Being Discipled Through the Church

Jeremy West 3-28-2012 Intro/Recap: Last week we kicked off our new series Discipleship: All In looking at what it means to be Jesus disciple. It is through Spirit empowered discipleship that Jesus takes wimpy, argumentative, flaky, undisciplined and insecure people and transforms them into righteous, courageous, loving, and powerful men & women of God who change the world. Jesus invites us to come and see him, to be with him, and to go all in to follow him. Its not Jesus desire that we be a part of the masses, the crowd, that observes Jesus from afar, shows up at big events, loves the miracles, excitement, teaching, but is not willing to lay down everything to come and follow him on a daily basis. All In with Jesus means All In with His church Discipleship first starts with your heart and life response to the call to follow Jesus Christ. If you do not have an emphatic Yes! in your heart to His call, there is no amount of discipleship, mentoring, teaching, freedom sessions, Life Group meetings, or Spring Break Trips that will help you. However, for those of you have a Yes! in your heart to the call to follow Jesus, to be all in with Jesus, God has designed a very clear, practical, tangible, and beautiful means for discipleship to be walked out in your life right nowhis people, the church! And I dont mean church services, or church buildings, or church programs, but real, living, breathing, people imperfect as they are, but who love Jesus and want to invest in your life so that you grow to become more like Jesus. To be all in with Jesus subsequently means that we are all in with his people (the church)! A lone ranger disciple of Jesus is an oxymoron. Lone ranger disciples of Jesus dont exist. There is no being all in in discipleship with Jesus and being halfway in in discipleship with his church! Your Response to Discipleship in the Church Now many people are great with the idea of discipleship with Jesus, but when we start talking about discipleship in the context of relationships in the church they begin to get nervous or back peddle saying, this is not what I signed up for. Usually this is because of one of two reasons: Pride we think we are awesome, we are gifted, we know it all, we dont need anybody speaking into our life, we can figure it out ourselves. How we love and submit to the body of Christ is an indicator of how truly we are submitted to Jesus. Eph. 5:21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Story: JK sharing his encounter with God while playing my song. Song writing process for Beautiful God. Played song for JK & Jacob to get honest feedback. They encouraged me, exposed problems, corrected, & gave input. People telling me like it is helped me grow and in turn equipped me to impact others. If through discipleship in the church God used a submitted worship song to impact peoples lives, what would He do with you if in discipleship you submitted your values, your schedule, your dating relationship, how you spend your money, your spiritual gifts. Shame we are deeply wounded, broken, or dysfunctional because of sin, so we dont want to let anyone into our life, to know us, for fear of further rejections and hurt. James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. Story: Man loses thumb on bull ride. It would be an understatement to say that his thumb

was wounded, broken, and dysfunctional. However, in order to save and fully heal his thumb, doctors sewed his thumb into his stomach. After several months, the thumb was fully healed and equipped to fulfill its purpose as a part of the body.

We are all to some degree wounded, messy, broken, and dysfunctional. God has saved us and sewn us into the Body of Christ where through intentional discipleship we can be healed and equipped to fulfill our purpose as part of the Body!

God would have you respond with humility and honesty to the invitation for discipleship in the church. As you respond in this way you will grow exponentially in Christ and will be equipped to impact the world. What Does Discipleship Look Like? You will hear this word a lot in our vision because it is the core element to our college ministry at Beltway in helping people be transformed and transform the world. Not programs, not big events, but life on life discipleship in the context of a community we call Life Groups. So I want to impart vision for what it means for each of us to practically step out of the crowd and jump ALL IN to being discipled through the local church. Even more specifically I want to give vision for what discipleship looks like in the ministry of College Park. What do we mean by discipleship? Discipleship is one person helping another person become a lifelong obedient follower of Jesus who makes other disciples. We are all on the journey running after Jesus, and it is through submitting to one another in intentional discipleship relationships that we get to be helped and help others in the journey of becoming like Jesus. We are all becoming. No one is perfected yet, but we are all on the journey helping each other become like Jesus, and so we want to be intentional about it! 5 things Discipleship is not (show pics with each one): 1) Having a Personal Moses a. Not somebody that takes the place of the Holy Spirit in your life. i. 1 John 2:27 But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everythingand is true and is no lie, just as it has taught youabide in him. b. Not someone who does the work for you while you party down at the bottom of the mountain. c. Not someone to tell you what to do so you dont have to seek God and make decisions, but someone giving guidance, counsel, and confirmation. i. Nothing can replace the importance of you hearing God for yourself 2) Your Personal Processor of Life a. It is a bad expectation that discipleship is somebody taking 3-4 hours a week to meet with you at a coffee shop and listen to you process your week. Theres another word for that: its called a spouse, maybe a best friend or counselor. b. Jesus himself didnt give consistent alone time to any one of the disciples. He always was with them in groups, sometimes all 12, sometimes 3, but never was he consistently with only 1. c. Processing life is a legitimate need we all have and can be met with close friends, but the goal of discipleship is teaching and modeling Kingdom values, not just talking about your feelings. i. This is why we encourage Discipleship Groups. They help both the leader and the group

