Changing Soils week 2

Changing Soils

Week 2: Praying Like a Disciple Maker

Big Idea: The first habit of a disciple maker is a vibrant prayer life. Whether you are a prayer warrior already or you struggle to keep your mind focused while blessing the meal, God will meet you where you’re at. Disciple Making is a spiritual activity that the devil doesn’t like and our greatest weapons are the Word of God and prayer. Today we will learn some practical prayer habits that are the first step from moving from the thorns of busyness to the fruitful good soil that produces a harvest.

Prayer: “Dear Jesus, we thank You for meeting us wherever we are but loving us so much that You won’t let us stay there. Today as we unpack from your word an essential first habit of all disciple makers, would you enable us to focus, clear out all distractions and hear Your voice. We get that this move from the thorns to the fruitful good soil is the difference between spiritual life and death for us and those around us. We surrender this time to You and ask for your strength to obey. In Jesus Name Amen.”

Scripture: John 15:5-17

Introduction

Object lesson: Have a Bench press on up front or at least some heavy dumb bells.

We all know that there is a big difference between training and trying. For example, imagine if I were to be innocently watching TV with my family and whoever was holding the remote landed on a film starring Dwayne Johnson (aka the Rock). Now I previously had no issues with one of his biceps being bigger than both of my legs combined. But then my wife and kids all start making comments about how incredibly studly of a man he is. When Dwayne starts shaking his pectoral muscles effortlessly a family member turns towards me and asks, “Dad/Honey can you do that?” When I attempt to mimic the mega superstar the family burst out laughing and remarks, “you really need to work out dad.”

What if the next day I randomly decided to get a gym membership and like all inexperienced weight lifters I made my way to the bench press to get to work. A much larger man had just finished his workout and I let him know that I’ll just keep his same weight. Even if you’re not a prophet you all know what’s going to happen next? But, what if I tried my very hardest and exerted all my strength to try to get the bar up? It wouldn’t work. I’d be humiliated. What’s my only chance of ever getting this bar up? (let people answer) Correct, I’d need to train over a series of months, (maybe years in my case) slowly going up in weight as my muscles grew. I would need to step into some serious weight training, simply trying hard won’t cut it.

Last week we started a new series called Changing Soils. We looked at the Parable of the 4 soils found in Matthew 13:1-9 and discovered 4 responses people have to the Gospel.

Seed falling on the Path = not interested Seed falling on the rocks = too shallow. Seed falling on the thorns = too busy. Seeding falling on the good soil = fruitful

We asked what soil people wanted to be on and at least for Jesus followers everyone answers the same. Obviously we want to be on the good fruitful soil that multiplies 30, 60 or even 100 times into other people’s lives. When it comes down to which soil most identifies your life, many of us admit that the words “too busy” are more accurate than “fruitful.”

Paul said in Ephesians 5:14, “But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a life.” The first step in any kind of life transformation is first admitting there is a problem. I’m not on the soil I want to be on or that God made me for. Dwayne Johnson's arms are as big as both of my legs combined. Once we’ve shined light on the truth God can work with a repentant heart and enter us into a time of spiritual training.

For the next 3 weeks as we read the book on our own (21 days to Becoming a Disciple Maker) and meet together for services we will unpack a few simple disciple making habits that will grow our spiritual muscles to be able to live on the fruitful good soil.

James Cleary says in his best-selling book, Atomic Habits, “You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.” Later in the book he adds, “When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy.”

With each of these habits we will celebrate steps of faith along the way until they become a part of how we naturally live. The first habit we will discuss with our remaining time is learning to pray like a disciple maker. Whether you are a prayer warrior already or struggle to keep your mind focused while blessing the meal, God will meet you where you’re at.

Main Teaching

Read John 15:5-17

Prayer is the first habit because disciple making is a deeply spiritual act that the devil absolutely hates. When God wants to build, Satan wants to battle. The good news is that God is much more powerful than the enemy. This is Jesus speaking to his disciples on the night before he’s going to be arrested and ultimately crucified. This is a big deal to him. Did you catch the word Jesus shares a whopping 8 times in 12 verses? If you missed it REMAIN in the passage till you figure it out. Our job is to remain! So, we better have a good idea what it means to remain in Jesus and what it means for Jesus to remain in us.

He weaves another plant illustration in the middle of his command for us to remain so we can better understand. He’s the vine and we are the branches. What is the role of the branch? It’s not to wake up every morning thinking about what they can accomplish on their own. It’s not to try really hard to grow its personal favorite fruit. It’s surely not to go off on its own to discover its unique gifts and abilities. It only has one job and it’s a simple one. Stay connected to the vine. If that connection ever gets cut its life is over.

Remaining means to stay connected to God.

For us and God that means we must choose to do things that expose ourselves to Him and keep ourselves in contact with Him. We will need to spend significant time with God each day in prayer. Maybe that sounds overwhelming to you because you suffer from Spiritual ADHD. You are praying for a friend in Papa New Guinea and before you know it you’re craving a Papa John’s Pizza.

Today we are going to share some simple tools to help you grow. Remaining in him means filling your mind with His words. You spend time in His word each day and meditate on the things of God. That can mean listening to worship songs while you are in your car or writing impactful Bible verses on 3 x 5 cards to help you commit them to memory.

Look at the unbelievable promises Jesus gives about what happens if we stay connected to him.

He will bear much fruit through you.

That sounds like a pretty good description of someone living on the fruitful soil. In fact, He says if we don’t stay connected to Him we won’t be able to produce ANY lasting fruit. Sometimes I think we take that to mean we can’t accomplish any big things apart from being connected to God but that gives us too much credit. I considered ending the series with this point, stay connected to God and He will be fruitful through you. Let’s keep going, there’s more blessings.

