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God, thank you that you are in the business of mending mess. And I can speak that from my own life. I can even speak that from being a friend of Joe and Maggie's. And God, we thank you that you are a God of restoration. God, we thank you that even today we've got to sing about that and to praise you for who you are in restoring, bringing restoration to us. And so, God, I just pray that you would lead us through this time as we reflect on the truth of who you are. God, may it change who we are. Thank you for this moment. Speak to us from your word. We ask these things in your name. Amen. If I was to tell you this morning that you have one primary purpose, what do you think that that primary purpose would be? Some of you are kind of smart cookies, and you're probably like, okay, we're here in church. Primary purpose, what's he gonna say? It's gonna be something like loving God or loving people or do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Those are all good things, by the way. And those are good answers, yes. Others of you, when I say primary purpose, you start thinking, what do I believe my primary purpose is? Your brain starts going, and if we think culturally, I imagine there's some in the room that would say primary purpose is happiness or to live long and prosper, right? Like just basic things like that. Being prosperous, being healthy, wealthy, and wise, those sort of things. And I don't know what your answer would be to that question this morning, but I would like to submit to you, as we have been doing these past two weeks, that for the Christian, your primary purpose is to be a disciple and to make disciples. The Christian's primary purpose is discipleship. Now, some of you may be sitting there thinking, whoa, Harley, that's a bit strong, isn't it? Like that's going a little bit extreme. Isn't discipleship the thing that like really hardcore Christians do? You know, like the ones who are really invested, the ones who are like going for it? Isn't that what discipleship's about? And I understand the objection because I realize that our westernized world, our culture highly values individualism, independence, and the ability to do whatever pleases us. And what I've just stated, that life is not about you, it's about serving someone else, God, and helping others to do the same, that that truth flies against the cultural narrative of individualism. Now, our culture has this value, and the foundation of this value actually, I would argue, is from some good things. We value individualism. We say, you know, as a culture, our culture says it's important for you to discover who you want to be, what you want to do. All of these thoughts of individualism actually, if you dig down, come from a good root. And I would say that it is a Judeo-Christian, there's some big words, but a Christian view that God created humanity in his image. And that every life has value, every individual has value. But the problem is our culture has taken that view and blown it way out of proportion. So much so that we say, individualism, it's all about me and what I can do in my life. But God's call to humanity was to glorify him, is to glorify him, not the individual. And we see that in Jesus' clear and final instruction in Matthew 28, when he said to his disciples, Go and make disciples. That was a command saying it's not about you, it's about me and bringing glorify glorifying me through being a disciple and making disciples. The primary purpose of the Christian is to make disciples, but what does that mean? What does that actually mean? All the conversation we've talked about to this point, I think has been setting the table for a very practical conversation today. In a lot of ways, it's kind of like a plane coming down from out of the sky. I don't know if you've had the experience of flying, but typically when you're at a cruising altitude, you look out the window of the plane and you just see a vast expanse, but very little detail, right? And as we've gone through our discipleship series, the first week was kind of like this high-level plot pass on discipleship. And then last week it was like we came down a little bit. We talked about it a little bit more practically as we looked at the pattern of Jesus and his disciples. That's like when the plane's coming down a little bit further, and you look out the window and you can see some details. You see buildings that you recognize or freeways that you know. And my hope is that today will be like the plane coming into land. As you look out the window, as a plane's coming into land, you can see buildings and airport vehicles and people walking around and trees and definition. You see, a plane cannot stay in the air forever. It has to come down, and we too need to arrive at some applications when it comes to this conversation on discipleship. Now, some of you who are not Christians are here this morning. I'm going to assume that some of you are not what you would say as believers in Christ. And you may be thinking, well, this sounds like a very Christian-ese conversation today. How does this help me? And if that's the question that you have today, I imagine that you are here for one of two reasons. Firstly, you are here because you're curious about what it means to be a Christian. If