Discipleship, it’s far simpler than you think!

BY DERMOT COTTULI

Matthew 28:19, 20
So you must go and make disciples of all nations. Baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And you can be sure that I am always with you, to the very end.”

What was Jesus’ description of a disciple? A disciple is someone who’s been baptised and obeys the commands of Jesus. Jesus commands can be summed up in two which according to him, are of equal importance. To love God with everything you have and to love your neighbour as yourself or as he expands on it in John 13, to love each other as he has loved us. In fact he says that the way he measures our love for him is how well we love others. “If you love me you will obey my command and this is my command, that you love each other as I have loved you.” How do you love others the same way He has loved you if you haven’t experienced this love for yourself?

So a disciple of Jesus is someone who has experienced the love of God for themselves personally, who then love Him in return and prove their love for Him by actively loving everyone in their world, especially the ones Jesus came to reach.

Therefore it leads us to the conclusion that the only true fruit of discipleship is seen in the way we love those in our world.

Ephesians 4:11, 12
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service,

Our job as Pastors is to equip new believers for works of service. Service is the fruit of love in action. We do our people a huge disservice when we make their service primarily about serving on a team in your weekly Sunday meeting. Serving on a team on a Sunday is equal to doing chores around home. Someone has to do them but seriously, if you think they’re going to change the world, you really need to get out more.

The love that changes the world is the love that reaches down to care for the poor, the oppressed, the marginalised and the forgotten.

We love the idea that Jesus stepped down from heaven to come to earth to save us, but where in your life are you actively stepping down to reach others with his love? Too often our approach to scripture is all about the benefit we can receive from it for our own lives failing to realise that it contains our marching orders to take God’s good news to the poor.

Paul uses the analogy of a soldier to demonstrate the attitude that he believed believers should adopt and it’s an interesting analogy, especially to all of us who’ve spent any time in the military. I can’t recall any exercise or deployment where I felt comfortable. It was always a struggle when on active duty. It was only once the mission was over that we were given some r&r and could focus on fun. Our service, our mission was never about us, it was always about the agenda of our commanding officers who were serving our nation’s best interest. To serve well we had to die to our own desires and that was NEVER pleasant. Is it any wonder that obeying the commands of Jesus has fallen out of favour within our churches and we find ourselves in our current state of crying out to God for revival, the return of our happy feelings, the feeling we experienced when we first found Jesus?

When church leadership primarily focus their time and energy on Sunday services we can find ourselves stuck on a treadmill trying to keep people happy and engaged and in the process end up elevating the importance of a meeting to something it should never have been, in our desire to keep people coming along.

Church on the weekend was only ever meant to be on par to the change sheds in a footy match at half time when the players come in off the field to have a rest and get ready to go back out and play. We all too often forget in the process of “doing” church that the churches main arena is out in the world, in our communities and in the places that Jesus went to, where the poor, the oppressed and the forgotten live. That’s where the game of life is played. That’s where the true heroes of the church will be found. Thats where the Kingdom of God advances.

It’s okay if you disagree with what I’ve written above but if it helps you think more clearly about your practice then that’s a good thing. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, even if you feel you’re disrespecting a sacred cow. We all see dimly as through a dark glass but we have this confidence that the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth. So let’s not stumble over the stones in the road but instead press on to take hold of all that Jesus has for us.