Discipleship Matters - Be With Me

What if the one command Jesus made unmistakable is the one we’ve quietly sidelined? In Be With Me, part of the Discipleship Matters series, Kelly Kinder asks that unsettling question and leads us back to the heartbeat of the Great Commission: as you are going, make disciples—not by adding more church activity, but by staying close to Jesus so his life flows through ours.

Working from Mark 3, Kelly traces Jesus’ simple rhythm—come and see, follow me, be with me, go for me—and shows why “be with me” is the engine of transformation. Jesus didn’t merely select twelve; he made twelve, forming something new through a relationship of proximity and purpose. Kelly highlights Jesus’ circles of influence—the crowds, the seventy-two, the twelve, the three—and the deeper access and change that come as we move closer to him. The result is what Acts 4:13 describes: ordinary people recognized as those who had been with Jesus.

Two pictures anchor the message. First, the yoke: take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Kelly reframes the yoke as life beside a stronger, trained companion. Yoked to Christ, we unlearn un-Christlike reflexes, grow faith over fear, practice agape love, bear fruit that lasts, and learn daily self-denial. Second, the vine: remain in me. Abiding becomes staying—holding firm to our identity (he is the vine, we are branches, the Father is the gardener), practicing consistency when teachings are hard, embracing dependency because apart from him we can do nothing, and trusting sufficiency as Jesus meets needs with leftovers that feed even the servers.

Kelly then puts handles on the vision with a “small circle” plan you can start this week. Invite one person, ask them to invite one more, and journey as three through the Gospel of Mark for sixteen weeks. Read one chapter a week, pray directly from the text, capture one insight and one concrete application, meet briefly to share and pray, gather monthly around a table to deepen trust, and multiply at the end. It’s lightweight, Scripture-first, and built to reproduce—shifting us from consuming content to transferring life.

If you’ve tried everything else, try what Jesus actually asked us to do. Watch this message, ask Jesus for your “one,” and begin a circle that keeps you close to him and carries his life to others. In a world of noise and drift, being with Jesus is still how ordinary people become catalysts for extraordinary change.

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Chapters

• 0:00 The One Command: Make Disciples
• 2:55 Why Discipleship Matters Now
• 4:31 Jesus’ Method: Come, Follow, Be With
• 6:43 Reading Mark 3 And The Call
• 8:40 A Mentor’s Love And Lasting Change
• 11:15 Circles Of Influence Around Jesus
• 14:20 Chosen To Be With Him
• 17:20 Discipleship As Relationship Before Task
• 19:40 Picture One: The Yoke With Christ
• 24:30 What We Learn In The Yoke
• 28:20 Picture Two: The Vine And Abiding
• 31:10 Identity, Consistency, Dependency
• 35:00 Sufficiency And The Leftovers
• 38:00 Transformed Hearts And Real Fruit
• 40:10 From Crowd To Culture: Small Circles
• 44:10 A Simple Reproducible Plan

Transcript

Kelly Kinder: 0:03

Good morning, Trinity. It's good to see you this morning. And uh, you know, my sermon is a little long, it'll take a little time. So sit back, relax, splash a little water on your face, or poke your neighbor. Now we'll get we'll get to that in a minute. Uh, I do have a question to begin uh today, this this morning, and uh the question is this um what if you were a Christian all your life, and yet you never did the one thing that Jesus asked us to do? Think about that. You never did the one thing that Jesus asked you to do. You know, last things, our last words seem to be pretty important, and Jesus' last words to us in Matthew 28 were as you're going, make disciples. As you're going, make disciples. So make sure we kind of get that really clear. He's not saying, are you going? Will you make disciples? It's it's a command, it's not optional for us. It's not a question, it's it's a command. As you're going, make disciples. And so the question we've been in this series, just a third week, uh, called Discipleship Matters. And uh there's the question, does discipleship matter? And I want to tell you a few reasons why it should, uh, because we've watched as our world has changed. We've watched as the church has been consumed by the world and compromised with the world, what's going on with the world system, and it's gotten into the church. We've watched as a generation of young people have thrown away their faith and have rejected the gospel. We've watched as Islam has made inroads and actually, especially in the UK, has become mainstream and it's now becoming common in our country. And we've watched as socialism has taken hold, it's taken root in our country. And whatever you think about socialism, socialism is anti-God. And it's a philosophy that is not compatible with Christianity. You know, when in 2020, a national study was done on disciple making in U.S. churches, and you know what? Found it found that fewer than 5%, fewer than 5% have a reproducing disciple-making ministry, disciple-making culture is what we call it. That astounding. So we're in a series, as I say, and then uh this has kind of put us on a course for this year. And this series called Discipleship Matters, and the whole focus is to help us to kind of get this one thing that Jesus has called us to do in mind and to begin to actually do it. Each one of us. We just kind of framed this series of messages around what I would just call Jesus' method of discipleship. And I put