Who is Discipling You?

which I will in just a moment and then ask you to evaluate how a person or how a church is doing in both of these areas on a scale of one to ten the churches and the people that score closer to a 10 in both of these areas not just one or the other but in both areas will be among the top one percent of people and of churches that are really making a difference for the kingdom of God and now that you’re probably curious you

want to know what these two main subjects are these two main subjects are evangelism and discipleship now think about it if you’re doing well in evangelism effectively and proactively sharing the good news about Jesus with others in your community if you’re sharing the gift of eternal life with people as well as the gift of the holy spirit with people you will see people being saved also if you’re doing well in the area of discipleship the Great Commission helping people showing people mentoring for people how to

live the Christian Life how to grow in their faith so that they can explore connect grow and Thrive as a Christian you’re going to see people not only maturing in Christ but also helping others do the same and the kingdom of God is going to thrive as well it will happen but there’s a silent third party and a runner-up that can very easily creep into any person any church and because it’s not less necessarily labeled bad because it’s nobody would ever necessarily you wouldn’t call it

a sin it can many times start moving in our midst and picking up speed the silent third party and gaining gaining momentum and before we know it we have kind of lost a lot of bandwidth in our lives we’ve many times Even in our churches just lost a lot of momentum and this silent third party many times is programs now think about it with me how much of our lives are made up of events that we have to attend how much of our lives are made

up or how much of our church calendars are made up of events and programs that work that are constantly going on and and don’t get me wrong events and programs are good okay but many times these well-intentioned programs and events can end up sucking all of our time all of our energy all of our attention and eventually we blink and if we’re not careful and I’m not saying this always happens but if we’re not careful we can get to the place where we have maybe little

or no evangelism or discipleship taking place in our lives or in our churches because we just have no time left for it and it’s like a a jar that has rocks and sand in it and let’s call this jar our life or our time and if you put the important rocks or things in that jar first evangelism discipleship other things that are important and then there’s going to be room left in that jar for the sand or for the programs and the events in life to

come and just to fill up the cracks but on the other hand if you start and you fill that jar up all the way to the top with that sand with all those events with all those programs and then you try you’re trying to like push all these rocks into that jar right the evangelism and the discipleship it’s not going to happen it just won’t happen but this is many times what happens in our lives and if we’re currently finding ourselves in our lives wondering why

we don’t maybe have time for evangelism we don’t have time for discipleship we first need to take all the sand out prioritize by adding the Rocks back in to those important things back in and then adding the sand back in and I think we can all agree that these two things evangelism and discipleship are two very important things that Jesus commands us to partake in now both of these things are from Jesus when we talk about evangelism Matthew chapter 9 verses 37 and 38 says the

Harvest is plentiful but the workers are few ask the lord of the Harvest field to send out more workers into his Harvest field that’s evangelism and discipleship Jesus says in Matthew 28 18-20 all authority in heaven and on Earth has been given to me therefore go and make disciples of all Nations evangelism and discipleship are both very important things that Jesus says that we need to be partaking in if we want to be growing in our lives and in our churches in a way that’s going

to glorify the kingdom of heaven and knowing this to be true there has actually been several talks that have going going on these last few years here at a leadership level at the church not just with the Deacon and deaconesses but with the staff and with the overseers about these two topics of evangelism and discipleship and for this reason we thought that it would be really good to give our church some instruction from the pulpit for one of these subjects these next three weeks and this

is the subject of discipleship therefore for the next three weeks we’re gonna we’re gonna lean in and we’re gonna dive deep into a series called this is the way and we’re going to see as well as have it defined for us what discipleship is and how we can practically and holistically live it out in our lives and hopefully you’re also going to see some evangelism opportunities and training coming up this year as well but I want to begin just really quickly I already prayed but just

