The Selection Process of Discipleship

Join us as Pastor Tyler continues in the sermon series on Being a Disciple-Making Church - The Selection Process of Discipleship - Luke 6:12-16

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Well, today we are in Luke chapter six. So if you have your Bibles, I uh encourage you and welcome you to join me in Luke chapter six. It will also be on the screen behind me as we work our way through the passage. And continuing with our disciples making disciples sermon series, this morning we're going to talk about the selection process of discipleship. And really what that is, is when considering discipleship, sometimes we get to that point, right? We ask the question, well, where do we start? Who do we disciple? Who has God called us to pour into from our own spiritual well of life and knowledge and to come alongside of and support? And so in asking this question, I think it's important for us just a few things as we get into seeing how Jesus himself approached this question and he approached the answer to those things. I think it's important for us to understand that there are differences between discipleship happening as a large group or a big crowd, and we would recognize that as the church here on Sunday morning. This is one of our like the main events for us in the life of the church would be Sunday morning. And discipleship is happening here on a Sunday morning in a large group, but there's a difference between the big crowd kind of discipleship and the personal life-on-life one-on-one discipleship that Jesus models for us. And I believe he is calling us to in Matthew chapter 28. You know, Jesus modeled both of these types of discipleship, the big crowd discipleship, but it's clear from scripture that the biblical pattern is an emphasis on this life-on-life discipleship. And so from today's passage, we're going to see how Jesus himself handled that question. Who is it that he was going to disciple? Who was it that he's going to focus his time and his attention on as he was here on earth? Laying for us the ultimate example to follow in our own discipleship process. Mark Dever in his book, Discipling, that's this little book here. I would um recommend this book to anyone. It's only, how many pages? Okay, he does break the 100 page mark, but they are small, short pages, big font, uh lots of space in between. But uh this is a great little book of introduction to what it means to disciple in the church. How to help others follow Jesus. And we uh I have a copy of it. I think maybe our library does. If it doesn't, we will get one in the library. But this is a book I would I would recommend uh for anyone to read about discipleship. There's lots out there, and I have many different books on discipleship, but I like this one, it's concise and it kind of gets to the point. But Mark Dever says this in this book: discipling. He says, discipling means helping others follow Jesus. Discipling is a relationship in which we seek to do spiritual good for someone by initiating, by teaching, by correcting, by modeling, by loving, by humbling ourselves, by counseling and influencing. And this is what we see Jesus do with his disciples. When you look at examples of discipleship in Scripture, Paul and Timothy, you see him doing the same thing. And other examples, the apostles pouring into others, this focus on this is what it means to help others follow Jesus. But we get to Luke 6. And in Luke 6, we find that Jesus most intentionally chose a few from the large crowd. And what we see Jesus do here, I think, can really help us in our own process of figuring out who we should get busy discipling. And so, three lessons this morning we learn from Jesus' example of how to select those we should disciple. The first thing is this in verse 12. Pray as Jesus did. Pray as Jesus prayed. Verse 12 comes on the heels of Jesus declaring himself the Lord of the Sabbath to the Pharisees by challenging their judging of the disciples who were grabbing grain on the Sabbath, rubbing it between their hands, and eating it. And the Pharisees, you know, to them that was doing work on the Sabbath, that was against the law of God. And Jesus corrects them in that moment. But then also in this same passage, we see from verses 6 to 11 this healing of this man with a shriveled hand. So if you have your Bibles, it's not going to be on the screen, but the verses 6 to 11. I'm just going to read this account for you as we set the stage for verse 12. On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue in verse 6 and was teaching. And a man was there whose right hand was shriveled. The scribes and Pharisees were watching him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath so that they could find a charge against him. So they're watching Jesus, trying to catch him in the act, something they can accuse him of. But he knew their thoughts. Whoa. Jesus knew what they were thinking. And he looks over at this man. You just picture this scene taking place. He knows their thoughts of these of these scribes and these Pharisees trying to catch him. And he looks over at this man, and he says to this man with the shriveled hand, get up and stand here. Imagine what's going on in the minds of these scribes and Pharisees at this moment. The thing that they had been hoping and wanting to take place. Oh, we're going to get him now. And Jesus just leans right into it. He says, Get up and stand here. So the man got up and he stood there. And then Jesus said to them, I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil? To save life or to destroy it? And after looking around at them all, and I kind of picture him looking them all in the eyes, after looking around at all of them, he told this man, stretch out your hand. And he did. And his hand was restored. And verse 11. They, however, were filled with rage and started discussing with one another what they might do to Jesus. And at this moment, I mean, if we were telling the story, I wonder what we would choose for verse 12. Well, here's what Jesus does in verse 12. During those days, he went out to a mountain to pray. And he spent all night in prayer to God. During those days, he spends the whole night praying on a mountain. And then what we know he does after he prays is he chooses his disciples. You see, Jesus