Apologetics Session 33 - Discipleship

In addition to that, the reason this Christianity thing keeps perpetuating is because those faithful men have passed it on down to those who would follow them, other faithful men.

And that's what the topic is tonight, leadership, discipleship, faithfulness.

So, you know, it's not a novel concept in the world, right?

Has anybody watched The Sopranos? I never have watched The Sopranos, I'm not looking for it. But even in the world of something like The Sopranos, where you have the older guys who've been there and done that, and they know how to take care of business, they're always trying to train up the next generation so that they can be the next wise guys, or whatever they call them, right?

And that goes on through anything. You see in the military, those who are older and wiser, been there and done that, those are the ones that take control, those are the ones who are going to lead the next group of troops, right, to conform them into battle -ready soldiers.

And there's discipline involved with that. There is hard work involved with that. There's a change of mentality for the soldier.

Now, who was in the military? You can raise your hand if you did that. A few guys in the military. So you guys, you were in the military too,

Mike? Yeah, I know you were too. And you probably didn't appreciate it maybe at the time, because you were kind of forced to be that one who was the underling for a while.

Well, maybe you willingly went into the service, though, so you knew what you were in for. But the idea is that you were molded, in a sense, by those who were trying to train you into being something maybe different than you were, giving you qualities that you didn't have yet.

Well, that's what brings us to our lesson tonight. So does anyone know what the word disciple means itself?

I don't have a Greek word out. Perpetual learner. Methetes in Greek means a constant learner, a perpetual student, basically.

A student for life. That's exactly what it means. What do you know? Rich knew the definition of a term.

I'm shocked, right? He always knows all the definitions. But that's the idea.

Now, think of even a Star Wars, right?

You have Darth Vader being trained by the Emperor, if you've watched the

Star Wars movies, or Luke Skywalker trained by Yoda and or Ben Kenobi and all that.

So you can translate this into many, many forms of life. And I'm going to put up to you right now a picture of something we've all probably seen at work at some point or another.

Something similar, at least. So, you know, you go to these meetings at work, and then they have these kind of fancy charts up there, and they're trying to instill in all the employees, especially the big companies like mine, right?

I'm Lockheed Martin, so they do this kind of stuff all the time. It's like, so you're going to mentor these young folks, and you're going to provide motivation and coaching and counseling and support and all this stuff, and that's going to lead to success, and there's going to be goals set and all this stuff.

You guys have probably seen all this stuff many, many times. Well, it's not that much different in the

Christian realm. It really isn't. And Jesus gave us the model.

I mean, Jesus gave us the formula. So what we're going to do is we're going to look at what He taught us, and what

He asked us to do. And the question is, is why should we do it?

Well, let's have Phil read Matthew chapter 28, 18 through 20.

What was that again, 28? Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20.

Probably some folks in this room have this memorized. And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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.

Okay, so this is what we know in Christianity. We call it something that's a great commission.

And the reason it's a great commission is because this was the very end of Jesus' time on the earth.

And this was one of His last instructions to His men. Very important.

You know Jesus' window was three and a half years with these guys, and now at the very end, this was one of the last commands

He gave them. He said, This is what you're going to do. And it's a command. It's not an ask or a suggestion.

This is a command. Go and make disciples of all the nations, teaching them.

And a lot of people forget the observe part. But it says teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

A lot of folks think in their minds, well, teaching them what I commanded you. Well, no, it's teaching them to observe what

I commanded you. Because we just don't want hearers of the Word that know what God said, but those who are actually executing and being obedient to God's commands.

And we see in the Scriptures this taking effect, this going and being part of the lifestyle of many of the leaders in the

Scriptures. We think of Moses discipling Joshua, and that was a one -on -one situation, or Aaron really discipling his sons in the faith.

We think of Elijah, the prophet Elijah in the Old Testament, and Elisha who followed in his footsteps and took the mantle of Elijah.

We think of John the Baptist and all the disciples that he had, and he was training all those. We certainly think of Jesus and his disciples.

We think of Barnabas taking Paul under his wing when nobody wanted anything to do with Paul, because he was breeding threats and murders, and all of a sudden he has this great conversion.

But Paul needed to be trained in the Lord, the real Lord. He knew a lot about the Old Testament Scriptures, but he didn't know a lot about walking with Jesus, and Barnabas helped him in that.

But then we see Paul, of course, taking that mantle and then training Timothy and Titus and others. So this was something we see throughout the

Scriptures, and the reason we're here tonight is because there have been faithful ones that have followed those men later and have trained others.

So I think when we look at what Jesus did with his disciples, I think that's really our model, right?

We want to focus on what Jesus did. And he had what a lot of people feel is a four -phase program,

I'll say, to discipleship where we see different kind of levels happening in a person's life.

So the first phase, we're going to say, is John 1 .31.

So John, could you read that? John the Gospel, 1 .39, excuse me, not 1 .31.

He said to them, Come and you will see. So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.

So I had John just read one verse out of a bigger section there. But Jesus was being introduced to several of John's disciples in that area, back in John 1, the

Gospel of John 1. And they were saying to him, Master, where are you staying?

And they were interested in Jesus. They were wondering what he was doing, what he was all about. So John introduced him as the

Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He was the one who was to come after John. And they were like, well, Master, where are you staying?

And Jesus says, Come and you will see. This is an introduction to Jesus. Jesus is introducing himself to these men.

They're seeing him for the first time, and they're getting to know him, and they're getting to understand who he is. And we call this phase basically the

Come and See phase. And this is the introduction to Jesus. And a lot of churches teach a class called

Alpha, or something similar to an Alpha class, right, where you're introducing someone to who

Jesus is. So that's the idea behind an Alpha class, is to get to this phase one.

You're being introduced to Jesus Christ, and you're finding out who he is. And the hope is that when you do find out who he is, you are converted in heart, and the conversion would happen at this phase one stage.

But then some different things happen. If you come to continue to be interested in Jesus Christ, then something happens, and there's a call to follow him more closely.

So let's look at that. Mike, could you read Matthew 4, verses 19 and 20?

Okay. Matthew 4, 19 and 20. And he said to them,

Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Immediately they left their nets and followed him.

So up until this time, the disciples had seen Jesus on and off, attended the wedding at Cana, they saw him heal a centurion in Galilee, they saw different things.

But they weren't following him closely at this point yet. They were still learning about Jesus, they were very interested in who he was, but they had not yet been called to a close, intimate relationship with him.

And Jesus, and it says in Luke, after a night full of prayer, really called these twelve, called the twelve together, and wanted to spend time with them and be with them.

And MacArthur says at this point, if this opportunity that these men, and this was not different, by the way, than what the rabbis were doing at this point in time, because the rabbinic teaching would take young men who were willing to learn, and that's really key to being a disciple, you are willing to learn and be molded, that they could come and be with the rabbi, and stay with the rabbi, and be taught by the rabbi.

And the students of a rabbi would say, well, I don't necessarily just want to know what my rabbi teaches,

I want to know how my rabbi ties his sandals. Meaning that you're learning a lot more from the teacher or the mentor than just doctrine, than just, okay, this is what the scripture says.

You're learning how this man operates every day, and you want to emulate that man, just the way Paul said, imitate me as I imitate

Christ. That's the idea, you want to become like your disciple. So MacArthur says this about this phase, at this point, he says they, the disciples, could listen to his teaching, they could ask him questions, watch how he dealt with people, enjoy intimate fellowship with him in every kind of setting, he gave them ministry opportunities, instructing them and sending them out on special assignments, he graciously encouraged them, lovingly corrected them, and patiently instructed them.

That is how the best learning always occurs. It isn't just information passed on, it is one life invested in another.

And that's the key of discipleship, it's life on life. It's not just someone who is in a classroom like this saying,

I'm going to share this information with you. It's a very more intimate situation where you're sharing your life with someone, and you're passing on to that other person, or maybe small group in the case of Jesus, the things that you've learned and loved, and the things you desire to see your pupils emulate, and they're willing to learn.

Now the third phase, once they have been with the teacher for quite a while, the third phase is when the

Master sends them out, and gives them opportunities for themselves to be part of ministry.

So let's read Luke chapter 9, verses 1 and 2.

Bob Zellum, could you read that please? I can when I get to it. Luke 9, 1 and 2 you said?

Yeah. Calling together the twelve,

Jesus gave them power and authority to expel all the demons and to cure diseases.

And he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. So he gave them not only the assignment to go out and do what he was doing, but he also gave them the power, the authority to do what he was doing.

And this is how a disciple learns, by getting the opportunity to go out and be involved in ministry themselves.

Not just watching what the Master is doing, but then getting your feet wet, getting an opportunity to be out there in the midst of the people, getting an opportunity to care for other people.

Because you are being fed, you're being ministered unto, and at some point that has to translate into you ministering to someone else.

So Jesus gave them responsibilities. And then the fourth phase is they're going to take over from the

Master. So I wrote a couple verses down here. I think, Ivan, could you read

John chapter 20, verse 21? John 20, 21.

Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.

Jesus was going to be off the scene very shortly. He was not going to be there physically anymore, but the disciples were, the apostles.

They took over. They spread his word. They spread the ministry of Jesus Christ, spreading the gospel throughout all who would hear.

And of course then the apostles passed away. And the men that they taught took up that mantle and followed it.

That's where we are now. Bill, could you read 2 Timothy 2, chapter 2?

And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.

So this is the classic discipleship verse.

Paul instructing his pupil, Timothy. And you remember Timothy, he picked him up in Galatia, I believe it was in the city of Antioch, where he picked up Timothy.

And Timothy was just a young man at the time, really very new in the Lord. And we see how

Paul trained him, taking him along his missionary journeys. And at this point in time, he's commanding

Timothy as really an elder and a leader of a church, to now be faithful to pass that on to other faithful men, who will be able to pass it on to more faithful men.

And that's the chain. And that's the chain that Paul continued by teaching Timothy.

And Timothy was willing. And Timothy was willing to learn, not only as a young man learning the scriptures and learning the gospel, and learning just how to minister to others as they went on their missionary journeys together, but then being assigned eventually as the pastor and shepherd of Ephesus, I believe.

He ended up in Ephesus. Yeah, Rod. You were speaking and reading about the disciples.

