The Jesus Way of Disciple-Making

In the words of theologian J.I. Packer, looking at the Western church, especially in the United States, he said this: "Christianity is 3000 miles wide and a half inch deep."

Dallas Willard, USC, professor, philosopher and Christian speaker on the role of discipleship wrote this: "The greatest issue..." Not facing the church, "The greatest issue facing the world today with its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who are identified as Christians will become disciples” -- students, apprentices, practitioners -- “of Jesus Christ and learn from Him how to live the life of the Kingdom of Heaven into every corner of human existence.”

And finally, perhaps the most authoritative group currently in the world of evangelical believers, the Lausanne Movement and Conference has evaluated the church over the last decade, and says: The number one need in the church of Jesus Christ globally is discipleship. The actual learning and practice of not just understanding what Jesus taught but actually following Him and living out the life that He actually lived.

Well, what I want to do in our time together is talk about how do we experience this life that Jesus promised?

Well, to look at that, let's look at the actual invitation of Jesus. What did He promise? What did He say? What did He offer? And how does it work?

Remember Jesus said, "I came that you might have life and you might have it abundantly," John 10:10. The problem is there are not a lot of followers of Jesus that are experiencing that overflowing, abundant life.

If you've ever watched an NFL game, you know the most famous verse in all of scripture is John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shouldn't perish but have eternal life."

And what I want to do in our time together is talk about what is that eternal life? How does it actually get lived out? Well, Jesus gives us His own definition in John 17, verse 3.

He says, "This is eternal life, that they may know You," speaking of God the Father, "the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." It's an equality of life. It's not just quantity.

I thought for years that eternal life was something you get after you die because you're a Christian, and you've trusted in what Christ did on the cross for you and His resurrection. But that's not what Jesus taught.

Jesus taught that eternal life certainly goes on forever and ever, but eternal life is the actual life of Christ that comes and takes up residence inside of you, and it goes on forever and ever and ever. And God's plan is that we would actually, little by little by little, on this journey of discipleship, we would become more and more and more like Jesus.

Well, how does it work? How do we become those kind of people? Let me invite you to follow along with the very invitation of Jesus. Let's go back to the beginning. I want to get very, very clear on the basics.

So, Jesus said this in Matthew 11:28-30. This is Jesus' invitation to you and to me and to everyone. He says, "Come unto Me, all of you that are weary and heavy-laden," especially heavy-laden with religion. Heavy-laden with the pace of life, weary with trying so hard to be a good person, overwhelmed with all the demands, all the messages that we get.

Here's what qualifies us. If you're heavy-laden and overwhelmed and you need help, here's the invitation. He says, "Come to Me," and then notice the promise, "and I will give you rest."

And then here's the next step that I don't think is being taught or followed. He says, "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me," why? "For I am gentle and humble and heart."

In other words, this isn't signing up for a new job. This is Jesus saying: Come to Me - this eternal life, this new kind of life, this life of power and love and joy and peace. I'm gentle and humble and it's a process, "and we're going to learn in a minute what that yoke is and what it looks like.

And then He goes on to say, "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me. I am gentle and humble in heart," and here's the promise, "and you will find rest for your souls."

And then here's the part that when most Christians read this, including me, you think, Really? "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

I did a little research on this and here's what I can tell you. We must come to Jesus and learn from Him, if we're to experience the life that He promised.

When you look at this passage, look at our responsibilities, they're pretty simple.

The first is to come. To put your faith in Christ, to believe on His work, on the cross, that He died in your place, He paid for your sin, He rose from the dead, and by the grace of God, you have been forgiven and you receive that by faith.

And then notice when we come, the promise is rest and peace and acceptance.

And then He says, "Take my yoke."

Here's what you need to understand. When He says, "Take my yoke," He was saying: I want you to submit to My teaching. I want you to learn it. I want you to embrace it and I want you to follow it. And then I want you to imitate My lifestyle.

Then notice finally this idea of learning. When we learn something, A) it's a process; 2) it takes time; and 3) - are you ready for this? - it takes practice.

Coming to Jesus is an event and a lifelong process of learning to follow His example and His teaching.

The event is salvation, okay? Yes, you trust in Christ at a certain day, at a certain time. I recognize, you recognize you fall short of the glory of God and we turn from our sin and in the empty hands of faith, we receive Christ, right?

"Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord, Jesus Christ." Romans 5:1. That's the event.

And then there's a process, and the process is discipleship.

Once people heard the message to come, then Jesus said, "Follow Me. Follow Me." That means: Do what I do, follow in My footsteps. “… and you will become fishers of men."

