Vision, pt 2: Encouraging Faithfulness

I have talked before about my time at Chick-fil-A. Those of you who have been around for the past almost eight years are probably tired of my discussions of Chick-fil-A. I have worked for several food service companies, but CFA was hands down, by far, the best at training workers. They had processes down for training each worker on how to do their specific jobs. But, before the trainee was trained on the job, they were trained on how to act. They were explained the culture of CFA and what was expected of them once they put on their uniform. CFA wants every employee to act in a specific way so that others would know that they are a CFA worker.

Truett Cathy is quoted as saying: “We are not in the chicken-selling business. We are in the people business.”

It took me several years to stop acting like a CFA worker, especially to lose the “my pleasure” from my vocabulary… Though I am planning on bringing it back.

Truett took this concept of teaching a culture that the follower was expected to emulate, he took it from his Christian faith.

We are called to live distinctively as Christians in a world that is not Christian. God has placed us into local bodies, local churches to encourage us in living this Godly culture, because it is hard to keep it up in this world.

Which is why we are doing what we are doing this past few weeks and the next few weeks. If you were not here last week, I encourage you to go back and listen to it, or watch it if you prefer. The board and I have been praying about the vision of Calvary Bible Church.

Our tagline as been: Calvary Bible Church: teaching to live the Word of God. We are praying about changing it to: Calvary Bible Church: Discipling, Strengthening, Encouraging.

Last week, we discussed “strengthening.” I do ask that you go back and listen to it, so that you can be caught up on what we are doing. This week, we are going to discuss discipling. Next week, we are going to discuss encouraging. And for Sunday school, next week, we are going to have an open discussion time about these three concepts and the changes that are happening.

We are pulling these concepts from the themes that Paul gave to the persecuted churches in Lystra, Iconium, and Pisidian Antioch in Acts 14.

Acts 14:21–22 NIV

They preached the gospel in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said.

Before we dive in, will you pray with me?

Pray

As I said, last we discussed point one of this sermon: Strengthening Souls. This week is point two: Encouraging Truth

2. Encouraging Truth

Paul traveled through those persecuted areas and he

Acts 14:22 NIV

strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said.

Encouraging them to remain true to the faith.

What does this phrase mean?

A. Definition

Well, let’s take it short phrase by short phrase, shall we? Just because we can.

a. Encouraging Them

Paul encourage them.

Many times, when we think of the word: “encourage” we think of someone running a race, a marathon, and they aren’t doing a good job. All of a sudden, on the good runners drops back and starts running with the bad runner to encourage them, to uplift them. Or, possibly, someone is up here doing special music, and someone comes up to encourage them and tell them that they did a great job and were such a blessing.

Those are nice definitions, but those are not what Paul is talking about here. The word could better be translated “urge” or “exhort”. There is some teeth to it.

Your tire is flat, and you are stuck on the side of the road trying to change it, but that wheel will not come off the hub. So, you take a huge sledge hammer that you randomly have in your trunk, and you begin to wale on that wheel, encouraging to come off. You exhorted it. You urged it. And lo, and behold, it finally broke free.

Paul urged, exhorted, encouraged the individuals.

b. To Remain True to the Faith

To remain true to the faith. We can simply state what is obvious. The faith is shorthand for Christianity.

Remain true is a nice vanilla word that could also be translated persistence. Truthfully, Christianity is hard when painful times come. Christianity is hard in a world that does not like our message or our lives. The residents of Lystra had already seen Paul die for his faith. And they were facing that themselves.

Remain true speaks of “persistence in faith in spite of pressing temptations.” This is the Little Engine that could puffing slowly up that hill, while it could just give up like everyone else, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” This is Pilgrim and Faithful trudging their way through Vanity Fair, tempting to buy and indulge in so much materialism and immorality, but refusing to. Faithful ultimately dying for that choice and Pilgrim forced to continue toward the Celestial City utterly alone.

