Basics of Discipleship (Part 2): Making Disciples
Introduction
Nobody is a product of their own making. You did not wake up this morning and simply decide, this is what I am going to be like. We are all easily influenced, while also having a potentially high degree of influence on others. I am sure each of us could identify a line of people who were pivotal in our development. Like it or not, we are all being discipled by influences around us. So consider, who (or what) are you being influenced by? And who are you influencing?
We cannot truly follow Christ while living in isolation. You need others to help you grow in following Jesus, and in turn, you need to help others follow Jesus. This is what we call disciple-making or discipling. The aim of discipling is to help others grow in their love for and likeness of Christ. There are two distinct parts to disciple-making; evangelism and discipleship.
Evangelism is proclaiming the good news freely, while trusting God to convert spiritually dead people to Christ. In order to make new disciples, disciples of Jesus must go out and proclaim the gospel to unbelievers. This is the first step in the disciple making process. From there, we are to go on “teaching them to obey all that Christ has commanded.” The goal of discipleship is that every Christian may be “presented mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28). My focus here is on this second stage of disciple making—discipling those who believe into greater Christ-likeness.
The Necessity of Disciple-Making
The Church is only ever one generation away from extinction. Imagine if every follower of Christ were to take the advice of the world—to put aside the truths of scripture and live a quiet and tolerant life where we do not press our ideas on anybody. You are fine to practice your own faith, but must keep that to yourself. If the church were to take this posture, it would continue to decline in vibrancy until it ceased to be.
In many ways, this trend is visible as we look out across our nation today. We can see wickedness on the rise, indifference to sin in the church, a straying from sound orthodoxy among “Christians”, key leaders in the church abandoning the faith, and fruitlessness in our own lives. At the heart of these failings, is a lack of biblical discipling.
Jesus will build his church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18). He will surely do this by his own power and authority. But how does he intend to assert his authority to bring this about in the world? His plan is revealed in the final marching orders he leaves to his disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing 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.” (Matthew 28:18-20)
From this, we see that Jesus’s plan A for building his kingdom here on earth is through the multiplication of his disciples. In order for this to happen, Jesus’s disciples must make more disciples. Jesus commands us to make and multiply disciples—I know of no plan B for how he intends to fill the earth with his worshipers (Hab. 2:14). So, how are we to go about making disciples?
How to Disciple
Connect to a Local Church
In my college days, I had a zeal for making disciples, but lacked a good deal of wisdom. My view of disciple-making was pretty flat. It was all about going out to make converts, teaching them a few basics, and then sending them back out to make more disciples. This all took place largely on my college campus, outside of any church context. I found pride in this work, and looked down my nose at those in local churches who only seemed to care about going to their kids' events, planning a meal with their small group, or taking their wives out on a date. Why was no one out on the front lines trying to make disciples?
Little did I know, much of discipleship takes place in the context of the local church. We are to apply the gospel to all of life, not just a few spiritual sounding activities. When we come to Christ as Lord, he calls us to follow him as Lord over every detail of our life. Jesus cares about the way we read, pray, cook meals, play games, talk to our spouses, sing songs, and every other thing we engage in. He is Lord of all.
It is within the household of God that discipleship comes into full view. Nobody has arrived. One person may be gifted in evangelism, another may seem to have a more natural heart of compassion. We must learn from each other. One may have raised 4 grown children, another may be a new mother. One may be tired yet experienced by trials of life, another young, full of energy, but ignorant of much of life. Learn from each other. Growth in spiritual maturity is multi-dimensional, we need each other to sharpen and spur one another on in Christ-likeness.
There are hundreds of marvelous ways that you are being discipled and that God is using you to disciple within a local church. One of the most straightforward ways you can be faithful to the Great Commission is to simply lean into a body of believers with a generous portion of your time, energy, and resources.
Identify Someone
The normative discipleship that takes place in a local church is aided by intentional one-on-one discipleship. People do not naturally drift into godliness, so intentionality in relationships is required in the discipling process. Paul’s example of discipling in 2 Timothy is a great model for what this looks like.
“...what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.”
—2 Timothy 2:1-2
There are four generations of disciples in view: Paul, Timothy, faithful men, others. All Christians are somewhere on this path, possessing something to pass on to others, while still having much to learn. To apply this, ask yourself some questions—Who will be my Paul? Who will be the person or persons you are looking to model your life after? And who will be my Timothy? Who can I pour into and push to Christ, even with the little I have to offer?
Paul instructs Timothy to find “faithful men” to entrust his teaching to. He is not telling Timothy to just go out and start investing in anybody that walks by. We only have so much time and resources, and so I cannot pour my life into everybody. Nor can we expect that everybody is required to pour their life into me. We are limited in our capacity, so we have to have wisdom in how we use our time and decide who and where to invest it. Look for people who are hungry and eager to learn and grow. Who has a teachable heart? On the flip side, if you would be discipled, be someone who is eager to learn and has humility to be taught and be pushed out of your comfort zone.
Teach
Fulfilling the Great Commission requires new disciples to be taught all that Christ has commanded. That does not mean only familiarizing them with the red letter parts of the Bible. Rather, they must be instructed in the “whole counsel of God”(Acts 20:27) and taught to apply all its implications into their lives. New disciples need instruction on various habits of grace, how to read and apply their bibles, and how to apply the gospel to every part of their life. These are not just ideas, but are truths that have implications to be worked out in one’s attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors. The scope of this kind of learning takes place over a lifetime.
The phrase “more is caught than taught” is often used, and rightly so, to the work of disciple-making. Given the breadth of all of life discipleship that is in view, it must take place life-on-life. It cannot all be taken in through books, lectures, blogs, podcasts, or sermons. As important as these things are, a crucial part of teaching is opening up your life for others to walk with. Look at Jesus’s example with his disciples. They did 3 years of life: eating, traveling, fishing, praying, etc together. Open up your life to others. Invite people over for a meal, to the gym, to the grocery store, or to join your family for a trip. Allow them to see both your successes and failures, and then point them to how God’s truth comes to bear on the situation. You can have confidence that God’s Spirit will be at work through this—both in you and in spite of you, in order to make all God’s people more into the image of his Son (1 Cor. 3:5-9; Rom. 8:28-32).