(Based on Micah 6:6-8, I John 3:16-18, Luke 4:16-21, & Luke 7:18-23)
It seems appropriate that on a Sunday when you prepare to baptize three people and welcome another half dozen new members into this church, that we spend some time asking each other one fundamental question: What does Jesus want from us? What DOES Jesus want from us?
Millions and millions of Christians and churchgoers in America have answered the question of what Jesus wants from us in the following way. Very simply, what Jesus wants from us to accept that he is Son of God and BELIEVE in our hearts that he is who he said he is and that he did all that the Bible said he did. For the vast, vast majority of Christians, the question of what Jesus wants from us all boils down to one word: BELIEVE.
In fact it’s probably been at least 500 years that the Christian Church has been giving this answer to the question of what Jesus wants from us. But I think that it is the WRONG answer, and I argue my point in the second chapter of my latest book, The Way of Jesus. I have become convinced that it really isn’t belief at all that Jesus cares about. In fact, I think that what we believe may be the least important thing from Jesus’ standpoint. I think that Jesus has had enough of our beliefs and all our bickering about them. I’m here to tell you that Jesus is dying to get us to move BEYOND BELIEF!
From the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus was after one thing – and it wasn’t believers; it was DISCIPLES. Do you know that the difference is between a believer and a disciple? A disciple of a 1st century rabbi wanted to BE LIKE his rabbi. Christian scholar Dallas Willard defines discipleship this way: “A disciple is an apprentice; someone who has decided to be with another person…in order to become capable of doing what that person does or to become what that person is. A disciple choose to be with a particular rabbi in order to learn from him how to become like him.”[1]
What I argue in my book and what Dallas Willard argues in his is that somehow, somewhere along the line, followers of Christ have gotten really confused. We’ve wandered away from the central task of living as disciples of Jesus, and become satisfied instead with simply believing in Jesus. We now find ourselves living in a time when, “it is almost universally accepted that one can be a Christian withOUT being a disciple.” Willard goes onto suggests that the dominant belief in most Christian churches today is that: “One can be a professing Christian and a church member in good standing without ever being a disciple.”[2]
And this is a HUGE problem, folks, one that I am so concerned about that I have dedicated the rest of my life to the challenge of bringing people back to the path of discipleship. When Jesus called his disciples to follow him, he was NOT simply asking them to learn about him or believe in him: Jesus was calling his disciples – including you and me – with the expectation that we would actually BECOME LIKE HIM. In fact, he even promised in John 14 that we would actually do far greater things than he had done!
Let’s look at some of Jesus’ most famous parables and teachings, and you will see the truth of what I’m talking about. Consider these following gospel moments:
Jesus tells a story of a man with two sons. He asks them both to go work in his field. One son sayssays he’ll do his father asked but doesn’t, and the other son he won’t go into the field but he does. Jesus then asks, “Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
Jesus’ parable of The Good Samaritan, which concludes with the following: “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?. . . Go and DO likewise.”
In the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25, Jesus concludes by saying, “If you’ve done it unto the least of these, you’ve done it unto me.”
How about The Parable of the Talents in which Jesus gives three servants three different amounts or talents, and then, in the end, evaluates each servant by what he has DONE with the gift.’
Then there’s Jesus’ famous teaching in The Sermon on the Mount, in which he says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”[3]
Again and again, Jesus made the point that he wasn’t interested in people believing in him. What Jesus was interested in was people following him and doing what he did. And yet, anyone who hangs around most any American church can readily see that what we have in our Christian Churches today are NOT so much disciples of Jesus, but rather FANS of Jesus, people interested in learning about Jesus without the genuine intention of actually becoming like him. And that’s understandable, when you stop and think about it, because, after all, it is SO much easier to fill ourselves with knowledge about Jesus than it is to wrestle with the life-changing call to actually become like Jesus. But Dallas Willard reminds us, true Christ followers are the ones “who actually learn to DO what did and Jesus taught was best.”