that's the position you find yourself in, fantastic. We're glad that you're here. Secondly, you may be here because someone meaningful to you has asked you to be here. Again, thank you for being here. In either of those circumstances, I would encourage you that today's conversation about discipleship is going to give you a lot of insight as to what it means to be a Christian. And we say this quite often, but please don't tune out. Listen to what it means to be a Christian. Count the cost of what it means to be a Jesus follower. That's a good thing to think about. That's a good thing to do. My hope and my prayer is that our conversation will be helpful. So let's start by asking this question: What is a disciple? We've been talking about this the last few weeks, but I want to give you a definition. A disciple is a person who increasingly knows Jesus, believes in him, and glorifies him through obedience to his word. I think this definition is so crucial, I want to read it to you again. A disciple is a person who increasingly knows Jesus, believes in him, and glorifies him through obedience to his word. Now I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on this because we've been talking about what discipleship is these last two weeks. But I would like to point out a couple of quick things. I want you to notice those three words knows, believes, and obeys. Those are all crucial for this discipleship conversation. We should see in a disciple an increasing knowing, an increasing believing, and increasing obedience in life. If you're a disciple, you cannot just have a head full of knowledge. Discipleship is not about packing our heads full of knowledge. It's not about knowing a whole bunch of things about God. That's theology. It's not about cramming theology in our heads. It's not even about cramming Bible verses in. Which, by the way, both of those things are good. But it's about that knowledge by the power of the Holy Spirit transforming to belief that doesn't just transform to belief, it actually transforms into action, into obedience. And so know that that's what discipleship is about. And not just that, all of those things, knowledge, belief, and obedience increasing for the glory of God. It says there in that definition, increasingly knows Jesus, believes in him, and glorifies him through obedience to his word. So that's what a disciple is. What is discipleship? Obviously, there's going to be some similarities, but discipleship is the way a person goes becomes a disciple, right? Discipleship is the God-given, spirit-empowered role of every Jesus follower to help others increasingly know, believe, and obey the word of Jesus. There again we have the word of Jesus. There again we have know, believe, and obey. Again, I would love to pull this apart, but we've done that the last couple of weeks. But I would point you to one very key word in there, and that is the word every. Discipleship is the God-given spirit-empowered role of every Jesus follower. This is not a conversation. Discipleship is not something that is for bonus level Christians. I've already stated that, but I have to state that again. This is not something that, if you're really intense about your Christian faith, that you do. If you're a Christian, there is a call on your life, and I would say, going back to our first point, a primary call on your life to disciple others. Discipleship is a way of life, it is not a program. Discipleship is a way of life, not a program. So if discipleship is so fundamentally important, how do we do it? That's what I'd like for us to discuss today. Now, a couple of months ago, Nick and I went and we sat in on a in a meeting with a bunch of pastors, a group of guys that we love and we respect, and they were wrestling with this question about discipleship. How do we do it? If it's so important, we all believe it's important, how do we do it? And as we were sitting there in that conversation, and then as we were driving home having a conversation, it dawned on us that it felt like we'd jumped way down the line in the conversation. Because these guys, as they were talking around and throwing out ideas, they were saying things like, Well, you know, discipleship for us is three to five guys getting together and they go through this material and they ask these questions, and that's discipleship. That's how we manage it. And we have, you know, each life group is broken up into four little discipleship groups, and blah, blah, blah. There's all these systems and structures and ideas and curriculum and all this good stuff. And I understand the heart behind that. I understand why we want to do that. Believe me, I do. I'm somebody who likes to kind of be organized some of the time, okay? So I understand that, and I understand the heart of somebody who is in a pastoral role wanting to shepherd the flock and say, okay, this is how we're going to do this. But the issue is that that isn't helpful because what happens in that context is that we typically jump to programming. We jump to ideas on what this should look like. But if discipleship is a way of life, that's not the answer. Rather, we need to prayerfully allow the Holy Spirit to guide us to grow as disciples and to grow in discipling others. Now, one of the questions that we began to ask as we came to this conclusion that day