He called them and gave them the ability to cast out demons and to heal people. And in miracles, they must have seen, as they were doing that, must have startled them, see, they could do that themselves.

And I was thinking, it's a blessing to know that. But for us today, we're involved in a miracle because if we share the gospel and somebody comes to Christ, that's literally a miracle that's happening.

And God's working through us and doing that. And that should be a very encouraging thing for us to know that He's working through us today to do things.

That's a great point. And, you know, this is the way it's different from our learning and doing and serving than the world's, because if you're in a corporation and you're learning from your mentor and your mentor gives you an assignment to say, hey, you know, you can do this, you know, you've been trained for this, you can go ahead and do this, the idea is that the mentor is building up confidence in the pupil and the pupil's learning how to do these things and they get confidence in how to do certain tasks that beforehand maybe seemed out of their reach, but now they've been trained and now they're doing these things.

So they get confidence, but in that sense, they're getting confidence in the abilities that they have. The Christian life isn't quite like that.

The way the Christian life is, is when Jesus sends us out and we see that the demons are subject to us, as it was for the 70 and the 12 when they went out, and they come back and they say,

Lord, wasn't it great? The demons were subject to us. And Jesus is, oh my gosh, the

Father, I just praise you that you have given these things but to babes.

And it's almost like Jesus is, you know, it's blasphemous to say he was chuckling a little bit, but just to see the beauty and the innocence of who they were.

But he said don't rejoice in this. Rejoice that your names are written in heaven. And they knew that it wasn't them doing it, that it was the

Lord working through them. And it's the same thing with us. It's not us gaining more self -confidence in my own abilities, but as we go out in the name of the

Lord and we see him working, we are trying to emulate those who have gone before us by being faithful to preach the

Word and to encourage those others in the faith and standing firm on the

Word of God. But when we see results, it's not because we're brilliant or because, you know, we've done this or that so great and we have it down to a

T and we can do it. It's because God is working through us and we gain confidence in him as we get the opportunities to go out in ministry.

And that's a big difference between us and a worldly pursuit of wisdom or training.

We learn to trust in our Lord, not in ourselves. But it's amazing because you think like Jesus was, you know, walked on the earth and Jesus was teaching and healing.

And to leave this ministry in control of these 12 guys who at times were totally wrong, at times they were bumbling, stumbling, at times they were cowards, at times they were angry and they wanted to call down fire on those who didn't listen to them.

Yeah. Not necessarily the group that you would say, these guys are ready to take over for Jesus.

And you almost think like, well Lord, are you sure this is the plan you really wanted? There is no plan

B. This is Jesus' plan A, A, A, and A. This was the plan he gave us.

Jesus is patient. He was patient with his disciples. As MacArthur said, he lovingly corrected them, he trained them, he enjoyed being with them.

And that's the kind of relationship a discipler and a disciple should have. And they weren't perfect, but he was willing to use them.

And that's the same with us too. We're not going to do everything right or perfect. And thank

God that he's patient with us. And even when we do stumble and bubble, he'll give us another opportunity to learn and trust in him again.

So that's the plan. So the goal for us all is to become more like Jesus Christ.

And this discipleship process helps us all along in that goal and along the way.

But there's some issues in our day and age, I'm going to say.

There are some challenges I think that we have to overcome as a culture. Because when you come to know

Jesus and you're so excited about him, and you realize what he's done for you by dying on the cross, and then you hear about this following him, discipling, commitment.

In our culture, that's tough sometimes. And particularly tough for men sometimes.

Are we willing to answer the call? Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who many of you guys know, he wrote

The Cost of Discipleship. He was a German pastor at the time of Nazi Germany.

And he stood up against the Nazis. But he saw things.

At the time, people were so -called Christians and were not willing to stand up against evil in the day and age he was in.

He said this, I mean that even in the evangelical church, we tend to think of Jesus' commands as historical artifacts, as sayings to be admired rather than obeyed without question.

Most importantly, we fail to recognize them as commands at the precise moment at which the command is applicable.

If we miss that moment, we have also missed our opportunity to obey that command, meaning we've been disobedient.

It has become second nature for us as a church to put things off. Meaning that when we hear the word of God, we hear a clear teaching, we're thinking like, well,

God knows my heart, one day I'll get to that. A lot of people feel that way about baptism. It's like,

I don't need to be baptized, that was just kind of, like no, it's a command of the Lord. If you haven't been baptized, you need to be baptized if you want to be obedient to Jesus.

Well, discipleship is the same way. And a lot of us feel like, oh, well, you know,

I'm not really sure if I should get involved in that. Like, how does it, how does it, well,

I'm hoping this class is going to help with a little bit of that. But I'm also hoping that the

Lord's command triggers us tonight. Because we now are those who have the opportunity, if you haven't been discipled, to get into a relationship like that.

If you have been discipled, to continue to change. So, let's look at this picture now.

TV went off again. I can never count on the TV. All these power -saving things.

So the goal is, this is how the progression is supposed to work.

You have an unsaved person who is evangelized and becomes a convert.

That convert is hopefully trained to be a disciple.

Now, sometimes this link is broken and training takes place for one reason or another.

