Changing Soils

Heavenly Father, we come to you and Lord. We just thank you for the many blessings that you give Lord. We thank you for blessing, Dan and Pat with 61 years of marriage. Lord, that's incredible. Enlarges the example that sets for all of us and Lord, I pray, you will continue to bless them. and Lord, I pray that You will continue to bless Alice as she got another good report Lord. I pray that this will continue to have good health. Are we thank you that Ron is continuing his therapy and growing stronger and doing what he needs to do. And we just pray that you will help him to continue to get stronger. And Lord be with Melissa as she continues to recover from hernia surgery Lord. We pray that it will be a speedy recovery for her. And Lord we lift up the Minnick family to you and Lord as they sit alongside Karen Lord. I pray that you will encourage them. Give them peace and Lord, lift their spirits. And or we just pray that you will help us as a church family to know how to come around them and support them during this time. And Lord, I pray, that is we dig into your work today that you will help. Each of us to hear and apply what we learn from your word. We pray this all in your most holy name. Amen.

Well, this is the last of the first part of the series on discipleship and this is the last one out of the, you know, changing soils. And next week we'll shift to more stuff about discipleship, but the title changed slightly to discipled. And you know if you followed along in the series, we've kind of been progressing from where you know, we first talked about why discipleship some important. And then we talked about how praying is such a vital part of discipleship. So you know, hopefully you've been praying for God to show you someone that you could have some deeper conversations with and hopefully you've been able to have some deeper conversations with someone and maybe during that time, you know he's open some doors and it has started to go a little deeper. But then what do you do at that point? And I went back and forth with titles again on this and they came up with the popular. You know, what would Jesus do right back in the 90s, we all had those wrist bracelets and charms and things that said that. But today, we're going to learn about what we should do, as we're discipling others by looking at what Jesus did as he disciple Peter. So we're going to start out and Luke chapter 5 verses 1 through 11.

It reads, one day as Jesus was standing by the lake of gennesaret. The people were crowding, around him and listening to the word of God. He saw at the water's edge, two, boats left there by the fishermen who were watching their Nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon and asked him to put out a little from sure. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. When he had finished speaking he said to Simon put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch. Simon answered Master. We've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything but because you say so I will let down the Nets. When they are done. So they caught such a large number of fish that their Nets began to break. So they signaled their Partners in the other boat to come and help them and they came and Phil both boats. So full that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell. It Jesus's knees and said go away from me. Lord, I am a sinful, man. For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish, they had taken. And so we're James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon's partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, Don't Be Afraid from now on. You will fish for people, so they pulled their boats up. Unsure, left everything and followed him. You're one of the main things we see from this passage of scripture is that our disciple-making must be focused on obedience to the word of God.

You know, Jesus. No doubt knew that they had already been fishing all night long with no real success. So he makes this request. I think as one of those things is he okay, is he going to do what I ask him to do?

You know, a lot of times, the problem we have, when we think about disciple-making is we can get so focused on building our knowledge base that we forget the importance of obedience. Make sure there are things. We need to know as Believers in Christ. There are things that believers all should know and that we certainly want those were discipling to know. But we have to realize that Christ is looking for far more than just someone who's well-educated in the Bible. He's looking for those who are obedient to what they read and learn from scripture.

7 important point. We need to remember is that if we're meeting with someone in talking with them about things of God we should make it a point that when we leave there. There is some very practical step that we can each follow-up to apply. What we've learned.

you know, for example, if you studied the story of Jesus washing his disciples feet, You know, you don't make the action point that hey, you need to wash everyone at your workplace is feed this next week. Cuz that's just going to get them labeled as weird. Right. Know what we can do is make the action point of. How are you going to serve those around you this next week and come up with a practical way that they can do that? That you can do that, you know? And think how you're going to serve that particular person. You make it something simple and practical. Cuz as we start to apply scripture to our lives and very real and practical ways, it helps people to grow and realizing how vital it is.

You know the more specific and simple, you make that step, the more likely it is that you're going to a bad and that they're going to obey it and carry it through.

Another thing we need to learn about disciple-making is that disciple-making is an invitation to Friendship.

Listen to what Jesus said about those. He discipled in John chapter 15 verses 13 through 15. Greater love has no one than this to lay down, one's life for one's friends. You are my friends. If you do what I command. I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends for everything that I learned from my father, I have made known to you.

It's like I said, when we were seeking to Being A discipleship making relationship with somebody, we aren't just looking to increase their knowledge base. We want them to learn to be faithful and obedient to the word of God, but we also have to realize that we are inviting them into a special type of friendship. Really. Hopefully, it will be a lifelong friendship cuz, you know, we have to see it as more than just an hour long meeting over a cup of coffee once a week. You know, if we're inviting them to be a part of our life, we're showing them this in very practical ways. It means that if he know you're in this sort of relationship, your families should probably meet each other. You should spend a little bit of time, together intentionally You should have been in each other's homes. You should know each other's stories, both the good and the bat. You know, the parts that they don't want everyone to know, but you should know all that too and they should know that about you. It should be an open relationship where you can talk about those things. That other person should know that when they're struggling, when they need help, you are the person, they can call, you will be there for them.

