Responding to the Promises of Jesus (Week 2)

 

The Promise of Discipleship!

(Mark 1:17)

Written and delivered by Pastor Jerry Ingalls to the First Baptist Church of New Castle, Indiana.

 

Jesus’ call to follow Him is simple and straightforward. It is not a job description or a heavy burden, it is an invitation to a relationship with God through Jesus’ relationship with His Father, sealed through the indwelling presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Eternal Life, salvation, is our participation in the trinitarian fellowship of God!  

 

Jesus invited His first followers in Mark 1:17, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” This was Jesus’ invitation to come to Him and learn how to be in relationship.

 

I believe the promise of following Jesus is the primary place that churches, as organizations and as people, need to return to a biblical understanding of what it means to respond to the promises of Jesus. Jesus doesn’t say, “follow Me and get to work.” Jesus says, “follow Me and I will transform your story through relationship!”

 

There are key conceptual metaphors (images), Jesus uses to illustrate this point. One of those images is the John 15 teaching of the vine and branch. Listen to John 15:1-5,

 

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

 

The branch doesn’t think about getting to work at producing fruit, it remains united with the Vine. The branch only gets stronger and healthier because of union with the Vine. If the branch tries to get busy producing fruit on its own, then the branch bends and threatens to snap under the heavy burden of carrying that which it was not ready for. Fruit comes in its own time! The branch is pruned through the Father’s love—fruit only comes from the trinitarian work of God!

 

Churches all over America are bending and threatening to snap under the pressure. Many pastors and missionaries, elders and church leaders, and quality volunteers already have snapped under the unrelenting pressure to lead an organization in the global mission of Jesus Christ. Primarily because the mission can only be accomplished by a people who are in union with Christ. No amount of organizational genius or leadership charisma can make up for the essential ingredient the church needs to be successful to its mission: transformed people who are first faithful to following Jesus Christ and bearing fruit through the pruning of the Father and indwelling presence and power of the Holy Spirit!

 

For the decades I have been involved with the church, it has felt like we had a job description and we have worked hard to get busy “being on mission.” Even doing it, regardless of our connection to the Vine, the health of our own souls, the vitality of our own relationship with Jesus. We prodded one another to bear fruit instead of encouraging one another to abide in the Vine. In the name of Mission, many a church has become a dried out branch. It’s producing something, but is it producing anything that will stand the test of fire? Only God knows!

 

One of our church leaders shared this with me, “A tree in the vacant lot next door was still producing leaves on all its major branches, but a large storm came along and toppled the tree to within a few feet of our house. The inside was actually nearly hollow. But you never would have known by looking at the outside. This can often be said of the church. External health does not always reflect internal (heart) health.”

 

I have personally seen the damage a burned out missionary does in the foreign mission field and I have personally been the burnt out pastor in the American church. Today, I am here to tell you that there is a better way—the new way of the Spirit. This new way was ushered in with Jesus Christ nearly 2,000 years ago.

 

Hear the connection to Jesus’ fruit imagery, as Paul teaches us the new way in Romans 7:4-6,

 

Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

 

Larry Crabb explains of the old way of the letter as opposed to the new way of the Spirit,

 

Perhaps, like me, you’ve been working hard to figure life out, to get it right so things go well. The Bible calls that approach the old way of the written code. No matter how dressed up in Christian language, the old way will not form you spiritually. It leads to inward emptiness, churning, unbearable pressure.[1]

 

Crabb is describing the life of freedom through Jesus Christ’s invitation into the new way of the Spirit, the life of grace in His easy yoke. Paul elaborates in Romans 8:15-17, the new way of the Spirit is animated by the Trinitarian fellowship of God,

 

For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.

 

The work of the Holy Spirit is not only to draw us into a relationship with God, but to then transform us into the Image of Christ. The most important thing I can ask you to do is to submit yourself to the work of the Trinitarian God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—so that you will reflect the Image of the One who saved you.

 

God desires for you to reflect Him through your love, care, and stewardship of His Creation.

 

The church are those who are called to be in relationship with Jesus; to abide in the Vine or as another conceptual metaphor (image) of this relationship says, to rest in His easy yoke.

 

Jesus is the One who builds His Church and Jesus is the One who produces fruit on our branches because His Father sends the Holy Spirit flowing through the Vine into us.  

 

It is the Holy Spirit who fulfills the promise of Jesus, “I will make you become,” in the Mark 1:17 call of discipleship: “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” Jesus coupled his invitations to discipleship with a promise, and that promise with the new way of the Spirit, as Paul explained in Romans.

 

The promise is fulfilled in a disciple as the follower submits the entirety of his/her life to the yoke of Jesus and learns from Him. The same original Koine Greek Word for “Follow Me” is used in Jesus’ invitation of Mark 1:17 is also used  for “Come to Me” in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

 

The call to Christian discipleship is a call to follow Jesus, to come to Him and in Him to be transformed. Paul says in Romans 8:29, “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.”

