Salvation and Discipleship: The Lifelong Invitation of Jesus
- Jesus defines salvation as a lifelong relationship, not merely a one-time event like baptism or forgiveness.
- Through healing and restoration, Christ reunites people with community and wholeness, reflecting the meaning of “sozo” and “shalom.”
- Mature discipleship moves from observing to obeying, growing into hands-on faith that lives out loyalty to Jesus in everyday life.
How does Jesus call us to both salvation and discipleship? In other words, not just getting baptized and having our sins forgiven, going to church, going to heaven, but to discipleship, living out the principles of Jesus Christ with our family, at work, where we play? So the short answer is this:
For Jesus, salvation is not an event but a lifelong relationship. Discipleship deepens that relationship by sustaining and expanding our faith.
Now let me unpack that in two ways. First, I want to point out the difference between a healing and a cure. There were these two women; one was older, one was 12 years old. It’s told in all three of the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It happened in Capernaum, where Jesus comes back after healing a demoniac in the Decapolis. He pops onto shore, and a guy named Jairus comes up to him. Now the crowds were thick. Jairus got through the crowds because, well, he was the synagogue leader.
But he had a problem. His 12-year-old daughter, his only child, was on her deathbed. Now at 12, she’s becoming a woman, so the likelihood of Jairus and his wife having another child after 12 years is not good. And just when the child is becoming an adult, they’re about to lose the child. It’s way too soon. He pleads with Jesus, “Come to my house,” and Jesus begins to follow him to his house, which wasn’t very far away.
But on the way, someone else made it through the crowd. It’s an unlikely source. It was a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. Why 12? Because it connects the two. You might recall in our last video we talked about the number seven. Three represents God, four represents man, and every time you see three and four, like the seven days of creation, God is doing something among men. Same applies when you multiply it, not just add it. So 12 apostles, or 12 years of her sickness, 12 years of the girl’s life. God is doing something right here, right now, that is extraordinary. And the readers who can read between the lines of the numbers, they get it.
“I want to point out the difference between a healing and a cure.”
Well, this woman who’s been bleeding for 12 years, rendering her unclean, she comes up behind Jesus and she grabs hold of the prayer shawl, actually the tassel of the prayer shawl. If I’m not mistaken, they would knot these tassels just like rosary beads. And when the rabbis prayed, they would finger each of those beads. She was trying to grab some of the pixie dust of his prayer power left behind in the shawl.
And it worked. She’s healed. Now that may not seem like a big deal to you, this woman with a gynecological problem. But in Jewish culture, if you’re a bleeding woman, you can’t have sex with your husband, you can’t go to the synagogue, you’re not supposed to hold your children. I mean, she was barred from life.
And everybody knew it because they don’t have sanitary products like we have today that are disposable. She would have to take her garments to the lake, wash them out every day. Everybody knew. That’s probably how she got through the crowds; everyone’s like, “I don’t want an unclean woman touching me.” She was ritually unclean.
Jesus didn’t mind, and he heals her. The only person not rejoicing about this healing is Jairus because his daughter is dying. In fact, the people from his house came at that moment and said, “Your daughter just died.” And Jesus said, “Don’t, don’t, don’t lose faith. Look at me. Come on, come on, trust me.” And they go into the house, and long story short, he does. He raises the girl from the dead.
“She was barred from life.”
Now here’s what’s curious to me. Why would you tell two uncomfortable stories about a little girl raised from the dead and a woman with a gynecological problem? Doesn’t that seem awkward?
What was the girl’s problem in one word? What was her problem? Death. In one word, what was the woman’s problem? One word: blood. Where else do you see blood and death together? That’s right, it’s in the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ.
What he’s doing with this miracle is not simply a cure. A cure is for your body. A healing is for your community. When Jesus heals people, he wants to bring them back to unity with the community. 
The woman can now have relations with her husband. She can go to the synagogue. The little girl was reengaged with her parents; they had a life together. What Jesus wants to do for you, it’s not just a cure. It’s a healing.
And here’s what’s so important and the reason I’m bringing this up. The Greek word for healing in these instances is sozo, which means to be saved. See, Jesus doesn’t just want to get you to heaven. He wants to reunite you with a community that you can do life in authenticity and the Hebrew word would be shalom.
“What Jesus wants to do for you, it’s not just a cure. It’s a healing.”
That’s the first observation I want to make. The second, I’ll make this a little quicker. I was asked one time to do a study on discipleship, and I noticed something I’d never seen before. So I cracked all the words of discipleship. There are over a hundred, and I, for some reason, just started noticing what body part would it take to obey what Jesus is calling that person to do. And I discovered there are three stages of discipleship, each connected to a part of your body.
The first stage of discipleship is your eyes and your feet. Actually, it starts with your feet. Jesus says, “Come and see.” When people just want to check out church, you come and you see. You take your feet, go to a place, and you watch what Jesus does. That’s stage one.
Stage two, you hear and then speak. Hear and then speak. You listen to what Jesus says, and then you repeat it for others to hear.
The last stage of discipleship, it’s more concrete. It’s your hands. You go and do. You heal a leper, or you preach the gospel, or you establish a church. You do what Jesus had been doing.
“You go and do.”
Now when you get into the book of Acts, here’s what’s really interesting. In the book of Acts, almost all of the discipleship, the vast majority, is your hands. It’s what you do with your faith. That’s why you see the definition that we gave earlier of faith is so important. It is fidelity, living a life that represents what you believe in your head. It is loyalty, living a life that demonstrates the love in your heart. It is allegiance, that commitment that you are making to your superior.
Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And what we observe in our own discipleship is that we may begin just by observation, just come and take a look. And then we get a little more into it, and we begin to listen and repeat some of the things that Jesus said. But ultimately, the goal of mature discipleship is always how you live out your faith in loyalty to your Lord.
