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Alright. So discipleship. That's where we are. And we're talking about going and making disciples. This is not just a series for us, this is a theme for us. It is a mandate from Christ that we would go and make disciples. And we read from a passage of scripture last week in Matthew 28. I want to start there today. So if you have your Bibles, go ahead and pull them out. We're going to look at this text again briefly. And we're not going to spend a ton of time talking from this text today, but I want to remind us why we are having this discussion on go make disciples. Okay? So Matthew 28, and I'm not going to read 16 and 17 today, but I want to start in verse 18 and just read these three verses that are the final words Matthew records from the life of Jesus. Here's what he says Matthew 28, 18 through 20. They're on the this the words are on the screen above me as well. And there's some Bibles under the uh the chairs if you'd like one this morning. Then Jesus came near, this is to his disciples, and he said to them, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go f go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always to the end of the age. Those are some powerful words, probably words that you've heard before if you've been in church or around church over the course of your life, because these are the words, again, of Jesus saying, This is what you, and he's speaking specifically to his disciples in this context, to his apostles, uh, this is what you should be doing, is going and making disciples of all nations. And he explains exactly how we're to do that, gives us some insight into that. And so last week what we said is that if these were Jesus' words to his disciples before he left the earth, and he tells them that you should teach others, as you disciple, you should teach them to observe everything I've commanded you, and this is one of his commands, then we're included in this, right? We're included because uh in when he was saying go make disciples, he was calling his disciples to go teach them to go make disciples, to go make disciples, to go make disciples. You get it? And so it's been multiplied over the decades, over the centuries. Um, and here we are today sitting here because these apostles, these disciples of Jesus, actually obeyed his instruction by the power of his spirit. And so um, just as a review to that, um, we were reminded last week that discipleship, that making disciples, is not a new idea. It's not the church's sort of strategic plan that we came up with after a lot of prayer and fasting and and just uh or creative thinking, uh, but literally that discipleship is the primary way we join God in his ongoing plan to rescue humanity. Okay? We talked about last week how that from the very beginning of time, when God created the heavens and the earth, when he created humanity, he had a plan, he had a purpose, he had an original design. And that our rebellion, our sinfulness, our rejection of God as the ruler, as the king, put us in a tailspin. And more than that, it put us in a place where we were separated from God and we deserved eternal wrath. And so we talked about last week how that God set into motion a plan to rescue, to redeem humanity, to restore what was broken in the fall, when Adam and Eve in the garden chose to disobey God and all the implications of that sense the shame, the guilt, the fear, the separation, the death. And we said that in light of all that, God putting this plan into motion, Jesus was the complete sacrifice, the perfect sacrifice, you would say, to be sufficient to pay the penalty for our sin. And it's in Jesus that we now have the opportunity to be forgiven for our rebellion, to be made right, to be reconciled in relationship to God. Now, when Jesus left planet earth after he had lived a perfect, sinless life and he died on a cross, and then he was resurrected from that grave and alive and well today, okay, from that point he gave an instruction to his people we call the church. Believers. And that instruction was to go make disciples of all nations, to take the gospel, to take the good news that Jesus Christ was sufficient for salvation, not being a good person, not being a religious person, not just checking boxes, or not just being uh being a good husband or a wife, or being a good single, pure single person, or being a good coworker, but being a person who puts your trust in Jesus Christ, that that is how we have access away to God. And so we said, and the word of God teaches us that Jesus says, go and make disciples, teach them, tell them the good news about Jesus Christ. In fact, it's interesting that Matthew 28 is the only section where Jesus uses the words, go make disciples. In the other passages, he actually says, be my witnesses. Go tell other people what you have seen and what you have heard. Go tell people about me. Because Jesus is the good news. He is the gospel. What he has done on the cross, what he did through coming out of the grave, is good news, isn't it? And so that's why we're here today. That's why I'm here today. It's to celebrate that, to remind myself and to be even recentered back on that reality. And so this discipleship, when we say go make disciples, and that word disciple we said last week, just to review on that, is this this idea of being a learner, to being a person who is following, not just learning information about Jesus, but actually learning how to follow and to live like Jesus, that we are to go make disciples of Jesus, and that that helps the whole world have the opportunity to know Jesus and to follow Jesus and to be, again, reconciled to Jesus. Two verses that really speak to this, going back to a little bit of our discussion last week, is Genesis 1.27. Genesis 1.27 says God created man in his own image, and he created him in the image of God. He created them male and female. Okay? This is one of the very first scriptures in the Bible, and it tells us that humankind, you and me, were made in