The Passions of Christ - Making Disciples
Pastor Glenn Newton
March 6, 2005
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matt. 28:18-20
JN 20:19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
JN 20:21 Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." John 20:19-21
This morning we will continue our look at those things that we can identify in Scripture that Jesus Christ was very passionate about during His ministry… and of coarse we believe He is still passionate about… through us.
I want to make sure your with me this morning… so I’m going to ask a question, you give me the answer.. OK?
When you think of Tyson, what do you think of? (chicken)
What is it that Sara Lee is producing at their plant? (panty hose)
What about McDonalds, what are they producing? (Big Mac… Hamburgers) Remember their signs that used to read (billions served)?
Whitson Morgan… what do they sell everyday? (Ford)
How about the Hospital, what do they provide? (health care, hopefully)
What about the High School, what are they trying to produce? (graduates)
All of these enterprises are all about producing a product that will benefit you and I, and when they do it well they also benefit from it also, right… they get paid.
I ask you this morning… What should a healthy, growing church be producing as it’s product? As a result of a person coming into our church, accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior and being involved in all that we do here at the church…. What should be the end result? A Reproducing Disciple.
George Orwell’s statement, “We now have sunk to such a depth that the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men,” deserves a look. What I would suggest to you this morning is this….. The obvious observation is that the church needs to upgrade it’s product….. We can call it renewal, restoration, or revival… But our churches in general have not been producing healthy growing reproducing disciples as we have been commanded to by our Lord.
This morning I don’t want to spend my time defending that statement, I will just ask one question and I want you that have been in the church for over a year to answer this to yourself…. How many disciples have I made, how many have I led to the Lord and then spent time nurturing them and encouraging them in the ways of the Lord?
This morning I believe that you and I understand the “go” part of this Great commission, we are in fact learning right now on Sunday nights how to better “go”, wherever you go is the implication from the Greek, “as you are going”.. in other words, as you are going through your daily work, your daily life….. Make disciples… wherever you are, whatever job you have, find people who are close to you and teach them, win them, and train them to be Christ followers.
Let’s bring this to where we live right now…. We have read what Jesus instructed us to do…. I look around this morning and see a good number of new Christians who have been saved in the last couple of years… We’ve actually been doing a good job of winning lost people, and I believe we are working on the discipleship, but we need to do more as individuals… taking responsibility for each person. If you have been a Christian for more than a year, you should be focusing not just on your own personal growth, but also now you should be allowing God to use you to mentor, to disciple someone else.
For to long we have treated our new converts like a cake mix. Now I’m not an expert cook so forgive me if I don’t get this exactly right….. But in many ways we treat our new people like they are a cake mix…..
They come to church, most likely because someone invited them, someone befriended them and loved them enough to invite them to church… they started coming, and at a point in time…. This new person makes a personal commitment to follow Jesus Christ…and then the cake mix discipleship program starts….
A. We give them a Bible… and tell them read this.
B. We give them a manual for the church and we say… believe this…
C. We give them our schedule of services and say… attend these
D. We have a job opening, so we say serve here…
We have given them everything they need to succeed and we expect a beautiful disciple to appear after all those ingredients are mixed into their life…. All those things are good and needed…. But we have left out the most important ingredient….. Do you know what that is?
Jesus poured His life into His disciples. The most important thing that you can give your new convert is You. This new follower needs someone to look up to, to ask questions too, to be accountable too, to walk through those tough times with…. Can’t you see Jesus with His 12 disciples? Talking, playing, working together, learning from watching the Master… learning by the things He says, how He says them, by the things He doesn’t say… learning by His example.
We consider ourselves a Great Commission Church…. But I ask you today, who are you pouring your life into on a weekly basis? Who is learning from you? Have you allowed yourself to get close enough to someone so they could learn from you? Or are we so busy doing our own thing that we are neglecting the most important thing?
This last Thursday night at our Men’s meeting at Slim’s house was the best meeting I think we have ever had….. I’ve been thinking about that meeting ever since…. There were 7 of us there and we all were blessed, it was a great time of sharing, confession, and encouragement…. One of the reasons that I think it was so good was because my Father-in-law was there… let me explain why I say that….. He’s been a Christian for I think He said 50 years or so…. As different questions, were raised… he could draw on 50 years of walking with the Lord, 50 years of being refined, being disciplined, 50 years of growing in grace… and so we all were inspired and challenged. A big part of discipleship is passing on what you know, Your Faith, your Wisdom, Your Passion, Your commitment, Your convictions… all these things can be passed from one generation to the next in the church……. IF. And this is a big If…. If we will make time for each other…. If we will pour ourselves out as a love offering to the young Christians around us.
Look around our church… We are desparate for some mentor’s, some who will take our Young Christians under their influence and help them understand and grow in Grace.
One of the reasons I believe God has opened the door for my Dad to come to Clarksville is for the very reason that I’m talking this morning…. To help disciple all of our young Christians…. But please hear me this morning… this is not a clergy thing….. This command to make disciples was given to everyone… to all Christians… to you and to me.
How do we know when we are succeeding in our discipleship effort?
When a Disciple is made two good things happen:
A. a disciple is healthy and godly
B. disciples reproduce themselves, resulting in multiplication.
When this happens disciples solve the crisis at the heart of the church. Disciple making creates a quality product, (healthy and Godly men and women), and it also produces a effective work force… This is God’s plan for the church.
This morning I want to close with what Jesus has said about what a disciple does, Listen closely and ask yourself… is this describing me… If not, then pray and ask the Lord to help you in whatever area you have a need.
Luke 9:23-25 A disciple “is willing to deny self, take up a cross daily, and follow Him.”
Luke 14:25-35 A disciple “Puts Christ before self, family, and possessions.”
John 8:31 A disciple “Is committed to Christ’s teachings” This speaks to His Word
Matt. 9:36-38 A disciple “Is committed to world evangelism”
John 13:34,35 A disciple “Loves others as Christ loves”
John 15:7-17 A disciple “abides in Christ, is obedient, bears fruit, glorifies God, has joy and loves the brethren.”
If a person is not willing to make such commitments, Jesus declares emphatically three times, “He cannot be my disciple.”
I read a story this week about an event that happened in Washington DC a couple of years ago. The city scheduled a marathon race on a Sunday morning, ignoring the protests of the many pastor’s in town… the race would hold up traffic for 30 minutes as those who were trying to get to church were making their way through town. Attendance throughout the city of Washington DC was down 50% on that given Sunday on average in every church all through the city.
Half the people decided that waiting 30 minutes in traffic on the way to church was too big of a hassle, so they stayed home. I wonder what would happen to our attendance if every Sunday you had to face some obstacles in order to get here, how big an obstacle would it take to keep you away from worshiping your Lord?
There are men and women today, this morning who have risked their very lives in order to sing choruses, to listen to God’s Word being preached, to bring a friend to church…. They literally have put their lives in God’s hands just to attend church…..
God Help Us To Wake Up and Realize How Important our Relationship with God Is…. God help us to be Passionate about the Same things You are!
Are you passionate about Being a true disciple of Jesus Christ? If you are… then you will also be passionate about Making Disciples…. Do you realize Jesus spent his whole ministry discipline 12 men… Why? Because He understood and was modeling for us what it would take to build the Kingdom… It takes commitment to making disciples, and being a disciple so that others can look and see what a committed follower of Jesus Christ looks like.
My stop at Sonic…..
Will you be a disciple maker? Who are you pouring your life into? Will you allow others here today, will you allow them to get close enough to you so that you can teach them? It takes great effort to make disciples… but what a great reward!
