Disciples

Good morning, everyone. Good to be here in Tulsa and at the Welch Ranch. Actually, we're the brave souls at his place. My wife and I are in Ken since Barb fled. He cooked us a very nice meal last night, so we did have a... and it was up early this morning with coffee and not good breakfast for us, so it's gone well so far. I'll let you know by Monday morning how it goes, but we were looking forward to coming out and being with Barb.

We called and said we're coming, and she said she was going to Alaska, and she and Debbie are good friends. They both share a love for signing for the death and share that in common through the years. We've known each other for a long time. Anyway, we are glad to be here for this weekend with you and this sampler weekend. The Ambassador Bible Center samplers. We try to do a couple of these every year. Last weekend, Gary Antion and Aaron Dean were down in Tampa, Florida holding one, and Mr.

Graham and I drew the assignment to come out here. One weekend, we give you about 10 hours of instruction that we will cover over a semester or whatever, at least part of what we cover in a semester or a week of classroom activity at the ABC. We give you a concentrated dose for it. It's a lot. Those of you that endure to the end tomorrow afternoon, you will be saved. For a while, I'm not sure, but you'll get a little certificate that says that you made it.

We hope to have many of you with us by 5 o'clock tomorrow afternoon. It is a privilege to come out and share what we are able to do with the students. I'm glad to hear you've got three coming from Oklahoma City. I know Britain is one of those. Any others here that will be a part of that ABC class next year? They didn't come over, I guess, then.

We do have about 42 selected or accepted already for the next year of ABC, which will begin in just about a month. The 19th of August is the first day. So we have about 42 selected. Maybe it will be 41, because one young man was hoping to come from Kenya. I was in touch with him this week, and he didn't get his visa to be able to come in, so he won't be able to come.

So it looks like it's about 41 if everyone shows up that is committed to it. So that will be a large class and a good class, hopefully. I see Charles Wilson out there. He was there with us a couple of years ago. Charles came to ABC, and he survived. I have to tell about it, and I'm glad to see him. It's good to be in Oklahoma. I was telling some of you this is my... I have flown over Oklahoma many times going west.

I've actually driven through it twice. I've never stopped, except for gas, just the way it happened. I don't know no other issues there, but always flying over, you know, going out usually to California from Pasadena over the years. So this is the first time to stop in Oklahoma and spend any length of time, and we're glad for that. We drove down... Yesterday, my wife wanted to see parts of old Route 66 in Missouri, so it took us all day to get through Missouri from St. Louis and do some of that. But as soon as we hit the Oklahoma line last night, folks, she burst into song.

She started singing, Oklahoma, from Rogers and Habersdine. So she serenaded me, then she sang, Oh, What a Beautiful Morning. That was the song that got her into the Ambassador Corral 43 years ago when she tried out for the Ambassador Corral. She sang, Oh, What a Beautiful Morning, and got her in just like that. So she's a beautiful wife, too.

So it's good. So it's good to be in Oklahoma and be here to Tulsa with you here for the next two days. About ten years ago, we were... It was the year of 03, we kept the Feast of Tabernacles in Lexington, Kentucky. And in Kentucky, they were known for their thoroughbreds and their bourbon. And that year, of course, we were keeping the Feast there.

That was at that point in time, was the most important thing. But we... Some of us decided after one of the services to go out into the country and tour one of the bourbon distilleries that are... many of them in that part of Kentucky. And so we chose to go out to the Wild Turkey Bourbon Distillery, about 30 minutes outside of Lexington. Went through the tour. They give you a little film of the Wild Turkey Bourbon, how they make it and what it is. And had a little gift shop and then a quick tour through some of the warehouses and show you where it's made and where it's stored.

And as we were getting ready to leave the parking lot, this pickup truck drives in. And the gentleman gets out of the pickup truck, just got big overalls on and a baseball hat. And I said, I know you. I just saw you on the film inside.

His name was Jimmy Russell. And we had just seen him on the film that they showed us about Wild Turkey Bourbon because Jimmy Russell is the master distiller of Wild Turkey Bourbon. And he's a legend in Kentucky among the bourbon makers for his skills and his personality.

