7 Days of Discipleship—Part 7

Here we are, on the final day of our discussion on discipleship. I would love to hear from you, if you have thoughts about what you’ve read these past couple of weeks. Let me know by shooting an email to jim.augustine1970@gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you.

Today’s final topic has to do with allowing the Holy Spirit to empower everything we do. Let’s face it, making disciples is not a humanly doable task. It’s a supernatural thing. So we have to rely on the Holy Spirit to have His way in us.

It’s a matter of trust. We do what we can, and then pray like crazy that the Spirit will take what we’ve done and go even further with it. There have been so many times as a preacher that I’ve ended a sermon thinking, “Well, I will just have to do better next time.” And then someone comes up to me saying, “Pastor, that sermon really spoke to me! Thank you!” My friends, THAT’S the Holy Spirit at work. And doesn’t just do that with preachers. He will do that with you, too, if you ask Him to and you let Him.

So take the time to be in prayer about those whom you are discipling, and make sure you do all that you can…but rely on God to do what you cannot!

Think about that today! And God bless!

7 Days of Discipleship—Part 6

The topic for today may surprise you. When it comes to discipleship, we focus on the Gospel, we focus on the simplicity, we focus on lifestyle and Christ, but how often do focus on the practical aspects of making a disciple. What do I mean? Read on…

When it comes to reaching out and really having an impact on people, we need to be in proximity to them. In other words, we are not going to disciple anyone if we just spend an hour a week with them. We have to go deeper.

We do this by opening up our lives to others. This is a trait that is most commonly referred to as “hospitality.” Now I know when you hear that word, you think of opening up your home to have people in, get to know them, share a meal, etc. But what I’m referring to is the opening up of our lives to others. Really being willing to have them be a part of everything we do.

How does this look? Well, it could look like going to a ball game with them, or going fishing together, or doing book club, or 4-H, or anything else that is a natural part of our lives. It’s simple, it’s doable, and it doesn’t take any extra effort on our part except for spending the invitation to the person who needs to see Christ in us.

So what do you do that you could include someone else in it? I can’t answer that for you, but when you do answer it, spend some time in prayer and ask God to help know who you can include in your life.

Think about that today! And God bless you!

7 Days of Discipleship—Part 5

So the fifth part of disciple making that I want to address with you is the idea that those who are effective in disciple making are those who do so simply. What does this mean? Read on…

In the above quote from Albert Einstein, makes the assertion that those who truly understand their subject matter can make it simple to those to whom they are trying to explain it. In other words, if you know your material, the easier you can help others understand it.

When it comes to the Gospel, and that which is important in it, we need go no further than 1 Corinthians 15:1-11. In this passage, Paul lays out for us what is truly important in our presentation of Gospel. Here’s five very important elements that need to be in any Gospel presentation you give.

        1)  THIS IS GOOD NEWS! (1-2)

When you share the Gospel, you need to express it as good news for people. What Jesus has done for them is something that no one else in all the world ever would or ever will do for them. So the fact that their sins can be forgiven and that their sin debt can be paid is of utmost importance…and it’s GOOD!

        2)  CHRIST’S DEATH (3)

Christ’s death is central to the Gospel. If Christ did not die, then did not pay the sin debt, because the payment of sin to those who commit it is death. So for us to eliminate or even downplay the death of Christ strips the Gospel of importance and of its power.

        3)  CHRIST IS RISEN FROM THE DEAD (4)

Christ’s death is important, but just as important is that Christ rose from the dead. If he did not rise from the dead, then death won and there is no hope for the future. But He did rise, and He did show Himself to those who followed Him (more on that later). So whenever we tell of the Good News of the Gospel, we need to make sure that the risen Christ is part of that presentation.

        4)  EYE-WITNESS ACCOUNTS (5-8)

Paul goes on to say that the Gospel is also about the eye-witnesses who saw Jesus following His resurrection. He mentions Peter, the rest of the Apostles, a group of 500 people at the same time, Jesus’ half-brother James as well as His other brothers, and then Paul Himself had an encounter with the risen Jesus. These eye-witnesses are vitally important because they make the claim that Jesus rose from the dead valid…and the fact that 500 people saw Him at the same time tells us that it wasn’t just hallucinations either.

        5)  THE CHANGED LIFE (9-11)

Finally, Paul tells about the change in his own life that came about because of the Gospel. This Gospel and the grace that came with it was the foundation of a changed life. Paul was persecuting the church, putting people in jail and even to death who were following after Jesus. But when the Gospel took hold of him, God’s amazing grace changed him into the hardest working apostle of all time.

