This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

What Does God Want? – What Do Disciples Do? – Daily Wisdom

What Does God Want? -  What Do Disciples Do?

Over the past eight weeks, our story narrative overview of the Bible has been to answer the question: What does God want? The answer we discovered over the past eight weeks was that God wants you and everyone who will ever live. In other words, God wanted a human family. God wants co-workers to take care of His creation. God wants you to know/ who you are/ and why your life has value to him. /He loves you /and desires that you also love Him. Two weeks ago, we viewed an overall snapshot of the Good News. It is simple and yet very profound. What is the Gospel, the Good News? Last week, we switched from the believing aspect of God’s story to the loyalty aspect as we looked at ‘What is Discipleship?’ and then reviewed the first two of ten attributes that answer the question, “What Does a Disciple Do?” The first two attributes from last week were:

Disciples Love God, Their Neighbor, and Each Other

Disciples Take Care of Each Other

3.) Disciples Fellowship

“Fellowship” is a New Testament word that describes the activity of the believing community. Caring for each other is part of biblical fellowship, because when believers meet, needs can be discerned and met. That said, we need a short discussion of fellowship to talk about other things disciples do.

Many Christians today equate “fellowship” with having fun together. For sure, doing fun things together strengthens relationships. Enjoying the company of people builds bonds. But that isn’t biblical fellowship in the sense of becoming disciples.

The primary difference between doing fun things together and biblical fellowship is that fellowship isn’t just about spending time together. It’s much more intentional.

The goal of fellowship is ultimately “becoming one mind” around Jesus so that we can “have his mind in us.” In other words, the purpose of fellowship is discipleship. A couple of verses from Philippians capture the idea:

Philippians 1:27, Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ. Then, whether I come and see you again or only hear about you, I will know that you are standing together with one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the Good News.

(From last week) Philippians 2:1-5 Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? 2 Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.

3 Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. 4 Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. 5 You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

What does it mean to have the same attitude of Christ and be of one mind as a community of believers? Does it imply everyone believes the same things down to the last detail? No. The Bible speaks of unity, not uniformity. A better way to understand “the same attitude” is that every community member pursues the same goal: to be like Jesus. The goal is harmony, not unanimity, in pursuing Christ-likeness and living in community together as believers.

Early believing communities engaged in several activities to build toward this goal. They prayed, fasted, worshipped, and studied the Scriptures. Since all those activities are things disciples do individually and together, I’ll discuss each separately as we continue.

4.) Disciples Pray

In simplest terms, prayer is talking to God. But that needs some thought. Doesn’t God already know what we’re thinking? He does. So why pray? Because prayer isn’t for informing God about anything. Prayer is a way to show God (and others) that we depend on God. It is a way to express that we want God to act, that we aren’t relying on ourselves, or that we cannot find a solution ourselves. Prayer fosters our sense of dependence on,/ and security in, /God alone. In that sense, prayer is worship. The same is true for prayer in groups.

In Luke 11:1, the disciples, referring to John the Baptist and his followers, asked Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” Jesus’ response is the now famous “Lord’s Prayer” (Luke 11:2–4; cp. Matt 6:9–15). It is important to note that Jesus didn’t tell the disciples what words to pray in the Lord’s Prayer. Instead, he told them to pray “like this” (Matt 6:9). He gave them a model. We don’t need formulas or particular words to talk to God. Just talk to God. Also, prayer should never be done for a show (Luke 18:9–14).

There’s nothing in the Lord’s Prayer that God isn’t already aware of. Again, prayer isn’t about filling in gaps in God’s knowledge. Instead, the Lord’s Prayer is laced with things like worship and honor of God (“hallowed be your name”), obedience to God’s will (“your will be done”), forgiveness (“forgive us our debts as we forgive others”), and requests to be delivered from temptation and evil (“lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil”). Prayer is designed to align our hearts with God’s lordship and build an attitude of dependence on him.

The Bible is filled with prayers, both individual and group. If you read them, you learn that prayer is also a means by which we can pour out our feelings to God—anger, grief, love, etc. God isn’t learning anything when we do that. We learn to submit to him, believing he is good and knows best, and asking God for help. Jesus said God would answer in the broader context of his wise will. In other words, God’s answers may not always be what we want, but God knows everything else going on in all human experience and behavior, and is working on his more excellent plan. God may also answer unexpectedly.

The prayers of the Bible are also not self-focused. Most of their content is aimed at blessing others or asking God’s mercy upon others. Paul’s letters habitually include prayers for those to whom he’s writing. Prayer is not always, or even primarily, about expressing our own needs and wants.

5.) Disciples Fast

Fasting may be unfamiliar to most of us. Generally, to “fast” from something means to abstain from that thing. To “fast” from food means to go without eating. This is the kind of fasting we see most often in the Bible, though not always. Jesus fasted (Matthew 4:2). He presumed the disciples would follow his example and warned them not to be hypocrites when they did so (Matthew 6:16–18). Fasting isn’t about drawing attention to yourself. It’s between you and God.

Fasting isn’t merely about abstaining from food. You can fast from all sorts of things in whatever manner you want. Jesus wasn’t recommending a strategy for losing weight. He had something else in mind when he fasted/ and when talking about fasting. While the Bible contains many instances of fasting, there are no specific rules. Paul noted that married couples might fast from sex (1 Corinthians 7:1–5) to devote special attention to a matter of prayer.

But why fast? Fasting is a spiritual practice designed to help us focus on prayer. How does it do that? Perhaps an example helps. If you decide to fast from food for a day, whenever you’re hungry, you are reminded to pray. Your fasting is a reminder and directs your attention to why you decided to fast.

Another way to think about fasting is to ask what distracts us from prayer or, more generally, our walk with God. The answer might be our phones, television, or some hobby. Then, we can set aside these things for a time (“fast”) to bring our minds back to God and prayer.

6.) Disciples Worship

You might think worship is easy to define or understand. Well, it is, and it isn’t. We too often equate worship with what happens in a church service, mainly the music. That isn’t worship, at least in terms of how the Bible defines it, though music and song were part of Christian gatherings (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16). Another propensity in our culture is to think of worship as an inner-directed mystical feeling or experience. That isn’t worship, either. There are several passages we could think about, but let’s look at two:

Romans 12:1–2, And so, dear brothers and sisters,[a] I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.[b] 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Jesus told the Samaritan woman in John 4:23: But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way.

We already discussed the Rom 12:1-2 last week in our discussion of living a holy life. So, how do you worship God? Live like Jesus. Don’t be conformed to the world—its values and self-gratifying pursuits. That is worship. True worship is thus a matter of the heart and mind.

The second passage is interesting for a specific reason. Jesus told the woman that God is seeking people to worship him. Worship is, therefore, not something that originates with us. We are invited to respond to God’s goodness and love. How and where we do that can vary. We can do this individually, with or without music, within or outside a church service. We can also do that corporately, in fellowship with other believers.

We cannot lose sight of our “spiritual worship” of God is intrinsically tied to how we live (Romans 12:1–2). It’s not about a thirty-minute experience at home or in a church. It’s about a life oriented by,/ and directed to,/ God.

7.) Disciples Confess Sin and Accept God’s Forgiveness

7 But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

8 If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. 9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.

It’s wonderful to know, though, that our membership in God’s family is not due to our performance. Our good works cannot put God in our debt. He never owes us everlasting life on account of any merit we might think we have. We can never accumulate enough God points to gain membership into His family. Our performance (or lack thereof) did not move God away from us. God loved us “while we were still sinners” (Roman 5:8). Consequently, we must remember that since salvation could never be gained by moral perfection, it cannot be lost by moral imperfection. (Post)

In light of our imperfections, the true disciple of Jesus must stay focused on the kindness and love of God. Look again at the passage from John’s letter. It tells us precisely what to do when we fail God, either by doing something that isn’t consistent with imitating Jesus, /or leaving something undone that is consistent with being like him: But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. 

When we sin and fail (and we will), we must acknowledge it. That’s what confession means. We must not hide, excuse, or rationalize our sins. God wants us to admit it. Why? We need to be humbled. We must remember that salvation is about what someone else—Jesus—did for us, not what we earn. Confession acknowledges that we are children of God because of Jesus. We can be sure that our sins will not separate us from God; we will not be kicked out of the family (Romans 8:31–39). God knew before we embraced the gospel that we were flawed. It’s not something that surprises him. It doesn’t change how he feels about us.

An obvious question, then, is why we should care about sinning. The New Testament disciples came across that attitude in people. The apostle Paul brought it up in his letter to the Christians in Rome (Romans 6:1–2, 12–16):

Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?

12 Do not let sin control the way you live;[a] do not give in to sinful desires. 13 Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. 14 Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.

15 Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! 16 Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living.

Notice that the Bible doesn’t say, “God forbid, don’t sin, or God won’t love you anymore!” Instead, the concern is you returning to the bondage of self-destruction and destruction of those around you. So, on the one hand, we will sin, but on the other hand, we should avoid sinning. This struggle is something the apostle Paul knew well (Romans 7:7–25), yet he was a remarkable follower of Jesus. The New Testament often alerts us that a war is happening inside us. Our hearts want to follow Jesus, but our unperfected selves want self-gratification and pre-eminence in how we live. We want to rule ourselves instead of letting God work through us. (1 Peter 2:11; James 4:1).