Paul exhorted the individuals to persist in their faith in spite of pressing temptations.

c. Discipleship

Encouraging truth is the process of Discipleship. The process of leading someone to and through a committed relationship with Jesus Christ. The word speaks of “a personal attachment which shapes the whole life of the disciple, and which leaves no doubt as to who is deploying formative power.”

The Pharisees came to Jesus complaining about what his disciples were doing as opposed to the disciples of John. When they saw Peter, James, John, and the rest, they knew by their actions, their speech, their whole life, that they were followers of Jesus, and when they had a complaint, they didn’t go to the apostles, they went to the master: Jesus. Because the disciple couldn’t be expected to change their actions apart from the will of the master.

Encouraging truth defined: Discipleship.

There are two parts to Discipleship:

B. Discipleship to Faith

Before I can discuss Discipleship to faith, I need to mention one small thing.

a. Everyone Makes Disciples

Everyone makes disciples. Incidentally, most dictionaries do not consider that a word.

Last week, I mentioned that Biblically, not everyone can be a teacher. Not everyone has the gift of teaching. Not everyone has the character or the qualifications to be a teacher.

James writes:

James 3:1 NIV

Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

However, everyone is commanded to disciple.

Matthew 28:19–20 NIV

Therefore go and make 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 have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Part of the flaws of our current tagline, “teaching to live the Word of God” is we never defined what teaching was. Formal teaching, like preaching or Sunday school, is different from discipleship.

And, everyone is commanded to disciple.

Evangelism as Discipleship

The first way we disciple is through evangelism. We disciple people to Jesus.

I think about Mark 8 34

Mark 8:34 NIV

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

Jesus said, if you want to be my disciple, there are some things that you are to do. He was teaching them, discipling them, on the steps to become his disciple.

I think about Peter at Athens, a story that becomes more and more relevant to me in America today. Listen what he does in a pagan city without much interaction with the God of the Bible.

Acts 17:22–31 NIV

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

In order to share with them the Gospel of Jesus, he first taught them about who God is. He discipled them in order that he might lead them to become disciples.

I think about the early church, as they lived incarnationally in their community. They took every opportunity to share the Gospel and teach people towards Jesus. Then, when someone accepted Christ and started attending church, that person was taught, discipled, for another two years in the foundations of the faith, before they were allowed to be baptized.

Evangelism as discipleship.

c. Method of Discipleship

How do we do it? If we are all called to be disciple-makers, to disciple people to Jesus, how do we do it?

Peter writes simply:

1 Peter 3:15–16 NIV

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

We know why we have hope and we share that hope. We live in a world where so many people do not have hope. And we can so easily fall into the fatalistic thinking of individuals around us. Instead, we live with hope, we love and serve with hope, and we constantly tell people about our hope. I encourage everyone to figure out a 3 second, 30 second, and three minute testimony, have it planned, so that we can on the moment, depending on the time we have, tell people about the hope that we have. If you need help with this, let me know.

One of the reasons that we have testimony Sunday is that we grow comfortable sharing our story and telling about the hope that we have. If we grow comfortable sharing it here, we will share it out there. Those stories of the hope that is within us, our testimony of how we came to know Jesus and what he has done for us have begun to dwindle over the past few years. So I’ll probably start asking people to share again.

Discipleship to Faith

Discipleship through Faith

Once someone comes to faith in Jesus, we are called to continue to disciple them. Growth is required in Christianity. There is no such thing as staying still, we are either growing to be more like Christ or we are growing away from Christ.

When we meet Jesus, and we turn from our sins and trust him alone to save us, we are entering into a discipleship relationship with him.

Discipleship is an unconditional commitment to Jesus. It is interesting, when Jesus was on earth collecting his disciples, rarely does scripture use the word to disciple or to teach for Jesus collecting his disciples. At this time, the word disciple or teach, it could be translated either way, focused on imparting information, impressing information on the mind. Masters discipled their students, giving them information and philosophies that they could regurgitate.

Jesus used the word “follow” instead. Asking people to make a commitment to himself, so that their whole life would mimic him.