and then later on in the next few weeks was if you strip back all the stuff, if you take away all the extra curriculum and all the ideas on programming and all the books and sermons and conferences and all the stuff about discipleship, if you strip all that stuff away, what is the irreducible minimum of discipleship? What are the key components of discipleship? And we asked the question, what are the non-negotiables of a discipling relationship? We wanted to ask that question so we could see discipleship holistically, not to have some silver bullet, some magic formula that would help us figure it all out, but rather to give us a grid to evaluate discipleship in a way that was transferable to not say it's just this or it's just that. Does that make sense? So as we had that conversation, we started to ask this question. I want to share with you some of those thoughts from that question of what are the non-negotiables of a discipling relationship. And as we answer that this morning and look at that question and answer it, I'd like to answer it by looking at another biblical example of discipleship. I would argue that this is the best discipling example that we have outside of Jesus and his disciples. It's the relationship between the great evangelist and church starter Paul and his understudy, a young man named Timothy. Okay, so we're gonna look at this relationship and answer this question: what are the non-negotiables of a discipling relationship? So we're gonna turn and look at the first interaction between Paul and Timothy. We're gonna turn to Acts chapter 16. Grab your Bibles if you would. We'll be jumping around a little bit, but I would love for you to read along with me. Acts chapter 16, Paul is this guy who's experienced this radical conversion. He's gone from being the guy who's persecuting Christians to being the biggest proponent for the Christians. He's going around the Roman Empire, starting churches, encouraging churches. And we pick up the story part way through in verse 1 of chapter 16 of the book of Acts. And it says this. Then he, that's Paul, went on to Derby and Lystra, where there was a disciple named Timothy, the son of a believing Jewish woman, but his father was a Greek. The brothers at Lystra and Iconian spoke highly of him. Paul wanted Timothy to go with him, so he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, since they all knew his father was a Greek. As they travelled through the towns, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem for them to observe. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in number daily. Now, before we get into specifics, I love that last verse. I love that out of what God's doing, even in some of these discipling relationships that we're going to look at today, God's bringing health and increasing faith, increasing number of people being converted. Very cool, right? As we look at this, though, the point that I want to make, as we ask this question, what are the non-negotiables of a discipling relationship? The first one I'd point you to is consistent and willing interaction. It's hard to disciple somebody if you cannot have a consistent interaction with them and a willing interaction with them. And we see that in Timothy, right? As you look at Timothy, there's this interaction between him and Paul. There's some mutual respect there. And Paul asks him to come and to join him. Now, the cost is not very simple. I don't know if you noticed it there. He has to go and he circumcises Timothy to be one of their crew because they've got this crew that are able to go into Jewish synagogues and to go in and talk to Jews. And to do that, he had to go through this. You want to talk about counting the cost. There's the cost, the discipleship discipleship right there. So he goes for that, and what we see in Timothy is a beautiful example of somebody who is willing to have consistent and willing interaction. As we think about this first thought of the new what are the non-negotiables, the question may be coming to your mind: well, who should I be discipling? And I'd like to kind of help you answer that a little bit. Firstly, I'd like to say, if you're asking that question this morning, which I hope you are, first and foremost, we are called to disciple those in our household. We have no business trying to get a group of men together to do a study and to be discipled if we are not discipling at home. Husbands, wives, we are called to disciple one another. If you're a parent, you are called to disciple your children. If you have roommates, try and disciple them. I don't know what your household looks like, but I would encourage you that that's our first port of call when it comes to a discipling relationship. We are called to disciple and to love and to lead one another. Husbands, wives, we are called to disciple one another. We are called to disciple our children. Secondly, we are called to disciple anyone who is faithful, available, and teachable. I didn't come up with this acronym, but it's easier to remember. Fat. Faithful, available, and teachable, right? We see that in Timothy. He's faithful, he's available, he's teachable. And that's what we're called to be and to look for in other people that we would engage in intentional relationships with. And so I want to encourage you to look for people who are