Intro

Said this a lot in the first year I was here, want to come back to it for the next few weeks.

We are a family of servant missionaries sent
to be disciples who make disciples in all of life.

When River was baptized a few weeks ago, Jon said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” He was symbolically announcing that the old River died with Christ, and the new River was raised with Christ, now living from this new identity that he has been given.

It all starts with who God is, and from there, how we are to reflect his image, both individually and corporately.

Starting this morning, over the next four weeks, we are going to be diving into the biblical basis for each of those truths and, even more importantly, asking how we can more effectivey live out of this new identity and become a more growing, healthy church.

I would encourage you, if at all possible, to be here the next 4 weeks, because these are some absolutely bedrock truths. This should be the foundation for the future of every church, but we haven’t been called to worry about every church. We’ve been called to this church.

We’re going to go through this statement in reverse order, which means that today we’re examining being “disciples who make disciples in all of life.”

What is a disciple?

A disciple is someone who is increasingly worshipping Jesus,
being changed by Jesus, and obeying Jesus in all of life.

Jeff Vanderstelt

Part of the reason I find that definition helpful is that while it lays out what being a disciple means, it also acknowledges the fact that it’s always changing, always growing.

This is what it means to be a Christian. In fact, before the members of the early church were called Christians, they were called disciples. You can see that in Acts 11…

The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.

Acts 11:26

So to talk about being disciples who make disciples, one of the most obvious places to go are Jesus’ last words to his disciples before his ascension, what most Christians call the Great Commission.

Make Disciples

Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:18–20

If you’ve been in church for any length of time, that’s a very familiar passage, right? You’ve heard it a million times. But there’s something here that’s disguised for us by the translation from Greek to Engish.

If you look at the verbs in these three verses (go, make, baptize, teach, remember), it would be easy to think that they’re all of equal importance, that they’re all on the same level.

And in fact, you will hear this passage taught this way, and churches will take on a certain section of it as the one they’re really good at, usualy reflecting the pastor’s gifting.

Here’s the thing: In Greek, there’s only one main verb: make disciples. All the rest are participles—words that modify/describe the verb.

Everything we do as a church should flow from and lead
to making disciples. This is our measure of success.

How do we do that?

We look at the Master.

From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus had 3 years. Three years to teach these guys everything they needed to know to carry on the mission he was giving them.

And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach

Mark 3:13–14, ESV

We too need to “be with them” to have the kind of effect Jesus had on his men.

Disciple-making requires both some minimal structure and margin to let life happen. It’s both engineered and organic, trellis and vine, truth-speaking and life-sharing. Quantity time is the soil in which quality time grows. The vast majority of Jesus’s time with his men wasn’t formal.

David Mathis

Same from Apostle Paul

We cared so much for you that we were pleased to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us.

1 Thessalonians 2:8

Join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us.

Philippians 3:17

Imagine a dancer. She’s dancing with grace and joy and rhythm. As you look closer, you see what drives all this beautiful movement: she has her earbuds in, hearing the music she loves best in all the world, and it’s transporting her. She’s captivated and enthralled by it. It’s almost as if she can’t stop dancing.

Now imagine a second person walks into the room. She looks at the dancer and thinks, “I’d love to be able to dance like that!” But she can’t hear the music. So, she tries to copy the moves. The technique. And it actually seems to be working, at least for a time. But because she hears no music, the movement is clunky, hesitant, and self-conscious. She doesn’t seem to enjoy dancing the way the first dancer does. Before too long, she’s exhausted, while the first dancer is still going strong.

What if much of our well-intentioned disciple training is actually forcing people to be that second dancer? Telling them to copy all the right moves—read your Bible, pray, go to church, love others, share the gospel—while doing relatively little to help them “hear” the beautiful music that must drive it all: joy in Christ.

What would it look like if our discipling of others was less an act of technique-teaching, and more an act of turning up the music? What if it were less about mastering, and more about being mastered?

Obstacles to Making Discipleship

Distraction

We live in the age of distraction. And not only will disciplemaking be sidelined if we smartphone and entertain ourselves to death, but Satan has a thousand readymade, event-oriented distractions to divert us from pleasing Jesus in the grunt work of advancing the gospel through the process of disciplemaking. We are bombarded not just by obvious time-wasters, but good initiatives that, if we’re not careful, will not just supplement disciplemaking, but supplant it. So the first cost is not getting “entangled in civilian pursuits,” but keeping our mission, the Great Commission in mind.

David Mathis

Same is true of the church as it is in our lives.

Comfort

Early-morning and late-night intense conversations are demanding. It’s much easier to avoid them and just watch TV. Making disciples costs us comfort.

David Mathis

The heart of a disciple says, “It makes me happier for you to have my time, my energy, my attention, my initiative than for me to keep them to myself.”

David Mathis

Vulnerability

Jesus & Judas

Surrender Your All