One of the greatest desires we have is to be happy. One of the biggest turn offs for unbelievers is encountering a bitter, legalistic person who claims to be a Christian. Why would anyone be attracted to that? On the other hand, if our lives reflect the unbounded joy of knowing God’s love, it will tend to draw others.
Just before ascending to his Father in heaven, Jesus left his disciples with what is called the Great Commission.
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, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV)
If we accept that the Great Commission is the church’s mission, here are two big questions.
- “What is a disciple?”
- “How do we equip and motivate people to be happy disciples?”
What Is a Disciple?
The basic meaning of “disciple” is someone who is a learner.
Disciples are always learning from our Lord through his recorded words in the Bible, from the indwelling Spirit, who is the master teacher, and from other followers of Christ. When Jesus began his three-year earthly ministry, he gathered around him men and women who would become his disciples. Here is one instance of how he called them.
Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!” Matthew 4:19 (NLT) From this invitation, we learn that a disciple is learner or student who first comes to Christ and then becomes his follower and someone who gathers others into the kingdom and makes them into disciples, too.
People follow Christ because they are captured by his love and greatness and regard following him as the most important thing in life. In other words, he is our Savior and Lord. Following Jesus means we are willing to take seriously his words, think about them, and seek to put them into practice. Over time, we learn that we can only do this with the Holy Spirit’s help. It is not enough to simply know what to do. All of us are fundamentally flawed by sin.
Without the ongoing help of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we simply cannot live the Christian life.
Our dependence on God never ends. That was God’s intention from the beginning. He created us to participate in his life forever.
For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. Philippians 2:13 (NLT)
The Good News about Jesus is meant to be shared. Once we begin our grace journey of following Jesus, we are privileged to invite others who do not know him yet to join us.
What is the Proper Motivation toward Discipleship?
Here comes the rub. What usually begins as an enthusiastic response to God’s amazing love, often fades into habit, duty, or even neglect. Many who were “on fire” disciples when they first came to Christ now seem to have lost their way. Often after many years of following Christ, we may begin to think that we have now moved beyond where we started and have “gotten our act together,” making us somehow better than those who do not know Christ or who we think are not as committed or knowledgeable about the Bible as we are. This was what happened to the Pharisees in Jesus’ time. If we become self-righteous, smug, and better-than-you people, we lose our ability to be proper representatives of Christ. We all desperately need God’s ongoing help, even after being born again and walking with him for a long time. God resists the proud but helps the humble. (James 4:6) If this has happened to us, how can we regain our humility and be re-aligned with grace? How can we be properly motivated again toward being the sort of disciples who attract people to Jesus instead of pushing them away? How can we return to our first love for Jesus? (Revelation 2:4)
Most of us have more knowledge than what we put into practice.
For example, most of us know that being overweight is unhealthy, but fewer of us are convicted enough in this area to change our eating and exercise habits. When we do arouse ourselves to make the attempt, we often quickly fail because we do not have the conviction, will power, or whatever it takes to see it through. It is humbling for us to discover once again that we need God’s help, and being nagged by someone doesn’t usually make things better. We need some sort of breakthrough that internally fires us up to do what we know, whether it’s losing weight, overcoming an addiction, improving our prayer life or Bible reading and study, or reaching out to lost people who live and work around us. We all continually need God’s help, which is the very reason Jesus had to die on the cross.
After we are saved, we need his help every day just as surely as we needed his help to be put back into a right relationship with God before we were saved.
Paul wrote:
How foolish can you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? Galatians 3:3 (NLT)
The fear of the Lord plays of part in turning us away from sin and lethargy. The Holy Spirit convicts us in our hearts without condemning us, bringing about a change of mind and attitude that the Bible calls repentance. But repentance by itself is not enough. We need faith in God’s promises and reliance upon the internal working of the Spirit to enable us to do the thing about which we were convicted.
In other words, to get the results we desire, three internal things have to happen: repentance, faith, and the experience of God’s grace.
Whereas we tend to focus on external indicators of the Spirit’s work, God works in the heart. The fruit of the Spirit is mostly internal, but shows up in our attitudes, words, and behaviors.
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. 25 Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Galatians 5:22-25 (NLT)
Earlier in the same chapter of Galatians, Paul said that the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (Galatians 5:6) This fits into Christ’s words spoken to his followers just before his crucifixion.
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35 (ESV)
Now we can add to our definition of what it means to be a disciple.
A disciple is a perpetual learner who is happy to follow Christ and his words and is empowered by the Holy Spirit and motivated by faith and love, who seeks to bring others into God’s family and show them how to follow our Lord, too.