God's image. Which means we were made with these characteristics that are similar to God's. The ability to create, the ability to relate and community, the ability to interact and to develop and cultivate, even tells them to be fruitful and multiply and to help the earth flourish. And these are things that God gave us in his goodness and his wisdom and his original design. He gave us the ability to reflect his image and to reflect who he is to everyone else around us. Okay? But again, sin has marred that image. And since that time, instead of a pretty, beautiful, amazing image, a lot of times we get a broken image. We get an image that is that is screwed up. It's not the image that God originally created and designed. But Romans 8, verse 29 says this. It's really powerful when you think about it. He says, For those he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son. What is that saying to us? Saying that all of God's plan to redeem humanity, to rescue humanity, is to get us back to where we are following in the image of Jesus. That we are being restored to the original design, to the original intent. Are you with me? So discipleship, as we said last week, is a way where we are being restored back to the original design. The original plan of God's desire for us to be in the image of Him. Even though it's messed up, even though it's screwed up, even though we don't do that perfectly now, as Christians, as Christ's followers, we should be increasingly becoming like Jesus, who is the epitome, the perfect picture of what it means to be human. And that's what we're doing. So where we're being discipled, we're being dis uh we're being changed more and more into the person of Jesus, to be like him. So uh I want to do something a little bit different today in this message, because we're not just gonna work through one passage of scripture this morning, even though we've already referred to Matthew 28, 18 through 20. We're gonna actually look at the pattern of Jesus' discipleship. Because if we're going to be disciplers, if we're gonna go make disciples, if we're gonna be a part of God's rescue plan to save the world and to help people all over this planet, every tribe, every tongue, every nation, every people group, every socioeconomic class, uh, every people, if they're gonna they're gonna know the gospel, the good news of Jesus, then we need to participate as in disciple making. Well, how do we learn? Where do we go? What do we look to to learn to be a disciple maker? Look no further than Jesus. Jesus is the best disciple maker, he is the best example, he is the model disciple maker for us, okay? And so today's message is actually a little bit different because we're gonna observe some of the patterns that Jesus had when he was on the earth in making disciples. So, if you have your Bible, you can keep it out. We're gonna look at some passages in Luke. I'll try to refer you to them. Maybe you can highlight them. And in fact, in your worship guide that we gave you this week, on the back of it, the passages of Scripture that are on the back are some of the passages of scripture, many of them that we're gonna cover this morning in the message, briefly to try to observe some of the patterns and the habits that Jesus had as he made disciples. Okay? So, the first thing that you notice about the life of Jesus, um, and and this is maybe obvious, almost so obvious that we might miss it, is that Jesus engaged people. Now, that started as John 1 tells us, we're gonna be in the book of John starting two weeks from now, and we're gonna talk a lot about Jesus this year and about who he is. But one of the first things we learn about Jesus is that Jesus willingly came to the earth and took on flesh. He was incarnated. Okay, that's what they would say. It's the incarnation that he was God-made flesh. He engaged relationally with people. He showed up on the scene. I've said this, I think, many times before, but even Eugene Peterson's message translation of the Bible, where he says in John 1 that Jesus moved into the neighborhood. That Jesus showed up, that he engaged us, he initiated a relationship with people. Now that's really, really important because this reminds us that discipleship is not something you can do from afar. It's not something you can do from a distance, but you actually have to be in relationship with people to disciple them. Are you with me? So to say I'm discipling somebody from a distance just by lobbing truth bombs into their life isn't discipling. Maybe we need to be reminded of this this morning, but those of us who hide behind keyboards and post things on Facebook, that's not discipling people, all right? That's not discipleship, right? Just saying things that you disagree with or agree with or just posting things. You can be an encouragement to somebody, but to disciple people requires involvement, interaction in their life, relationship. And I know we live in a world where many times our relationships are as deep as Facebook, okay? And so we don't always have these deep, deep-seated relationships, but if you want to disciple, you have to get into people's worlds, into their lives, and we'll explain why more in just a minute. But Jesus engaged. In fact, in Luke chapter 5, we find Jesus, just a story where Jesus, um, he's there with some of the first disciples, and they're out fishing, and Jesus is on uh the shore, and he sees these boats out there, and instead of just ignoring them, he actually starts to interact with them. He initiates a conversation with them, these fishermen. And what's funny about the story, again, without getting too much into the details, is that here's Jesus, a teacher, over here on the shore, and these disciples that, well, they're not disciples yet, these fishermen that are out in the boat, and Jesus uh starts telling them how to fish. And they're they're like, say, what? You know, we're we're the fishermen here, but apparently they had not been doing so well, so they were willing to try anything. And Jesus says, Cast your