The Forgotten Work Of Discipleship Part I
What do you suppose is the main goal of being a Christian? Is it the forgiveness of sin? Is it to become a better person? Is it to do good things for other people? What about being a better husband or a better wife? What about being a better Mom or Dad? What about going to heaven when we pass away? Most people think that these things are what being a Christian is all about.
All of these things are important and they’re all things that happen when we give our hearts and lives to Jesus Christ and we’re saved but none of these things are the main reason why becoming a Christian is important and yet they’re all wonderful things.
But there is one key thing that we should all be doing as Christians that I believe that the Church, in general, is failing at. And that one thing is discipleship. We as Christians get really excited when someone accepts Jesus as their Lord and Savior and rightly so. That’s a wonderful and life changing event in a person’s life.
But far too many Christians think that salvation is all that there is to being a Christian and they fail to understand that while salvation itself is an event, it is also the beginning of a process, a lifelong journey if you will. And too many times we leave these new Christians in a world that they don’t understand to fend for themselves against the world and satan. This is unacceptable. Mature Christians need to walk with these new Christians and help them to build a strong foundation in the fundamentals of being a Christian. We need to be teaching them about praying, about Bible study, about giving, about worshipping, about sound biblical doctrine etc.
And so the Church has a big part to play in this life long journey. Having said that I also want every one of us here today to understand that a MAJORITY of what you need to learn about the Bible, Christ, what God expects from you as a believer, will happen because you have taken on the responsibility to read and study God’s Word for yourself. This will happen when as I said earlier, the Church gives you a strong start in your Christian walk.
One question that I hear a lot from people is how do I become a better Christian? Well, discipleship is the answer to that age old question.
In this short three part sermon series I want to help us all to understand what discipleship is and why it’s so vitally important to all of as individuals and more importantly why it’s important to the Kingdom of God.
Our Scripture text is found in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 28 verses 16-20: 16 But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. 17 When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful. 18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
In this passage of Scripture we see that the eleven disciples have an opportunity to worship at the feet of the risen Savior, Jesus Christ even though some of them doubted. We see that the disciples were given a good work to do and that work was to make more disciples. So what is a disciple and what is discipleship? By definition, a disciple is a follower, one who accepts and assists in spreading the doctrines of another. A Christian disciple is a person who accepts and assists in the spreading of the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Christian discipleship is the process by which disciples grow in the Lord Jesus Christ and are equipped by the Holy Spirit to overcome the pressures and trials of this present life and become more and more like Christ every day.
This process requires believers to respond to the Holy Spirit’s prompting to examine their thoughts, words and actions and compare them with the Word of God. This requires that we be in God’s Word daily—studying it, praying over it, and applying it to our lives. Also, we should always be ready to give testimony of the reason for the hope that is within us and to disciple others to walk in His way.
At the beginning of this message I asked some questions and one of them was is going to heaven the main point of becoming a Christian and the answer to that question is a resounding NO! Because if going to heaven is the point of becoming a Christian then becoming a disciple of Christ and making others into Disciples of Christ is only optional. But discipleship is not a choice, it's the mission. There’s something lacking in each one of us until we become disciples and until we make disciples of others.
Jesus tells us all very plainly in this passage of Scripture that going out into the world and teaching and preaching the Gospel is not a suggestion but rather it’s a command. He took eleven men with varied personalities and flaws and told them that He was depending on them to be the examples for other new believers to follow, to be His representatives on earth. What an awesome honor and privilege and at the same time what pressure they must have felt at that time.
I say that to inspire and yes, to maybe even make you somewhat apprehensive of what Jesus wants us all to do. Being a little apprehensive about being a disciple maker is normal. But we can’t let that apprehension keep us from following the command from our Savior.
Discipleship is open to anyone willing to worship Jesus. This goes for both being a disciple and making others into disciples of Christ. Becoming better disciples of Christ is a great form of worship, possibly even the purest form of worship that you can offer to Him. There is no better feeling on earth than the feeling that you get when you help lead someone to Christ and are a part of changing not only their lives forever but possibly their family tree for generations to come.
I know that there is some competition for great feelings, like the day you got married or the way that you felt at the birth of your children but when you really think about it I still stand by my statement that helping to lead someone to the Lord is the greatest feeling on earth.