And He didn't mean they would just become evangelists. What He meant was, "I'm the rabbi, you become My apprentice. You follow in My steps. And then the day will come when you will have others follow in your steps. You will be a fisher of men, like a good rabbi is, who has an academy of disciples that submit to his teaching and want to be with him and emulate his lifestyle."

And finally, there's a path. There's a way to get there. And Jesus said: Here's the path, or the way, or the road to get there. John 14:6: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except by Me."

Jesus' life is the path. Jesus is the path Himself. That little word where He says, "I'm the way," in Greek, it's the word “hodos.” It's translated path. It's translated a road.

In all the wisdom literature, if you read Proverbs or often many of the Psalms, you'll hear about, there's a way that seems right to a man, but it ends in death. But there's the way of the righteous. There's the way of the wicked.

There is a path, or a pattern if you will, that followers of God have followed that bring life and righteousness and life change. And there are paths of selfishness and self-righteousness and wickedness and lying that take us down paths that lead to death.
And so, it wasn't just Jesus’ teaching, but there was this path or His practice.

Listen carefully. If you want to experience the life that God offers, here's the key. We need to not just listen and believe what Jesus taught. We need to practice what He practiced.

Jesus practiced two things throughout His life. He practiced dependency on the Spirit of God and submission to the Father's will.

As you study His life, you will find that He did three very essential practices.

He came before God regularly.

The longest day of His whole ministry was Mark 1:35. He's healed deep into the night. He's cast out demons. He's been rejected. He's had all these things happen. It was early morning, late night, and it says the very next day, a great while before dawn, He arose and went to a lonely place. And there He spent time with His Father recalibrating.

He was always depending on the Father, He was fully God, but He lived as a perfect human being dependent. He did all of His work by the power of the Holy Spirit. You read the book of Luke. I actually jotted them down. In Luke chapter 5, verse 16; chapter 9, verse 18, verse 28; chapter 11, multiple, multiple times.

And as he tells the story of Jesus, he says, and Jesus slips away to get by Himself and pray; or, when Jesus taught His disciples how to pray - and He shocked them - "Our Father."

Jesus' practice was to come before God daily. To live before the face of God. He not only met with Him privately and spent time with Him, but He was living out the presence of God, keeping His eye, in the midst of all the things He's doing in His life. He's keeping this sense of the presence and the power of the Father. Am I pleasing Him? Am I doing His will? Am I listening to what He wants me to do?

The second thing Jesus did is He did life in community.

He comes out of the baptism water, and John the Baptist says, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. A couple of His disciples said, "Wow."

And so, they go up to Jesus. "Jesus, where are you staying?" Jesus says, "Come see."

And they spend the day together and He just hung out with them and He said, "I'm going to go to a wedding. Would you guys like to come?"

And He hung out with them and He spent time in relationship. And then, later on, when He began to see the ministry as moving forward, and He'd done miracles and established His credentials by the miracles and the power, He prayed all night and He chose 12... Are you ready for this? ... That they might be with Him? He did life in community. He wanted them to understand that this is the practice.

And then, the very last night He takes a towel, takes off His outer garment, He washes their feet and He says to them, "I, being your Lord and master, have served you. Blessed are you if you love one another in the same way." Jesus lived in community. He says to them, "I have longed for this hour that I could share it with you."

When He's going to the cross, He asks three of His closest disciples, "I need you. I want to be with you." He's not doing it on His own. "Will you pray with Me?"

Jesus had three major practices. He came before God daily. He did life and community. And He was on mission 24/7.

When He went to that lonely place to pray, I believe what He was doing is recalibrating.

All the disciples came and said, "Lord, Lord, I mean the massive crowds and the miracles and all the people that got healed, the crowds, they all want you. They want you, they want you."

And in Mark 1, right after verse 35, He says... It's a very interesting phrase in the Greek New Testament, He says, "I must..." It's what's called a “dei” of necessity. He says, "I must go to other villages for that is why I came."

He was tempted to get pulled into the crowd, into the popularity. But Jesus says this: "My mission is to seek and to save that which is lost. For the Son of Man did not come into the world to be served but to serve and give His life a ransom for many."

Jesus constantly had three practices along with His teaching, and what He did is He said, "Gentlemen, this is the way I live," and then He taught them to follow the way. And it's when we absorb His teaching, and then submit to His lifestyle, that's when we begin to experience the very eternal life that He talked about.

