The Book of Acts - Disciple-Making Disciples (Acts 17:10-15

Here we go, week two of Timeless. We are walking through Acts 17 and really just looking at the fact that this church is a part of the timeless vision of the church, the whole global church. And so we're just kind of looking at our mission, our vision, why we exist and how we exist and just looking through the lens of Acts 17 and kind of looking and saying, hey, this has been going on for years and years and years. It's just this timeless mission. And so here's who we are. Here's why we exist. The church 1122, here's our vision. We're a movement for all people. Like we're a movement. We're not just an organization, not just a building, but this is a movement of God and it is for all people. Like short people, tall people, fat people, skinny people, ugly people, good-looking people. I got two thumbs, this guy. And then, you know, all kind of social economic classes, all kind of backgrounds, all kind of just if you name it. If you can tell your story, your story fits into the kind of people that we are about because we are about all people, all diversities. We're just about all kind of people. And here's what we're about all people doing. Discovering and deepening their relationship with Christ. We get asked this a lot. Are you guys about reaching people or keeping people? And it's kind of about both. And so we just preach Jesus. We just preach the gospel. And every weekend we pray that some people for the very first time would discover the Savior named Jesus. And at the same time, in the same moment, that someone who's been walking with Jesus in relationship for decades and decades, it would deepen their intimacy with Him. So we're a movement for all people to discover and deepen their relationship with Jesus. And here's how we exist. Here's our mission. A Church of 1122 is a community that seeks to glorify God by surrendering to Jesus, making disciple, making disciples, and transforming communities. That we exist really as a community, as a body, that we're going to glorify God and we're going to surrender to Jesus. We're going to make disciple, making disciples, and we're going to transform communities. And last week we started Acts 17 and we talked about this. There's this verse at the beginning of Acts 17 that says they turn the world upside down and that that's our heartbeat for

community transformation. That we'd start here on this campus, on this block, in this city, in this state, and in this world, and we would turn it upside down. So if you want to know a little more about who we are and our heart to transform communities, I would suggest you go back, grab the podcast, or go to the website coe22.com and listen to last week's sermon. Now we got to do a little work this week. We're going to talk about disciple, making disciples. The text is going to kind of lay it out for us. So with that being said, let's go. You guys ready to do a little work? You guys ready to do a little work? Okay, here we go. Acts 17. If you don't have a Bible, there's one in front of you. Just pull it out about two-thirds of the way through the Bible. It's the book of Acts chapter 17. If you can't find it, the common grace of God is a thing called the table of contents and the Lord gave it to us to find things. So just use it, right? And if someone next to you is like, they don't know how to work the Bible, you just go, look, I'm used to my Bible on my iPhone. I'm trying this old copy-printed thing for the first time, right? They won't know. Acts chapter 17 verse 10. The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived there, they went in to the Jewish synagogue. So if you weren't here last week, I need to catch you up. Last week, Paul and Silas and the boys are in Thessalonica, and they're doing a little ministry. They're preaching the gospel. They're preaching that there's a Messiah who came to save everyone, and his name is Jesus. And so they're preaching Jesus, and then there's this group of Jews in Thessalonica who see their influence and power kind of fading away, and so they create a riot. They charge Paul and his friends of turning the world upside down. They even take one of the new believers, Jason, and basically kind of arrest him and make him pay this bail bond and kind of promise that he's gonna stop the chaos, right? So that's where we're at in the beginning of verse 10. The brothers in Thessalonica, these brand-new believers, send Paul and Silas away by night. So in the dark of the night, they go, Paul, Silas, you guys got to go about 50 miles down the highway to Berea. There's not like a Motel 6. There's no lights left on for them. So they're about 50 miles, two or three days of just hiking down this road to Berea. They show up to Berea, and

there's what they do. Every time Paul shows up to the town, he just kind of goes to the religious center. He goes to the synagogue, to the temple, if there is one. If there's not, then he finds another spot where there's a gathering of people, and he just goes in and just starts talking about Jesus. And so he says, look, you've got the Old Testament scriptures, they talk about Messiah, I know who he is. And so he goes in to the Jewish synagogue, verse 11, now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica, which Luke is the guy who wrote, Dr. Luke wrote the book of Acts. This is kind of like a backhanded, like a stab at the people in Thessalonica. Here's what he says. Now these Jews were more noble or these Jews were better bred, like they were better bred. The inbred folk over in Thessalonica were kind of crazy. They got all, you know, right. I'm from Georgia. And so we would talk about people from Alabama and go, we're just kind of better bred than they are. Right. And so Luke says, look, those are some better bred Jews in, in Berea. The people in Thessalonica were crazy, right? It was just inbred. They were not very classy people. I love Luke. They were not, they were a little more bred, they were bred better, right? Now these Jews were more noble. These Jews were bred better than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. So Paul comes into town and he starts talking about the Messiah. And what, what did the Jews in Berea do? They believe Paul just because he delivers this, this well-written, well-rehearsed, well-thought-out,

