Dynamic Discipleship I, What Is a Disciple?

I think there's a particular richness when we can share heritage like we did tonight. You know, when we can sing as others have sung for generations before us. And yet know that there up there, as Hebrews 12 says, is a great cloud of witnesses cheering us on, saying to us, now don't give up the fight. I only have one real burden right now, and it's really not that we would, you know, milk every moment of God's presence here as much as to say, God, you know, would you give us another person into this kingdom this week? Would you let us share this wonderful glory with just another soul that needs to hear that? I don't know about you, but boy, I've learned something in life. When I get something nice, the tendency is to want to keep it, but the real delight comes when I share it. Have you discovered that? Even my birthday cake. I mean, I was a tough man, but I did it. But I mean that. Well, not my fudge. I'm not giving that up yet. But isn't that true? And I just pray that God will allow us as a church to realize this treasure, the treasure of the gospel, and the treasure of being able to celebrate it together, and enable us to be faithful, to share with others. It's a crime, really. It's a crime of the kingdom to keep something so good to ourselves, is it not? The Lord just wants us to be available and on the lookout. And tonight as we share in the word, I only have about 20 minutes left, and I don't feel too bad about that, because it was worth it, wasn't it? It was just worth it. So we're going to get started tonight, and we'll end where we end, and we'll pick up next week, and I'm going to ask you to get ready. Jan, just keep playing for another second. Everyone, go ahead and get your outlines. If you'll come up here with wings in your feet, grab an outline, and we'll see how far we get here tonight. A few of you who are limber can help pass these things out and get things moving. Turn in your Bibles to Matthew 28. I suppose that we could say that something of what we've experienced here tonight is, in spirit, what those early disciples experienced of the joy in their heart when they realized that the Jesus they'd seen suffering and dying on the cross and buried in the tomb was now raised. And I hope it doesn't escape you tonight to notice what he said. And there's two passages. Listen, first of all, to Matthew 28, verse 16. And then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. Always going to have our doubters there. And then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make, let's say, disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. What is your definition of a disciple? When you think of the word disciple, what are some things? Take your green sheet and write your answer down. That's the first question. Why? Gee, I didn't get a pen out. Well, how are you going to fill in the blanks? Come on. What is your definition of a disciple? Or at least give me some synonyms. When you think of the word disciple, what are some descriptors you would use? No, no, just write it down. I know what you think. Probably you want to shout it out, but just write it down. Someone in the row in front of you doesn't know anything, and they're going to have to think a little bit more. If you need to ask your neighbor, go ahead. What do you think a disciple is? All right. When you have something written down there that's meaningful, put your hand up real quick. Let me see it. All right. Is it fair to say that the word disciple is somewhat of a Christian buzzword or jargon word? How many of you believe you hear about disciple an awful lot more than you know about disciple, an awful lot more than you are a disciple? You know? To some people, disciple is kind of like wide lapel suits and beehive hairdos. That's kind of out. But to be a disciple and to make disciples are the very core issues that Jesus left us with following his ministry. Disciple is a word that we tend to have a lot of oughtness to. I ought to be a disciple. I want to be a disciple. I'm going to be a disciple. It's kind of like dieting, isn't it? Or getting in shape. It has all these ought tos. I want to, I ought to, I'm going to. But are you and do you understand what Jesus is calling us to do and to be when he says, make disciples of all nations? The concept of discipleship and being a disciple is incredibly important for three reasons. And these aren't on your outline. They're still in the introduction. Number one, you can write it down in the back or on the side. Number one, it's incredibly important because Jesus said to do it. Listen, if for no other reason, when Jesus Christ, who most of us would say is our Lord and Savior, says, go and make disciples, how many believe that's the important, it wasn't the great suggestion, great commandment, all right? Jesus said, go do it. The word disciple appears 264 times in the Gospels alone. Jesus was intent on making disciples. Number two, it's incredibly important for your own personal fulfillment. All right, for all of you who cannot bear to think of living life without being fulfilled, being a disciple, understanding discipleship is incredibly important. May I read to you a quote from a man by the name of George Barna, who's a very well-respected Christian demographer. He says this, there is strong support among Christians for the notion that an individual is free to do whatever pleases him as long as it doesn't hurt others. Two out of five Christians maintain, this demographer is someone that polls people, all right, polls, do you like that better? I'm sorry, you thought he was handicapped in a certain way or something, I suppose. Two out of five Christians maintain that such thinking is proper, thus effectively rejecting the unconditional code of ethics and morality taught in the Bible. Three out of 10 Christians agree that nothing in life is more important than having fun and being happy. In other words, he took a poll. These are the statistics he got. Christians express such love for money, possessions, and other material