What is obedience based discipleship?
Hi, welcome to today's Little Lesson.
Thank you so much for joining me.
If you're a regular viewer, you know that we've been on the theme of discipleship.
Certainly a biblical concept and biblical word.
You know that Jesus said, "Go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations."
Actually, all the ethne, all the ethnic groups, all the tongues and tribes and languages.
Because one day before the throne of God, there are going to be people from every tongue
and tribe and nation and language.
And Jesus wants us to make disciples.
And what is a disciple?
Well, no one really has to argue that for too long because Jesus defined what a disciple
is.
Because he said, "Baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And teach them to observe or obey everything I commanded you."
And so that commandment was a commandment that was perpetually binding upon every successive
generation of Christian or disciples.
Because as Jesus' disciples made disciples, teaching them to obey all that Christ commanded
them, one of the things that Christ commanded them was that they should be making disciples.
And so every generation of disciples would naturally teach their disciples to make disciples.
And this is something I want to talk about on this Little Lesson and the next Little
Lesson.
Because oftentimes we think, when we become believers, that our responsibility then is
not to make disciples, but our responsibility is to get people saved by bringing them to
church so they can hear the pastor or an evangelist preach the Gospel and they can become believers
hopefully.
And then they can keep coming back to church where they can be discipled.
And so we see our only role as a role of inviting people to church.
And many pastors play into that model, I might add.
Many pastors play into that model.
And pastor, if you're listening to me, think for a second.
You're telling your people their responsibility is invite people to church, bring your friends
to church.
And we always have these events designed to get people to come to the church.
Okay, that's good.
But many times good is the enemy of the best.
Because Jesus didn't say, "Go, invite your friends to church."
He said, "Go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations."
So we're supposed to be going and making disciples as we're going.
And this phrase that I asked what is the meaning of it at the beginning of this Little Lesson,
this fits in perfectly to what I'm talking about, because the phrase, and I just actually
recently read this phrase.
I've been reading some books about disciple making movements and in a nutshell they are
what I just described to you earlier in this Little Lesson, it's multiplying of disciples
through generations.
Disciples making disciples making disciples.
And it's all tied into the idea of obedience to Christ's commandments.
As I've already said, and it certainly bears repetition here, every disciple should be
involved in making disciples and teaching them to obey all that Christ commands.
And that's not the only place we find that concept.
I mean, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said the one who's the greatest in the kingdom
is the one who keeps and teaches the commandments.
So not just keeps, not just keeps, let me say it a third time, not just keeps the commandments,
but teaches others.
So we're sharing with others.
Let me just ask the question before I answer the question that I posed, are you a disciples
of Jesus Christ?
That's what I've been asking for the last few Little Lessons and now we'll take it another
step further, are you making disciples?
So that involves, of course, teaching what Jesus commanded.
Well, it starts, of course, if you're starting with non-believers, with sharing the Gospel
with them.
And hopefully they believe and then you can then help them grow and teach them what you
know.
But you can disciple people that you didn't lead to Jesus.
Sure, if you know more than somebody else who is following Christ and you can help them
with what you know, well, then you can help disciple them.
So it's really important.
The phrase, obedience based discipleship, has been birthed out of this whole concept,
and it's not just a concept, it's happening in hundreds of places around the world today,
disciple making movements where disciples are making disciples to making disciples.
And, of course, it's multiplying because it multiplies exponentially.
It can't help but do that if we really have disciples who are really making disciples.
And so, people within that movement, the disciple making movement, sometimes referred to as
church planting movements, they coined the phrase obedience based discipleship just to
counteract the wrong idea that so many of us have had about discipleship.
That is, really nothing more than knowledge acquisition.
But you could say, knowledge based discipleship.
But if it's just passing on knowledge, it's not really discipleship.
But that's what we think.
Come to church, hear more sermons, hear more sermons.
Grow in your knowledge and learn more from the Bible.
And that's discipleship.
"Oh, I know so much more about the Bible than I knew three years ago and I'm being discipled."
Wait a second, wait a second, are you obeying Christ more?
That's the real litmus test of are you being discipled and are you a disciple?
These guys coined this phrase obedience based discipleship just as a way of differentiating
it from what is really not discipleship at all, but which could be termed as knowledge
based discipleship.
You got it?
Okay, it's a pretty easy concept to get.
This is so, so, so important.
We've got to have a paradigm shift in our minds, believe you me, because really, and
I wrote this down concerning myself not too long ago, my greatest need is not for more
insight into God's word.
My greatest need is more obedience to the insight I already possess.
Huh?
True for you too, right?
True for all of us.
Well, maybe not true for all of us because some are just baby Christians, don't know
anything yet.
So they might be applying everything that they've learned.
But if you've been sitting around in church for years and years and years, you probably
acquired a head full of understanding of the word of God, so is it reflected in every increasing
obedience to Christ?
And when we're putting into practice obedience based discipleship, the disciples that we're
making, that's how we measure our success.
Are my disciples growing in their obedience?
Not growing just in their knowledge, but growing in their obedience to Jesus.
Because that's what he wants, right?
Go into all the world, make disciples.
He didn't say teaching them all the stuff that they can learn about the Bible.
No, teaching them to obey all that I've commanded you.
All right, well, we're out of time for this time.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Next time I'm going to continue on this at a little different angle.
I think you'll find it quite interesting.
Hope to see you then.
God bless you.