All to Him I Owe

Making disciples is not a complicated process, but it is a lot of work that requires lots of sacrifice. Have you noticed that people do not coordinate their struggles with your schedule? In the process of your effort to make disciples, you will find that your friends will need help at inconvenient times in ways that will be uncomfortable for you. You will spend great amounts of time, personal assets, and energy as you come alongside them to help them walk with the Lord. At times, it will be discouraging and disappointing. Sometimes the people you help most will hurt you the most with their responses to your care. You may lose friends along the way, have your motives questioned, and have lies told about you. You may be taken advantage of and treated with great disdain. So why in the world would anyone want to do the work of discipleship?

First, we should be disciple makers, because Jesus commanded us to be one. The Great Commission is not just a command to give the gospel. It is also a command to make disciples! Disciple making is not something I may do if I want to and have time. It is something I must do because God told me to. Our church will be a healthy church when we see discipleship as something we must do and not something we might do if it is convenient.

Second, we should be disciple makers, because it is one of the supreme ways we tell God that we love Him. Remember when Christ asked Peter if he loved Him? Each time that Peter answered, “Yes,” the Lord replied, “Feed my sheep.” Christ was telling Peter – and each of us who love the Lord – that we will best demonstrate love by loving who Christ loves, His sheep.

Third, we should be disciple makers, because the more we help others grow spiritually, the more we will grow. While our motive to disciple others should never be self-serving, we will find that we will be served if we help others. God will often use the struggles of others to act as a mirror for our own lives. We will see our own needs through the needs of others. As we give Scripture to help others, we will find that the same verse we are giving is the same verse we need, as well.

I have found that a lot of churches are filled with Christian spectators, rather than disciple makers. Each of us should evaluate our own life and ask the question, “Am I watching others do the work or am I personally doing the work?”

Because we are a church that is growing both spiritually and numerically, we need your help in discipling this ever-growing congregation. Look at the friends God has given you here at FBC and begin doing the work of discipleship in a way that shows your love and obedience to God.

Discipleship is hard but certainly worth doing!

This may surprise you, but God never said that He would bless your “humble opinion.” He did say, though, that He will bless His Word!

Do you have friends who are struggling? Are they working through difficult circumstances or hard questions? If so, then lay down your opinions and pick up Bible answers. Allow Scripture to fulfill its God-given purpose of furnishing believers with everything that we need (II Timothy 3:17). Take Scriptural principles and season your conversations with them. The issues your friends deal with in their walk with God are not mere scratches and bruises that are healed by your opinions. They are often deep-rooted heart issues and cancerous struggles of the flesh, which can only be solved with Scripture.

A lot of people shy away from disciple making because they don’t think they know enough Bible to help someone. Don’t let that happen to you. Your friends don’t need you to be the Bible college professor who takes Greek and Hebrew to carefully craft a presentation to answer their questions. What they need is someone who is humbly studying the Bible, applying it to his own life, and willing to share how he found the Word of God to help him.

Good disciples makers are humble students of God’s Word. They may not have shelves filled with commentaries or expensive Bible programs, but they do have a well-worn Bible on which they have spent much time meditating. Some of the best disciple makers I know use this common phrase when they don’t know the answer to a question: “I don’t know the answer, but I know where I can find the answer.” Their humble response teaches others that the answer is not found in man but in God’s Word.

In addition to being a humble student, good disciple makers are also obedient followers of God’s Word. They are consistently putting the Bible into action in their lives. They read the Bible with the purpose of obeying it, not just understanding it. Their lives become the flesh and blood example of what they are encouraging others to do with God’s Word.

Humble, obedient students of God’s Word make great disciple makers. Are you a humble, obedient student of God’s Word?

Mark 3:14 says of Jesus that He “ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach.” Our Lord used the classroom of everyday life to disciple people. Notice that the classroom He chose was not filled with chairs, desk, and a lectern. It probably would not have even included coffee at Starbucks, had He had access to one! He discipled others in the classroom of everyday life as they spent time with him.

You and I cannot program or structure really good discipleship, because it just happens in the routine of everyday life between people who are striving to pull one another along in their walk with the Lord! When discipleship is done well, it looks a lot like a good godly friendship. The relationship between friendship and discipleship is a two-edged sword. If you are struggling to have close friends, you will struggle to be a disciple maker. On the other hand, if you are able to build good friendships, then you will easily learn how to become a disciple maker.

At times, I have had people ask me to assign them someone to disciple, someone they can instruct and someone into whose life they can speak. But discipleship cannot be assigned. When we assign someone to another, it will inevitably look more like a classroom than a place of discipleship.

Good disciple makers don’t sit around waiting for someone to be assigned to them. They look at the friends God has already given them and begin discipling those friends using the tools we have talked about the last few weeks. Their goal is not to make their friends like themselves. Their goal is to walk with their friends in a way that leads both parties closer to Christlikeness.

Let’s work at having good godly friendships, because the more we work at that, the more we will find ourselves discipling others for the glory of God.