faithful, available, and teachable. This could include people in your extended family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, people that you meet through hobbies. Look for people who are faithful, available, and teachable that you can have consistent and willing interaction with. That is one of the basis for a discipling relationship. Let's look on. Timothy goes on to travel with Paul. And if you read the story, if you look at the references to Timothy throughout the New Testament, you see him right there beside Paul in a lot of circumstances. And then Paul starts to actually send him out to go and to do some trips by himself, to go and work with different churches by himself. And ultimately we understand that they kind of went their separate ways, and Paul was in prison. Timothy was out doing some ministry. But as we read on, what we actually have is a little bit of insight into their relationship. And I love that because I like to think about, you know, what were their conversations like as they're walking down the road? What were they talking about? What did discipleship look like for these two guys? And we have a little bit of insight to that because we have two books of the Bible which are written from Paul to Timothy. First Timothy and 2 Timothy, aptly named, right? So uh we're gonna go to 1 Timothy, and I want to show you something there that I think is very interesting. It's a little bit, I think, of insight as to what their discipling relationship looked like. And so I'm gonna ask you to read verses one through five of 1 Timothy chapter 2. Sorry, verses 1 through 6. It says this. First of all, then I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all those who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil life in all godliness and dignity. This is good. And it pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and humanity, Christ Jesus Himself, human, who gave himself a ransom for all, a testimony at the proper time. I don't think that this was the first time that these guys had had this conversation. I don't think this is the first time Paul, sorry, Timothy had heard Paul talk like this. This is probably pretty indicative of what their discipling conversations and relationships sound like. And what we see here is the imperative, the importance of gospel-centered reflection in a discipling relationship. I would say that that's one of the non-negotiables. We have to have gospel-centered reflection. It's not enough to just get have consistent and willing interaction. If you're having just consistent and willing interaction with somebody, that's called hanging out. If you want to move past just hanging out, you've got to have gospel-centered reflection. What does that mean? It sounds a bit Christianese, doesn't it? It means reminding each other of who God is and what he has done, and at the same time considering how that defines who we are and what we do. And we see that here in the text. Paul is reminding Timothy of some truths. He's saying, hey, pray. Pray that we would live a quiet life. Pray for those in authority. And then he just starts railing on the gospel, right? He just starts preaching it. He's like, because we got Jesus. He's the mediator between us and God. He's incredible. He's reminding Timothy, he's reminding himself of the gospel. As we look at gospel-centered reflection and we think about what that means, I'd say that an important element of that is, yes, reminding ourselves of who God is and what he's done and how that impacts who we are and what we do. But secondly, it also is a part of this whole importance of confession and repentance. Gospel-centered reflection means that we must also have moments of confession and repentance. Where we're honest with each other. You cannot disciple each other without honesty, without being real, without being putting down the facades that we often put up. And so I'd encourage you to think about what that means. I'd also encourage you to think about gospel-centered reflection in light of calling each other to obedience. There has to be this part where we call each other to obey what God has instructed. That's a part of a discipling relationship. That's a part of gospel-centered reflection. He's saying, not just this is the gospel, but this is the gospel. So what does that mean for this area of struggle in your life? What does it mean for this area that you're being tempted in? What does that mean for this area where you're experiencing anger or frustration or this area where you're, you know, struggling to manage your time? Or I don't know what the areas are. I mean, there's a myriad of them, right? But reflecting on the gospel and how it applies and what obedience means in that way. There's more I could say, but I'm going to move on to the third non-negotiable. And I'm going to do that by turning with you to 1 Timothy chapter 6. In 1 Timothy chapter 6, it should just be a page or two over. What we see is the third vital ingredient for discipleship. And in verse 11, I want to start you out of chapter 6. It says this. But you, men of God, again, this is Paul speaking to Timothy. He says, run from these things. He's talking about temptation and harmful, destructive desires. And he says, run from these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness, fight the good