In this post, I want you to ‘catch’ vision. I want you to ‘see’ what discipleship really is. I want you to get a glimpse of what it is. But in order to ‘see’ Bible truths on discipleship, we are going to have to get a vision of what it looks like. We are going to have to see it before we can acquire it. The same principle works for any Bible area. Healing for example. You have to ‘see’ yourself well before you ever get well. You have to see yourself prosperous before the money comes in. You have to see yourself ‘used of God’ before you ever are. So, what does a disciple of Jesus really look like?

Prov. 29:18 (YLT)
18 Without a Vision is a people made naked,
And whoso is keeping the law, O his happiness!

• ILLUSTRATION: An Olympic Champion
  Years ago a young African American child was growing up in Cleveland, in a home which he later described as “materially poor but spiritually rich.” One day a famous athlete, Charlie Paddock, came to his school to speak to the students. At that time Paddock was considered the “fastest human being alive”. He told the children, “Listen! What do you want to be? You name it and then believe that God will help you be it. That little boy decided that he wanted to be the fastest human being on earth.
  The boy went to his track coach and told him of his new dream. His coach told him, “It’s great to have a vision, but to attain your vision, you must build a ladder to it. Here is the ladder to your dreams. The first rung is determination! And the second rung is dedication! The third rung is discipline. And the fourth rung is attitude!”
  The result of all that motivation is that this particular person went on to win 4 gold medals in the Olympics. He won the 100 meter dash and broke the Olympic and world records for the 200 meter dash. His broad jump record lasted 24 years. His name – Jesse Owens.
• Many of the ‘vision’ elements in Jesse Owen’s ladder are also true concerning your ladder.
• Vision is typical conversation in the month of January for many churches.

What is Vision?

• Proverbs says without this particular component we are naked or as the KJV states ‘the people perish’.
• How many can agree that being spiritually ‘naked’ is not a good thing?
• Vision is a picture of what God wants to do.
• Vision is a picture of what God will do in His church if we get out of the way and let Him do it.
• Vision is being able to see and join God in what He wants to do.
• Vision is the world’s most desperate need.
• How many people are in hopeless situations because they can ‘see’ no way out?
• They have no vision on how to get out?
• The truth is there are no hopeless situations, only people who think hopelessly.
• So, I want you to know that if your 2013 did not turn out for you as you think it should have, then today is not only a new day but also a new year.
• But you have to have expectation that things will change.
• Here is our text yet again in a different translation.

Prov. 29:18 (Message)
18 If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.

• This ‘seeing what God is doing’ or ‘vision’ is an active on-going process.
• It is a continual search for what God is doing and wants to do.
• Vision is an active process of following a dynamic God.

• ‘Catch’ the vision.
• We want you to ‘see’ what discipleship really is.
• We want you to get a glimpse of what it is.
• That is what vision is: vision means to see.
• This word ‘seeing’ does not mean seeing naturally.

2 Cor. 4:18 (KJV)
18 While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
If you can see already see it physically, you are out of the realm of vision.
That is not what vision is.

Vision is the Art of Seeing Things Invisible.

 1 Cor. 2:9-10 (NKJV)
9 But as it is written:    “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”  10But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.

• The human ‘eye of verse 9 does not see but the spiritual ‘eye’ of verse 10 does.
• That which ‘eye has not seen’ must be revealed.
• And revelation only comes by diligent search.
• The casual do not get vision, and hence do not get the ‘discipleship’ piece either.
• Nor much of anything else from God.

Vision is Taking the Journey in Your Heart Before You Take it in Reality.

• The Lord instructed Abraham along this line of ‘seeing’.
• He informed him that he would have to lift up his eyes in order to see.

Gen. 13:14 (KJV)
14 And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward:

• It was necessary for Abraham to ‘see’ first.
• You have to see your situation better before it will ever get better.
• You have to see before you acquire.
• Often the difference between success and failure, life and death, is the direction we’re looking.

ILLUSTRATION: The Flying Wallendas
The flying Wallendas were perhaps the world’s greatest family of aerialists and tightrope walkers.
Karl Wallenda had a huge capacity for concentration. A seriously necessary trait for a tightrope walker.
Interesting enough though, Wallenda fell to his death while walking a tightrope without a safety net between two high-rise buildings in San Jaun, Puerto Rico. Later, Wallenda’s wife said that her husband’s fall was the first fall that he had experienced since she had known him. It turns out that he had been concentrating on the wire instead on concentrating on walking the tightrope. He had personally supervised the attachment of the guide wires right before this fall. Something that he had never done before.
Wallenda fell because he didn’t lift his eyes.

• So in order to ‘see’ Bible truths on discipleship, we are going to have to get a vision of what it looks like. We are going to have to see it before we can acquire it.
• The same works for any Bible area. Healing for example.
• You have to ‘see’ yourself well before you ever get well.
• You have to see yourself prosperous before the money comes.
• You have to see yourself ‘used of God’ before you ever are.

