Last week we looked at one of the four qualities of the kind of church that Jesus had in mind. The four qualities are seen in the acronym WELL
A Worshipping church.
An Evangelizing church.
A Learning church.
A Loving church.
Last week we looked at Evangelism which is simply the practice of spreading the Good News of Christ.
We learned that we all have a responsibility to tell others the Good News of Christ. God wants to use you and me to bring this news to the lost so they may have the chance to accept Jesus Christ as their own personal Savior.
And we need to share the message both in our words and in our actions. Sometimes words don’t have to be spoken to share the Good News. Sometimes it is through our loving actions that God’s message is delivered.
We all know people who do not have Christ in their hearts. We need to be ready, willing, and able to share the Good News that we posses with them.
ý"If your gospel isn't touching others, it hasn't touched you." I hope it has touched you so deeply that you can’t help but share it with others. It is the greatest news in history. It is the story of God’s love for mankind and it needs to be shared.
Remember, “Winners of souls must be weepers of souls.” We need to have a passion for the lost.
PRAY
Father,
Open my eyes so I can see Your truth.
Open my ears so I can hear Your voice.
Open my minds so I can understand your Word.
And, open my heart so I may receive all that You would have me receive.
AMEN
As we look at Matthew 28:18-20 there is a key word in this Scripture that is going to add to the evangelism we discussed last week. That word is “disciple.”
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations… and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…”
There is more to Jesus’ marching orders for the church than just telling the lost about Jesus.
Yes, the church needs to be a lighthouse for the lost but it also needs to be a greenhouse for the saved. What does a greenhouse do? It helps things grow.
One of the L’s in the word well stands for learning and learning equals discipleship. We must have a commitment to learn or be discipled and we must have a commitment to help others learn or in other words to disciple them.
Evangelism and discipleship go together like bread and butter or peanut butter and jelly. You cannot just evangelize the lost and then leave them alone, they must be discipled.
Let me put this in parenting terms. When we successfully bring a person to Christ, that person becomes a baby Christian. They need to be taught and they need to be nurtured. This process is called discipleship.
We cannot just bring people to Christ and then give them a spiritual box of Pampers and say, “There you go; good luck with your walk in Christ.” The church has a responsibility to teach them and guide them.
How do we disciple others? Discipleship is simply teaching people how to be obedient children of God. We do this by living out our faith for them to see in every aspect of our lives. Modeling what it means to be a child of God; teaching them to understand the Word of God. This is done in the church service setting, the small group setting and in one on one times with people.
Listen to what Paul says in Colossians 1:28. Him we preach and proclaim, warning and admonishing everyone and instructing everyone in all wisdom (comprehensive insight into the ways and purposes of God), that we may present every person mature (full-grown, fully initiated, complete, and perfect) in Christ (the Anointed One). Colossians 1:28 Amp
This is upside down behavior! It was the behavior of the first century church and it should be the behavior of the church today.
Here is a short video clip to help you understand discipleship.
Jesus defined discipleship for his crew in Luke 14:25-35.
A disciple is a true follower of Jesus Christ. In other words, a Christian. We see in Acts 11:26 that the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. This makes it clear that the titles Christian and disciple are interchangeable.
The term disciple occurs 269 times in the New Testament. The term Christian only occurs 3 times.
READ Luke 14:25-35 4X
Jesus really wants to get our attention here because there is seriousness to His message.
And His message is simple. To be a disciple you must be committed to Jesus above anything else. This is not a difficult thing to understand but it is a difficult thing to accept and do.
Jesus must come first; before our spouses, children, parents, social pursuits, jobs, recreation, and everything else.
In verse 26 Jesus says that this commitment level applies to "anyone who comes to me. . ."
In other words, Jesus is not speaking exclusively to a special group of Christians such as apostles, evangelists, missionaries, pastors, or even mature believers. He is saying that this principle applies to everyone who would be one of his followers.
In Jewish culture the word "hate" was used to express lesser love, so Jesus is saying that He must come first in our lives and we must love him much more anything else, our spouses, children, parents, social pursuits, jobs, recreation, and everything else, even our own life.
That is what a disciple is so what is discipleship?
There are three main principles to discipleship.
Principle 1 – The church, you, living out their lives, your life in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ regardless of what is going on around them.
We have pretty much covered this as we talked about what it means to be a disciple. This is a true disciple.
The thing about disciples is this, disciples disciple. Remember, ý"If your gospel isn't touching others, it hasn't touched you." This is God’s principle of multiplication, sheep making sheep.
This leads us to principle 2.
Principle 2 – The true disciple has the hand of the Lord upon their life so that they can help turn others to God so they will become disciples and then continue to encourage them, enable them, teach them, and help them become mature disciples so they can help turn others to God.
A good example of this would be my grandparents on my father’s side; both have gone on to be with the Lord.
In 1933 my grandfather was working at a packing plant in Ottumwa, Iowa as a lumper. He would carry a half of hog or a half of beef unto the railroad cars. He had a neighbor at that time whose name was Neil Gail.