well, just he knew the content. No, they don't believe Paul because Paul was a great communicator. They hear Paul, they're open to conversation, they're open to dialogue, they're open to seeing what someone else would say about the scriptures. And then they take what Paul says and they go and they validate it by the Old Testament. So they go back to the Old Testament because the truth is, is that there's only one truth. There's one truth that's higher, that sits above all, and every other truth has to align with it. And here's what we believe at this church. We believe that this is the Word of God, that the Bible is the Word of God, that from cover to cover, it's God-breathed, God-inspired, it is the truth. It is the standard by which we measure truth. And so here's what happens in these, these Jews in Berea. They go, if the Old Testament, and all they've got is the Old Testament at that point. If it's the truth, then whatever Paul says, if it lines up with the Old Testament, then it's true. If it doesn't, then it's not true. They examine what Paul's saying and base it on the truth. This is why here in our church, when you join a disciple group, you sign a disciple group covenant. Now, a covenant's like an agreement, a relational agreement, that I'm going to invest in this relationship in this way, and I expect the same from you. It's not like a contract, okay, if you join a disciple group and you don't show up, we don't come and repossess your car, okay? It's not, in a crazy town, it's just, hey, here's how we're going to agree to relate to each other. And in the disciple group covenant that all of our disciple groups sign, it says, while everyone's opinions are important, we ultimately will rest on the truth of Scripture as final authority, right? And what we're saying is two things, one, everybody has opinions, and they're all important

because you're important, right? And your opinions sometimes are correct, and sometimes they're crazy, okay? They just are, right? There's sometimes they're correct, and sometimes they're crazy, but ultimately, the Scripture will be the final authority. So if your opinions line up with Scripture, good. If they don't, you're crazy, okay? And then, so that's how we do it, that's how we roll here. And so this church of Berea, they're examining the Scriptures to figure out if what Paul is saying is true. The reason that Pastor Jobi and I can stand up here and preach to you is not because we are well-educated or not because we are the most rehearsed people in the world, it's not because we have this special... The reason we can stand up here and preach to you is because we do everything we can to diligently study God's Word. And anything that we say that's true is true because God's Word validates it. And that's where our ability to stand up here and preach comes from, because this Word validates it. And so when you hear the teaching of God's Word, our prayer, my prayer is this, is that it would inspire you to know God's Word to the point that you can just kind of live life and you can examine truth based off whether or not it aligns with God's Word. So they hear God's Word, they examine the Scriptures. Verse 12, many of them therefore believe, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. So Luke says, look, many people believe. There were some Jews that believe, there were some high standing Gentile women who believe, there were some high standing Gentile men who, there's many believe. I do think this is interesting, if you go back to the account just a few verses early in Thessalonica, it says that some of them believe. So Paul probably preaches a very similar message in Thessalonica and in Berea.

But in Thessalonica, some believe, and in Berea, many believe. Here's what I think the difference is. I think the men and women in Berea had placed themselves in an environment that when God spoke, they were ready to hear Him. This is one of the main reasons we gather on Sunday morning, that we'd glorify God in worship and in word. That we want to put ourselves in an environment, in a soil, so that when God speaks, we can hear. That when God teaches our hearts and our souls, we can hear. Now, God is the active agent in all, in salvation and sanctification. God's the one who's maturing and purifying. But there's something we have, we get this opportunity to put ourselves in positions, to place ourselves in positions that when God speaks, we're ready to hear. Verse 13, So probably like a week later. So Paul probably gets to Berea, because about a three-day journey from Thessalonica to Berea. And Paul probably starts preaching. And then probably a week later, or maybe two weeks later, the Jews from Thessalonica follow Paul. These Jews, they lay down whatever they're doing, and they make a three-day journey to Berea, for the sole purpose to come to Berea and end Paul's ministry, slash end Paul. Okay, they're angry. Paul's going from city to city in their territory. And so they leave and they take, they're there. I mean, Paul's in Berea for like a week minimum, maybe two weeks, a week to two weeks. And then here come these Jews.

And their goal, they do the same thing they did in Thessalonica. They rise up, they make this riot. They start going door to door. They're banging down doors, trying to find Paul. Verse 14, then the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea. But Silas and Timothy remained there. Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens. And after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they departed. Let me read verse 14 again. This is going to be kind of key. Then the brothers immediately sent Paul on his way to the sea. But Silas and Timothy remained there. I want you to understand the weight of this moment, all right. Paul's been in town for a week or two. He plants a church. These men and women of Berea have been believers in Jesus for like 7 to 14 days. Then these Jews, these angry Jews from Thessalonica show up and start going door to door, beating down the door. And I love this verse 14. It says, the brothers immediately sent Paul off. So these brand new, they've been believers for like two weeks. And they go, Paul, we'd love to have you here forever. But we've got to get you out of town for your safety so that you can continue to go preach the gospel. And I just get this picture of Paul leaving the town. And these Jews still kind of going door to door and banging on the door. New believers going, where's Paul? Send us Paul.

