Our staff and elders at Mid-Cities have been pushing through a process lately of discussing the meaning of discipleship and effective ways to make disciples. It’s an important topic because Jesus gave us our final marching orders just before his ascent back to the Father. “Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations” (Mat.28:18). First of all he said “go” and “make. The implication is that we initiate something that is intentional and that has some design. It usually doesn’t happen by accident and it is not random. Jesus also said that we are to make disciples.
Disciples are not church members but rather followers of Jesus Christ. In the days of Jesus, disciples chose a Rabbi that they wanted to emulate. Jesus said, “It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master” (Mt.10:25). Jesus was echoing the Rabbinical concept of discipleship. It wasn’t just about knowing what the Rabbi knew but it was about living like the Rabbi lived.
American discipleship has been reduced in many ways to learning rather than doing. Discipleship has been defined as knowing more and receiving more training. We have fallen pray to the Ivory Tower approach of expertise. We tend to believe that the men or women who have read the most about a topic are the experts because they speak with such authority that we assume they have actually done what they talk about. Unfortunately, real life is often very divorced from the ideal presented in books.
It’s not that disciples don’t read, receive teaching, and talk about what they have learned. They do. But to that academic experience they add personal experience. Jesus taught. Then he modeled what he taught. Then he sent his disciples out to do what they had watched him do and to practice what he had taught. Then they came back and told Jesus what happened. He taught some more, modeled some more, and then released them to go practice what he had preached some more.
The key to discipleship was their desire to actually do what the Rabbi did and to live as he lived. Jesus was aware that an accumulation of knowledge could feel like obedience when it actually wasn’t. He said, “I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock… But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation.” (Lk.6:47-49). James, the brother of Jesus, later challenged the church to be doers of the word and not hearers only.
True discipleship is about doing not just learning. If we are to be disciples of Jesus in the very Jewish sense of discipleship we must do what he did until we master it and if we want to truly please him we must do even more than he did. Well…how could anybody do more than Jesus did? In the realm of procuring our salvation Jesus stands alone. No one can duplicate what he did as the sinless Lamb of God. In terms of lifestyle and touching other lives, Jesus himself said, “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (Jn.14:12).
I didn’t say that. Jesus said that. “He will do even greater things.” Notice the emphasis on “do.” Our challenge as believers in the American church is not knowing but doing. We have more Bible study aids that at anytime in history. I’m sitting here with my Logos Bible software as I type this blog. I can pull up every kind of study guide or aid imaginable. But I will never start to become like Jesus until I begin to risk doing what he did – sharing the good news of the kingdom of God, healing broken hearts, healing broken bodies, building relationships with sinners, loving the unlovable, confronting evil, feeding the hungry, casting out demons, and even raising the dead.
There are lots of ways to do those things but if that is what Rabbi Jesus did then as disciples we must do the same. Is there a learning curve? Yes. Is there a fear factor? In the beginning. Can I mess up? O yeah. Can I fail? Only if I don’t try. There is always a gap between theory and practice but eventually practice exceeds theory because in doing we learn; in doing we grow; in doing faith flourishes, and in doing we become more like the Rabbi.
Go out today or tomorrow and pray for something impossible without the bailout disclaimer “if it be thy will.” Pray for healing believing that God always wants to heal. Command demons believing that God always wants to set captives free. Share your faith with sinners believing that God wants all men to be saved. Okay, okay. Peter stepped out of the boat and nearly drowned! Not really. Jesus would not have let him drown because he stepped out in faith. It wasn’t perfect faith but it was faith. But Peter also experienced something no other apostle experienced. He did actually walk on water for a bit. He knew what it felt like. He knew if he did it once by faith he could do it again. He knew he might get wet but Jesus would not let him drown. We all need to know those things and we only come to know them when we actually risk doing what the Rabbi did. It is also the only way we can say, “It is not I who lives, but Christ who lives in me.” Go out there today and risk doing what he did. After all, he is in you and just wants you to let him out. Be blessed.