net on the other side of the boat. They do, they catch, they catch in a ton of fish, and they even show up on the shore and say, something supernatural just happened. And Peter, I mean, because Peter's always the mouthpiece, he's the one who has no problem saying something. He says, he says he fell at his feet. This is verse 8 in chapter 5 of Luke. It says he fell at his feet at Jesus' knees, and he said, Go away from me because I am a sinful man, Lord. I mean, Peter realizes this is this is somebody very, very important. He calls him Lord on the spot. They were amazed at the catch of fish. And what does Jesus say? Don't be afraid, Jesus told Simon. From now on, you will be catching people. Okay, Jesus, what are you talking about here, right? You're gonna catch people. You're gonna throw some nets out and like haul in a you know load of people? No, okay, we we get this. It's easier for us to understand this on this side of it. He was saying, I'm gonna teach you to make disciples one day. You're gonna make disciples who make disciples who make disciples, and the whole world's gonna know who I am because of the faithfulness through you. And so here is this powerful reminder, it may be it may be almost overlooked because it's somewhat obscure in one sense, that Jesus engaged with people. He engaged in the disciple-making process process through engaging in relationship. One word here. I'm not gonna, I'm gonna try not to make too many deep applications into modern day until at the end of this pattern, but I would I would say to you, listen, for us to assume that as Christians that we can make disciples without building relationships with people who don't know God is not true. You can't do it. We have to have relationships with people who don't know Jesus. We should have relationships with people who don't know the gospel. And our hopefully our lives build credibility so that when we speak the gospel, it has some weight to it, right? But we know that Jesus intentionally interacted with people so that he could build relationships so that he could then do the second thing in his pattern, which was to invite them in. To invite them in to his life. Um I'm gonna mention on several occasions over the next few weeks that discipleship is is very challenging to the American way of life. Can I be real honest with you? Discipleship is intrusive. And it's intrusive because when Jesus invited these guys on these days where he walks and he invites them into his life, he's inviting them into every aspect of his life. And for many of us in this room, myself included, we kind of like our space. We kind of like our privacy. But Jesus puts the invite out there, he invites them into his life, he invites them into his world, he invites them to be a part. In fact, in that day, Jesus was not the only rabbi on the scene. Okay, Jesus was one of many rabbis, and Jesus, um, it was not uncommon that a rabbi would go out and and would call disciples to follow him, to learn from him. In fact, it was prestigious. It was considered a pretty, pretty uh high-level honor to be invited by a rabbi into uh to his life. And one of the statements, maybe you have heard this before, but one of the statements that was made about rabbis and their students is that they would say to each other in this honor of being invited, may you be covered in the dust of your rabbi. Because you were going to be invited into every facet of their life, following them around everywhere they went. And so it was a common phrase of their day, to be covered with the dust of your rabbi was a really good thing, not a bad thing. It was a really good thing because you were getting to walk along with the rabbi and learn his life. And so Jesus would invite them. Now, his invitations were very intentional. Jesus didn't just randomly invite. In fact, Luke 6 reminds us of a couple of things. One, that he prayed about it. He prayed about who to invite into his life and into to be his disciples. Verse 12 says that. It says, During those days he went out to the mountain to pray, and he spent all night in prayer to God about this issue. And it says, when he when daylight came, he summoned his disciples and he chose twelve of them. Now, have you ever thought about this? Apparently there were more disciples than twelve around him. There were more people around him who were listening to his teaching, who were following him, but he selected twelve specifically to invest in at a deeper level. Now, um, if you're like me, uh, and maybe you're not, uh, this idea of discipling people by inviting them into your personal space, 24-7, you know, 365, for three years, I'm I'm like, okay, I'm already done. I can't do this. Thanks, Jesus. Great. I'm glad you're perfect, I'm glad you're awesome. I'm not. So uh that I'm done. So just hang on here because some of you might get distracted by that issue. That I actually believe there are great principles of discipleship that we can glean from Jesus' pattern. Because not everybody here is capable of that. I'm assuming not very many of you at all are capable of that. Um, maybe the closest thing we have is our families. They get the most direct access, the most consistent access to our life. But know this, we can still disciple even if we can't do it like Jesus did. Um, and and just think about this for a second, by the way. I mean, Jesus inviting 12 men into his life, and that being the way that he was going to uh turn the world on its head. I mean, let's be honest, it doesn't sound like it's that dynamic of a plan. I'm gonna take 12 unlikely Joes, you know, fishermen, tax collector, the least likely to be invited by any rabbi to be a disciple, and I'm gonna spend three years of my life pouring every waking hour into them, teaching them and developing them. And then that's going to be that's my master rescue plan for the rest of the world. Think about this. But isn't it amazing how God's foolishness is really wisdom? Over and over and over, because God does amazing things with what may seem very, very