SO THAT Missions Podcast | FBC Boerne
So that...God's ways may be known on Earth.
"So That" is an FBC Boerne podcast focused on what God is doing around the world with missions and through FBC Missions partners.
SO THAT Missions Podcast | FBC Boerne
Episode 59: Jeff Lewis The Five Essentials: Empowering Disciples in the 21st Century
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Join us for a transformative conversation on the dynamics of disciple-making in today’s church. In this enlightening episode, Pastor Chad welcomes Jeff Lewis to discuss how God is actively engaging churches across the country to foster a culture of discipleship that goes beyond traditional structures. As they dive into essential topics like the role of mobilization, the significance of Scripture, and the importance of building authentic communities, listeners are encouraged to consider what it means to be a true disciple-maker in their context.
Through thoughtful insights and personal stories, Jeff challenges common perceptions about being goers versus making true disciples of Christ. What does it mean to be a mobilizer who nurtures growth and engagement both locally and globally? This episode provides listeners with practical tools and perspectives on embracing a kingdom-centered approach to community engagement.
Filled with wisdom and real-life applications, this episode serves not merely as theoretical musings but as a call to action for believers to step into their roles as light bearers and bless others around them. Discover how you can contribute to the work God is doing in your life, church, and community, and find inspiration to create ripples of change that reflect His glory. Don't forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review to help spread the message!
Visit our website at www.fbcboerne.org for more stories, information, and service times.
Introduction with Pastor Chad and Jeff Lewis
Speaker 1Hey everybody, this is Pastor Chad. I'm so glad that you have tuned in today to listen to our podcast. I have my friend and Jeff Lewis with me in the room today and we're going to have a great conversation about how God is using His work to encourage churches around the country. Welcome to FBC Missions so that Podcast. This is an encouraging place to hear how God is working in and around us. We know that he blesses His people so that they can bless the world around them. Join us as we discuss how to join God in all that he is doing. Why is God working in our life, church and community? It's so that through us, the world will know that he is near. All right, hey everybody, this is Pastor Chad. Welcome to FBC's so that Missions podcast. We're so glad that you joined us today.
Speaker 1I'm in the studio with Jeff Lewis. How are you, sir? I'm doing great. It's great to have you. This is our second time to be on the podcast here together and so exciting to get to hear and talk to you a little bit today. We had perspectives this morning and I was commenting that you kind of ran out of material, like you just exhausted your material too quickly.
Speaker 2Well then, you were in the wrong classroom. I could take an hour on each commissioning statement and only do surface-level explanations.
Speaker 1So the class today was called Mandate for the Nations, and Jeff, I think, has taught an entire semester course to students on this and we've asked him to trim it down to two 45 or 50-minute sessions, and so it was awesome. It was so great to just kind of look at all that God is doing in those verses and calling his people to action, and really rarely with the focus on any one of us, but always on the big picture. Yeah, yes, yeah. So lots going on. It's been a year Everybody doing well. You talked a lot about your grandson and he's doing a lot of great things with the Air Force.
Speaker 2Yes, Well, when I talk about grandkids, there's 22 of them, 22 grandkids. And I'm close to Lackland Air Force Base. That's where my grandson is based right now and he's a PGA in training and he's got one proud grandfather. My grandfather's name is Big Daddy Big.
Speaker 1Daddy, okay, that's awesome.
Speaker 2And was able to have dinner with him Sunday. Good, I came in early to celebrate his passing his medic exam.
Speaker 1Okay, while you were doing that, the rest of us were suffering through a complete dismantling of the Kansas City Chiefs, and so we're glad, I'm so glad you got to spend some time with him you mentioned a year ago. That's one of the reasons you said yes to come to our class.
Speaker 2It was, but he wasn't here because he was in Panama City, florida, doing his combat dive.
Speaker 1Well, I'm glad you got to spend some time with him this week. That's good. Well, you have been a lifelong mobilizer, jeff, everything from teaching in seminaries to mobilizing young people, teaching, of course, perspectives classes for a long time now, and I just want to ask you just a couple of questions. For one, what kind of impacts have you seen, or even changes maybe, to how mobilization has impacted the church?