We want Paul. And Paul's gone. He's on his way to Athens. There's men and women in Athens who are about to get engaged by the gospel. They don't even know it. And Paul's on the road. And these Jews are going door to door to door. And there's Silas and Timothy. And they just kind of step up and go, all right, we've got this church. We're going to be okay. And I don't want you to miss it because it's kind of a boom, boom, boom chapter. It's five verses. And this just kind of happens rapidly, really quick. But I don't want you to miss it. Immediately, Paul gets sent out of Thessalonica. And then again, immediately he gets sent out of Berea. And there was no secession plan. There was no, okay, I'm going to be here for a year. I'm going to train up a pastor and I'm going to go. Immediately in the middle of the night, he leaves Thessalonica. And there's Jason and the believers in Thessalonica going, we got to figure out this. We got to figure out how to follow Jesus. And Paul's out of here. He's gone. And then he leaves Berea and Silas and Timothy step up and go, hey, church, we've got this. We can figure this out. I mean, there is no plan of how to replace. All there is, is the truth of discipleship in action.

All we see here is Paul making disciples. The church in Thessalonica, it lasts. And a few chapters later, Paul is in Corinth. And he writes a letter to the churches in Thessalonica. Writes him a letter. The church lasted long enough for Paul to write them letters. And those letters ultimately became part of the Bible. The church in Thessalonica lasts. The church in Berea lasts. In fact, the truth that Christianity exists today is because Paul understood this one thing. Paul understood that to be a believer in Christ demanded that we be a disciple-making disciple. I mean, Paul understood the fact that Paul would be able to. go into a town, raise up new believers, and leave Timothy and Silas in charge of forming this new church, was this picture that Paul understood that every believer, every follower of Jesus was a disciple-maker. Was a disciple, in fact, here's the point for this morning. The point is this, the gospel demands we be disciple-making disciples. Now, for the next few minutes, I'm really gonna kinda talk to the believer in the room. To those who have said, look, Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, I'm a believer, I have surrendered, and so I wanna go talk to you, and if you're in this room and you're going,

I'm checking this whole thing out, I'm trying to check Jesus out, they said get in the car, we're going to brunch, and then I end up here, and I'm like, this is not brunch, right, and so you got tricked, or you gotta do, right? For just for a few moments, I just wanna kinda peel back and go, hey, here's our heart of the kind of people we wanna be. Here's our heart of what we think God's calling us to be. Here's what we believe it means to be a Christian, and we all come in with all kind of caricatures of what that looks like, but I just wanna, for a few moments, because here's what it means to be a disciple. Here's what it means to be a follower of Christ. The gospel demands we be disciple-making. Here's what the gospel is. The gospel is that we were dead in our sins, that we were all born with a sinful core, with a sinful heart. We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and because we've sinned, we have earned the wages of our sin as death, but Christ died on the cross, and if we would surrender our life to his lordship, if we would receive the grace he's given us, we give him our sin, he pays the price for our sin, and he gives us righteousness, he gives us life. So the gospel is this, is that we went from death to life. Now here's the truth, here's where discipleship,

here's where disciple-making disciples begin. When you go from death to life, you can't help but proclaim it. That's what the testimony videos are about. They're about people going, look, this is what happened, this is what Jesus did in my life, right? If you know anybody who has ever medically died and come back to life, right? One of our security guys for the church, he died and came back to life, okay? Don't mess with him, right? Don't mess with me, because he's already died, and he ain't afraid to go again, right? It's like, I've been to prison, I'm not afraid to go again. He's already died, he'll go there, don't mess with him, all right, we are protected, right? So he will tell you about the fact that I was dead and I'm alive, and he can't help but not share that story. And so by nature, when we go from death to life, when Christ saves us, the first kind of step towards being a disciple-making disciple is we just go, God save me, God save me. And what we're doing is pointing to Jesus and going, he's the savior, I'm not, all right? Also what happens in salvation, what the gospel does is it takes us from a slave to sin to a slave to righteousness. Our master was sin, and now our master or our Lord is Jesus Christ. And so by definition, if Jesus is Lord,