didn't decide first and then pray. He prayed first and then he decided. He prayed first and then he planned. Jesus prayed and then he chose. And there's something that's interesting, I think, when you just think about the implications of what Jesus is doing here in this in the scene and what's going on. And I think there's a few things that we that we can pull out of this verse and what Jesus is doing here. We see that Christ's prayer was the priority. His priority was prayer. We also see that his prayer was private. He went alone up into the mountain and he prayed all night. It was focused. We've been talking a little bit about this this year as we focused on the priority of prayer. Where prayer is done before plans are formed. We saw this in Nehemiah at the beginning of the year. We ourselves spent a week every night praying together as a church, praying that our hearts would align with the heart of God. That we would do what God wants us to do, that we would get on his plan and his agenda for us as a church, but also for us as individuals. Oh, that we would be a church that prays before we plan. That we would be a church that doesn't see prayer as this thing. We just tag on to the beginning of something and tag on to the end of something. But prayer becomes the thing. Jesus focused, prioritized, privately, goes up to this mountain and he prays all night. I mean, just think about it. If anyone could have jumped right into planning and picking out his disciples, it was Jesus. But he prays. He got alone and he prayed. It didn't go out on a prayer list. And prayer lists are wonderful, great. We have a prayer list here. I love that we have a prayer list here at our church. It wasn't something that was that was done in a group, but it was private. It was a private moment of life of prayer between him and the Father. And he does it all night. Think about it. All night. You know, some of us are up all night because of babies, maybe because of illness. Maybe you've been up all night because of stress. But Jesus was up all night talking to the Father. You know, when I think of um being up all night doing something, it reminds me of those delightful or dreadful all-night events that youth groups do. And the many that uh I've had to do in the past, um, we used to do these large um youth events uh across Canada in different locations. We would do one in Moncton and we'd see like 1,200 to 1,500 teens come out to this all-nighter event, and we would give them all you-can-eat pizza throughout the whole evening. We'd do bowling, we'd be driving around, going to uh different places for activities throughout the night, and they would hear the gospel and all these things. And I remember one particular year I was I was involved in putting one on in Moncton one one week, and the following week I was in Saskatoon involved in doing one there. And let me tell you, it drains the life out of you. And in some of those situations, I mean, we're in some pretty cool places, like in Moncton, we're in an indoor theme park that doesn't exist anymore. I think it's a Bass Pro Shop now. But I even in that, like trying to stay awake, having all of the caffeine and all of these people around you, and all the excitement and the lights and the glow of everything taking place, I mean, it was tough to stay awake, but here is Jesus in the cool of the night on a mountain, praying to God all night. In the cool and quiet. You know, if Jesus needed to pray all night, what about us? In the process of discipleship, prayer should not only be our first step, as it should be, but it also draws our attention to the primacy of our own spiritual health and maturity. We can only encourage and show people how to follow Jesus if we first built healthy patterns of following Jesus ourselves. And something that might be good for you to do, really for all of us to do. But ask a trusted, wiser older Christian, or even a trusted, wiser brother or sister in Christ here this morning, who loves you and who knows you well. Ask them how they think you're doing. And if they think that you are ready for this process of pouring into and discipling somebody else. You see, because we are first disciples who need to prioritize our own spiritual growth. And that's what we see Jesus, God Himself, prioritizing prayer. And as we see Christ's relationship develop with his disciples, we see Jesus' prayer life was a visible pattern of his communion with the Father. And the disciples saw this and they learned from it. And we know because they wrote it down for us. You know, we don't know what the content of his prayer was, but given the context, he was most likely praying about who would be his disciples or who would be his apostles. The apostles who would be the messengers of the gospel, the future of the church. So how do we know who we should disciple? Prioritize your own pursuit of Christ first. Number two, pray. Pray for God to bring somebody along to disciple. Pray that God would reveal to you who it is in front of you, maybe even right now, for you to pour your life into. That brings us into the second point this morning. Purposefully choose as Jesus did. Purposefully choose as Jesus did. Verses 13 to 15. You know, notice as we go through these verses in just a moment, this was naturally people who are already following Jesus. And here's a good question for us: who is it right in front of you right now in your life? God has already naturally brought into your life for you to pour into and disciple. And here we begin to see even clearly this distinction between a large crowd of disciples as mentioned in verse 17, and this more intimate group of apostles, the twelve. Verse 13, this is what happens after Jesus prays all night, when daylight came, it says, He summoned his disciples, he chose twelve of them, who he also named apostles, Simon, whom he also named Peter, Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called the zealot, Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. He summons them all around, and from there he takes this moment and chooses twelve. You know, Jesus didn't do with the many what he could do with the few. He had his own limitations in his human form. And I think this helps us because it reminds us that we can't do it on our own. Discipleship and the church is a team sport. It's something