foolish to us. So he invites them in. And one of the things that we have to note here is that his discipleship invitation was not lightweight. It was not a low bar of commitment. Are you with me? It was not this like mambi-pamby uh thing. When Jesus invited them, there was a cost associated with following him. Uh that cost was they had to leave their security, they had to leave what they were doing to even provide for themselves and follow him with faith that somehow it's going to be okay. You remember what happened when the disciples, uh, when they were Jesus goes to the cross, he dies, and they're kind of in that state of what's next? Do you know what some of these disciples did? Where did they find themselves? You remember? Well, the fishermen actually went back to fishing. Because when Jesus reconnects with them, they're actually out fishing again. What that tells me, of course, is that their livelihood was connected to this fishing thing, and that's what they knew. That's what they had been trained in, that's what their way of life, their survival was there. And that when Jesus says, Come and follow me, and I'll make you fishers of men, and they left their nets, they left their security blanket. They left what was known and they went to the unknown. The invitation was high, wasn't it? The invitation was hard. The invitation was difficult. Um, I think part of the challenge of discipleship in the United States of America today is that our gospel proclamation is weak and our invitation is low. Our invitation many times is, hey, you might be having a you might have a really good life right now, but if you'd like to have like a little extra good life, you could you could add Jesus to it. I mean, if you you might have a really uh good life right now, and you might have like a good home and marriage and job and everything, but you know what? If if you want to know where you're gonna go when you die, you could you could trust in Jesus. I mean, I'm I'm being facetious here, but it seems like many times that the call to follow Jesus in the United States is one of, hey, let's add Jesus to our plate of already overflowing good things. When Jesus' call was come follow me, turn away from everything. Like lay it down and follow me. Maybe this is why we're having such a hard time in the United States church making disciples. It's because rather than giving anything up, we just say we want to add Jesus to our life. Ouch. That kind of hurt kind of hurt my own heart. Have you ever preached it yourself? I get to do that every week, okay? So it's not always fun getting to preach and remind myself that there are many things in my life that I still cling to that Jesus says, lay that down and follow me. And so Jesus' invitation was high. In fact, Luke 9, 23 through 25, I encourage you if you're brave, go memorize it this week. I spent some time this week talking with our staff and with the elders and with even a Friday morning group through this passage of scripture, Luke 9, 23 through 25. It'll be discussed in our life groups this week. Where he says this, Luke records, then Jesus said to them all, if anyone would come to me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits or loses his soul? What am I saying to you? The call of discipleship is not an easy one. It's a very difficult one, it's a very costly one. But what does Jesus' promise in that passage? Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. More can be said there, but we're gonna move on. Jesus' invitation is a part of his pattern. He invited people, these men, these unlikely men at that, into his world, into his life, so that he could develop them into the kind of Disciples who understood the kingdom. The third thing that we see in Jesus' pattern of discipleship was that Jesus taught them. He taught them. In fact, Scripture says that Jesus taught as with one with authority. But he taught them, he instructed them. He knew that there was a way of thinking that these human beings had that was not consistent with the kingdom of God. He knew there were ways of thinking and ways of living and ways of doing life that they were operating in that weren't consistent. They weren't in line with God's agenda for the human race. He knew that. And so he began to teach them. In fact, in chapter 6, right after he selects his 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 number of people from all over Judea and Jerusalem, and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon. So all these crowds of people all around him, and they came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. If you go on to read, it's pretty crazy right there. It says literally that power was coming out of Jesus and that everybody that was near him that was sick was getting healed. It's crazy. But what you notice is that Jesus begins teaching it in the next part of the text in Luke 6 is Jesus giving them the beatitudes. And he starts to teach something that is blowing their minds because it's completely flipped on its head. It's completely inverted. He starts saying things like, Blessed are the poor. Anybody in the United States hear that as one of our mantras? It's a good thing to be poor. Blessed are you when you are poor? No, that's like totally opposite. And it was the same in their day. Nobody considered being poor, blessed. They considered it being cursed by God. And Jesus begins to teach things that are completely contradictory to the way that the human mind typically thinks. He teaches things like, you who are hungry are blessed. He teaches things like, uh, you who weep are blessed. He says to them even things, blessed are you when people hate you. What? Who wants to be hated? And he says, You're blessed when you're there. He says, You're blessed when people exclude you, when they insult you. He says, You're blessed when they slander you for my name's sake. So Jesus is completely reshaping the way they see the world. Their perspective, their worldview is being turned inside out. And he's teaching them because he knows