then what the Lord says, what the Lord commands, we do. That's just the definition of Lord, that the Lord gets to call the shots. Well, Jesus commands, Jesus tells us, Jesus instructs us throughout the Bible, especially in Matthew 28, to go and make disciples. So it starts by this response of worship and witness, and it grows into this obedience to our Lord. And then even if you're still struggling with, well, should I really do it? Well, to be a Christian means that we're mimicking Christ, we're imitators of Christ, we're being like Christ, and we see Jesus's ministry on earth. He shows up, and what does he do? He goes and gets disciples. Now, Jesus came into ministry in the first century where rabbis would go around and pick young men to become their disciples, and they would walk those young men, and they would teach those young men what they called their yoke, which was their interpretation of the Old Testament and the Torah. And these rabbis would teach these young men what it meant to follow God's word. And so rabbis would go around, and every mom and dad wanted their son to get picked up by a rabbi, because that was the highest calling that you could have. And so rabbis would come around, and they would typically go to the, they'd find the best of the best, and they'd find the guys who were just excelling in school,

and their family had it all together. Well, Jesus shows up on the scene and kind of turns that upside down. So Jesus shows up as a rabbi, and he goes to gather 12 disciples, and he goes, and he doesn't go to the Harvard School of Religion. He doesn't go to the best of the best neighborhoods. He goes to where the men had already kind of flunked out of religious school, and they were just doing day labor. So he shows up to the port, to the fishing port, and says you guys want to be my disciples? You guys want to follow me? And these fishermen said, that's the highest calling ever. Yeah, we'll follow you. And he goes to the tax collection agency and he goes, look, nobody likes you anyway because you're a tax collector, but I've got an opportunity. I've got an opportunity for you to come be my disciple. And so Jesus picks these twelve men and disciples them for three years. And then these are the men who launch the church, who launch Christianity. In Acts, we also see the story of a guy named Paul. And Paul is on the road to Damascus. Paul is a murderer of Christians. And Jesus shows up and radically changes his life. And Paul goes from murderer of Christians to the first missionary. And what we see with Paul is when he gets saved, he just starts mimicking Jesus. He just starts going town to town and proclaiming that the kingdom is near, that the Messiah is here. He goes into Lystra and he's there preaching and teaching and they stone him. Not like hippie love stone, but they take big rocks and they stone him. And they leave him outside the city because they're pretty sure he's dead. They're pretty sure we got him, he's dead. When he gets back up, goes into town, and then hangs out, and then the next day takes off. And then he's kind of on this mission. He's kind of doing this whirlwind missionary tour. He starts to pick up some disciples.

He starts to partner with Barnabas. And then him and Barnabas part ways and Paul picks up Silas. And he goes, Silas, would you go with me on my mission trip? Would you go with me? I'm going to go plant churches. In Acts chapter 16, Paul came to Derbe and to Lystra. So he comes back around. This is his second time in Lystra. This is a city a few weeks ago that they had stoned him and left him for dead. So Paul picks up Silas and goes back. Right? Because that makes sense, right? Yeah, they tried to kill you. Well, go back and see how they're doing, alright? This is Acts 16. A disciple was there named Timothy. A disciple was there named Timothy. The son of a Jewish woman who was a believer. But his father was a Greek. So you got to get the context there. Paul shows up back to Lystra. And he meets this guy named Timothy. And he says, Timothy, tell me about you. And Timothy says, well, my mom is a God-fearing Jew. My mom believes in God. She believes in Jesus. She's a God-fearing Jew. She's become a Christian. And my dad, well, he's not. He's not a believer. He's actually not even Jewish. He's a Greek. He's a Greek man, Gentile.

Read on. Here's what they tell about Timothy. He, verse 2 of Acts 16. He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra in Iconium. And Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him. He took him and had him circumcised. Now, here's what happens. Paul meets Timothy and says, Timothy, tell me about yourself. And Timothy kind of with his head hung low goes, well, my mom is a God-fearing woman. But my dad, my dad's not. He's a Gentile. It's the equivalent of if you rewind 50, 60 years and you go into some kind of southern towns and you were to go and meet a guy whose mother was African American and his father was Caucasian. Just the not knowing what to do with that. There was so much shame in this first century culture that his mom was a Jew and his dad was a Gentile. They even gave him a word. He was called a mumser. And so he's telling Paul that I'm part Jewish, part Gentile. And Paul goes, oh, so you're what they call a mumser. Now, here's the thing you got to know about mumser is that a mumser was not allowed in the synagogue at all. That when Timothy was eight days old, his God-fearing mom, Eunice, took him to the temple to get him circumcised. And they said, don't bring him in here. He's not welcome in here. He's not even welcome in the outside courtyards where we let the Gentiles because he's neither Jew nor Gentile. This is the kid at the first grade, at the birthday parties. They're going, my mom said we can't invite Timothy because he's a mumser. He's one of them. Don't even touch him. Don't even go near him. Like not even allowed in the synagogue.