fight for the faith. Take a hold of eternal life that you were called to, and that you have made a good confession about in the presence of many witnesses. I would argue that what we see here is Paul's prayer for his son in the faith, Timothy. And what I want to just encourage you with at this moment is that one of the non-negotiables of a discipling relationship is prayer. Prayer is a fundamental part of a discipling relationship. And what we see in this verse is the heart of prayer that Paul has for Timothy. He says, Man of God, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of eternal life. I can imagine that this is very similar of the prayers that Paul is praying when he's not writing a letter to Timothy, when he's thinking about him, when he comes to mind. And I want to encourage you that we must pray with and for each other. If we're going to be in a discipling relationship with somebody, we must pray with them, and we must pray for them. It's a vital part of this whole discipling equation. Now, these are three pretty simple points. They're memorable, and my hope is that they're transferable. But again, this isn't some magic formula. This isn't to say, okay, if you just do these three things, you'll be an incredible discipler, right? That's not what we're trying to say here, but we are trying to say what are some basic fundamental things that we can be doing or thinking or praying about specifically that would help us to grow as disciples ourselves and discipling others. My hope is that we can see how transferable these things are because you can do these three things with your kids if you're a parent. I'll give you an example. If you're a parent of kids, you need to be thinking about how do I disciple my kids? I need to have consistent and willing interaction with them. I know how willing it always is with kids, right? Uh I need to have gospel-centered reflection, and I need to be praying with and for them. Okay, when's a moment that we can have consistent interaction? At the breakfast table. Okay, cool. We're going to do that. At the breakfast table, we're going to have interaction. How are we going to remind ourselves of the gospel? Well, there's a lot of resources. Maybe I pick the Jesus Storybook Bible. That's a great one. We're going to go through one of those stories each day together and ask some questions. And then we're going to pray with and for each other. Our family is going to pray together every morning. That's going to be something that we do. In that moment, you're able to transfer these three things into that thought. We can transfer this to other places, though, too. With roommates or with a spouse or with uh with a group of ladies. Maybe there's a group of mums that say, hey, we're going to get together and have consistent and willing interaction. We're going to have gospel-centered reflection. Hopefully, not get too distracted by our crazy kids. And we're going to pray with and for each other. My hope is that you would see these things and see how they can transfer into a whole bunch of different circumstances. Now I want to talk about those for a moment as by asking this question. We've talked about the non-negotiables. What are the negotiables of a discipling relationship? We need to ask this question because how Jesus discipled is different to how Paul discipled. And how Paul discipled is very different from how I disciple. How I disciple is going to be different from how my wife Liz disciples. There's different contexts, there's different personalities, there's different giftings. The point that I would try and drive home at this moment is this disciple making is not a spiritual gift, it's a command. Disciple making is not a spiritual gift, it's a command. And the way that we do that is going to look different for all of us. So for me to say, hey church, we're going to start discipling people, it's going to be groups of three people, we're going to go through this material together, we're going to do it from this time to this time. That's not incredible. That might be somewhat helpful, but it isn't ultimately helpful. It's just rigid and conforming. But rather, my hope is that you would see how this can mold and change for each of us into different contexts and scenarios, and that God would inspire us to take steps of growth in this area. So what are the negotiables? I keep saying that, but not answering that question. First one is this who is involved? Who is involved? Pretty simple to think about, but who is it? Who are you going to engage with? Now you can think about that in several ways. The size of the interaction. Discipleship happens in a large group context, it can happen in a medium group context, it can happen in a small group. I would argue that the best application, the best obedience in discipleship will happen in a smaller group. But having said that, we're discipling right now. This is what we call platform discipleship. Let me show you. We have consistent and willing interaction. 