Jesus called us to tell people the gospel, but that is only one responsibility. In Matthew 28:19 – 20, Jesus told his disciples to go do with others what he had done with them. Go make more of yourselves. Go make disciples.
In his nature, God is community, and he chooses to include us in the process of creating community. He calls us to a relationship with him and to a relationship with each other. Then he tells us to go out and reach the world.
He says to serve. He says to love. He says to reach out. He even says to love our enemies. None of it is reciprocated. None of it is coming back our way. This is his message: “You’ve got all the love you need from me. Now get out there and pour into the world. If they steal your coat, give them your undergarment too. If they ask you to go with them a mile, go two. You do whatever you have to do to show them love. By observing the way you love each other, they’ll know that I come from God and that you belong to me.”
God could have sent some scrolls to twelve guys and told them what to do, but he chose to become a man to befriend and lead them. He actually chose to walk around in dirt with weak people who may or may not believe what he said.
Try to put your head there — to be the God of the universe and have someone say, “I don’t know if I’m buying what you’re saying.”
The humility of Christ described in Philippians 2:3 – 11 is mind-bending. He humbled himself, taking the form of a servant — not just a human being, but a servant human being. We couldn’t do that on a micro scale.
Just watch the television show Undercover Boss in which a CEO goes undercover to check up on his company. He works in the mailroom to see how his company truly functions and how his workers conduct themselves. In some episodes the boss is boiling mad, and you can see him thinking, You people! He gets madder as the show moves along.
That would describe us if we walked in Jesus’ sandals and saw how others behaved. We wouldn’t do so well with unlimited power.
Jesus walked in the flesh and, through patience and parables, boiled down the grandest truths so we could comprehend them. “No, let me explain that again. No, let me explain it again. Nope, not what I said. Let me explain it again. Nope, let me explain it a different way. Good grief. The seed story didn’t work. Let’s talk about children. Can we talk about kids?”
In humility, he chose to walk around and live life with these twelve guys. He ate with them, traveled with them, laughed with them, and cried with them. Everything was with them. Then when he departed, he said, “Now do with others what I just did with you.”
I always try to remember the humility of Christ when I go knees to knees with other believers. Notice that it’s knees to knees. We all need to a few Pauls in our lives and a few Timothys, one on one in regular talks, walking through Scripture and life together.
As I grew up, I heard sermons about faith. I heard sermons about trusting God. And then there was Luke Finklestein, the businessman who sat in my eleventh-grade class and talked to us too-cool-for-school teenagers on our level. He told of someone who had not been honest with him and how he chose to take the high road and not be a party to it. He knew one truth: “I’m not just a Christian at church. I’m a Christian at work and everywhere else.”
That was huge for me because, as a teenager, everyone wanted to tell me stuff but not many people took the time to show me anything. He did.
New believers need you to do life with them and show them what a Christian looks like at school or on the field. When they see you extend grace and live out what you’ve shown them in God’s Word, it sticks.
You need relational models who can lead you in discipleship, so you can then turn to your friend in love and make him a disciple. It’s Christ’s idea. Large classes and small groups have their purpose, and I’m a fan. But if you had a hundred people in your youth or college group who decided to each disciple one person, it wouldn’t just rock your group; it would rock your community.
Usually, though, we wait for someone else — like the youth pastor — to do it.
One of the reasons we don’t make disciples is that we think we’re too young, don’t know enough or aren’t good enough Christians. We think our friend is going to ask some difficult Bible question that we won’t know how to answer. If we’re not a student leader, we don’t think we can do it. We have been conditioned to think that discipleship is bringing someone to an outreach event or a small group. Those approaches are worthy and have been key in my own faith. But if that’s all you have available, you’re toast.
That’s not what discipleship is. It obviously helps to study God’s Word together, but most of discipleship is just doing life together and applying Scripture when you get the chance. Discipleship is reproducing yourself. Discipleship is setting an example by doing what you say. Discipleship is just walking with Jesus and taking somebody with you.
Point to Remember
We don’t just share the gospel; we also live it
with the people God gives us to mentor in the faith.