[0:00] You know, we're now in the middle of this revisioning series, this sermon series on aiming our church at making disciples of all people.
[0:12] And I've got to be honest with you all, this is no program. This is no fad. What we're talking about is culture, church culture, shaping our culture.
[0:24] So what we're actually talking about is becoming a church in making disciples. It's the air that we breathe. It's the fabric of who we are.
[0:36] We're a church that is following Jesus ourselves, and we are looking to bring people with us as we run after Jesus. Now, for the communion meditation, I reminded you of the big picture.
[0:51] And I've got to be honest with you, I was going to bring my computer. I always forget my power cord, so I put the power cord in my backpack, brought it here to the building, opened up my backpack, and there was my power cord, but not my computer.
[1:08] So I'm going to have to verbally remind you of things. So the big picture, triune God, big plan, Christ at the middle of everything, flipping people, making people into disciples, running in domain of darkness away from God, by God's grace, aiming them at and running them to Jesus, and it's all for His glory.
[1:31] And then last week, I sought to aim you from Mark chapter 8 of what a disciple is, and I threw at you a bunch of L's. A disciple is anyone who is, who is by God's grace, laying down their life to learn from Jesus, to live for Jesus, to become like Jesus, all out of a love for Jesus.
[1:54] I was with some friends last night, and I was asked if I cook. And to be honest, my greatest joy in the cooking process is the eating part of the process.
[2:06] But I've got some cooking skills. I have some proficiency on the grill. I can flip a burger, make some steaks, I'm hit and miss with chicken. But if there is one thing I'm known for in my family, it's my ability to create massive, substantial chocolate chip pancakes.
[2:26] Because they're really just four ingredients. Bisquick, milk, eggs, chocolate chip. Very straightforward, very predictable result.
[2:38] With just those four ingredients, give me a hot griddle, a little time, a little attention I can give, and I will work you pancake wonders. But what does making pancakes have to do with making disciples?
[2:55] Well, if there was a recipe God has for making disciples, there are four essential ingredients.
[3:08] And if we are actively deploying, using, making the most of these means of grace, God will be working through us to make disciples, not just of ourselves, but of those living in darkness right now.
[3:24] So this morning, I'm going to stick pretty close to the chapter, conviction number three, how are disciples made from this book. And I want to walk you through the four Ps.
[3:38] Proclamation of God's Word, prayerful dependence on the Holy Spirit, people are God's fellow workers, and persevering step by step. These four ingredients are essential to making disciples.
[3:52] It's God's means of grace. We get to join Him in what He's doing. So, I'm going to take each of these ingredients one at a time. I'm going to point you at a verse in the Bible that talks about it.
[4:05] So let's get cooking. Ingredient number one, proclamation of the Word of God. Would you open up your Bibles to 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 16 and 17?
[4:17] Just to give you a little background, the Apostle Paul is writing. 2 Timothy was actually a letter to his protege, Timothy, and he is helping Timothy establish a church in the city of Ephesus.
[4:33] And what a church is, it's a people who've been flipped by God's grace who are following Jesus Christ together. Well, in chapter 3, Paul's reminding Timothy of the vital importance of the Scripture, the Word of God.
[4:51] Hear God's Word on God's Word. 2 Timothy 3, 16. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable.
[5:03] All Scripture, every word, is breathed out by God and profitable. Here's the claim of this book in your hands.
[5:18] Every word of this book did not originate in the mind of a human being. Every word of this book originated in the mind of God Himself.
[5:31] When we read those words, all Scriptures breathe out by God, it's getting at the very source, origin, of the words of this book, where they come from. God Himself, from Genesis to Revelation, through the words in this book, is speaking to us.
[5:52] That is a phenomenal claim. So what this book contains is God's definitive and authoritative instruction on a variety of different subjects, one of which is God Himself.
[6:10] Maybe you remember coming through our membership class. When we talk about the Bible in our membership class, I try to make the case is the Bible is like God's selfie, making Himself known to you.
[6:22] This is who I am in all my glory. This book is also authoritative and definitive. This is God speaking on the nature of human beings that were image bearers corrupted by sin in need of salvation.
[6:37] This book describes for us over and over again God's big plan for the fullness of time in which He is rescuing and restoring sinners into a relationship with Himself.
[6:52] This book tells us, God tells us how we are to live in light of what He's done on our behalf. How to follow Jesus now.
[7:03] This book, it lays out a way for us to live. This book is absolutely essential to becoming a Christian and to growing as a Christian.
[7:16] It shows us how to become a disciple and how to continually to lay down your life in order to learn from, live for, and become like Jesus again and again.