I said, I know you. I just saw you. And he stopped and talked to us. He's a good old boy from Kentucky. And we talked for 30 minutes. And he was very friendly, took us back inside, showed us around a few more things. And we kept talking about how long he'd been at that point in time, he'd been making bourbon there for over 40 years at Wild Turkey. And he told us that he was working with his son to replace him one day. And I said, well, how long has your son been working with you?

And at that time, this was 10 years ago, he said, well, he's been working with us for about 23 years. I've been training him for about 23 years. And I thought to myself, and he's still being trained. And he told me, he said, he's starting to get the hang of it. Also, Jimmy Russell told me that he didn't write the recipe down. It was all in his head. He said, that's job security. They can't fire me. He said, literally. The recipe for their distinctive brand was in his head. And he was training his son to take over.

Now, I think Jimmy Russell is still alive. I hope that after 33 years, his son is taken over, but maybe not. But after thinking about that, through the years, that story has always stuck with me. What Jimmy Russell was doing for 23 years at that time was more than just training his son to take over a job. He was doing something that the Bible calls, discipling. He was discipling his son to take over the bourbon trade and making a bourbon there at Wild Turkey Distillery. That's what he was doing. They worked hand in hand every single day. Father and son learning the craft. And I've thought about that through the years, especially in light of what Christ says in Matthew 28 and verse 19, where he says to go and make disciples. Matthew 28 and verse 19. We know this verse very, very well. It is the Great Commission, as some have called it.

He spoke to his disciples, verse 18, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and in earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you, and, lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age.

Now, I know it's unusual to open a sermon with a story about bourbon. But, trust me, there's a point to what I'm making, and I will come back to that point, not necessarily the story, but I will come back to the point throughout the day, with what I deliver this afternoon and possibly even tomorrow in the presentations. What Jesus instructed his apostles, these men who were going to become his disciples, he says, You go and you make disciples. Now, they had been with him for three and a half years, day in and day out. Not quite 23, but three and a half intensive years of experience and training. And these 12 now were going to, actually 11 at this point, one more was added, technically a few days later, Matthias replaced Judas, but he had been with them too. And he had been a witness of his resurrection. They were now going to go and they were told, you make disciples. You do what you've been learning and what has been being done with you for this period of time, because you've been my disciples, that's what they were. Now, you go and do the same thing. And make them of all nations. You know, we focus in the church and have in all my years, I've been a part of the church for 50 years, we have focused on preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ in the kingdom of God. And we go and do that. But Jesus said to go and make disciples in this verse that we look at as the Great Commission. Now, preaching the gospel is, in a very real sense, it is making disciples too. But there's a finer point of understanding that all of us should understand about the gospel and the message of salvation that the gospel contains. The announcement, the teaching, the presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the kingdom of God goes deep into our lives as to what we do as a way of life. The gospel is salvation, the gospel is education, the gospel of the kingdom of God is a complete structuring and ordering of our life that permeates and impacts every aspect of it. Every day, for every year, that we are a part of the body of Christ and the church and of this calling.

And to focus and to look at what Jesus said here, I think it is important that we come back to that.

And so, let's do that for a few minutes here.

Let's look at the word disciple.

The word disciple, as it is translated in the Greek here, and I have to be careful quoting Greek with Ken Graham on the front row. He's one of our resident Greek experts in the church. And if there's ever a question that we have on the Doctrine Committee or in any aspect of the ministry about Greek, he may be one of those we'll call because he has studied enough Greek to be dangerous.

But he knows a far lot more than I do. So, when I quote it, it's basically what I read out of a book, not because I've really studied the language and everything. Mr. Graham has done more of that. But he'll correct me if I'm wrong.

The word for disciple, as it is here, is mathetes.

In the Old Testament, it comes from a word talimid.

And both Hebrew and Greek translations, the meaning is essentially this. It is someone who's a student, who's dedicated themselves to learning a teacher or a rabbi's understanding of Scripture and of their way of living.

