Discovering Discipleship

3. Discovering Discipleship • Who • What • When • Why • Where • How

4. Who • Matthew 28:20 • 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 all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

5. Who • Believers from all nations • Those who respond to the Gospel and have received the Holy Spirit have a new capacity for obedience, understanding, and growth, and now are obligated to live, not for themselves but for the glory of God.

6. Who • 2 Corinthians 5:15b • …He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

7. What • Definition • Disciple : A follower, student, learner, specifically of the Lord Jesus

8. What • “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men” • Implies a change of direction, a new direction in life

9. What • A learner needs a teacher • A follower needs a guide • John 16:13 • When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come

10. What • Matthew 28:20 Make Disciples • Baptizing them • Teaching them

11. What • …Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you • Jesus got it started and passed the responsibility on to us • Not just teaching facts • Teaching them to observe ie Practice

12. What • A disciple is someone who grows to be disciplined • “The biblical concept of discipline has both a positive side, and a negative aspect” • Nelson’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary p.302 • Psalms 119:67 “I used to wander off until you disciplined me; now I closely follow your Word.”

13. What • Training Praise Correction Reproof Punishment

14. When • Discipleship begins at New Birth and continues for the lifetime of the disciple

15. When • The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. • I Corinthians 2:14 When the Holy Spirit indwells He brings life and the capacity to learn God’s truth.

16. When • Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation. • 1 Peter 2:2

17. Why • Obedience produces growth • Disobedience produces stagnation

18. Why • For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Hebrews 5:12-14

19. Why • Growth is not automatic • But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,for you are still of the flesh. • 1 Corinthians 3:1-2

20. Why • Just as a newborn child needs feeding, and care, and training, just as a new disciple needs the same. • We desire growth for our children, just as God desires growth for His children

21. Where • Discipleship takes place within the body of Christ, ie. The Church

22. Where • You need to be discipled! • You need to be discipling someone!

23. How • Come next week!