Multiply

Last Sunday we began laying out the three purposes of Monaghan Baptist Church. We talked about how we exist to Magnify God. First and foremost we exist to make sure that God our Father guides all we do, receives the praise and glory that He alone deserves, and that He remains the center focus of our worship. When we excel at Magnifying God, then we are moving forward in our relationship with Him because we understand that He is truly all we need. Magnifying God also means we’ll learn His expectations in how we should live our daily lives and that is called Discipleship!

This morning, we are going to talk about the second reason we exist which is to Multiply Disciples.

Jim Putman, Pastor and author of the book “Real-Life Discipleship: Building Churches that Make Disciples” says, “The church is supposed to equip its people (every person) to be an army released on its community.” If we are going to win over our community in the name of Jesus Christ, we must make disciples who are making disciples who are making disciples and so on and so forth!

This morning, my hope is that when you leave this place, you will understand on the most basic level what a disciple of Christ is and Monaghan Baptist Church’s plan for being intentional about helping people mature in their faith so they can in turn help someone else mature in their faith.

To help us better understand what we mean when we say we exist to Multiply Disciples, please turn with me to Matthew 28:19-20 as we read what is widely known as the Great Commission.

We are going to focus on the going and making portion of Jesus’s command next week when we talking about our third purpose mobilizing for missions. For this morning, there are two questions we need to answer to help us understand why we exist to Multiply Disciples.

What is a Disciple?

What is the Role of the Church in Making Disciples?

So first:

1. What is a Disciple?

To help us understand the definition of a Disciple please turn with me to Matthew 4:18-20.

A. A Disciple of Jesus Christ is someone who is following Christ.

In the Great Commission, when Jesus tells His Disciples to “Go” and “make disciples” the word He uses for “disciples” in the original greek has three meanings:

First, it means to figuratively follow. Now, as we read in Matthew 4, when Jesus calls out Simon Peter and Andrew to follow Him, they literally do so. What a great benefit the original twelve had as they were able to literally spend three and 1/2 years following Christ from town to town learning from Him.

For us, though, the term is figurative because we unfortunately don’t have the same benefit of being able to literally follow Him as they did.

When it comes to figuratively following Jesus as His disciples, we must station ourselves behind Him. Here’s what I mean, we must recognize that He is our leader, He is our authority, and we are His follower and His servant.

Jesus says in John 12:26 “Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be.”

So, while we can’t literally follow Him from town to town like the original disciples did, we are expected to figuratively follow Him as His servant and the way we show Him our willingness to be His servant is by obeying Him.

Jesus says in John 14:23-24 “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching.”

Far too many people, including some who label themselves as Christians, believe that salvation is the finish line, when in reality, salvation is the starting line of a life long journey of serving and obeying Jesus.

Quoting Jim Putnam again, he says “Many people like the idea of being saved from sin. However, they fail to realize that believing in Jesus means acknowledging who He is in His entirety. Yes, He is Savior, but He must also be Lord. He cannot be one without the other.”

This means that following Christ as His disciple means we accept His authoritative place as Lord over our lives and we do all we can to meet His expectations as they are laid out in His Word.

B. A Disciple of Christ is someone who is being transformed by Christ.

Discipleship is a life-long process of becoming more like Jesus. When Jesus commands the original disciples to “make disciples” He’s telling them to educate and train those who make the decision to follow Him concerning His way of living.

Go back to Jesus’s calling of Peter and Andrew. After He tells them to “follow” Him, He tells them what He’s going to do. He says, “…and I will make you...” The promise from Jesus to all who follow Him is that He is going to take us from where we are right now and transform us into exactly what He wants us to be so He can use us for His purposes. That’s what He did with these men. By spending time with them, Jesus empowered and taught these men to be like Him. He transformed their belief system into His belief system, their attitudes into His attitude, and their actions into His actions. Why? Because He was molding them to take His Good News into all the world after He was gone.

We cannot consider ourselves disciples of Christ if we are not being transformed by Him.

Pastor John Broadus says “Baptism is a mere ceremonial and initial act of obedience to Christ, which should be followed by a lifelong obedience to all his commandments. The person who is discipled and baptized is only started in a course of Christian living. Notice that it is not simply teaching them the commandments of Christ, but teaching them to observe his commandments. They who disciple and baptize men must teach them the duty of obeying Christ in all things..” -John Broadus

One theologian says, “A disciple is not only a partaker of information, but also one who seeks to become like his or her teacher.”

