God-Centered Discipleship
Deep Discipleship • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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God-Centered Discipleship furthers four Christian essentials.
God-Centered Discipleship furthers four Christian essentials.
Our unity
Our eternal purpose
Loving one another
Christian fruitfulness
Q: If you were to explain to an unbeliever what a disciple is, how would you explain it?
A disciple is
A learner
A follower
A believer (Cambridge dictionary)
An adherent to certain principles
The big question, “Of what?” A disciple of what?
Whose teachings are you learning?
Who are you following?
Who do you believe in?
Whose principles do you adhere to?
There’s always a “who?” at the center of discipleship, and we shouldn’t take for granted how easy it is to put just anyone at the center of our discipleship. We see this very thing happening in the early church.
1. God-Centered Discipleship for Unity
1. God-Centered Discipleship for Unity
11 For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you. 12 Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.”
Let me ask, “What’s so wrong with saying, “I am of Paul.”? Paul is an apostle of Jesus Christ! He’s writing inspired Scripture. Surely we should follow him. What’s the issue there?
We don’t have apostles doing ministry anymore, but where might we find a similar tendency in our world today, maybe even the church today?
What is Paul’s correction?
13 Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
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Our identity and therefore our unity is not found in any person no matter how great their ministry is. We may follow someone’s example. We may adhere to someone’s teaching. But that teaching and example never originates with any minister, preacher, teacher, or even apostle.
Our identity is in Christ! We were crucified with Christ, no one else. And furthermore, we were baptized in whose name?
Let’s read Matthew 28:19-20
19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
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Just from looking at the Great Commission, how does this instruction help us to answer the “who?” of discipleship?
1 It happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the upper country and came to Ephesus, and found some disciples. 2 He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said to him, “No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.” 3 And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” And they said, “Into John’s baptism.” 4 Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” 5 When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
The initial descriptor of how we are to make disciples is baptism in the name of the Triune God: The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Immediately following a person’s conversion, they are baptized and it’s proclaimed for all to hear, “This is a born again believer and a follower of the Triune God.” There’s no ambiguity about it.
what is the other descriptor of how we are to make disciples according to Jesus in Matthew 28:20?
Teach them.
We have learners.
Learners of what?
The commands of Christ.
What is the comfort they are given?
By the power of Christ through the presence of the Spirit.
It may seem elementary, but all discipleship must be God-centered.
We are baptized in the name of the triune God
We are taught the Word of God
We learn and grow by the power of God in the Spirit
I think the point is clear, but let’s take it another step.
Discipleship begins with being baptized in the name of God.
Discipleship continues by the means God has given: The Word of God and the Spirit of God.
What is the end of discipleship?
Where is the final purpose of discipleship?
2. God-Centered Discipleship for our eternal purpose.
2. God-Centered Discipleship for our eternal purpose.
The final purpose of discipleship is the trajectory of all of Creation!
16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.
Creation began with Christ.
All of Creation is held together by Christ.
And through His resurrection he will come to have first place in everything!
Paul makes it pretty clear to us that Christ is going to have supremacy in the end. He already sits on the throne and one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Revelation gives a closer look at the disciples of Christ:
3 There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; 4 they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads.
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In short the culmination, the end, the trajectory of our discipleship is knowing God in His presence and worshipping God as His people.
Knowing what the destination is gives us real clarity on the trajectory we’re supposed to be headed today.
You might say knowing what we’ll be doing for all eternity should probably define our discipleship today.
Anyone ever studied the wrong material for the test? You know the test is a week off and you give ample time to look over the material. You read it over multiple times. You quiz yourself. You really have a good grip on the material because you’ve studied hard. You get to test day, the professor hands you the test and your heart starts to sink when you look at the first question. You franticly turn through the test and you realize you put all that effort in for the wrong material.
There’s a sense in which we can make the same mistake in discipleship. We can spend a lot of time studying good material, reading the writings of godly men, doing praiseworthy things perhaps, but if discipleship doesn’t ultimately prepare us for heaven we’ve missed the point. All that begins with knowing God Himself!
We get a sense of this even in the Old Testament. The prophets of God who bring His Word to the people aren’t trying make them followers of any one king or adherents to any one prophet. What are they preparing them for?
6 For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. 33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
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God has always been preparing His people to know Him.
In the OT the people were being prepared to meet God in the form of Christ, the Messiah.
Today in the New Covenant we are still being prepared to meet God, to know Him fully when we are in His presence.
So far we recognize:
1. Discipleship needs to be God-centered because God is the basis of our unity as the church.
2. Discipleship needs to be God-centered because knowing and glorifying God is the telos, the end of all things. The chief end of man… glorify… enjoy… forever.
3. God-centered discipleship for loving one another.
3. God-centered discipleship for loving one another.
If would turn with me to John chapter 13, we’ll be in John for the remainder of our time this morning.
We might be familiar with this passage but let’s gain just a bit of context. John sums up the last Supper in about 4 verses. We don’t know why, but he gives a lot of time to the instruction around the supper. Jesus gets up in the middle of the meal and proceeds to wash his disciples feet. He’s teaching them something, but what’s the application point he gives them?
14 “If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 “For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you.
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Who’s the example here? What’s their point of reference?
It goes to show, that as Jesus is preparing his disciples for the trials of discipleship, the person they are to look to, the person they should know above all is Him! He is their example. Jesus is going to elaborate on this, but in this simple object lesson comes that fundamental truth. To be a disciple is to know Christ and follow his example. If we do not know him, we won’t behave like him. And what is that behavior which Jesus decides to portray for them?
Humble love and service.