So here’s the challenge: will you allow your presentation of the Gospel to include these things? Or will you continue to just share something that’s watered down and not very persuasive? This is the Gospel, folks! This is what we need to be sharing with our loved ones, our friends, those who we meet day by day, and demonstrating it with our lives. Christ died, rose again, was seen by people and has changed MY life.

It’s just that simple!

Think about that today! And God bless you!

7 Days on Discipleship—Part 4

When it comes time to share the gospel, what’s your “go-to”? Do you use a tract like Knowing God Personally, or The Four Spiritual Laws? Or do you use a verse of Scripture, like Romans 6:23? Whatever your “go-to” may happen to be, it is vitally important that we learn to share the gospel in ways that are relevant to the people we are talking to.

Let me give you an example from the Scriptures. In John 4, Jesus encounters a woman who is coming out of the town of Sychar in Samaria to the town well at noon to draw water all by herself. This, in and of itself, tells us a number of things about the woman, even before Jesus starts talking to her. First, she’s coming out at noon…the hottest part of the day…to do a labor intensive task that would be better suited to be done either early in the day or later at night.

Secondly, we find that she is alone. Normally they town well was a local meeting place to catch up and find out what was going on in the lives of all of your friends (think of it as Facebook before Facebook)…kind of like the watercooler at work. But this woman is coming alone. No interaction with anyone, or perhaps she’s trying to avoid interaction. Either way, she comes alone. This tells us that she most likely isn’t accepted by the rest of the town.

The third thing we see is that she is coming to the well to draw water. This is the main thing. She has a need. She is thirsty. The water from this well would be used to drink, to wash, to clean, and possibly even to use in religious ceremony. So when Jesus sees this woman, He processes all of this in a split second (not a supernatural thing, by the way) and decides that He’s going to interact with this woman.

When He does it shocks her, because typically Jews don’t associate with Samaritans. Also, she’s a woman and He’s a man…also a cultural no-no. But Jesus asks her for a drink of water. She immediately tries to shut Him down by saying, “You’re a Jewish rabbi, and I’m a Samaritan woman. Why are you even talking to me?”

But then Jesus says to her, “If you knew who I am, then you’d ask me and I’d give you living water so that you will never thirst again.”

As you read the rest of the conversation, Jesus broached the subject of her sin in kind of a supernatural way, but the truth of the matter is that we don’t need the supernatural to be able to tell where people are in their lives. We can look at them and the Holy Spirit tells us that they need Jesus. And as we look for opportunities to share Christ in their present circumstances, we will find even more opportunities to share.

So the challenge for us today is to look for ways in which we can share the good news of Jesus Christ to those around us as we see where they are in life. We then tailor the message (not the content, but the delivery) in such a way as to maximize effect in their lives.

How do we do this? Practice, practice, practice. We need to do it more and more. Look at people, see where they’re at. We live in a society that is more disconnected from each other even though we have all these ways of staying connected. We need to learn the art of connecting with our neighbors. So practice it today, and see what happens!

Think about that today! And God bless you!

7 Days on Discipleship—Part 3

One of the most important parts of disciple making is keeping Jesus at the center of it. The reason that this is so important is because when Jesus is not at the center, we tend to become more focused on the results than the relationship.

Let me try and explain it this way: When I am the focus of the discipleship process, then people begin to depend on me for all their answers instead of depending on Jesus. In a sense, I become an idol to those I am discipling…and that’s a bad place to be.

So we have to keep Jesus at the center of everything we do. We’ve talked about this many times…Jesus has to have first place (or the “preeminence”). If He doesn’t, then He’s not what people will see, and people will start worshiping other things rather than God…and that’s not good at all.

How do we keep Christ at the center of everything? It’s a daily discipline (do you see the word “disciple” in that word?) of prayer, reading the Scriptures, and seeing Jesus in all that we do. When that happens, we are able to walk in the ways that God intended us to walk.

We also do it by being intentional about looking for God at work in the world around us. Did you witness a beautiful sunrise this morning? That’s the hand of God! Did you see someone be kind to someone who hurt them? Thanks God at work. Were you able to respond calmly when someone yelled at you? That’s God’s grace in your life. So keep an eye out for those moments…they’re always there. And it will help you keep Christ at the center!