Let’s say that you are valuing small talk and practicing the fine art of auscultation (ie. listening). Through the means of these two tools God suddenly presents you with a real, meaningful, spiritual conversation with someone. This conversation reveals real spiritual needs and struggles in the life of another. You want to help! How do you lead that conversation at this new level?

Good disciple makers lead the conversation from a position of transparent humility, rather than expert authority. Let me illustrate.

I reached out to a friend one time about a struggle I was having in my walk with the Lord. This friend responded with a confident statement that he didn’t struggle like that but knew what I should do. He then proceeded to give Bible answers, but they felt as though they had been learned from the Bible college classroom, rather than from his own experience. I was experiencing a friend trying to help me from the position of expert authority.

Another time I reached out to a friend and asked for help with a struggle I was facing. This particular friend responded with a very humble testimony that he struggled in a similar way and was finding a set of Biblical truths to be of great help to him. He then proceeded to share what he was currently learning and how he thought that might help me. He was discipling me from the position of transparent humility. His position of transparent humility made his counsel easier to understand and apply.

Some people think that the key to being a disciple maker is having superior knowledge on a topic and perfect performance, but this is far from true. One of the greatest keys to being a disciple maker is having the transparency and humility to come alongside someone and grow with him in the same area.

Have you ever thought that some of your greatest assets in disciple making are the following?

1. Your own personal testimony of struggles

2. Lessons God taught you through those struggles

3. Lessons God is currently teaching you through those struggles.

Disciple making is not trying to bring someone to where I am but stepping alongside someone and growing with him to the place we both need to be. Use the position of transparent humility in your relationships with others. By God’s grace, may we grow together with others to the place God would have us all to be.

Many people think that a good disciple maker has to be a person who is good at talking. But most good disciple makers are good at making disciples, because they are good at listening with an ear that enables them to discern a person’s heart. They don’t just listen to the words that are used. They listen with eyes that observe the non-verbal clues as well. They take what they hear and what they observe and discern the heart.

Those who teach martial arts often teach a skill called “the ability of soft eyes.” Having soft eyes means cultivating the ability to take in the whole situation without focusing on one object. They call it 360-degree awareness. The skill of soft eyes is crucial to our ability to be a disciple maker because it enables us to take in the whole of a person and respond in a right manner with the right answers.

Last week I encouraged you to not de-value “small talk.” We must value small talk, because small talk paves the way for deep spiritual conversations. In addition to small talk, let me add a new item to our disciple-making tool belt, the tool of listening. Try not to be the one who monopolizes conversations. Ask questions and listen! Some people listen until there is a pause so they can then talk. A real disciple maker listens with the intention of understanding so he can help.

May God continue to strengthen our relationships here at FBC as we value small talk and practice auscultation.

There is something exciting and enjoyable about a really good spiritual conversation. Most of us really do love talking with someone about things that have an eternal substance. Many of our church members regularly walk into our auditorium with a genuine desire to encourage and edify others and talk about deep, spiritual things. Often, though, within a few minutes, those same people interact with other members who just start talking “small talk” about the weather, work, sports teams, and hobbies. That conversation of small talk can feel like a big waste of time to the people who were really aiming for a spiritual conversation, unless they understand that small talk really can be a bridge to conversations about spiritual things.  I would like to give you three values for small talk.

1. Small talk demonstrates interest in the other person. Most people like talking about work, sports teams, and hobbies because those are major components of their lives: they’re important to them. People spend time and money on these things and think about them on a regular basis. When we skip over these things in conversation or act like talking about them is a waste of time, we subtly give the impression that we don’t care about that which makes up a significant part of a person’s life. My listening ear and engaging conversation about the small things in a person’s life shows that I care about the whole person.

2. Small talk builds bridges of trust. Spiritual conversations have the potential of exposing the inner heart of a person and making him or her feel very vulnerable. People naturally use conversations about weather, work, sports teams, and hobbies to build a hedge of protection to avoid that vulnerability. When we talk to people about those small things, we help them feel at ease and slowly build a trust that enables them to put down the hedge of protection. Some people require five minutes of small talk to build trust while the next person may require weeks of small talk before they give away trust to another. It is imperative that we be gentle, kind, and patient as we wait for people to let down their guards and trust us with their spiritual lives.

3. Small talk is the first step to deeper conversations. Small talk is not the end goal! Engaging in small talk is the process by which we get to deeper conversations about spiritual things. Small talk builds a rapport and trust with a person that allows us to engage their heart. Lighthearted conversations about small talk are great windows into the life of a person. Don’t just listen to their words. Listen to everything that is communicated outside those words. A good listening ear will pick up on the moods, struggles, stress points, and difficulties that a person has in his or her life. Our knowledge of those things becomes invaluable to taking the conversation deeper when the person is ready. Small talk does mean that conversations start small. But small conversations have the ability to grow into the bigger conversations that deal with bigger things.

Don’t despise small talk! It is an important part of building relationships with people, relationships that have spiritual substance.