Sixth Sunday after Pentecost 7/8/12 5th sermon on Discipleship; living in the grace of God.

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost 7/8/12 Multiple Texts Title: Discipleship; Living in God’s Grace. (Sermon 5) Discipleship; living in God’s grace, is the theme of my summer sermon series this year. In the past sermons we have looked at what God’s Word tells us about being a disciple of Jesus. We have learned that just as Jesus personally called each of his disciples he personally calls each one of us through his Holy Word. We also learned through several Bible stories that when he calls a person to be a disciple he does not call them to be a part time disciple, but a full time disciple. He accepts nothing less. He is not looking for Sunday morning disciples, but disciples who live their lives 24/ 7 following his headship. We also learned through God’s Word that nothing can stand in the way of being a disciple of Jesus when you have accepted his call to discipleship. You cannot trust in anything more than you trust Jesus. Family, possessions, your own personal strength and ambitions, and even the Law of God have to be gotten rid of, if they become more important than being a full time disciple of Jesus. Now that sounds really harsh; almost an impossibility doesn’t it? It would be, if you, in being a disciple were not living in God’s grace, for you see it is God’s power not yours that helps you to obey his commands. Plus the great thing is that while God demands that nothing, absolutely nothing can stand between you and him he will not ask you to give up the blessings he gives you in life. He only asks that you willingly and lovingly, for his sake share the blessings he has given you with others in need; especially brothers and sisters in the faith. The great news is that sharing some of what God has given you is never a burden unless those things are already starting to build a wall between you and God. Jesus tells us in Mark 12:30-31, “31You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31 The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandments greater than these." Being a disciple who is living in God’s grace is more than just believing, that is trusting in Jesus, as your Savior; it involves the giving of 100 percent of yourself, imperfect as it is, to God. And there is the problem. We by our sinful nature, as soon as we hear those commands or any of the other commands of God concerning discipleship we will usually start to look for wiggle room in his commands. That is why we will often say, just as Satan said to Adam and Eve, “Did God really say that?” which us the same as saying, “Did God really mean that? We do that quite often concerning the commandments of God, as we try to wiggle out of them. Take the commandment of God not to steal, did he really mean under that under no circumstances are we to steal? Surely he did not mean it, if I or my family is starving especially if some rich guy has more than I do. Surely it must be alright to steal in that case. Then there are the commands to love our neighbor and to pray for our enemies. Those two really makes us spend a lot of time and effort looking for wiggle room. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have heard all types of excuses about not loving our neighbor, and praying for our enemies, as God wants us to do. We ask right away, just as the Pharisees did, “Just who are my neighbors.” as we look for wiggle room; trying to narrow down God’s commands to those we think we should love. And just like he showed the Pharisees in the Good Samaritan story we are told that our neighbors are not just those who are easy to love, but those who we by nature don’t think are worthy of our love. And, if that does not change our hearts we come up with the best excuse of all; misapplying God’s Word, as we say, “God tells us in his Word that the poor will always be with us.” So that means we don’t have to help the poor. They are a bunch of lazy people looking for handouts anyway. That type of thinking I can assure you is not what God had in mind when he said to love our neighbor. Now, as to praying for my enemies I can do that, as long, as I can pray for God to give them what they deserve. That I can do, but to pray for God to give them good things, to bring them into the fellowship of God’s Church, surely God did not mean that. Jesus did not give us a list of who is and who is not our neighbor and he did not tell us to pray evil on our enemies. God simply and clearly says that as disciples living in his grace we are love all people and pray for all people even those who are lazy and our enemies. On our own we cannot love all people or pray for good things to happen to our enemies, but as disciples of Jesus living in the power of his grace, grace that is undeserved, and free, we in the name and power of Jesus can live our lives of discipleship serving others and being blessed. Disciples living in the grace of God are blessed, which by the way does not mean blessed in the sense of being blessed with worldly things, but in the sense of having an inner peace, that deep inner joy that might be compared to how the Israelites must have felt when they returned from 70 years of slavery in Babylonia and saw their beloved city Jerusalem for the first time. According to God’s Word, as it is recorded in Matthew 5 you are blessed as a disciple living in the grace of God because you really want to give up all that stands between you and God. You are blessed as a disciple of God you mourn for those who do not know Jesus, as their Lord and Savior. You are blessed as disciple of Jesus because you hunger for that time when you will have a perfect union with God for all eternity. You are blessed as a disciple of Jesus because you truly love, although imperfectly, the downtrodden. You are blessed as a disciple because you really want to surrender your will to God’s will. You are blessed as a disciple of Jesus because you really do want to be a peacemaker willing to endure suffering rather than inflicting suffering on others. And last, but certainly not least you are blessed as a disciple of Jesus because you are willing to be persecuted by others, as you live your life of discipleship. In other words you are blessed because you answered Jesus’ call to become a disciple rather than the world’s call to be its disciple. That my fellow disciples is discipleship living in the grace of God. All praise and honor to God. Amen.