As we seek to follow Jesus, it’s a good idea to, so the saying goes, “keep short accounts with God.” (Post) The idea is that when we fail, we should be quick to confess it and thank God for his forgiveness. We should remember what our sins cost Jesus. Then, we should keep following him in loyal love, grateful that he went to the cross “while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8) so we could be his brothers and sisters.

8.) Disciples Study the Bible

Learning the Word of God is necessary for following Jesus. How else can we learn about sin (behaviors and attitudes to avoid) and Spirit-filled living (how we should behave)? Scripture teaches us in Ephesians 4:22-24 to throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. 23 Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. 24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy. Then, when we become part of God’s family through faith in the gospel, the Spirit indwells us (1 Cor 3:16–17; 6:19–20; 2 Cor 6:16; Eph 2:22) and helps us live fruitful lives Galatians 5:18-24: (The Blueprint for Imitating Christ)

18 But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.

19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.

Disciples learn and live out the Word of God in their lives. This is how Jesus showed he loved God—he obeyed God’s will. Community is a significant help in doing that. In a community, we come into contact with mature believers who have followed Jesus for many years. We can learn how their lives changed as they learned to “take off the old and put on the new.” We can go to them for encouragement when we struggle to be like Jesus. They can remind us of God’s love and forgiveness. They understand that Christians struggle to turn from sin and do what’s right (1 John 1:5–10). Even the apostles struggled against sin and doing what was right (Romans 7:7–25; Galatians 2:11–14). Community means accountability, empathy, and encouragement as we seek to be more conformed to the example of Jesus.

9.) Disciples Suffer

18 “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. 19 The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you. 20 Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave is not greater than the master.’ Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you. And if they had listened to me, they would listen to you.

20 Of course, you get no credit for being patient if you are beaten for doing wrong. But if you suffer for doing good and endure it patiently, God is pleased with you.

21 For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered[a] for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps.

22 He never sinned,

nor ever deceived anyone.[b]

23 He did not retaliate when he was insulted,

nor threaten revenge when he suffered.

He left his case in the hands of God,

who always judges fairly.

Enduring suffering requires us to remember that the gospel does not promise ease in this life, but an everlasting place in God’s family in the life to come. This world is not our real home; we look forward to the remade (new) Global Eden.

10.) Disciples Make More Disciples

18 Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations,[a] baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

“Make disciples of all nations.” That was a big part of the story of the Bible. The authority of the supernatural powers that have enslaved the nations has been taken away. God wants his children, partners, and co-workers—disciples of his Son, Jesus—to share the gospel’s good news everywhere. God wants as many people in his family as possible. Our task is to tell the good news, live it out in front of them, and invite them into the family of God—and teach them to do the same.

How do we do that? We share our faith—how we came to believe the gospel. It’s amazingly simple.

First, tell people about your life before you believed the gospel and embraced the forgiveness of God through Jesus. People enjoy stories, especially about other people. Why? There’s always something in a person’s story that connects to our own story. So when you tell someone about your life before understanding the gospel, some details of your life will be familiar to the person you’re talking to—and maybe a lot in your story will connect with them.

Second, tell them why hearing and believing the gospel was a turning point for you. Usually, this has something to do with forgiveness for our sins. It’s beautiful to know that despite what we’ve done to ourselves and others, God still loves us and wants us so much that he offers us salvation. Then, share the story of how God sent Jesus so that we could be forgiven and have everlasting life with him—the thing God has wanted from the beginning.

Third, tell people about the impact of believing the gospel and being forgiven in your life. Tell them what it’s like to know God’s forgiveness, love, and promise of everlasting life. Tell them how it’s changed your perspective on who you are and why you’re here. Tell them how embracing the gospel has changed you from the inside out.

Some people may want to see proof of a changed heart. That’s normal—and an opportunity to imitate Jesus. This is one of the fundamental reasons to live a holy life. Jesus loved and served people. People want to be loved and look for authenticity in other people. Responding to people the way Jesus would is powerful. They will notice. They know when someone loves them or not. They know when you put them ahead of yourself for the sake of the message of the gospel. Not everyone believed Jesus. Not everyone will believe in the gospel when you share it with them and treat them like Jesus would. But some (many) will.

(Bulletin Insert – Read through it)

We have now concluded our Story of the Bible. What does God want? He wants YOU! He wants you in His family, and He wants you to tell others how to be in His family. How to become citizens of His kingdom so we may all dwell together forever in the new global Eden. I pray you have enjoyed this series as much as I have enjoyed studying for it. Starting next week, we will shift to three Easter messages, and next week, we will explore Making it All Better – The Story of Lazarus. So please read John 11 for next week’s message.