Speaker 2How it's impacted the church. Let me do one correction. I've never taught in seminary. Really Undergraduate is. So California Baptist University and Oklahoma Baptist University.
Speaker 1I had Gateway Seminary in there, but that's not it. Okay.
Speaker 2Thanks for correcting me. I think I've been telling everybody completely erroneous information. That might've been why today someone said so how long did you teach in seminary? And I went. Well, I visited a couple of classes that may have been my fault. I do not have a terminal degree. A terminal degree, I like that, that's great, and I don't plan on ever pursuing that.
Speaker 1Yes, so how mobilization has impacted the church yeah, you know, like when I was a kid, I didn't learn of the word mobilizer until I took Perspectives which was probably like 2006, I think. And yet you've been teaching these classes. You've been a part of it for far beyond that. So I just wondered it's a random question but have you seen that word, the word mobilizer? I feel like that kind of defines what I know about you so well.
Speaker 2It's engaging people for a larger purpose and I guess I would push back on that title.
Speaker 1Okay.
How God Is Blessing Churches Across the Country
Speaker 2Now it's the title that the mission world has given me, and I've been doing that for almost 38 years, but if I was going to choose a biblical title, it would be I'm a disciple maker for the nations and I think one of the challenges we have. Let's just take your general question of how has mobilization impacted the churches.
Speaker 1I'm going to take this as a gentle rebuke, okay, so if you're listening, I'm just going to take my lumps here, but I'll take it. I can't wait to hear what you're going to say.
Speaker 2So let's see if I can do this concisely and not ramble on for another 20 minutesulture. And so they have taken concepts and titles that are basically verbs that are created through another biblical responsibility, not necessarily tied to a world called missions.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2I got you. And so Mobilizer is something I think the mission world has coined because they felt like they saw the church being static in relationship to even local outreach and multiplication, to global outreach and developing multiplying communities among the unreached of the world, and because of that they developed a language that I think church leadership has been challenged to understand. What does that mean in our context? Because we developed language like mobilization, we have basically told people the way you are mobilized for the cause of Christ among the nations is you find your role in mobilization. So the roles are defined in most mobilization websites that you find Sure, sure, as we have goers, yeah goers, givers.
Speaker 1We have senders Senders, yeah, prayers, yeah, and so we have a list of those things.
Speaker 2Yeah, prayers, yeah, prayers, yeah, and so we have a list of those things, yeah, and I have been for decades pushing back on those titles, because I think the titles limit what the Holy Spirit desires to accomplish in someone's life as they capture a global vision for the gospel of Christ. Vision for the gospel of Christ, because if I'm looking for a defined role, defined by the mission community, I restrict how the Holy Spirit might guide and lead me in involvement. Yeah, I can see that, and so my counter has always been I don't want you to become one of the five or six options, because most people define that as that's my calling and they understand God's calling as static.
Speaker 1Isn't that wild Like? I don't want to unpack that too much, but yeah, I agree. People think once I know my calling singular, then that is all I need to worry about.
Speaker 2That's right, they never have to live in a life of constant obedience to the dynamic nature of God, defining what he's doing in their lives, the season that they find themselves in, how to be strategically engaged at every movement of life.
Speaker 1Yeah, it'd be so funny to say, listen, paul was just a wonderful goer and that's all he did, like he didn't welcome or pray or give or spend his self in every way for the kingdom right.
Speaker 2And so I'm one of those guys that pushes back on and does some provocative things. Chad, I know Maybe I'm overstating myself, but I would say one of our problems is we're sending goers instead of disciple makers to the nations.
Speaker 2I love it I love it, and most men and women that are going to the nations are so ill-equipped in what it means to develop disciple-makers and to be true to the Greek syntax of Matthew 28, 19,. I must include disciple-makers of all nations, because discipling, which is the verb matheteo, is a transitive verb and must the action of the verb must connect with the object, and the object that Jesus gave was the nations. And so every time we in the church disconnect all nations and just say that the Great Commission is about making disciples, we're wrong. No, we're making disciple makers of the nations.
