The goal of discipleship

Scripture: Philippians 3:7-10, Matthew 20:


The goal of the disciple is to become like Jesus -- but to share in his glory, we must first share in his death.

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The disciples misconceptions of discipleship

Picture in your minds the scene of Jesus arrival in Jerusalem at the beginning of that last week of his earthly life as he rode into the city on a Donkey:

The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest." (Matt. 21 -- p. 977)

There is no doubt what was in the disciples' minds. This was the fulfillment of Zechariah's prophecy given centuries earlier:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war-horses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the ntions. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. (Zech. 9:9,10)

The long-awaited Messiah had come, the king of Israel, and not just of Israel but of all the earth. Jerusalem would be his capital city. From here he would rule the world in peace and righteousness. What a day this was! How their hearts must have pounded in their chests!
Would he whip up the enthusiastic crowds and storm the Roman praetorium -- a people's revolution? Or would he call down fire from heaven to consume the enemies of God?

The disciples weren't entirely wrong. Jesus was announcing his kingship when he entered Jerusalem. And there will be a time when the promise of Palm Sunday is fulfilled. The book of Revelation pictures it like this:

I looked and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!" (Rev. 7:9,10)

So Jesus entry into Jerusalem with waving palms (John 12:13) was a sort of preview of the eternal Palm Sunday to come.

And in fact every worship service that we have is a rehearsal for the great Palm Sunday which we will celebrate in the future. One day we, who by God's grace have been faithful to the Lord, are going to stand with innumerable millions of believers from Bangladesh, Poland, Egypt, Australia, Iceland, Cameroon, Ecuador, Burma, Indonesia, Japan and thousands of tribes and peoples and languages purified by Christ with palms of praise in our hand. And when we raise them in salute to Christ he will see an almost endless field of green, shimmering with life and pulsating with praise. And then like the sound of a thousand acappella groups we will sing songs of praise.

But Palm Sunday was just a rehearsal -- it could only be a rehearsal. The cross had to come before the coronation -- and that is what the disciples had not yet grasped. Back in Matthew 20, as Jesus was travelling toward Jerusalem, he tried to explain this to his disciples. In verse 18 he told them exactly what had to happen.

We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life.

But they completely missed the point -- look at what happens immediately after:

Read 20:20-23 (p. 977)

Jesus has just told them he's going to die and the disciples are maneuvering for positions in the Kingdom! It's as if you just told your kids that you were diagnosed with cancer and there first response was to say, "Hey! Can I have the house?"

The disciples had not yet understood what Jesus was doing. They saw him as a king moving in to take control -- and they were on his coattails. They were like campaign staff in an inaugural parade -- trying to figure out what cabinet posts they could grab.

They could not grasp that the victory Jesus would win in Jerusalem over sin and Satan and death and all the enemies of righteousness and joy -- that this victory would be won through his own horrible suffering and death. Jesus aim was not victory over the Roman empire -- the Romans were small fry compared with the enemy he was after. His battle was with sin and death. And his victory was to be won through suffering.

And their misunderstanding of Jesus' journey to Jerusalem results in a misunderstanding of the goal of discipleship. They thought the goal of discipleship was to get some immediate benefit from God, when the real goal is much more wonderful and much more painful -- it is to transformed into the very image of God -- to become like God.

Let's not be too hard on the disciples. We make the same error. We think of following Jesus in terms of what Jesus will do for us -- think of how we typically pray:


And this is not all wrong, because God DOES delight in doing good to his people. BUT the real reward of discipleship is not what God does FOR those who seek him it is what he does TO them and IN them. Do you see the difference. If you think it sounds scary -- it is!

Discipleship is not about GETTING some reward from God -- discipleship is about being TRANSFORMED by God.

It happens something like this: When you start to follow Jesus it's like letting an architect move into your house. At first you may be quite happy having him there-- he has lots of good suggestions and makes lots of little improvements here and there. But before long he starts knocking down walls, and putting up knew ones and its really quite inconvenient and painful and costly. You thought you were happy with your little two bedroom cape -- but the architect it turns out is intent on transforming it into a mansion.

That is what God is doing with us. God isn't content to do repairs around the edges -- when he moves into our lives he desires to completely remake us until we are completely transformed -- until we become like Jesus.

So how does this process of becoming like Jesus work?

Turn with me to Philippians 3:7-10 (p. 1163)

[This will be our theme passage for Holy Week -- Each morning for our HW services we'll be exploring some aspect of what it means to become like Jesus.]

What Paul outlines here is a very simple process that is basic to becoming like Jesus. There are just two steps -- casting off and putting on.

1. It begins with casting off. -- considering everything loss, as Paul puts it, compared with knowing Christ. This immediately brought a memory to mind.



2. But casting off is only the beginning of the process. The more important part of the process is dressing up like Jesus:

God looks at you and he sees not your sin, but he sees Christ in you. In a sense you might say that God dresses you up as Jesus. This is called Justification. Our job is to play along with God's game, so to speak. To say, OK, so you want to play dress up, I'll play dress up then. Even if I don't feel like it, I'll act as if it was true. So we day by day cloth ourselves in his righteousness. We dress up as children of God.

Romans 13:14 Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

What does it mean to clothe ourselves with Jesus? It means to display outwardly what has already taken place inwardly.

Ephesians 4:22-24 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitute of your minds; and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

II Cor. 5:17 If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God