objects as their Christianity cannot be said to rule their hearts. For instance, more than half of the Christian public believes that they never have enough money to buy what they need or what they want. One out of four believers thinks that the more you have, the more successful you are. The fact that the proportion of Christians who affirm these values is equivalent to the proportion of non-Christians who hold similar views indicates how meaningless Christianity has been in the lives of millions of professed believers. In other words, Christians are looking for fulfillment in the same place that the world is. That's what I'm saying. That's what he's saying, George Barton. Interesting quote. Jesus said, You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. But how did he qualify that? John chapter 8. He put a little qualifier, a little tag, right sort of in the beginning, and most of us miss it. If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. So in other words, folks, to be free and to enjoy fulfillment in life has to do with being a disciple and holding to the word of God. The third reason why it's incredibly important is because we as a church, you may not remember this, but we as a church are committed to making disciples. Would you please put up that overhead statement of our vision? And let's read this out loud and together, Linda. Do you have that there? The statement of vision. Here's what it says. This is what we tell everyone we're about doing here at Northwood. Let's read it. To raise up a local body of disciples of Jesus Christ, who will be loved, nurtured, and equipped to minister to God, to one another, and to the lost of the world and the power of the Holy Spirit. Our goal is to be a vital expression of the kingdom of God here on earth in lifestyles, in word, and in deed. How many of you know that? Leave it up, please. How many of you know that was our vision? That is what we tell everyone who comes to our church. If you're a visitor today, in your little packet was a flyer that had that vision statement. So folks, we're not here to be a happy club in Wexford. That's not our vision. Our vision is not to be a big church. Our vision is to raise up a local body of disciples. We didn't say how big it would be. But we did say it would be made up of what? Disciples. Disciples. So for those three reasons, we need to take discipleship seriously. Jesus commanded it. Your personal fulfillment is greatly affected by it. And number three, our church, the church you're a part of, holds to it as our statement of being. I think those are pretty good reasons to want to know what the Lord would tell us in this subject. Now my challenge in these weeks and those other pastors who will be teaching is really twofold. One is to move from knowledge to attitude. Some of you don't believe you need this information or you believe you've already had it. Trust me. I know how some of you think. You write to me all the time and tell me what you think. And I know for myself, I've heard lots of these things before. But folks, can I tell you, in the heat of the battle that we all live, sometimes we forget what really matters. This really matters. That's part of my challenge. The other part is to move us from attitudes to behavior. And I am purposing and promising to tell you that over these next eight, ten weeks, whatever it takes, folks, I am going to give you enough practical material that you will know what it is to be a disciple, how to grow as a disciple, how to become fulfilled as a disciple, and best of all, how to make disciples disciples of someone else. Now, how many of you think you already know that? None of you know that? Two people. How many of you think you know that? Oh, yeah? Okay. I'll leave a little room. All right? So, my goal with you is to move you from into behavior. How many of you don't know that really? Well, it's fair to say. I don't know. Maybe you knew a Christian. How many of you don't know this? You'd be honest. I just don't know what you mean. One person there. Well, what do the other 300 of you believe? I don't know. There's only two options. I'm confused myself now. Well, if you don't really know, I hope to be able to share with you very clearly. But I am not going to just inspire you and leave you with nothing because as I was thinking about this today, Scott, I was thinking, well, so what? What do I do with this stuff? And that's where I'm going to take you over the next weeks. We won't get to it much tonight, but we will. Now, as an aside to all this, let me share with you what motivated me to make the decision to spend these last weeks before summer really digging into this. And here it is. It has to do with numbers. Let's just put that overhead up in part, okay? Numbers. You know, I'm sitting here tonight worshiping with you and saying, you know, I want to thank Jan and everyone, Susie and Pastor Scott for leading, everyone who sang and played. And I'm saying, you know, Lord, you already spilled it. Numbers, okay? Think about it for a second. What do numbers tend to do for us? Numbers make us numb. Numbers make us numb. I have a conviction about this. You know, ten days ago on Easter Sunday or Easter weekend, folks, it was an incredible log jam with people around here. And the week before wasn't really too light either and so on. And we all see more and more numbers, more and more faces we don't know. Beautiful faces, but we don't know them. Now, let me just share with you five things that I wrote down that numbers tend to numb in us. Numbers numb. Number one, please. They make us numb to the needs around us. You see, all these people and you just get kind of numb because you're afraid that someone is going to dump a need on you you can't begin to meet. Number two, numbers make us numb to the true condition of hearts. When there's a smaller group of people, it's much easier to know the condition of their hearts. Number three, numbers make us numb to the spiritual integrity of people. How many of you know it's easy to stand and say praise God, praise but