Speaker 1If we're going to be obedient to the words of Christ, so it would be more like, as you go, discipling the nations is the way this is reading, right, yeah, yeah. That's the way this is reading, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2That's the way it reads, and so what I try to encourage churches to begin to realize is, if that is the commissioning statement that we find in Matthew's gospel, and that is the imperative, then what is the church doing to develop disciple makers of the nations? That's their responsibility, and the education and development and the discipling of men and women towards the cause of Christ, both locally and globally simultaneously.
Speaker 1That kind of sounds like Acts 1-8. I mean, I don't know, but a little bit. You know you will be my witnesses. You think I don't know Jerusalem, judea, the ends of the earth. You know you will be my witnesses. You think I don't know Jerusalem, judea, the ends of the earth. You know like it seems very close, so that's interesting.
Speaker 2But let me speak to that, because a lot of people listening to that might see it as concentric circles, that we do it in some kind of order. Yeah, oh, the order only relates to the first 10 chapters of Acts. After that it's simultaneous activity. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1I love it. I love it. There's so much there. I love what you said about we're mobilizing goers but not necessarily disciple makers. Yeah, and there's so many pieces to that that just that strike me as profound and frustrating. Right, like incredible evangelists maybe have huge hearts to save the loss and yet really difficult at creating and teaching others how to teach others, how to make disciples downstream. And if that is a base skill for a disciple maker when you're a disciple too, that you know how to make disciples, then I feel like we're kind of lacking here as well, like in our own Western context, for the kind of the way the church sees and engages with the loss here, the way the church sees and engages with the lost. Here, do you see the lack of disciple-making kind of rigor as a challenge within the Western church as well?
Speaker 2Oh, definitely. In fact, I was told by some of my pastor friends who've been pastoring for decades that when they ask some of these headhunter organizations that they want to fill a position of disciple-making pastor or discipleship pastor and those are not the same thing, no, no, no. Just to clarify that they've been told by the headhunters we don't even know what that is anymore, and so don't even look for someone like that when that's far disconnected from that.
Speaker 1It's so foreign to even our church, our search processes, that they don't have a category for disciple-making pastor.
Speaker 2I mean when Sunder Baptist went from training union to discipleship classes on Sunday nights, all of a sudden disciple-making was defined as going through a workbook, filling in blanks and getting a certificate, and you are progressing through discipleship training and so, yeah, we've done a lot to basically fuzz it up, if you will.
Speaker 1Fuzz it up To make it really muddy, oh we have.
Speaker 2It's just because when people ask me could you tell me what a book to read about disciple making this day and age, I say please don't read a book. I want you to study Scripture and the first thing I want you to study is, as you read through the Gospels, look at the discipling techniques that surface in the Gospels that Jesus used to develop disciple-makers of the nations and begin to identify those concepts. Don't run to another book, because almost every single discipleship book or disciple-making book is based on Dawson Trotman's theories of disciple-making from the 1950s. And I've read recent books and I can go. Well, there's the outline, there it is.
Speaker 2It's right there you can find the same process and they just go back to a certain standard instead of. What do we learn in Scripture Sure? What do we learn in the Old Testament Sure? There's at least six to eight disciple-making concepts that are foundational to the Old Testament and there's about 14 to 15 to 20 within the New Testament.
Speaker 1Well, one of the things that stands out to me the most is even just the process itself was so dynamic. They're walking together, they're talking together, they're interacting with situations that come and go, and all of our processes are so static. You get in a classroom, you're in a sterile environment, everything is controlled, everything from the temperature to the comfort of the seats and the book that you're reading together, and so it's so difficult to deal with life as life actually comes and goes, rather than a static environment where everything is controlled and so Well, you just brought up one of the principles of biblical disciple-making.
Speaker 2Well, you just brought up one of the principles of biblical disciple-making. You accomplish disciple-making through the natural flow of the disciple-ese life, not the disciple-er's life. But what we do is call people into our world, disciple in them, our world and they have no idea how to apply it in their world Because we haven't modeled it.
Speaker 2But when Jesus came on the scene, when he picked the 12 disciples in Matthew 10, he didn't say to the Father okay, I've got my 12, beam me up to the heavens and I'm going to train them for three years.
Speaker 1Bring them to me and I will take care of them, and then we'll release them into the wild again.