these up and they're just basically a four-stage. It's very simple. The first one was come and see. And Neil took us through a uh uh several scriptures showing us really how following a godly example and how how we're looking at what is a disciple and what does it mean to us? Do we do we know what a disciple really is? And what could happen if each one of us took on that task and we passed it on? The growth would be incredible. Tyler picked up last week with the words follow me, and he took it a step further. What it would be if we began to imitate Jesus as he lived this life and showed us all the things that he is for us. It's critical for us to understand and that we model Jesus as an example. To live and talk and think like Jesus. And then today I want to talk about this next one, which is be with me, be with me. And I think this may be the most critical aspect because it's it's almost like an intangible. Being with Christ does something that uh that we might not always see. It's subtle if we're with Christ. And I want us to look at this. We're gonna begin with Mark chapter 7 and uh or chapter 3 and read through verses 7 through 15. I want you to stand, I hate to get you back up, but stand up. I want us to honor the word of God this morning. Mark 3, 7 through 15. Says Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and right before this, he has been attacked by the religious people. And they put a put out a hit on him. They're ready to take Jesus out. And we come to this Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Edumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him, and he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him. For he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. And whenever the unclean spirit saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, You are the Son of God. And he strictly ordered them not to make him known. And he went up on the mountain and he called to him those whom he desired. And they came to him, and he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons. Let's pray. Father, we're thankful today that you are the word incarnate. Lord, you are the living word. And Lord, we pray that, uh, Holy Spirit, you would open up this word today, your written word to us. You would not only give us understanding, give us wisdom, but Lord, you would transform us to your image in every way you want to today. Have your way, Lord Jesus, as we work through this pastor today. In Jesus' name, amen. You can be seated. Almost uh, I guess 40 years ago, when I was just getting into high school, I was invited along with a group of my peers to join a small group of guys, about five or six, to talk and learn about Jesus. And um, this group was led by a college student by the name of Jim. And Jim, he spent lots of time with us. We met every week for three for three years, all through my high school years. And um, you know, the thing is, I don't remember a lot of what Jim taught. We did a lot of fun things. Some of them I can't even tell you what we did because they were so crazy. I'd be embarrassed by them because he was he was a fun guy. But you know what I remember most about Jim? That all through that year, those those years, he loved us really, really well. And looking back, and I just think about this, I marvel at how the Lord used that to change me. He put me on a path that changed my life. I wasn't really planning on sharing this, but if I had the picture, I'd show it to you. I have a picture when one of those groups we went one time and all the high school groups of this this type, there were a number of them in the in the high schools, uh, we went to a place in the mountains at a retreat place for a Christian uh gathering. And I have a picture, someone who took the picture, I don't even know who who it was, but they must have handed it to me. And there I sat on the wall by myself, looking down, and I didn't look real happy. You see, I didn't like myself very much. 16-year-old kid. I was a Christian, but something was wrong. I didn't know who I was in Christ. But after that three years, Jesus put me on a path that began to transform everything. And now 40 years or so later, uh, I don't think that way at all. I know who I am in Christ, and I know what gee who Jesus is, and it's made all the difference. So it moved me out of what I would say say nominal Christianity. I I was just kind of uh floating along, and now I have a passion and a love for Jesus that I never had. And Jesus can change every one of you in that same way. Well, our key verse this morning is in verse 14. And he appointed twelve that they might be with him. And when we look at Jesus' method of discipleship, we can probably kind of summarize and say, come and see, that's about invitation. It's almost like the idea of Jesus invited these men and uh and think of Nathaniel, that one of those first disciples, and Jesus says, I saw you before I got here. You were sitting under the fig tree, and Nathaniel is like blown away that this guy is more than whom he appears, who he appears to be. So invitation is about discovering who is Jesus really who he says he is? And then follow me, it's about imitation. And this is more, this is the outward, this is the practical side. As we follow Jesus, we begin to imitate and copy the things that he is and do the best we can to in and put those in things into our lives. And then be with me. I think of this as just about transformation. And this is not just, this is not outward, this is inside. This is an inside job. Jesus, you see, works not just outwardly and on our habits and character and things like that, but he works on the inside. He