that the natural way the mind, the human mind thinks is puts us at the center of the universe rather than Jesus, rather than God. And so he teaches the kingdom and he begins to pour out into them. Listen, all of you in this room, all of us in this room, myself included, we're being discipled. Did you know that? We're being discipled. We're being discipled by the culture. The culture is discipling us. It's teaching us what we should value, what our rhythms of life should be, what our expectations should be of how things should go in our world, in our life. I mean, we're being discipled in one sense. Okay? Because we're being instructed by a culture that has a view on what this life is all about and what it means to be truly human, and what it means to have the best experience as a human being. And I can guarantee you that if Jesus were on the scene today, he would look at many of the things that we hold up and say, this is what it means to be human, or this is what it means to be fulfilled. And he would say, No, it's not, it's the exact opposite. And we would all be like, What? Because we've been discipled. We've been discipled to pursue comfort and ease. We've been discipled in many ways to choose the path of least resistance. Or maybe just the path to whatever makes us happy. And I can tell you that Jesus would say to us instructions today as he discipled his own group of disciples, his little posse. When he was discipling them, he was challenging the way that they viewed the world, the lens through which they viewed the world. And the pattern there was that he challenged them with kingdom teaching. He not only taught them with the crowds, because they were a part of those discussions, but he also taught them offline. You know what I'm talking about offline? He would have these discussions with them offline. And I'm sure there were moments, I mean, he's Jesus, he's wise. Everything he says is inspired from the word, the mouth of God, right? It is inspired truth. And so he he speaks and they're like confused. And even when he tells this parable of the soils, just a few chapters over here, he tells it to them, and they're like, What are you talking about, Jesus? And he takes them aside and he explains it to them. He patiently explains. He teaches. And so he shows that the pattern of teaching is a part of his life, this instruction that he would teach it not only to the masses and crowds in large environments, but in smaller environments. In one so ways, you could say that Jesus had a life group. Now his life group lived with them 24-7. I don't know if anybody wants to sign up for that group. After search today, if anybody wants that group, we'll sign up back here and we'll see how many. No. But he had a group of people and he would get into their life and he'd get into their world and he would instruct them and he would teach them, he would guide them. Because they needed it. They were lost, they were confused. It was fuzzy in their mind. What is he doing? Why is he doing that? Why is he saying stuff like this? When he says things like, a rich man can't get into the kingdom of heaven, I mean, Jesus, what are you talking about? So he instructed them, he taught them. Parents in the room, are you instructing, are you teaching your children the divine word of God? Are you pointing them to the truths of Scripture? Because they are being discipled by the culture about where their identity and their security and their value is from. And it's not from God. We have to disciple in the truth. We have to instruct. Fourthly, Jesus not only taught with words, he taught by example. He taught by example. He demonstrated what it looked like to live out the kingdom ways. When Jesus came, he explained to them how things worked by showing them, not just telling them. Right? How many of you guys know that you have learned a whole lot more in your life by catching on to things versus just being told things? By catching it. Some people say, again, this is about more that is caught than taught. I would say to you this morning that Jesus was masterful at demonstrating what it looked like again to be fully human. To be fully human in the way that God originally designed, in the way that God originally intended. Now, this is really, really insightful because, as we said, I think last week, even in the message, mentioned to you that people are watching our lives and they're learning a whole lot more from what we say, or from what we do than what we say, right? Our kids especially. And so what we value, uh how we spend our time, how we spend our money, uh, what we talk about, how we treat people in private, in public. I mean, people are our our kids, our families, our friends, they they are learning from our lives. They are being instructed by our demonstration, by our example. And I would say that Jesus took the time to really make sure, because he invited them into his space, that he would demonstrate what that looks like in all of life. That would he would demonstrate what it looked like to be fully submitted to the Father, to be connected to the Father's heart. He showed them what it looked like to get up early and get outside and pray and to seek the Father's heart before his day began. He showed them what it looked like to minister to people in the margins. I mean, when he talked to the Samaritan woman, first she was a woman and she was a Samaritan. He was not supposed to be having that conversation, but he demonstrated what it's like to cross cultural lines, to try to cross the lines even of the mindsets of the of his day. Jesus showed him what it was like to reach out and touch a leper. People who were not to be touched, people who were not to be even talked to. Jesus showed them what it looked like to love human beings. He showed them what it looked like to again to live out the Father's heart for humanity. He demonstrated those things for his disciples. Now, um, in my world, uh we we talk about this sometimes in our home, but we have people in our house a lot, and we love