[after video of people talking about who discipled them]
Pine Lake Baptist Church was old school. Every Tuesday night, we met for visitation.
I wasn’t old enough to drive yet, but my mom dropped me off so I could go visitin’. And like every person who showed up for visitation the first time, I was paired with IB Melton.
If you looked up “Head Deacon in a small-town Baptist church in the 1970s” in the dictionary, there would be a picture of IB Melton. I never saw him without a coat and tie. Or a cigarette. Or awake in the choir loft. But visitation was IB’s passion. And that Tuesday night, I climbed into IB’s Cadillac Eldorado—with the gun rack in the rear window—and we went visitin’.
Phase One of IB’s training program could be labeled: I do, you watch.
IB knocked on the door. He introduced us. He thanked them for visiting our church on Sunday. He gave them a gift from the church. He asked if he could pray with them. He prayed. And then we moved on.
Phase Two was: I do, you help.
IB knocked on the door. He introduced us. He thanked them for visiting our church on Sunday. I gave them a gift from the church. I asked if I could pray with them. I prayed. And then we moved on.
Phase Three was: You do, I help.
I knocked on the door. I introduced us. I thanked them for visiting our church on Sunday. IB gave them a gift from the church. I asked if he could pray with them. IB prayed. And then we moved on.
You get the idea.
But the fourth house—I did it all. While IB watched.
And the next week, IB took someone else along. And I did too. It was basically copy/paste. I taught the next guy how to do it the way IB taught me to do it.
That, church, is a model for making disciples.
Long before I even knew to call it discipleship, IB was doing exactly what Jesus does with his disciples—calling them close, walking with them patiently, releasing them gradually, and then trusting them to do it for someone else.
A disciple isn’t formed in one dramatic moment. It’s a process. A process with movement. A process with overlap. A process that never stops teaching—but does lead to release.
This morning I want us to trace that process in four movements:
The Call of the Disciple
The Growth of the Disciple
The Release of the Disciple
The Multiplication of the Disciple
And I want to say this clearly up front: these movements are not clean stages. Growth and release are never precisely sequential. Being sent does not mean you are finished learning. In fact, sometimes being sent is what reveals just how much learning you still need.
Discipleship always begins with the call.
When the first disciples ask Jesus where he is staying, In John 1, John the Baptist is teaching his own disciples, and when Jesus walked by, he pointed him out and said, “Behold the Lamb of God.” They start following Him, and they ask, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” And Jesus gives them answers them with something that will change their lives: “Come and you will see.” (verse 39)
Again and again, Jesus begins the same way. “Follow me.” Mark 1:17, Matthew 4:19, Luke 5:27, John 1:43).
“He appointed twelve that they might be with him.” Mark 3:13-14)
Before Jesus asks anyone to preach, to serve, to sacrifice, or to lead, he asks them to be with him.
Discipleship is relationship before its responsibility. It’s proximity before its productivity.
But as Jesus begins to grow the disciples, notice what happens.
There’s a subtle movement into deeper relationship. Come and see is followed by Follow me.
And with every invitation to go deeper in relationship, there are increased challenges to put what they are learning into practice.
When Jesus first meets Peter, he challenges him: cast your net on the other side of the boat, and you’ll catch some fish.
When 5000 hungry people have been listening to Jesus teach all day, the disciples want to send them away. Jesus says, “You give them something to eat.” The invitation is to follow more closely. The challenge is to be stretched out of their comfort zone.
There’s another pattern. Jesus teaches, and then he tests.
Jesus explains parables—and then tells one without explanation. He calms storms—and then sleeps through the next one. He demonstrates authority—and then expects them to trust it.
Teaching shows them what faith looks like. Testing reveals whether it has taken root.
And third, Jesus allows the disciples to fail in order that they can be formed.
The disciples fail often. They panic in storms. They misunderstand Jesus’ words. They argue about who is the greatest. They fail at ministry they thought they were ready for.
But Jesus does not treat failure as disqualification. He treats it as formation.
He pulls them aside. He explains. He corrects. He invites them deeper.
Failure is not the end of discipleship. Failure is often where discipleship actually begins to take hold.
And then comes Luke 9. In Luke 9, something shifts:
Look at it with me:
And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. 3 And he said to them, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics. 4 And whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. 5 And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.” 6 And they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.
Jesus calls the Twelve together and does something new. He gives them power and authority—and he sends them out. He takes the training wheels off.
This is not graduation. Graduation implies you’re finished learning. Disciples are never finished being taught.
Training has a goal. Formation has a purpose. And that purpose is responsibility.
Jesus sends them out with real authority and real dependence. Proclaim the kingdom. Heal the sick. Take nothing for the journey.
They are no longer just watching ministry. They are entrusted with it.
And here is the crucial truth: release does not end formation. It reveals it.
The same disciples who are sent out still misunderstand Jesus. Still struggle with fear. Still fail to grasp what he is doing. One Gospel even tells us that after a miracle they still didn’t understand what had happened.
Being sent does not mean you are finished learning. Sometimes being sent is how Jesus shows you what you still need to learn.