11 o'clock. We know that we're going to be here, right? It's church. We're going to be here. Secondly, we're going to have gospel-centered reflection. Bibles are open. Good. We've been singing about the gospel. The worship was great this morning. Thank you, Alex. We're going to have gospel reflection, but also we're going to pray with and for each other. Typically, we'll pray over the over everybody who's here, but we'll also have time where people can come and ask for prayer. That's a part of what's going on. So discipleship is happening in here. Now that's not saying that you can just be like, oh, check that discipleship box. I was at church today. I'm not saying that. What I am trying to say is that discipleship happens in a whole bunch of different contexts. It happens in a large group. What the problem is with a large group is that typically it's good for knowledge, but it's harder for belief and it's very hard for obedience. And so what we would encourage every single person here to consider, if you're a participating part of this church family, is to get into a life group. What a life group is, is a medium-sized group where you can experience some more intentional discipleship. And our hope is and prayer is that every life group would start to break down into smaller groups of people that meet and disciple one another. That one couple would say, Hey, we're going to get together with this other couple and we're going to seek to grow as disciples together. That one man would say, Hey, I'm going to meet with these other men from my life group and we're going to start to seek to disciple one another. That one lady would say, I'm going to get together with these ladies. And that discipleship would start to happen in and through the mechanism of life groups. So I really want to encourage you, if you're not a part of a life group, to really consider that today as a practical step. But the size of the interaction is a negotiable for discipleship. The context of discipleship is also negotiable. It could be home, it could be people from your church community, work, neighborhood, hobbies, etc. The content of the discipling can also be negotiable. Obviously, it needs to be grounded on God's word and grounded in the gospel. I think that goes without saying, but I want to be clear on this. There's some very helpful content, there's some not so helpful content. You could use a book and say, we're going to go through this book together and seek to grow in gospel reflection through this book. You could use a study. I've got resources that I can recommend you. You may say, hey, we're going to read through the book of Ephesians together and ask some questions. Those are all ways, those are all contents that we can use. Then we also have the length of interaction. Discipleship will sometimes happen in a short burst. A group of ladies may say, hey, we're going to get together for 10 weeks and go through ten chapters in this book together. That's awesome. That's a way that discipleship is happening. If you're married, that's a long-term discipleship relationship. Hopefully it goes for decades, right? It's meant to. So discipleship is not defined by the length of the interaction. That is unnegotiable. Now, some of you are sitting there today and you're thinking, okay, Harley, I see the call, I get what you're getting at, and I'm understanding that this is important. But what do I actually have to do? What would it look like for me actually to do this? And I'm going to get as granular as I can right now. If you're sitting there and you're asking, how do I disciple? I would encourage you first and foremost pray. Pray. Start with prayer. Just say, God, I'm here. I want to be a disciple and I want to help make disciples. I see that call and I understand that this isn't a spiritual gift, this is a command for all of us. And so put yourself in that position. Just start praying that prayer. God, would you show me what this could and should look like in my life? Just start praying that prayer. And I know that that's scary for some of you. But pray that prayer. And as you're praying that prayer, start looking to see who God would help you to identify. And as you identify people, invite them into an intentional relationship. Now, there are ways that you could say that that would sound really creepy. There are ways that you can say that that would sound really normal. But that's up to you to figure that out. Have a conversation with people and identify and invite people to interact with. As you do that, you need to then define the interaction. Hey, we're going to meet, and we're going to meet every other week at this particular time, in this particular place. And don't just define that interaction. Also figure out what content that you're going to use. Figure out, choose a means of gospel reflection, the content that you're going to use. Are we going to go through a book of the Bible together? Are we going to listen to a particular message together? Are we going to, you know, go through the study together? There's a plethora of good material that can help you in this process. And then what you need to do next is actually begin. We can talk about this till we're blown in the face, but we have to actually start. So as you've defined the interaction, as you've chosen some material, begin, and then as you begin, evaluate. There's two things that we need to evaluate. We need to evaluate if we continue, if we go on with it, or if we need to quit. If the disciple, if that needs to just be done. If it was good for a season, it needs to be done. So we need to continually be evaluating that. Secondly, we need to evaluate how we're doing