In fact, don't take my word for it. Jesus clearly taught His disciples what was required to continually experience the supernatural life He gave to them. He says to them, "You must come before God."

His very last night, right? Very last night. What's He going to say to them? He gives them hope in John 14, right? "I'm preparing a place for you." And then they go out and He knows that within hours He's going to be crucified. And He takes them to a vineyard, and He's at this vineyard and He begins to say to them... Read John chapter 15, the first 11 verses. And what's He do?

"The father's a vine dresser. I am the true vine." And then He talks about, "Here's the deal, just stay connected to me. You've been around me physically, you've seen me, but my very life is going to come and dwell in you."

He promised in chapter 14 He was going to send the Spirit. In chapter 16, He gives them the details, and then He says to them, "If you abide in my Word and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish."

He says, "By this, my father is pleased that you bear much fruit." What's the fruit? That you become like Jesus, that you care like Jesus, that you love like Jesus.

He talked to them the first 11 verses about coming before God and staying connected through God's Word and prayer and their connection to one another, and then He says, "The only way to do this is in community with one another. Greater love has no one than this," verses 12, 13, 14 in John 15, "that one laid down his life for his friends."

He's saying to the disciples, you can't do this alone. You need deep, authentic community relationship with one another, where you really share your hurts and your struggles, where you hold each other accountable, where you're willing to literally lay down your lives for one another.

And after that He said, "You did not choose me, but I choose you. No longer do I call you slaves, but I've called you friends. For all things the Father's revealed to me, I've made known unto you." And then He says to them, again, "Love one another."

As you go through the whole chapter, John 15, He talks about "the Spirit will bear witness of me," and then He says, "and you all disciples will bear witness of me."

When you look at the final thing that He says, He tells them in order to be a follower and this eternal life experienced, He modeled it, number one, and then He taught them all through the gospels, and especially in John 15, to experience the life of Jesus, you need to come before God daily. You need to do life. The apostles would later say weekly because they would have a love feast and they would eat together and they would share the Lord's Supper and they would meet from house to house.

Finally, you need to be on mission 24/7. "I came to seek and to say that which was lost."

He's saying, "You are going to be little Christ-like ones and the mission that I had, now I give to you. All power and Heaven and earth has been given to Me."

Those were His final and last words. "Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations," all ethnic groups, literally, "baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them not to just listen or learn, teaching them to obey all the things that I taught you."

And then here's the promise, "You'll never be alone. I will be with you always, even to the ends of the earth."

What I want you to see is that Jesus' life, His actual practice, His yoke, His way, His steps, what He actually did had three essential practices.

He did it. He taught the disciples to do it - He expected them to do it. They did it. And as they did it, what happened? They turned the world upside down.
Most Christians I've met have never had anyone help them learn the ways of Jesus. No one sat down with them and said,
"I know it's a big book and it might be hard to understand, but believe me, with a little work, just like playing the piano or the guitar and with practice, you actually can learn to study the Bible because it was written for the common people."

I had a bricklayer do that for me. I was a brand-new Christian. I came from that social church. I had rejected God because of the hypocrisy. And then I went away to college, and within the first two days, a bricklayer, a blue-collar worker with a high school education. What did he do? He said, "Hey, Chip, how about 7:00 Tuesday mornings I'll come down and I'll help you learn the ways of Jesus."

And then we would go to the little kitchenette, and we'd open the Bible, and he taught me how to read the Bible. He taught me how to understand it, just little by little.

He said, "Don't worry about what you don't understand. Just ask God to show you. And when He speaks to you, just obey. That's what's important. And trust Him."

And then pretty soon I had dinner at his house and I was having community and the fullback was there and two other guys, and pretty soon we just had a little group that we met with Dave and he loved us. And I ate so many meals at his house and I watched what a Christian marriage looks like, and he had four kids, and I watched what a dad looked like. I came from a home where my dad was an alcoholic. I'd never seen these things.

And here's what I want you to know. Yes, I learned the Bible. Yes, I learned to pray. But what I realized that really happened, I learned the ways of Jesus. That's what it's all about. It's about Jesus living His life through you, moment by moment, every day.

And the way that happens is coming before God on a regular basis, so you get to see who He really is. So, you can grasp that He's your Father and that He loves you and He has a plan.

And it's about doing life and community. So, you experience His love and you have a friendship with God the Father and friendship with other brothers and sisters in Christ.

And then it's doing what Jesus did. It's being on mission, at home, and in little things.

And then eventually we'll talk about discovering your gifts and realizing you have a calling.

