DISCIPLESHIP – REVISITED.  HARD WORKERS FOR THE KINGDOM

 Older guys are tougher than young guys, I have observed through the years, when it comes to visitors to Ghana.  Most of the over 40 or 50’s guys would be up the next day, with a cup of coffee and ready to roll, even if fighting off jag lag pretty hard.  The college age guys?  They’d often crash out and needed help getting out of their beds.  I am not trying to be critical, just making an observation.  It seems like the older guys have learned, through the disciplines of the work place and life extensities to follow a routine and get things done.  Why is that?  What is different?  Do you really believe that the older guys (and gals) are physically able to rejuvenate quicker, or just have supra-abundance of extra energy that the young don’t possess?  Hardly!

I believe that we live in a day of mental and physical softies who declare bankruptcy or give up and give in at the drop of a hat, who want bailed out and propped up so that they can continue their outrageous, ostentatious, bohemian “Saturday Night Live” lifestyles.  College students often don’t even start classes until 10:00 a.m long enough to partly recover from hangovers from last night’s party.  Recently a MSN news blip mentioned having high school start later, around 9:00 a.m, because the students will be more alert and awake.  Duh – of course, if they are getting to bed at 3:00 a.m after wasting the night in dissipating, bodacious behavior.  (By the way, classes start here, in Africa, where my son is attending the local university, at 6:00 a.m) American children are much more obese, have more pre-onset diabetes, and cannot do one pull-up or run a mile in 9 minutes.  Marine drill instructors find it harder to whip the boys (and girls) into shape in 11 weeks.  Pushing joysticks has become the exercise of choice for children who used to ride bicycles, explore the back woods, play war games, run, wrestle and work on the farm.  Hence too many Americans expect people south of the border to do all the hard jobs for little pay, then complain about our borders not being secure.  High school kids do not want to “waste their time” working in menial agricultural jobs, like picking apples, or cleaning up somebody else’s mess.  Of course with the recession, this might soon change.  And your kids might be a big exception to this generality.  Nevertheless, the days when Americans were iron men with God-fearing hearts are long past, for the most part.

Nevertheless, when properly motivated, Americans can still get tough and perform heroically.  Just look at Lance Armstrong, in the Tour De France, winning this bicycle race of about 2300 miles six times, and after recovering from a very serious case of cancer.  Many more examples of individual toughness could be given.  Yet when we are making disciples for Jesus Christ, we must be aware that following the Master requires much hard work.  Jesus recruited some very hard workers.  This came to mind when I was thinking of getting out of bed the other day at 5:20 a.m to go on a prayer walk.  I hadn’t slept well and was considering rolling back over in bed.  I thought that maybe more sleep was a necessity, not just a nice thing.  Sleeping in Kumasi is real adventure.  Late night booming discos until 2:00 a.m, then 5:15 a.m student rowdies marching with drums and noise makers through the street are common events.  Early morning advertising vans with speakers on top blaring, Pentecostal preachers, and trucks with no real working mufflers are all to the challenge.  Plus the constant threat of armed home invaders returning again will create some insomniac tendencies.  (We’ve had three such attempts)  Plus the barking of your watchdog warning the many late-night passer-bys to beware must be factored.   Malaria and the medicine to treat it, and power outages with the 89 degree F. in the bedroom are often not unknown.

Anyway, “To rise, or not to the rise”, that was the question.  Then I remembered the story of how Peter had fished all night when Jesus came to call him to full-time discipleship.  (The third call)  Now fishing isn’t easy.  But that is the kind of man who led the others.  Hardworking.  Later on, after Jesus had risen, Peter went fishing again.  Notice that they went all night.  And when the others had brought in the net full of BIG fish, Peter single-handely, like somebody called Samuel Magnesson, the Icelandic legendary world class strongest man champion, pulled in the net.  Strong hands, strong heart - that describes Peter.  He climbed the 9000 foot Mt. Hermon with Jesus to see the transfiguration.  He walked …everywhere.  He went from town to town with huge crowds pressing in constantly, and did this 24/7, from early morning until late at night.  Truly following Christ during His earthly sojourn was an intense, high energy event.  Notice also that Christ called him to leave his nets in the beginning and the end, and asked Peter to love

And have you ever tried talking to hundreds, no, thousands of people without a microphone … outdoors on a windy day?  With babies and restless children in the crowd… and actually be heard?  Like on Pentecost?  Need I go on?

When following Christ, what “me time” did the disciples get?  What entertainment?  (As if watching Jesus do miracles wasn’t enough!)  What sleeping quarters or nice soft quilts and beds?  Hot showers?  Hot water for shaving?  Fast food – yep, they ate fast or often hardly even ate a square meal.  What air-conditioning on nice hot Palestinian afternoons of 100 degree plus heat?  Washing machines? Laundromats?  Permanent press clothes?

No, nope, nada – they didn’t have any of these modern day essentials.  But they did know how to work, how to be tough, how to be content with much less.

