Whoever we keep around us, we need to make sure they know about Jesus

Whoever we keep around us, we need to make sure they know about Jesus

Part 7 of 7 The Company You Keep

By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross

The cowboy crowd in particular doesn’t seem to be fans of being told what to do.

But one of the reasons we’re asked to be intentional about who we spend time with is because of Jesus’s command we know as The Great Commission.

Matthew 28:19-20“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Being surrounded by like-minded and experienced Christians can help us grow in our faith and can help us stay strong as we interact with the world around us to tell them about Jesus.

It’s one of a handful of very specific commands that Jesus gives along with a command to love others.

One of the most loving things we can do is tell them about Jesus.

As Christians, followers of Christ, we know that our sin separates us from God and that God is going to condemn it. We also know he made a way for all of us to be in His presence and that was through the death of Jesus on the cross. Jesus came to live perfectly among us but most importantly to be sacrificed to take the punishment meant for our sin so we could enter into Heaven and be with God.

God won’t let us in our presence as sinners but through a faith in Jesus, who he was and what he did for us on the cross and by repenting of our sin and asking to be forgiven of it, God will no longer see the sin our lives. Instead, He sees us as perfect.

Anyone who works with bulls, cattle or horses knows how easy it can be to be brought to sin in the form of anger so we rely on what we understand as grace—God’s forgiveness even though we don’t deserve it. We can’t earn it, we can only receive it from Jesus. But knowing we have this forgiveness should compel us to want others to have it too.

This is why as Christians, Jesus commands us to tell others about him but he also commands us to disciple others. As we are discipled, we also should be discipling others—teaching them what we know from Scripture.

We look back to earlier in Mark and see the work of being discipled begin.

Matthew 4:18-20 As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 19 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” 20 At once they left their nets and followed him.

The reason he called them to follow him was so that he could equip them to go out there and lead others to that saving faith in him so that they also could be trained and equipped. The very first disciple was called almost 2,000 years ago. You now being asked to do the same comes because someone shared the gospel and discipled me while somone else had shared the gospel and discipled that person and so on and so on stretching back all the way to that day Jesus called Peter and Andrew to walk away from their boats.

How cool is that?

First we need to become disciples ourselves

First we need to become disciples ourselves

Part 6 of 7 The Company You Keep

By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross

Just like bull riders will tell you that to get better, you want to be surrounded by better bull riders, we know that the Bible teaches us there are times we have to be careful who we tie ourselves to. If we spend all our time with unbelievers, we can see our own faith suffer. At the same time, we have to spend time with unbelievers in order to share the gospel with them—how to be saved from the punishment meant for our sin by a belief in Jesus Christ, repenting of our sin and asking to be forgiven.

But before we can worry about finding the balances there, we first need to become disciples.

John 8:31-32 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in Him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Jesus tells us that when we have truly become a Christian—a follower of Jesus—then we will ‘abide’ in his word. That means that we will live it out. Our desire to do that is the proof of our salvation.

While there is a lot to being a disciple that the average Christian seems to ignore throughout the New Testament, we know that in its simple form, a disciple is someone who follows Jesus.

In rodeo, most of us have successful cowboys and bull riders who we follow to learn their style, techniques and how they became successful.

Jesus tells us that we will live out his word but he knows we don’t immediately know or understand everything there is in the Bible.

That’s why, even though Jesus calls us disciples, we still need to be discipled.

The Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20 tells his disciples to go into the world and make make more disciples with clear instructions to teach others about what Jesus taught them. That means right now, there are people out there with knowledge and wisdom we haven’t achieved yet who are following, or should be following, the command to make disciples. There are people we need to have teaching us what they know from the Bible.

At the same time, we read our Bibles on our own, attend church services, learn where we can and pray in order to learn and put to practice what it means to live out our faith.

And Jesus tells us it isn’t going to be easy.

Luke 9:23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

There can be a cost to following Jesus and while there is much we can study on being disciples and what it means to follow Jesus, we’re focused right now on making sure we have the right people in our lives to be successful followers of Christ.