As I was studying all of this, I came across something that I just have to share with you. It was really, really, really exciting. In fact, let me pause for just a minute, because this idea of coming before God to really experience joy - you know, the psalmist says, "In God's presence is fullness of joy."

Jesus, in John 15, when He talked about coming before God, He says, "These things I've spoken to you that My joy would be in you and your joy might be made full."

And then when I see this love relationship in the body of Christ and how we experience God's love through community with one another, and then just the peace, the sense of purpose, when you fulfill and know what you're here for and you do it, it's just amazing.

And so, I was on a long plane trip, I mean long, long plane trip, about 14 hours total, and I was thinking these things through and I decided... I do this a lot. I thought, "Lord, in my mind, I just want to go through all of scripture, do these themes of coming before God, doing life in community and being on mission. Where do they come from? And are they really consistent through the whole Bible?"

And so, I started studying Genesis 1, and the lights came on. And it was like, "Wait a second. You know, so, we're made in the image of God. God actually is our Father. He wanted a family and He wants children that are like Him, who reflect His glory."

And so, the whole goal of God the Father is that we would know Him and He would know us. And then you had this picture of Jesus comes in His pre-incarnate body and He walks with Adam. We get this picture of a very regular rhythm in the cool of the night where they would come and take walks together. God wants to be our friend before there was sin. And then even before there was sin or a problem with work, He gave Him a mission or a mandate.

And just as God created the universe, He said to mankind, to Adam and Eve, this man and this woman, "I want you to be fruitful, I want you to multiply, and then I want you to rule and have domain and have a mission. I want you to get the joy of creating the way I've created, to rule the way I rule, and let's do it in partnership." I thought, "Wow."

Then, in my mind, I skipped over to Revelation chapter 21 and 22, and I thought, "Even after sin and all the things that Jesus did, where does it begin? The marriage supper of the Lamb. There's a new Heaven and there's a new Earth and it's a perfect environment. Now there's this family, right? Jesus is the bridegroom and His church is the bride. And then we have no sun or no moon, and the Lamb is the light. We have this friendship that's unhindered by sorrow or pain or death or betrayal.

And then what I realized was we will never grasp the role of these practices or the importance of the practices if we simply think, "Okay, I need to be in the Bible. Okay, I read three chapters. I'm supposed to pray. I'm trying to learn to practice. I go to a Bible study..."

If that's your mentality, you will miss it. God wants you to experience what He wanted in the garden, and God wants you to experience what we're going to experience in the new Heaven and the new Earth.

Yes, we need to learn the teaching of Jesus, but He wants us to learn relationally, to abide and come before God. He wants us to understand that we can't do it alone, and have deep, authentic, wonderful relationships with one another.

Then He wants us to have these outside eyes where we're on mission 24/7, from the moment I get up thinking, "What does my wife need?" Or if you have children or my roommate. And when I drive out my driveway or out of my apartment, think, "All these people here, I'm an ambassador for Christ. I may be the only Christian people know. When I show up at work, where are my eyes? How do I help other people? How do I represent Jesus?"

That's the life. And it's not a life of when you do those things, you earn God's favor. No, no, no. These practices are doing what the disciples did, hanging with Jesus, listening to Jesus, doing what Jesus actually did, and your desires change and your focus changes and your heart changes, and you begin to do what Jesus did. He did everything in dependency on the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, living the power of His life through you and me and pleasing the Father.

And what I want you to know is that's God's grand, grand plan. It's the way of God, to become like Jesus. And my observation after these many, many years is that the average Christian doesn't understand that. The average Christian thinks that going to church a couple times a month, being a nice person, putting our kids in a good environment, in a good church program, maybe even a Christian school, that that is going to transfer the life of Christ into the life of your family and your friends.

And the evidence is whether it's Gallup or whether it's Pew or whether it's Barna, the evidence is the lack of discipleship has created a church that is anemic, where most Christians lives don't look much like the Savior. There's very little power. The average follower of Christ has never led another person to Christ.

And many people have this warped idea that they need to do certain things all the time in order to get God to love them, instead of understand that you will never be more loved than you are right now, and that the Spirit of God dwells inside every believer and He's giving His life-giving Word that you can learn to understand and then put into practice, and do life with other fellow believers in very open, vulnerable, accepting, and accountable relationships.

And as you serve and care for other people, you give your life away, and Jesus' words ring true. Give and it will be given unto you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running back into your lap. The distance between God's ultimate goal in Revelation 21 and 22, His fulfillment and His desires over here in the garden, that distance of how did He build the bridge and make the rescue, is all found in Colossians chapter 1.