Shielding Ourselves from Legalism
When love prompts acts of faith and obedience, we know that we are on the right track. All of this requires a constant application of God’s grace through the operation of the Spirit of God. Once we are firmly established in our need to rely on grace, it is safe for us to move into doing works of faith without becoming legalistic.
Legalism lurks just around the corner in all of our hearts. The tendency to compare ourselves with others is almost irresistible.
Rather than rely completely on what God says about us, we tend to rate ourselves against others. We end up thinking we are better, leading to pride, or worse, resulting in discouragement. Those of us who think we are doing better than others tend to demand that they step up their game. Those of us who think we are not doing so hot may be tempted to just give up. God never intended for us to rate ourselves against anyone. We are to focus on him alone and leave others to do the same. Paul told the Corinthian church –
As for me, it matters very little how I might be evaluated by you or by any human authority. I don’t even trust my own judgment on this point. 1 Corinthians 4:3 (NLT)
Legalism springs from an internal desire to somehow prove that we measure up.
Some forms of legalism are easy to spot. When a group mandates that its followers must avoid makeup, jewelry, certain hair styles, dancing, drinking alcohol, and smoking cigarettes as a way to prove their dedication to the Lord, we realize that it has resorted to using outward measurements instead looking at the inner condition of the spirit and soul. Other forms of legalism are more difficult to discern.
When we insist that other people adhere to the same level of righteous living that we believe that we have attained, it is legalism because we have set ourselves up as the standard for someone else.
We often feel comfortable doing this to others, but we usually resist when someone “more committed” than we tries to force us to step up to their standard of righteous behavior. Some humorously define a religious “fanatic” as someone who is more committed to Jesus than are we.
We can generally agree that certain behaviors are part of what it means to be a follower of Christ, such as prayer, Bible study, worship, fasting, giving, attending church meetings, and sharing our faith. The problem comes when we feel that we can judge another person regarding how well or poorly he or she is doing in any of these areas.
For we don’t live for ourselves or die for ourselves. 8 If we live, it’s to honor the Lord. And if we die, it’s to honor the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 9 Christ died and rose again for this very purpose—to be Lord both of the living and of the dead. 10 So why do you condemn another believer? Why do you look down on another believer? Remember, we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. Romans 14:7-10 (NLT)
God has given us great freedom. We can use that freedom to serve God or go our own way. No one has the right to usurp that freedom and try to force us into compliance.
For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. 14 For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Galatians 5:13-14 (NLT) God draws us to do what is right and good because it is good for us, will make us happy, and because we love him and others. Otherwise our compliance will eventually breed resentment, just as happened with the elder son in the parable of the prodigal son.
God wants us to focus on our own walk of faith and obedience out of love for God and others, and hopefully, by so doing, we will become an encouragement to others.
Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else. 5 For we are each responsible for our own conduct. Galatians 6:4-5 (NLT)
Ultimately we all are accountable to one Person, the Lord Jesus, when it comes to judgment, but we are responsible to one another to love and encourage each other to faith and good works.
Elders, the leaders of the church, are to encourage and model the kind of godly attitudes and living that we pray God will develop in the rest of the church.
So we keep on praying for you, asking our God to enable you to live a life worthy of his call. May he give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do. 2 Thessalonians 1:11 (NLT)
Another way to put it is that we are all to encourage our brothers and sisters in the Lord to love God, love one another, and love the lost while being happy in doing it.
Love is the greatest motivational force in the universe.
It inspired our heavenly Father to give his only Son to die for us, his enemies at the time. Likewise, love for God and our neighbor is the purest motivation for engaging in the Great Commission. Love overcomes the inertia of laziness. It pulls us into relationship with others. It energizes us to engage in leading others to know the source and goal of love, our heavenly Father, and it makes us happy.
Love enables us to make the choice to joyfully leave the confines of our comfortable homes and church cultures to engage lost and hurting people who live around us.
It will encourage us to open our homes to show hospitality in the hope of deepening friendships and gaining opportunities to talk about the One who loved us enough to die for us. In addition, love motivates us to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in the ongoing process of character transformation so that more and more we live, think, speak, and act like Jesus. Love motivates us to get to know our amazing God better by studying and meditating on his love letter called the Bible. And…people who love are happy.
How Do We Develop Disciples?
One of the laws of creation is that living creatures reproduce after their kind. We can only give away to others what God has worked into us. If all we have is Bible knowledge, that is what we will give away. If all we have is religion, we will produce religious people. But if we have a vibrant joyful relationship with Jesus and are enthusiastic about serving him and the people who live around us, we can help develop those same traits in others.