It's a student who has dedicated themselves to learning from a teacher what they know about, in this case, Scripture, or in the case of Jimmy Russell's son, what he knows about making Kentucky bourbon. And it may be you apprentice yourself to someone to learn the jewelry-smith trade or a welding trade or an electrician trade. You apprentice yourself, you put yourself as a mentor under someone who is a certified expert, who has learned and worked it for years, and you are a disciple of that particular field as well.

So this is how it's applied. But it's one who dedicates themselves to learning from another. And in this case, as we see it in Scriptures, it's learning the Scripture and the way of life. A student or a learner is what a disciple is. And that is very important.

Jesus said in Mark 8 and verse 34, whoever wants to be my disciple, he said, must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. On one occasion. If you will, turn over to Luke 9. We'll look at another statement that Jesus made in regard to this calling and this following. Luke 9. And verse 57. It happened as they journeyed on the road that someone said to him, Lord, I will follow you wherever you go. And Jesus said, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

Then he said to another, follow me. But he said, Lord, let me go first go and bury my father. And Jesus said to him, let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow you, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house. But Jesus said to him, no one, having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

We know this again, a very important statement. I have a New King James Bible I'm reading from, the little subhead above verse 57, and my Bible talks about this being the cost of discipleship. That there's a cost to being a disciple, and Jesus lays it out here. That you're going to follow me, and in a sense be a disciple and learn from me. Then you've got to be able to not put your hand to this plow and do not look back.

Otherwise, you're not fit for the kingdom of God. Now, I quoted Mark 8.34 earlier that, again, we must deny ourselves and take up our cross, as he said there. These are two strong statements. In Luke 9, Jesus is making an allusion to something that's very interesting, and it's also instructive to us in understanding what it means to be a disciple, because he uses the term of putting your hand to the plow.

Now, this is an ancient term dealing with an ancient form of agriculture, because plows today are all mechanized. But you will still see, last year we went to the feast in Kenya, and one of our stops toward the end of the feast was right next to a farm. We spent the night in a little hotel center right next to a farm. I got up the next morning, looked out the window, and here were two farmers with two oxen yoked to a plow, and they were going up and down this field. I was mesmerized by it. They used it in my sermon that day. They were going back and forth with an old wooden plow.

This was in Kenya. You will occasionally see that today, but it's rare in the United States. Jesus used this term, if you put your hand to the plow and you look back, you're not fit for the kingdom of God. What did he mean by this, and where did it come from, this allusion to a plow?

That's what's instructive. Where did he get this allusion, and what would they have understood by it? What he was doing was reminding his disciples of a story that they knew from their own history of Israel. He was reminding them of a story of Elisha, Elisha, the prophet who succeeded Elijah. That's what he was reminding them of. If you go back to 1 Kings 19, we pick up the story, 1 Kings 19, of Elijah and Elisha. 1 Kings 19. This is in the timeline of Elijah's story. It is the one event after the event where he had confronted the prophets of Baal and escaped from Jezebel, and he's moving on.

1 Kings 19, verse 16. God tells him here, as he's got to move on and pick up and go on again, He tells him to anoint Jehu the son of Nimschia as the king over Israel. That was one job that he was given to do. Then in verse the latter part he says, And Elisha, the son of Shaphat of Abel and Mahola, you will anoint as prophet in your place. So he's basically telling him, you're going to pick up a person that is going to be your successor. Elisha tells him exactly who. And so he goes and he does that in verse 19.

Elisha departs from there. And he found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was plowing the twelve yoke of oxen. And he was with the twelve. So he had several yoke. I mean, this was a fairly large operation for the day that Elisha was involved with. Twelve yoke of oxen. That was anywhere from, you know, twelve to six plows working a fairly good sized piece of property. And Elisha, Elijah says he passed by him and he threw his mantle on him, which was a symbol of conferring authority upon him.

And that was his way, whatever else was said. But it was basically, he was saying to Elijah, come on, join this work. Come with me. You've got some things to learn. I've got to prepare you. All of that was involved in this throwing his mantle upon him. That was a symbol of investiture. And really, it was a symbol of adopting him as a son in this trade of being a prophet. Okay? And so he left the oxen in verse 20 and he ran after Elijah. And he said, please, let me kiss my father and my mother and then I will follow you.