Neil went to an Open Bible Church in the town and made a decision to reach out to my grandparents and share the Good News with them.
For two weeks, without stop, each night Neil would come over to my grandparent’s house and share with them what God was doing in his life and would read Bible verses to them.
After two full weeks of this, my grandparents decided that they were tired of listening and told Neil it was late, they were going to bed, and he could let himself out.
Instead of letting himself out, Neil followed my grandparents into their bedroom and continued to share the Good News. It was a Saturday night, so grandpa told Neil that if he would let them go to sleep they would go to church with him in the morning.
They went to church and accepted Jesus as their Savior.
Neil took time to nurture my grandparents and help them grow in Christ. One day the two couples decided that another neighbor needs Christ. The Johnson’s lived in between my grandparents and the Gail’s. Mr. Johnson drove a beer deliver truck.
After two weeks of ganging up on the Johnson’s, the couple finally accepted Jesus as their Savior.
As time went on these three families continued to encourage each other, enable each other, teach each other and help each other become mature Christians.
The result of these events is that through these families all of their children became true disciples, 1 child became a pastor, 2 grandchildren became pastors, and most all of the grandchildren are currently living for Jesus.
It is worth our time to evangelize and then to take the time to invest into the lives who come to Christ.
But in order for discipleship to happen you must be dedicated.
Principle 3 – The practice of discipleship requires that the disciple be dedicated to God, following the Holy Spirit, and dedicated to learning more and more about God, His Word, His Son, and His will.
The Apostle Paul told Timothy, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15
Paul discipled Timothy. Their relationship was so close that Paul even considered Timothy as his own son.
As a person who is being a disciple and as a person who is being discipled must have a deep dedication to learning all they can about God so that we can do our best to follow Him and bring others to Him.
The word study in the Greek is spoudazo and means to give diligence or to exert oneself. We give such diligence to learning all we can so that when we are tested we can measure up and win the approval of the one who is testing us. In the case of the disciple it is God who is putting us to the test.
The conclusion of this is that we are becoming mature children of God and as such we are reproducing ourselves in others.
Most churches and many Christians fail in the area of discipleship. They will do their best to get them into the church service and some will even get them to make a commitment to accept Christ, but too often the new Christian is left to grow on their own.
It is true that we are all responsible for our own spiritual growth but that does not mean that the church doesn’t help.
We the church, need to be active in the discipleship of other believers.
King Solomon said, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17
The essence of discipleship is one person sharpening another person, helping them along in their walk with God.
So why is there a lack of discipleship among the church today?
Some say they don’t know enough about the Word of God themselves to disciple. Others say that someone else could do the job better. And still others say that they are not gifted in the area of discipleship.
Do you know what these excuses tell me? They tell me that we have a church in America that is just going through the motions of Christianity and not really dedicating ourselves to the kind of relationship with God we are supposed to have.
They might be going to church, they might be tithing, they might be singing the songs during the service, but the truth is that the fire that once burned bright and hot in their hearts is now only a flicker.
The reason it is a flicker is because they have had plenty of Bible studies, read plenty of Christian books, and feel they have been to enough church services but they find themselves in a spiritual rut. The reason for their rut is that they have had no outlet for what they are taking in.
When we fail to evangelize and disciple others we are like a pond that has water coming into it but no water going out. What happens to that pond? It becomes a dead body of water just like the Dead Sea in the Middle East.
It is called the Dead Sea because there is no life in it because there is no outlet to keep the water fresh.
God’s truths and His Good News are given to us to be passed on to others. And when we pass them on we replenish our own spiritual supply.
This is something that every disciple of Christ should be doing, not just the pastor or the leaders of the church.
My job as a pastor is to equip you the church to evangelize and disciple. I do this through preaching on Sundays and Wednesdays. I do this through marriage classes and membership classes and Men’s Monday Night Football. I do this through one on one relationships.
Debbie does this through her weekly devotions for women and through the monthly coffee breaks and through one on one relationships.
That is why we offer INSTE, Kidz Church, AMP’D Youth.
We do the things we do so you can be the church that Jesus had in mind.
There is a world out there that needs to hear the Good News and there is a church that needs to mature in Christ.
We need to know that we are loved, comforted and accepted.
We need to learn how to live holy lives.
We need to understand the Word of God and His will for our lives.
We need to see other Christians living dedicated lives to God.
And we need to develop in each of our lives the spiritual gifts and talents and ministries that God has placed upon us.
This is all done through evangelism and discipleship.
Remember the three principles of discipleship and be the church Jesus had in mind.
Principle 1 – The church, you, living out their lives, your life in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ regardless of what is going on around them.
Principle 2 – The true disciple has the hand of the Lord upon their life so that they can help turn others to God so they will become disciples and then continue to encourage them, enable them, teach them, and help them become mature disciples so they can help turn others to God.
Principle 3 – The practice of discipleship requires that the disciple be dedicated to God, following the Holy Spirit, and dedicated to learning more and more about God, His Word, His Son, and His will.
Let’s make learning and discipleship a priority in our lives.