praying for this series and for God to lead this series these next three weeks as well as the outcomes in our hearts and lives from this series so let’s let’s pray really quickly Lord we want to Humble ourselves and we just want to ask for you God to get the glory for this series and that you would work in our hearts and in our lives in ways that we could never understand Lord but in ways that would make such a kingdom difference because of us learning

about discipleship and what it really means we ask that you would just take hold of our hearts Lord and that you would show us what you want to show us and that you would show us how to live that out for you God and for your kingdom and we pray this in Jesus name amen so I I am just so excited for the series I’m so excited that you’re here this morning and as we begin this series on discipleship I first need to give you all

a little bit of an overview as well as a vision for what discipleship is as well as what the real win of discipleship is so if you’ve been around Church long enough you probably heard the word disciple or discipleship Define for you or described for you but in layman’s terms a disciple is really just simply it’s a student or a learner or a pupil but more specifically it’s someone who is actually wanting to learn what the teacher is teaching and in the Christian Circle we add

that the learner really wants to learn what the teacher is teaching specifically about how to live the Christian Life and this is a great place to begin but many times this place of learner or student is where a lot of people stay and when we just get comfortable and we just keep learning and learning and learning and possibly even applying these things to our lives but sometimes that’s as far as it gets but at some point track with me here we have to get up off

the bench we have to start stop just taking in information and being discipled and we have to make a transition we I want you to catch this transition with me but we have to make a paradigm shift we have to get to the place in the Christian Life where we know enough where we’ve learned enough where we’ve been taught enough that we transition from being a disciple to finding someone that needs to be discipled and beginning to disciple them now let that sink in for a

moment but this is not where it ends the hope is that then we would disciple that person to the point in their Christian Life where they know enough and where they feel comfortable enough where they would then find someone else that they could pour into and begin to disciple themselves the true win of discipleship is not you it’s not the person you’re pouring into let’s call them Dan but that’s the person after that it’s let’s call them Philip okay you’ve got this teacher here that’s pouring

into you but you are not the wind being discipled it’s not the person you’re pouring into in discipling which is Dan it’s the person that Dan eventually that’s and would be an amazing win wouldn’t it be that Dan has found Philip and now is pouring into him and this is something that God wants us to do in our Christian lives and in in second Timothy chapter 2 verse 2 it helps paint a picture of this for us the Apostle Paul in his last letter that he

wrote in his last few years so we know it’s very important and it’s because it’s written from a posture of wisdom and experience in his older years and Paul is writing to one of his disciples Timothy sharing some valuable information with him about how to live the Christian Life and in second Timothy 2 2 Paul says and I quote the things that you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust them to Reliable men and women who will be qualified to teach others

did you catch it okay so Paul is saying the things that you have heard me the teacher teach in the presence of many witnesses you Timothy and others okay he’s saying now I want you to and trust those things to Reliable men and women dance who will then be qualified to teach others Philip are you seeing the vision discipleship is truly about making disciples That Make Disciples that make disciples and it just keeps going on this is the way in fact this is the true win

of discipleship and this is what God wants for us and for every Christian that is following him one amazing quote that helps sum this up a little bit comes from Robbie gality who says and I quote when the church becomes an end in itself it ends when Sunday school as great as it is becomes an end in itself it ends when small groups Ministry becomes an end in itself it ends when worship service becomes an end in itself it ends what we need is for discipleship

to become the goal and then the process never ends it’s it is fluid the process is fluid it’s moving it is active it is a living thing it must continue to go on every disciple must make disciples end quote and this thought of discipleship being fluid and moving active and living as well as something that never ends reminds me of an amazing image that I want to share with each and every one of us this morning that will not only guide our time these next three

weeks but that will also give you a full picture of how to best excel in bringing about discipleship in your life as well as in the life of others so picture with me a lake in your minds as well as three parts of this Lake okay if you need to you can close your eyes but first part part every healthy lake has an inlet where the water comes in number two every every healthy lake has the lake with the pockets within the lake or the side