Kind of reminiscent of what the people wanted to do back in what we read there in Luke chapter 9. And he said to him, go back again for what have I done to you? And so again, there is within this the idea that go back, but don't go back. You're going to have to follow me, which means there's going to have to be a complete separation, severance of the family and the jobs, more or less. Especially, Elisha was given the opportunity for a whole change of career. And he had to make a decision. And in his mind and in his daily life, he had to go with that.

And there was no turning back. And that's what Elijah is saying in this rather sharp tongue response. What have I done to you? So Elijah turned back from him, and here's what he did. He took a yoke of oxen and he slaughtered them. And he boiled their flesh using the oxen's equipment and gave it to the people.

And they ate. He arose then and followed Elijah and became his servant. Now think about what he did. If you had a tractor that you were plowing with, a big John Deere tractor, you wouldn't burn it, but you might sell it. Or you might give it to someone. And in doing so, you'd have a big garage sale, and you'd sell all the other discs and implements that went along with it, and you were out of business.

You would have a big going-out-of-business sale. This is what Elijah did. He had a big going-out-of-business sale. Only in this case, it was a big barbecue. I like to think that he barbecued it rather than boiled it. Technicality, perhaps, but it was an act of finality. And he not only killed his oxen, which was his means of making a living, but he burned his implements. There was no going back.

This was the real major thing here. Elijah had hesitated for a moment. Elijah challenged his commitment, and then Elijah went and did what he did and showed his wholehearted devotion to Elijah by killing the oxen and then building a fire and cooking them that way. His whole means of living were gone.

Elijah had now committed to something that he had to give his whole life to. He burned his bridges, as we say. Or he burned his boats, an allusion to what Cortez did when they landed in Latin America, because he didn't want his soldiers getting homesick and returning home. He burned their boats on the shore, and they went inland, because they had a mission to do and did what I'm turning back. Elijah burned his bridges and made a whole, total commitment to being with Elijah at this moment in time. That's what it takes to be a disciple. It takes a wholehearted commitment. And that's why Jesus said that anyone who turns around and will lift their hand from the plow is not fit for the kingdom of God.

You want to follow me, he said? Put your hand to the plow and keep it there. Elijah, by burning his plow, was committing to following Elijah and becoming like him. Commitment of that nature is very important to being a disciple of Jesus Christ for the kingdom of God. If it's just for a trade, that's a lifelong job, too, and that takes a commitment.

And there has to be a time of apprenticeship and mentoring to learn, and all that will go on there. But it takes commitment. Commitment today is a very interesting concept to think about in terms of how people are.

We preach the gospel in the United Church of God. We put a lot of material on the Internet, on television, and in print. We sometimes, well, not more than sometimes, a lot of times, we keep asking ourselves, why don't we get bigger responses? Why don't we perhaps have more people coming into the church at this particular point for the work that we have done? We ask ourselves that. What do we do better? What's taking place?

A lot of those questions. One of the issues we always wind up in any discussion coming back to is people's commitment today, to religion, to a church. It's not what it was 50 years ago when my mother decided to commit to the Church of God and leave, at that time, the Methodist Church that she had been a part of. It was a different time then, come 50 years later, and what people have is views about religion and large institutions of all kinds.

People don't work 30, 40, 50 years at the same job anymore. 30 years and out used to be the mantra of a good factory job. You were done after 30 years and you had a pension and you could retire. That's a lifestyle of the past in the workforce. People wait longer to commit to marriage.

You study the statistics about marriage, and people are putting off marriage longer today. Pass their 20s into their 30s before they will commit to a relationship in marriage. That doesn't mean that you're not maybe living together or sexual activities going on, but to commit to an avowal before God and witnesses to marriage, that is being put off longer and longer by people today.

Commitment of all types is something that takes a lot of work. If you have a friend, and you have a friend for a long period of time, multiple decades, that takes commitment. I have a few friends that I've had. We've had friendships for multiple decades, and that takes commitment. Debbie and I are celebrating 40 years of marriage next month. That takes commitment, too, to get through 40 years. You commit to God, and you commit to a way of life.