It is commonly understood that Christianity is a relationship, not a “religion.” This means that when we come to Christ in faith, the Holy Spirit comes to live within and through us. God removes us from the performance treadmill called the Law and adopts us into his family, making everything primarily relational and love-based.
The big question now is, “Who is your Daddy,” not how are you measuring up to some standard.
If we are not God’s children from having been reborn by the Spirit, we are not part of Christ’s family and kingdom. As a person’s love for God grows, the doing part will follow naturally. This is part of what it means to live and walk in the Spirit.
It should not surprise us, therefore, that discipleship is also primarily relational.
The process of disciple making revolves around making and maintaining relationships in order to help people grow in their knowledge of, love for, and obedience to Christ. A loving discipleship relationship is built on mutual trust and commitment, as illustrated by Paul’s words to Timothy, one of his disciples.
You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, 11 my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. 2 Timothy 3:10-11 (ESV)
What we model in our lives is at least as important as what we teach. Attitudes and character qualities are more caught than taught.
Jesus’ followers spent enormous amounts of time with him and were radically transformed by the experience.
Jesus discipled his followers through a combination of instruction, modeling, and practical application, all in the context of a loving relationship.
Our Lord was not intent on producing theologians by teaching in a classroom setting. Instead he sought to produce missionary servants of the kingdom of God, who, out of love for him and those around them, would take the liberating message of the gospel to the world. The same is true today.
Discipleship in the Local Church
Once we are filled with love for God and others, Jesus invites us to join him on a journey – a “fishing trip,” so to speak. Jesus will teach us how to fish for and “catch” other people through the gospel in order to enlarge God’s loving family. Love for our neighbor will always propel us out of the comfort and security of our loving church family into the world of lost and lonely people who do not yet know our amazing God.
A good partial definition of a local church might be a group of Christ followers whose love for our Lord and others propel them into fulfilling the Great Commission – to go make disciples.
A temptation all churches must overcome is becoming satisfied with the love we have for each other to the neglecting of the Great Commission. I remember hearing an evangelist named Ray Jennings once share that as a young man he had little desire for evangelism. He asked the Lord to give him a love for the lost. God so powerfully answered that prayer than he spent to rest of his life traveling around the world, risking his life repeatedly in dangerous lands, to tell others about Jesus . He trained many others who followed in his footsteps, including his own sons.
Until we receive from God his love for the lost, we will unlikely be willing to sacrifice our time, energy, comfort, and security for the sake of the those around us who need the gospel.
But if God’s love grabs us, that will change everything. Paul wrote:
For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; 15 and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 (NASB)
Making disciples in the local church, therefore, invites church leaders to nurture an atmosphere of love for Jesus and our neighbor, model what it means to be on mission by actively engaging in going and making disciples themselves, taking with them those who are willing to be trained and equipped, and teaching them as they go. If this is missing, we may not be making disciples, just church goers, religious scholars, or moral paragons.
A local church should take a look at its values, structure, and policies to see if it is prioritizing and promoting a loving pursuit of the Great Commission. If not, we should ask God how to make any necessary changes.
In conclusion, God commanded Adam and Eve to have children in order to multiply and fill the earth. I have yet to find, although there may be some, any young couple who engaged in the process of reproduction merely out of a sense of duty to multiply humanity. Quite the contrary, their mutual love and attraction for one another quite “effortlessly” produce children. This is the model we have for the church as well. Paul wrote that our love and unity with the Lord of love will produce the fruit God expects from us.
If we want to be “Great Commissionaries”, the best way forward is to fall more deeply in love with our Lord, ask him to pour out on us his love for the lost, and cooperate with the Holy Spirit to become happy ambassadors for the Lord of Lords.
We can depend on the Holy Spirit to do this.
We must resist the temptation to become frustrated if we do not see what we hope for come to pass, as did Abraham and Sarah long ago. Their frustration led to taking things into their own hands, resulting in an Ismael. Instead let’s be more like Hannah of old, who patiently waited on the Lord, who was the only person who could give her a child. The Lord answered her prayer by giving her Samuel, one of the greatest prophets and leaders in the history of Israel. Could it be that our having to wait for fruitfulness is a sign that God is doing something significant in and through us? God will certainly finish what he has begun in our lives. (Philippians 1:6)
Let’s believe God to so work in his church so that we become happy love-filled ambassadors for Jesus who will make him proud and bring others into God’s family and kingdom.
