In his book, The Five Marks of a Disciple, Joey Rodgers describes one of his most embarrassing moments when he was in the ninth grade playing football. It was a game against their arch-rivals. His responsibility on the team was catching and returning punts. In the waning moments of the game with his team winning by six points, he assumed his position on the field. As the ball was launched into the air and fixing his eyes on the ball in flight, he took a couple of steps back to position himself for the catch. Then, as any good returner would do, he took his eyes off the ball momentarily to survey the field and the on-coming defenders to determine if he needed to call for a fair-catch or if he could return the ball. And then it happened! When he returned his eyes to find the ball, it was nowhere to be found. Instead of seeing a football, all he could see was the sun – that is, until the ball landed right on top of his helmet, bouncing ten feet back up into the air, landing inside his team’s own ten-yard line to be recovered by the opposing team. Then, to make matters worse, two plays later, their rivals ran the ball in for a touchdown costing his team the game. Needless to say, it wasn’t his finest moment.
Rodgers goes on to recount that in that moment he had but one job…CATCH THE BALL! He didn’t have to run with it or pass it off to another teammate; all he had to do was catch it. Instead, he momentarily took his eyes off his mission and lost the ball in the sun, costing his team the game – all because he lost sight of his objective and did not keep the main thing the main thing.
The end of Matthew’s gospel records the final teaching of Jesus, better know as the Great Commission, where he commands his followers to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. And for the past 2000-plus years, the church has been trying to live out that commission of winning people to faith in Christ and growing them to maturity in the faith, so they can be sent out into the world to make more disciples. Yet, by all appearances, one has to wonder how Christians are doing at that task. Take for example in the Southern Baptist Convention, over the last twenty years seven million people have been baptized resulting in no increase in attendance. Is it possible we have taken our eyes off the mission just long enough to survey the landscape of life, only to lose sight of the objective in the name of doing church?
The point being that if those baptized are not being discipled, is the church fulfilling its mission as commanded by Jesus? I believe that is one of the reasons someone has described the church today as five miles wide but only two inches deep. Deitrich Bonhoeffer once declared, “Salvation without discipleship is cheap grace – it is characterized by belief without obedience, hearing without doing, intellectual assent without life commitment.” What he is saying is that many people start out becoming Christians but sadly leave it at that and never move on to being a true disciple of Jesus. Much like the little boy who constantly fell out of bed no matter what his parents did. When asked by his uncle why he fell out so often, the boy replied, “I don’t know, unless it’s because I stay too close to the place where I get in.”
Acts 11:26 says that the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch because of what they were in word and walk. In other words, they emulated the life of Christ. As we move into spring and head toward summer, a lot of things will garner our attention and time. However, the time you spend following Jesus will reap the greatest rewards! In John 8, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
To His Glory,
Pastor Bill