works in the heart. And see, when our hearts are changed, everything changes. Everything changes. I put a little diagram up here. I want you to kind of see, it kind of pictures this. This is about Jesus' ministry and sort of what what we might call circles of influence. Because Jesus had, as we read in our passage, so many people out there. His fame had spread far and wide. And uh if you want to look at those here, number one is the crowds. Number two, the circle of 72 disciples. Number three, circle of 12 disciples. Number four is a circle of three, and then the most inner circle is Jesus with his father. So this is this is more though than just physical proximity. You see, all these people were out to varying degrees of distance from Jesus. In fact, you could, if you wanted to put a note there outside of the crowds, these are the people who didn't believe in Jesus at all. In fact, they could have been his opponents. So this is the circle of Jesus' influence. And so we look at this and what it involves, it involves varying degrees of personal relationship where disciples, they really were to learn Jesus. Just that little to learn Jesus. And they were with him, as I said, to learn how to think, how to speak, how to act, how to live. And the purpose was, you see, for Jesus was for training them so that they could prepare to expand his kingdom. And it's really amazing that he left that task with so few people. And uh yet we see what it's become. So this is a privileged communion or fellowship with the Lord, and it would be essential for them to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth, which is which is what you just think of all the expansion of the kingdom that Jesus engendered there. So you'll notice here, I believe, that the closer you get to the interior of these circles, the more intimate and privileged the relationship became. The same will be true for you and me. The closer you are to the light, the better you'll be able to see. And contrary, the farther you are away from Jesus, the darker it will be for you and for me. When it comes to the 12, even these guys didn't all have the same intimacy with Jesus. You look through the gospels and you see that within that group there were some who were closer than others. And if we had time, we could go into a study about the 12. But so suffice it to say, not all even the 12 were at the same level of influence. But at circle number four, that's Jesus, or the circle of four was the three. These were, I guess you call the internal confidence of Jesus. These are those who had special privilege and access. And Jesus invited them into things that he didn't invite the rest of the disciples to. Time alone with prayer, uh, the transfiguration, and various other times. And so what Jesus is doing is letting them have an inside peek at what is going on, as Jesus has the most intimate relationship with his father. Overall, Jesus then made a distinction between the outsiders, which are we would say the crowd, and the insiders, those who say that they are his followers. And you know what? When you get on the inside, you get told things that nobody else does. Listen to this verse in Matthew 13. He says, Jesus talking to you, it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. And so when we get closer to Jesus, Jesus reveals things to you the closer you get that you would not know had you not been with him. So let's look now at our text and what this third aspect of Jesus' method of discipleship entails. Mark chapter 3, verses 13 and 14. Let's just work through this a little bit. Verse 13 says, And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired. Let's stop right there. The Greek language is really emphatic here, and it's more like he summoned those he wanted. He summoned those he willed, in fact. See, disciples, as disciples, we don't just get to decide to follow Jesus and sort of, I'm doing Jesus a favor by being his followers. Nor do we get to decide on what terms we are his disciple. He gets to decide that. And he wills us to himself and he calls the shots. I'm reminded of what Jesus said to Peter following Peter's public denial of Jesus, and Jesus is restoring people after Peter, after Peter had denied the Lord. And Jesus says to Peter, Truly, truly I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted. But when you were old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go. This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God. And after saying this, he said to him, Follow me. Follow me. And that's what he says to us. Now notice what he says next. Verse 13 again. And they came to him. They came to him. Normally, in that day, disciples would go out and find a rabbi to follow around and attach themselves to the rabbi to get the rabbi to teach them the Torah, the first five books of the Moses. But Jesus turns that all the way around. Jesus goes after the disciples. Not to teach them the Torah, but to learn him, because he is the word incarnate. If they had Jesus, that was what they needed. And so he seeks out these disciples to learn him. And then verse 14 says, He appointed 12 so that they might be with him. The key phrase. So that they might be with him. He appointed 12. Most versions read, he appointed 12. And I'd say probably your Bible reads like that. But you know what the Greek actually says? It says, He made them. He made 12. Consider that for a minute. To appoint means you select out of a group and you raise them to a new status, right? This is not what Jesus did. To make is to bring something into existence that wasn't there. Mark's verb epoeson here is the same verb that was used in Genesis 1, chapter 