Followers of Jesus are Learners

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Last week, we talked about the fact that Easter brings us to the realization that Jesus doesn’t really call for us to be admirers of Him but to be followers of Him. And there’s a big difference between being an admirer and a follower.

For instance, a lot of people admired Martin Luther King, Jr. and his civil rights movement. Some people even marched with him but not so many went to jail with him. A lot of people admired Mother Theresa and the work that she did but not so many were willing to live among the destitute and the dying. You see, there’s a big difference between being an admirer and follower. And Jesus never called upon anyone to admire Him but He does call upon us to follow Him.

He doesn’t call upon us to be impressed with Him but He does call upon us to be devoted to Him. He doesn’t call upon us to marvel at His miracles or have accolades about His teachings but He does call upon us to surrender our life to Him and to get off the sidelines and to get into the game and to follow Him.

Over the next few weeks, we want to dig into what does that mean to be a follower of Jesus? We begin by finding out that a follower is a learner. After all, it was Jesus who said, “If you’ll hold to my teachings, you are really my disciples.” If you hold to my teachings, then you really are my followers. And Jesus’ teachings are found in the pages of Scripture as God reveals Himself to us, as God reveals His will to us. So if we’re going to be a follower of Jesus, then we have to be a learner. We have to delve into God’s Word.

This morning, I would direct us to 2 Timothy where I think there is a good outline for us to know just how important Scripture is and there are three key concepts that He brings out for us. He says, “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for one teaching.” I’m going to link together rebuking and correcting and training and righteousness. Those three key concepts, those three things, if we can accept about God’s Word, we become followers of Jesus.

So, in other words, a follower accepts God’s Word as authoritative in their life. Scripture is useful for teaching. It’s useful for teaching because it has authority in our lives. And there’s a difference between just simply respecting Scripture and accepting Scripture. Lots and lots of people respect Scripture. It continues to be one of the most sold books in the world. I’m certain it has probably been printed more than any other book in all of history. Certainly, millions if not billions of people consider it a sacred book. It certainly is respected, but is it accepted? Is it accepted as authoritative in your life? And authoritative in any and all situations? You see, sometimes you can respect God’s Word but somehow it doesn’t always apply to you.

I’ll try to get at it this way. This weekend, I’m picking up my kids a lot so I live in a house of all girls, you probably all know that, which puts me at an extreme disadvantage. But at any rate, I do my best, and there are those occasions when the younger two will get into it with one another. And so I’ll hear from upstairs something to the effect of, “Give that back. That’s mine.” After about ten minutes of listening to this, I get tired and I go upstairs. So I go up and, sure enough, in one of the two girls’ rooms, there they are, toe to toe, sneering at each other. Right? And I walk in and I say, “Okay, what’s going on?” The one will pipe up, “She walked into my room and she took. . .” and who knows what she took. You know, I don’t really care. It could have been shoes. It could have been a dress. It could have been a boom box. It doesn’t matter. “She took this from me.” Okay. So then I look at the other one, “Did you take that from your sister?” It’s hard for them to claim innocence when they’re still holding it. So, now being a dumb male that I am, dealing with girls, I try to employ logic. I know, I know, I can’t help myself. So I’ll look at the one, say it’s Mackenzie, and I’ll say, “Now, Mac, would you like it if your sister came into your room and took something from you?” “No, I wouldn’t like that at all.” “Would you agree, Mac, that if your sister came into your room, that would be a bad thing to do, that would be wrong?” “Oh, that would be terrible. Yeah, shouldn’t do that.” Alright. “Then, Mac, you certainly would agree that you coming into Madison’s room and taking something is wrong.” “But this is different.” You see, you can respect the concept but you don’t have to accept it in your life. Okay? You can respect Scripture but somehow it doesn’t apply to you and these circumstances. We can say, “You know, I really shouldn’t say this about so and so, it’s probably gossip,” but then we spill our guts to that person. You see, we accept the respect of Scripture but we don’t respect the authority of it. Okay? We can say that Scripture says that we should not steal. We shouldn’t take something that belongs to somebody else but does that really apply when you’re filling out your tax forms? “Because, after all, they’ve already taken too much of my money.” Do you see what I’m saying here? It’s when we say the rules don’t apply to us. This is different from being convicted of sin. When we’re convicted of sin, we say, “You know, I know what I did was wrong and I feel bad about what I did.” No, in this instance, we’ll say, “Well, I know what Scripture says but it just doesn’t apply to me.” You can respect Scripture but not accept it.

