The Purpose of Discipleship

Many of you know that — by the grace of God — I will be receiving my Master’s Degree from Dallas Theological Seminary in May.

This has been an amazing journey and one that frankly proves in my mind that God still does miraculous things. He took a college dropout and enabled him to be educated at one of the top seminaries in the nation, learning under some of the most well-respected biblical scholars in the world.

From the beginning of this journey, I have said it would be to God’s glory and not for mine.

It was only by His grace that I ever got into the program that I’ll graduate from. And it has only been by His grace that I have been able to juggle the things I have had to juggle in order to get the work done.

Now, as I prepared to begin my studies at DTS, I needed to find a degree program that would equip me to do ministry, while allowing me to work a full schedule. And I found the Master of Arts in Christian Leadership, which is “only” a 65-credit program and could be completed with a minimal number of visits to DTS campuses.

As you would expect, there is a significant focus on leadership in the courses that are required for the Master of Arts in Christian Leadership.

What you might not expect, however, is the amount of time that Dallas Seminary requires its MACL graduates to have spent becoming followers.

There was a two-semester class called Spiritual Formation, which required weekly meetings with a spiritual accountability partner, along with multiple in-depth projects designed to help us grow in our relationship with Jesus and to uncover areas of our lives that needed work.

We had a single-semester class called Christian Life and Witness that was designed, among other things, to teach great humility to anyone who planned to go on from seminary and become a pastor.

One of my fellow students told me recently that he’d bumped into the professor for that class and mentioned how challenging it had been to dig so deep into the selves we tend to hide from ourselves, not to mention to keep up with the surprisingly grueling pace of the class.

The professor just laughed and laughed. Apparently, he hears that kind of review from a new group of students at the end of every semester.

Dallas Seminary students must attend chapel services online or in person at least once a week, and there are a variety of cohort groups and mentorships that we are required to participate in throughout the seminary experience.

And the idea behind all of these experiences is that good leaders must first be good followers. Actually, there’s something else to it, as well, and that’s a desire that — whatever else they become as a result of their time in seminary — DTS students will have become more like Jesus by the time they graduate.

That’s a process that we know as “discipleship,” and, while it can happen at seminary or within a family, or in some parachurch settings, discipleship is one of the primary purposes of the church.

Remember the Great Commission?

Matthew 28:19–20 NASB95

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

So, just before Jesus ascended in His risen and glorified body back into heaven, He gave His disciples their marching orders. While you are going wherever you go, make disciples. They were to be disciple-making disciples.

And the fact that He promised He would be with them always, “even to the end of the age,” tells us that this was a commandment from Jesus to more than just the 11 who stood with Him on that mountain in Galilee that day.

This was a commandment intended for all who would become Jesus’ disciples from that point onward.

So, then, it’s probably important for us to understand what it means to be a disciple.

In the most basic sense, the Greek word from which we get “disciple” means a student or pupil — one who learns from another.

The Gospels refer at times to the crowds who followed Jesus as disciples. They were learning from Him.

At other times, the gospel writers and Jesus, Himself, refer to the 12 whom He had chosen as disciples. And that’s especially helpful as we try to define discipleship that we look at these 12.

How did Jesus call them?

To Simon Peter and his brother, Jesus said, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Right after that, He saw the brothers, James and John, in their fishing boat, and He called them. And Matthew records that they immediately left the boat and their father and followed Him.

Later, Jesus passed by Matthew in the tax collector’s booth, and He turned to Matthew and said, “Follow Me.”

He found Phillip in Galilee and said to him, “Follow Me.”

After Peter’s restoration by the Sea of Galilee, when Jesus had asked him three times whether Peter loved Him, Jesus reiterated His command: “Follow Me.”

Now, there is an obvious sense in which these commands referred to the physical activity of going along with Jesus where He went.

This is how rabbis taught their students during this time in Judea. Where the rabbi went, the students went. They followed their teachers.