You commit to the kingdom of God. That's a commitment. When we are baptized and we enter into that relationship, and it's not done lightly. It is for life. I'm a lifer. As I said, I've been since 12, 50 years ago, I've been part of the church. I've been in the ministry for 40 years. I'm a lifer. This is what I am.

This is what I will do. And we'll be doing until I draw my last breath, God willing. In this way of life, I've learned at his early age, 50 years later, I'm still doing it. Still believing. Again, God willing. I stand here by the grace of God, not anything else. But I hope to finish my life, just as Mark's mother did a few days ago in the faith, as you do as well.

For us all to do that takes commitment. And to commit to being a disciple is a very, very important matter. That's what we committed to. And that is our commission. That is our job. When you go back to the story of Elisha and Elijah, Elisha lived with Elijah, traveled with him as a servant for the period of time that we find recorded here in Kings. It was not enough for Elisha to learn the teaching of Elijah.

He also had to learn what Elijah was really like. And he did that by being with him day in and day out. He had to become like Elijah. If he was going to wear the mantle of Elijah, he had to be like him. If we're going to wear the name of Christ, we have to be like him. And that takes a day in and day out commitment. Elisha learned that by living with him during this period of time of several years in his ministry.

And that's why in 2 Kings 2, when we see that Elijah's time of departure comes near, Elisha didn't want to leave him. 2 Kings 2. In verse 1, It came to pass when the Lord was about to take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. And Elijah said to Elisha, Stay here. Please. The Lord has sent me to Bethel. But Elisha said, As the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.

So they went down to Bethel. And I won't read through the whole story, but you go on through the passage here. And Elijah kept saying, Stay here. And Elisha said, No, I'm not going to leave you. I will not leave you. And he didn't. And finally, when you see that Elijah was taken up, verse 12, when he was finally taken up by that flaming chariot, he cried out, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horsemen. So he saw him no more. And he took hold of his own clothes and tore them into two pieces.

He stayed with him to the end. He wouldn't leave him. That's what a disciple does. That's the type of work that Elisha did with Elijah. That's why when Jesus said in Luke 9, No man who has put his hand to the plow and leaves it is fit for the kingdom of God. And they understood, Oh, that's the story of Elisha.

And they understood that they knew the whole story of Elijah and Elisha. And the disciples realized, We have to stay with you until the end. They did, even. Literally, they did because they were with Christ when He finally ascended after 40 days from His resurrection on the Mount of Olives. They were with Him then, and they saw Him taken up into heaven. So the disciples stayed with Jesus all the way. They had a momentary lapse at His time of His arrest and His death where they fled.

But they all came back together, and they were taught with Him during that 40-day period. And then He was ascended, and they stood there, and they watched Him. And what they had learned and what they came to know. They understood that story when Jesus said, You put your hand to the plow, you don't turn back. They understood exactly what He meant. And there were so many other details of the story of Elisha and Elijah and what it meant.

We're here in 2 Kings 3, verse 11. 2 Kings 3, verse 11. Jehoshaphat here is recounting something, and it's about Elisha and Elijah and their relationship. Verse 11 says, Jehoshaphat said, Is there no prophet of the Lord here that we may inquire of the Lord by Him? And one of the servants of the king of Israel answered and said, Elisha, the son of Shaphat, is here.

Who poured water on the hands of Elijah. So they said, Oh yeah, Elisha is here, and He's the one who poured water on Elisha's hands. Sometimes we just read right over these things and we don't pause to really take in the full meaning of what was being said. You ever pour the water over someone's hands? Not typically do that. We have delta faucets that do that for us today. We just turn the lever and water comes out. But you know, if you have a basin of water, and there are maybe occasions where you would have somebody do that, but you know when you're doing that, you're serving them.

And this was an allusion to an act of service. A servant to his master. Elisha pouring water while Elijah washed his hands and then went on. It doesn't say that Elijah did that necessarily for Elisha, not that he wouldn't. But it was a phrase meaning this guy who was the servant, the disciple, the one who was mentored by Elijah. He did that. When you carry that into the allusions that we have in the Gospels in the first century, Judah, the nation of Judah at that time, and the idea of a disciple-teacher-servant-master relationship that Jesus referred to many different times, you see that the disciples learned again along the same lines.