Matthew 11:29 NIV

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

What are the means of discipleship, once we come to faith in Jesus? How do we grow so that our whole life mimics him, so that the world knows we are following him alone?

a. Means through Teaching

Here is where we finally get to teaching, for those who love that sort of thing.

Paul writes in the book we just spent two years studying:

1 Corinthians 14:31 NIV

For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged.

We discussed prophecy at length, and defined a prophet, Biblically, as it has been defined for the past 2000 years:

Scripturally, prophecy is speaking the message of God. The prophet confronted the people of this world, whether followers of God or not, about their lives. Telling them what it means to live godly and the consequences for not living godly. Sometimes, the prophet used future predictions to give support to his message, but the focus of the prophet was never the future, but the present, calling people to follow God.

A prophet was a Holy Spirit-inspired teacher/preacher.

So, the prophesying or teaching done within the service was so that everyone might be instructed and encouraged. Look at that… same word. Encouraged.

Teaching is a means of discipleship. That’s why we have lengthy, meaty, sermons. Because we want discipleship to happen. Also because I like to talk.

That’s why we have Sunday school, for discipleship. That’s why we have pop-up Bible studies and special focuses.

We can only model our lives after Jesus if we know what the Bible actually says about Jesus and his ways.

Teaching is a means of discipleship

b. Means through Mentoring

But, teaching isn’t the only means. In fact, it’s one of the lower ones. Mentoring is huge, but unfortunately, so many churches and so many older Christians have forgotten.

Listen to Titus 2 1-8

Titus 2:1–8 NIV

You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine. Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.

The NIV uses the word teach in this passage. It’s actually the word “speak”, and it is only used once, at the very beginning. The rest of the passage merely talks about lifestyle and the older in the church impressing certain lifestyles in the younger members of the church. Discipleship. That’s why we have the youth partner program. For discipleship.

Mentoring is when someone purposefully, intentionally, spends time with someone else in order to push that person to maturity.

Mentoring is a very important means of discipleship.

c. Means through Example

Another important means is example. Mentoring is purposeful, intentional. However, every day, people are watching how we live, how we act, what are our priorities and desires, what are our idols, how we deal with sin and repentance. People are watching, and whether we like it or not, they are modeling their lives because of us, either to be like us, or to react away from us.

Paul wrote:

Philippians 4:9 NIV

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

Can you imagine the guts of Paul: How you see me live, that is how you should live. If you do, you’ll be more godly.

Can any of us say that? But, we should be living in a way that others can grow in discipleship just by watching us. If you are married, can people understand how better to love their wife and respect their husband by watching you? Can they see how to grow together tenaciously toward unity?

Can people see how to act Christianly while interacting with neighbors and others in the community? Can they see how to act Christianly when life is filled with disappointment. Can they see how to act Christianly in the political realm, when things are how we like them and when things are not how we like them?

People are watching us. We are discipling whether we realize it or not, and we should start realizing it.

d. Means through Correct Response

Building off that idea, not only are we discipled through watching others, but we are discipled as we seek God through the roller coaster of this life.

Hebrews 5:7–8 NIV

During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered

Discipleship happens as we interact with brothers and sister in Christ, engaging in teaching, mentoring, and life example. But, discipleship also happens on our own as we intentionally pursue a relationship with our Creator.

Jesus went through suffering, all through his life, not just on the cross, and through it all he constantly sought his heavenly father.

We are called to a life of following Jesus, imitating him through our life. This requires us to spend time with him. Not just randomly during the week. But, intentionally. A disciple spends time with their master everyday, all day.

If we are not intentionally spending time with Jesus every day, we cannot claim to be his disciple. Instead we are worshiping some other idol. Whether it is the idol of work, the idol of busyness, the idol of family, the idol of school and activities, the idol of rest and escape, and so many other idols. A disciple spends time with that which they want to emulate.

Who are we spending time with? What are we spending time with?

May it be Jesus and may we turn around and disciple others to Jesus before and through faith until Jesus finally calls us home.