Is A Disciple Making Factory

INTRO: Every factory or business has a purpose. It exists to produce something—something of value. But a church isn’t in the business of making products or profits.

We’re not chasing numbers, applause, or money. We’re not even trying to pack the pews so that we can have a good crowd.

A healthy church is a disciple factory.

Our product isn’t measured in dollars—it’s measured in people who are being transformed to look more like Jesus. We want as many in here as we can yes, but not just to fill the room.

Everyone of us as Christians are meant to be disciples and making disciples! Specifically what we mean is growing from being new and immature Christians into more mature and capable. New and immature as Christian’s isn’t a bad thing, we all have to start there. But it’s bad if we stay there.

The church in many ways operates like an assembly line, but certainly not a crude one. In an assembly line as the product moves down the line, it comes to a different stage where the worker has a different task that adds to the finished product.

Romans 12:4 “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function,”

Ephesians 4:11–13 “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” We each have a job to perform, and each of us play a part in being disciples and disciple making. If we’re not producing and growing disciples, we’re missing the point. The bottom line in God’s church isn’t financial, it isn’t how many people we can count in attendance — the goal is much more spiritual.

Our purpose is transformation.

We can have the prettiest building. The best singing. The most involved programs. But if we aren’t transforming more into the image of Christ and growing as disciples, then we’re failing.

The New Testament gives us three verses that use the word “transform”.

1. A Transforming Disciple Renews the Mind (Romans 12:1-2)

V.1

“Present/offer” = to voluntary give God something back that was already His. But now, there is submission.

Sacrifice — our sacrifice for sin is Jesus. But our sacrifice for continued dedication is ourselves. It’s ongoing service and surrender, ongoing submission of my life to please God and be used by God — and as we see in the next verse, to be transformed by God.

V.2

(PPT) CONFORMED = changeable and unstable

Conformed pressed into a pattern from the outside — like a lump of clay being squeezed into a mold. The world has plenty of molds for you to fit into—success, comfort, popularity, materialism. But God says: Don’t let that happen!

(PPT) Transformed = becoming something different entirely. And get this, it’s in the “passive tense”, meaning you aren’t the one performing the transformation, but instead the one that is being remade altogether.

It’s a process you willing submit to — dedicating your life as a pleasing worship to God, giving yourself over in your actions and your mind to be molded by God. Our mind, meaning our morals and character and inner man, is to be renewed by actively testing for right and wrong according to the will of God.

The phrase “renewing of your mind” is about letting God reshape the way you think, so He can reshape the way you live. It’s not a one-time thing—it’s an ongoing process. Every day I choose what influences my mind: Scripture or the world, God’s voice or the crowd’s.

(PPT) As God transforms you, a marker of spiritual growth is that you start to have spiritual discernment—you start to see more clearly what God’s will really is. Romans 12:2 “…by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” One of the clearest signs of a maturing Christian is the ability to discern God’s will. But to reach that point, transformation is absolutely necessary. And this transformation doesn’t just help us recognize God’s will—it moves us to live it out. That’s the true expression of God’s desire for our lives: not only to understand His will, but to act based upon it!

And it’s something to intentionally put to the test - like an engine coming off the assembly line, you want to fire it up to make sure it’s running. But you’ve gotta be actively testing!

Here’s the danger: many Christians try to live a transformed life while still thinking like the world.

Illustration: my 79 El Camino was brown, but we painted it black — but it still didn’t run. An old car getting new paint is still the old car. We’re not just disciples who get a new paint job. We are meant to be transforming into something we never were before. God doesn’t just want to update how you look, He wants remake you to be better.

Transformation is ongoing. We renew our minds daily. Disciples are those who constantly are filtering their thoughts through God’s word because thats where His mind and will are revealed to us!

Hebrews 5:13–14 “for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”

So I can’t discern if I don’t know at least some things in the word, and I can’t be transformed if I’m not submitting to God’s instruction that’s found only in it! You can’t pray “God guide me, grow me, change me, and use me” if you’re not willing to go to where He speaks and listen!

A healthy Church is full of people who not only gather often, but also think differently, reason differently, and respond differently because God is renewing their mind every day.

2. A Transforming Disciple Reflects the Glory of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:12-18)

Paul is making the point that the OT was from God and glorious, but it’s glory pales in comparison to the glory of the NT because the Gospel of Jesus is substantially superior as God’s planned He worked throughout all time. And Paul uses Moses on Mt. Sinai as an illustration to show that the OT and Moses had a glorious effect, but there even more so now.

Exodus 34:29-35

(PPT) Moses was changed by the time he spent with God! The glory of God rubbed off on him. When Moses was closer to God, the more the glow would show.