Jesus takes a break from his teaching because it’s time for Judas to go. Jesus tells him, “What you do, do quickly.”
Notice here, this is a rare setting in terms of the whole of Jesus’ ministry. How many times over the course of Jesus’ ministry has Jesus been only with disciples who he knows will be true to the end? Judas has always been there! Jesus has largely been addressing a mixed audience, those who will believe and those who won’t, but now he address his disciples as little children with the sure hope of heaven, but before he gets there He provides some further instruction regarding their discipleship.
31 Therefore when he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; 32 if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately. 33 “Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ 34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
I really find this incredible! What is Jesus trying to do here? It seems a bit disjointed the first time you look at it. If you’re like me you have to read verse 31 and 32 three times to make sure you have it right. Jesus is answering this underlying question, “How do disciples follow Jesus when he’s not here anymore? We use the term disciple today in a very general sense. If someone is a disciple they follow a certain defined set of principles. For the disciples, the past three years of being a disciple of Christ means literally following him around, doing life with him, listening to his teaching, doing ministry with him. How is being a disciple and discipleship possible without a bodily Christ?
Where does Jesus begin? He tells about His own glory!
Of all the places to begin, he could have provided them comfort for the trial ahead (which he will do), he could have started with how to teach, how to preach, how to evangelize, but he starts with himself. Being a disciple begins with knowing the glory of God in Christ.
The Father is glorified in the death and resurrection of Christ and because the Father is glorified, the Son, Jesus, will be glorified in His resurrected body and ascend to the right hand of God. There is no discipleship without that simple truth.
Jesus then addresses them. They do have a role in this. They are his disciples after all. He states simply what they’ve been doing all along, “You will seek Me.” They’ve been following him, eating with him, ministering with him for three years, yet “Where I am going, you cannot come.” Only Christ will bear the wrath of God at the cross. For now, only Christ will ascend to heaven. So then what does following Christ look like? What does discipleship look like with an ascended Christ?
34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
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Follow the example of service and love given to them in Christ. They know His love! Now they are to love. By this all men will know that these are disciples of Christ, if they look like Him and love one another.
John states this fundamental principle again in first John and ties it directly to knowing who God is!
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
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Let me ask the elementary question, from this passage, where does love start?
What happens if we teach ethics without theology?
What happens when we teach the law without the gospel?
In years past I’ve applied the paradigm, “Does your faith have works?” to this passage. Is your knowledge of God followed up by love for others? I believe there’s a faithful way to ask that question here, but I think it’s appropriate to ask the other question as well. “Do our works have faith?” I don’t know that this question is asked quite as often. When we see the appearance of good, we hesitate to question its roots right? I think the same happens when it comes to discipleship if we’re not careful. I have this temptation too! There’s a desire to get busy doing good things. What can we do? Where can we go? I think John challenges us to slow down a bit. Does the pursuit of godliness or fruitfulness have an understanding of who God is as a foundation? Is the pursuit of good, the pursuit of love, inspired by the person of God?
If we keep looking at John we’ll notice more instructions for the disciples. Jesus has just told the disciples they can’t follow him. Peter insists he will go to the death with him, but Jesus foretells of Peter’s denial of Christ. At this point the disciples are pretty shaken and understandably so. Is this what discipleship is going to look like? Peter one of the leaders of the group denying Christ? What’s going to happen to the rest of us? Jesus comes to give them some great comfort and some instructions on fruitfulness, but notice where he begins!
God-centered discipleship for fruitfulness
God-centered discipleship for fruitfulness
1 “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. 4 “And you know the way where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. 7 “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.”
There’s that key question at the center which Thomas asks, “How do we know the way?” We’re still asking the same question. How do we follow you now? How do we go on as your disciples? From beginning to end Jesus’ comfort is Himself.
Believe in God, believe also in Me.
I am the way, the truth, and the life!
You know the Father because you know Me!
To be a disciple of Christ, to follow in the way is knowing and believing Christ, knowing and believing in the Son, and Jesus hasn’t left out the Spirit.
16 “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. 18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 “After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. 20 “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
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Their following Christ is enabled and empowered by their knowledge of the Spirit who is with them.
You see how this exactly parallels the Great Commission where we began?
Being disciples and following Jesus begins with knowing the trinitarian God: The Father the son and the Spirit who is with them.
Making disciples begins with baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Great Commission ending with that same bit of comfort, “and lo I am with you always even to the end of the age.”
Generally speaking, much of chapter 14 is for their comfort, but that comfort gives way to the fruitfulness of discipleship in 15.
1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. 3 “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. 6 “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. 7 “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. 9 “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. 10 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
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If you were to define it, what does it mean to abide?
Generally speaking, you can’t abide with someone you don’t know. Maybe you’ve had a roommate situation where you’re in the same space, but you don’t really interact. Jesus is talking about trusting, resting, depending on the Christ we know. We look to Him for direction, for faith, for strength. That’s abiding! We must know Him to abide in Him.
In knowing Christ and abiding in Him we are attached to the vine. There is not life apart from knowing Christ, yet in that knowing we need to be pruned so we can bear fruit. The Father prunes those who know Christ and abide in Him culminating in His glory and proving to all that these are true disciples.
If I were to summarize the whole of what we covered:
Discipleship begins with knowing God which leads to
Identifying with God for Unity
Worshipping God as our Eternal Purpose
Knowing the love of God so we can Love One Another
Abiding in Christ so we can be Fruitful
Getting really practical for a moment. What would it look like to read a book with someone on one of these four topics. Their all an extension of knowing God, but they’re the next step towards the fundamentals of our Christian walk.