Jesus says in Luke 6:40 — “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.”

Discipleship is a lifelong transformational process. There are so many ways that I have grown in my spiritual journey since becoming a Christian. I will never become the perfect Christian, none of us will, but I will continue learning and growing so that I can strive to be more like my teacher Jesus Christ. Personal experiences, Bible study, prayer, and the influence of people who have been walking with Christ far longer than me have allowed me to come to know Christ in a more personal way so that He can continue transforming me into who He wants me to be and prepare me for the work He has for me to do. That is discipleship.

The Apostle Paul so often compares our spiritual journeys to a marathon. In 1 Corinthians 9:25 he says, “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.” And in verse 26 he says “Therefore I do not run like someone aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.” There are people who claim to be Christians, yet they’ve never moved off the starting line when it comes to preparing to live out their faith the way Jesus expects. There are some who have moved off the finish line, but there is no intentionality behind their training, so they just wander around aimlessly never growing in their faith. While they may adhere to Christian values and appreciate the Christian culture, these folks have never truly committed themselves to following Christ. They love the benefits of following Jesus, but they are not willing to get uncomfortable. They’re content in believing in a God who wants nothing more than for everyone to be happy and nice to each other. Unfortunately, many of them are still lost and far from God, which is why they’ve never moved off the starting line or they wander around aimlessly.

True disciples of Christ have not only moved off the starting line, they are getting stronger day by day because they are intentional about growing in their faith and allowing Christ to transform them. They discipline themselves to study God’s Word in such a way that God is constantly speaking to them and transforming them. They are intentional about spending time in prayer so that their trust and faith in Him grows as they witness Him answering their prayer requests. They have an older Christian who is spends time pouring into their lives and helping them become exactly who Christ desires them to be.

C. A Disciple of Christ is Someone Who Reaches Out to People Who are Far From God.

The third meaning behind the word Disciple, as Christ uses it in the Great Commission indicates the action of causing another person to become a disciple. That’s why Jesus tells Peter and Andrew to “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Disciples of Christ reproduce themselves by sharing the Gospel with the lost and helping those who accept Him as their Savior grow to become more like Jesus.

Notice in verses 19-20 of the Great Commission how Jesus tells His disciples to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them…teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” He says to them, “Go! And while you are going, cause those who don’t know me to know me by sharing the Good News about what I’ve done for them. And when they accept me and become my disciple, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Then after they are baptized, teaching them to obey the commandments that I’ve taught to you!”

But before disciples of Christ can teach anyone to follow and obey Jesus, they have to Go and share the Gospel with them. They must become “fishers of men.”

If we are truly disciples of Christ, then we are going to have as great a burden toward the lost as Jesus did.

In Matthew 9, just after Jesus calls Matthew to follow Him, some Pharisees question why Jesus spends time with “tax collectors and sinners.” Jesus responds to them by saying, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, and not sacrifice. For I cam not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Later in chapter 9, when Jesus is going from town to town sharing the Gospel and healing people, Matthew records that “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Was He concerned about the physical well-being of the people, yes! But He was more concerned with their eternal destination. We’ll dive into this more next Sunday morning when we talk about our third purpose, Mobilize for Missions, but this morning I want you to understand that if we are true disciples of Christ, then we are going to have compassion on those who wander around without a shepherd and do whatever it takes to lead them to Christ.

2. What is the Role of the Church in Multiplying Disciples

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As we just finished talking about, and as we’ll talk about more next week, before the church can consider their role in multiplying disciples, it must first Go and make disciples. But, as people come to know Christ, we must have a process for helping new believers leave the starting line of their Christian journeys and begin the marathon.

We touched on the scene in Matthew 9 when Jesus had compassion for the crowds. Matthew goes on to record that in that moment of compassion, Jesus turned to His disciples and said,“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

He understood at that time that there were not enough of His disciples to share the Good News with everyone who needed to hear it. But, He also knew there was a time coming when after His death and resurrection, He would send out His disciples to make disciples. We first see this play out in Acts chapter 2 when Peter boldly preaches to the masses in the streets and immediately thousands of people came to know Christ. From that point on, the disciples trained the new Christians on how to become more like Christ and to go share His Good News with others. And from that point on, more and more harvesters began going out into the fields of the lost and making more disciples. Then they trained these new Christians in Jesus’s teachings and told them to go and do the same with the lost. And on and on it went.