that. I I love we when we have our home, it does not exist just for my family to live there. Our home is there. We pray for this, that our home is a place of blessing. It's a place where people can come in and they can feel and experience God's presence and his goodness and his grace and his hospitality through our home. But one of the things my wife and I talk about is if people are in our home, we don't want to change who we are just because people are in our home. Now, uh, this is a battle, okay? Because again, we're taught that we have our little space and it's like, okay, we have our public persona and we have our private persona. And I'm just gonna say to you that as people, we need to disciple people through our example in all of life. And so part of that means that when people are in our home, my wife and I, we if we're in an argument or we're in a disagreement, we just say, we're not gonna stop it just because people are here. So if you come to my house, it might be awkward. Okay, I'm just gonna go ahead and warn you. And you're all invited. All right, just not today, all right? But if you come, we we try not to hold back, like we're gonna have conflict. Now, hopefully what you see is gospel-centered, godly conflict. Because I think you've got a whole bunch of people that don't even know how to have conflict and how to have disagreement. Or when it comes to parenting, if we're having hard issues with our kids, we're gonna parent them in front of people because we feel like we're learning still and we want to learn from other people, but also we want to demonstrate for what we're what we are learning because that's discipleship, right? That's part of the process. So you you parent your children in front of people, you you go through marriage conflict, because um, I mean, we actually have conflict. I don't know if anybody else does, but we have conflict. We disagree, we struggle, and so but how do you do that in a God-centered way, in a gospel-centered way? And that's part of learning. It's part of the discipling process, it's just to be real, to be vulnerable, to put ourselves in that place. Because I hope you know this, but um, none of us in this room are perfect. None of us have it all figured out, none of us are all have beautiful marriages without any problems. None of us all have, you know, our parenting our kids with perfection. None of our kids are all behaving with perfection, right? We're not here to impress anybody. We don't have to impress anybody. If we're a Christ follower, we have our security and worth and identity in Christ. So we don't have to prove anything to anybody else. So we can open our lives to people and show them and disciple them. And Jesus demonstrated what it looked like to follow the Father. Fifthly, Jesus delegated real responsibility to his disciples. He delegated real responsibility to his disciples. So he knew that at some point, if he kept doing everything for them, they weren't going to grow. And so he gave them real ministry responsibility. In fact, he gave them the authority and the power to go out and to minister. Look at this in chapter 9 of Luke. If you continue through Luke, you get to Luke 9, and it says there, I mean, this is even his, he hasn't completely discipled them yet. He hasn't got them all, you know, nice and neatly figured out and organized. I mean, they're still very much a dysfunctional ragtag bunch of dudes. And they're still confused by him in many ways. And here's what it says. He summons them to him, and he gives them, this is verse 1, he gave them power and authority over all the demons and power to heal diseases. So he didn't just delegate like, you're the JV team, go out and do like low-level stuff. He gave them authority to drive out demons and to heal people. And these dudes weren't even, they didn't even have all their theology right. For you theologians in the room that like your doctrine all straight. These guys didn't have it all figured out. For those of you that grew up in churches where they said, well, you can start sharing your faith after you go through these 18 classes. Okay. They didn't have it all figured out. And he sends them out. Why? Because he knew they were going to grow in self-awareness, they were going to grow in dependency on God. He knew that they were going to discover that they didn't have it all figured out, and they were going to come back and need to be instruction. And so he sends them out. He delegates real responsibility to them. This was a pattern he had. He knew they were going to fail at times. He knew they were going to have struggles. He knew it was going to be hard. In fact, in Luke chapter 10, we see him sending out 72. And notice what he says to him here. I've mentioned this before in here. This is Luke 10, 2, of course, where he says the harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. He goes on to verse 3. Now go, I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Thanks for the pep talk, Jesus. Right? Thank you so much for telling me we're going to go get chewed up and spit out. This is really encouraging. I mean, yes. Okay? This is not a great pregame speech. We're going to be like lambs, they're going to be like wolves. Figure out what's going to go. Okay? This is not good. Why would he do this? Because he knew that it is through our failings and through our strugglings and through the difficulties that we're actually going to grow. We're going to develop maturity in that. Sometimes we, even in church, we try to pad our lives. We want our lives to be so easy, so comfortable. And in that we become stagnant and stale and disconnected from the heart of the Father. But we want to grow, we're going to have to step up. We're going to have to step up to the front lines. We're going to have to be willing. And Jesus tells them, I want you to go. And here's the great thing. He didn't just send them on their own strength, right? He sent them with the power of the Spirit. He gave them real authority then, but even at the end of the