Maybe people don't avail themselves to the training that's available in the church. Or maybe the church isn't doing a good enough job at looking for those who would like to be trained in the faith.

But this is very important. Now, when I was a young man in the Lord, I had elderly men come up to me and say, do you want to learn more about Christ?

Do you want to be discipled? The reason I'm sitting here in this chair right now actually teaching a class was because there were faithful men in my life who poured themselves into me and encouraged me to not only learn more about Jesus, but then after learning more about Jesus, then serving

Him in the church and becoming a worker. And then once as a worker in the church, wanting to reproduce that into other people, becoming a disciple -maker myself and looking to pour my life into other people.

It's a beautiful plan. It's a beautiful plan of relationship. It's a beautiful plan of the transfer of a life to a life.

It's a beautiful thing. And I've had the beautiful opportunity not only to receive that myself, but I have had a chance to give that as well.

And it's been... God allows these things in our lives. It's extremely,

I'll say, fulfilling. He's just gracious to give us that kind of thing. But the relationships we have in Jesus are precious.

And when we get very close to someone in the Lord like that, that really is a beautiful thing.

Now, I've got to say, I know this material because I'm teaching it, right?

I knew what I was going to say tonight. I'm not discipling anybody right now. I'm teaching a couple classes like this, but these are big classes.

And you can't do the one -on -one kind of thing or the pour -your -life -into -anybody.

And I've got to say, this is a real challenge to me. It's like, okay, you say you should be doing this, but Mr.

Drew, what are you doing right now? I love the classes that we're in, and I'm thankful that you and you and maybe some other are hearing this, hearing both of them.

Oh, and you too, John. So I get to see you guys a couple times a week.

But I'm not doing necessarily what

I'm saying here tonight, where you really are getting very close. I'm getting close to a lot of you guys, obviously.

That's great. But I also am talking about younger guys in the faith.

I mean, a lot of the guys in this room are very mature in the faith, and we have a lot to offer younger folks in the faith.

So in that sense, I think more like with John and Ivan and Phil and myself, when we get together, it's more like iron sharpening iron kind of thing, and we still need to do that as brothers in the

Lord. But I'm not involved in that training relationship necessarily.

Can I just make one comment, too, about that with the diagram? When one of the most wonderful things that happens when someone accepts the

Lord Jesus Christ as a personal Savior is also the scariest time in their life, because they will be under attack because of that.

And we don't take that serious enough in terms of a person who just accepted the

Lord Jesus Christ and says, I'm going to follow Him. They are open to all types of things.

And in my lifetime, when I've discipled people just like you have, questions come up like, why all of a sudden all these things are happening to me?

Why da -da -da? And it's all these different why things. And there's a period of time where they're being tested on how much their faith is part of what's going on there.

Is this all real or not? And it's a very serious thing. And we have a tendency, like what you were saying,

Drew, we have a tendency not to do that. When someone accepts the Lord, okay, do you want to do that?

It's almost like you have to. You can't just say, do you want to? At this point, we've got to help you build up some hedges around you to make sure that you're going to be protected as you're going through this.

Because you will be. Being a follower of Jesus is not easy. And a young person in the faith is going to have their problems.

Well, I've got to say this too. When I first came to know the Lord, and I was thrilled to know that my sins were forgiven and I could serve the living

God, I did have a man come up to me who was about 40, and I was about 28 at the time, who said, would you like to be a disciple?

But I didn't know what it meant. And did you ever see a cat get scared? And his tail gets like this.

And I was looking at him like, is this some kind of cult or something? Because I didn't know. And I really didn't understand what he was asking for.

But my tail was like... And I was like, oh my gosh, I am so out of here.

You didn't start hissing, did you? What did you say? You didn't start hissing, did you? No, I was squirreled out at the time because I just didn't know.

And he was gracious about it. But later I found out, I was like, oh, okay, he was being a good brother there.

That's also a really good point. We have to describe what terms we're using. Not just whether you're evangelizing.

When we say, would you like to repent? Do you know what repent means? They don't really know what repent means.

So if you ask somebody, you have to be kind of encouraging in that. And not just ask the question, but explain what you're even asking.

That's a really great point. Yeah, because I was very new to faith. And I was very excited to learn.

But I did not know what he was talking about. So that's a good point. So being judicious about how we approach the matter is a good idea.

So, okay, so what do we do? Well, let's see what the process looks like a little bit here.

If we want to be involved in this and we want to be obedient to what Jesus says, I think the first thing we need to realize is that this process should be an intentional process.

This isn't a haphazard thing like, oh, maybe one day it'll happen. But I will say this.

I've been involved in a few churches now that have very much promoted discipleship.

And what they'll do, or what I've seen done, and I was part of this, it's like, okay, let's put all our list of disciples on this sheet of paper over here and a list of those who want to be discipled on this sheet of paper over here.

And we're just going to assign them and match them up. Well, that sounds like it would work out.

But it never really did. And I think the part missing in that is the discipler's part to be intentional in a sense, just the way

Jesus was working with these men before he called them and he prayed,

Father, which men do you want me to choose? And I'm sure he knew from the foundation of the world, but he spent so much time in prayer, especially with his father, that the

Lord will lead you to those people. Maybe you have a common bond that just draws you together naturally.

