Luke 9: 23-26 “Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”
Jesus is the most loving man to ever walk the earth and yet when he speaks he is also the most hardline. In the Scripture above its amazing how Jesus lays out the standards of being a disciple. I would like to draw your attention to two words: “anyone” and “must”. When Jesus says “anyone” who is he referring to? Anyone means everyone! When he says “must” what does that mean? Its a condition. Whats the message? There are standards involved in being a disciple. What are the conditions? Everyone who wants to be called a disciple of Jesus must give up their life to follow Jesus and carry a cross which was an instrument of torcher and death.
What Jesus is doing here is making clear to his followers and prospective followers that there are no “levels” or “tiers” of membership but that everyone is called to the same standards. Jesus wasn’t interested in seeing his movement disappear in a few generations. In our modern parlance he wanted a movement of “black belts” who would make “black belts”.
Its critical that in your teaching you make an unequivocal call to the standards of discipleship. Every member must have a crystal clear view of the standards that Christ is calling them to and what the expectations are. “Again, if the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?” (1 Corinthians 14:8)
That being said, you don’t earn anything by being a fired up disciple. The message is that if you want to “come after” Jesus the only way to enter into his fellowship and the only acceptable respond to his grace is total commitment. For many people this seems like having to “do” something for your salvation however in his infinite wisdom Jesus makes that argument impossible to justify right from the outset. What Jesus says is that its not what you have to do but rather its what you have to stop doing. You have to stop being selfish with your time, money, energy and resources. You have to stop avoiding hardship and persecution because of your beliefs. Indeed, discipleship to Christ is the proper “regular” state of any human being!
A hardline disciple understands these principles and they have become second nature to him or her. However that’s not where it stops. If you’ve put the previous two articles in practice you’ve begun investing in your committed few and the miracles are starting to abound! Its now time to call everyone in your ministry to the standards of Christ.
If there are no “few” and there are no “miracles” then its very hard to apply this article and teaching. The reason is that when you approach those who are obviously not attaining the standards you must have an example to call them to and an accreditation as a leader of God. Its intuitive to think that if everyone in your ministry was living up to the standards that the ministry would do very well. That logic is true but its in the application that inexperienced ministers make their mistakes. One must lead a ministry to greatness. That means that we draw out a committed few, we show the miracles to the people, then when a clear path is lit we call everyone to walk down it.
Conversely if we start out by “investigating” lukewarmness or shortcomings it can quickly lead to a witch hunt mentality and create division and further inequity in the ministry. This negative witch hunt feeling can spoil the whole enterprise of lifting the ministry to the standards of Christ before it gets started. The new wine of Jesus teachings must be poured into a new wineskin otherwise both the wine and the wineskin will be lost.
What does this mean concretely? It means there will be a moment once the few are advancing powerfully and the miracles start to accredit the ministry where its time to change gears. It will be time to start to “wheel around” and pull in the stragglers and those who’ve not responded to the new direction in the ministry. Just like learning to drive standard it takes a certain amount of intuition on the part of the leader to get this right without stalling the whole engine. This calling to the standards, while firm and uncompromising, must be done with “great patience and careful instruction” (2 Tim 4:2) by calling for imitation (1 Thes 1:6) and with love and gentleness (1 Thes 2: 7-8, 2 Tim 2:24-26).
Like a father trying to teach a boy to play a sport it may be necessary to start with baby steps. Never assume, always start out by teaching and inspiring people to attain the standards. Then set goals for them and be ready to encourage them to get back on the horse if they falter.
In John 3: 22 “…Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized.” However by John 4: 1 “The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.” This shows us that Jesus first set the standard and taught the skills and then switched to supervising the work and discipling his followers. In the same way eager stragglers need to be nestled into nourishing discipling relationships where they can be taught. If you can’t disciple someone personally than perhaps one of your “few” can take them on.
Inevitably some people will give up and fall away however let it not be because we were not patient and loving enough. God “…cuts off every branch in (Jesus) that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” (John 15) Fall aways are inevitable, especially in fruitful ministries.
As you begin to call people to the standards the sad reality is that this will inevitably reveal false teachers in your midst. In 2 John 1:7-11 the bible says “Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.” If you think you won’t find Atheism in the church you will be in for a surprise. In Rome do as the Romans, in China do as the Chinese but in the Church people can sadly start to think they can do as they please. Anyone who hasn’t been called to the standards has been backsliding and there is no telling what they have fallen into.
In 2 Peter 2:1-3 the bible says “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies…” Its a tough reality but there will be false teachers among us as well. They bury themselves in the church like ticks and its only when you begin calling everyone to the standards that they start to agitate against you. According to this Scripture they have already secretly begun to introduce teachings contrary to the standards of Christ.
Calling people to the standards of Christ isn’t an issue of simply informing the ignorant, its also about dealing decisively and effectively with those who actively oppose the standards of Christ.
Just from reading the epistles of Paul one might think that a large portion of the work of a leader is to silence false teaching. This goes against the democratic flavour of this age however when one reads Titus 1: 10-16 Paul leaves little room for debate on the matter: “For there are many rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision group. They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach…” False teaching destroys whole bible talks, house holds and even churches of disciples. That makes a fear of conflict and people pleasing a fatal flaw in a leader.
Sometimes the initial motivation to be a church leader might be to be liked by many people. However this must mature into a love for many people whether they like you or not. You’ve got to be prepared to comb through your group in search of a lack of commitment and be ready to deal with opposition if you are going to be able to keep your group happy and growing. As Paul writes in 1 Tim 1: 3-7 “As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God’s work—which is by faith. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” Opposing false teaching, discord and false standards is not a matter of harshness but of “love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith”
Is it time to blow the trumpet in your ministry? Do you have your few? Are you accredited by miracles? Are you armed and ready for what you might find as you set out to call your ministry to the standards? If so, then with prayerful humility and powerful resolve set out on your mission of love! Lets build ministries that bring glory to our God!