called. They followed Jesus around for three years during his earthly ministry. But so did other people, tens of thousands of people at times. So what separates the Apostles from the other "disciples"? Well we could say that many of the people who came to Jesus were experiential followers, they just want to see miracles and displays of His power. Other were hungry and just wanted to be fed. Some people probably just wanted to see what all the hype was about. But these people went away when Jesus refused to produce signs for them. They went away when He did not feed them and did not take back Israel by force. Others, once they saw what the hype was about, were satisfied and went on their way. And another group, we're told in John 6, departed when Jesus sayings became too difficult. Which leads us to my point. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is being a student of the Christian faith.

The Apostles followed Jesus around listening to and learning from His teachings. They saw Jesus practice what He preached. They tried to grasp His explanation of the Old Testament law and the coming judgement. Then they were expected to implement these teachings into their lives and to teach other to do the same. We commonly read the great commission in Matthew 28 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." and we often hear only the first part, go and make disciples, and often neglect the ending, teaching them, and many people don't grasp what Jesus is commanding us to do because we don't have a firm understanding of what it is to be a disciple of Jesus.

So a disciple is one who is not to be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Before we look at what it is to be transformed by the renewing of our mind let us first establish what conforming to the world is. We could spend a lot of time talking about fads and trends but basically one who conforms to the world is one who does not continue in their growth as a Christian. This is seen by flipping Romans 12:2 around and making it say the opposite of what it is saying. For example instead of saying do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, read it be conformed to this world by not being transformed by the renewing of your mind. This is the antithesis of what it is to be a Christian. We're called to be the salt and the light of the world. We're called not to love the world or look like the world, but to bear fruit and to stand out. We have already been set apart (sanctified) for this work.