I am curious, are Americans even approaching the hard lifestyles of most other citizens of this planet with the much reported recession going on?  Are their women carrying water from the stream or well each day, as millions of villagers have already done today and are doing while you read this?  Are they grinding their corn or millet, pounding, mashing, boiling and steaming over wood or charcoal fires outdoors as many are also doing?  Are their children walking barefoot or in tattered sandals, miles to little school buildings with only a few books and one chair and desk for two students?  Is the phrase “eating out” descriptive of eating under the mango tree because they have no such thing as a dining room.  Do protein deficiencies haunt their children and cause their hair to turn red and their bellies to distend?  Where eating an entire piece of chicken or several ounces of beef is a yearly occurrence?  Where a varied diet means adding some grubs to the food, or a single tomato?  I am just curios.  It seems that the more we have, more we complain.  Softies, with soft beds, soft armchairs, soft bodies and soft in the ….  I am also somewhat guilty of this, by the way, although living in Africa. 

We haven’t yet resisted temptation to the point of shedding our blood in or resistance to sin. So, cannot we get out of bed, at least!! Crack open the Bible and memorize one verse, read one chapter, and say one prayer in the morning before rushing off to our business.  We don’t have to walk two miles to carry water, cut firewood, and then start the first meal of the day by peeling, grinding, pounding and boiling for two or three hours.  Our modern day conveniences should free us for more good deeds, more spiritual pursuits, more Bible studies, more income generating activity so that we can pay our bills and then give generously to the poor and our church’s efforts and for missionaries overseas to win souls.

I want to urge each person who is reading this lesson to consider that teaching ourselves and others to work hard, is going to be essential for many people whom we hope to disciple to be like Christ.  God cannot do for us what we won’t do for ourselves.  He won’t pray, read our Bibles, repent or believe for us.  We must train ourselves and be trained in these things.  Just consider II Thess. 3, for example. 

Read Paul’s commendation of certain Christian friends and associates in Rome, in Romans 16:

-          Phoebe – a “servant (servants serve, or work) of the church which is at Cenchrea”, a “helper of many”

-          Prisca and Aquila, “my fellow workers”.

-          Mary, “who has worked hard” for you.

-          Urbanus, “my fellow worker”.

-          Greet Tryphaena and Tryphosa – workers in the Lord.  Greet Persis the beloved, who has “worked hard” in the Lord.

Now compare them with those mentioned in Romans 16:18, to false teachers – “slaves of there own appetites”.  Watch out for having too-o healthy an appetite for any good thing.  In the same way, also notice Philippians 3:19 – “enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite…”

If you wanted in Paul’s good books, if you wanted His approval and appreciation, you had to be a hard worker!  No slouch puppies could pay on Paul’s soul-winning, salvation-preaching and fleshly-lusts denying team.  Just like Jesus’ original disciples.  They worked so hard that the Lord’s family wanted to lock Him up for His own good, to make Him rest! (Mark 3:20-21) 

We serve a hardworking God! When Jesus defended His miracle of healing the paraplegic by the pool of Bethesda, he made this bold, true claim:  “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” By saying this, He deliberately stating that He was equal with God. (Jn. 5:17-18)

In Genesis 2:1-2, it says:  “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. (Billions - or trillions? - of stars, millions of galaxies!!!)  By the seventh day God completed His WORK which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His WORK which He had done.  Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”  (He invented and produced the universe down to the sub-atomic, sub-molecular level in only six days!  Now that is one – and there is only one - very, very productive and extremely hard-working God indeed!

The church is no hide-out for couch potato slouch puppies.  Sloths and sluggards cannot expect a heavenly reward from the Master who will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”  Laziness destroys team morale.  Slackness In the day of distress proves the weakness of one’s faith and character. We must eliminate these things.  A hardworking Christian is imitating his hardworking Master, Jesus Christ, who likewise mirrored His hardworking Heavenly Father.  If God is still working hard, so must we. How can the servant sit down to rest and relax when the master hasn’t done so.  How could one be so presumptuously arrogant and thoughtless?(Lk. 17:7-10) 

Here I would like to insert a caveat: I am not advocating the foolish workaholicism that many have fallen into, which neglects family, church activity, and personal spiritual growth in order to make more money or accomplish some earthly goal.  NO, that also destroys rather than builds the kingdom of God’s influence on earth.  Work means doing good deeds.  To work out our salvation with fear and trembling means to dedicate ourselves to serving Christ in all that we do, and doing it all with all of our heart, minds and strength.  Not working more overtime hours to have money to maintain an pampered lifestyle with all the latest gizmos and gadgets Wall Street is advertising.  We don’t need more and more stuff, and a softer and more comfortable life.  In the year 2515, will we still be able to walk up a flight of stairs or pick up a box of books, or must our expensive robots do it for us, because our muscles have turned to sponge and spaghetti noodles?

Let’s learn to be mentally and physically tough.  To push ourselves over the threshold of pain and fatigue when needed to finish the course, to accomplish the given task.  Let’s realize that when we are working hard, we are imitating Jesus, and being like God the hardest working individual of all.  Let us learn to love working, to love the feeling of getting things done and making a difference.  Those who labor in the Lord do not labor in vain.  So let us be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the WORK of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not vain in the Lord. Let us not lose heart, or get burnt out or discouraged – in doing good, for In due time we will reap if we do not grow weary!! (I Cor.15:58;Gal.6:9-10)