every one of us needs to be involved in. It's not just a job for one pastor or a few leaders, it's impossible with just a few. Especially when you even think practically about our own context here at Wynne. We have a church with an average Sunday attendance of several hundred. And when you include the ministries and discipleship interactions we have on an ongoing basis that people regularly come to and attend, that number almost doubles. And uh you start to think through this. So this is like several hundred people, doubled several hundred more people. You see, not one person or small group of people could care for a group this large. It takes all of us being involved, caring for, and discipling to make church work as it's supposed to work with disciples making disciples. You know, even when you think about our reach outside of these walls. You know, on average, individually, now this is just an average, so some of us it's less, some of us it's more, but on average, individually, one person interacts with about 70 people a week. So that's neighbors, family, coworkers, that's appointments you go to, school, etc. We're on average interacting with about 70 people a week. And that means with just the people here today, just think about that. Just the people here today, we are around on average 20,000 plus people each week that we as a church are interacting with. That we're coming in contact with. You know, our area is growing and the needs are becoming more, but the needs are also already here. And what are we doing with what and with whom God has already brought across our path? With those who are right in front of us. Jesus had a crowd, perhaps hundreds, who were following him as disciples, but he chooses twelve because he knew the twelve were going to impact the crowd. And from this group, even as we look at the example of Jesus and his relationship with the disciples, we get this understanding that even from the twelve, there were three that had an even deeper experience with Christ than the others did, than the others were even privy to. And we know Peter, James, and John, they had a special relationship with Jesus. Even amongst the hundreds, even amongst the twelve, Peter, James, and John were the ones who stood with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus focused even more attention on these three men. And in verses 14 through 16, we see that Jesus didn't see them for who they were at the time, but he knew who they would become. He knew their potential. He chose them based off of their potential. And uh Luke includes this: he even chose Judas, the one that would betray him. Yeah, Jesus chose Judas to disciple. You see, Jesus knew their potential, he knew that events would take place, teaching would happen, and that he, Jesus, would see these men grow in the grace and the knowledge of God. And how does this help us, though? You know, when choosing who to disciple, um, something that Mark Dever brings out in his book, I think finds uh really helpful here. He gives us these nine considerations, and I think they are spot on in this, in this, uh, in our ideas of who it is that God has called us to disciple. So he starts with family. Family. The biblical pattern emphasized in scripture is first family discipleship between a husband and wife, parents and children. I mean, scripture is full of the focus on the special relationship and incubator that family is for discipleship to take place. So for us here this morning, if you're wondering, who has God called you to disciple? Well, your family. Your family, your children, your spouses, your grandchildren. That should be our focus, our number one priority. And we understand that family relationships can be complicated. We talked about this last week. There is a brokenness that exists there. And some of our families aren't all well put together, and there's things that are challenging, and within that, we want to leave room and space to acknowledge that here this morning. But we see in the ideal scenario and situation, scripture calling us to remember to disciple our families. And then we see number two that he brings out is the spiritual condition. Spiritual condition. And we see this in scripture as you're considering somebody to disciple and pour into one-on-one, where is their spiritual condition? 1 Corinthians 3 reminds us of this. It's somebody who is serious about growing in their walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. Somebody who's already a Christian. So this isn't an evangelistic thing, but this is a discipleship thing. Evangelism happens before this process that we're talking about. When you think of Jesus and his disciples, they they believed. That's why they were there. And those are the ones that he chose to focus his time and attention on. With Paul and Timothy, same thing. Timothy was already a Christian. Now we know that there's lots of stories, and even in this room, of us leading people to the Lord Jesus Christ in faith and then being able to disciple them, and that's what the church is meant to do. But when it comes to considering who it is we should be pouring our time and attention into, we see Scripture focusing on the spiritual condition. And the third thing that Devra points out is the local church. One of the things he says, I think, is really helpful here, ordinary pathways of discipleship work best in the relational context of one's church. So who is it here in our church today? Part of the life of our church that God could be calling you to disciple. And then we see in Scripture that gender is important to consider. We see this biblical rhythm of older men pouring into younger men, older women pouring into younger women. We see this generational discipleship taking place, but also in accordance with gender, this biblical rhythm. And we know there are stories, of course, of women who followed Jesus, but not in the same way the 12 apostles did, not in the same way the three that Jesus focused on did. So we know there's nuance to those things, but the biblical rhythm tends to encourage us to consider gender. Also, age. How the younger is to respect the older as a parent, but then you see this thing take place in that passage too, where the older is to respect the younger as a brother and sister in discipleship. What are the age? What's