Speaker 2He did it in the context of their world. Sure, that's a little more challenging for pastors, but it's essential Because I believe if you were to ask Paul what is the foundation of disciple-making, he would say come follow me as I follow Christ and imitate what it looks like to pursue Christ, to live in obedience to his word and be fully engaged in his mission. I love it so it's the 1 Corinthians 11,. Be an imitator of me as I imitate Christ.
Speaker 1In the life that you live right. In your context. What a great thing. So in your discussion this morning, as you were presenting, you made a couple of comments. One lady said, by the way, she wanted to see the slide that had the characteristics of a disciple. She's like I really want to see that one. I think you skipped past it.
Speaker 2Yeah, the core competencies of a disciple maker.
Speaker 1Of a disciple maker. That'd be great. Maybe that could be another podcast. But, one of the things you mentioned was that you've developed a training process for churches where you kind of walk through with leadership teams how to develop disciple-making from a church perspective. I'd love to hear describe a little bit what you try to do in that training and what that looks like.
Speaker 2So right now the working title of the workshop is the Disciple-Making Church subtitle Biblical Disciple-Making Mobilizes the Church, church both locally to the ends of the earth, and that's kind of the foundation of it. And so for years I would teach basically college age 18 to 25-year-olds. That was the basic audience that I was discipling. And then I taught a college class on discipling the nations and I had about 20 principals that I wanted to teach. Well, trying to do a workshop with 20 principles really doesn't work well, and so over time I was able to pare that down to five that I think are essential within that. So the workshop basically well, I was going to summarize it. First of all, we need to define a disciple biblically instead of just defining the disciple in the context of our contemporary understanding of that. And what does the latest book say on that? Sure, so the introduction there's an introduction to the workshop.
Speaker 2That is the first evening, if you will, or at least part of that evening workshop. That is the first evening, if you will, or at least part of that evening. It's a seven-hour workshop where I define the term of disciple, disciple-making and discipleship. So those are three areas just to lay a foundation. So we're starting from a baseline, and I can convince them, hopefully convince them biblically, that this is how the scriptures define those things. And then, as we move into the five essentials, I'd like to come up with a better word I'm still piling it to figure it out with churches. Is that there's five essentials that I believe? And what's interesting is I later on, as I was studying I've been studying John 17 for the last 12 years of my life because I think it's an essential.
Speaker 1Yeah, 12 years in John 17,. It's a good start, right yeah?
Understanding Our Purpose: The Call to Action
Speaker 2Yeah, I think I'm in kindergarten in my understanding right now, but what I noticed, the five essentials that God really laid on my heart out of those 20 principles, are all communicated in John 17. Christ's prayer for his disciples. So, and not in this particular order, and it also relates to how I disciple men. I've been discipling men for over 53 years, so the first thing is lovers of the word. One of the most frustrating thing to do is disciple men that don't love the word of God, because you just have to keep on kicking them in the spiritual gluteals to get them to do something.
Speaker 1And it's just frustrating. No standard.
Speaker 2There's no place to start. But to give you a little perspective of how I approach it, the way we normally try to develop that love for the word is through self-discipline. Well, I would suggest that that's trying to do it according to the flesh, do it according to the flesh. And so what I do is we will spend time, sometimes only a month, sometime a few months, as I'm discipling men and we focus on Psalm 119. We never leave it, and I've developed exercises to take them through that because the whole focus on.
Speaker 2Psalm 119 is the Word of God 176 verses about the Word of God and one of the things just to add this before I move to the other four essentials One of the things I noticed in there there's about 40 statements of personal petition related to the word of God. So I try to help them understand whatever God has called you to do is impossible for you to do through just self-discipline, because there's always a limit there. You want the Father to develop the love for his word instead of you developing love for your word. So I teach them how to interact with the Psalms through memorization, meditation, but also through using these petitions like 119, verse 18. Open my eyes that I might behold the wondrous things from your law. That's a prayer.
Speaker 2There's at least 40 prayers that the psalmist articulates related to the word of God and I try to teach men how to begin to integrate that in every time they come to the word they're praying one of those prayers, because they know we've got to always admit in and of ourselves we can never do anything God has asked us to do, to guide us to do. I mean, john 8.31 tells us that Jesus says if you abide in my Word, you're truly my disciple. So he defined it that way. So if we don't abide in his Word, then how can we call ourselves disciples of Christ and so lovers of the word?