Brothers and sisters, it’s time that we all let go of this damaging and distorted notion that Christianity is primarily about our intellectual assent to a body of beliefs. This ridiculous Pauline notion that a Christian is someone who has “accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior,” has got to be set aside once and for all. Anybody who thinks that being a disciple of Jesus can somehow be boiled down to a sentence we say to “get saved” is not only missing the point, but is grossly misrepresenting the Jesus of the gospels. No one who has systematically and comprehensively studied the gospels could ever suggest that Jesus is more concerned with our verbal confessions of faith than he is with our actions – actions on behalf of the poor, the lonely, the suffering, the oppressed.
In the fifth chapter of my book, The Way of Jesus, I tell the story of an amazing little Episcopal church in NYC that has really figured out what authentic discipleship is. They are a congregation of less than 150 people. In the late 1980’s their church had gotten so small and in such debt that the diocese had decided to close them down. The elders of the church decided that since they were going to get closed down anyway they might as well go out with a bang – doing something “Christlike.” So they decided to start offering free lunches to homeless people. Now remember – this is in New York City, right? On the first day 30 or so people wandered in. The next day it was 50 and then 150. Soon they didn’t have any room left in their fellowship hall. The sanctuary roof was leaking, and it just so happened that at about this time the roofer came to the church board and asked to remove all the oak pews that were bolted to the floor until he could get the roof patched or the pews would all be ruined. The board thought – this is great. We can move the lunch ministry into the sanctuary and fit way more people. Out went the pews, in came the fold up tables and chairs, and soon they were feeding over 1000 lunches a day – in their sanctuary. There was a huge line of homeless folks every day at noon that stretched around an entire city block! There was no way that a tiny, struggling congregation of only 150 people could keep this up all on their own, but soon other congregations, businesses, and even groups from other religions saw what was going on and asked if they could help! Would you believe that that tiny Episcopal church now serves nearly 400,000 lunches a year and has served over 10 million lunches since starting this ministry in 1987, back when everyone thought the church was through?
When I visited this church and got to see the feeding ministry, I saw Christians and Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, Agnostics and Atheists ALL helping, ALL working together to prepare and serve those lunches. I even noticed that there were two signs on the front of the church. One for the Episcopal Church and one for a Jewish temple! That small Episcopal congregation is now sharing their building all week long with a Jewish congregation! And I have to believe that God and Jesus LOVE what is happening at that little corner of 8th Avenue and 79th Street, where hundreds of people have set aside their religious differences, set aside their BELIEFS to get together on something SO much MORE important–feeding hungry people with no questions asked and NO sermons preached. God and Jesus must be thrilled that here, at least, is one group of people who have gotten beyond belief – BEYOND BELIEF – in order to DO what Jesus did, in order to BE disciples.
While the Apostle Paul may have been overly concerned with verbal confessions of faith and correct belief as he understood it, Jesus was not. Again and again, Jesus called his disciples to action, to works of love and compassion. I am firmly convinced that Jesus has no interest in our debates over dogma and our various doctrinal litmus tests for correct belief. Jesus is much more concerned that his followers focus on doing what he, himself, did—not just knowing what Jesus did or talking about what Jesus did—but actually doing it. This is discipleship.
Congregations of “believers” who persist in dealing only, or even primarily, with beliefs will continue their precipitous decline toward irrelevance and extinction. Only those communities of disciples who are willing to move “beyond belief” to equip and encourage each other to DO the things that Jesus did will have the relevance, the respect, and the right to grow and thrive as we move into our very uncertain future. This is what the Church of the Holy Apostles did on their little corner of 8th and 79th So what will you do here on the corner of Park and Pine?
As you prepare for the baptism and membership rituals of the next few moments, I hope you will be willing to move beyond belief. I hope you will DARE to be disciples -- people who set aside the tired arguments about belief in attempt to actually become LIKE Jesus in your ACTIONS – to do a little something Christlike. It’s up to you. Is the 1st Presbyterian Church of Boyne City going to be just another dying community of “believers?” Or are you going to become a community of disciples, determined to DO the things that Jesus did, no matter how hard, no matter what the cost. Jesus put it this way: “Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and for the work of the gospel will surely find it.” Amen.
