M3 – Mobilizing Disciples 3 Acts 1:8 Series

M3 – MOBILIZING Disciples 1/24/16

Acts 1:8 Sunday AM

A beggar boy had staked himself on a bridge in Rome w/ an old violin on which he played pitifully. The only people who gave money were those who felt sorry for him. One day a man came by who after listening asked the boy if he could hold the violin. Reluctantly, the boy surrendered his instrument. After the stranger tuned it, he began to play a beautiful melody. Suddenly, a crowd gathered to listen and began dropping money into the case. As the crowd grew, the money increased. When the man finished, he handed the boy his violin, along w/ the money in the case. Who was the stranger? It was the great Nicolo Paganini, the renowned Italian violinist!

Around the same time, a little beggar girl knocked on the door of Adelina Patti, the renowned Italian-Spanish opera singer looking for a handout. The great singer gave her no money but invited her momentarily into her home and asked her to sing. Puzzled, the girl fulfilled her request and sang. Patti detected a tiny spark of musical promise in the girl and invited her to return the following day where she began to giving the girl daily lessons. The great opera diva trained the girl for (7) yrs – when finally, she introduced her to the world in concert. For the rest of her life, the female urchin-turned-singer, trained by Adelina Patti, earned a large salary and blessed multitudes of people.

Of these stories – which account do you think most portrays Jesus concept of making disciples? Then why is it that we tend to default to the first method?

Chinese Proverb – Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

Discipling is teaching a man to follow Jesus so he can feed on God for himself. It’s leading a man to take responsibility for himself and for others.

The call of every Christian is to become broken bread and poured out wine to others until they are able to feed on God for themselves. O. Chambers

What is your picture of a disciple? In all likelihood your picture is of someone who has had a profound impact on your spiritual life? What do you think was Jesus’ picture? This might surprise you, but I think His picture was you and me. In considering His time and commission to His disciples – He viewed the 12 as His portrait. And now it is us.

We’ve been discussing the call of being a disciple and how we’re going to focus our church to help all of us to BE One – who MAKES One. In my preparation I found a clip from Francis Chan I’d like to share w/ you to start us off this AM.

Chan Video Clip from Verge

Jesus has called us individually/collectively to go into our world to make, mature, and mobilize disciples for Him. This is His heart for His followers – that we know Him and make Him known to others by investing the Jesus in us into others.

We need to be careful not to become communers and consumers in the faith. We have to exchange the cultural “Come and Hear” approach for God’s “Go and Tell” commission. We have to be vigilant to keep our focus on serving God instead of being served.

Make no mistake – the call of Jesus is clear – every Christ-follower is responsible to go into the world w/ the priority to be a disciple who makes disciples.

Salvation is free. The gift of God is eternal life. It isn’t cheap for it cost God His Son and the Son His life – but it is free. However, when we become believers we become disciples and that’ll cost everything we have. Our Lord was after disciples, not mere "joiners”. Vance Havner

This is the cost of fellowship – the Gospel is simple; but following is not so easy – b/c it cost us everything.

Jesus – Salvation is simple – Following can be hard

Church – Salvation is complex – following is simple

I want you to listen to Jesus in His own words:

Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet lose or forfeit his soul?” Luke 9:23-25

Listen: Christianity is more than a decision to trust in Christ as Savior – it is a call to abiding fellowship. In the Gospels, Jesus invited men to follow Him, not just to believe on Him. Meaning Christianity is more than a moment-in-time conversion; it is a radical transformation of a person’s life which leads to new life in God. It is an unimaginable exchanging of lives – your life for His life. And this requires the surrender of your former way of life to a new life in the Spirit by grace through faith. In accepting this call to follow we’re becoming more than converts – we’re accepting the cost of surrender. Instead of embracing an escape from condemnation – we’re embracing a new life w/ God. Jesus taught us that it was inconceivable to have salvation w/out a commitment to follow Him. This is why Jesus so persistently challenged any would-be followers to count the cost as well as the rewards to follow Him.