A Community Making Disciples
Three Key Takeaways
God's plan is to make us like Jesus, and that's better than we think. We might expect God to do a bit of touching up—fix the roof, check the drains. But God is knocking down walls and building something far more glorious. His plan is to conform us to the image of His Son, not to make us less than we are, but to make us far more.
Discipleship happens through ordinary life and relationships. You don't need to be perfect or have it all sorted to make disciples. If you're one step ahead of someone, you can help them take that next step. If you're two steps ahead, you can help them take those next two steps.
The Lord's Prayer is the key to living as Jesus's disciples. In the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, after giving commands that seem impossible, Jesus teaches us to pray. This prayer is like a cheat sheet for learning to live as disciples. As we pray it, we're transformed into the image of God's Son.
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A Community Making Disciples
At the beginning of this year, we're taking four weeks to revisit a fundamental question: why are we here?
The short answer is simple—we're here to start a church. We're a couple of years into that process, roughly halfway through. In a year or two, we'll be able to say the church we came to start has started and is established, with new questions about what comes next.
But "we're here to start a church" can sound a bit dull, lifeless, or even strange if you're not familiar with church or have never been involved in planting one. That's why we're taking four weeks to give a fuller answer.
Last week we explored what it means to be God-centred and how that's foundational to everything we do. In one sense, it's obvious—what else can a church be focused on other than God? But churches get distracted by many other things. We want to keep at the centre that our whole life as a church is built around the reality of God coming to us in Jesus, present by His Spirit.
This week we're looking at what it means to build a community of disciples. We're doing discipleship 101—exploring what that means, how we go about it, and what it might look like for us.
THE GREAT COMMISSION
The last three verses of Matthew's Gospel capture Jesus's final words to His disciples before ascending to heaven. After Matthew tells the whole story of Jesus being born, His life, teaching, miracles, death, and resurrection, he records this:
"Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'"
Jesus basically gives them a job description. Their task is to make disciples. It's a big job description because it's to make disciples of the whole world. There's a handful of them on a hill in Israel, and Jesus says the whole world needs to be taught to obey everything He's commanded. Probably quite intimidating.
What Is a Disciple?
A disciple is a learner or apprentice, like a trainee. Disciples need to be made. We're not born as disciples of Jesus. It doesn't always come naturally to live as disciples of Jesus. We need to be made into disciples of Jesus.
To become more like Jesus—that's actually God's plan for us. If you're a believer in Jesus, if you're a follower of Him, God predestined you, He chose you in advance to be conformed to the image of His Son.
God chose you not just to forgive you and not just to use you to serve others, but actually to make you more like Jesus, to conform you to something. We normally think of conforming in a bad way because it feels restrictive. Who's going to make me into anything other than what I want to be? But God's plan is to conform us, to become like Jesus Himself, like Christ, which is like God Himself. God's plan is to make us like Him.
This doesn't mean you're being made into something less than what you are. It means you're being made into something more than what you arE.
Two Illustrations from C.S. Lewis
C.S. Lewis uses two powerful illustrations to capture what God is doing in our lives.
The House
Imagine you were a house, and you were like a thinking house, and God bought you. Your expectation would be that God now owns you and He's going to do a little bit of work on the roof, check the drains, maybe a lick of paint. You're expecting Him to just make you look a little bit more presentable, freshen you up a little bit.
After a while of being a Christian, what you discover is God is actually knocking down walls and putting up whole new sections of house and building towers and roofs and turrets. God wants to make you into a castle, into a palace, because God's plan all along was to come and live in you.
There's this resistance—"Why are you doing that? I can understand a bit of paint, but really, does the whole wall need to come down?" But God's plan is to make you into something different to what you are, something much more glorious.
The Masterpiece
If you were a piece of art, if you were just a little idle sketch that someone did to amuse a child, then it wouldn't take very long and it wouldn't take much work. But God has created you and called you to become His masterpiece. So He takes His time and He makes sure, and if something's gone wrong, He scrubs out and starts again.
If you were a thinking piece of art, you'd be forgiven for being annoyed and fed up, thinking, "I wish God would do less on me. I wish God would spend less time trying to make me more and more remarkable."
But Lewis offers this profound insight: if we want that, we have to remember that we'd be asking for God to love us less, not more.
The times where we feel content with who we are now, we need to remember that God's vision for our lives is way bigger than our own. We might be content to stay as we are. God still has faith, vision, excitement, energy, and passion to make us more and more like Christ.
Discipleship is basically that—that's what our lives are primarily about. That's the main reason we're here: to be made more and more like Jesus Himself.