Like maybe it's golf with Bill or something. I didn't say good golf. Maybe a new believer will come into the fold and just fall in love with golf, and that's an automatic sync -up beyond even just knowing

Jesus in the Scriptures. Maybe it's sports TV, intellectual pursuits, or whatever it is.

But there might be a common bond that you see with someone in the faith. Or maybe you just like someone.

But in order to do what I'm saying, you do have to meet people. So you do have to introduce yourself to people in the congregation.

You do have to be part of groups like this, maybe, where you see somebody sitting across the way and you say, hey, you want to get together for this, that, maybe coffee to start or something.

And if the Lord leads you into a deeper relationship, pray about it.

And that's the intentional part of it is to pray for this, to, yes, look for the opportunities, but for the

Lord and the Holy Spirit to lead you in this. And that goes for the disciple E, too.

For the disciple E also to pray about, you know, I really would like to learn more about Jesus.

Could I approach someone and ask? That's okay to do that. It doesn't always have to be the other way around, the disciple or ask.

It could be someone who wants to be trained. So, and then how many people should be involved?

It's like, okay, you know, what kind of examples do we see in the Scriptures? You know, we see the one -on -one thing, like a

Moses and a Joshua. Of course, Moses was training many people in different ways in different times.

But we do see the one -on -one. We do see groups, sometimes a small group, like when

Paul would take Silas and Timothy on a second missionary journey, so there's two there. And the first missionary journey was

Barnabas and John Mark. It didn't work out with John Mark, but it was still a small group, just a couple together.

And even with Jesus, with the twelve, MacArthur notes that, you know, twelve is still a pretty big group.

And a lot of times Jesus narrowed it down to just three, right? Where a lot of times the intimate conversations and the intimate, you know, revelations,

I'll say, from something that Jesus wanted to show, those three men, were just kept between them.

And we see that Peter, James, and John had the insight into many opportunities that the other twelve maybe didn't.

And the Lord was doing something maybe he felt led specifically, obviously, to do with these three to work with them more closely.

But I don't think there's a cookie -cutter way to do it. I think just the desire to do it and maybe to keep a group down to a fairly small size is the idea.

Obviously a class like this is not that kind of a situation, right? Because, you know, we're not going to be able to share with each other, because there's too many of us.

We would all be sharing it all. You know, it would be impossible to take in all the information and be able to, you know, give it back out and that kind of thing.

So we get that. So a group, a small group. Now, as far as how you do it,

I think there's a million ways to do it as well. But there are some essentials to the relationship.

And I think every discipleship relationship should have these things as an emphasis.

So the first thing is a strong emphasis on the mastering of the Word of God, that that is going to be part of the training.

The assumption here is that the discipler knows more about the

Word of God than the person who's being trained. But I will say this. Even in a situation like Pastor Jeff.

Pastor Jeff is in his mid -40s now, right? I think even in his situation, like it would be great for him to be involved in a relationship with an older pastor, somebody who's kind of been there, done that more than, you know, for more years.

The reason wouldn't necessarily be for Pastor Jeff to learn more about the Word of God, because I don't think there's many people on this earth that know more about the

Word of God than Pastor Jeff does. But that older pastor has walked with the

Lord longer, and that older pastor has learned maybe to trust the

Lord in different ways and gone through different experiences that maybe Jeff hasn't had yet. Age and experience does matter.

And especially when it comes to trusting the Lord in difficult situations, especially if that older person has already gone through, you know, children, grandchildren, you know, they're working their way.

You know, Pastor Jeff is at the point where his children are getting to the teenage years. And that older pastor may have been there and done that and may have great advice about how to trust in the

Lord in those different times. So even Pastor Jeff can learn. And we're always learning.

Like Richie said, a disciple is a continuous learner. So we've never really got it all down.

But the Word of God, obviously, a strong emphasis on personal devotion and prayer to the

Lord, especially for a new convert. Like that might just not be something that— they just need an example to see how someone, you know, pours their heart out to the

Lord. You know, what do you do in your devotional time? Do you go through the Psalms and, you know, just pray and exalt the

Lord in your heart and just read or pray through the Psalms? Do you sing hymns?

Do you sit in a quiet time and read through the Bible? You know, many different ways to approach that.

But a new believer may be not necessarily knowing, you know, a way to approach that situation.

So that helps, you know, a person along the way. Mutual accountability.

So this is us holding us accountable to each other and, you know, wanting each other to walk circumspectly according to the

Word of God and, you know, really just being able to, you know, say to one another just the way the

Scripture says that we should submit to one another. And we shouldn't be so guarded in our life that we're not willing to, you know, let our lives open to another person for examination.

And that's not comfortable for a lot of us. But mutual accountability is very important. I think that comes true from spending time with each other and developing a more personal relationship that you can get to that point.

But you have to do those steps first. Yeah, it's not going to happen right off the bat, right?

Right. A willingness, obviously, for each person to submit to the

Word of God. A commitment to being used by the Holy Spirit. And that will represent itself in each person building a solid commitment to the local church.

And that is very important. That's something that's very, very much missing in our day and age now, that the concept of the local church and the local body where you are a part of, that this is where you serve, this is where your family is, this is where you're going to use your gifts and abilities to build up the body of Christ and love so that we all attain to the knowledge of the fullness of God.

