On It's Head

Background to passage:

Matthew 28:18–20 ESV

18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Opening illustration: the Sharing HOPE team dealt with a question in several of our sessions: How do we know when we have made a disciple?

Main thought: When I say the word “discipleship” or “disciple”, many concepts come into our minds. It could range from evangelism to Sunday School. It could include outreach and missions in the community or around the world. It could include bible studies, men’s or women’s groups, youth groups, children’s ministries. It could include conferences, seminars, trainings, retreats, and a host of others. We may think about it as increasing knowledge, increasing attendance, increasing ministry, decreasing sin, more consistency and advancement in the spiritual disciplines (but which ones, right?), maybe spiritual fruit.

Sometimes we say we want to do discipleship like they did in the early church, in Jesus’s day, in the first century, but we don’t live in the first century. It could be that the word itself has lost its meaning because we use it so much to cover so many things. Maybe there are so many opinions about it, it never had a good definition. I mean, it’s not actually in the bible. Disciple is, discipleship isn’t. Maybe we should start there and keep it simple. Later, we can consider measurement. Also another piece of disciple making is the effort that you put into your own pursuit of Christ

A disciple is a follower and a learner; someone who is following Jesus, being changed by Jesus, and is committed to the mission of Jesus

We will begin to course correction our perception of discipleship as we embrace HOPE.

1) Requires Relationship

Explanation: Making disciples is not done alone in a cave in a desert in a distant land. It requires relationships with believers. Jesus took people from all stations of life and built relationships with them over years. Spending time with them constantly - eating, traveling, lodging, ministering, boating, roasting marshmallows and eating watermelon. We know that the disciples Paul made best travelled with him. Others he made by staying in some cities for months or years. Making disciples in scripture always involved relationship.

Illustration: ministry examples in June - BBC, CV, Super Wow, Mission Serve. Explain our ministry isn’t only about the ministry. However, in our men’s ministry, we have realized this as a glaring and crucial deficiency: we don’t spend much time together, because it is not about 1.5 hr on Sunday afternoon and the communication of information, even if some of the time is supposed to be used sharing about the material and how it impacts or lives as men.

Application: These relationships must be the ones that are enduring through struggles and disagreements. They must be ones that will make an environment for truth-telling, encouragement, and accountability.

Our culture and society are so transient right now. Relationships have been relegated to email, texts, social media; people barely even talk on the phone unless required. This is brutal as it spills over into the family, as if families needed any help to spiral and be dysfunctional or estranged.

Try to think about the times in your life that you grew the most in your relationship with Christ. It was probably during seasons that you had the closest relationships with Christian friends and church family. Now think forward to your pursuit of Christ, are the friendships you have sustaining you or advancing you? Do you have close friends inside the congregation or believers outside our fellowship? How much time do you really spend with them? Without time investment, relationship will never be what it could or should. We have got to have relationships, disciple making will not happen without them.

The HOPE pathway is constantly weaving in ways for you to develop relationships so that you can be discipled and disciple others. You that you can follow and help others.

2) Requires Commitment

Explanation: Making disciples is hard. It is long-term. We are a microwave society. There are ways that disciple making can happen faster than others, but not quick and easy fixes. People float from neighborhood to neighborhood, job to job and church to church. There is very little loyalty or commitment. When another job pays better, when another church has better ministries, multiple staff, and lots of people, switch.

Relationships get messy. People’s lives are messy. It takes commitment to get down in their mess to help. It takes commitment to let them get down in your mess. “But I don’t like people getting up in all my business.” Let me say this as lovingly as I know how: you will never deepen your walk with Christ without relationships. You have to break through the fear of people knowing you and all your mess.

The Greek work for church is ekklesia, which means assembly or gathering or sharing. It meant for a group of people to assemble and share their lives together.

Illustration: the Sherpa that act as guides on the attempts to climb Himalayan peaks, primarily Mt. Everest. No westerner would make it without them. They know the lay of the mountains, know the people, carry most equipment, set up camps, set permanent ropes in the danger zones, rescue those that fall, climb ahead and set up, then come back down to help the climbers up.

Application: This is why we don’t want you to see the HOPE strategy like an assembly line making uniform WHBC church members one after another. We want you to view it like a tool to aid you in your pursuit of Christ and pursuit of others helping them to follow Jesus more. You are to be the sherpas for others as they pursue Jesus. You are to rescue the ones that struggle or fall, not just committing yourself to peril, but holding their hand bringing yourself more to the danger.

As we progress forward in our Christian lives, we must be committed to go back and help others. Commitment, like loyalty is less seen than it used to be. But the shift in our minds has to be that we are committed to each other’s progression in the faith rather than simply to ministries. Not that ministries and the various tools we have for disciple making are bad or wrong, just that they are insufficient. Fathers, we must be more committed to our children than to coaching their teams. We must be committed to them and their growth, not only in school, but in their character. We must be committed to their maturity and godliness, not only to activities with them. Both can be linked, and if used well are, but both are not as equally important.

3) Requires Intentionality

Explanation: This doesn’t happen by accident, nor does it happen passively. The HOPE discipleship pathway is designed to give us an active strategy to make followers of Jesus. It’s a plan for us as a church to join together with specific initiatives and way-points to make well-rounded and mature disciples. The HOPE pathway is not all the links and steps, but a help for all of us to find the next steps for us and the next steps with others.

Illustration: I go on a hunting trip every year with my brother. I don’t do that accidentally. We go as a means or way to spend time together. We go to hunt, but we go to rest, to remember our dad and continue tradition. We go to cultivate our relationship as brothers. When we go, it takes preparation. Pheasant hunting in ND takes a certain amount, and we learn each year how to prepare better. Caribou hunting in the North Alaskan Brooks Range takes a little more preparation and training. We want to elk hunt in a couple of years, but we have to build up enough points to be drawn for an elk tag, so we are waiting, preparing four years out, before we even began to think about calendars, supplies, lodging, and so forth. My one week of hunting each year requires hours of planning. Making plans for discipling others is incredibly more valuable that any hobby, why wouldn’t we plan long-term about how to do it?

Application: This is the part where you are called upon to live your life as a person who makes disciples. Not calling you to be an evangelist. Not calling you to be a teacher. Not calling upon you to more ministries here at the church. Calling you to recognize that Jesus gave us a command to make disciples. We are all recipients of this command. Our job is to intentionally commit to the long-term relationships to make us all learners and followers; those that will be transformed into his image as we passionately seek his face while engaged in his mission!

Closing: Erika and I met at Camp Jubilee in Tazewell, TN. I spent five years on staff at camp there. It was operated by an evangelist named Ronnie Owens. He took a special responsibility to make disciples of the young men who were on staff throughout the summer. We had to sleep in the old tobacco barn, he was there too; he worked alongside of us at camp, he took us along to the churches he preached in, he made sure that those of us who were beginning to preach had opportunities to lead, teach, and preach throughout the summer, he spoke to us words of encouragement and advice and biblical truth, he laid down rules and principles to follow. He poured into my life and the lives of others for years.

Just from the time that I worked alongside him those five years, I can give you names of four other men on staff who are pastors or bible college presidents, many other men and women that are serving the Lord in large part because of his influence. I can’t imagine how many others he influenced in the last 25 years. He was in ministry, but it wasn’t the congregation or the kids or the youth that he invested in, but the staff, the small group that he could build a relationship with and pour into and invest. How many others have been invested in by all those staff, passing on the growth and passion for generations?

This kind of discipleship culture promotes unity and community