On Sunday, Pastor Rob will continue his
three-week series of messages focusing on our church’s mission and vision. The
title of this series -- “Be One. Make One.” -- references our calling as a body
of believers to be disciple-makers. Last
week we looked at the question, “What is a Disciple?” This week we will think
about what it means to obey Jesus’ instruction in Matthew 28, that we are to “go
into all the world and make disciples
Today we are reading Ephesians 4:11-16. The text below is taken from the New Living Translation, but feel free to read from the version of your choice.
11Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.
14Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. 15Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. 16He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.
This passage may be familiar if you were around during our Ephesians studies, when we looked at these verses that describe the maturing process God intends for us as individuals, and what that growth and change looks like within the Church, the body of Christ.
Yes, to be a disciple at its most basic level means simply to be a follower, a learner. But if we put ourselves -- our entire lives -- under the authority and tutelage of Jesus, there will be growth and change.
This is what we see in the lives of eleven of the twelve disciples throughout the Gospels and the New Testament letters. It’s what we see in Paul and Timothy and the early church. It may have happened at different rates, in different ways, and through different experiences, but over time there was a clearly discernable change from “brand new believer” to “mature disciple.” If we want to be a community of disciples who make disciples, we need and want to see all of us growing in this manner.
Another way to think about this is that we are people becoming more like Jesus who are helping others become more like Jesus. Discipleship, then, is the process of helping people take one step closer to Jesus.
This is at the heart of God’s mission for the world: that everyone would become a disciple, that all would come to worship him. For the non-believer, one step closer to Jesus means one step closer to salvation. For the new believer, one step closer means taking those first faltering steps into the Christian faith, and so on. The spectrum is wide, but the underlying premise never changes -- it’s about movement toward maturity, both in our own lives and in the lives of those around us.
Jesus often spoke in parables -- stories that by some were misunderstood -- but His parting words to the disciples were crystal clear. Go and make more disciples. It was the job for which He had been training them for three years, and the job He was empowering them with the Holy Spirit to fulfill. That same responsibility has been passed down to every believer since then -- including you and me.
Father,
Forgive me for being so satisfied with my spiritual “status quo.” Help me to weed out the distractions that keep me from living with a daily awareness of the eternal values of Your Kingdom and of Your amazing love for me. Make me uncomfortable with anything less that complete surrender to You.
Amen