Heidelberg Catechism Project

From Delusion To Discipleship

18th Lord's Day after Trinity, Proper 25b

Numbers 12:1-15
Psalm 31
James 3:1-18
Mark 9:30-37

The call was unexpected. It was from an area code I did not recognize. I answered it to find a dear friend and mentor had suffered a massive heart attack and was not expected to survive. Later in the day, we learned that sometime today (10/11/2009) they will decide if he is brain dead and let his body die. When death greets us... will we be deluded or be a disciple?

Today, we read the second incident in Mark’s Gospel where Jesus predicts His death and resurrection. We have three incidents in Mark’s record of Jesus training His disciples and each time - they just don’t get it! Each time they are puzzled – even unbelieving – about what Jesus says. First Peter basically says “Jesus, you’re nuts!” This time they don’t want to risk a reprimand, but you can see what they’re doing – they’re arguing about who is going to be the top dog when Jesus’ kingdom comes. They seem to still expect Jesus to ascend quickly to an earthly throne and use the powers He has displayed in healing people and casting out demons to bring Israel’s enemies immediately to hell!

So when Jesus rebukes Peter for likely saying something just like that, now the disciples don’t say a word. Mark tells us that when Jesus talks about His death and resurrection, the disciples don’t understand what’s going on and are afraid. Those jobs they had lined up in their own minds as “Messiah’s Assistants” suddenly seem jeopardized. After all, they figured that when Jesus whooped up, they were going to be exalted leaders like Daniel in Babylon or Joseph in Egypt. They figured they’d finally gotten in on something good and here’s Jesus messing up those dreams!

But this time, just like the last time, and just like the next time ( Mk 10:32-45), Jesus takes their confusion and tells them that they must move from their delusion to discipleship.

In a 12 Step Group you’ll say the “Serenity Prayer” that asks God to “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” That’s a prayer for people who can’t tell fantasy from reality because their sins and delusions have warped their ability to know what’s real.

Jesus’ disciples – just like us – are deluded about what’s going to happen because they have their lives already mapped out in their own heads. They are following Jesus but in their minds they are using Jesus because they have it all mapped out about what Jesus is going to do for them!

That’s why they’re fighting. They have competing ideas about which one of them Jesus is going to make the head man!

But it doesn’t work that way!

Jesus doesn’t call us because He’s putting Himself at our disposal! That’s a delusion! Instead He calls us to find our lives by following Him as He gives Himself. That’s discipleship!

As our Lord takes the disciples aside on this march to Jerusalem and to His death to tell them about God’s plan, these men cannot forget for one moment about what’s “in it for them” about being with Jesus!

As they are in their dream world expecting quick riches and power to come their way for their brief fling with following Jesus, Jesus again in Mark 9 tells them about His coming death instead. Before Jesus can be the “Son of Man” in victory in Dan 7, He must be the prophetic “Son of Man” portrayed in Ezekiel’s ministry who speaks to Israel’s sin and rebellion, who wanders and teaches like an exile to people who are still in exile though they think they are free (Ez 12:3). He’s speaking prophetic truth to people who are inventing their own prophecies and living in delusion (Ez 13:2). Jesus confronts those who erect idols in their hearts and teach their lies instead of God’s Word (Ez 14:3). Jesus will tell them what it means to be connected to God’s vine (John 15/Ezek 15). He speaks in parables and riddles (Ezek 17). He lets Jerusalem know their abominations (Ez 16) and groaned with anguish over their sin (Ezek 21/Luke 13:34). Jesus will be this “Son of Man” and He will be killed in God’s plan and in God’s plan rise to life!

Die? Rise? The prophet Daniel talked in terms of many rising (Dan 12) on the Last Day. But one man rise? It was confusing. Jesus was sounding increasingly like the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53...but surely the time of suffering was past and the time of victory is at hand!
Jesus says “No”! Wake up! Stop serving yourselves, stop thinking your brief flings of obedience and devotion suffice. When you can realize that Jesus does not exist to prop up your delusion and you exist to find your life in Him, you can escape your delusion and learn to delight in discipleship!

The salvation that Jesus gives us in this world and the next is a salvation that sets us free from ourselves! The first time Jesus brought up this topic last week in our studies, Jesus told them He would set them free if they would turn from themselves and turn to Him, if they would stop grasping for the elusive promises of this life and trust Him for joy in following Him where He was going!

Now we learn the second crucial lesson about what it means to escape our delusion and become His disciples... It is the principle and practice of servant leadership.

Here’s the principle: To people like us who need to get over the delusion that Jesus exists to serve us and our agenda, we need to learn this lesson from Him - If you want to be the first among God’s people, be the servant of God’s people!

*Everybody wants to be known as a hero, but nobody wants to get shot at.

*Everybody wants to be known as a “Reformer” but nobody wants to get up to their neck in the manure that comes when you work with people.

*Everybody wants to be the one everybody looks up to, but nobody wants to do the work required of being a person people can rely on.

To people who wonder why God isn’t using them, why Jesus isn’t blessing them, why people aren’t taking them seriously in their Christian profession – Jesus says (and I say it in the most reverent way possible) “For Christ’s sake DO SOMETHING and get off your rear end!” Stop playing your mind games and cultivating your day dreams and DO SOMETHING! DO SOMETHING! DO SOMETHING FOR SOMEONE IN CHRIST’S NAME!

My friend Edwin Elliott said that when they ordain leaders in their church, they give them a broom. The last time I talked to him he was taking out the trash at the church. Get out of your head and get into the world to do something for someone else in Jesus’ name.

Here’s the practice: So how does this work out in practice? We want it to mean that we are called to do something glamorous and well paid. If we are pastors we want it to mean that we are called to minister to stadiums full of adoring crowds. If we are church leaders we may want to consider our church “the best in town”. We may find ourselves wanting to be noticed by people – to have our picture in the paper every week – to win a Nobel Prize for doing nothing.

But Jesus took a child and a set the child in their midst. In that day, children were considered, weak, inferior, and a liability – the way pro abortionists talk about them when arguing for abortion as a way to cut the cost of the schools and the cost of government.

Jesus promised that if we welcomed weak, inferior, insignificant people and served them, THEN we would know what it means to serve as disciples and break free from our delusions and become disciples!

Here’s the promise: It’s hard to follow Jesus at times. We so desperately want – at times – to BE ANYWHERE ELSE but where God has put us. We so desperately want to be doing ANYTHING BUT the menial task God seems to have assigned us.

But Jesus has a promise for us in our misery. He promises that when we serve and welcome the insignificant in His Name – in union with Jesus, empowered by Jesus, driven by the love of Jesus, trusting in Jesus to use us in our insignificance, when our following becomes the oneness with Jesus of repentance faith and eating His flesh and drinking His blood described in John 6 – then in that service Jesus will find their union with Christ and the Father deepened.

No it doesn’t mean that if you help someone in Jesus’ Name then suddenly that person becomes Jesus or is a Christian somehow because you helped them. But as we move out of our deluded self interest into the discipleship Jesus calls us too, we will know what it means to live as one with Jesus and the Father and the blessing of their nearness and what it means to rejoice in being the Father’s child.

Jesus promises that as we move out of our delusion into discipleship we shall find the joy of knowing Him and thereby enjoy all the blessings of the Father’s adoption (Gal 4:4-7) and come to experience in and through our serving the nearness of the life of heaven (John 17:3).

If death should come and greet you today – and you should leave this world for your eternal reward – will you be found to be deluded, someone who played games with their life and played around with knowing Jesus, or will you be found to be a disciple who for the joy of Jesus’ promised nearness, had learned to be the one who lead by serving?