A disciple is a learner

Holy Trinity Church Huddersfield, Sunday 12 May 2019

The best decision anyone can make in life is to become a disciple of Jesus.

I start this blog the same way that Vicar Mike started his sermon on Sunday morning, with a quote fron Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. My second quote is from Eugene Peterson:

Disciples are people who spend our life apprenticed to Jesus.

On this bright morning, a welcome change from the past few days, was a day for sunglasses on our walk downhill to church. We arrived five minutes before the service started. The day started well.

Last week we missed the first in the series of sermons on Five marks of mission. This week was part two, Teach. It was about teaching, baptising and nurturing believers. At the end of this series our church is having a week of mission from 9 – 16 June. Details here.

Back to this week’s sermon.

Mission is not something we do to others it is something in which we participate. We are supposed to be a community who are disciples and who make disciples. You are not born into the community of the church,you are born again into the community. Being baptised is a symbol of going down into death and being raised to new life.

At this point Vicar Mike said he would be delighted to see any who had not been baptised and wished to be.

A disciple is a learner not just for 25 mins on a Sunday morning. We need to spend time with the teacher himself. Do I know Christ more and more? I cannot learn like that if I am not part of a community.

Discipleship does not happen by accident, it has to be intentional. Following Jesus is something we choose to do.

It is also about obedience.

There are some who would say that obedience is a sign of the old covenant with God and that we are no longer under law, and they would be right, but there is something more about obedience, following Jesus is about obedience because we are in the process of becoming like him. As the Archbishop said, “The best decision anyone can make in life is to become a disciple of Jesus.”