The Jesus Way of Disciple-Making, Part 2

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.