[7:28] So this book, our posture is not this. Hmm. Our posture, each and every one of us, is this. Each one of us comes under the authority of God speaking to us.
[7:42] It's authoritative. It's definitive. It makes a claim on our lives. It's vital. We can't live without God's Word. Jesus said, man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
[7:58] So 2 Timothy 3.16 is talking about the nature, all scriptures, God breathe, of this book. But it also points to its effectiveness.
[8:10] All scriptures breathe out by God and profitable. It gets something done. And if you look at the rest of 16, it starts telling me what it gets done.
[8:21] For teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. Okay, does everybody have a directional app on their smartphone? Yes.
[8:32] I see some heads nodding. Well, if you have a directional app on your cell phone, it shows you how to go from point A to point B.
[8:43] It shows you the path to travel on to get to your destination. And if you go off the path, your phone app will let you know you're off the path.
[8:55] And then your phone app will reroute you in order to show you how to get back on the path. And then, if you are regularly using that directional app on your phone, you are regularly trained by your app and how to get to certain places.
[9:13] God's Word, this book, God speaking to us, shows us how to live. live. It lays out a path for us to walk.
[9:25] It teaches us the way we should go. And then when we veer from God's path for us, it rebukes us. You're driving over the curb. Don't do that.
[9:37] Stop. That's not good for you. And then it corrects us how to get back on the path. How to get back on the path of life and following Jesus. And then it trains us in righteousness.
[9:49] It shows us again and again how to live in terms of our speech, in terms of our sexuality, in terms of how you think about yourself, how you steward your finances, what it means to follow Jesus again and again.
[10:03] It lays out a path for us to walk, helps us know when we fall off the path, step out of the path, how to get back on, and then over and over again. This book gets something done.
[10:15] It's life to us. It's transformational. And so what this means for our discipleship is that it's absolutely for us in our following Jesus and it's absolutely essential in helping others follow Jesus too.
[10:37] So the question now becomes, how do you respond? How do you respond to this reality that we must be proclaiming God's word? Well, it begins with our own intake and application of God's word.
[10:50] So let me just give you a quick visual. This is from the Navigators. Here are four ways you can take God's word into your life. It's by hearing God's word proclaimed.
[11:01] It's by reading God's word, having time, where you're regularly reading His word, studying God's word. We have a bunch of ladies on Tuesday studying 2 Timothy by memorizing God's word, hiding it on your heart.
[11:13] These are all ways where we take God's word into us so that God can move us. But there's one thing to take it in. There's another thing to live it out.
[11:24] That's why you need your thumb. Your thumb is your applier. It's what gives you a grip on God's word and gets God's word a grip on you.
[11:37] And so what it is is when you hear God's word, you seek to apply it. It gives you a grip on what God is saying. And when you hear God's word and you read God's word, it gives you a better grip.
[11:48] And then you go on with studying and then you go on with memorizing. As long as you're applying it, you're going to be getting a hold on God's word and God will be getting a hold on you. You take it in to live it out.
[12:02] And that's what we teach other people, other disciples. We help them take God's word in by hearing it, by reading it, by studying it, by memorizing it. Because this book shows us the way to live, how to follow Jesus.
[12:19] Now, this point about how to make disciples means we need to be proclaiming God's word. And typically, when Christians hear that, they think, I need to preach God's word.
[12:29] I need to pull up a pulpit and proclaim God's word to someone. That's one way you proclaim God's word. It's not the only way to proclaim God's word. Think about it more in terms of having conversations about God's word.
[12:42] About raising it like this. You're in a life group. Someone brings something up. Well, what does God's word say about it? That's how you get into a conversation about God's word. But that doesn't end there.
[12:54] It continues on by saying, now that we know what God's word says about it, how do we live our lives in light of that? How do we live it out? Could you imagine more and more of those conversations in our church?
[13:07] What does God's word say? How do we live it out? We're proclaiming God's word to one another. It happens conversationally. It happens over text.
[13:18] This past week, the life group I was in, we are swapping definitions of what it means to be a disciple. It was encouraging. It's getting God's word into our lives. So this book, God's speaking to us, this is our shared, authoritative, directional app that we're all working off of to follow Jesus together.
[13:41] That's the first ingredient. Here's the second. The second ingredient is prayerful dependence on the Holy Spirit. If you would turn in your Bibles to John chapter 16, we're going to be looking at verses 12, 13, and 14, specifically 14.
[13:59] But as soon as you bring up the Holy Spirit in a room of Christians, you can have a variety of different responses. Here are two. People hear Holy Spirit and they think, oh, we long to experience more of the Holy Spirit's fullness, and that's a good thing.
