Disciple-Making Attitude
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And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
This is God’s Word for God’s People, Hear it And Believe
This is God’s Word for God’s People, Hear it And Believe
Pray
The Question
The Question
One day, a lawyer approached jesus and asked how to inherit eternal life.
The lawyer knew the law inside and out.
His question was simple and valid. We are all going to die one day and it is important for us to know what we must do in order to spend eternity with God.
Now Jesus being a master teacher answers the question with a question… “What does God’s Word say?”
The Answer
The Answer
The lawyer, knowing the answer, shares his immense knowledge and answers the question. “Love God and your neighbor.”
Jesus surprises the lawyer by saying He answered correctly. So Jesus agrees with the law.
I can imagine the lawyer saying to himself, “Great, now I know what I need to do. I have my to-do list for how to have eternal life.” But something was nagging at the lawyer. In order to fulfill the law it must be done perfectly. No haphazardness allowed. God demands perfect obedience.
In order to be in perfect obedience it might help to know who our neighbor is, so he asks Jesus.
Who was his neighbor? So he asks Jesus.
Jesus responds with a story.
The Lost and the Law
The Lost and the Law
There was a man traveling from Jericho to Jerusalem and is attacked by robbers and left for dead on the side of the road.
This man, because he chose the path he did and chose to do it alone, has been beaten and cast aside. He is hopelessly lying on the side of the road unable to save himself.
Jesus adds two new characters to his tale. A priest and a Levite both come along on the road but pass by the man on the other side of the road.
These men represent the Law of Moses and its role in the world.
Both are good, informative, and directive, but neither one can save man, or change the human heart.
The Law is like a mirror. It shows you your sin, but no matter how much you hold the mirror or rub it on your face, you are still dirty.
The Samaritan
The Samaritan
We are then introduced to the Samaritan. I am sure the lawyer thought that the Samaritan would act exactly like the priest and the Levite, but Jesus surprises him.
The Samaritan takes action and helps the wounded man by putting him on his own donkey and taking him to the closest inn. He pays a year’s salary to take care of the man and promises more if it is needed.
The Real Question
The Real Question
The real question of this story is not “Who is my neighbor?” The real question is “What kind of neighbor are you?”
Our tendency when we hear the parable of the Good Samaritan is to see ourselves in the role of the Samaritan. The hero of the story. The only thing we would do is give him a cape.
But the reality is that we are the man beaten by the robbers.
You and I attempt to live out the law in perfect righteousness with our filthy rags. We try to do the impossible.
Only Jesus can fulfill the law perfectly.
Jesus is the only one who inherits eternal life and by the Grace of God offers it to us through our believe in Him.
When Jesus was on the cross he said, “It is finished.” These three words allow us to die to ourselves. We need to stop protecting this idea that self-improvement will make us acceptable before God.
We need to stop trying to make everyone, including ourselves, think that we have it all together.
We need to stop trying to make everyone, including ourselves, think that we have it all together.
In other words we cannot save ourselves, let alone live in perfect obedience without help.
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:5
We must understand that we cannot reach those around us without Jesus, without Jesus.
We must be like Christ. We cannot reach the world with a list of do’s and dont’s and expect them to change overnight.
We must avoid the worldly attitude of - they got themselves into this situation, they deserve to suffer.
The man beaten down by robbers on the side of the road did not overcome his issues before the Samaritan man helped him.
The Samaritan helped the man where he was.
We must understand why we need to be
As former robbed and beaten men and women saved by Jesus, the Good Samaritan, we must understand that we too must become like Jesus.
Our Mission and Motive
Our Mission and Motive
In another setting, Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment in the law
In another setting, Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment in the law
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
And then in Jesus tells us
And Jesus came and said to them, “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.”
These two statements alone encompass the greatest of all commitments modeled by our Savior.
During His early ministry, jesus loved God, loved people and made disciples.
The great commandment of speaks to the motive for our disciple-making.
We are motivated by love of God and love for people.
The Great Commission of Matthew 28 speaks to our mission.
We are sent to make disciples.
Two Commands & Three Verbs
Two Commands & Three Verbs
The Great Commission contains two commands and three action words.
The first command is to make disciples.
This was the driving force of Jesus’s life
He poured His life into a few people and taught them to make other disiciples.
17 times we see Jesus with the masses, but 46 times we see Him with His disicples.
Within a few years, these disciples would fill Jerusalem with Jesus’s teaching.
Within 18 years they turned their world upside down.
Within 18 years they turned their world upside down.
And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also,
In 28 years the Gospel was growing
which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth,
Acts
The commission continues with three verbs
The first is go. Or more correctly translated as you go.
In other words, as we live our lives we are to be living out the great commission. It is not something we only do on occasion. It is something we live. We are to walk as Jesus walked.
The second verb is baptize. This is a critical element of disciple-making.
When a person come to faith in Christ, they must then be baptized to publically identify externally with a change that has taken place internally.
The third verb is teaching others to obey.
We are to teach others to obey everything that Jesus commanded. So we need to know what Jesus commanded.
Jesus gives 400 commands in the gospels and more than 1/2 are disciple-making commands.
It is not about completing a curriculum. It is a lifestyle of becoming more like Jesus.
As we learn to live a lifestyle of obedience we bear fruit, more fruit, and then much fruit ()
We must do as Jesus did and walk as He walked.
What about the second command?
What about the second command?
The second command is easy to miss.
Jesus says “Surely I am with you.” The Greek word idou is translated as surely. In the Greek language, idou is a command.
The New Living Translation captures this in - And be sure of this: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
What Jesus is saying is, “you must keep focused on Me.” As you commit to a disciple-making attitude and lifestyle I will always be there for you and I will show you how to do this. I will make you disciple-makers.
The Great Commandment
The Great Commandment
The Great Commission establishes our priorities, and the Great Commission clarifies our passion.
Love is the greatest Christian motive.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
Without love we are nothing and can gain nothing.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
If we are to walk as Jesus walked and as He did, we are to walk in love. This includes a deep love for God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength.
this includes loving people with tenderness and toughness, both graciousness and truthfulness at the same time.
Loving God means loving people, loving people means loving God.
Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Who are the people we should love? Anyone who crosses our path and has needs is our neighbor and should be loved.
The Great Commission and the Great Commandment must be held together in one thought. Because we love God, we love people. Because we love people, we make disciples.
The Great Commission and the Great Commandment must be held together in one thought. Because we love God, we love people. Because we love people, we make disciples.
Our motive drives our mission. Our passion fuels our priorities. Our heart energizes our hands. Loving God and loving people is our motive. Making disciples who can make disciples is our mission.
Spader, Dann. 4 Chair Discipling: Growing a Movement of Disciple-Makers (p. 39). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Let’s pray
Spader, Dann. 4 Chair Discipling: Growing a Movement of Disciple-Makers (p. 39). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.