The Church grew and grew, why? Because Jesus poured His life into training His disciples to live like He lived and to share the Good News with the lost and His disciples replicated what He’d done. In other words, Jesus multiplied Himself, the disciples multiplied themselves, the new believers multiplied themselves, and so on.

There are two prominent ways we will multiply disciples at Monaghan Baptist Church.

1. We will multiply disciples through small group Bible studies.

Soon, you will receive information about what we’re going to call M-Groups. The “M” stands for Multiply. Essentially, M-Groups will center around studying scripture, and building relationships with each other for the purpose of accountability. We will study God’s Word together, pray together, help one another through life’s circumstances together.

We will have M-Groups meeting here at the Church on Sunday mornings. The environment for these groups will be more like traditional Sunday school.

We will have M-Groups that will meet in homes during the week. The environment for these groups will be more like life groups in that they will last two hours each week, and members will share a meal together prior to Bible study. You will choose which of these two environments best fits your schedule and most importantly your spiritual needs.

But understand that while the environments may be different, the intention of the groups is the same. That is to help people move forward in their spiritual journeys as they learn what it means to be transformed by Christ and Mobilize to reach others in HIs name. And, as we reach new believers in Christ, and develop new leaders, we will start new M-Groups. Thus, fulfilling Christ’s command to “make disciples” and teach “them to observe all that [He’s] commanded [us].”

2. We will Multiply disciples through one on one discipleship.

Each one of us in this sanctuary today and watching in our homes over the internet, who are Christians, have the responsibility of pouring ourselves into new Christians and helping them grow in their spiritual journeys. As we pour into that person, they should be pouring into someone else.

There were so many things that I thought about just before we had our first child. Something that didn’t really dawn on me until I became a parent was the fact that we were going to be responsible for teaching our kids the most basic things about life. Things that just come natural to us as adults, we have to teach our children. For example, understanding things like how to use a spoon or fork, talking, riding a bicycle, and more. As parents we have to be intentional about teaching our children these most basic things.

The same is true for new believers. They are spiritual babies and it’s up to more mature Christians to teach them the most basic of things like how to pray, how to read God’s Word, etc. The writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 5:11–14., “About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 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.”

Peter writes in 1 Peter 2:2: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation...”

We cannot leave anyone’s growth in Christ to chance. I believe the first six months of a new believers faith journey is critical. That is why our goal will be to partner mature believers with a new believer for at least the first six months of their spiritual journey to help them learn the Spiritual disciplines that it will take to sustain a faithful walk with Christ.

3. We will Multiply disciples through intentional discipleship ministries.

Rita will continue to be intentional about discipling our children from the very early years of their lives each Sunday morning during the M-Group hour. We will also disciple them through various ministries such as Vacation Bible School. Within the next five years I hope we see a thriving AWANA ministry developed here at Monaghan where we are helping children ages 3 years and older learn how to memorize Scripture and understand why local, domestic, and international missions are vital to sharing the Gospel and growing as disciples of Christ.

Chip is working on developing an intentional discipleship ministry for our students.

In addition to M-Groups and an intentional one on one discipleship ministry for new believers, we will continue to disciple our adults through our Back 2 Basics groups each on Sunday nights during the school year. I hope we begin to see men and women’s ministries develop with an intentional focus on discipling our men regarding their role in the home as the Spiritual leader of their families and the role of women in the home as Co-Leaders along with her husband.

My point is this, if we truly believe that our purpose is to Magnify God in all things, then we must also agree that for that to happen we must fulfill our second purpose which is to be intentional about Multiplying Disciples.

My friend and mentor, Lee Clamp, who is the Evangelism Team Leader for the South Carolina Baptist Convention, illustrates the power one person can have in the life of others by talking about dominos. When Lee was a kid he loved setting up dominos one by one closely connected on the floor of his room. He would use bridges for them to go over and put them in various shapes. When he was finished setting them up, he would move back to the start line and push one domino over to set off a chain reaction that impacted the entire line of dominos.

Monaghan Baptist Church, we have the potential to be a chain reaction in this community because we are the starting point for leading other’s to Christ and discipling the new believers. What kind of impact can we have in our community if we help begin discipling new believers who are discipling new believers who are discipling new believers. It’s easy to sit around and complain about how our society and culture act. The only way to make a real difference is to be a church who Multiplies Disciples.