1. God made the heavens and the earth. Isn't that amazing? And so Jesus is making something. He's making men who follow him. He's making and forming these men to look like him. So I would say, discipleship in some senses is not so much taught as it is caught. Now I'm not minimizing the value of biblical teaching. The church needs to teach, it must teach. But and I that's why I brought this book. This is not the sermon. This is a book called Systematic Theology. Sick book, isn't it? Wayne Grudom's book, and it's a great book. It has all kinds of truth in it. But you know, I can I can learn everything in this book and know all about the God whom I serve. About the Jesus I serve and love. But not even know him. And so knowledge won't alone won't get you there. We have to have relationship. Life on life. The transfer of Jesus' life to our life is what matters. And if that's not occurring, something's wrong. You can't just fill your head with knowledge inspect to go to heaven. So here's the point. Christians who spent time with Jesus have the power to change the world. Christians who have spent time with Jesus have the power to change the world. You know why I know that? It's because you see it all through the New Testament, and you see it in people whose lives have been changed. James Edward writes the simple prepositional phrase to be. With him has atomic significance in the Gospel of Mark. Discipleship is a relationship before it is a task, a who before a what. Being with Jesus becomes the way of forsaking human idols and honoring the true God, thus recovering the image of God. To be with Jesus is the most profound mystery of discipleship. And why is it a mystery? Because I look back at my life and I go, okay, somebody asked me, tell you, you want me to tell you how this happened? I don't know. I mean, I know what I did. I got in the Bible, I read the Word, I spent time with Christian people who had like minds as I do, and all the things. But you know what? Jesus is the one that changed me. And I look back and I go, how in the world? I don't think like that anymore. I don't operate or live like that. Everything is just different. And if you're here this morning wondering if God can change you, well, get closer to him. Come closer to him. In the gospel, Jesus, and I think I want to just give you two significant pictures in the gospel. Jesus gave us two really important pictures. You know, they say, as they say, a picture's worth a thousand words. Well, let me give you two pictures. The first one is the yoke metaphor. The yoke metaphor. And what is Jesus talking about? He says, learn of me. I think one of the things that being with Jesus means is that we do learn of him. He is our teacher. And then now, as it says, the Holy Spirit is our teacher. Matthew 11 says this: Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. This comes right after the passage where the people who are out to get Jesus have Jesus even talks about they put heavy burdens on you that nobody, no, God didn't intend. These are religious people. Religion will crush you. Relationship will heal you. Who qualifies for this, this yoke? Well, it says in verse 27, those who are weary and heavy laden. Are you weary and heavy laden this morning? This is Jesus' promise to all of us. A yoke, you know what is that? A yoke is this heavy crossbar that's laid over the top of animals, the ox that forces them to drag farming equipment across a field. That's all that is. It's not as common we see in our nation or whatever, but you find it in other countries. Jesus is using this, though, kind of as irony, because he's saying that the yoke is actually, it's actually a way to stay together with him. So get the image here. So it's actually not what it appears to be. In fact, I like what uh Dane Ortland says in his book, Gentle Lowly, a great book if you've not read it. Uh, because what we say is being in a yoke sounds pretty awful. Who would want that? He says it's like telling a drowning man that he must put on the burden of a life preserver, only to hear him shout back, sputtering, no way, not me. This is hard enough. Drowning here in these stormy waters, the last thing I need is the added burden of a life preserver around my body. That's what we're all like, he says. Confessing Christ with our lips, but generally avoiding deep fellowship with him out of a muted understanding of his heart. I am gentle and humble of heart. And the question for this metaphor is, you know, and it's been discussed quite a bit, who is Jesus here in this picture? Is he the farmer who puts on the yoke and watches you go to it, or is he the ox paired with you to do what you're called to do? And I just believe Jesus has identified himself as an older, well-trained ox who we're to be yoked with so that we can learn from him. That's the idea. In fact, that technique is still used today. I read a little note that said yoking an untrained animal with a trained ox can be a very successful technique, as over time the young animal learns what it should do in the yoke by following the trained ox. So this is a neat picture. Keep this in mind as you're thinking about what it means to be with Jesus. And what do we learn? Well, several things. Number one, we learn that yoke with Christ, we learn how to shed our unchrist-like character. Tyler talked a little bit about that last week. We learn to shed our unchrist-like character. And I just think my mind is drawn back to James and John, two of Jesus' disciples, and they were nicknamed. Do you remember what the nickname was? Sons of Thunder. Not good. And on one occasion, their character was kind of revealed in Luke chapter 9 