Who Makes Disciples?
The traditional model in many churches is to employ a paid person, or maybe a few paid people, whose job is to disciple everyone else. The problem with this approach is that unless you have loads of money and can employ quite a lot of people, most people don't end up getting discipled.
The biblical model is different. We're all making disciples of each other. This doesn't mean we all need to be at the same level to disciple someone else. The common objection is, "I can't disciple anyone because I don't know enough" or "I haven't got it sorted." But that's not how it works.
If you're one step ahead of someone, you can help them take that next step. If you're two steps ahead, you can help them take those next two steps. You don't need to have arrived to help someone else move forwarD.
The Example of Peter: God Factors In Our Failures
Peter's life shows us how discipleship works in practice. Jesus renamed Simon to Peter, meaning "rock," saying, "On this rock I'm going to build my church." Jesus was essentially saying, "I'm going to make you into something far more glorious than what you would be if I just left you as you were."
But here's the beautiful part. Another time Jesus said to Peter, "Peter, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I've prayed for you that your faith will not fail. And when you rise again, go and strengthen your brothers."
Jesus knew Peter was going to fail. He said, "But I'm praying for you, that after you fail, you get back up again and carry on with the calling I've got for you."
God's transforming purpose took in Peter's failure. Jesus factored that into the equation before He called him. It wasn't "as long as you get everything right, then we're on this journey." Jesus knew Peter would get it wrong, and He was already praying for him to rise up and keep going.
When Jesus calls us, He factors in our foolishness at the beginning. If a few months into following Jesus you do something incredibly foolish, Jesus isn't surprised. He already knew that was part of the deal. If you weren't foolish, you wouldn't need to be transformed. But you are, and that's what He's working with.
As Peter got filled with the Spirit, he went from being fearful to being bold—an amazing transformation you can see throughout his life.
When and Where Does Discipleship Happen?
Jesus spent three years doing life with a small community—walking around, eating meals, having conversations, being in the mess of real life together. That's when discipleship happens. Not in a classroom once a week for an hour, but through the ordinary rhythms of life together.
Discipleship happens everywhere—in homes, in cafés, at work, on walks. Wherever people are doing life togetheR.
How Do We Make Disciples?
Jesus gave us a blueprint in the Sermon on the Mount. Over three chapters in Matthew 5-7, Jesus lays out what life in the Kingdom of God looks like. He gives command after command about how to live.
Love your enemies. Don't be anxious. Don't judge others. Seek first the Kingdom of God. The whole Sermon on the Mount makes it harder, but more beautiful. Over the centuries, people have read it and theologians have concluded it's impossible, it's too hard. The last line of the Sermon on the Mount is "be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect."
When you read all of Jesus's commands, you naturally ask: how do we do that?
The Key: The Lord's Prayer
The key is right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. In chapter 6, Jesus teaches His disciples how to pray. In six or seven lines, He summarises everything. This prayer is deliberately spoken out by Jesus and recorded by His disciples as the key to help us live the life Jesus is describing.
Jesus says, "Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
Right in the middle of that prayer is this phrase: "on earth as it is in heaven." We're going to get the resources of heaven and call them down to our lives on earth through prayer. That's going to transform us into the image of God's Son, Jesus.
Learning to Live as Sons and Daughters of God
We're going to learn to live as Jesus was—this Son of God. We're going to learn to live as sons and daughters of God by praying "our Father in heaven."
Jesus was the ultimate worshipper. We're going to learn to hallow the name of God by saying "your name be hallowed."
Jesus brought the Kingdom of God into earth through His life and teaching. We're going to learn how to bring the Kingdom of God into the world we live in by saying "your kingdom come."
Jesus submitted perfectly to the will of God. We're going to learn, bit by bit, how to do the same by saying "your will be done."
Instead of being anxious about the future, we're going to learn to pray "give us today our daily bread." Whatever we need today, give us that. Not thinking about the future and what we need then, but just now—what do I need now? God, you provide for me.
We'll learn how to confess our sins—"God, forgive me"—and learn how to be forgiving—"as I forgive those who have sinned against me."
Jesus never sinned. We're going to learn how to walk free from sin and temptation by praying "Lord, lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from the evil one."
A Cheat Sheet for Discipleship
As we pray these things, Jesus is basically recognising we can't remember all the commands He's given. This prayer is like a cheat sheet. If we can remember this or have it in our pocket, this will get us quite a long way into learning to live as disciples of Jesus. The rest of it, He'll teach us and help us as we go.
