One Sunday morning in 1865, a black man entered a fashionable church in Richmond, Virginia. When Communion was served, he walked down the aisle and knelt at the altar. A rustle of resentment swept the congregation. How dare he! After all, believers in that church used the common cup. Suddenly a distinguished layman stood up, stepped forward to the altar, and knelt beside the black man. With Robert E. Lee setting the example, the rest of the congregation soon followed his lead.
From the very start of Creation, God made men and women to be His image-bearers, to be close to Him in a personal relationship and the purpose of this “Creation mandate” was to work, to relate to the entire created world, and to go forth and multiply.
This was reiterated after the Fall to Noah and to Abraham and Moses and the nation of Israel so that the Fall would be reversed through the plan of salvation - but hte underlying theme is consistent with the Creation mandate -- we must bear His image and go forth and multiply.
Jesus is the perfect and exact representation of God in human form (Hebrews 1:3), so whatever Jesus did and said with the disciples is something we must consider seriously, and it is also consistent with what God wanted from the very beginning. Jesus called and initiated who would be on his first team of 12 - they responded (in various ways, Judas being one of 12 who went bad) -- so there is human agency and divine agency in this process. The primary purpose of discipleship is to be with Jesus (not only passively ) but actively as a result of this being with Christ - which should result in other believers also wanting to know how we can grow into the maturity of Jesus Christ (the unity of which Jesus wants in John 17.
Note :- From the Sermon outline series on Discipleship by Dr. Anil Jacob for Crossway.
Stanley Thomas Isac
Stanley is serving as the Pastor of Crossway Church in New Delhi, he can be reached at stanleytisac@gmail.com
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