[14:17] But many times, people have a very specific idea of what it looks like to experience the Holy Spirit's fullness. On the other side, people hear you say Holy Spirit, and they get a little guarded and a little suspicious because they've come out or they've seen abuse of the Holy Spirit.
[14:37] Whether that's in teaching or in experience, it's left a bad taste in your mouth. And so, what do we do? Here's what we do. What does God's Word say about the Holy Spirit?
[14:49] That's why I have you in John chapter 16. In John chapter 16, Jesus is preparing His disciples for His departure.
[15:00] He's going to be crucified. He's going to be raised. He's going to ascend. He's leaving them, but He's saying, there's someone better that I'm going to leave with you. The Holy Spirit.
[15:12] So, let me just read verses. It'd be good if I'm in the book of John. Verses 12 through 14. Jesus speaking, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
[15:26] When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come.
[15:39] He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. Just a couple things to note. The Holy Spirit is sent to guide us into truth.
[15:52] This book is our truth. The Holy Spirit is seeking to guide us in our living according to the truth revealed in this book.
[16:05] Furthermore, the Holy Spirit's a proclaimer. Did you see that in this passage? He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak, He will declare. The Holy Spirit is a revealer.
[16:18] He's an illuminator. He wants to make you know what God's truth is. He wants that. The third thing I want you to quickly notice is the personal pronoun He.
[16:36] He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own authority. He hears. He will speak. He will declare. He will glorify Me. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity.
[16:51] He is not some kind of impersonal force. He is a person. Ephesians 4.30 says you can grieve Him just like you can grieve Jesus.
[17:06] So let me aim you now at what He says in verse 14 because this is a very simple, general way to understand what the Holy Spirit is seeking to do in our lives.
[17:19] We don't need to be afraid of this. It's not the only thing but it is the primary aim of the Holy Spirit. Jesus says of Him He will glorify Me for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you.
[17:37] Jesus says of the Holy Spirit He will glorify spotlight Me. the one in whom salvation is accomplished.
[17:48] The one in whom we are called to follow. He will spotlight Jesus. J.I. Packer a prolific author and teacher recently died.
[18:05] The story goes he was on his way to preach an evening service in Vancouver, British Columbia and he was walking up a hill to the church night was falling and he was preaching on this passage He will glorify Me and he still hadn't he didn't have an opening illustration.
[18:21] So he's trying to think of the opening illustration. He's walking up to the church building and then he looks up and bam he has his opening illustration because as night was falling on the front of this building was a cross illuminated illuminated by a spotlight.
[18:40] That's it. The Holy Spirit isn't seeking to draw attention to Him Himself but to the Son to Jesus to His cross work to His person so that we could glorify Jesus.
[18:58] So this third person of the Trinity is by God's plan the first person of the Trinity seeking to glorify the second person of the Trinity who is at the very center of God's plan of salvation.
[19:17] So what does this mean for us? Simply said the primary aim of the Holy Spirit is to spotlight Jesus to us to reveal Jesus to us to spotlight Jesus in us to make us like Jesus to sanctify us and then to empower our witness to others.
[19:40] The Holy Spirit is looking to spotlight Jesus to us in us and through us. And the good news is this we don't need to fear the Holy Spirit.
[19:51] We don't need to fear Him. Jesus Himself is saying here He's going to glorify me. We don't need to fear that.
[20:02] In fact it should compel you to seek the Holy Spirit. To seek the Spirit to do His work to us and in us and through us for the glory of Jesus.
[20:17] So what does it mean to prayerfully depend upon the Holy Spirit? Well we regularly ask God our Father to pour out the Holy Spirit on us in various ways so that Jesus would be exalted.
[20:29] And I tell you that because that's exactly what the Apostle Paul does in Ephesians chapter 3 verses 14 through 19 when he prays for the Ephesian church. He asks God the Father to pour out the Holy Spirit so that Christ's love would fill them with the fullness of God and that's what unites them.
[20:47] So here's how you could pray. It's you're regularly asking God the Father oh God fill me afresh fill me afresh so that by your Spirit so that I can I can live for Jesus in front of my children today.
[21:07] Fill me afresh so that I can kind of speak encouraging words to my life group. Fill me afresh so that I can exercise my gifts in the church for the glory of Jesus.
[21:21] Fill me afresh because I got a hard phone conversation and I want to exalt Jesus in me and through me. It also gives us a diagnostic and here's what I mean by that.
[21:35] How do we know that the Holy Spirit is working in our church? Is Jesus being glorified? Is He being revealed to us?
[21:49] Are we being conformed to Him? Is Jesus being made known through us? These are ways in which we respond and live in light of prayerful dependence on the Holy Spirit.