the age? And then Dever goes on to talk about different than you. You want to engage maybe with a different culture, a different stage of life, a different political bend or outlook on life, because that's the beauty of the tapestry of the church, is that God is weaving in all different kinds of personalities and different persons, different backgrounds into what he is calling beautiful and he's calling his church. And so you want to think even maybe somebody who's different than you. And then we see teachability, and this is this is a big one. James 1 encourages teachability. Teach the teachable and be teachable yourself. And then faithfulness, uh, number eight, to teach others is the person you're pouring into, somebody who will be living on purpose to disciple another person. And we see this also in 2 Timothy, where Paul commends, commands, and tells and encourages Timothy to be taking what he knows, pouring it into faithful men who will be able to teach others also. There is a spiritual multiplication that needs to take place in this line of disciples making disciples. And then very practically, I love number nine, proximity and schedules. What's just gonna work out? What's gonna be practical? What's gonna work out for you and the other person for you to uh disciple them? And so from Christ's example, we get this idea. He spends time in prayer, but then he comes down and he chooses the 12 out of the crowd. He chooses them for their potential, not for where they were. He knew they would struggle, but he was committing to help them through that struggle and to teach them through that. And then the third thing we see here, he pro is to proactively get busy as Jesus did. So we pray as Jesus did, we are purposeful in choosing as Jesus was, but we proactively get busy as he did. And I think that's reflected in verses 17 through 19, where uh as soon as Jesus chooses the disciples, it says in verse 17, after coming down with them, he stood on a level place with a large crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon. And there they came to hear him, so they came to hear him teach, they came to be healed of their diseases, and those tormented by unclean spirits were made well. The whole crowd was trying to touch him because power was coming from him and healing them all. So here he picks the disciples, he prays, chooses the disciples, and then he just gets busy with the work of the ministry. They just got busy. They were proactive. They're all standing there. This large crowd is with them. People showing up to be healed, to hear Jesus teach. You know, the emphasis that we get, including the context that's to come, where Jesus looks to his disciples and he teaches them the beatitudes. He teaches them where to find their fulfillment. He teaches them what it means to love your enemies, to not judge, teaches them but the tree and its fruit. And so you get this idea that as this is unfolding, the focus is going to be on the content and quality of what is taking place in his teaching of these disciples and showing them how he was living and going to care for others. The emphasis here is on Jesus' teaching, but we get all these other kinds of uh wonderful ministry things happening, those coming to him that were in deep and grave need, that were suffering. And Jesus welcomes them and he heals them. Power is just coming out of him as he's healing these people. And even in this, this is a powerful discipleship moment for him and his disciples because he's starting to show them his heart for people. He's showing them how he cares for those who are afflicted. But it never, it never interferes with how he teaches and the way he teaches. It's always so well balanced. He knew what they needed at the same time. And he knew that these would be his chosen twelve who would then have to turn around and do the same thing. So this is where he gives these teachings, the Beatitudes. You know, we are meant to be discipling others. We're meant to be discipling others. And this is what I want to leave us with here this morning is this. Who's discipling you? Who's discipling you? And this looks very different for every one of us. Each stage of life is different. But have you ever invited somebody into your life, an older, godly someone who can disciple you, pray with you, pray for you, intentionally care for you. Who's discipling you? And here's the other question here this morning: is who has God brought into your life to disciple? My challenge for us is that we would pray. We would be purposeful, and we'd get proactively busy. You know, next week we're gonna close our series talking about the pathway of discipleship as we look at 2 Timothy 3. We're gonna ask the question: what does a discipleship relationship practically look like? And if you want to do a little bit of homework ahead of time between now and then, I encourage you to read through the book of 2 Timothy, the whole thing. It takes about 12, 15 minutes at a steady pace. Read through the book of 2 Timothy and take note of the features of the discipleship relationship between Paul and Timothy. And next week, when we gather together as a church, we're gonna talk about what it practically looks like in those discipleship relationships as we fulfill the calling that Jesus, before he ascends on high to God the Father, to be seated at his right hand for all eternity, to be interceding on our behalf. The last thing he says to us as the church, go and make disciples. And so next week we hope to close our time talking about even practically again what that looks like. But let's start by praying. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. We just thank you for the example of Jesus. We thank you, Lord, for those who you've brought into our lives who have intentionally, even those who have unintentionally, but through their example, showing us what it means to follow you. Father, I pray that you would continue to burn within us a desire not just to teach, not just to disciple others, but Lord, burn within us a desire to be faithful disciples of you. That Lord, we would pray before we plan, before we choose, before we decide, that we would put in priority our own spiritual walk and spiritual life. Father, we pray for your wisdom and we pray for your help in the process of discipleship in Jesus' name. Amen.