Gospels, Luke, John, Matthew, you choose, he says, I'm giving you the Holy Spirit. Acts 1, wait for the Holy Spirit. Get the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not in it. The Holy Spirit is God, and the Holy Spirit is God in us, and the Holy Spirit is God empowering us to accomplish the mission God has for us. And so when you have the Holy Spirit in you, you can be like a lamb among wolves, and you can still be ferocious and confident in who you are in Christ. And humble and gentle. He says, innocent as doves, wise as serpents, as we go out and do real ministry. But he coaches them. I'm sorry, he sends them out, he delegates real responsibility, and when they come back, he coaches them. When they come back in Luke chapter 10, continuing the same passage we were just in, when you get to verse 17, it says, the seventy returned with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name. So they came back, and guess what? They were successful, at least some of them. And they're pretty fired up. They're like, Jesus, even the demons, listened. We cast them out in your name. It was awesome. Listen to what Jesus says. He doesn't say, Way to go, guys, you are awesome. Okay? He doesn't start giving them high fives, giving them fist bumps. He didn't do any of that. Here's what it says, he says. He said to them, I watched Satan fall from heaven like a lightning flash. What is he saying? He's saying, you get a big head and you're going down. You get swollen, you get puffed up, and you think you're awesome, just get ready because the fall's coming. Because Proverbs tells us that a haughty spirit goes before destruction, right? Before a fall. Pride comes before a fall. And so he's immediately coaching them. He's instructing them. And sometimes that coaching is building them up. Sometimes it's it's like making sure that they are more on real reality check. Okay? Real ground here. So Jesus' pattern was to coach them. In fact, there was one time when they come back and they are like, Jesus, it's not working. We're not breaking through. We're not making progress here. We're not able to do these things, these works. These people are not being healed. The demons are not being cast out. And Jesus says to them, He says, What? These types only come out through prayer and fasting. And he coaches them and he says, You need to pray and fast more. So Jesus was masterful at not only delegating responsibility and sending them out, but also coaching them when they came back and helping them grow and take next steps. And finally, the pattern we see is multiplication. Jesus did not do these things to them or for them so that they could just, again, benefit for their own sake. You have not just been blessed to be blessed. We have been equipped, we have been empowered so that we can take the gospel out and we can reproduce. We can multiply. Healthy things grow. And so as Matthew 28, 19 and 20 has told us, he says, Go make disciples. We should multiply. We should help other people know and experience what we have experienced in Christ. When Jesus washed the disciples' feet, and we get this story, he gets to the end. They're confused, they're puzzled, they're trying to figure it out. And he says, Just as I have done for you, what? Go and do likewise. Just as Jesus has served, we go serve. Jesus has taught us, as we have learned, as he has saved us, as he's rescues, we now engage in this rescue mission. We join him in it, and we make more disciples. We reproduce. And that looks a lot of different ways. Again, it could be in the family, it could be with friends, it could be with acquaintances, but we are to multiply, to go and to make more disciples of Jesus. That's what his apostles were instructed to do. That's what we're instructed to do today. So this is a high-level look at Jesus' pattern for discipleship. And as I said on the front end, if you're like me, this is a little bit overwhelming. Okay, if that's Jesus' example, and I'm supposed to follow that, how's that gonna work? Because I don't think I can give up three years of my life, walk away from everything I'm doing, and just spend every waking hour with the same group of 12 people. That's not gonna happen. But these principles are there, aren't they? These principles are there in the patterns that we can engage, we can interact with people, we can be intentional in pursuing relationships with people and even being aware of who's already in our lives. What coworker in your life is spiritually hungry and needy right now? What neighbor on your street needs help and encouragement and is open right now? What person in your family is hurting or is in need right now or seems to be hungry spiritually right now that you could intentionally engage with and invite them into disciple and relationship? Now, next week, I'm gonna be real specific. Next week, we're gonna have a whole message specifically about how this works itself out here at Point Community Church, okay? What are we gonna do in the practicals? It's gonna be a very different type of message, but it's gonna be really helpful. How do we apprentice? How do we how do we mentor? How do we actually help people grow in personal discipleship? And what does that pathway, discipleship pathway process, look like here at Point Community Church? And it's more than a program, by the way. It's not just a program for us. This is a way of life. But we would say that you have to be intentional. Who are you inviting into your life? Who are you instructing? Are you, you know, are you instructing people in your life of the truth of God's word? Are you letting people instruct you? Are you demonstrating and following Jesus' path of demonstration, showing them what it looks like, not just telling them what it looks like? Umegating real authority and opportunity, real ministry. I mean, it's one of the things as a church we want to do. We don't want this to be a church where only a few people do all the ministry, all the work. That's not what church should be. Every person has a role