Speaker 2The next is, and I stole this from Jonathan Edwards at least the word apprehending the glory of God, so not just understanding it cognitively, but moving them to understand that we are to be an authentic manifestation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the glory of Christ manifested in and through our words and our lives. To show not only apprehending the glory of God but stewarding the glory of God in the context of our lives.
Speaker 2So, we begin to understand those things. And again, disciple-making is not just didactic means and pedagogy, if you will, for trying to get people to learn these things. It's now modeling to them how your life becomes saturated with the Word of God and how you interact with it and then with the glory of God, how you take it from just an ethereal concept and make it into the very practical elements, like in 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, beginning in 4, that talks about how the God of this age has blinded the eyes of the unbelievers to the light of the glory of the gospel of Christ. And then it goes into 5 and 6, about how that gospel of the glory of Christ is manifested in and through our lives. And so it's just not a concept that we capture, but how does it become a part of who we are in?
Speaker 1Christ. The apprehension is such a big word, I mean. Other people have said things like being aware of seeing God's glory, but reflecting it's very different, like it's not only that we make people aware of what he's doing, but that they get to see that he's doing and our participation in it makes him that much greater and we get to be a part of that.
Speaker 2It's a beautiful vision, and Isaiah introduces us to that in Isaiah 60. I mean the statement in verse 3 there that kings will be drawn to the light, your light, that's the light of the glory of God manifested in and through his people. That's beautiful, I love it, it's amazing, I love it. Then, union in Christ I love it, it's amazing, I love it. Then, union in Christ we just it's criminal how most people don't understand that they are now one in Christ and he is in them, and so it's so essential to take them through. I'm taking five grandsons through those concepts right now that I'm discipling from a distance, and so, and in fact in just a moment, after I share all these five essentials, I'll show you the global nature of all these things so you can see how it mobilizes within that. So I'll just kind of leave it there union in.
Speaker 2Christ. I remember hearing a pastor teach that if you were to ask Paul, how would he ask the question? If you were a Christian or a believer, that Paul would ask someone are you in Christ? And as I've studied Scripture now through that lens, I'm just floored at how numerous those statements are throughout the Scriptures and particularly the epistles. The fourth is the kingdom of God, and this is one of the weaknesses, I think, in the context of the modern-day church. We don't have a very good definition of kingdom. We've allowed different generations of Christians to define it. My generation was locked into George Ladd and he defined it for my generation Today. The generation or the voices today are basically the kingdom of God is accomplished through doing good deeds in the public sector in the name of Christ, but you don't even have to put the name of Christ in there.
Speaker 1And the church is irrelevant, not necessary. Yeah, it's not necessary there, but not necessary.
Speaker 2Right. So we've got to come to a scriptural equilibrium of what is the kingdom, what's the mission of the kingdom, all these different things.
Speaker 2But I would say one of our weaknesses with the kingdom is we don't understand the very nature of it. Yes, it's God's rule, reign and authority, but any Jew that would hear the kingdom of God would have these thoughts rush into their head there's a king, there's a people, and there's a king that dwells among the people he rules over. Well, the expression of that today is the church, but unfortunately, the church does not see itself as a community of disciples of the king.
Speaker 1Yeah, the citizens of the kingdom has been lost. We are individuals that you know and because it's been lost.
Speaker 2That's why church planning among the nations is a low priority in our missions today.
Speaker 1Yeah if there's no passion for the king, then what passion to make that king famous among people that don't know him Like.
Speaker 2it's not a big deal, and so we get it all backwards, thinking let's do things that will allow us to be heard by the people in helping the poor, the displaced, the disenfranchised, the widow, the orphans, all those different ministries, and then we'll get to the church planning thing, hopefully, but it rarely ever happens that way. Sure, but the problem is here is, the greatest injustice in the world is that there's three plus billion people who have never heard the name of Jesus before. That is the greatest injustice in the world and the church, unfortunately, has lost that injustice, thinking these other injustices are just as important or even more important. But because we have lost that vision, we've lost the understanding that the main reason why we bring the gospel to the unreached is so that within that indigenous community, an indigenous community under the lordship of Jesus Christ, begins to live out the reality of what that looks like in the context of that people and that becomes that manifestation that the kingdom has come to this place.