[22:05] That's the second ingredient of making disciples. It's not by my not by power but by my Spirit says the Lord. The Lord let me now move you to the third ingredient.
[22:20] People are God's fellow workers. I don't know if you knew this. When you became a Christian you were called into Christian ministry.
[22:33] When you put your faith in Jesus He put His claim on you and called you into the priesthood of all believers. believers. A disciple of Jesus is to be making disciples of Jesus.
[22:49] A couple weeks ago when I was preaching on God's plan for the fullness of time Ephesians chapter 1 I really sought to impress upon you that God right now is carrying out His plan all around the world.
[23:05] He is moving people to the cross flipping them by His grace and calling them to follow Him. He is doing it right now and we get to join Him in what He is doing.
[23:16] In fact He calls us to join Him in what He is doing. When you are converted you are called into ministry.
[23:28] I am going to develop this next week in a sermon unto itself but I just want to point you to Ephesians chapter 4 real quick. I want to show you just a few things to whet your appetite.
[23:38] right. In Ephesians chapter 4 11 through 16 Paul is talking about Christian ministry and in 411 he says and he gave the apostles the prophets and the evangelists the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
[24:04] Look at verse 15. Rather speaking the truth and love we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ. Let me point out just three quick things. First, the nature of the work of ministry.
[24:18] In verse 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ. What is ministry in this passage? Building up the body of Christ.
[24:30] Don't confuse that. Don't think that's something other than making disciples of Jesus. building up the body of Christ and making disciples of Jesus.
[24:40] We're talking about the same thing. We're just talking using different language. Paul's using his favorite metaphor for the church. Building up the body into our head Jesus Christ.
[24:52] So, when Paul talks about ministry here, he's not talking about something other than making disciples. It's exactly what he's talking about. Moving people towards Jesus.
[25:03] Christians. The second thing I want you to note is who does the work of ministry? In verse 11, he gives Christian leaders, apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers, to verse 12, to equip the saints for the work of ministry.
[25:21] The saints are all Christians. It's not an elite group of Christians. Saints are all Christians. Christians. And it's the saints who are to do the work of ministry.
[25:36] Building up the body of Christ, making disciples of others. When you were made alive by the grace of God, you were deputized as a minister of the gospel to make disciples to build the church.
[25:54] The third thing I want to point out quickly is the primary way we build up the body, make disciples. It's in verse 15. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who's the head into Jesus.
[26:11] We use this book and speak this book in love to one another to move us to Jesus. Imagine with me, you go to the Christ the King Church webpage.
[26:28] You click on it, you enter in, you have this menu that says leadership and then it says ministry staff. You click on the ministry staff of Christ the King Church and to your surprise, pages full of members and regular attenders of Christ the King Church.
[26:49] Pictures of faces, names, names, you just scroll through person after person. Brothers and sisters, the ministry staff of Christ the King Church is Christ the King Church.
[27:05] We are the ministers. We are the priesthood in this church. So what does this mean? We're all in it together.
[27:17] we're all ministering together, moving towards Jesus. You've been called by Christ and gifted by the Spirit of God for the work of ministry.
[27:29] So the question isn't, should I do something, serve in the church? It's where and how is the best way to steward my gift?
[27:42] All of us are on the Christ the King Church ministry staff team, all of us. It should change the way you think about yourself.
[27:54] It should move you from thinking of yourself as a consumer to a participant because you're part of the ministry staff of this church. The third ingredient to be making disciples is people are God's fellow workers.
[28:09] God, by His grace, works through all of us to build us up and others, into Jesus. That's essential to making disciples. The fourth ingredient is persevering step by step.
[28:27] Persevering is godly grit. It's gumption. It's the ability to endure hardship and heartache and headache for the good work Jesus is doing in you and in others.
[28:42] you endure. You persevere. Discipleship is a lifelong process of daily laying down your life, of daily learning from Jesus, of daily living for Jesus, of daily becoming like Jesus because we love Him.
[29:00] But it's a lifelong process. A church is a community of disciples in this lifelong process of following Jesus. And we're all at different points in this race of following Jesus.
[29:17] Some people are just starting out. It's all new. Other people have been running for a while. Other people are moving towards the end of the race.
[29:32] discipleship is a lifelong process. And if I can borrow a title of a book from Eugene Peterson, discipleship is a long obedience in the same direction to Jesus.
[29:56] It's going to require perseverance, not just for you in running the race. It requires perseverance for us who are making disciples of others.
[30:10] It gets hard. That's why I want to point you to 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians 15 is that great passage at the end of the first book of Corinthians.
