One-Week 5

What is a disciple?

We talk about how we all have a job to do, to witness about Jesus. To make disciples.

But here’s a great question. What is a disciple?

A disciple is a person who learns from and lives with Jesus as their Lord

The greek word for disicple, mathetes, comes from the greek word Manthanein, which means ‘to learn’.

Now, notice what this ISN’T.

It’s not ‘a disciple is a person who has repeated a particular phrase’.

It’s not ‘a person who talks and looks like what I expect a christian to talk and look like’.

It’s not ‘a person who only ticks the box of coming to church each week’.

There’s two key components.

Disciples Learn from Jesus

A disciple is a person who allows Jesus and His word to be their foundational building blocks in life.

We often hear the language of ‘student’ and ‘teacher’. But it’s not like nowadays, where a teacher is off in some building that students visit randomly, and you only do it for a few years.

The rabbis spent their time and their lives with their disciples, passing on everything they knew. To the jews, a disciple was a person who had given their lives over completely to learning from and being changed by the hebrew scriptures. They weren’t just increasing their knowledge, they were taking on a new lifestyle as a person who was defined by this relationship to the scriptures.

It’s the same with us and Jesus. We are defined by being people who look to Jesus for our answers. We let him define our worth, and our hope. We let him show us how to act and what real love is.

Disciples Live with Jesus

A disiple doesn’t just absorb information and then goes off and lives life by themselves. Jesus stays at the wheel.

Students nowadays, we train them, and equip them, and then send them off to places where the teachers aren’t there. But in Jesus - we’re ALWAYS students in his class. We’re always walking with him. He is our life.

And the goal isn’t independence - it’s further dependence.

STORY - David and his ‘eh, God will take care of it’ attitude.

This sounds like laziness (let Jesus take care of it all, i’ll just follow along), but it’s not. It’s understanding what Jesus actually accomplished through the cross.

Galatians 2:20 NIV

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

How do we make disciples?

Progress over Perfect

We are here to move people forward, not judge them out.

Nobody will ever be finished their discipleship process - there’s always wrinkles for God to iron out.

STORY - Love this interaction between Peter and Jesus

Matthew 16:16–17 NIV

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.

Matthew 16:22–23 NIV

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

See, Jesus knew that this was coming with Peter.

Even later, when Peter denies Jesus three times - Jesus later reinstates Peter, asking him if he loves him 3 times.

Peter’s success story as a disciple wasn’t about how good he was. It was abot how much Jesus continually just made progress with him.

As a disciple, there’s not so much a line that God says, ok, i’m gonna get you to here, then you’re done.

Discipleship is about being better than you were yesterday. A month ago. A year ago.

So when working with disciples, when MAKING disciples - aim for improvement in a person’s life.

And celebrate even the ‘little’ victories.

Walk with rather than Direct

Jesus invited people to follow him around. They went where he did - and he went where they did. They saw him doing the work his father set out for him.

1 Corinthians 2:4–5 NIV

My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

Paul says, when he came, even to preach and teach - it wasn’t based on being wise or persuasive. It was based on demonstrating to people what the Spirit can do.

It’s not enough to instruct and sit back and walk. Go on the journey with people and let them see and experience Jesus through you.

And this is a good thing - because it’s not about knowing it all, or being able to have all the answers. It’s about making yourself available.

There are plenty of times in life that I’m approached with a question about something that i’m like…ya…let me pray about that one and get back to you.

But the growth process comes from being available for those conversations to begin with.

Make sure you’re learning and following

Paul says there’s a very real danger of being a person who points others to Jesus, and misses Him themselves.

1 Corinthians 9:27 NIV

No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Here’s a reality. You can’t lead people places you aren’t going.

That doesn’t mean you have to be an expert on every topic to be able to lead people.

Jesus is there to help with every single possible thing

Romans 8:38–39 NIV

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.