 

God’s will for your life is to be transformed to the point that you look like Jesus, from the inside out, to be “conformed to the image of His Son.” God’s will for your life is that you will be His representative, His ambassador on the earth; His faithful steward of all that He entrusts to you.[2]

 

All of that is grounded in the concept of you being made by God as an Image Bearer from Genesis 1:27. In following Jesus, you are on the journey of being restored back to your original intent—as a redeemed and restored Image Bearer—to becoming the best version of who God designed you to be!  

 

This happens in the yoke! This happens abiding in the Vine! This happens when you follow Jesus! It is the work of the Holy Spirit to conform us into the image of Christ so that we can carry on His work—to become fishers of people—to reflect God’s love and grace to all. As another leader shared, “We are fishing for people to rescue them from darkness and captivity, and to reconcile and restore them back into the family.”

 

This journey is what happens when you follow Jesus. Paul explained in Romans 12:1-2:

 

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. 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.

 

The Koine Greek word translated “transformed” is metamorphoō. This is where we get the English word metamorphosis. Ruth Haley Barton describes this process of metamorphosis as “the process by which a caterpillar enters into the darkness of the cocoon in order to emerge, eventually, changed almost beyond recognition.”[3] This is the work of forming us in the image of Christ through the Word and Spirit, through His Truth and grace.

 

Jesus made it very clear that this was an impossibility apart from God, as He said in John 14:26, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” Jesus’ call to Christian discipleship is an invitation into union with Himself, sealed by the Holy Spirit (ref. to Ephesians 1:13-14). The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is what fulfills the promises of Christian discipleship in our lives. This is the work of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!

 

The call upon every disciple is to follow Jesus, to come to Him, and it is the promise of Jesus Christ to experience rest for their soul, the life of faith, walking in the Spirit, the abundant life, all with a new life purpose. In all of these promises, the fulfillment is found in and through a mature Christian life. In Ephesians 4:13, Paul defined this maturity with one standard for all believers: “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”

 

We are called to become like Jesus, to be in union with Christ, each day of our lives, until the day God perfects us in His presence (Philippians 1:6; 2:13). This process of transformation, promised by Jesus and explained by Paul, happens in the yoke as the disciples learn from Jesus how to be like Him. It only happens when we abide in the Vine. In other words, it only happens when we wholeheartedly commit ourselves to a relationship with Jesus.

 

While the results of the transformation are the work of God alone, there are practical lifestyle choices that a disciple must make to imitate Jesus Christ and, then, become like Him.

 

Because it is in the yoke of Jesus Christ that one becomes mature—submissive to the Father’s calling and empowered not by the flesh, but by the Holy Spirit. Paul used the word τέλειος, translated “complete”, to describe the aim of all church ministry in Colossians 1:28-29,

 

We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ [italics added]. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.

 

Again referencing Ephesians 4:11-13, the reason God gives the church spiritual leaders is to bring about mature (same Koine Greek word τέλειος) followers of Jesus:

 

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ [italics added].

 

Though no person will perfectly reflect Jesus Christ to the world, in this life, God invites us to remain/abide in our relationship with Him until the end; not getting busy on a job description, but in living an intimate life of union with Jesus. This is our response to the promise of Jesus for Christian discipleship: to focus on our relationship with God, not get busy for God.

 

Every disciple who continues to follow Jesus Christ can be confident of this completed work as Paul promises, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).

 

This is the life of faith, hope, and love that proclaims the gospel—your transformed story will bring thriving to our communities to the glory of God. This is revival! It’s a promise!

 

How will you respond?
 

Listen to the Message:

 

Or you can watch the message HERE.

 
 
 

FOOTNOTES:

 

[1] Larry Crabb, The Pressure’s Off: Breaking Free from Rules and Performance (Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2012), 1.

[2] One of our church leaders commented, “I have always been struck by the language used in Ephesians 6:19-20. Paul, who of course was in prison when he wrote this Epistle, says he is ‘an ambassador in chains’ for the Gospel. It’s a very striking visual for me, (especially having touched the post Paul was tied to in the Bema in Corinth) because while we have freedom in Christ, there are also many things that chain us, some out of our control and some of our own making. Politics, family dynamics, workplace protocols, financial limitations all can make our work as ambassadors feel ‘heavy.’ Yet another burden Christ invites us to let go of in the yoke.”

[3] Ruth Haley Barton, Sacred Rhythms, 12. One of our church leaders added, “A caterpillar does not ‘strain’ or ‘work hard’ to become a butterfly. It is transformed by a process working inside it. it will naturally become a butterfly if it continues to do what caterpillars are designed to do.”

 
 

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