Think about that today! And God bless you!

7 Days on Discipleship—Part 2

On Tuesday, I challenged you to think about the process of evangelism. Today, I want to talk a little more about that process. One of the 7 habits of effective disciple making is to make discipleship a part of the rhythm of your life. With that being said, let’s talk about what that would look like.

When Jesus was choosing His disciples, at first blush it looks about as random as can be. He’s walking along the lake and happens to call out to four fishermen to come and follow Him so He can make them “fishers of men.” While this is pretty awesome in and of itself, it seems to make no sense that these four men would simply walk away from everything that they had known all of their lives to follow this guy. From the accounts in Matthew and Mark, it looks as if this is the first time that they’ve ever met Jesus. But when you look at the book of John, you realize something different.

In John, we see Jesus shortly after coming out of the wilderness where He had been tempted. John the Baptizer sees Him and declares, “Look! There’s the Lamb of God who will take the sins of the world away!” Andrew and John (two of those four men called in Matthew and Mark) are with JTB at this time, and they decide to leave John and follow after Jesus. Jesus notices them following and asks them what they want. They ask Him where He is staying (this was a common question asked to Rabbis when certain persons wanted to become their disciple). He invites them to where He’s staying and He spends the day with them.

We are then told that Andrew immediately goes and tells Simon (Peter) about this man they’ve found. He brings Simon to Jesus and Jesus changes his name right there to Peter. In the chronology of the gospels, we find that this event takes place right at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. The calling of the four fishermen (Peter, Andrew, James and John) comes around one to one and a half years into the ministry. What does this tell us? It tells us that Jesus spent significant time with the men He called prior to calling them. This changes everything for the Matthew and Mark passages and makes perfect sense as to why they would leave everything at that point to follow Jesus…because they already had significant relationship with Him.

That’s why when we make discipleship a part of the rhythm of our lives, people will be ready to allow us to teach them what God has taught us.

So how are you doing in this area? Are you allowing your life to be used of God to disciple those around you to become more like His Son? Or are you keeping it to yourself? Friend, there is nothing more exciting than watching someone come to understand God the way you do, and when that happens, you are a disciple maker…just like Jesus commanded you to be.

Think about that today! And God bless you!

7 Days on Discipleship—Part 1

I was cruising the internet the other day when I found a link to a video that talked about the seven habits of effective disciple makers. Some of what they said I agreed with…some of it I didn’t. But the fact of the matter is that we are all called to be disciple makers. The call comes to each of us as we read the command of Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20, where He says the following:

“I have been given complete authority in heaven and on earth (i.e., there is nothing that is beyond my authority). Therefore (i.e., because of this), go and (i.e., as you are going throughout the world) make disciples of all the nation (i.e., anyone and everyone you meet), baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (i.e., immerse them in who God is). Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you (i.e., once they come to Christ, teach them what you know). And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age (i.e., He’s going to be with us with all of the authority of heaven and earth at our disposal).”

–Matthew 28:18-20 with obvious emphases added by the author.

So, as we look at what Jesus is saying here, what are some things that disciples must do? According to the video I watched, there are seven things. They include making Jesus central in everything, sharing faith in culturally relevant ways, making discipleship a natural part of their lives, using simple patterns and practices, being hospitable, and being empowered by the Holy Spirit. These six ideas I agreed with wholeheartedly. However, the seventh one (which was actually the second one) I had issue with. They said that there was a “strategy” that God uses to identify disciples. Now, I’m all for not wasting time with people who are just not interested in going deeper in their faith, and I think that’s what these guys were meaning when they used the word “disciple”. However, if discipleship is a process (and it is), then there is a process by which one becomes a disciple. If that’s true, then there is a sense in which all people are being discipled, and every relationship we have (with both believers and the unsaved) is a discipling relationship.

Let me put it another way. If I want to make a table, I don’t start with a table, and then make the table more of a table. No. I take the pieces that go into a table, fashion and design those pieces and then put the table together. The same is true with disciples. We don’t find disciples and then make them disciples. If they’re disciples when we find them, they are disciples. We were called to “make disciples!” So we find the pieces (individuals who are newly saved, or even unsaved) and from those pieces through the power of the Holy Spirit, craft a disciple.

So, are you making disciples? Or are you just hoping that someone else will do it? If we are going to be disciple makers, we need to learn the process…and that’s what we will be talking over the next several days.

Think about that today! And God bless you!