They bought food for the common meal at times. Jesus would send them to buy food. When it came time for that final Passover, they arranged for the Passover according to Jesus' instructions. Those were things that a servant would do normally, and they were in that role of servant and slash disciple during that period of time. And through that period of time, the disciples were to be learning humility and service, a literal application as they served the Master, Jesus, during that period of time. And for them to have done that took a certain level of humility for a tax collector like Matthew or a fisherman like John or Peter or Nathaniel, to have left jobs where they were in charge and then followed this what would have been described as kind of an itinerant rabbi by the locals for three and a half years and do what they did.

They had a complete changeover where they may have been their own man, now they were someone else's man. They were servants to Jesus, and they bought the food. They made certain arrangements, and they did all of this. But they were to be learning humility because that's one of the key elements of a disciple, to be humble.

And they learned it, but not completely. Because after three years of instruction, the closest disciples still didn't get it. In Luke 22, you find that they were jockeying for position. Luke 22, verse 24, There was a certain dispute among them as to which of them should be considered the greatest. The greatest getter of food.

The greatest wanted to gather the wood for the fire at night. You stop and think about what they were really jockeying over, what they had been in training with for this period of time. And the idea of the kingdom was still yet to be fully formed in their minds. And he said to them, he went off on this description about what true service is, beginning in verse 25. And he said, The greatest among you will be one who serves. The greatest will be one who serves. They still had not quite learned everything at this point. That's why when you go to John 13, on the evening before Jesus is of his arrest and before he died in John 13, that's why when Jesus washed their feet, he was really teaching them the ultimate.

Beginning in John 13, verse 13. You call me teacher and Lord, and you say, Well, for so I am. If I then your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I've given you an example that you should do as I've done. And most assuredly I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who's sent greater than he who sent him.

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. Foot washing attitude. A foot washing approach. Jesus did things that no master, no rabbi, no teacher of the day did. And when he washed their feet, he was showing them the solution. And it was a shocking act of foot washing that no doubt resonated through the years of the apostles as they followed his example.

When you read Peter's teaching on it in 1 Peter, I think he learned it. He got it. And he wrote about it in 1 Peter. Being clothed with humility. Clothed with humility. Being a disciple is a very, very important matter. I went to a school called Ambassador College. And the name was taken from a scripture that we are ambassadors for Christ. An ambassador is one who represents his nation in a foreign country. We all understand that connection.

We understand that we represent the kingdom of God in a world that is not God's at this time. And so teaching and the connection we always have understood. And it was always a beautiful lesson as we learned and understood that. And how many of us have yet learned, just when it comes to an ambassador, what an ambassador does?

Yes, he represents his country in a foreign land. He's not a citizen of that land. He's a citizen of his home country. But he represents the ideals, the values of his nation to another nation, to another country. We represent the values, the ideals, the teaching of the kingdom of God in a world that does not know fully that God. But we are individuals who are ambassadors.

You know, this past year I was taught a valuable lesson, all of us were, about what an ambassador really does. Benghazi. Benghazi. Last September, in Libya, terrorists attacked a compound in a house where the American ambassador, Christopher Stevens, was holed up with some of his aides.

We all know the story, I think. And they ultimately killed Ambassador Stevens and his aides. Libya was a very, was not a choice plumb among the ambassador assignments. Still isn't. And yet he willingly took it because he spoke Arabic, had studied Islam and the entire Arab culture, and was committed to representing the best of America there for his nation to attempt to help that nation.

And he had served in other posts throughout the Arab world. He was a bright, shining star in the ambassador ranks. And he was there. And he died on his job. He was, first of all, in a very difficult place, in a difficult assignment.

And he was there knowing that his life was at risk. And when he could have escaped or could have left earlier, whatever, not even been there, he was there. Now, all those other issues that are still a part of that, I hope and pray to God that eventually it will, justice will be done there. But it's a story. But at the heart of the story is that of an ambassador who stayed on his post. That's the best of what an ambassador does. He stays on the job. He puts his hand to the plow, and he stays there.