Paul uses this as an illustration as the transformation God wants and expects in our lives! He showing that there will be an even better difference today because of Christ, and it’s not merely a physical glowing that is temporary and wares off but a permanent transformation!

V.15-18

The transformation process applies to all of us! And it’s the same for all of us!

He also tells us what transformation isn’t. It’s not just being INFORMED or behavior conformation. But Christianity isn’t a behavior modification program, and it’s more than just filling our head with literature. Learning and growing do go hand in hand, but that’s not all there is.

Transformation is so much more and glorifying than that! Its real heart permanent change - anyone can temporary change for a while. But being transformed means you become something different all together.

V.15 — is there something between you and God, something that hinders your approach of Him and His word?

Some go to God’s word to justify their position and reaffirm what they already know. Some do it purely as a head only exercise. But the right way is to go to the word with the attitude of asking God to change what needs to be changed inside and out.

Transformation can’t occur until you want your image to be reflecting God’s glory, to look like Jesus, to be more in His image!

V.18 - BEING TRANSFORMED. That means you are not the one doing it. You don’t transform yourself. God is the one changing you inside and out.

(PPT) And you as a disciple are meant to be placing yourself humbly before in Him in prayer and study and worship actively submitting to being changed - because it won’t be forced on you. You have to go up the mount to be with Him if you want His glory to make a difference on you, if you want to reflect the glory of God!

God is ready to work on you, but you do have to position yourself where God does His work! And where is that? It’s where God speaks through His word, where God listens in prayer, where God is worshiped, and where others are transforming too.

You can’t be transformed until you’re exposed to God! Moses closeness to God had an affect on him.

A healthy Church is full of “disciples in progress”. This should be the factory floor where God’s handiwork is being done AND where His handiwork in one another is being celebrated.

3. A Transforming Disciple Lives with Eternity in View (Philippians 3:17-21)

Earlier in v.12 Paul says “I’m not even done growing yet, but I’m pressing on — so press on with me!”

Paul contrasts two mindsets here—those whose minds are set on earthly things, and those whose citizenship is in heaven.

(PPT) Discipleship means keeping your eyes on the eternal finish line, not the temporary distractions.

Paul says there are people who live as enemies of the cross—“their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame”. In other words, their appetites drive their lives (not just food but their hunger for more money, better houses, fun times and never being satisfied), their pride blinds them, and their future is tragic.

V.20

You won’t begin to look like Jesus until you look in the mirror and say I want my reflection to look more like Him - I don’t like what I see.

You won’t stop sinning or being an apathetic uncaring disciple until you decide you hate the results of sin more than you like the taste of it. You’ve got to be committed to the long game of transformation instead of the momentary unsatisfactory pleasures of sin.

I also need to understand that when I choose to be disciples and work on this discipleship process and make disciples — we are also picking a fight with Satan. Now our Father and our big brother can take him no problem, but when the bully rears back and threatens and starts poking a finger into your chest, don’t be surprised that it might be hard at times and that the bully tries to make himself seem bigger than he is so that you can’t see around him as he tries to block your view of the path you are on. Don’t let Satan close off your eternal perspective, if you take your eyes off the prize then you flounder in purpose…

Illustration: working and never seeing the finished product leaves you exhausted and discouraged. But if you can focus on the end and the final product, the purpose, then we’re willing to toil and strive through this life shunning the temporary comforts and clinging to the promise!

(PPT) Your perspective changes your present! It changes how we face suffering—because our trials are temporary. It changes how we invest our time—because only what’s done for Christ will last. It changes how we respond to temptation—because we’re not living for the weekend, we’re living for the lamb!

Hope fuels us on the transformation process.

CONCLUSION:

Factories don’t accidentally produce their product—they do it on purpose, day after day, with intentional work. And if a healthy church is a disciple factory, then transformation is not going to happen here by accident either.

The truth is, we’re all producing something with our lives. Ask yourself honestly: is it what God put you here to produce?

It starts with a choice. A choice to place yourself where God does His best work—in His Word, in prayer, in worship, and among His people. A choice to surrender your will so His will becomes your way of life. A choice to care more about who you are becoming than what you are achieving.

So today, if you’ve been coasting, if your transformation has stalled, it’s time to get back to being a real disciple of Jesus. Let God renew your mind. Let His glory change you. Fix your eyes on the eternal prize.

Because one day, the question won’t be how big the building was, how many programs we ran, or how full the calendar was.

The question will be: Did we produce what He called us to produce? Were we transformed into the image of His Son?

If you need to start that process, restart it, or step back into it—this is YOUR moment.