Vision is a Journey.

• It is not a destination
• It is an unwrapping or an uncovering of what God wants to do.
• This journey is in a forward direction.
• Therefore vision has very little to do with your past.
• Vision for this year has nothing to do with the failures and the struggles of this past year.

Vision Involves Risk.

• You don’t have vision just because you have an idea. If you don’t have risk, you probably just have an idea.
• Ideas must have legs.
• Between saying and doing many pairs of shoes are worn out. – Italian proverb.
• The greatest risk is not taking one.
• Everything is risky.
• If your goal in life is to avoid risk,
• Don’t ride in an automobile – they cause 20% of all fatal accidents.
• Don’t travel by railroad, airplane, or boat – 16% of all accidents result from these.
• Don’t walk in the street – 15% of all accidents occur there.
• Don’t stay at home – 17% of all accidents happen there.
• The point is there are no safe places or risk free activities.
• Vision involves the risk to fail.
• Without Vision There Is Useless Activity

The Vision: Turning the World Upside Down as A Disciple of Jesus

• The Christians who have turned the world upside down have been men and women with a vision in their hearts and the Bible in their hands.
• But it takes a certain kind of Christian to turn the world upside down.
• It takes a disciple.
• What kind of Christian are you?
• There are many ‘on the sideline’ believers in the body of Christ.
• You are aware of the 80/20 principle; that 20% of the people do 80% of the work.
• Here is a question for you: does 80/20 mean only 20% are real disciples and 80% are something else?
• This concept of a two different types of believers is a common one in the scriptures.
• Doesn’t the Bible speak of spiritual believers versus carnal ones in 1Corinthians 3?
• Does the Word not speak of lukewarm Christians compared to hot ones in Revelation 3?
• Major Bible Characters dealt with this in their leadership of God’s people.
• Moses dealt with this hot cold theme with the children of Israel

Numbers 32:6 (ESV)
6 But Moses said to the people of Gad and to the people of Reuben, “Shall your brothers go to the war while you sit here?

• Isn’t this telling, that there are believers going to ‘war’ in Jesus Name while there are others just sitting around.
• Is that right in your sight?
• Are you a disciple or are you just sitting around?
• Here is Nehemiah with the same thing.

Nehemiah 3:5 (ESV)
5 And next to them the Tekoites repaired, but their nobles would not stoop to serve their Lord.

• Are you a disciple or are you one that will not stoop to serve your Lord?
• And Jeremiah, he uttered these words…

Jeremiah 48:10 (ESV)
10 “Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord with slackness,…

• Are you a disciple or are you working for God in a slack manner?
• Is that what a disciple is? Any old effort will do? God will understand?
• Will He?
• And Zephaniah…

Zephaniah 1:12 (ESV)
12 At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are complacent, those who say in their hearts, ‘The Lord will not do good, nor will he do ill.’

• Are you a disciple or are you complacent?
• And finally Paul…

Romans 12:11 (ESV)
11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.

• Paul states not to be slothful in zeal implying that it is absolutely possible to be that way.
• Are you a disciple or are you slothful in zeal?
• Jesus strict instructions to the church was to ‘go and make disciples’; you cannot make disciples if you aren’t one yourself.
• The law of Genesis states that reproduction takes place after its own kind.

Matthew 28:19 (ESV)
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

• Jesus told us to make disciples not just get people saved.
• The church’s focus has been just getting people saved. They are just ‘looking at the wire’. They are not lifting their eyes.
• But, discipleship is the key to getting people saved.
• Look at these words of Jesus.

John 17:20, 22–23 (ESV)
20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

• If you want to reach the world, believers should act like disciples.
• Disciples love one another and when they do, the world gets the message.
• Here it is again in Acts.

Acts 2:17–21 (ESV)
17 “ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; 18 even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. 19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; 20 the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. 21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

• The end result of the church flowing with the Spirit of God; when believers take their place; when they act as handmaidens and servants and hence disciples; is the salvation of the lost.
• Understand that in order to make a disciple, you have to go through salvation in order to get there.
• But, people do not want to see your tracts (that you hand out), they want to see your tracks!
• Or as the old time preacher said, “It’s not how you jump and shout, it’s how straight you walk when your feet hit the ground.”
• Side note: did you know that you cannot teach a crab how to walk straight.
• We want to be disciples not crabby believers.
• And so in various ways, God tries to get over to our understanding what a disciple looks like so you have a model to copy. A target to shoot at. A goal to reach.
• We want to get a vision of what a real follower of Jesus looks like.
• What are the traits of a ‘hot’ disciple?
• What are the characteristics of one who is not complacent but rather, as the scripture states, fervent in spirit?
• Here are the verses that we are going to look at on discipleship.
• These are the verses that we want to ‘see’.