it, replicating what's going on. Discipleship is not about one Christian getting together with another Christian and just really enjoying that. Discipleship is about a Christian getting together with somebody else, raising them up, and instructing them to do the same with others. So that a disciple would make a disciple who would make a disciple who would make a disciple, you get the point. Discipleship is about generations of believers. It's about replication. And it's the way that God has created us to spread the message of the gospel, the good news about Jesus across the world. So as we prayerfully are led by the Spirit of God in this process, what expectation should we have? Firstly, we should have the expectation that God will do great things. Now notice that I said God will do great things. Not you, God. God is the one who produces the fruit in a disciple in any context, but in a discipling relationship. So you can't look at, you know, let's say that you get together with a group of guys and all of them just completely fall off the map as you get together with them. You can't allow that to be what defines you. You are obedient in following God in that. But prayerfully, we must trust that God will bring health and growth out of that thing and realize that it's God, not us, that's doing that. If you look at what happens to Timothy and read Philippians 2, I'm not going to get you to turn there, but I'm going to read part of it to you, Philippians 2. I want you to hear how Paul talks about him later on after they've been in this discipling relationship for a time. He says this, now I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I also may be encouraged when I hear news about you. For I have no one else like-minded who will genuinely care about your interest. All seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know his, Timothy's, proven character, because he has served with me in the gospel ministry like a son with a father. That's God glorifying, God provided results of discipleship. Listen to the language there. Paul is pointing out the work of grace, God's grace, in Timothy's life. So we can expect for God to do great things. We can also expect that we will have the privilege, and I use that word carefully, privilege, of walking through real life experiences with those that we disciple. That means the valleys, and at times very dark valleys, and it also means the mountaintops. If we're going to get in real relationship, open and honest relationship with other people, we're going to have the privilege of walking through the dark valleys and the mountaintop experiences with them. And that's a beautiful thing. God's created it to be like that. That's a good thing. We shouldn't shy away from that. As I was looking at Timothy's life a little bit more and considering his relationship with Paul, I saw something that I'd never noticed before. The last reference to Timothy is actually in the book of Hebrews. And we don't know who wrote the book of Hebrews. Some people think it was Paul, other people don't believe it was Paul at all. We don't know who wrote it, that's not the point. But verse 23, at the very end of the book of Hebrews, there is a reference to Timothy that I want to read to you. Verse 23, it says this be aware that our brother Timothy has been released. If he comes soon enough, he will be with me when I see you. And the reason I want to point this out to you is that I think it's really cool because what we see in Timothy is a fulfilling of Jesus' words. Did you know that in Luke chapter 6, Jesus said in verse 40 that a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher. And what we see in this verse is that Timothy has become like his teacher. He's become like Paul. If you know anything about Paul, we know that the vast majority of the back end of Paul's life was spent in prison for the gospel. And we've got to assume here that Timothy, much in the same way, has been in prison for the gospel. He's become like his teacher. God has done an incredible work in their relationship. And I just want to encourage you in that that God can do great things. Now I know that some of you are like, wow, he went to prison. That's awesome. No. But it's cool to see the work of God's grace in this relationship as we follow it from start to the last reference that we have for it. In our feeble attempts to be disciples and to disciple others, you and I must realize two very important things. It would be amiss for me not to say these things. Firstly, we must realize that the gospel frees us from failure. The gospel frees us from failure. We most likely have and or will experience failure in the area of being a disciple or in discipling others. It's a part of life. You see, when you miss an opportunity, when you blow it as a spouse or as a parent or as a friend to not disciple, when you blow it and you're not consistent in interacting with the people that God has put around you, or that you forget to reflect on the gospel with them, or that you forget to pray for them and with them and you miss those opportunities. Remember that God frees us from failure. God doesn't like us, he doesn't like you and I more or less based on how good we are at discipling people. This is not me standing up here today to say, if you really want to be a Christian, if you really want God to like you, man, this is how you do it. This is how you earn his approval. What did Jesus say as he was hanging there on the cross and he took his last breath? It is finished. What that means is that our labor, our effort, our energy is done. And so this isn't a message today where I'm standing up here and saying, hey guys, you've got to put in a lot of effort if you want to be a, really want to be a Christian. I want you to hear again today that the gospel frees us from energy and effort, but I want you to hold that in the tension of the second point that I'm about to make. That the gospel compels us to try. You see, the gospel frees us from failure, but it also compels us to try. Matthew 28, Jesus comes near to his disciples and he tells them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. And then he says, Go therefore and make disciples. What he was saying is that he has all authority. That he is the King of kings, he is the Lord of lords, that he has defeated, he has conquered death one time and for all. And because he has that authority, we are to be compelled to go and to obey him. And what has he asked us to do? To go and to make disciples. The call is real, the call is there, it's undeniable. We are called to be disciples and to make disciples. And so I want to ask you: are you being discipled? Are you discipling others? What would it look like for you to grow in this area? Now is the moment today where the plane comes into land, where the rubber hits the road, right? This is the place where it touches down, and I want for you and I want for myself to think very practically about this. How will we respond to this call? How will we respond to the call of discipleship in our life? If you're not a believer, how are you gonna respond? If you're not a Christian, you're sitting here today because you're either curious or because somebody who you love and respect asked you to be here. How are you gonna respond? Would you give your life to be a follower of Jesus? I will tell you that is the best decision that you will ever make with your life. It will give you a purpose way beyond happiness, way beyond just living a good life and being prosperous. I would encourage you to make that decision today. Don't wait another day for Jesus to come in and to radically change your life for the better. Are you ready to become a Jesus follower today? If you are, talk to the person who brought you, talk to me after the service or in our time of prayer. We'd love to have a conversation with you about that. If you are a believer, what does this conversation look like practically? For some of you, let's get as practical as possible. For some of you, maybe it's as practical as being like, okay, I'm gonna go check out a life group. Like that may be a very practical and real step. For others of you, maybe some of you are already in a life group, you need to pray about and invite someone or someone's, a group of people, to have an intentional discipling relationship with you. The practical step that you need to pray today is, God, who do you want me to disciple? Who do you want me to be in a discipling relationship with? Would you give me wisdom? Would you help me to not just know that I'm called to be a disciple, not just believe that I'm called to be a disciple, but obey you by being a disciple discipling others? Don't miss an opportunity today to realize that you have a primary purpose, and that is to be a disciple and to make disciples. Don't just grow in your knowledge about discipleship or your belief in the importance of being a disciple. Let's grow in obedience to the call to make disciples of ourselves and of the people that God would place around us. That's my challenge for myself. It's it's just as much for myself as it is to any of you today. Let's grow as disciples. The command is called the gospel that compels us. Let's pray. God, thank you that we don't have to look too far to discern what it is that you want from us, what your will is for our lives. God, we can look to the scriptures and see so clearly that your will and your call on every person's life is to be a disciple and to make disciples. And God, some of us struggle with that. I would say actually most of us, if not all of us, struggle with that. What that means for us, what that looks like practically. And so, God, I pray that as we've had this conversation today, that you would help us to take steps of growth in being intentional with the people that you place around us, whether that's at home, with our spouse or with our children or with roommates, God, or whether that's with our workplace or our neighborhood or wherever you would put us, God, would you help us to be disciples and to make disciples? God, would you help us to use whatever means to grow in this way? Maybe it's looking through those list of things that we can do. Maybe it's looking at those thoughts of consistent and willing interaction, gospel-centered reflection, praying with and for each other. God, would you use whatever means you need to to help us to grow in not just knowledge and belief but actual obedience? Thank you, God, for the gospel. Thank you that it's a message that both frees us and compels us. May we sense both of those things. May we hold that tension today as we reflect in these next few moments. Thank you. Amen.