parts of the lake the main area where all the water sits and then number three every healthy lake has an outlet the place where the water leaves and these three things as well are things that we need in our pursuit of discipleship as well and many many of you may have heard it this way we all need a Paul a Barnabas and a Timothy in our lives throughout our lives so if we want to be healthy like if we want to be a healthy lake so

to speak or in our case a healthy Christian we need three things we all need a Paul an inlet fresh water someone that’s pouring into us and discipling us we all need a Barnabas someone that’s right beside us helping us live the Sanctified life and helping keep us accountable and then we all also need a Timothy an outlet someone that we’re pouring into and discipling and it works best if you have all three of these people or in all three of these areas that play in

your life all the time otherwise things can get out of balance if you don’t have someone pouring into you and discipling you but you’re pouring into someone else your Lake’s gonna dry up pretty quick if you have someone pouring into you but you’re not pouring into anyone else you’re just gonna get stuffed and puffed up and knowledge possibly struggle with being judgmental or a lot of other things the Lake’s going to get too big and create problems on the surrounding Shores if you’re lacking someone to

keep you accountable a Barnabas then you have no one that really knows what’s going on in your life you have no one that’s really keeping you in check and making sure that you’re fighting the good fight living the Sanctified life because the struggle is real and we need that in our lives so we all need each of these three types of people in our lives we want to experience discipleship and the Christian life to the fullest So today we’re going to talk about the first of

these people that you need in your life in order for A discipleship to be most effectively taking place and that brings us to our first question who is discipling you who is modeling for you and helping you learn how to live the Christian Life who is helping you develop more knowledge of the Bible who is helping you develop christ-like character who is helping you develop healthy spiritual disciplines who is teaching you how to pray as well as how to hear the Lord’s voice and how to

obey him or who’s teaching you The rhythms of the Christian life such as Sabbath and tithing or helping you work through forgiveness with others and with yourself another way of asking this in a more concise way is who is discipling you and I would want to challenge you to not have your knee-jerk response or reaction be Pastor Steve unless he’s meeting with you on a regular basis one-on-one now don’t get me wrong there’s lots of ways that we can be discipled and pour it into and

learn how to live the Christian Life and Pastor Steve Sunday’s messages is one of them okay also podcasts or Christian books or Bible studies or life group or youth group there’s many other parts of our lives that we can be informally discipled in and we can learn how to live the Christian Life as we go but there’s also a way that Jesus models for us that we should also include in our lives as we’re going about being discipled it’s more of a formal way or at

least a much more intentional approach to discipleship one that’s healthy for us to have active and at work in our lives no matter how old we are so go ahead and turn to the Book of Matthew with me the first book of the New Testament that shows us the way of discipleship that Jesus modeled we’re going to be in Chapter 4 Verse 18 through 22. Of Matthew this morning I want to give us a discipleship Moment by Jesus to help us illustrate the importance of this

question who is discipling you so go ahead and open up to Matthew Chapter 4 Verse 18 and as you do so I want to I want you to take note possibly by flipping the page back a page if you need to that Jesus had just been baptized earlier you probably see it talking about Jesus’s baptism right at the end of chapter 3. And it was at that moment that the spirit of God Came Upon him descended upon him Jesus was then tempted in the desert for

40 days by the devil and very strategically might I add to try and convince Jesus to build his Earthly Kingdom I don’t know if you’ve ever realized that before but he’s really saying hey Jesus I want you to build my Earthly Kingdom but Jesus overcame these Temptations in the desert successfully due to the word of God that had been he had memorized and that had been planted in him and so therefore just right before our passage now Jesus in verse 17 Jesus begins to preach repent

for the Kingdom of Heaven is near what makes me smile is that Jesus even after his temptation chose to build the Kingdom of Heaven not an Earthly Kingdom but the kingdom of heaven but right at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry right from the start we see Jesus engage in something significant with regards to his ministry approach read I’m going to read Matthew Chapter 4 verses 18 through 22 for you right now it says this as Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee he saw two

brothers Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew they were casting a net into the lake for they were fishermen come follow me Jesus said and I will send you out to fish for people at once they left their Nets and followed him going on from there he saw two other brothers James son of Zebedee and his brother John they were in a boat with their father Zebedee preparing their Nets Jesus called them and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him okay so

right from the beginning we see Jesus not just preaching to the masses by himself which would have been one approach that he could have taken but rather we see Jesus calling people to be his disciples his students and taking people along with him ponder that living life with Jesus 24 hours a day seven days a week and being along for the ride with him now I’m not sure if you caught two things from this interaction that Jesus had with these first two disciples that ended up

being Disciples of Jesus but let me share these two things with you now number one I wanted you to key on this Jesus called his disciples to him okay this was very different than the other rabbis or teachers of the day the other rabbis waited for the students to come to them right they for the student to humbly ask the rabbi If he if he could follow and study under that Rabbi and if the student was lucky enough if the student was smart enough if this

student had enough of the Torah memorized maybe possibly if the student had eaten his Wheaties that morning you know if that would have helped I don’t know he would be granted the ability to follow the rabbi and be his student which was the most incredible thing that you could have ever asked for now contrast this with Jesus Jesus Calls the students to himself the opposite of the culture of that day and probably in some ways seen as dishonorable by the other rabbis and not only does

Jesus go to the disciples and ask them to follow him but he goes to the people that really had no business being disciples and at least in the eyes of the Jewish leaders I mean these guys didn’t have the Torah memorized these guys didn’t have the grades these guys didn’t have the credentials otherwise they would have been pursuing a rabbi and trying to be drafted by them what were these guys doing instead a trade something that they could do to make money and it’s in this

context that Jesus comes to them people that weren’t qualified and says come follow me be my disciple see how you already know everything there there is to know about how to fish for fish I want to teach you everything there is to know about how to fish for people how to help people catch the awesomeness of the kingdom of God and this should make each and every one of us sit up in our seats and realize that we too can be Disciples of Jesus and that

we don’t have to have a certain education we don’t have to live up to a certain degree of holy living first we don’t have to be extraordinary in order to follow Jesus and choose him no he calls ordinary people people just like you and me and this should help us realize that he is calling us to to come and follow him and be discipled now for those of us who tend to take things more literally just because Jesus came to these 12 first disciples doesn’t mean

that we have to wait for someone to come to us in order for us to begin the discipleship process or to help maybe justify for ourselves why we haven’t started the discipleship process yes discipleship process yes well you know what no one’s asked to disciple me yet so you know I’m not being discipled but see Jesus wasn’t setting a standard for all time on how discipleship should begin Jesus was simply inviting people who were really intrigued in the idea that he might be the Messiah to

come and follow him and see for themselves he was going against the cultural a traditional cultural norm having people come to him because otherwise these 12 guys never would have come to him because they didn’t believe they were Worthy Jesus was helping us to see that we’re worthy of his discipleship but at the end of the day discipleship always goes both ways we can always go to someone to disciple us and ask them to disciple us and somebody can always come to us and ask us

to disciple us if God is leading us or them in that way and I had never I’d never noticed this before but these fishermen had some really good qualities that they could offer to the kingdom of God and as I was reading a commentator Barkley this week I realized a few of these qualities that blew me away number one they had patience they learn how to wait for a fish to take the bait and not get impatient this would be important in their Ministry with Jesus

as well they would need to be patient because very rarely were people going to believe in Jesus right away it was going to take time before they would believe in Jesus and they must not be discouraged but learn to wait and they already had this they already had patience they had perseverance in fishing it took many casts sometimes to cat catch a fish and many times you’d have to loot to move to many different locations and keep trying not giving up persevering and this was so

important in their time with Jesus because there’s many times going to be where they didn’t succeed or where they were going to have to have many conversations with people before somebody was ever going to come to know Jesus and they had that perseverance already through fishing and they had courage their boats were small and sometimes the storms and the winds and the waves on out that were out there in the lake got really big like scary big and we know this from many of the stories

we had when they were with Jesus out on the lake in order for Jesus to share with others or in order for them to share Jesus with others they were going to need courage because they were always going to be in danger of telling people about the kingdom of God and their lives would never be safe again and these are just some of the unique qualities that they possessed as being fishermen that would help them as Jesus’s disciples but here’s the deal we all have unique

qualities that Jesus wants to bring about and use in us for the kingdom of God and I want to encourage something in you never underestimate that you have something to bring to the kingdom of God these guys were perfect candidates that’s why Jesus came to them they just didn’t know it yet you are too and if you don’t know that yet Jesus in Time Will Reveal it to you too you just have to accept the call and you have to follow him and I just want

to ask you first this morning will you accept his call so number one we see from this passage that Jesus came to his disciples number two we see they left their occupation to follow him maybe you’ve never like let that sink in before but like they left their occupation their job their livelihood all that they had to live on to follow him now I’m not saying that we need to leave our occupation in order to be discipled by someone okay so don’t hear me incorrectly but

what I want you to see is that Jesus’s call to follow him would have been something that was very costly that took big risk and sacrifice for the first disciples they would have had to give up their comfort and their control in order to come and follow Jesus fully but it was so worth it and I’m talking to myself here too but how easy is it for us in the United States if we choose to for us to follow Jesus and still maintain our comfortable lifestyle

with very little sacrifice to ourselves probably fairly easy but Jesus asked them to do something that was going to stretch them and I believe that the way of discipleship finding someone to intentionally disciple important to us will will stretch us and will take us out of our comfort zones so when when my youth pastor Sean first asked to disciple me I thought wow like you know I was actually a little prideful I was like I must be better than all the other people in the youth

ministry for him to ask me to to be discipled by him okay God worked that out on me pretty quickly he humbled me very quickly but I thought that discipleship was going to be easy and somehow you know living the Christian Life you know better like oh this is simply in my mind was like this is a win-win it’s going to be easy and I’m gonna learn how to live the Christian Life not so much it brought so much discomfort and so much sacrifice because the

book that we were reading Christian discipleship was bringing things to my attention that I realized I wasn’t living out in my life and there was a lot of things that I still needed to grow in in order to live the Christian Life and I wanted to but I just remember feeling so overwhelmed because I just felt like this pile so high of things that I needed to try and do for God and I just didn’t even know where to start and it just seemed like it

was too much and that it was impossible to do it all and I began to get anxious but do you want to know what I learned as I began to press into God even in all this Comfort discomfort and sacrifice that I went through I learned that if I stopped focusing on everything that I needed to try to learn and do to be discipled and if I just focused in on one thing at a time and just focused on growing in that one area until I

kind of handled that one and then grew in another one and then focus on that and then grew in another one it was much more manageable manageable I felt like I got a little bit easier and I felt like I could finally do it and I didn’t have to give up my job to follow him I was a Figaro’s Pizza Guy at that time and that place actually probably helped put my discipleship into practice if I’m honest dealing with a lot of irate customers and a

lot of stuff there but all of this in my early times of discipleship it did take sacrifice and moving out of my comfort zone but it was worth it it was so worth it but with these two things in mind Jesus had called them to come to him and they had also just left their occupation to follow him I want you to see one other thing Jesus Takes these 12 disciples that he had asked to follow him and for the next three years or so he

does life with them like I already said like they they spent time together they were together 24 hours a day seven days a week okay think about this he ate with them preached with them okay just think about this like traveled with them and they have cars so they were walking everywhere they went they were walking for long periods of time shared campfires with them well I just wonder what the conversations would have been like around the campfire he lodged with them right like worked with