Any time that Timothy heard the word of God read was because he had to climb the wall and listen over the wall to hear anything he might could hear. And Paul comes to town and he engages Timothy. He says, Timothy, I want you to come with me. I'm going to disciple you. I'm going to make you a disciple making disciple. Paul shows up and goes, I'm going to do the same thing Jesus did. I'm going to go find the unlikely candidates and I'm going to ask them to join the team. Now, here's the reason why I want to go that deep into Timothy's life. I want you to see right here it says, and Silas and Timothy remain there. Timothy was most unlikely. candidate to be put in charge of a church, right? He wasn't even allowed to go to the synagogue growing up. He was neither Jew nor Gentile. People didn't even touch him, they didn't wanna be near him, and then the gospel changes Timothy's life forever. It's the gospel that demands we be disciple-making disciples, not your pedigree, not your personality, not how smart you are, right? There's nothing about Timothy, there's nothing about the disciples that made them special that Jesus said, you'll be disciple-making disciples, but the rest of the general public will just exist. See, the gospel takes us from death to life. The gospel takes us from slaves to sins, to slave to righteousness. The gospel radically changes our eternity, and when our eternity changed from, I don't know, Timothy was forsaken, and then he was forgiven. He was forgotten, and then he was empowered,

and when we move from not worthy, not educated, nothing special about us, to the Christ died on the cross for us, it changes us, it changes our destination, it changes our eternity, and we begin to fight not from a place of defeat, but we begin to live from a place of victory, that he who is in us is more than a conqueror, that he who is in us is greater than the one that's in the world, and so what happened in Timothy's life has happened in your life if you're a believer, that you went from a place of defeat to a place of destiny, you went to a place that Christ died on the cross, and it's the gospel that demands we be disciple-making disciples. I just wanna point out, Timothy, because I want you to be encouraged this morning, that it is not a degree that makes you a disciple-making disciple. It's a call, it's a command, it's Christ going, if you are mine, then you'll do as I tell you to do, and he tells us to be disciple-making disciples, and here's what I need to do for us, I need to probably define disciple, because some of you are like, hey, if God wants me to do it, I'm in. What's he talking about?

So that's happening, so let's define disciple. What is a disciple-making disciple? First of all, a disciple-making disciple is a disciple. You gotta start there. Before you can reproduce and make others like you, you gotta understand what you are, all right? So if a disciple is gonna make a disciple, you gotta know what a disciple is. The disciple is this, it's a student or a follower, right? It's a student of a teacher that applies what the teacher is teaching in efforts to become like the teacher. So a disciple follows a teacher, applies the teaching of the teacher, and hopes to become like the teacher one day. So in our relationship with Jesus, we are a follower of Jesus who applies what he teaches in hopes of becoming like him. That's what it means to be a disciple, to be a follower of Christ, that we are hearing his teaching, we're abiding in his word, and we're being obedient to what he teaches and commands, and we are becoming more like him, right? John chapter 13 and John 15, there's kind of two spots where this happens, where Jesus says, here's a new command I give you. Love your neighbor. This is a new command. Here's how they're gonna, here's what I want you to do.

I want you to go and love, that's it. Go love your neighbor, love God, love people. And then Jesus says, and they'll know that you're my disciples by your love. Here's what he's saying. Here's the teaching. The teaching is you go and you love, and they're gonna know you're my disciples because you are walking out my teaching. Here's the mark of a disciple. Here's the mark of a Christian. Here's the mark of a believer is that the Savior, Lord Jesus, that we are taking what he's telling us and calling us to, and we're trying to walk it out. We're walking it out in his power. We're applying his teaching to become more like him. Now, I need you to hear this. We don't apply his teaching to get his attention. There's something in Christianity, especially in American Christianity, where we think I'm gonna do what God says because I want God's attention. Well, we already have God's attention. God sent Christ. Christ was in it. Philippians 2 says that he was fully divine at the right hand of God, and he chose to enter into the form of humanity and then die the death of a criminal

because we had God's attention, that God so loved the world. And guess what? You're a part of that word, the world. God so loved you that he sent his only son because you already had your heavenly Father's attention. So we don't apply God's teaching going, oh, man, I gotta trick God into loving me today. No, no, no, we take the teaching of our Savior, Lord Jesus, and we apply it because we already have his attention. We already have his affection, and we're responding to a loving. Savior. We're responding to a loving dad. When my little girl Emery runs up and gives me a big ol' hug, when we get done preaching she's gonna come here and give me a hug and she'll go, I want a mint, daddy. She wants a mint. I don't know if she's like addicted to mints. We gotta watch that personality. When she comes in here and gives me a hug, she is not giving me a hug to get my attention to get a mint. She's giving me a hug because she's already got my attention. And you might be down here talking to me, and God bless you, but if my girl walks in, you're just gonna have to wait a second. Because she already has my affection. She doesn't do things to get it. She does things because she has it. And so we don't do things to get God's attention. We're obedient and we abide by his word because we already have it. And why? Because we already have it. We know that we are in the process of becoming more like Jesus. I love how this, I love how Jesus tells his disciples, Luke Luke 6 verse 40, a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. He tells the disciples, hey guys, the goal is never for you to become better than me because