Followers accept Scripture as authoritative in any and every situation. Paul says all scripture is God-breathed, that it is inspired by God, that God inspired people to write down His word. It may be in their style. It may be in their language but the words contained in this book that we hold sacred are God’s Word and it is without error and so everything contained in that book is authoritative in our lives. Whether we happen to like it or not is irrelevant. Whether society agrees with it or not is irrelevant. A follower of Jesus says the only rule, the only norm for my life is Scripture and I accept it as authoritative in my life.

The second thing that Paul points out to us, he says that a follower will accept correction from God’s Word. He says that God’s Word is useful for rebuking and correcting. It’s kind of a two-parter there that he’s describing for us. I’m going to link those two together. First of all, rebuking. I don’t know about you but that’s a fun word to say. Rebuking. We never say that word anymore. Do you? I don’t say that anymore. I don’t come home and say, “Well, I really rebuked someone today.” My wife never calls me, “When you get home, you need to rebuke these children.” It’s not a word we use anymore. But it’s a great word. In fact, if you dig into it just a little bit more as far as what God was trying to communicate to us about His Word, it’s the perfect word. You see, rebuke, on the surface level, it means a stern disapproval. It sounds like that. You’re going to rebuke someone. That’s stern, that’s firm. So it’s a stern disapproval but it’s a disapproval with a purpose. You have to dig just a little bit deeper into the Word. Disapproval with a purpose. The purpose is to convince someone of the truth. In other words, a rebuke isn’t so much condemning someone as it is showing concern for them. It isn’t trying to make somebody feel guilty. It isn’t trying to make somebody feel bad. It’s to convince them of the truth because you’re concerned about them. It even has the element of wanting to protect that individual. When you rebuke someone, yes, it’s disapproval but with a purpose because you care about them, because you don’t want to see them hurt.

Since I’m picking on my daughters, one more. On Friday evening, I’m playing two square with them. I told you, I have daughters, I play two square with them. So we’re in the driveway. We’re playing two square. The ball goes past one of them. It goes running out, rolling out to the street. Sure enough, one of them is going to go running out in the street. Now what do you think I said? “Stop.” That was a rebuke. I didn’t call it a rebuke but it was a rebuke. “Stop. Don’t go in the street.” Did I do that because I wanted them to feel bad, because I wanted them to cower in fear, because I wanted them to feel guilty? No, I didn’t want them to get run over by a car. You see, that’s what rebuke means. Rebuke means that it’s a stern disapproval but with a purpose. And that purpose is protection.

Here’s an example from Scripture itself. This is Paul talking to the Church at Galatia, “The entire law is summed up in a single command. Love your neighbor as yourself. If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you’ll be destroyed by each other.” That’s a rebuke by Paul. He says, “You have to stop this fighting. You have to stop this bickering. You have to stop all this gossip that’s going on in your church.” It’s a rebuke but with a purpose. He says, “If you don’t, you’re going to tear each other up. You’re going to destroy your relationships. You’re going to destroy your family. You’re going to destroy the church.” So when we say that we will accept a rebuke from God’s Word, that means we understand where it comes from. We know that God’s just not trying to make us feel guilty. He’s not trying to show us just how imperfect we are and to make us feel bad but God has a stern disapproval for some of our activity because He cares about us, because He has a concern for us.

Jesus Himself said, “I have not come into this world to condemn the world but to save it and to give my life as a ransom.” As a follower of Jesus, we open ourselves up to God’s Word and we see ourselves and we examine ourselves and there are times when we are rebuked by God’s Word, when we realize that what we have done and what we have said was wrong but we accept that rebuke because we know of the love and the care and the concern that lies behind it. God rebukes us because He cares for us and wants to protect us.  So, as a follower, we accept His rebuke.

Then St. Paul says, “It’s also useful for correcting.” That’s the second half of it. Now sometimes, in our language, we maybe think they’re the same, rebuking and correcting. Rebuking, we’re going to have a stern disapproval. Correcting can mean, “Well, we’re going to show you where you’re wrong.” But correcting also means make it right. In this instance, correcting isn’t to show you how you’ve gone wrong. Correcting is to make it right. How is God going to make it right? So once we have been rebuked by Scripture, once we know what we’ve done wrong, once we realize our sin, then Scripture itself corrects the matter. Scripture shows us how God has corrected the situation. I mean, that’s the message of Good Friday and Easter. It’s how God corrected the situation. It’s how God took our sin upon Himself. It’s how God Himself hung upon the cross and He took our guilt and He took our shame. He took our regrets and when He breathed His last, He made the payment for that. He took the punishment for that. Easter Sunday says the payment was accepted by the Father. That’s how God corrected the situation. He knew that we had fallen short. He knew that we were sinful. He knew that we needed to be perfect if we’re going to live with Him so God corrected the situation.