as they asked Jesus to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritan village for rejecting Jesus. And Jesus kind of kind of paraphrased, what in the world are you doing? You know, their character need to be changed. So yoke with Christ, we learn to shed our unchrist-like character. Number two, yoke with Christ, we learn how to grow our faith. Did you know that four times in the gospel, Jesus said to the disciples on different occasions, Oh, you of little faith. He's not diminishing them, he's making them aware of something. All of these had to do with something. Every one of those had to do with fear and doubt. Oh, you of little faith. Jesus would show them that God would always come through. Number three, what do we learn? Yoke with Christ, we learn how to love agape one another. You know what agape love is? Love that is like God. It's God's love that goes out of its way to seek the other person, to do what's best for the other person, even sometimes when it's when it's hard. Unconditional love. And I'm thinking about one particular woman one day who was caught in adultery, and there was a group of people around her, men who were ready to stone her, and she was right in the center, and Jesus walks up, and long story short, he he basically says, okay, whoever's not sinned, throw the first stone. And you hear stones dropping. And then she he looks at Jesus, he looks at the woman, he says, We're your accusers. This is Jesus' compassionate love toward us. Just like Mike shared this morning. He he has that love for every one of us. But it's sometimes tough love. He told the woman, go and sin no more. We learn how to love one another. Number four, yoke with Christ, we learn how to bear fruit that will last. Fruit that will last. And then number five, yoke with Christ, we learn to die to ourself. And I don't think there's probably any more great example than watching Jesus as he went to the cross on our behalf, taking our sin upon himself, burying our sin at the cross, and dying and giving us in return eternal life. That's the yoke metaphor. Learn of me. The second picture I want to give you beyond the yoke metaphor is the vine metaphor. Remain in me, remain in me. John 15, verse 4 says, Remain in me and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot bear fruit, produce fruit, that it is, if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. Your version may say, abide in me. I almost think that that always confused me. What does it mean to abide in Jesus? But you know, I can understand this. It means don't leave Jesus. Stay with him. Remain in him. And so you see of this, this is not a contract that we're in with Jesus. We think sometimes it's a duty to follow Jesus. It's not a duty, it's a privilege. It's it what it brings us is a tangible encounter with a living Lord. Jesus is alive. Let me give you some being with principles. Number one, what I would call the principle of identity. Based on this metaphor of the vine, he says, I am the vine, you are the branches, my father is the gardener. He's telling us who we are, who Jesus is, and who the Father is. Know God, know me, know yourself in relation to me. And I will tell you that many people in the church today deal with rejection and struggle with self-identity. They don't know who they are because they are not close to Jesus. You get close to Jesus, Jesus will tell you who you are. You're his wonderful creation. You are the one he died for. You're everything to him. Don't diminish who you are in Christ. So many other things. The principle of identity. The second thing we learned, being with principles, the principle of consistency. He says, not only, I am the vine, you're the branches, my father is a gardener, but he says, Remain in me. Remain in me. And I'm thinking back to that time in John chapter 6. And sometimes Jesus tells us to do things that we will that make us want to run away. All the time there are people who come into the church that get offended. They don't like the idea that Jesus is calling them to do this, or this might be the way. And that happened one time with Jesus. In John chapter 6, Jesus said something pretty hard to understand. One of the hard sayings of Jesus. They didn't get it because he was speaking at a different level. They heard it one way, but Jesus meant something else. But it says there, it says, after this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. You wonder how many in that circle disappeared. So Jesus said to the twelve, Do you want to go away as well? Think about Jesus' heart right there. Are you going to leave me too? Simon Peter answered, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. You see, true discipleship involves faith beyond your mere intellect or your emotions. When you don't feel like following, that's that's that's some level that's irrelevant. It doesn't make sense to you. That's irrelevant. Stick with Jesus and it will become relevant. Stick with Jesus and your emotions will change. Our emotions are fickle. And so, like the crowd, the crowd is a fickle crowd in many occasions. And you see that by the end of Jesus' time on the earth, the crowd basically are the one that crucified him. So this is the principle of consistency, sticking with Jesus for the long haul. For the long haul. Not giving up, not quitting, not getting so tired that you give up and go away. And then number three, the principle of dependency. He says this. He says, apart from me, you can do lots of things. No. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Nothing. Nothing means zero. Nothing. Do you think of your life like that? Are you so dependent on Jesus that if you think if I do this, I can just think this through and I can make this work out. If I have the plan, I can work it. Work the plan, plan the work, and it'll all work out. Boy, that's just foolish. If you're a follower of Jesus, you better get close to Jesus and find out his plan. Apart from me, you can do nothing. John 4 makes me think of a story. Jesus, one of his signs in the Gospel of John. And you'll know the story. He goes to a wedding. Jesus goes to this wedding, they run out of wine, and Jesus says to the servants, fill the water pots with water. And then he does a miracle. He turns the water to wine. And there's only a few people that get to see that. The people at the wedding said, you've saved the best wine to the end. Boy, this is great stuff. You did what most people don't do. You saved the best to the last. You know what I think about that story is Jesus still turns water to wine. Jesus can transform what is normal and weak and nothing into something that is beautiful. He can change your life to turn it into something that you could never imagine. See, only here's the thing, that little story, Jesus' mother says, He says to the servants, whatever he tells you to do, do it. Whatever he tells you to do, do it. And there's see, there's only there's some things that that never happened unless we just are paying to the obedience of Jesus in everything. If you obey obey Jesus, doing what he says, by doing what he says, we do we we find out who he is. Even in the little things. By doing what he says, we find out who Jesus is. And our respect and admiration, admiration and love for him goes. Fourth principle, the principle of sufficiency. He says, you will bear fruit. And you know that story. The disciples were there in the gospel. Jesus fed a massive crowds twice. One time he fed 5,000, and then there again he fed 4,000. And then after that, it says that the disciples got in a boat and they wondered that they didn't have enough bread to eat. And Jesus kind of says, Why are you talking about this? In fact, let me read it for you. Mark 8, 19 through 20. When I broke the five loaves for the 5,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up? They said, him twelve with big eyes. And they in the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up? And they said to him, Seven. The blank stare on their face. And he said to them, Do you not yet understand? Understand what? The leftovers. Look at the leftovers. The leftovers were for the servers. In fact, for the first time, that first feeding, there were 12 servers and 12 basketfuls left over. Twelve disciples, 12 baskets. Do you kind of get, okay, can disciples, can you get this? The second time there were seven baskets full, and the number of absolute completion and abundance. What didn't they understand? That Jesus would always take care of them. Always. Why do you doubt? Well, let's move on. Because this picture of the yoke and the vine, they are pictures to keep in mind about how we can understand being with Jesus, what it comes to us to be like. And look at the outcome of this. The outcome is transformed transformed hearts and lives. You don't have to look far for that. Following Jesus' resurrection and ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit, we see these same disciples whose hearts have been remodeled. To use that word, remodeled. You ever had your house remodeled? Or you ever been in a house that has been remodeled? Remember that show? What was it? They would come on and tie Pennington would get on there and Extreme Makeover. Jesus does an extreme makeover. And then they would go like show you a horrible-looking house. And then at the end of the show, they they invite the owners back in and they open the doors. And it's like, is this my house? Jesus comes into our lives. And we look back and you and we go, is this my is this me? I mean, we're not perfect. But boy, we're changed. If you've never been changed, you haven't met Jesus. See, Jesus' plan for discipleship is profound in its simplicity and powerful in its effects. But only if, only if we are intentional about it. I mean, there's a lot of good things we can do in the church, but there's only one thing, only one thing that matters most. As you're going, make disciples. So we're talking about doing life together. Let me let me kind of give this, kind of bring this to uh conclusion here in just a moment. Here, life together. I think of this as being under the word at the table. Table is like at a meal or in the street. And as we're going, we might think this to be an overwhelming task, but it's all about our focus, you see. If we're focused on many things, we won't get anything done. It's like the difference between a light bulb and a laser beam. Jesus is calling us to be laser focused on making disciples. Remember, when Jesus began, he started with how many? One. Who in turn found one. Jesus found Andrew, then Andrew found Peter. Jesus found Philip, then Philip found Nathaniel. You get the idea? So let's just make this practical. And what I do here, I just want to show you something we call small circle. And it's just one way to kind of put feed to what we're talking about. And uh and look at this. Wanting to create a discipleship culture, you say, what is a discipleship culture? What is a disciple-making culture? And I just say it's the way we do things around here. Uh more specifically, it is the beliefs, behaviors, and conversations we have around here that reveal to us what matters most. What matters most to you when you come to church? Well, here we can talk about discipleship all day long. We're in our third week, but it if our mindset doesn't