Speaker 1It's a beautiful picture. It's one of those adaptive natures of this disciple making that you're talking about. It can be embedded into different cultures, customs, languages, places in the world and thrive. It's not like it's just a bad knockoff of what we do here, but it actually can represent themselves as he's created them, with their dignity, reflecting his glory in their unique way. And it'd be not only a viable but a thriving expression of God's glory among the nations and maybe in places where it's never been Among nations, it's never been presented before. Who wouldn't want that when we talk about it?
Speaker 2it becomes.
Speaker 1So it seems like this is obvious, but it's obviously not so prevalent in our practice.
Speaker 2We develop churches as the western world defines a church. The most descriptive concept in the new testament of what church looks like are the one another passages. That is the most descriptive element of what it looks like, and I would suggest it is an introduction to the Pentateuch of the New Testament, because the laws and statutes were all about our relationship with God, our relationship to each other as the community of God and our relationship to the foreigner in our midst. That is outside the community. Our relationship to the foreigner in our midst, that is outside the community. So the church becomes that manifestation and so a lot of people are asking well, how about the poor? How about the displaced? How about the orphans and the widows? Shouldn't we do something?
Speaker 2No, you develop a church that understands. When you're under the lordship of Jesus Christ, there's hope for the poor, there's hope for the displaced. But it's through the church, the community of the king, that first and foremost does it within the church and then begins to impact their communities. That's sustainable. An American coming in trying to raise money all the time to do a small little ministry within a certain place around the world is not sustainable. It normally dies off after that person is long gone. And then what happens to the people? They're back where they started.
Speaker 1So anyway, but we're probably getting in way too much of a way, a little deviation there, but it's meaningful, it's a good thing to note. So you gave us four.
Speaker 2There's one more and the last one is the community of the king. Okay, looking at this whole idea of what does it look like and see in Western, the Western construct of disciple making is that multiplication happens through individual multiplication. That all flows from Dawson Trotman's message called Born to Reproduce. That was recorded, I think, in the 1950s and he took 2 Timothy 2.2 as his proof text.
Speaker 2These things you have heard in the presence of many witnesses, and trust to faithful men who teach others also. But the thing is about that that does not support individual multiplication, that supports community multiplication. These things you have heard in the presence of many men, plural, plural, who entrust to others, plural who teach others likewise, right Plural. So what I believe is scriptural is not the development of individuals, multiplication of individuals, but the multiplication of communities. I think the way a church grows is you multiply churches within the church. So some of the churches call it small groups, but if they're not living out the foundational biblical elements of community then they're just a place of comfort and ease and stagnation in the movement and the multiplication of the church.
Speaker 1And I would suggest to any pastor that the way you grow your church is you multiply communities within the church that are out in the world and so many churches do I mean the classic Baptist churches would say they're Sunday school classes, yeah, but they don't multiply them.
Speaker 1You're right. You're right because that's where they can easily begin to stagnate. Right, they might even be launched or started with this missional purpose. So they think, well, we give some money in the offering plate for missions and now we're good, but there's so much more than that. Again, the difference between the static, uh, lethargic, um, apathetic at times, body of Christ versus a thriving, multiplying light of the gospel, going to anywhere and everywhere God would call us, is two different things.
Speaker 2Within that community thing. The thing that really hinders it is we no longer know what biblical community looks like. No longer know what biblical community looks like, and so it's scary because it's really asking us to die to self and to be part of a community based on the lordship of christ, not our personal opinions and feelings and ideological perspectives would you suggest like a die to yourself daily kind of a thought, like I've heard that somewhere that sounds.
Speaker 2That sounds almost biblical. I've heard this. We'll have to study that back to you that not your own ambition, but the.
Speaker 1There's a few things that come to mind. As you say, that.
