Embodying Christ: A Journey of Radical Discipleship

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and the instruction of Jesus is simply this that we are to adopt an approach which is gracious and loving and forgiving this says Jesus in his opening statement is the way of blessedness blessed is this individual and blessed is the other and so on reminding us that Christian discipleship is marked by a reversal of values [00:01:25]

so the follower of Jesus is going to be identified by the way in which he or she responds to where the mainstream of a culture is going when it endorses that which is counter to what Jesus teaches then the follower of Jesus Will suspect that kind of emphasis and will be prepared to be regarded as something of a loser because he Embraces that which the world thinks is pitiable [00:02:05]

instead says Jesus if you're going to be my disciple then I want you to be merciful as your father is merciful and God shows his Mercy by being kind to those who are ungrateful and who are wicked so he says I want my followers not to be those who stand up as it were on the spiers of their churches and fire down at the people below [00:03:40]

instead he says I want you to be the embodiment of forgiveness and the embodiment of kindness Christian discipleship marked by a reversal of societal values marked by an exceptional kind of love and marked in the end of the chapter to which we'll come next time by the kind of zealous and true obedience which Jesus demands [00:04:13]

the call of the sermon is that one should not be preoccupied primarily and initially with the spiritual condition of others but should instead be diligent in examining ourselves in light of a standard that Jesus sets now that is if we're honest immediately a challenge because most of us regarded our prerogative to be immediately involved in the spiritual condition of others [00:05:50]

now by means of this one metaphor this mental picture Jesus is pointing out the Folly and the futility of a blind man acting as a guide and also of the disastrous consequences of following a guide who is himself blind now here's the question how does this tie into the preceding portion of Jesus discourse and how does it fit with all that follows [00:08:23]

therefore it is imperative that you leave behind these teachers and that you come and follow he who is the great teacher namely Jesus himself the warning I think is also matched by an implied exhortation and it's simply this if his followers are going to be teachers and they are then they need to be on their guard against the blindness which marked the Pharisees [00:14:21]

before judging others Jesus is essentially saying we better first judge ourselves last we too become blind leaders of the blind that is a very sobering statement says Calvin nothing is worse than men who think that they see when they are in reality blind and when in their delusion they make bold to act as leaders and guides for others [00:15:21]

in order to avoid being a blind teacher we must first place our lives under the Divine Searchlight that's what he's saying before we start in on other people let's make sure that we are undergoing the X-ray before we start running around with a mobile CAT scan for everybody let's make sure that we ourselves have been through the tube [00:17:12]

indeed without self-examination and without self-reparation our actions will be the product of presumption rather than the product of love you understand what I mean by that that if I am unprepared to face the dreadfulness of my own heart if I am unprepared to acknowledge with Murray McShane who died at the age of 29 [00:18:06]

and Jesus is saying if you're going to be kind to The Ungrateful and the merciful you're going to have to be able to come along like this and if you're going to learn to come along like this then you're going to have to put yourself under the CAT scan of my word and you're going to have to realize that you've got things hanging off you [00:19:19]

people when they think about church discipline tend to think immediately about communion tables and disfranchising and disfellowshiping people but the real church discipline is a discipline that starts with our own hearts church discipline starts with me it's not my brother not my sister but it's me O Lord standing in the need of prayer [00:20:48]

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