inside you're hating God for the fact that he hasn't answered prayer in your life, you know? You can just hide in that big numbers. Number four, numbers make you numb to progress. You know, the church can keep adding on the outside lots of people and not making any disciples and someone should write that down. You know, we could have 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000, 10,000 people and still only have 2, 3, 4, 500 disciples. That frightens me. That concerns me. And numbers give an illusion of success and that is all it is, my friends. Now, we know that we praise God for the people he's bringing to us but that is not what God is about doing. He's about making disciples. Numbers also make us numb to the need for reproduction. Not addition. Who knows the difference between addition and reproduction or multiplication? To add one here and one there is wonderful. To reproduce, to multiply. What would happen if each one of you here won one other person in six months? In the end of six months, it would... Praise God, we are really... Alright, it would double. You're looking for this trick question and I'm going to laugh. It's not going to happen tonight. Now, if every one of those people then in six months led another person to Christ and discipled them, where would we be in one year then? No, no, no. Four times. We are a fast group tonight. Double and that again and we'd be four times, wouldn't we? Am I right? Tax season over? Are you still here? Are you going to jail? What's going on? Do you see what happens? How quickly? Someone figured that in 30 years the whole world would be won 20 times to Christ if everyone won one person a year. It's all thanks. It's a factor of two each time. Get out your calculator, Dave. I know you're ready. He's going to check me out on that. It's right. Now, numbers, coming numbers, takes out of us the sense of responsibility for reproduction. And I want you to know, folks, that God wants you to know the joy of being a multiplier. And I'm going to share over these weeks how you can know that. And believe me, I don't say this is going to be easy. Here are a few facts for you. You know that 30 million Evangelical Christians in America go to church regularly. There's a lot more people in church than that, but the 30 million of them are born-again, steady Evangelicals, all right? 7% of them say they're trained to know how to share the gospel and disciple someone. 2% have ever led someone to Christ. Imagine fighting a war where 7% knew how to fight and 2% had ever done it. And the other 93% were just... What were they doing then? Huh? Watching you do it. They're making mistakes. Well, maybe so. Those are scary statistics. I won't ask you to raise your hand. But I know most of us, we wish people would come to the Lord, but we don't find it to be very common that people are even interested. And I want to share with us, over these weeks, how God can enable us to see fruit born and saved. Fruit that Jesus said would abide. And he says we do it as his disciples. You see, our goal at North Way, our goal in life should be to see lives changed. Not to follow the prevailing attitudes of the culture. How many believe the church sometimes just follows what the culture is doing? What do you think shapes the minds of the culture more than any other single thing in our existence? TV. What do you think shapes the church an awful lot? TV. And it's time we wake up and realize that we are an instrument of God's change in the lives of people. A great revolutionary, and I don't know how many of you have read much history about Che Guevara, he's a great revolutionary fighter, and he said this, he says, if our revolution is not aimed at changing lives, then I'm not interested. I like that. If our ministry is not aimed at changing lives, I'm not interested. If it's just aimed at drawing a crowd, I'm not interested. If it's just aimed at having services, I'm tired. If it's just aimed at playing church, no thank you. If it's just aimed at entertaining you, you can have it. If it's just aimed at building buildings, take it yourself. But if it's aimed at changing lives, I want to be part of it. I want to be part of it. And it scares me, church, I'll say it again, it scares me that we could keep adding numbers and not see lives changed. Of all the numbers that will come, how many will be baptized? How many will be filled with the Holy Spirit? How many will begin to read God's Word daily? I mean, I was so blessed the other day. It was last Wednesday night. A young man had been to worship an Easter, had accepted Christ as his Savior, came up and was prayed for, followed up. Wednesday night, he was about to go on a business trip and he walked to the bookstore and he had this plastic bag full of three or four devotional books and he said, I delayed my business trip one day so I could come back here. And he brought his mom to worship with him. I wanted her to see this place. I wanted her to find out what was happening to me. I said, now Lord, if that's all Easter Sunday meant, and it wasn't, but if that was it, it was worth it, but that's what God wants. He wants lives to be changed. And that's what we're about. You know, charismatic gifts can draw people in droves. Good drama and music, they'll bring people in. Good preaching, people still come to hear. Nice programs, nice facilities, but folks, it's got to come down to changing lives. And there's only one way that happens. Now here's where it changes from up here to down there. How do people's lives get changed? Who changes them? The Lord. But who does He use? Say it again. The Lord. And let's make it personal. Me. Oh, I'm so glad you didn't say you. I saw some of you. You! He uses you, Pastor. No. He uses me. He uses each of you. The Holy Spirit caring for people one person at a time. That's how lives are changed. Oh, this... How long did it take those eleven remaining disciples to change the whole world? Still happening. Still happening. How long did it take them to change the known government of the world, the Roman government?