His Disciple or Not: What Does Your Head Say?
(Mid-week message for House Church and individual use: preached 11/15 – 11/21/2020)
In 1880 Catherine Booth published a book called Aggressive Christianity. The following introduction is inspired by and largely paraphrased from the second opening paragraph to that book.
Please listen to this.
We who dare to declare ourselves to be Christians, sincere followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we make a statement, a very bold claim indeed, before all the world. We profess to them that we have in our possession a mighty lever, a great pulley, a handle that if properly used would lift the entire burden of sin and misery off of the shoulders, of the soul, of any man or woman to whom it is applied. We present this to them, to the world as — a panacea (a remedy), a cure-all for all of the moral and spiritual woes of humanity.
Yes, we Christians have declared this to be possible, to be something which may be apprehended by faith, to be something which we profoundly believe. Yes, we have declared this, through many voices speaking now and in the many generations gone by. Yes, we have made this possibility our boast. Yes, from before in what the Apostles and early church actually achieved… until now. Yes, we have boasted and spoken, mostly to each other, of what could be done.
Yea, with our mouths, our voices, our thoughts, our minds we have expressed our belief of what our neighbor could, and should, and (may God forgive us) what they ought to have obtained through their interaction with us.
Yes, we have declared it, but now see! See what we so-called Christian people have actually brought. See what very little, so very much of nothing, we have done. See the contrast, the clarity of discovery, of all that our mind can see – if, and only if, we let ourselves take in the full awful truth. The world as it has really become — because of us!
The twenty-first century is here, the end-of-what-has-been is staring us in the face. The failure, our failure, my failure, your failure: the vast majority of our nation now utterly defiant; aggressively ignoring the only true God, our God, who is so graciously revealed in the Bible. No longer do they make pretence of remembering Him one day in the week. No longer do they even seek to hide their sins from Him or from his people. Instead they chide both us and Him; mocking him in their music, in their shows, in their movies, and in their social media; barring him from their schools, from their lunchrooms, from their offices; and from their hearts and the hearts of their children.
And yet we “Christians” (we “church people”), do not cry. We point when we should pray, we reprove when we should repent, we blame when we should be ashamed, we shake our fingers when we should allow the Holy Spirit of God to break our hearts.
I have wept over my own city but I have not wept enough. Have you wept at all? Can we truly say that “rivers of water do often run down my eyes because men keep not His law.” Probably not. And why? Because, my dear, my fellow tarnished saint, because the rivers of our own heart, the fallow of our own ground must first be broken up beginning with this truth, as so succinctly stated by Catherine Booth.
“This dispensation [this ‘Church Age’ – our time], compared with what God intended it to be, has been, and still is, as great a failure as that which preceded it.”
And so we ask: halfway, as we are now, through this message, we ask you this.
Are you truly his disciple or not? Are you the disciple that Jesus called you unto himself to be… or not?
If we could read your mind then we could tell you, right? Well, you can read your mind. You know you and what really leads you. Your mind is indeed the head of your being but… who is it that leads your mind? Who is your true head? Who is the true mind behind your life? Who leads your life? Whose disciple are you… really?
As it is written,
“Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:4-5)
What does your head say about Jesus?
I. Does it say, “I will listen to the word of God but still keep to my own path?”
“And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.” (Luke 11:27-28)
What does your head say about Jesus?
II. Does it say, “I will listen to the word of God?”
“But he [Jesus] said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, . . .” (Luke 11:28a)
What does your head say about Jesus?
III. Does it say, “I will listen to the word of God and actually keep to God’s path?”
“But he [Jesus] said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.” (Luke 11:28)
Conclusion
“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,” (Philippians 3:13)
“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:14)
“Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.” (Philippians 3:15)
OUTLINE:
His Disciple or Not: What Does Your Head Say?
(A Message to Members of the Body of Christ)
“Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:4-5)
What does your head say about Jesus?
I. Does it say, “I will listen to the word of God but still keep to my own path?”
II. Does it say, “I will listen to the word of God?”
III. Does it say, “I will listen to the word of God and actually keep to God’s path?”
“Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.” (Philippians 3:15)
WORSHIP:
Hallelujah – People were AMAZED – Karolina Protsenko – Violin and Piano
Opening:
What a Friend We Have in Jesus (460)
Message: