What Is The Goal Of A Disciple? Series

Discipleship Series # 6

(#5 unavailable)

What is the Goal of a Disciple?

II Timothy 2:1-6

SCRIPTURE READING: II Timothy 2:1-6

INTRODUCTION:

David Glass was the CEO of the Wal-Mart from 1988 – 2000. Back in 1962, he heard that a guy named Sam Walton was about to hold the grand opening for his second store in Harrison, Arkansas. Glass, who was running a successful drug-store chain in Missouri, decided to attend Sam Walton’s grand opening. What he saw did not impress him. You see, Walton had dumped a couple of truckloads of watermelons in the front parking lot. He also had a bunch of donkeys in the parking lot for the kids to ride. Well, the temperature on the asphalt got up to about 115 degrees that afternoon. The watermelons started exploding from the heat. And of course, the donkeys did what donkeys do…

Looking back on that day, David Glass recalled, “The parking lot was a mess. And inside the new store was also a mess. I thought Sam Walton was a nice fellow, but I wrote him off. It was the worst store operation I had ever seen.”

Well, 25 years later, David Glass was working for Sam Walton as President of what had become the most successful chain of retail stores in the world. Glass explained that there was something inside Sam Walton that made him improve every day. He was not a man who set up impossible ideals. But he was a man who always aimed for a goal.

Aiming for a goal is important in every area of life. Aim determines direction. In basketball, you aim for the basket before you let go of the ball. In football, you kick the ball over the “goal-post.” The way you aim a pistol determines the direction the bullet will go. But too often, we’re inclined to “go off half-cocked” so to speak. We use the method: “Ready …. FIRE ……… Aim…..” You’re not going to hit many targets that way!

What is the Goal?

As Disciples of Jesus Christ, we need to ask: What is our GOAL? The Apostle Paul answered that question in the last letter he wrote to his young disciple, Timothy: You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others. II Timothy 2:1-2

Paul wrote this letter from a prison cell. He knew he would soon be executed. But Paul also knew he had invested the Message in his Disciple, Timothy. So he told Timothy to invest the Message in other reliable men who would continue the Discipling process.

This is the GOAL. The Goal of a Disciple is to make Disciples …. who will make other Disciples … who will make more Disciples … who will make still more Disciples …

If you think about it, that Discipling process is why you and I are here in this room today. The reason you are in church this morning is because someone Discipled someone … who Discipled someone … who Discipled someone … who eventually Discipled the one who Discipled YOU.

Now, who are YOU discipling?

The main way we disciple others is through Christian Service. This is what the Church is all about. The life of a congregation is centered on Discipleship: whether you teach a class, or help in the nursery, or serve as a greeter, or attend a Pueblo Group, or set up tables for a fellowship dinner, or visit people in the hospital. Everything that brings you in contact with other Christians --- or with people who might become Christians --- is an chance to Disciple others.

No Christian is too old or too young to disciple others. If you are young, the ones that are younger than you are watching. Whether they are little brothers and sisters, or kids here at church, the way you treat them makes a lasting impact.

Way back, when I was a boy in Scottsdale Arizona, I gave a few guitar lessons to a younger boy in our church. I enjoyed teaching him, but I didn’t think much about it at the time. As it turned out, that boy not only learned how to play the guitar, he also went to Bible College and then went into the ministry. I had no idea that I had influenced those decisions until his parents told me about it years later.

Of course, those of us who are parents are Discipling our children every single day. Like it or not, you WILL have tremendous influence on your own children … as well as on your nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and so on. The question is not, Will you have an influence? The question is, Will you influence them for Christ?