Jesus is as good as it gets. It's as good as it gets. Our goal is not to try to become better than Jesus or to try to outdo Jesus, but our goal is to become fully trained. And when we're fully trained, Jesus says, you will be like the teacher. So when we are fully trained, as we mature in our faith, we will be more and more and more like Jesus. So my goal in being obedient to the text and being obedient to the scriptures and abiding in Christ and abiding in his word, it's not that I'll just become a better father or a better husband or a better pastor or a better friend or a better businessman. No, no, no. My goal in pursuing Jesus is that I would be like him. And he tells me, you pursue me, you run after me, you mature in your faith, you abide in my words, you will be like me. The best thing for my marriage is not for me to become a better husband. The best thing for my marriage is for me to become more like Jesus. And then I'll love my wife like Jesus loves the church. The best thing for my children is not for me to become the best father in the It's for me to love Jesus and to sacrifice myself for my children just like God sacrificed his son for us. And I can go on and on and on. The way I become a better student is not by trying hard to become a better student. It's running after Jesus. And when we mimic Jesus and imitate Jesus and grow to be like Jesus, when we are a fully devoted follower, a disciple of Christ, when we surrender it all, we look more and more like Jesus every day. And disciple making, disciple doesn't end there, it just really starts there. Not only are we to be a disciple, to be obedient to Jesus, to walk in what he says,

to look like him, to walk from a place that we've got God's attention, not we're trying to get it, but we're responding to God's love with thanksgiving and glorifying him. In that moment, we have to move from being a disciple to making disciples. In fact, the word even disciple, making disciple, is kind of weird. Because to be a disciple means we listen to what Jesus says. And in Matthew 28, Jesus says, go therefore and make disciples. So by definition, the word disciple is a disciple making disciple. It's like saying, you know, you're a reproducing biological father. Well, if you're the biological father, of course you did the reproduction, right? Those go together. And so we say disciple making disciple, we really could just say disciple, but we want to make sure we put emphasis on this is not about come and sit and consume. This is about proclaim the Word of God, that we would know the teachings of Christ, that we would abide in Christ, that we would become more like Christ. And as we become more like Christ, we'd reach to our neighbors and walk this out together. That we'd help people on all people, all people, that we're a movement that all people would learn to know what it looks like to follow Jesus. So we're going to be disciple making disciples. Let me break down Matthew 28 for us real quick. Matthew 28, and Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. So Jesus walks up to the disciples, and he's about to go ascend into the heavens and into the right-hand throne of God, and he says to the men and women before him, he goes, look, all the authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. He says, go therefore and make disciples. He says, go and make disciples. He says, that word make means this. It means to put parts together. So he says, look, here's what we're going to do. We're going to go and we're going to make disciples. We're going to put together the parts of faith. We're going to put together the teachings of Christ. In other words, so that disciples would know what it means to follow Christ. The verb here for go means as you go, as you live, as you walk. It's kind of a shout-out to Deuteronomy 6. In Deuteronomy 6 it says, when you rise and when you stand and when you sit and when you go to bed and when you wake up.

It's kind of every part of life. You should remind your children, remind your family that the Lord God is our God. And so Jesus gives this shout-out back to Deuteronomy 6 and says, look, as you go, as you live life, as you as you go to school, as you go to work, as you go to the pool, as you go to wherever you go in between, go and put things together that others would be able to follow Christ. Imitate Christ, pray for, challenge, encourage, read the scripture, talk about the scripture, put things together so that others will know what it means to follow Christ. So how do we do that, right? Because the command is this, go and make disciples. The command is clear, go and make disciples. So the question is how? How do we do that? If Jesus tells all the believers you're going to go and make disciples, three ways we're going to do that. First of all, examine the Word. Examine the Word. Here's where disciple making disciples begins. It begins rooted in the scripture, right? Paul shows up in Acts 17 in verse 11, and he says that he's teaching, they're receiving the Word, and this is what they do, they examine the scriptures daily, daily, to see if things were so. Here's the truth, to be a disciple, it's really about hearing God's voice and doing what he says. And I hear this all the time, right? I'm really praying, I'm praying, how do I do what God wants me to do? How do I do what God says? Well, you listen to his voice. Here's the problem. God has given us the recording of his voice, and a lot of us don't know this well enough to even know what God's voice sounds like. So we're begging God, would you speak to me? And God's going, I have. I have. And so we we begin by examining God's Word, that daily doses, daily discipline leads to revelation. That as we root ourselves in God's Word, as we root ourselves in the Word of God, we begin to kind of understand Jesus on a deeper level. We begin to see him on a deeper level. We have more intimacy with Christ. Here's how it works, John 17, 17, Jesus is praying for his people, and he prays this for us. Jesus is praying for the people who will follow him and declare him as Lord and Savior. He prays this, God, sanctify them by your truth. And your truth is your Word. John chapter 1 describes Jesus this way, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word