And I think the church hop thing is very prolific in our day and age, so you never really get committed anywhere.

You just kind of go from one to another. And I realize there are definitely times to leave, because I just said

I was involved in three churches. So I have left twice, obviously. And those were doctrinal things.

So that does happen. But when you're involved in a body, you get involved in the local body.

And that's where we should be. COVID hasn't helped. COVID hasn't helped a lot of things. No, but I'm just saying people have decided they're just going to keep watching or something.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's not really church, right? No. Just watching online isn't really church.

No. Getting involved in people's lives is what the Lord wants us to do. And Drew, couldn't that local church be even narrowed down to a small group in a home?

Sure. Sure, the care groups are huge. It's not just this building. And that's what we try to do with the care groups.

Yes. Because on that level, you're really ministering more to each other's needs and really because you know the prayer requests of the other folks in the group at that point.

Even our group has been more of a, I'll say, a teaching time. And it has been more of like a fellowship, like prayer time together and, you know, getting to know one another.

I'd like to kind of make it a little bit more like that and kind of do things with each other. Starting next week, actually.

Finally. We do want to have a fellowship time next week. Finally. But yeah, some of the rest of these is the same thing.

Integrating people into the ministry of the local church, using their gifts, and building into each other a servant spirit.

Just wanting to lay our lives down for one another. Now, when

I went through discipleship, we had a commitment at the end.

This was, and I didn't bring the materials with me.

I've gone through several materials. And if you're interested in discipling or being a disciple,

I have three different materials that I've gone through. Two are books. One's by Spurgeon.

It's called Spiritual Leadership. One's by, it's

Ryle. Was it J .C. Ryle? J .C. Ryle. It's called Holiness.

The other material is more like a step through the simple doctrines of the faith and getting to kind of more like an alpha class kind of a thing.

But they're all effective in their own ways. But if somebody's interested in doing it, and Pastor Jeff has many, many other options if somebody's interested in that.

But when it comes down to it, and you are going to be someone who desires to be hooked up with someone and trained or a trainee, you both need to think about it.

Because this isn't just getting together for fun and games. This is getting together for the transformation of a life.

So, can I just make one comment? Because when Paul was talking in the epistles, the big theme that he tried to get across also and he was pleading with these churches, he was saying, because I'm here and God's given me my task to do,

I am responsible for your soul. I am responsible for this church. I am also responsible.

And he wanted to translate that to the people in the church, that they're responsible for each other's soul too.

There's a responsibility that goes beyond commitment. And Rich, what was the

Greek word? What was the Greek word? But it meant responsibility.

It was deeper than just committing. It's you, for your brother, you are responsible for him.

Well, Paul said a lot of beautiful things about the people. You know, you think about the Apostle Paul.

He just didn't have Timothy, Silas, and Titus.

He had the Church of Colossae, the Church of Philippi, the

Church of Corinth. And he continued to try to edify them all.

You know, he talked about that, having the burden of every day. You know, the

Church is on his... I'm just trying to find something right here, but basically what

I'm looking for... This wasn't exactly...

Oh, here it is. Yeah, it is. It's in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. And this is how

Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, and how much they meant to him.

And this is just beautiful. This is in verses 7 and 8 of chapter 2.

Bob, if you have that, could you read that? So 1 Thessalonians 2, verses 7 and 8.

7 and 8? Instead, we were like young children among you. Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we care for you.

Because we love you so much, we were delighted to share with you, not only the Gospel of God, but our lives as well.

That's the attitude. The world doesn't have that these days.

If you've noticed, at least I think I have, people are mean these days.

I don't know if it's because of the COVID thing, and people just getting shorter tempers or whatever, but there's this concept of even humanly kindness or brotherly kindness between men.

It's waning, I think, in the day and age we live in. But in the

Spirit and in the Lord, we have this kind of care for one another. Go ahead,

Rod. When you were saying that, something that always comes to my mind, and that is Romans 1, because our nation has turned totally the opposite way.

How many evangelicals are just saying everybody's going to be saved, or gays are accepted, everything's happening right now.

Romans 1, God gave them over, and that means he gave over. I'm seeing a nation collapsing all around with each other.

You're right, kindness and everything is not there. To reprobate mind. Yes. Because of the increase of wickedness.

Well, many would grow cold. And that's why the church is different. In terms of discipleship, something else that came to my mind,

I don't know if you thought of it or not. If you look at the New Testament, the Lord never holds back.

The Old and New Testament both. When one of his children do something wrong, whether it's Peter or not, he exposed it, and it's in the

Scripture for all of us to see. And how important it is when we disciple somebody, when we lead somebody to Christ and we're discipling that person, to be honest and downright and say,

Listen, I used to, and Christ changed my life, and I'm like that because of what he did.

And sharing that openness about reality for where we are in our perspective.

Showing them the Gospel and showing them that if it wasn't for Christ, I wouldn't be doing anything anybody else was.

Does that make sense to you? Like connecting in a different way? It made sense to Phil. Thanks, Phil.