And this is where we get stuck sometimes. Scripture warns us about staying in training forever.
The writer of Hebrews told his audience to move on to maturity. He looked at where they were in their faith and said, “By this time, you ought to be teachers, but you’re still drinking milk, not eating solid food (Hebrews 5:12). He says, move on. To maturity.”
We are never done being taught. But there is a point where we are done being trained. Paul warned Timothy of people in the church that were “always learning, but never arriving at a knowledge of the truth.” 2 Tim 3:7
Training is for release.
A couple of weeks ago, a few of us met up here to take down the Christmas decorations. It was the morning after Alabama got beat by Indiana in the CFP. And so I was talking to Martha Ellis about it who, as you know, is slightly partial to the University of Alabama. And she said, “Isn’t it amazing that all four of the remaining teams have a head coach that was an assistant to Nick Saban?”
My first thought was, you know, Bama fans will always find a way to brag about something. Even after a loss like that. But then Martha said, “And shouldn’t the church be like that? Shouldn’t all of us be looking to pass on what we know to the next generation of leaders and pastors and missionaries?”
And I remember thinking, that’s it. That’s discipleship.
Not just winning today, but shaping who comes next.
Not just celebrating what we’ve built, but asking who’s being built alongside us. And who’s being raised up after us.
And that’s exactly why Jesus doesn’t keep the mission with the Twelve forever. Formation that doesn’t lead to release eventually becomes self-preservation.
And here’s why it is so necessary:
When the Titanic sank, part of the reason there was such a great loss of life wasn’t just that there weren’t enough lifeboats. It was that the crew had very little training in how to use them.
There had been almost no full drills. Many of the men aboard had never practiced loading, lowering, or operating lifeboats under pressure. When the moment came, the response was slow, confused, and chaotic—and that cost lives.
And part of the reason for that lack of preparation was confidence. The Titanic was believed to be unsinkable.
Why practice with lifeboats if you don’t think you’ll ever need them?
I think the church can fall into the same mindset.
If someone needs to hear about Jesus, we bring them to church so the pastor can tell them.
If someone needs to grow in Christ, we invite them to Sunday school or a small group.
And those are good things.
But every one of us needs to know how to row.
Discipleship is not just knowing where the lifeboats are. It’s being able to use them when the ship is taking on water.
Jesus releases disciples not because they know everything, but because the moment will come when knowing how matters.
And then Luke does something wonderful.
In Luke 9, Jesus sends out the apostles. And that makes sense. The word apostle literally means “sent out.”
That’s their role. That’s their calling.
But then you turn the page.
In Luke 10, Jesus sends out seventy-two others.
[Read Luke 10]
After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. 2 And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3 Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’ 6 And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you. 7 And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you. 9 Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’
And the Greek word for “others” is… others. It’s heteros. It just means other people.
Not the Twelve.
Not the inner circle.
Not the professionals.
These are not seminary graduates.
They are not on staff at a church.
They are not drawing a paycheck.
They are ordinary people.
Butchers. Bakers. Candlestick makers.
And here’s what’s remarkable.
They get the same assignment as the apostles.
The same instructions as the apostles.
The same results as the apostles.
And then they get something the apostles don’t.
Luke tells us that Jesus is full of joy.
This is the only place in the Gospels where it explicitly says that Jesus rejoices—where he overflows with joy.
And why?
Because he sees ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary things in his name.
Now, you won’t find this part in the Bible, so let me say from the jump that this is just speculation on my part: But I wonder if the reason Jesus sent out the 72 after the 12 came back from their preaching mission was so that the 12 could train the 72. See, that would give each of the disciples a group of six to train and pour into, just as Jesus trained and poured into them.
Now, some of your Bibles say seventy instead of seventy-two. So maybe Judas just had the smaller group.
Either way, the math isn’t the miracle. The movement is.
Discipleship has escaped the bottleneck. The water is flowing.
And that brings us to the image you’ve been seeing all morning.
This fountain.
If you watch it, you’ll notice something simple but important. The water never stays in one bucket.
It pours in. It fills up. And then it overflows—into the next basin, and then the next.
If the water ever stopped moving, the fountain would stop being a fountain.
Paul describes discipleship the same way when he writes, “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful people, who will be able to teach others also.”
Four generations in one verse. Paul. Timothy. Faithful people. Others also.
That’s not a classroom. That’s a fountain.
On the back of your listening guide is a picture of this three-bucket fountain. I want to invite you—not rush you, not pressure you—to label it.
Start with the top bucket.
Who poured into you? Who taught you the Scriptures? Who prayed for you? Who modeled faith for you when you didn’t know what faith looked like yet?
Then the middle bucket.
Who are you walking with right now? The people who know your story. The people who help you stay faithful. The people you grow alongside.
And then the bottom bucket.
Who could you pour into?
Not because you’re finished learning—but because discipleship was never meant to stop with you.
If the water only flows to us, eventually the fountain stagnates. But when it flows through us, it brings life.
The same Jesus who said “Come and see” is still saying, “Take someone with you.”
Let the water keep moving.