[30:24] This chapter starts with Paul receiving of first importance what he heard and passing on to us. It's the first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the scripture. He's buried and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.
[30:37] He says that is of what's first importance. We call that the gospel. And it's that good news in which Paul picks up in verse 56 and he says, the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law.
[30:53] But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel is a proclamation of victory that Jesus won over death and the power of sin.
[31:07] It's victory. And then in verse 58, therefore my beloved brothers, be steadfast. That word means to be, to have a singularity of focus.
[31:20] Immovable. That word means you keep on keeping on that focus. You don't veer to the left or the right. You stay on target. You press on.
[31:32] Always abounding in the work of the Lord. Always being a part of God's work. Doing, moving people towards Jesus together.
[31:45] Announcing the victory. Helping people live in light of the victory. Knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. When you're doing that, you know you're on target. You know you're pleasing the Lord.
[31:59] And it keeps you from discouragement. It helps us persevere. Do you know why the Apostle Paul is writing this to this church?
[32:19] If you're familiar with the Corinthian letters, you know that the Corinthian church, it was a complex and chaotic mess of divisions and disputes.
[32:32] And here Paul is calling the entire church, therefore, my beloved brothers, to focus on one thing. To go after one thing.
[32:45] To be steadfast, immovable, abounding in it, knowing that your work regarding it is not in vain. Gospel work. Moving people towards Jesus.
[32:59] Well, like the Corinthian church, people have been messy forever, since Adam and Eve fell.
[33:11] Perseverance is necessary. It's a necessary ingredient to making disciples because people are messy. It gets hard. It's challenging.
[33:24] It's discouraging. It's disappointing. Sometimes you just want to bail. Sometimes you just want to cut out, go somewhere else.
[33:36] Yesterday, I volunteered with a handful of folks from our church at the Wisconsin Marathon, aid station number one. You know, a marathon requires perseverance.
[33:51] Jesus, following Jesus is like running a marathon. Hebrews 12 says, let us run with endurance the race marked out for us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.
[34:04] Each of us is running a marathon after Jesus, and each of us will be tempted to discouragement and to despair and to give up. But here's what disciple-making is.
[34:16] Disciple-making is you yourself are running the marathon, enduring and persevering, and as you're running, you're seeking to help other fellow runners persevere too.
[34:32] You're seeking to come alongside of them and help them press on. Help them fix their eyes on Jesus. Keep going. don't give up.
[34:43] You've got a little more to go. We are running after Jesus together as a church, as a pack, and we are making disciples of one another.
[34:56] It's hard work. We need to persevere. Here's what's going to help you persevere as you run this race. this word is central to all that you do.
[35:11] It's your directional app. It keeps you on the way. And you pray, God, fill me by your spirit. Give me strength to persevere.
[35:22] And I pray for this person that you would help them persevere. Give them strength. Prayerful dependence on the Holy Spirit. And then people are God's fellow workers. And so if you're discouraged, you tell somebody else so that they can minister to you.
[35:39] So that they can say to you, oh brother, I'm there to fix your eyes on Jesus. Let's do this together. Let's press on together. Let's not get thrown by things that aren't that important.
[35:51] Let's focus together on Jesus and run the race marked out for us all the way to the end. People are messy.
[36:03] It's challenging and it's hard. But we run with perseverance together. When it boils right down to it, this fourth ingredient, the secret to persevering, is fixing your eyes on Jesus.
[36:32] These are the four ingredients to make disciples. These are God's means of grace which we use with one another and others to move them to Jesus together.
[36:44] We're moving people towards Jesus. Proclaiming the word of God, prayerful dependence on the Holy Spirit. People are God's fellow workers and persevering step by step.
[36:55] We're in it for the long haul. They're means of grace. Wouldn't it be wonderful if more and more of us are saying to one another, let's fix our eyes on Jesus and let's call other people to come run the race with us, to come follow Jesus, to lay our lives down, to learn from Jesus, to live for him, to become like him because we love him.
[37:24] We know this is God's plan for the fullness of time. making disciples of Jesus is way better than making chocolate chip pancakes. Do you know why?
[37:38] We get to see God change people and we get to be changed in the doing. Will you pray with me? God in heaven, we're in over our heads.
[37:51] we want to faithfully live according to your word. We want to be empowered by your spirit.
[38:02] We want to be faithfully stewarding the gifts you've given us to the building up of your body. We want to persevere step by step in our own pursuit of you and helping others in their pursuit of you.
[38:15] Father, would you pour out your Holy Spirit upon us, your people? Would you do a work that you alone will be glorified for? That Christ would be exalted in our midst?
[38:29] It's for your glory, God, we ask. In Jesus' name, Amen.