But there’s something more significant about Jesus’ command to His disciples. There’s something greater going on with the command, “Follow Me.”

The idea was that not only were they to be listening to what He taught, but they were to be doing the things He did. They were to be imitating Him to the best of their ability. They were to be becoming more and more like Him.

And it’s the same for us today as the modern-day disciples of Jesus.

To be sure, we are to listen to what we’re taught about Him and to be learning about Him from others. But the idea of discipleship always carried with it an expectation that the things that one learned would change that person.

In the Gospel accounts, discipleship — this process of becoming more and more like Jesus — “was accomplished by being physically with Christ, seeing what He did, hearing what He said, being corrected by Him, and following His example.” [James G. Samra, “A Biblical View of Discipleship,” Bibliotheca Sacra 160 (2003): 222.]

The Apostle Mark made discipleship a significant theme of his Gospel, although he recorded very little in the way of Jesus’ direct teaching on the matter.

Mostly, he highlighted the fact that the 12 became disciples by following Jesus’ example.

But there is one significant passage in the Gospel of Mark in which Jesus talks about what it means to be His disciple. You’ll find it in chapter 8, verses 34-38, though we’re just going to look at the first two verses of that passage.

Now, this exchange between Jesus and His followers takes place just after He had reprimanded Peter for rebuking Him because Jesus had said He would be rejected by the Jewish religious leaders and that He would be killed and rise again after three days.

And the context here is especially significant, because Jesus was about to tell His disciples that they must be willing to give up their own lives in order to follow HIm.

Let’s look at verses 34 and 35.

Mark 8:34–35 NASB95

And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.

If anyone wishes to come after Jesus — if anyone wishes to follow Him — he must deny himself. He must be willing to turn his back on his own wishes, his own dreams, his own desires. And he must take up his cross and follow Jesus.

Through the years, there’s been a lot of bad theology connected to this idea of taking up our own crosses. You’ve probably heard someone refer to some hardship in their life and say, “Well, it’s just my cross to bear.”

And maybe you’ve seen stories about guys who walk across the continent, carrying a cross, as if Jesus was making a literal command here for His followers.

Taking up your cross doesn’t have anything to do with either of these things.

When the Romans made those who were being taken to their execution carry their own crosses, it was to show that they were under the forced submission to the Roman government.

Jesus here is saying his followers should voluntarily submit themselves to Him. We must deny ourselves as our own authority. We must surrender ourselves to His authority.

And we can get a glimpse of this meaning by looking at verse 35.

Here, Jesus says that anyone who tries to maintain control of his or her own life will lose something more valuable in the future. For the unsaved, they’ll lose salvation. For the saved, they’ll lose rewards in heaven.

On the other hand, anyone who gives Him control of their lives by faithfully following God’s will for them will gain something infinitely greater. For the unsaved, that is salvation. For the saved, that’s rewards in heaven.

And so, we see in these two verses the essence of what it means to be a disciple.

It means surrendering oneself to God in Christ Jesus. First, by placing your faith in Jesus as the Son of God and the one whose sacrificial death and supernatural resurrection enable sinners to be saved.

And second, by placing your life in His hands and allowing the Holy Spirit to make you ever more into the likeness of Christ.

So, drawing on our previous teaching about baptism as the first act of obedience for a new believer, we come to what I think is a good working definition of a disciple. A disciple is a baptized believer in Jesus who is following the commandments of Jesus.

And what I’m going to suggest to you this morning is that discipleship — the making and growing of disciples — is something that happens best in the context of the corporate church.

Turn to Ephesians, chapter 4. This is a wonderful letter about how it should look to be a church bound by unity and love in the Holy Spirit.

And in this passage, Paul describes some of the spiritual gifts that are given by the Spirit to empower that bond. Let’s pick up in verse 11.

Ephesians 4:11–16 NASB95

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

Now, I’m not going to spend a lot of time going through this passage verse by verse. Today, I want to draw your attention to the purpose for the gift of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Do you see it there in verse 12?