was God, and the Word came and dwelt among us. But John chapter 1 says that the Word of God is known in Jesus. And so Jesus says, sanctify them by your truth, and your truth is your Word. Jesus is saying, help them grow into maturity through your Word, that as we study God's Word, as we examine the scriptures, our intimacy with Christ grows. Now, you'll grow some knowledge, and you'll grow some Bible facts, but that's not the goal. The goal is not Bible knowledge. The goal is a more intimate understanding of who Jesus is. Here's what we're gonna do, because we want to help lead you in that. Here's what happens a lot of times. Hey, we're gonna go read the Word. You're like, all right, and you read it like a book, right? Like a book you read in high school. You start at the beginning, and you go through Genesis, and that's awesome, and Exodus is cool, because you saw the movie, and you keep rolling, and then you get to Leviticus, and you go, wah, wah, wah. Look, reading for, if you're gonna go cover to cover, that's some work. Now, I think you should read the whole Bible, but if you're just gonna read like a book, you're gonna get stuck in some spots. And so here's what we've done to help people in, to take that first step into examining the Word. Every week, at the bottom of your reading, the bottom of your notes, is a reading plan, and we specifically pick out Scripture that kind of validates what we talked about, so that you can go home, hear what we told you, and examine what we've said by the truth of God's Word. All right, and all of these texts are texts that we feel like you can get in and out of, and if you get stuck, you call us, and we'll send us somebody to your house, okay? Yeah, like, I was in 2 Timothy, and I can't get out. Okay, well, we'll come get you, right? The other thing we're gonna do is this, is that we, our curriculum for our disciple groups is simply this. It's just simply Bible study. We write curriculum that's just opening God's Word, examining God's Word. We don't do chicken soup for the soul, and we don't do, you know, pick a movie of the week. We don't go watch Shrek and talk about how it reminds me of Jesus. We don't do those things, right? We just open God's Word, and we just examine it, and each group has someone that, there's a teaching aspect, and then there's dialogue. Week in and week out, we just want to teach God's Word. We want to open it, and we want to examine it, okay? The second thing is this, all right? You're going to examine God's Word. That's how you're a disciple. That's how you grow in your faith. Number one question I get is, Ryan, how did you, you know, how have you grown to the maturity you've grown to in your faith?

I don't know. I just open this, and I go... Jesus would you talk to me and that's that's where it's rooted. Okay. Second thing is this you engage the word with others Engage the word with others. Here's the truth. I don't think discipleship can actually happen outside of community The Bible doesn't talk about Jesus and me the Bible points us to Jesus and us That we need each other to get this thing, right? We need it. We need Community we need to walk this out together I need to see Jesus in you and you see Jesus in me and we need to take all of our Experiences and point to how good God is and there are times when I need to be around someone whose passion for Christ Inspires me and there are times when my passion for Christ needs to inspire the person next to me Paul said it this way in 1st Corinthians 11 1 he said be an imitator of me as I am of Christ But Paul says like imitate me I'm gonna imitate Christ and you can imitate me and what Paul is saying is that we need Relationships where there are times where we're looking at each other going. I see Jesus in you you run after Jesus I'm gonna run after you and we're gonna figure this out together There are times where you need to be the one who's intimidated and who's imitating that you're going I'm gonna follow you I'm gonna learn from you. How did you handle? How did the gospel? How did you handle the gospel when you were raising two-year-olds? How did you do that? Can you show me? How did you handle the gospel when you're in your 20s and trying to figure out what your future looks like? And then there's times where you need to be imitated You need to put your life out in front of someone who's walking on the journey behind you and go here's here's where how I got Through it. Here's how I walk through it We need to engage the word together organically and organized If here's how we've built our disciple groups here at the church if you're not in one I would strongly encourage you to be in one Here's why we've built them that we've organized and we made them really simple to get into all you gotta do is coe22.com Backslash disciple groups and you can get into a group and our prayer is that out of those organized groups that organic relationships would form All right that you would just find some men and women in your life going I want to walk I want to follow Christ like you follow Christ. Can I just buy you a cup of coffee? Can you just talk about Jesus? I've got a man in my life that I just asked him a few years ago

