What is Discipleship?

Introduction:

How did you learn most of the things that you know how to do?

If you are handy with construction projects, you probably had someone that taught you on the job.

If you are good with mechanical things, you may have started with learning how to change your oil.

If you are good at knitting or crocheting, you probably learned a few patterns and away you went.

Most everything that we do in life is learned by someone teaching us, even if today those mediums of how we learn are different and not always in person.

In the olden days, people often would learn a trade by becoming an apprentice and working with a master craftsman until they were skilled enough to go out on their own and start their own business.

When it comes to the Christian faith, God has called us to be Disciple-making Christians. We are commanded in the Great Commission to go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But what is a disciple and what does discipleship look like? Certainly we are not just to get people to say a prayer and then leave them at the altar.

Tonight, we are going to look at what discipleship is and how we become disciple-making Christians.

Let’s turn to 2 Timothy and dive into the text tonight.

2 Timothy 2:1–2 ESV

1 You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, 2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.

Pray

1. You Must First Be a Disciple (v.1-2)

Be Strengthened

Part of Discipleship is training and endurance in the Word

Grace that is in you

We are saved by grace, therefore the grace that is in us in the faith that we have in Christ

What you heard from me

Timothy was Paul’s disciple and was to remember all that Paul had taught him

We have the Word, the Spirit, and other people to help us live a life of discipleship.

2. You Must Invest in Others (v.2)

Entrust to faithful men

There is a process of identifying faithful people to invest in

Don’t cast your pearls before swine

Who will be able to teach others also

This is the discipleship model of making elders (faithful men), but it applies to making disciples of Christ as well.

Conclusion

Every believer has the task of being a Disciple-making Christian. We are not tasked with simply bringing people to the leaders of the church and then letting those leaders do the discipling.

We all have to do the work. The Great Commission is too great for us to bottleneck things into just a few leaders sharing Christ.