They’re given in order to equip the saints — the ones who have been saved, in other words, the church — for service. And they’re given for building up the body of Christ — again, the Church.

The idea here is that the disciplers —and here, that’s the apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers — the disciplers are here to help the saints become mature in Christ.

No longer children tossed about by every crazy doctrine or by slick teachers on the television late at night or by prosperity preachers wearing flashy clothes and preaching in vast auditoriums.

But look at verse 16. You see, it isn’t just preachers and teachers and the rest of the people Paul names in verse 11 who have this responsibility of discipling others.

Every joint, and each individual part of the body of Christ has some role to play in growing this body that is being built up in love.

Last week, I told you that worshiping God is the purpose of the church. And what I am telling you this week is no contradiction. Because discipleship IS worship.

Discipleship focuses on the expansion and manifestation of God’s glory on earth. It is focused on or directed toward the earth and the spread of his glory on earth. But is also focused on God and his glory.

As members of the church grow together toward maturity, the church manifests God’s love in the world. And as the love of God is more clearly revealed in the church and as its members worship God in Spirit and Truth, the glory of God fills the earth.

THIS is one of the main reasons that being connected to and involved in a church is so important. These things are not something we can do very effectively if we’re cut off from the fellowship of believers.

We can’t build you up if you’re not here. And you can’t BE built up if your not here.

So, the meaning of discipleship is to make baptized believers in Jesus who are following the commandments of Jesus and therefore becoming more and more like Him. People who are true followers. People who are being CHANGED by the things that they are LEARNING.

And the purpose of discipleship is to build up the church so that it more clearly manifests the love of God — and therefore the glory of God — in the world.

Now, the question that remains is how do we DO discipleship.

I can tell you that there’s hundreds — probably thousands — of books on this very subject. Not to mention the example that Jesus set with His own disciples throughout the Gospels.

And one of the things that we see when we look at the example Jesus set is that the deepest level of discipleship doesn’t tend to happen in large groups.

He had some disciples who followed Him for a time, but only 12 who were with Him from the beginning of His ministry to the end.

And only three of them — Peter, James, and John — received some of His greatest lessons and were with Him at some of His greatest moments.

At the Mount of Transfiguration, for example, where those three saw Jesus in His glory, talking with Moses and Elijah, and where God said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him.”

But there is much in the way of discipleship that CAN be accomplished as we gather together as the Church.

Turn to Colossians, chapter 3. Now, one of the main themes of this letter from Paul to the church in Colosse was walking in Christ, rather than walking in the flesh.

And he argued that if they were walking in Christ, they would put aside all the things of the flesh — anger, and wrath, and malice, and slander, and so on. They would lay aside the old self with all its sins and put on the new self that had been created in the image of Jesus.

Look at verse 12.

Colossians 3:12–15 NASB95

So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful.

In one body, the Church, we are called to become more and more like Jesus, to be disciples of Jesus, followers of Jesus. To be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, patient, forgiving, loving. People of peace who are thankful.

And how do we become that way? Look at verse 16.

Colossians 3:16 NASB95

Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

The first thing to note here is that the pronouns in this verse are plural. To be sure, we should individually do the things in this verse, but Paul very carefully makes the point here that these should be corporate pursuits of the church as a whole.

And there are four elements to discipleship that he mentions here.

First, let the word of Christ richly dwell within you. We should be studying God’s word together, and not just during our worship services on Sunday.

I would even suggest that, by saying the Word should “richly dwell within you,” Paul is encouraging us to memorize Scripture together. There is something powerful about having God’s word on you lips, because it dwells richly in your heart.

Second, Paul says here that Christians should be teaching one another with wisdom.

One of the things I most hate to hear Christians do is to read a verse or a passage and then ask, “Well, what does that mean to you?”

The question we should ask is this: “What does it mean? What did the Holy Spirit mean by it when He inspired the writers to record those words? What did God mean for us to understand about it?”

I understand that you guys haven’t attended seminary. But there are many resources written for laypeople that can help you better understand what the Bible says.