change, then the church won't ever do the most important thing that Jesus has called us to do. We'll be like the 95% that sat down and did nothing and wondered why things are the way they are, both in the world and in our own lives. So the small circle I'm going to show you is has some things going for it. Number one, it's simple. You don't have to know anything except how to read. Can you read? Simple. Takes little time. It doesn't take many, many uh minutes out of your week. It gets people into the scriptures. Remember, the word says it doesn't return void. Get people in the scriptures. You get into the scriptures. It achieves the purpose. It gets us all thinking, and this is critical, about reproducing. Reproducing. If it hasn't been passed on, it's not real discipleship. And it can be used with anyone. I mean, you could take this and you could you could get together with a group of people that don't even know him yet, and maybe bring them along. To all the way to mature believers. So let's let's see this real quickly. Uh you've got sheets, I think, on the back table that you can take with you today that has this information on it. They look like this. And uh we'll just go through this real quickly. I know we're we're uh kind of short on time here, but number one is it's just very simple. Invite one. Have you been praying like we've been talking to pray who your one might be? Invite one. Ask the Lord who that person might be. And then, secondly, invite your one to invite one. So you're gonna stick with a total of three people in your small circle, and you're gonna insist that that one person invites the third person. You're not gonna do it, you're gonna let them do it. This is the disciple-making component. And then number three, which here's what you're gonna commit to. Number one, read through the gospel. You're gonna take the gospel of Mark, you're gonna read through the gospel of Mark, one chapter every week. So if you look at Mark's gospel, how many chapters are there? There's 16 chapters. So this is 16 weeks. You're gonna read one chapter each week, daily if possible, just to immerse yourself in it. Then you're gonna write out a prayer. What did you see, and what how do I respond to you, God, based on what I just read this chapter this week? You're gonna identify one insight that you feel like God has shown you, that it was the most impacting. It could be from any of those verses in chapter one. And then you're gonna write down or document one practical way you could apply the passage. And here's what it gets interesting. That's for you. This is your personal time with the Lord. And at the end of the week, after you've been reading the whole chapter, in that first chapter, for example, in Mark, you're gonna participate in a 20-minute phone call or Zoom call with the other two people who have been doing the same thing. So, three out of the four weeks, let's say, if it was four week months, you're gonna share one insight, your application, you're gonna pray for each other when you get together. 20 minutes. So it doesn't take long. And then at the last week of the month, you're going to engage in a face-to-face. Might be a good thing, might be over a meal. And you're gonna share with each other what you've what you've discovered. Get to share life with each other, what's going on. It doesn't just have to be that. And then at the end of the 16 weeks, you're gonna do this again. That one person in your group is gonna go find one, and they're gonna ask them to find their one, and you're gonna start the process over again. Whole part that's so important to this is that you're gonna you're gonna get in your mind that it's not just about me, and it's not just about us, it's about the world out there that needs to know Jesus. This is Jesus' method. And my question is, we've tried everything else. Why don't we try what Jesus asked us to do? Very few churches are. So I don't want you to feel overwhelmed by this. We're gonna be talking about it more in the weeks to come, but this week, all you're all you need to do is go find your one. Pick up a sheet in the back, go find your one, and that's that's all for this week. So this is a, I think, a really practical way for us to get discipleship beginning to form into our church body, thinking about it. You know, the apostle Paul said when speaking to his son in the faith, Timothy, he said, I remember your genuine faith, for you share the faith that first filled your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice. And I know that same faith continues strong in you. This is why I remind you to fan into flame the spiritual gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you. You see, there's four generations right there, passing on the faith, passing on the faith, passing on the faith. So let me ask you the question that I started with. What if you were a Christian all your life and you never did the one thing that Jesus asked you to do? See, Jesus offers this invitation to us today, draw near to me. And what? I will draw near to you. It's not conditioned on your being perfect, it's not conditioned on having it all together, but it's conditioned on your genuine desire to find and fellowship with Him. Amen. Yeah. So, Father, we're just grateful today for your word. We pray you would apply these truths to the lives of our people who hear this. Lord, make us disciple makers. Lord, we pray that your kingdom will come in this world we live in, Lord. We pray that all the things you want to happen will be done through your people who are with you and you're with them. You give us that promise, and we give you thanks for it. In Jesus' name. Amen.