Training Disciples

Fulfilling the Great Commission: Training Disciples

 

Welcome! Today we continue our series on “Fulfilling the Great Commission.” A starting point of our series has been the idea that disciples are people who make disciples. Today’s message is entitled “Training Disciples.” As I have mentioned throughout this series, these messages are based in part on the book “What Jesus Started” by Steve Addison.

Today, I want you to imagine that you are one of the people who lived at the time of Paul and the early church. I am basing this on a real person. This person is male, and I apologize if this makes this exercise somewhat less relatable if you are female. You are Greek, not a Jew, and while a young adult, you come into contact with the gospel, believe, and are saved. You are either taught directly by Paul or in a circle of people that were taught by Paul. Because you are faithful and earnest in the work of sharing the gospel and helping to disciple believers, your reputation leads Paul himself to want to take you along with him and use you as needed to further the work of growing churches. However, there is the question of circumcision. There were leaders of the church in Jerusalem who thought that being an “upper tier” leader required that one be circumcised. In the case of Timothy, Paul had gone along with this, perhaps because Timothy had a Jewish mother. But in your case, not having any Jewish connection at all, Paul feels it is entirely inappropriate. He feels it is important to establish that in Christ, circumcision is nothing and is certainly not meant for any Gentile believers in Christ.

Sharing the Gospel

Fulfilling the Great Commission: Sharing the Gospel

Welcome! Today we continue our series on “Fulfilling the Great Commission.” As I have mentioned in the past two messages, this series is loosely based on a book called “What Jesus Started” by Steve Addison. Two weeks ago, we looked at God’s heart towards the lost, how He loves them and wants them to turn to Him in faith. Last week, we talked about connecting with people. Jesus taught His disciples by example, showing them that compassion was for everyone, including those whose lives were quite a mess. One such example was the Samaritan woman at the well, who was in many ways the absolutely last person Jews might otherwise talk to. She was a Samaritan, whose religious beliefs were a toxic hodgepodge of half-truths and cultish traditions. She was a woman, and Jewish men did not talk in public with women at all. And she had lived a very immoral life and was likely shunned by even her own village. Yet Jesus chose her to talk to, she was very receptive to Him, and the disciples learned to seek out the lost, no matter what “package” they came in. Jesus also spoke to a demon-possessed seemingly crazy and dangerous man in the Gerasenes. Jesus cast out the demons and the man was then very receptive to Jesus and His message. We likewise see all kinds of people coming to faith in Christ in the Book of Acts, from the non-Jewish centurion named Cornelius, to the woman of Thyatira named Lydia. Brought to faith were everything from the wealthy and influential to the poor and anonymous.

Connecting with People

Fulfilling the Great Commission: Connecting with People

Welcome! Today we continue our series on “Fulfilling the Great Commission.” As I mentioned last week, this series is loosely based on a book called “What Jesus Started” by Steve Addison. Today’s message is entitled “Connecting with People”. Last week we considered God’s heart towards the lost – He loves the lost and has great compassion for them, and as Christ followers we too should have great compassion for the lost. We looked at the Great Commission in Matthew 28, and how disciples are by definition people who make disciples, and thus, as Christ followers, we too should reach out to the lost with the gospel, and as they come to faith in Christ, we should continue to help them grow and become people who themselves can help others come to faith and grow. In this way, the effects of the gospel multiply like wildfire, and this is what we see in the gospels, in Acts, and in the New Testament letters. We also talked about the “Satanic lullaby” in America that encourages believers to “sleep” spiritually and not be about the work of the Great Commission. Shockingly, an Iranian Christian woman living for a short time in the United States wanted to go back to Iran facing potentially severe persecution and possibly even death, because she preferred these threats to the sleepiness she felt in America. How do you feel today? I pray that we are not spiritually sleepy.

Seeing the End

Fulfilling the Great Commission: Seeing the End

 Welcome! Today we begin a new series entitled “Fulfilling the Great Commission”. This series is loosely based on a book called “What Jesus Started” by Steve Addison. I want to start this series with a well-known passage from Matthew 9:

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field.” – Matt. 9:35-38