Jesus Invites You
In the book Practicing the Way, John Mark Comer lays out three goals of being a disciple of Jesus:
Be with Jesus
Be like Jesus
Do as Jesus did
Jesus invites us to follow him in close discipleship. Let me give you three aspects of this invitation.
1. Jesus’ invitation is for us to become an apprentice, not a Christian.
The word Christian is used only three times in the New Testament. The word disciple is used almost 270 times. What’s the difference? Well, for most people in the United States, to be a Christian means that you believe in the basic idea of the religion called Christianity. You go to church once in a while, and you’re a semi-moral person. It’s more about Jesus following you to give you a pick-me-up in the morning before school or work, to answer a prayer or two, or to help you out, rather than you following Jesus.
As you read the gospels, you’ll notice two groups of people who follow Jesus – the disciples and the crowds. Now the disciples were more than just the Twelve. The Twelve were a subgroup of the disciples known as the Apostles. Jesus had a lot of disciples made up of both men and women, which would’ve been way ahead of the curve. But this sharp divide between disciples and crowds is a literary device used by Mark. It’s a way of asking us: Which group are you in? Are you a face in the crowd, or are you a disciple/apprentice of Jesus? And we’re asking the same piercing question today: Are you a Christian, or are you a disciple of Jesus?
Jesus isn’t looking for converts to Christianity. He’s looking for apprentices to the kingdom of God.
2. Jesus’ invitation to become an apprentice is open to anybody.
We read in Mark 8:34 that Jesus said, “If anyone wants to follow after me…” Anyone means anyone. Anyone means you. Anyone means me.
Discipleship in Jesus’ day was for the best of the best of the best. It was limited to a select few. So, for Jesus to come along and invite anyone to follow him was unheard of. It would be like a professor from Harvard going on social media and saying, “If anyone wants a full-ride scholarship to Harvard, DM me and we’ll take care of it.” That’s never gonna happen.
But with Jesus, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, or what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter if you’re smart enough, have the work ethic, or the drive to succeed. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got your act together or not. You are invited to follow Jesus.
3. Jesus’ invitation to become an apprentice is not about trying; it’s about training.
Let’s say you’re out of shape and overweight, but for whatever reason, you decide you’re gonna run a marathon. Do you wake up tomorrow morning, head out the door, and run 26.2 miles? No! What would happen if you tried to do that? What would happen if you tried really, really hard? You would die!
How do you run a marathon? It takes training. You wake up tomorrow morning and run maybe a mile. Some of you are like, “Better make it a quarter mile.” But you start with short distances and add to them each week. After 8, 9, 10 months of training, you go from one mile to 10 miles to 26.2 miles. It’ll still be difficult to run that, but you can do it because you trained for it.
Maybe you grew up in the church, and you’ve been around for 10, 20, or 30 years, and you’re a classic example of a Christian, but you’re not a disciple/apprentice of Jesus. You’re invited. Maybe you’ve hit a wall in your discipleship with Jesus. Maybe you’re not at the core level yet because Jesus needs to hit those deep places in your life. Maybe it’s time to slow down and reorient your life around the ways of Jesus, to step into his community and discover what Jesus needs you to be and do. You’re invited.
It’s not gonna be easy, but life with God is unbelievable, and following Jesus is so beautiful. You’re invited.