This for me just reinforces why Jesus made such a big deal about making disciples. A great thing to know here is that Jesus considers us to be partners with Him in the disciple making business. What a deal, we get to go out and bring the lost in our community into the kingdom AND we get to grow closer to Jesus at the same time!
One thing that I have learned over the years as a Christian is that if God wants you to do something for Him then He will equip you to do the job that He wants you to do. There’s an old saying that goes like this: “God doesn't call the equipped, he equips the Called!” So what that tells me is that if Jesus is going to send us out into this dark world then He will give us every tool that we need to complete the task.
In the Book of Acts chapter 10 we read about Jesus sending out seventy disciples to go before Him and proclaim the Gospel to various cities and peoples. This what Luke wrote for us in chapter 10 verses 1-4: 1 Now after this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them in pairs ahead of Him to every city and place where He Himself was going to come. 2 And He was saying to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. 3 Go; behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no money belt, no bag, no shoes; and greet no one on the way.
When I said that discipleship is open to anyone and everyone we see that it’s true in this passage as well. There are way more people who need to know the Lord and their personal Lord and Savior than there Christians who are following the command from Christ to go out and make disciples. And since we are partners with Jesus even though we are the lesser partners because we are flawed people, Jesus wants us to replicate ourselves. That’s what He wanted to the eleven men in Matthew 28 to do and that’s what He wanted the seventy to do here and that’s what He wants us to do for Him today. We are to go out and witness to people and share the Good News of the Gospel with them. Remember how good it felt when you got saved? How much your life changed for the better? That’s what Jesus wants us to do for others. He wants us to give them that same feeling of hope, of love and of mercy that can only be found in Jesus.
I had the pleasure of going to the Gideon’s Pastor appreciation banquet last Thursday night and there was man there who gave his personal testimony about how growing up his parents were both drug addicts and alcoholics and how the nut didn’t fall from the tree and he too became a drug addict and an alcoholic. He was told over and over by people that were supposed to care about him and love him that he was useless and would never amount to anything in life.
By the age of thirty he had been married and divorced three times and all three of his wives told him that he was useless and would never amount to anything in life. He had heard about Jesus but didn't want anything to do with Him. He got to the point where after his third wife left him that he just wanted to die. He went to a park that was often frequented by homeless people and thought about taking his own life.
But God had another plan for Leroy. As God had ordained for that day, some Gideons were passing out Bibles to anyone in the park who would take one and a man asked Leroy if he knew who Jesus was and he said I don’t want to know Jesus and I don’t want nothing to do with Jesus, just leave me alone!
The Gideon tried to hand Leroy a Bible and it fell on the ground and when Leroy picked it up it fell open to the Book of Isaiah chapter 1 verses 18-19 and this caught Leroy’s eye: 18 “Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.
19 “If you consent and obey, You will eat the best of the land…
Now this got Leroy to thinking. And he and that Gideon man started reasoning together and that man shared with Leroy the plan of salvation and Leroy was never the same again. The Lord took away his addictions and his alcoholism instantly and that was a great thing.
He met a godly woman and they married and they are still together to this day and she has never once said to him that he is useless and that he will never amount to anything in life because he is now a disciple of Christ’s and he is now a Gideon himself and he is an active participant in the Great Commission. I talked to Leroy after the banquet was over because I loved his testimony and because I had not met anyone else in person who had their addictions taken away like the Lord did with me until last Thursday night.
In closing, we need more mature disciples in our churches. The Church needs to get much better at not only getting people saved but growing them into maturity so that they can go out into the world and replicate themselves as disciples.
We as believers need to realize that personal prayer time and Bible reading and study need to happen on a daily basis. We seem to find time to do a lot of things that are important, BUT nothing is more important than our personal spiritual growth because not only does our walk with Christ depend on it but the lives of the lost in our community depend on it as well.
I want to say again to all of you here in this church that if there is anything that we can do to help you to grow into becoming more mature Christians then we want to do our best to make that happen. If you don’t attend Sunday School please do so because that’s part of your discipleship process. If you don’t come on Sunday night Please do, that will help your discipleship process. Take advantage of the opportunities that are available to you and you will see a difference in your life! Amen!?