And what you see in Colossians chapter 1, verses about 13-20, is you see the desire of God and the heart of God and the fulfillment of God and how Jesus' life and mission and all that He did builds the bridge so you and I can experience that progressively more and more in this life - now.

I'm going to read this passage. I want you to listen very, very carefully. Don't know what you're doing. Don't know where you're sitting. I want you to lean back, but I want you to say, "Oh God, help me to really, really listen.

Listen to what Jesus did and then listen for how this allows us to come before God. How this begins to create a life in community, and how we now have a mission that's the very same mission as Jesus."

Paul writes, empowered by the Holy Spirit in Colossians 1, verse 13, "For He,” God, “rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, namely the forgiveness of our sins."

“He,” Jesus, “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn,” literally, the word means first in rank, “of all creation.” Well, why?

"For by Him all things were created, both in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities,” notice this, “all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also the head of the body, of the church; and He's the beginning, the firstborn from the dead," why?

"So that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness,” the fullness of deity, “to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself… through the blood of His cross.” Through Him, I say, 'Whether things on earth or things in heaven.”

Jesus' life, Jesus' death, Jesus' resurrection, have made it possible that we can come before God and know Him.

Know Him genuinely. Exhaustively know, genuinely and fully, and as we know Him as our Father watching over us, helping us, loving us. It produces joy unimaginable.

Second, because of what Jesus did, we can love Him and experience His love as friends and in community.

Community just like the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have community. Remember? "I'm in the Father and the Father's in Me, and I in you and you in Me, and the Spirit in Us." There's this beautiful picture of community and relationship that God says, "What I share in the Godhead, I want you to share with Me and I want you to share with one another." That's how we experience God's love.

And finally, just as we were partners in the garden, we will be partners in the new Heaven and the new Earth.

He says, "Jesus is reconciling all things to Himself" - and He's given us, what? - the ministry of reconciliation.

So, what went wrong?

You know, at this point I hope you're saying, Okay, Chip, number one is my head's spinning a little bit, but I'm getting the Before God - In Community - and On Mission.

I'd like to suggest that traditionally the Church has embraced and taught the truths that I've shared with you for generations, but have not practiced what Jesus actually did to experience the supernatural life of joy and love and peace that He offers.

See, the application is we have to practice the way of Jesus. We have to arrange our lives, and here's the tough part, arrange our lives around the busyness arrange our lives where the distractions of the phone... Arrange our lives where the most important thing each day, every day, is to come before our Heavenly Father who wants to help us, who knows all things. To arrange our lives where we have not superficial, in the car or driving here and there, but deep, authentic relationships that take time and energy and sacrifice and where we arrange our lives, where we actually, our focus is serving and helping other people, and as we give our life away, we begin to find it.

That means that we come before God daily, we do life and community, and we're on mission 24/7.

And what I want you to know, it's possible. We can address the discipleship deficit. It's never too late. It'll take some work.

But in this series, I'm going to teach you how not just to understand the theory, but how to specifically come before God to hear His voice, to study the scriptures, to know this is the direction for your life, for that business meeting, or for the challenge with one of your kids, or an addiction that you're struggling with, or a mental health issue. You have a heavenly Father. That when we apply the truth, it sets us free.

Second, in the series, you're going to learn how to do life in community.

Not just the theory, but the actual practice of what it looks like and what you need to think, and then what you need to do to experience the kind of community that God longs for you to have.

And third, we're going to learn to be on mission 24/7.

And we'll dig into not only being the servant, but understanding - are you ready? - you have a calling.

You are God's workmanship. That you have a set of gifts and He's going to use your background and your strengths and your natural talents. And you have an Ephesians 2:10 calling from God, and a set of spiritual gifts to develop, that you can be used in ways that you would never imagine.

That excites me. It'll be a journey. It'll require practice. We'll definitely need one another, but I want you to know that you can gain the confidence to be just a regular, ordinary person like my friend, the bricklayer, who has disciples like me from just that little college ministry over many years on every continent, I believe, in the world.

You see, you don't have to be famous, you don't have to write a book, you don't have to go to Bible college, you don't have to go to seminary. When you follow the teaching of Jesus and you practice the way of Jesus, you will become more and more like Jesus.

And when a son or a daughter lives with a mom or a dad or a roommate that is a lot like Jesus, it changes them and it attracts them, and God begins to do the amazing kind of things that we all long for and that we read about, but somehow have begun to accept that that happened way back then, and it could never happen through an ordinary person like me or like you.