Let me suggest two books, both written for the average person: How the Read the Bible for All Its Worth and Basic Bible Interpretation. Both are excellent resources, and maybe one day we’ll go through them together. But don’t feel as if you have to wait!

And here’s one other thing to note. Paul says here to teach one another! Remember that we’re supposed to be disciple-making disciples. Each of us has a responsibility to Jesus to be discipling someone else, just as we have a responsibility to be BEING discipled.

Find someone a little further along in the faith who can pour wisdom and understanding into you, and then find someone not quite as far along in the faith into whom YOU can pour wisdom and understanding.

Maybe that’s a non-believer, or maybe it’s a believer who is less mature in the faith. But find SOMEONE. I have both in my life — people I am discipling and someone who is discipling ME.

So, study Scripture. Teach and be taught. And now admonish with wisdom.

We’ll talk a bit more about this later on in this series, but you need to understand that discipline is part of discipling. In fact, the two words come from the same root.

Nobody likes to be corrected, but the Bible tells us quite frankly that we are stupid if we don’t love it.

Proverbs 12:1 NASB95

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, But he who hates reproof is stupid.

Church discipline is a sadly overlooked part of the church’s work. And the truth is that too many churches have failed in their calling because they didn’t discipline wayward members at all, much less in the way that Scripture calls us to do so.

So. Study Scripture. Teach and be taught. Admonish with wisdom. And now, sing with thankfulness to God.

It’s amazing to me how much the Bible talks about singing. It’s literally music to God’s ears when we sing praises to Him. And we see here that when we sing psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, we are being discipled.

We are being taught about this Jesus who gave His life so that we sinners can be saved. And we are being taught about how to live our lives as followers who have given up everything to follow Him, because we know that the only things worth having in this life or in eternity are found in Him.

Pay attention to the lyrics in the hymns that we sing. See what you can learn from them about Jesus and His amazing love for us. See what you can learn from them about being a totally submitted follower.

And sing them with thankfulness for God’s grace and mercy, which He manifested most clearly through His Son.

Be a follower. Be a disciple. Be a disciple-making disciple. This, too, is the work of the church. This is why we are here.

Let’s pray.

One of the often-overlooked aspects of the Lord’s Supper is its usefulness in discipling.

Jesus commanded that we observe the Lord’s Supper as an act of obedience to Him and as a way of proclaiming that we who follow Him in faith belong to Him.

But, just as baptism reminds us that we are buried with Christ in the likeness of His death and raised with Him in the likeness of His resurrection, the Lord’s Supper reminds us that our hope for salvation rests entirely on the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf at the cross. It reminds us that our life is in Him.

And the fact that we share bread from one loaf reminds us that we are, together, the body of Christ. It reminds us that we are called to unity of faith, unity of purpose, and unity of love.

And it reminds us that just as He gave up the glory that He had in heaven to come and live a sinless life as a man and give Himself as a substitute for us at the cross, we who have followed Him in faith are called to give up any claims we might think we have to our own lives and follow Him.

If you are a baptized believer who is walking in obedience to Christ, I would like to invite you to join us today as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

Now, this sacred meal dates all the way back to when Jesus shared it with His disciples at the Last Supper on the night before He was crucified.

The conditions during the Last Supper were different than the conditions we have here today, but the significance was the same as it is today.

Jesus told His disciples that the bread represented His body, which would be broken for our transgressions.

Let us pray.

Matthew 26:26 NASB95

While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”

As Jesus suffered and died on that cross, his blood poured out with His life. This was always God’s plan to reconcile mankind to Himself.

“In [Jesus] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.”

Let us pray.

Matthew 26:27–28 NASB95

And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.

Take and drink.

“Now, as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”

Maranatha! Lord, come!

Here at Liberty Spring, we have a tradition following our commemoration of the Lord’s Supper.

Please gather around in a circle, and let us sing together “Blest Be the Tie that Binds.”