Well, one out of 20. Well, it's funny,

Rob. Because when we were at the retreat, Mike Avendroth gave an example of something that happened to him as a pastor.

And he was mentoring a couple of young men.

And one of the gentlemen had said to him,

I have a problem with porn. I can't stop it. And so in his mind, he thought it's just an incident that happened, and he was going to disciple him and admonish him.

He says, Well, how long have you had a problem with porn? And he said, Oh, for five years.

And so he was a new convert. And so what he did was, he took his finger and he pressed it against his chest.

And he said to him, This is not who you are anymore. And from this point on, as your brother,

I'm responsible for you. This is not who you are anymore. And he basically rebuked him there.

But at the same time, he says, But I love you, I'm going to hug you, and we're going to go through this together. And from that point on, he changed the whole narrative and dialogue that he had in between the two individuals.

He was accountable to him from that point on. Exactly, exactly. The younger guy was accountable to Mike.

You remember that, right? Remember what he was telling you about that? And he said the guy was shocked because he went in there as if he was already beaten, and he came out there and he felt edified that he was able to go on and be there.

And praise God for a brother who's willing to step in and say, Hey, I love you enough to get involved.

Basically, he's committing to be involved in that man's life. And praise God for that.

Also, there are some opportunities to teach and disciple and mentor. Tim Robinson came up to me once.

I mentored Tim for about two months. He wanted to learn more about Jesus and the

Gospel of John. So we decided to study John together. It was that simple. But you'll come across that too.

Tim was relatively new in the Lord at that time. And you see how he's matured since. Oh my gosh, yes.

Now, the goal here isn't just to learn more. The goal here, as I had up there before, is to become a servant and a worker in the church, and then also a reproducer.

Now, I'm just going to use myself for an example right now. I'm here, like I said, because people have encouraged me to be here, and I was willing to take a shot at it.

They say, Oh, I think you could teach. Somebody encouraged me to do that. But I've got to tell you, my heart is to be,

I would say, more of a deacon than an elder. I like to do stuff.

And I like to do stuff with other guys. And I'll tell you what I mean by that.

And I'd like to maybe pull some guys. Me, this room is incredibly dark,

I would say. What do I mean by that? I mean there's about five light bulbs that are out.

The deacon in me wants to fix everything I see wrong physically in the church, whether it be that fan that's screaming in the ladies' room right now, that exhaust fan that's screaming in there.

And you can notice it if you pull the door open. Or the light bulbs that are out here, or the light bulbs that are in the sanctuary, or the parking lot light timer that doesn't work still.

But some of you guys are called to stuff like that. But you need to be encouraged in it. Some of you guys are called to be leaders in the church, beyond just disciples and disciple makers.

Some of you guys have been called. And you need to be encouraged in that. Because I know God has called some of us to be leaders.

You know why? Because that's how he organizes the church. He calls people to be deacons and elders and other things.

So I know that's the case. But sometimes you need a brother in the

Lord to help and encourage you. And I think there's a lot of guys in this room that would help a lot from getting paired up.

And I don't think we should do it as like, you know, we'll assign this. Because we kind of tried to do that at the beginning of this class.

I got paired up with John Costello and Stan. Now I'm still in contact with those guys all the time, but you see they're not in this class even anymore.

Yeah, and you work with John a lot too. And praise God for that. Because, you know, it's still brother and brother stuff.

But I know, Bill, you got paired up with Russell and Chad. And you guys keep in contact and do some great things together.

So that's great. But maybe it wasn't organic, though, in a sense that, you know, you guys prayed for it.

And you guys saw a mutual attraction. And, you know, it was just kind of like, well, we'll pair everyone up.

So there was a reason for that. And there was some fruit that came out of that.

But think tonight about what the Lord would have you do. Where would

He want you to play a part in either some other man's life in this room or somebody else that we might see on Sunday?

You know, another thing, Drew, is email. Email. I love to send passages of Scripture to encourage brothers.

That's why I send stuff to you and Drew or, you know, Matt and Ivan all the time.

I want to build people up. You have that desire in your heart not only to serve but to build others up in the

Lord. I squirrel away some of those because some of them are just so useful that I know

I want to dig them up later on too, you know. And I'll have a lot of guys do that in the church here.

A lot of you guys send me stuff. I know you send each other stuff too. Whether it be about end time stuff or whether it be about maybe political things, whatever, how that relates to Jesus and His church.

A lot of you guys do that. That's the beauty of modern technology. You can use it for the Lord's glory. You can text a brother real quick these days to say,

Hey, how are you doing today? You know, that's really a great thing. Yeah, can

I practice what you're saying right now? Thomas Watson, quote,

I'm going to quote him right now because it's just something... Is this the golfer? Yeah, the golfer.

Thomas Watson said, Jesus Christ was more willing to go to the cross than many of us are to go to the throne of grace.

And how impactful that was to think about that. That just stuck in my mind. But a great quote for him to say.

Obviously, he's been around for many years. He's long gone now. But still, it's some of the things that they come out with.

They say it can still encourage people. Those great brothers that have gone before us.

We can still learn a lot from those guys. From a lot of men. So, as I said, next time we get together, we're just going to have something like a pizza night.

And I'm up for anything. I'll send out like, maybe even like a little sign up thing.