He will answer your prayers.

As we stay connected to Him his heart becomes our heart and his prayers become our prayers. We start praying for the things that God wants and he promises WHATEVER you wish will be given to you. Do you pray with that kind of confidence?

He will be glorified through your large amount of fruit.

How incredible is this? As God works through you, He experiences it like worship from you to him. He actually says that this proves that you really are his disciple. We prove we are his disciple not by how loud we sing or ministries we serve in but by the fruit coming from our lives.

Jesus and the Father will surround you in their love.

In a world where it’s so easy to get beaten down by not being smart enough, pretty enough, a good enough spouse or parent or having enough facebook likes from your post yesterday how powerful is this gift from God. Jesus and the Father promise to give you a group hug.

Jesus will fill you completely with his Joy.

Happiness is a feeling but joy is a choice. This means that no matter what we go through in this life Jesus has promised that as we remain in Him our joy cup will be filled to overflowing. Having joy no matter the situation may be the number one way Jesus followers stand out from the rest of the world.

Jesus calls you his friend.

I don’t even want to comment on this promise. Can we just take 10 seconds and meditate on this for a moment. The God of the universe calls you His friend. Are you smiling yet?

He will produce through you fruit that will last.

Think about it, there really are only a few ways to make fruit last. You could freeze it, dry it out or take its seeds and reproduce it many times over. Which one of these do you think Jesus had in mind as he was speaking to his disciples? If we stay connected closely to him, He will produce fruit through our lives that will multiply and last long past our lifetimes. I wonder if one of the many blessings of heaven will be meeting people that are there because of disciples we made that went on to make disciples that made disciples.

The whole Christian life could be summed up simply in remaining in Christ and allowing Him to remain in you. We could do a 100 part series breaking down the implications of this passage but it’s imperative that we understand that our job is not to live a fruitful life, our job is to stay connected to Jesus and let Him bear fruit through us.

With that said there are some specific ways we can pray that will help us grow as disciple makers. Hopefully you’re reading the book 21 Days to Becoming a Disciple Maker and have already studied these three prayer focusses of prayer on your own.

Pray for yourself.

The Apostle Paul is probably the best missionary to walk the planet and fortunately he wrote half the New Testament so we can learn from him. He was constantly asking people to pray for him and his popular prayer request was for him as a disciple maker. If that’s true for Paul, it’s definitely true for us. I’ve found for many of us, our most popular prayer requests are often surrounded around health and safety. What if you made your most frequent request for prayer that God would grow you as a disciple maker. If you’re going to ask others to pray that for you, you better pray that for yourself. Here are a couple examples…

Open my eyes to see the needs of others.

Open my eyes to see where you’re already working.

Open my eyes to see the harvest—those whose hearts are open to God.

Cross my path with someone who needs you and is ready to listen to you.

Give me boldness to initiate spiritual conversations.

Guide me in the words to say .

Remind me that I have Your authority to heal diseases and cast out evil spirits.

Take a minute right now and in your own mind pray some of these things over you right now.

Pray for others.

My guess is that to some extent we all pray for others already. As we train to be disciples that make other disciples we just need to grow in this area. Absolutely God wants us to pray for others spontaneously when they cross our minds but if we only do that most likely we won’t pray for too many different people.

The people that I pray for spontaneously are the ones I see regularly. (My family, close friends, co-workers, etc) but if you want God to enlarge your impact, you will need to learn to also pray systematically. In the book the author introduced the acronym FRANCE.

Friends Relatives Acquaintances (ex. Hair stylist, mailman, kid’s teacher, etc) Neighbors Coworkers/Classmates Earlier in Life (old neighbors, past coworkers, childhood friends, etc)

Our goal in our gatherings together is not just information but transformation. So just for a minute start marking down the first names that come to your mind in each of these categories. If you can’t think of any in one category but have too many in another that’s okay. Let’s practice positive peer pressure and if you see your neighbor not participating give them a slight elbow.

Pray with others.

Finally, I want to introduce to you an amazing tool that will grow your prayer life and help you start seeing spiritual fruit in your life immediately. It’s called the Prayer Calendar and it’s described in a whole chapter in the book. Bottom line, transfer the names from your FRANCE sheet into one per day on a calendar. Each day call or text that person letting them know that you’re praying for them that day. Ask if there are any specific things you can pray about. You’ll be amazed that even people that are not “spiritual” usually still are grateful for a free prayer. Once they’ve answered back then actually text them or voice message your prayer for them to read or hear. You may be tempted to skip that step but don’t! This last step is what moves this from simply a prayer tool to a disciple making tool.

Conclusion

All of these three prayer habits could be done in a couple minutes each day and will help you remain in Jesus. Just think for a minute, what if our whole church started this 5-10 minute habit a day? That would mean we would be sending out _______ prayers a day. What if God used us to spread this habit to other believers we knew in the area? What if everyone was on someone’s prayer calendar? Could you imagine what God would do in our area?

You could create a prayer calendar just for your neighbors or your coworkers or extended family. You may have never thought of yourself as a prayer warrior but you will instantly become one to those on your calendar because nobody else does that for them. This is doable and just a small step of faith will make more difference than you can imagine.

Finally, if you’ve not gotten the book yet (21 days to Becoming a Disciple Maker) or you are already a week behind I want to encourage you to start today. The right time to do the right thing is right away. We know that we leak in between the weekends and spending a few minutes each day studying how we can grow as disciple makers will move what we studied together from information we forgot to transformation that changed us. God wants to grow some disciple maker muscles on us but trying hard won’t cut it. We need to go into training.