By linking with other believers who are more mature and experienced in their faith than we are, we can be discipled by them while we also begin the process of teaching others about Jesus. As we learn, we teach, regardless of how experienced we are. If I’ve just started learning how to throw a rope and you teach me a better way to guide my loop to the roping dummy’s head, it doesn’t matter whether I’ve won a rodeo or even entered one; once you’ve taught me how to do that much, I can teach someone else that much too.

(Supporting photo of the Bible provided by John-Mark Smith of Lviv, Ukraine)

Yes, Jesus would have sat by the campfire to eat with sinners but we still need to be surrounded by Christians

Yes, Jesus would have sat by the campfire to eat with sinners but we still need to be surrounded by Christians

Part 5 of 7 The Company You Keep

By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross

“Well Jesus ate with sinners!”

That can be the Biblical statement someone uses to justify the sinful actions that come from spending time with ‘sinners’ instead of other Christians.

And Jesus would have eaten with unbelieving rodeo cowboys or sat around a fire in the Old West with cowboys passing through on a cattle drive. But scripture warns us to not be unequally yoked with non-believers

2 Corinthians 6: 14-15 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?

Paul is clear that light, Christians, can’t have fellowship with darkness, non-believers. He isn’t saying we can’t spend time with them, but he’s saying we can’t be tied tightly to them or they will hold us back and draw us away from Jesus.

We know our saving faith in Jesus separates us from the world but Jesus also commands us to interact with that same world and that’s the example he set.

Matthew 9:10-13 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

People use these verses to justify engaging in sinful behavior or to criticize Christians for judging others when they stress the importance of not engaging in sin. Within the verses, the Pharisees, also criticize Jesus for sitting with sinners. They were the religious elite at the time that were trying to ruin Jesus because he was turning their power structure upside down with his teaching.

But the point of Jesus being with them was for them to be able to come to a saving faith and ultimately be forgiven of their sin so they could enter into Heaven. He uses the example of a doctor treating the sick, not the unhealthy to explain the need to spend time with unbelievers.

And he later commands us to literally go everywhere in the world to tell unbelievers about him in what we know as The Great Commission.

Matthew 28:19-20 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

To do this, we can’t just hang around with the handful of Christians we know at a rodeo or horse event; we have to get to know everyone to be able to tell them about Jesus. But you have to remember, Jesus wasn’t there just to have a good time; he was there with purpose and because he is Jesus, he wasn’t tempted to sin the way we can be.

That’s why it is important to be surrounded by other Christians, to help us grow in our faith while we’re engaged in the unbelieving world around us.

Our faith separates us from the world, rodeo can tempt us back to it

Our faith separates us from the world, rodeo can tempt us back to it

Part 4 of 7 The Company You Keep

By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross

Not only are we not meant to be a part of the world, the Bible shows us that through a saving faith in Jesus, we actually are meant for something so much more. Finding salvation through a saving faith in Jesus automatically separates us from the world.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

Paul is making it clear in his letter to the church at Corinth that we are made completely new through our salvation given to us through our belief in Christ and the punishment he took that was meant for our sins. When we believe this, repent of our sin and ask to be forgiven, we’re made completely new before God who no longer see us for our sin. As new creatures, we begin the process of becoming more like Jesus, called sanctification, while God already sees us as forgiven and perfect, able to be in His presence when we die.

But while we’re here, we pursue the teachings from the Bible out of a desire to be closer to God and become more like Jesus. Through knowledge of scripture and letting that change us, we begin to become more like Jesus while fighting against the temptations of this world that would distract us and pull our attention away from God, His word and His commands for us.
But if we think about who we are in Jesus and how separate we are from this culture, it can help us to resist that temptation.

1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

If we’re something special to God, so special that we’re seen as part of a ‘royal priesthood’ and a ‘holy nation’ that God wants us for Himself, how can we not want to pursue becoming more like Jesus and less like the world around us?

That doesn’t make us better than everyone else, just set apart. We should never look down on those who haven’t found a saving faith in Jesus. Instead, as Peter tells us, we would want to tell the world around us so they also could be pulled out of the darkness Peter describes.

Temptation is strong, especially in the rodeo culture. Not only do we have to contend with the traditional world around us we deal with as we work, run errands or attend events with family that believe differently than us, but in rodeo, we have whole separate culture that tempts us through the pursuit of winning and through the sinful side of the industry that pushes a lifestyle of partying.