Would you I love the way you love your wife. I love the way you love your children I love the way you work hard and I love the way you love Jesus Can I buy you a cup of coffee every week and you just talk about Jesus? I'm just gonna sit there and listen and And I'll tell you it's been one of the best things for my faith to see a man 20 years down the road who has just been disciplined in loving Jesus and it helps me see Helps inspire me it helps engage my heart Helps me see what it looks like when I get that age Third thing is this Entrust the word intentionally. All right. This is where you move from Passive to active and being a disciple It's really this receiving you get in God's Word and you receive truth you get in God in Community and you receive kind of that that what God built us for that that community that brotherly love and then this entrust the word Intentionally, it's really where you go from disciple to disciple maker The cycle way here I want to tell you about Timothy Timothy went from Leicester. It's where he grew up He joined Paul Paul leaves them in Berea Paul he then comes back to Athens meets Paul up in Athens at Paul then sends him back to Thessalonica To which Timothy's going Paul and at the town that just tried to kill us Paul goes Yeah, that's why I'm sending you brother All right and he says Timothy the Thessalonica and then over the next few years Timothy ends up becoming the Pastor at the Church of Ephesus and the Church of Ephesus was one of the most Influential churches in all of kind of first-century Christianity. He was so Unlikely, but here's what happened Paul said the gospel changed you Timothy the Holy Spirit lives in you and Paul set an example for Timothy so that Timothy could Imitate Paul and grow up in his faith. Here's what Paul told Timothy and Paul Paul's writing this from jail And maybe one of the last kind of letters he writes Timothy's in 2nd Timothy He says you then my child Paul has discipled this man so long that Timothy is just a child to Paul It's just one of the other children. It's just his child his son You then my child be strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and what you have heard from me in the presence of

Many witnesses and trust to faithful men who will be able to teach others Also, here's what Paul says Paul says Timothy I have intentionally done something to you that I want you to repeat Because that's just what the gospel demands of us Paul says I entrusted you God's Word that you would entrust it into others. I love that word in trust. It means to trust it means to give It also has this kind of double meaning to me kind of to put food in someone to give someone food that nourishes them And so Paul's telling Timothy Take the word of God and entrust it, or give it, put it in front of others that you would nourish their souls. And do it in such a way that they would receive the gospel and feel compelled to do it again. And Paul says, I want you to do this to the next generation of believers. And Timothy tells this next generation, I want you to pass it on. And the fact that the church exists today is rooted in this idea that the gospel demands we be disciple-making disciples. Now, I hear this when I go, well, how do I do that? How do I entrust the word intentionally? It sounds like this big, like only pastors should do it. No, here's what it is. Hear God's word, share God's word. Hear God's word, share God's word. Hear God's voice to you, share what God told you. Hear God's voice in the darkest of dark times for you, share that word. Hear God's voice for you in the highest of highs, share that word.

All entrusting intentionally means this, is that when God speaks to you, you don't keep it. It's not just for you, you're not the point, he is. And so he has taken you through some things and walked you through some things that you would turn around, that as believers, we would turn around and invest that in to someone who's younger in their faith. Now, you can't be a disciple-making disciple without being a disciple first. If you are not walking in this mindset that Christ is the Lord, I'm gonna apply his teaching to become like him. If you can't, you will reproduce yourself, but you won't be a disciple-making disciple until you first root yourself in being a disciple of Jesus. For some of you this morning, that means it starts with surrendering. In just a second, we're gonna sing and respond and you just wear your hat. You just tell Jesus, I wanna surrender my life to you. I wanna say, if you wanna know more about what that means, we've got a Connect Center that you can connect at. But it means, I'm gonna surrender my life. For some of us in here, it means if I began to replicate myself right now, it would not be healthy for the church. And here's what you do. You repent, and then you let God use your mess. You let God heal you from it,

and then you let God use it, all right? Here's the other thing. You can't be a disciple if you're not gonna be a disciple-making disciple, because to be a disciple means, it just means that we're gonna do what Lord Jesus says. Let me read the rest of you of Matthew 28. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. He says, look, go make disciples. Like, as you go, as you live, point people to Jesus, hear what Jesus says, share what Jesus says, teach them what Jesus taught you, invite them into community. And that sounds like a big, audacious goal. And Jesus ends it on purpose like this. He says, and behold, I am with you to the end of the age, that we can follow him because he will never leave us or forsake us. And as he loves us right where we are, he gives us the ability to turn around and love the person next to us. And that as we hear from him and we share it, and we hear from him and we share it, what will happen in the church is that disciples will love Jesus,

make Jesus known, and make disciples. Would you stand and pray with me? Lord God, as we respond to the gospels, we respond to the truth that you love us, as we respond to the fact that you speak to us and that you call for us to just hear your teaching and abide in you, that we would be a disciple, that we'd walk out the teachings that you've put before us, that we'd examine your word, we'd know your voice, we would do it in community. And then God, as we hear your voice, God, may we just have this, not burden, but may we be compelled, God, may we be compelled to take what you've shared with us and share it with others, that we would be known as a church that walks and runs after Jesus together. It's in your name we pray, amen.