Luke 14:25–33 (ESV)
25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

• Mark it down ‘real’ disciples of Jesus have the following issues settled.
• Number one: they have the family issue settled
• Number two: they have the carrying the cross issue settled
• Number three: they have the ‘math’ issue settled.
• So, let us talk about these three areas that Jesus mentions that real disciples have settled.
• The first area is family.
• The question that Jesus addressed is this ‘Do you love family more than Jesus?”
• This area of family is the first thing that Jesus addresses.
• Now, we know that order is important in the Bible.
• This area of family is first in this list of discipleship traits. Why?
• One reason why this is first is because the strong yearning that people have for family is essential emotion in the human race.
• Everybody ‘normal’ has yearnings for family.
• If you think you are the only one that feels this, you are you kidding yourself. The whole planet has this emotion.
• What if Jesus told you to do something for Him that would ultimately mean spending less time with your family, would you do it?
• How do you think a disciple would answer that?
• If you can’t say yes to His leading in this area, you are not as open to His leading as you think you are!
• There is precedent in scripture. Abraham was confronted multiple times with this choice.

Genesis 12:1 (ESV)
1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

• The Bible casts vision for you.
• This is what a disciple looks like, he has the family issue settled.
• The Lord told Abraham to leave his country and his family.
• What about God’s direction to Abraham to offer up Isaac? Was that whole story not a ‘do you love family more than me’ question?
• Elisha was confronted with the same ‘do you love family more than me’ question.

1 Kings 19:19–21 (ESV)
19 So he departed from there and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen in front of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak upon him. 20 And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” And he said to him, “Go back again, for what have I done to you?” 21 And he returned from following him and took the yoke of oxen and sacrificed them and boiled their flesh with the yokes of the oxen and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and went after Elijah and assisted him.

• When it came time to choose between the anointing of God and his family and business. He chose God.
• What about Jesus Himself? How did He handle the question?

Matthew 12:46–50 (ESV)
46 While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. 48 But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

• Ask yourself this question, ‘Where are the families of the apostles in the Bible?’
• Go through the list in Matthew 10:1-2
• Where is Peter’s family?
• There is a short mention of his mother-in-law in Matthew 8 and his wife in 1Cor. 9:5 but that’s it. No interaction per se.
• What about Paul? Where is his family?  You hear a mention about his nephew and his sister in Acts 23:16.
• What about the other apostles? Think about Bible scriptures that speak of their families and you cannot even count it on one hand!
• Does this mean that family is not important?
• No it means…Obeying God is higher than family.

Would God Pull a Person Away from Family Life?

• Why would He do such a thing?
• One reason, not the only reason, most times, the vast majority of the time, your family will not hear you.
• Your own children, many times, will not hear you.
• Your unsaved loved ones in your family will not put stock in your words.
• In order to fix that, God has to pull another person in from outside your family to minister to your family.
• Well the logistics are simple. If they are going to come and minister to your family, they are going to at times have to leave theirs!
• Are you willing?

Are You Willing to Help Someone Else’s Children?

• Are you willing to extend yourself for someone else’s sons’ though they may be strangers to you?
• God will and can and does move people half way around the world in order to minister to one family, to one person in one family.
• And what is the big deal with doing that, with allowing God to use you that way?
• Why do we cling so much when eternity is on the horizon?
• You have all of eternity to hangout out in each other’s mansions.
• How about helping someone else get there to?
• Well you may say “that is too much to ask”
• “Jesus would not ask me to do that”
• He would never ask you to do what He hasn’t done.
• Jesus left His Father for 30 year plus years.
• He emptied Himself so that He might minster to other sons when He had His Father God all to Himself.

Philippians 2:5–8 (ESV)  
5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

• The Bible says Jesus emptied Himself…
• Could we learn a lesson from that? Can we learn a lesson from emptying yourself?
• Can we learn that there are times that we have to empty ourselves of what we want to do in order to help someone else become who they need to be?

Call to Action:

Here is a challenge for you. Ask yourself, “How much of myself can I give away?” Giving of yourself is part ow hat it takes to be a disciple. I am not saying to you that God will ask each and every one to leave your family and move half-way across the world.  But now you know what vision is. Vision is making the journey in your heart before you ever make it physically. You have to make the dedication in your heart. God has to know that you put Him first ahead of everybody precious to you. Husbands, you should make your dedication to Jesus and help your wife understand. Tell her “Honey, I love you more than any person on the planet, but I love Jesus more”. Wives you should make the same commitment to your husband. You should tell them, ‘Baby, I love you more than any person on the planet, but I love Jesus more.’ If you cannot make that commitment, Jesus said you simply CANNOT be His disciple.

Question: Heaven is looking for a few good disciples, can you help? How about  sharing with us how you became a sold out follower of Jesus. Please leave your story in the comments section below.