to play. Every person is involved in legitimate ministry here. Legitimate kingdom ministry. Different roles, different responsibilities, but same Spirit of God working in all of us to grow maturity in the body. That means I'm not more important just because I'm sitting here on the stage and I have this title called pastor. It means that we all are shepherding one another, we are all discipling one another. I also would say that we need to encourage continue to coach one another, encourage one another, and even at times be willing to give each other a reality check like Jesus did. Hey, wait, wait, wait. You're getting off base there. Let me draw you back to truth here. Let me remind you, let me warn you, let me encourage you, maybe even let me rebuke you and love. We need to do that within the church. But here's the thing the only way to make disciples of Jesus is to first be a disciple of Jesus. So it would be silly for me to stand up here and say, let's go make disciples, if we have never actually become one of Jesus' disciples. And that starts with a true regeneration of our hearts. It starts with conversion. It starts with hearing the gospel of Jesus and receiving it. It starts with us understanding that we are not saved by doing good stuff. We are not saved by being good people, good moral people. We are saved by the blood of Jesus, by the work of Jesus on the cross, by him paying the price for our sin. In fact, being a Christian and being a disciple of Jesus is synonymous. Hear this. Being a Christian and being a disciple of Jesus is synonymous. You may notice in our identity statement here, we say we're a family of Jesus followers. Family of Jesus, Jesus followers meaning disciples. And we're on mission to point people to life in Christ. That's what we're doing. That's what we're seeking to do. It's what we're asking God to help us do. But here's the thing many people, uh they are not actually true believers in Christ. They've not actually become children of God. I don't know who those people are or aren't. I look at fruit, but I would tell you that many people, what they wanted from God. Was they wanted a pass to not go to hell. That's what some people wanted. Some people wanted a pass from that. Some people are converted to the church and not to Jesus. So they're a part of the church, but they're actually not following Jesus. They're actually not a Christian. They've not actually put their trust in Jesus. They just go to church. Some people they wanted to just find a fix for life's problems. They see the problems that they have and they said, Well, maybe Jesus will do something for it. So I'm going to try this for a while. You see, true conversion happens when we surrender and submit and we say, Jesus, I'll give you everything. I lay everything down and I'll follow you. You see, Romans 10, 9, it's a verse we come to a lot here at Point Community Church where he says, if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved. Maybe one of the reasons why many people in the church today, the Christian church in America, don't actually look like disciples of Jesus is because we haven't actually been converted to Jesus. We're still just a part of a church, but we're not actually following Jesus and hadn't surrendered and submitted our hearts to Jesus. I mean, that's a possibility. It's a scary possibility. Maybe more real than we realize. But my hope is that you know that just as Jesus invited these disciples, he invites every single person who is willing to lay down their life and lose it, lose the life that everybody says is real life to find the life that is really real life in him. That's what he offers. It's not out of hate that he says lose your life. It's out of love he says, lose this life so that you can gain real life. It's out of grace. It's out of mercy. It's out of his desire to redeem you. It's out of his desire to rescue us. That he says, give up your small view of life and find real life in me. That's what Jesus offers everyone in this room. That's what he offers us to be his disciples and to make disciples of Jesus. That's his pattern. And his promises is that he will be with us as we do it. Let's pray. God, thank you so much for the grace and the mercy of Christ. Thank you for the beauty of the cross. Thank you so much that this is not just a list of how-tos today. This is not just a list of do's and don'ts. That's not what the Bible is. The Bible is not a book of just rules and regulations, it's a book of redemption that leads to real transformation and growth and a love that is in our hearts that is compelled because we see your love and your grace poured out on us. I want to follow you, Jesus. Nick Schock, here at Point Community Church today, one of the pastors here, God, I want to follow you with all of my heart, all of my life. I want to lay down the stuff that I think is life to pursue what is really life in you. To be able to enjoy the world and the things that you have made, but not at the expense of worshiping it and missing the worship that you deserve. God, I want you to be glorified in Point Communion Church. I want us to be on your mission of making disciples, not just making good church people, not just making good moral people, God, not just making religious people, but God making disciples, helping people know and believe and obey Jesus. Because Jesus, you are life. You are why we were made to be in a relationship with you forever, to reflect your goodness, your glory to all people. So we we need your help, God. We need you to rescue us even now. And God, I pray every person in this room, by your spirit, would feel a sense of invitation. For those who are unbelievers, invited into your family, invited into your redemption through the person and work of Jesus. And for those of us who are believers, invited to the next step of laying down our flesh and our fleshly desires and pursuing, taking up our cross, but pursuing a sacrificial way of life that leads to true joy. And I pray that in your strong name, Jesus. Amen.