What is a Disciple?

Last week we started our new series called “Following Jesus”, where we are going to take an in-depth look at Discipleship.

Brad last week started us off by giving us a “God-center” vision for discipleship. That Jesus prays for the church on John 17, his prayer is that “the world may know you have sent me” and that they would “know” the Father. That this is at the center of discipleship, not a “self-centered” discipleship that is about us, but one that is about God. That we don’t just desire what God can do for us, but that we seek the God who is a good and just creator that is worthy to be worshipped.

Disciples are called to have faith in Jesus by growing in the knowledge of God so that they may bear spiritual fruit.

What we see in this passage is a "spiral of discipleship". Conviction leads to competency, competency grows character, and character is built on the foundation of conviction and growing competency.

-Paul prays that what they have heard about their faith will continue, so he continues to pray.

-Then He asks that they may be filled with knowledge, wisdom, and spiritual understanding competency), so that they may "walk worthy"

-"walk worthy" and "spiritual fruit" is the character. This character is only given through the power of the Spirit, and "according to his glorious might"

-Then as we see this power in us we "joyfully give thanks" who has "rescued us".

-Do you see how this comes back to conviction? As we see the character that grows in us through the Spirit we are brought back to the one who has saved us from darkness and given us redemption. That God is the reason that we build spiritual character.

Conviction

Paul starts v. 9 by saying “for this reason, since we heard this”. So if we look back at the beginning of the book we see that Paul was encouraged by 3 things.

They had true and sincere faith in Jesus with appreciation for God’s grace

This love had overflowed into love for one another

Their hope was not in this world but in heaven

What we see here is a belief in the Gospel and a conviction to live out the Gospel in their life. That is what Paul is so encouraged about here, that faith was being lived out for the people in Colossae.

So what is Paul’s response to this report he has received? That “since the day” he heard, he “hasn’t stopped praying”.

-He didn’t wait around, he didn’t say “I’ll start praying for them tomorrow”, he began at this exact moment. Why? Well when we put it off often times never actually do it. How many times do we say “well, I’ll get to that tomorrow” but never actually do it!

-Because he had the same conviction he does it immediately this conviction for the Gospel brought Him to the belief that even as he is hundreds of miles away in a prison, that God was the one that would keep them by His grace.

-Notice that last week we looked at a prayer that Jesus had for the church, and now we see Paul’s prayer, in fact in all 4 of the prison epistles (Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians) Paul prays for these churches. Because discipleship, the path of following Jesus starts with prayer. That when Jesus prays we remember that we are upheld as believers because of His prayers for the church. That Paul’s prayer was lifting up this church.

-They both knew spiritual warfare was at the heart of discipleship. That their lives needed to be transformed by the Gospel and that they needed to keep the conviction they had at the beginning.

If you have ever been in a job interview you know that one of the questions that they will ask is “why do you want this job?” You may answer, “I need money”, you may have said “my parents told me to get one”…but what they are looking for is what conviction you will have to do your job well. What purpose do you find in doing the tasks that you have.

Conviction, for the most part, shouldn’t change.

Our problem often isn't that we have "too much" conviction, but that we don't have enough. That we have different, warring convictions in our hearts.

Competency

Think about if we still celebrated the achievements of children when we are adults. That would be ridiculous! There is a different expectation for an adult than for a child.

Character

Conclusion

But there are many things that can lead us off this path of discipleship

-We lose our conviction, or we start to have the wrong conviction

-We fill ourselves with the wrong kind of knowledge, or we lose our desire to grow and to "walk worthy of the Lord" so we don't bear good fruit

-We think that our character comes from our own power and that we can save ourselves through good works