But, you know, maybe Ivan and Mike and I, or Matt and I will get the pizzas. And then we'll figure it out from there.

But I'd like to just to get together and hang out with you guys a little bit. Maybe hang out for Monday Night Football.

Probably Monday Night Football starts today. So we won't hang out that long. We'll just pray. But the girls won't be here either.

So we'll hog the sanctuary. And spread out. And kind of get a little more comfortable.

Because I think the girls aren't going to meet again until January. So we can take advantage. I think it's a good reminder for everybody.

We're all broken. Accepting Jesus as our

Savior. And, you know, everything we're doing needs to point towards Him. We have to be broken.

We have to break. And so, when you look at it from that perspective, it's kind of like an even field, so to speak.

It doesn't matter if you've been in ministry 20 years, or you're a new believer. We're all at that place of brokenness.

And you have to be to allow Jesus to work in your life.

Let the Holy Spirit happen. Once you start to move away from that, once your lens starts to move away, that's when trouble really begins.

You know, the starting point is the fact of recognizing brother to brother in Christ. The fact that we're able to be in a community and having that, that should be something that is a welcoming thing.

That we're in a church and we're with each other. And regardless of age and whatever, that we have this connectedness that's there in Christ.

And part of that is the fact that we're all broken. We are together in that, in doing that. And so, amen to that.

I think that it's great that that has happened. And that's the glory that goes to Jesus for that, that we are able to go ahead and do that.

Would anyone like to say anything tonight? Something about, you know, something maybe they wish they had had in the church and they just haven't had it yet.

Or, you know, a relationship that... Because, as Ivan said, we're all broken.

We may have also all been disappointed at some point with our brother in the

Lord. Or you were counting on someone, or maybe even someone was your mentor and they fell.

And that was tremendously disheartening for you. You know, in all this process, we're building one another up, but boy, you know, we still can't trust in another man.

It's still going to be that. What we should all be doing as disciple -ers, if we're discipling, is pointing them to trust in Jesus.

Obviously, we want to have role models and examples in the church. But if you have been discouraged by someone who has fallen by the wayside, be encouraged because Jesus is the one who's going to stand.

And I know there was a... I think it was a Steve Green song, or a

Keith Green song, one of the two, from way back. You've got to be old to know those guys.

But the song is, it's only by grace that we stand. And that's very true.

Even for those who are so mature, like I've been saying in the faith, there's still so much more to learn and still so much more to trust.

So hopefully nobody has been, I'll say, wounded or discouraged by that in the faith.

But we know it happens. I remember when I first came to know the Lord, there was what

I thought was a fantastic teacher on the radio. His name was David Hawking. Now, that's not the family radio guy.

This was a guy out on the West Coast, David Hawking. And he once said, with his life and with his teaching, and I always hoped that...

I used to love listening to him. And probably many of us know many other folks that we have loved as teachers, maybe on the radio or something.

And it's like, oh, but they didn't finish the course.

They didn't end the race. They fell. And that's just a warning to us all, that if we think we stand, take heed.

And we all need to encourage each other in that, too. So any other thoughts?

I hope we can all encourage each other in these things. Just relative to what you just said, Drew, I think it's very important for us to come alongside a brother that we may know has fallen and to encourage them to get back in the race because we all maybe have sinned some horrible sins in our lives or even in our

Christian walk. And it may disqualify us from certain aspects of ministry and leadership, but it doesn't disqualify from a continued walk with the

Lord. And we need to... The Bible tells us to encourage one another and exhort one another, and we need to be able to do that with boldness and with the

Word of God. And I will say this, that for a long time, those who may have been involved in a divorce in the church were treated like lepers.

And whether they were in the wrong somehow or whether they weren't in the wrong somehow, basically it's like, okay, you're off the shelf now.

We're not even going to think about using you as a believer anymore. Right. And I think attitudes have changed about that a lot.

Obviously there's still the Lord's command and what He desires for a married life, but it is not the unpardonable sin.

No. And we need to come along a brother. If they've been through a devastating situation like that, which, you know,

Rod's a counselor. He's probably dealt with so many situations that are so difficult. And I know you have a way with people to be able to encourage them beyond their circumstances.

I wish we all had that kind of a gift. But as Bob said, maybe just being there and caring is really the most important thing most of the time.

And I'm sure some of you guys have gone through some difficult things. So I don't want to keep going on and on and on, but I think tonight was an important night that we could just talk about some of this stuff.

That's important for you to share that.

And there's a lot of things. Thankfully, the Lord's not done with all of us.

Would someone like to close us up in prayer tonight? Father Bob.

Father God in heaven, we do come to you tonight, Lord, with praise and honor to you.

You are our God. You loved us from even before creation,

Lord. I thank you that Drew is willing and able to be here tonight to share with us what you've laid upon his heart.

I thank you for each of the guys that are here. I pray that the things that were presented, we're taking into our heart and considering how discipleship looks and how we fit into that picture,

Lord. I pray that you would give us journey's mercies as we go off from here tonight, give us that we would return home safely.

And I pray, Lord, that the things that we talk about in here will continue to bubble up in our lives and cause us to think of who we are and why we're here and how we need to fit that role.