Scripture then is useful for showing us how God corrects the situation. That’s why Jesus said, “If the Son sets you free, you truly will be free.” He’s describing how He’s going to set us free from sin, how He’s going to set us free from our guilt and free to live with Him forever. So when reading through Scripture, we’re rebuked but then we see how we’ve been made correct.

Now there’s one more angle to this that’s probably more inferred by me than actually there. That is, followers not only accept the forgiveness from God but followers forgive themselves. Sometimes, I think in dealing with people and even in my own life, that one’s harder than the first ones. We can read in God’s Word about the great lengths that He has gone to free us from our sins and yet we can still be held captive and prisoner to the past. Because, although we may understand intellectually that God has died and washed away our sins and forgiven our past, we still live with the memories and the regret and the guilt.

Followers of Jesus are able to forgive themselves as well. I don’t know what’s on your hearts and minds but if you have something in your past that you understand that God has forgiven you but you just can’t do it, can I invite you to come to the foot of the cross? I want you to stare up on Good Friday. I want you to see your Savior to know that at any moment He could have come off that cross. In an instant, a legion of angels could have come to His rescue but He stayed there for you. He wouldn’t come down. He’d go to His last breath. He was willing literally to go through hell for you so you wouldn’t have to. If Jesus has done that for you, if God says He refuses to remember your sins anymore, can you pray to God that you also would not remember your sins anymore? Because they’re out of God’s mind. They’re off the slate. As a follower of Jesus, we accept His forgiveness but also understand that we can forgive ourselves.

The last thing that Scripture talks about as a follower and He says that Scripture is useful for training and righteousness. So we accept that Scripture is our training manual. It’s our book for life. This is going to be our guide. This is going to be the thing that tells us how we should live, what we should do and what we shouldn’t do. There’s a word that we don’t usually use in our church body and that is obedience and yet Scripture calls us to obedience. We don’t do it because we don’t want to give the idea that somehow takes place in our salvation but we understand that salvation is a free gift from God. There’s nothing we can do to earn it. There’s nothing we do that deserves it. God gives it to us but yet, there is this element of being a follower of Jesus that says we’re going to be obedient to God. We’re going to follow Him. For instance, Jesus’ own words, if we were to go to the gospel of John in the 14th and 15th Chapters, Jesus says this, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” A few verses later, Verse 23, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teachings and my Father will love him.” Go to Chapter 15, He says, “If you’ll obey my commands, you will remain in my love just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remained in His love.” God calls us to obedience. If we accept Scripture as authoritative in our life, if we’re opening ourselves up to being rebuked by Scripture and if we’re opening ourselves up to being forgiven by Scripture, now, all of a sudden, as a follower, we say, “Then this is what we’re going to follow. This is going to be our guide. We want to be obedient to God in response to all that He’s done for us. Then if this is what God calls us to do, we shall do it. If this is what God says we shouldn’t do, then we won’t do that.” God calls us to be obedient to His Word, to learn from His Word, to study it and then to live our life according to it.

Followers of Jesus are learners and we learn from God’s Word. Jesus said, “If you hold to my teachings, you’re really my disciples. You’re really my followers.” Well, friends, this thing all hinges on one key element and that’s us getting into the Word of God. That’s us spending time with His revelation. I know that many of you are involved in bible study. I know many of you have small groups. Many of you have your individual time in the morning but not all of us. So I’m going to have a challenge for all of us to do. This is in addition to what you may already have been doing. It’s a small challenge, really. Over the next two weeks, I want you to read the gospel of John. That’s pretty small, right? I don’t care how you divide it up. However much you want to do. But for the next two weeks, I want you to read through the gospel of John. Now I know, I have some over achievers out there. I’m going to have an e-mail at 6:00 tomorrow morning, saying, “Got it.” Good for you. Proud of you. That’s not exactly what I want you to do. I want you to spend some time going through it. I want you to meditate on God’s Word. I want you to see if there are any ah-ha moments in there. Okay? Where is that you have to say, “You know what, this is authoritative for me and maybe I’ve been looking at it as optional. Maybe there’s another section that you’re going to feel rebuked by God’s Word, another section where you’re going to feel the forgiveness and the love of God. Another place where you’re going to see His guidance and direction, training and righteousness. I want you to do me a favor. If you have an ah-ha moment, I want you to drop me an e-mail. It’s right there in the Weekly Word. I want you to drop me an e-mail. In the subject line, put Ah-ha Moment from John. So I’m going to receive thousands of these, right? So that I can keep track of them, ah-ha moments from John. Then in two weeks, we’re going to list some of those in the Weekly Word so we can learn from one another, so we can see how God’s Word is hitting one individual and maybe that will strike a chord with you because followers are what? Followers are learners. And we’re going to be followers together. Amen.

Copyright 2009 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church