them mourned and cried with them celebrated and laughed with them did Miracles with them they would have had lots of moments to interact with Jesus and learn and grow and be discipled because they were with them all the time every day all day and it was super intentional here in the United States if we can be discipled by somebody for one to two hours a week in a Starbucks we’re doing pretty well right I also only spent about two intentional hours a week with my youth

pastor Sean outside of youth group and outside of other events and Retreats but I still somehow got discipled into the pastor that I am today and listen all I all I know though is that the more time that we’re willing to spend with those who can disciple us even if it’s just following them around and doing life with them the better the more that we’re going to pick up the more that we’re going to learn from them about how to live the Christian life but I

cannot imagine I can’t imagine though like what that would have been like being with Jesus for all that time and doing it for three years and how do we know it was three years well the Gospel of John actually tells us about three or four times where it talks about the Passover was taking place at that time I put this in your notes some notes but John chapter 2 verse 13 John chapter 5 verse 1 John chapter 6 verse 4 and John Chapter 13 Verse 1.

Even if three of those are rights that means it’s about three years time that he had he had a lot of moments to be with his disciples to to pour into them personally regularly intentionally holistically and it made all the difference in their lives it took sacrifice it took being uncomfortable I got a question for you are are we willing to sacrifice our comfort in order to be discipled if that’s what it comes to but even more important for me to ask each of us probably

the million dollar question of the morning is could you give me the name of a person that’s meeting with you regularly in a formal way that’s discipling you and how to live the Christian life better more specifically they know that they’re discipling you you know that you’re being discipled by them you’ve had a conversation with them sought them out and asked them if they could disciple you and what it means to be a Christian or in some way that you need to be discipled and they

have said yeah I’ll disciple you and you meet on some kind of a regular basis maybe reading the Bible together or reading a book together or maybe maybe it’s just getting together and doing in something that that you both enjoy doing together and gleaning as much as you can from them about how to grow in your relationship with Jesus do you have someone in your life that is formally discipling you in this way and some of you some of us might be thinking well I had

that as at one point when I was new in my Christian faith but now I’m a mature Christian and I don’t I don’t have that anymore I don’t think I need that anymore but I want to encourage you to think about the possibility of making this a reality in your life once more so that this ebb and flow of discipleship and the lake illustration that we discussed earlier could be fully at work in your life a few points of application for us this morning and then

we’ll be done one obviously look for somebody older than you to disciple you of course but but hear this don’t rule out the possibility of finding someone that can disciple you even if it’s somebody that’s younger than you for a few reasons number one you may be older but they may be older in the faith it it comes down to how long a person has been following Jesus and how much they have been discipled and in first Timothy 4 12 it says don’t let anybody look

down on you because you’re young talking to you two youth but to set an example for the Believers in your speech and your life and your love and your faith and in your purity how neat would that be if you went to somebody that was younger than you and said you know what like because here’s the second things there’s there’s many places in your life that maybe you need growth in that when you look around there might be somebody younger that you that is actually further

along than you in that area or maybe that has overcome that certain has that certain character quality already radiating in their life or who a younger person who’s already overcome that sin in their life I mean maybe you struggle with overcoming lust and that Temptation fully or maybe it’s anger and knowing how to treat those you love with more patience or maybe it’s generosity and wanting to learn how to be more generous with all that God has given you don’t underestimate that there is a lot

that we can learn from someone who might be nearer to Childhood than we are now and that we can go to that person who might have more of Faith like a child number two point of application we always need a teacher or a disciple and a discipler in our lives if our goal is to make it’s a Timothy or not to Timothy but to Philip being discipled we can always have a deeper well of knowledge and wisdom that comes from being discipled I had somebody in

my life a pastor once who said we always need to be deepening our well and what you meant by that is we always need to be taking in more information we always need to be taken in more knowledge more wisd

Transcript machine-generated from the sermon audio, so it may contain errors. 6,162 words.