Discipling: How to Help Others Follow Jesus

7 min read

I find chapter 10 and the conclusion to be the most benefitial for me. Since I have know most of the whats and whys of discipleship, everything that came before those chapters I have already known. The difficult part of discipleship is actually doing them. Chapter 10 and the conclusion was a bit of a surprise, since I have never connected discipleship with raising up leaders, and in turn becoming a leader yourself in order to raise up leaders.

Book Notes

To disciple means to help someone else follow Jesus. It is a relationship in which we seek to do spiritual good for someone by initiating, teaching, correcting, modeling, loving, humbling ourselves, counseling, and influencing.

To disciple you have to be a disciple. This means you follow someone else’s’ life. But to be a disciple of Jesus it also means you are in a saving relationship with Him. It began not by something you do, but something He did.

  • we disciple because we love God

    • that also means to love others that God has placed in our lives

  • and obedience

    • To love God is to obey Him

  • we are to make disciples of all nation

    • And that happens within the local church

What is a Disciple?

1 inevitability of influence

  • God is immutable but man is always changing, either for better or worse
  • We are always being influenced or influencing others, even in our absence we can influence other
  • To be a disciple is to influence other with the Gospel and help others follow Christ

2 Oriented Towards Others

  • proclaiming the Word of God now
  • present the people of God mature before Him in the future
  • discipling is an long term investment strategy

3. The Work of Discipling

  • Matt 13.31-32, Jesus taught his disciples to live in view not of today or tomorrow but eternity
  • Discipleship is a relationship in which you teach, correct, model and love.
    • Also displaying weakness, how you find justification in Christ
  • Initiative
    • Faithful
    • Available
      • Schedule overlap
    • Teachable
      • someone who knows they need help
  • Discipling also includes evangelism and conversion
  • Teaching
    • The Bible
    • Spiritually meaningful conversations
  • Correcting
  • Modeling
    • teaching them to obey
  • Mutual Love
  • Humility

4 Objections to Discipling

  1. This discipler is not ideal
    • no one is perfect except for God yet He asks us to disciple others
  2. If a person is always listening to her discipler, she might no longer submit to other good authorities like parents, husband, or church
    • done well, good disciple will encourage appropriate submission to any authority established by God
  3. This whole things seems self-centerd and prideful
    • Christian discipling only calls us to follow someone else as much as they follow Christ
  4. Isn’t it just pushy and aren’t you imposing yourself on someone else?
    • Christian discipleship works through a mutually agreed upon relationship
  5. I don’t need it. I mean, surely the most important things about the Christian life are self-evident! So I’m too busy for this to be a priority
    • To be a Christian means to be amongst God’s people.
  6. This is just for extroverts
    • Discipleship is for Christians
  7. I can’t disciple. I’m imperfect, erring, and too young
    • If you are disciple of Christ, all you have to do is to share what you do know.

Part 2: Where Should we disciple?

5 The Local Church

  • the church is it self a disciples through the practice of baptism and the Lord’s supper.
  • The church also have the authority to excommunicate. This is also an act of discipleship
    • Matthew 18

6 Pastors and Members

  • Pastors disciple through: teaching of the Word of God, baptism, by being an example
  • The congregation also disciple through honouring their pastors and elders.
    • Rejecting bad teachings (2 Tim 4:3; Gal 1:8)
  • You are responsible for members of your own church more than members of another local church. Just as you are more responsibe for your own child than someone else’s child

Part 3: How Should We Disciple?

7 Choose Someone

  1. Family Member
    • 1 Tim 5:8
  2. Spiritual State
    • 1 Cor 2:14
    • You want to disciple a Christian
  3. Church Membership
    • It’s better to disciple someone from the same local church as you because you both submit to the same elders, believe in the same doctrines, and see each other at least weekly
  4. Gender
    • Titus 2:3-5
    • Families members and in general and public settings it’s usually okay to disciple the other gender. But we need to be aware of the reality of gender in more intentional and deliberate disciple relationships.
  5. Age
    • Usually you would disciple those younger than you
    • As you get older you would also have the humility to learn from those younger
  6. Different from you
  7. Teachability
    • Ps 25:9, Prov 11:2, 1 Pet 5:5
    • Teach the teachable, and try to be teachable yourself
  8. Faithfulness to Teach Others
    • 2 Tim 2:2
  9. Proximity and Schedules
    • Gal 6:10
    • Eph 5:16

8 Have Clear Aims

  • The larger goal is to help people follow Jesus better:
  • Helping other understand more
    • 1 Tim 4:16
    • Teaching why Christian do certain things
    • The life -> truth -> life pattern
      • Your life should attract others to listen to you
      • Your teaching should then work for their transformation
      • Their life then should reflect what you have taught (which in turn attract others to listen to them)
  • Helping other live better
    • 1 Cor 4:15-17; 11:1; Phil. 3:17; 4:9; 2 Thess. 3:7-9; 2 Tim. 3:10-11
    • John 13:35; 15:8-17
    • You impact how others live by spending time with them (2 Tim 3:10-11)
      • Facades, however destroy the purpose
  • Know the person, by asking questions

9 Pay the Cost

  • The cost is time, study, prayer, and love (John 13:34, Mark 12:28-31)

10 Raising Up Leaders

  1. Shepherd Toward Biblical Qualifications
    • 1 Tim 3:1-7, Titus 1:6-9
    • Not an exhaustive list
    • Elders should do what ordinary Christians do extraordinarily well
  2. Adopt a posture of looking
    • “blokes worth watching” - Sydney Anglican Philip Jenson
  3. Spend personal time
    • Spend time with people, bring them into your life
  4. Advance Trust
    • “love believes all things, hopes all things” 1 Cor. 13:7
    • You need to let people make mistakes to grow, and in the sovereign God
  5. Delegate Responsibility
    • Give people opportunities to lead
    • Lose some level of control
    • Cultivate respect for other leaders
  6. Give Feedback
    • Teach and exemplify what it means to give and receive godly constructive criticism
    • It is better to encourage than to scold
  7. Encourage Godly Authority
    • Authority is more of a service than advantage to those who have it.
    • Those who don’t have authority think that authority is of advantage
    • 2 Samuel 23:3-4
  8. Expect clarity
    • You want people that can answers the “why”s and clear about certain issues:
      • Basics of theology and gospel
      • doctrines that distinguishes your church
      • teaching of the Bible that are under fire and currently unpopular
  9. Foster a Culture of Humility

Conclusion

  • exercising authority and giving authority

  • Being willing to give others more opportunity to preach. So as to let the congregation rely on the Word, and not on one man.

  • Pray for other churches and denominations. This defeats tribalism, and focuses us on the gospel instead of church leaders.

  • Be quick to forgive. It is hard for a fault-finder to give away authority.

  • Rejoice in the victories of others. Encourage them!

  • How giving away authority chapes church culture:

    • It keeps the focus on the gospel, and not on church leaders
    • It cultivates relationship. When authority is based on politics, people are more on guard rather than being open and honest