We have to live within this world, but as Peter stresses, we have to remember that we’re not part of that world anymore.

We can be fully engaged in rodeo while fully engaged with God

We can be fully engaged in rodeo while fully engaged with God

Part 3 of 7 The Company You Keep

By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross

From teachings from Jesus, Paul and Peter to how God instructed the Israelites to remain separate from the other cultures around them, the Bible shows us in many ways that we are not meant to be a part of the world and culture around us.

The Israelites were commanded to completely destroy entire nations and when they failed to do so, they experienced the consequences of it.

Judges 2:1-3 The angel of the Lord … said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land I swore to give to your ancestors. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, 2 and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.’ Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? 3 … they will become traps for you, and their gods will become snares to you.’”

By allowing some of the nations to survive, the Israelites were eventually influenced by their false gods and beliefs, leading them to stray from following God and eventually to God temporarily taking the Promised Land away from them and exiling them for 70 years to Babylon. God wasn’t fooling around when He said He wants all of our attention.

1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life — comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever”

Worldly things can be just about anything from money and sex to filling a tack room with more equipment than we’ll ever be able to use. All of it is temporary. Instead, John is reminding us that we need to pursue God, who, through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, made a way for all of us to be able to repent and be forgiven of our sin so that through belief in Jesus, we could have an eternity in Heaven. Pursuing our own desires based on what the culture around us tells us we need or wants, takes our attention away from God.

One of the main reasons we stay apart from the world is so that our focus is on God.

Psalm 1:1-2 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.

In the Psalm, we’re being told the person who follows God and not the non-believers around him is going to be the person who is better off and stresses the daily commitment we’re to put into following God. The Bible is full of teaching that points us toward obedience to God but the selfishness of the world around us can tempt us away from that.

We can be fully engaged in our rodeo sports while not being engaged with those who tempt us to sin. That can be as simple as not going to the bar after a show to as complicated as having to remove some people from our lives because they pull too hard on us to ignore our faith.

Just like hanging around better cowboys and bull riders can make you a better rider, Christian partners help us grow in our faith

Just like hanging around better cowboys and bull riders can make you a better rider, Christian partners help us grow in our faith

Part 2 of 7 The Company You Keep

By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross

“If you want to be successful, surround yourself with successful people.”

Quotes like this are common among the rodeo crowd and they are embraced by competitors because of that desire to succeed and get ahead.

It makes sense.

If you spend more time with competitors who are better than you, you might learn something from their attitude, skills or way of living that helps you to also succeed or become a better bull rider, barrel racer, roper or horseman.

It’s like this in Proverbs 27:17 Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.

This is a common verse many people can quote and often not realize that it even comes from Scripture. It’s point is simple: we can help make each other more effective.

But when it’s coming from the Bible we understand it’s referring to Christians. Another Christian friend can help me be more effective in my faith and I can help him to be more effective tool.

Conversations about the Bible and living out our faith with each other help us to be ‘sharper’ believers.

And we’re encouraged throughout Scripture to spend time together as believers from when the church first started in the historical account we seen in Acts to to the letters Paul writes to different churches as he tries to encourage them or confront conflicts he has learned about within their communities.

Hebrews 10 24-25 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Paul is telling church they need to encourage one another to show love and do good and to encourage one another as if we are near the very end. If we knew for sure these were the last days before Jesus came back, we would be rushing to make sure others knew who Jesus was. Paul is telling the people in the church to encourage each other and live as if that day was almost here.

Again, what we’re seeing is a push toward working together to do a better at living our our faith.

He tells the church at Colossae that we are to work together as well.

Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

We’re to teach and correct each other while worshiping God together so that the teachings of Jesus would become a big part of who we are.

Just like the Bible warns us not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers who will wear us down and weaken our faith, we see that by being connected together with believers, our faith will be strengthened and better equipped to share that faith with others.

We seem to understand this idea outside of the Bible when it comes to wanting to be better competitors and seeking personal success. We don’t realize or overlook how much a similar teaching is is commanded through Scripture to be connected to other believers with the focus being on our becoming stronger in our faith and able to lead others to Jesus.

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