Speaker 2So I I took forever to do the five essentials so let me succinctly tell you how all five essentials must be understood in a global context. One, lovers of the word, the Bible is the greatest mobilizer that exists, and we have to understand that in teaching the Bible, we'll never understand it if we have never seen the picture on the box and all we do is puzzle pieces of different Bible studies we've done. And when we talk about context in our church, we only talk about the immediate context of the particular book we're in, but not the greater context of the story of God that this is about. And so, as we understand the plot of the story, which I would suggest to everybody, is the redemption of the nations and the reestablishment of God's kingdom on earth, and those two concepts are resolved in Revelation 21 and 22. It's the resolution of the story. So the Bible's best mobilizers glory of God. Yeah, so bible's best mobilizers glory of god. Well, the strategy of god, or the heart of god, is that the knowledge of the glory of the lord would cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
The Role of Mobilization in Modern Churches
Speaker 2And the gospel we articulate is the gospel of the glory of christ, and it is that gospel that god wants to manifest in and through our lives as we are called to be entrusted with this message of reconciliation and entrusted with the message, the ministry and the message which is the articulation of the good news of the gospel.
Speaker 2But we also have the visual expression of the gospel in one of the favorite calling passages in 2 Corinthians 5, beginning in verse 14, I would argue that leads us to verse 21, that he who knew no sin became sin. That for our sake, we have become the very righteousness of Christ. That's the visual manifestation of the gospel in and through our lives, as we've been entrusted with the message of Christ. That's the visual manifestation of the gospel in and through our lives, as we've been entrusted with the message of reconciliation. It's not one or the other, it's both. That's so good, then, as you move into the union with Christ. There's no better portion of scripture to help us understand that it's in Christ's prayer portion of scripture to help us understand that it's in christ prayer.
Speaker 2Remember I said all these concepts are in the prayer of christ. So here's verse 21, 22 and 23, if I may. Jesus is well. 20 says I not only pray for these only, but for those who believe in me through their words. And so jesus is not just praying for the 12, he's praying for you and I right future every follower of christ that is listening to this right.
Speaker 2he's praying for you and I, future generations, every follower of Christ that is listening to this. He's praying for you almost 2,000 years ago and this is what he prays that they would be one, just as you, father, are in me and I in you. That they would be in us. That the world may believe that you sent me. I hope that sends shocks to everybody that. Wait a second. Are you telling me that the intimacy of the body of Christ, being invited into the intimacy of the Father and the Son's relationship, is foundational to our accomplishing his mission in the world? So the world would believe that the Father sent me? Then, in 22, he says the glory that you have given to me, I've given to them. So what glory is it? You have two options the glory of the cross or the glory of the pre-incarnate word of God before the world existed verse 5 of 17. Well, I would suggest that, because of what he's praying for, it's the glory of the cross, because there's no way I'm going to love everybody in the church if I don't die to self. So the glory that you've given to me, I've given to them. That they would be one I'm in you, they are in me, I am in you that they would be perfectly one. It's like that's a little idealistic, jesus. Yeah, perfectly one, because we don't like that Perfectly. One that the world may know that you sent me and love them as you love me. So that shows that this union that we have in Christ is foundational to our accomplishing his mission in the world. And that's the same not just for individuals. It's even more importantly in the context of the church individuals. It's even more importantly in the context of the church. And so we've got to understand that our union in Christ and the pursuit of the knowledge of Christ is catalytic to our engagement of his mission, both locally to the ends of the earth for his glory and his renown.
Speaker 2Then the kingdom of God. That's easy. It's the mission of the kingdom of Matthew 24, 14. In verse 3, the disciples are asking Jesus, after he's made this interesting announcement, that, as they're pointing out the temple in Matthew 24, verses 1 and 2, hey, what do you think of the temple? Jesus is pretty cool, right? That's Lewis' edition of the scriptures. And um, jesus goes. Oh yeah, by the way, guys, there's not going to be one stone left upon another, jesus had a way of just shutting down any discussion on anything, so ultimately we don't hear any conversation until they get the mount of olives and they ask him the question when these are these things going to happen.
Speaker 2Yeah, when are you coming back and when are these things going to happen? And he goes into a literal explanation about things that are going to happen, but he doesn't answer the question until verse 14. This gospel of the kingdom shall be proclaimed in all the earth as a witness to all nations, and then the end shall come. The kingdom of God is catalytic to our engagement among the nations. Then, finally, the community of faith.
