Fully Devoted Followers(3): What the gospels have to say

It would take a long time to make an exhaustive survey of the gospels, but here are some observations.

The sermon on the mount is possibly one of the most significant sources for a study of what being a disciple of Jesus might look like. Some of the key points are:

Let you light shine: In John 8:12 Jesus describes himself as the light of the world. Here in Matt.5 he uses the same phrase to describe his followers. In the sermon on the mount Jesus says that we should do our good deeds in such a way that they point people towards God. Of course this seems immediately to be contradicted in the next chapter when Jesus says: Be careful not to do your “acts of righteousness” in front of others, to be seen by them.

The point is that the followers of Jesus are meant to be conspicuously different not to draw attention to themselves, as the Pharisees did, but to give glory to God. And it’s a pattern that Jesus follows himself if we are right that the miracles, signs as John calls them, vindicate the message as is most commonly taught among evangelicals. Jesus himself challenged those who saw the miracles to connect them to the message and the Father and his relationship to the Son (John 10).

Secondly: Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees… you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. The whole issue with the Pharisees in the gospels was that their righteousness was about keeping the law in minute detail. Their problem was their inability even to live up to that standard. Religious practice is not the key. The righteousness of which Jesus speaks is nothing like that.

The rest of the Sermon on the Mount explores this through issues about our thought life (murder and adultery), our integrity (oaths), grace (turn the other cheek, go the extra mile), loving enemies, caring for the poor, prayer and fasting. (Fasting will be something to which Jesus returns later in the Gospel and once again will use to underline that religious practice is not the answer to the question: How do I live a life that pleases God?)

All this leads to the conclusion: Store up treasure in heaven, which in turn moves us on to living differently (we don’t judge others, we don’t worry).

Beyond the Sermon on the Mount

Take the low road: Matt. 18,19 and 20 pick up the theme of servant-hood.

In Matt.18 Jesus says that whoever takes a humble place is the greatest in the kingdom. In chapter 20 it’s Zebedee’s boys and the question: Who’s the greatest among us? The answer Jesus gives is: … whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.

Amongst the stories in between these two events is the encounter with the rich man who, once again, is asking: What must I do to please God? Is it keep the law, because I’ve done that. No, says Jesus, it’s deeper. Sell everything and follow me. I guess by now we’ve made the point that religious practice is not the answer to the question. Perhaps this is because we so often ask the wrong question in the first place. We ask, “What must I do?” rather than, “What must I become?”

Bear fruit: It’s in John’s gospel that Jesus speaks about the vine, the branches and the fruit. If we bear fruit we glorify our Father according to John 15. In Matt. Jesus talked about trees being known by the fruit they bear, and most notably of course is the fig tree that had lush leaves but no fruit and suffered the consequences mirroring the clearing of the Temple which had become a symbol of the fruitless nature of some of the first century Jewish worship in that place.

Do what Jesus did: You can’t read the gospels without noticing that the disciples of Jesus were commissioned to do what Jesus did. He healed, drove out demons and raised the dead, and he sent out the disciples to do the same (Matt.10). He also lived a life of self-denial and suffering. And he called his followers to do the same (Mark 8, 10). But heroic as these things might seem, there are other things that Jesus did that I would suggest a fully devoted follower would see to do too.

For example, he ate with sinners. He touched the unclean and even allowed the unclean to touch him. There was even one occasion when he actually celebrated the fact (the woman with the haemorrhage). More than one in fact, remember the woman who washed his feet.
The gospels then have a lot to say about following in the sense of becoming like Jesus, doing what he did not simply repeating what he said.