That's one of the most important things I think I should learn after having gone for three years to a place called Ambassador College. And then for 40 years, served in the ministry of the church that was a part of to serve.

To put your hand to the job and to not turn back.

That's what a disciple does. We learn to serve. We learn to serve. Christ said to his disciples, he said, go and make disciples. Teach them to observe all things that I have commanded you.

He made a lot of other statements. He said on another occasion, he said, my sheep hear my voice. I think on this one teaching, his sheep need to always be hearing his voice and his teaching in that. Because sheep respond to the voice of a shepherd, no matter where they are in a pen or in an open field. And Christ is our chief shepherd. And we are his sheep.

But as disciples, we are following him. And discipleship is more about teaching people to follow in Christ, to be like Christ.

That's what it is. And Jesus said, go and make disciples.

Recently, I guess I had what I call an epiphany. I realize that that's what it says.

It says, go and make disciples.

We are to preach the gospel. We are to do the work. We are to make disciples. And a disciple is one who is learning to be like Christ.

I think that when we take and study that verse and our whole commission from that approach, it opens up a whole level of understanding for us as to really what Christ wants us to do in the work of God.

He says, go and make disciples.

A disciple is someone who follows Christ in our case here.

And we are to teach people by our example, by our teaching, by every part of our life, and by our whole work and embodiment, to be like Christ.

And that's a challenge. That's a lifelong matter.

If a man can learn at his dad's feet for 23 years how to make bourbon, we can set at the feet of Christ for 23 or 33 or 43 or whatever it may be for us, and we can learn to be a disciple as well and should be learning to be disciples and making disciples in the process.

We teach, we make disciples.

Disciples is more about teaching people to follow Christ than perhaps we have realized.

Disciples, discipling is more than winning doctrinal arguments, perhaps, over who's right.

And doctrine is important. I teach doctrine. I teach doctrine at Ambassador Bible Center.

I sit on the doctrine committee of the Council of Elders, and I defend doctrine. I don't change doctrine.

I defend doctrine, the integrity of our doctrines and of our beliefs, and I understand doctrine.

Doctrine must be right, and it must be taught correctly.

But I also, as I teach young minds about doctrine in my doctrines class, I also teach them the practical application of those doctrines.

Because doctrine must not only, in a sense, put us in the right church or put us in the right relationship with God, but also it must change us to be like God.

And there has to be a practical application of what we know to be the correct teaching of the Scriptures, the doctrinal understanding, and how we then apply that. We have sometimes, in our discussions about how we are as a church and how we project the gospel, and as we look at lessons learned over the years, we come to a conclusion some years back, someone made a statement, that we have been very, very good at instruction and information, but not always so good at transformation, and here's the key to understanding that. We have defended doctrine. We have been through a period of time where we saw it completely changed, and we defended it.

That's what led to the Genesis, the beginning of the United Church of God, and we will continue to defend and to teach correct doctrinal understanding of the Bible.

But we must also teach people to be disciples, and that the information that one has must transform us. It must change us inside.

Making disciples is more about transformation than information.

You look at what Jesus did with his disciples, you look in the story of Elisha and Elijah, you look at the whole package, and he says, go and make disciples. That speaks to a transformational process that can take decades in a whole lifetime, where you take the information and it transforms you. Paul said in Romans 12, too, be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Becoming a disciple involves that we are transformed by the knowledge and understanding that we have.

Christ's command is to make disciples by teaching them by word and example.

We are to teach how Christ in us, who is our hope of glory, can transform our lowly bodies into something resembling the life of Christ.

That's where we're going. That's what we do in the Church of God.

That's what we do at Ambassador Bible Center, as we concentrate a dose of instruction into minds who come for that.

You've come, many of you will be with us today and then tomorrow afternoon, and we'll give you a sample of that.

I hope that that can be our approach to what we are learning about the Word of God as we open it and study it, that we are seeking to be transformed by it in our lives, being made into disciples, followers of Jesus Christ.

Recognize the commitment that it takes. And that we are always working to keep our hand attached to that plow, and moving forward in becoming disciples of Jesus Christ.