You know, the person that you're having the sort of conversations with the whole idea is that they should experience the love of Jesus, through that relationship before they even fully understand what that means. Just because of how you have acted towards them. That will do far more to explain to them. Why Jesus did what he did for them on the cross. You know, if you're looking to do what we've talked about this whole time of not just be a disciple yourself but help to make other disciples. So, you know, we're looking to make something that reproduces itself. This part of entering into a long-term friendship is vitally important. It has to be. Because down the road you know when they start pouring into the lives of someone else, they're going to repeat what they saw. They're going to replicate how it was done with them. They'll follow the example of how much you invested in them. So that's something we want to be sure to do

and notice says we've went through a lot of this disciple-making discussion. I haven't really giving you like a specific curriculum that you need to follow. I've just been trying to focus so far on some foundational truths that have to be a part of that. That we have to understand before we even get to what is the right type of material?

Yeah, we have to understand is disciple makers that we're extending that invitation to dig deeper into God's word and to focus on obedience to the word of God. And we have to realize, like I said that, it is an invitation to a lifelong friendship. But let's continue on with how Jesus. Disciple Peter, John chapter 21.

Verses 15 through 17. This is after he had betrayed Jesus.

Blade finished eating Jesus said to Simon Peter. Simon. Son of John. Do you love me more than these? Yes Lord he said you know that I love you. Jesus said feed my Lambs Again, Jesus said, Simon. Son of John. Do you love me? Answered. Yes. Lord you know that I love you. Jesus said take care of my sheep. The third time he said to him, Simon, son of John. Do you love me? Peter is hurt. Because Jesus said, ask him a third time, do you love me? He said, Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you, Jesus said feed my sheep.

Yeah, I can imagine how Peters feeling at this point. Cuz this conversation is taking place only a few painful days after Peter had denied. Even knowing Jesus, you know, in Jesus's darkest hour when he needed the help of his friends, the most, he denied that he even knew him, And then he had watched him, be crucified and watched him be laid in the Tomb.

so Peter had kind of given up, he went back to fishing and that's when Jesus found them and you know, From the shore said that, you know, he was there. Peter immediately recognizes who it is and dives from the boat and swims to shore, to be with Jesus and they take some of the fish that he had caught and they're sitting having breakfast, when this whole conversation breaks out.

I don't think Peter probably initially caught on to the whole idea that, you know, as Jesus was asking him the question 3 times, he was kind of using each one to at least in Peters heart in mine a race. What he had done three times and denying his Lord. You three times confirming, okay? If you really love me, then you'll do what I'm asking you to do. That's what he's asking there. For making up for those three denials. I mean sensually, he is reinstating Peter here telling him that I still want you to do the same thing. even though you denied me even though you stumble, My assignment for you is still the same.

but you know, I think it's always a mystery to us, you know why if Jesus was forgiving him. Why was he bringing up Peters darkest worst moment?

Well, I mean Jesus was acknowledging that. Yes the send was there. He had denied him but he was also forgiving him at the same time. And for us as disciplemakers what we can learn from that is

As disciplemakers, not only does it need to be about obedience to the word of God, but it also needs to have room for accountability.

Now, this is something that is absolutely necessary for anyone to grow spiritually. But unfortunately, it's something that we are usually pretty bad at. Holding people accountable for things. We don't like to do that. It's tough.

I think about it every area of life, really truthfully. If we think about accountability is huge, countability is a very big thing.

Yeah, I think sometimes accountability gets a bad name, but it's because we so often go to one of two extremes when were trying to enforce accountability. The first extremely go to his guilt based accountability,

Yeah, the way we hold someone accountable is we try to make them feel really guilty for not doing what they needed to do, right for not following through and getting the results of what they needed to.

But if that's how we are using accountability that, pretty much always ends, the Friendship part of it, right? That pretty much destroys that when you're using guilt to make them be accountable.

So then we often are on the other side cuz we don't want to use guilt based. So then we use overly graceful accountability. And by name, that sounds great. But the problem is, we then say, oh don't worry about it. It's no big deal when they don't follow through and do what we're asking them to do. Which means we pretty much make accountability useless and then nobody grows out of that. you instead what we need is a kind of accountability that leads to transformation and one named I've heard used for this is problem solving accountability and a difference is so that When somebody falls short, and let's face the reality, we all do. We all will at some time or another We ask questions.

Sometimes these can be awkward questions at first, but you know, we can simply ask questions, like, how did you fail? You know what, led up to you not being able to complete this task? How did you fail? What did you learn from it? How will this next week? Look different. And then you go back and you study the scriptures. You had talked about that supported that look at him again. Make it the same assignment for this next week. Hey, we're going to try to do this. We're going to try our hardest to serve this particular person better. Because Jesus told us we should serve others.

And you keep revisiting it Talkin at why it was a struggle. Why that didn't work. Until? They can finally complete the task and then you move on to another scripture and you continue to work through God's word, but it's a form of kind of constructive criticism, which I often hate that word, but it's inappropriate word. That helps them to grow in their relationship and see that the word of God is not just some pie-in-the-sky Theory out. There it is real. It is practical

When I was in seminary, I was part of a men's accountability group that basically these were the type of questions. We asked each other every week. It helped us all as we continue to grow in her faith.

Because he know our goal is not just that they have knowledge of the Bible that their obedient to it and that they know that we're doing it out of our friendship and our love for them is why we want to hold them accountable cuz we want them to continue to grow and their relationship with Christ, so that they can then be a disciple who helps to raise up more disciple, making disciples of Jesus. That's the whole idea here.

and next week we'll continue on with this idea of how We go about this as we enter into this relationship, and how Jesus approached the whole disciple making process. Please bow with me in prayer.

dear Jesus, we realize that the difference between the fruitful soil and the thorny soil is life and death for us and for generations to come Help us to take what we learned from your word today and apply it in our daily lives this week. Heavenly father, as we continue to dig deeper into discipleship. We can't wait to see what you're going to do. You pray the song, your most, holy name. Amen.