1. Leaders dont burn out 2. People build accountable friendships example of James/Austin/ Nathan

3) Parental Force Feeding a. You must take initiative to follow Jesus and seek him out. b. The hungry will eat. No ones going to make you do anything, you have to hunger for it. c. Discipleship in the church is feeding the hunger that is already there example of Aarons question to learn to share the gospel A Programmed Structure 4) a. Man is looking for better methods, God is looking for better men. Man is Gods method. b. Its not a classroom or method that changes people, but seeing the Kingdom values lived out life on life. c. Our culture (even Christian culture) promotes the idea that more information leads to transformation. Life on life impartation leads to transformation example of learning to be a pastor by getting under one! Perfect Eternal Friendship 5) a. Jesus had the 12, but at times we see him with just 3. He had to narrow his relationships some to fulfill the call on his life. b. Discipleship requires relationship and friendship, but it is a false expectation that it is a perfect friendship where you will get hours and hours of hanging out time with someone who has your same personality type. c. Nor is it an eternal relationship! It is for a season and for a specific purpose that God wants to accomplish in your life. Jesus is your eternal friend, your life group and/or d-group leader is not. d. At different stages in your spiritual journey you will need more or less time example baby needs lots of attention, adult does not. e. Seasons of lifefreshmen vs. those working full time i. I spend more hours with the freshmen guys I disciple each week than with my best friends. ii.Be thankful for the time you get How Do I Get Discipled & What Does It Look Like? 1) Connect to a Life Group! a. Genuine discipleship requires a measure of proximity to those investing in you and you need to be a part of a group where you can live out the values of the kingdom. 2) Initiate with People a. It starts with hunger in us, not with waiting around i. John 1:37-39these guys sought Jesus out b. Go humbly in love and be persistent i. Id love to get some time with youCan I serve you? Can I run errands with you? Can I come help you clean your house? ii.Go to your LGL humbly and ask is there a guy or girls d-group I can get connected to in this group? Or is there someone you could recommend me initiating with? Walk in humility! Not trying to rank ourselves or see what person iii. is the most spiritual that I can get next to (pride). 1. You may be more spiritual, but they may be able to share the gospel and you need to grow in that.

3) Do the Kingdom! a. Matthew 7:24 Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. b. Mark 4:24 Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you. c. The primary focus of discipleship is doing the things Jesus did, putting into practice the kingdom values in the word of God! Not just hearing about it, talking about it, theorizing about it, debating about it, but doing it! *We will talk more about this next week! 4) Make Other Disciples of Jesus! a. I thought we were talking about being discipledI am! An essential part of you growing is you investing in someone else! We learn 20% of what we receive, but 80% of what we teach! i. Hebrews 5:12 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. b. Some of you are stagnating in your faith because you have settled to be a consumer of discipleship, freedom ministry, and other peoples time, and are making no effort and taking no responsibility to invest in others. i. 2 Tim. 2:2 What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. c. Stage one of discipleship is someone investing in you, and that should continue, but if you want to continue to grow, you must seek to make disciples! Ask your leader if there is someone you can disciple? Humbly make yourself available to pour into others. Response: What is the word that God is impressing on your heart tonight? What is God calling you to do with this message? Some of you have baled on discipleship in the church because of pride or shame. God is calling you to lay it down and submit to community. Some of you have had false expectations of discipleship and so you either became offended at those seeking to disciple you. God is calling you to repent respond accordingly. Some of you have been offended at others because they didnt seek you out in discipleship, but you havent sought them out either. Tonight God is challenging you to seek out discipleship. Some of you have been discipled in this ministry, but you have settled for consuming discipleship and have not stepped out to make disciples. God is calling you to step out.