Speaker 2If we don't learn what it means to be an authentic biblical community of faith, which you cannot experience in a church larger than 50 people then you must have churches within the church that can be living out the intimacy that Christ has called us into and reflect that within our communities.
Speaker 2And so I'm big on moving away from the building as much as possible in those communities. And so you are multiplying communities as those that don't know Christ are invited into relationships through those communities. And then you're always developing and discipling communities. You're always developing leadership that can then have that multiplies into two groups that will be four groups, and your church goes through that, and I'm even one of those strong advocates that church membership is through your small groups, and your church goes through that, and I'm even one of those strong advocates that church membership is through your small groups. If it's not, then it's not important in the context of your church and the church presents people for member. The small group presents them. We have seen within their lives the authenticity of their faith and we're recommending them for membership in this church.
Speaker 1It's a beautiful picture, jeff, it's a foreign picture. I don't think I've ever seen anyone do it quite like what you're suggesting, but it does give pictures. It doesn't really fit our consumer model of church. It's definitely not quick right, and so it would take a lot of effort and a lot of work to create that kind of a system that is able to work together well in that kind of way. It would take oneness on a level that many churches just don't even aspire to.
Speaker 2But the oneness is not created by the church. It's created by our unity in christ so we have to dig into that, and so that's kind of a much longer version than maybe you wanted to hear about that workshop no, it's great. And then it's talking out because what I I never want to. I come in with the biblical principles, not with how they're supposed to implement it in their church. I can suggest, but it's up to the leadership. This workshop is not intended for the church. It's intended for the leadership of the church.
Speaker 2So they can determine and not have it dictated by me but I can challenge them through their word, through the word of God and this is my recommendation. But Figure it out. Pick and cheese yeah, figure it out.
Speaker 1This is for you to figure out. Well, jeff, you have a prophetic ministry. You get to speak into not only prospective classes but students and men's lives, and it has been such a great blessing to me these last several years and I know our class as well, and so I hope we get to have you back and do this again. Could I?
Speaker 2do one more thing. Sure, my organization I'm with would say you did a podcast and you didn't bring this up. You didn't even bring this up. So I'm in ministry with 1615, and around March we're going to be coming out with the 30th anniversary of my Bible study called God's Heart for the Nations, which is an inductive Bible study on much of what we've been talking about today and the lesson I taught today in perspectives and it's a wonderful way of introducing people in small groups, individual study and even sometimes in the context of the broader church that what is the global context of the calling of God as it relates to understanding local ministry in a global context, and the call of God about our responsibility is just not our local parish, but to the ends of the earth.
Speaker 1Yeah, I love it. I got a copy of it. I gave a couple of those away today as well, of course, not the 30th anniversary.
Speaker 2No, no, no, we're waiting.
Speaker 1Listen, we don't have it, Jeff. I can't give it away when I don't have it. I think you said you had a QR code. I would love to be a recipient of that code. I could even put it in the show notes for the podcast.
Speaker 1So if you send that to me. We'll make that available to everybody. But again, thank you for blessing us, thank you for being willing to come, and three classes and two days here in Bernie so almost a hundred students between the three classes, and I know that all of them are going to be excited to have gotten to spend some time with you. So thank you. If you're listening today, I hope this has been encouraging to you. If you have any questions or you have any comments, I'd love to hear them. Feel free to email us on the podcast, and we would love to see what God's doing in your life. Listen, the whole thing. Why we talk about this is the so that podcast is.
Speaker 1Why do we do all these things? It's so that we can be a blessing to the world around us, and so, wherever you are, whatever God's doing in your heart, make sure you look for an opportunity to bless those around you. You are a light bearer, you are an image bearer of the King, and so be a blessing for the kingdom. We love you, have a wonderful day. God bless you and we'll see you next time. We are so thankful that you joined our podcast today. We would love to hear any feedback you may have for us. Remember. Psalm 67 says May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us, so that your ways may be known on earth and your salvation among all nations. Don't forget why the Lord blesses us it's so that we can be a blessing to those around us. Until next time, god bless.