A Chair Speaks

I'm sitting at a local restaurant-bar getting some stuff done on the computer, and right in front of me is this chair:

I thought it was a little strange for the chair to be facing to the side of the bar. In fact, all of the chairs at the bar are facing this way. Not toward the bar. Toward the front door - where the guests first appear. Inviting people to come in and be comfortable.

From a marketing perspective, this is clever. A simple thing that affects your immediate impression when you first step in. "I'm welcome here. In fact, they've been expecting me."

How are the chairs facing in our homes, in our churches, in our lives? Is the place where guests first appear oriented toward them or us? Not just the physical orientation of furniture, but also the atmosphere and the attitude? Do our "chairs" face away, making visitors feel like they're interrupting rather than being welcome to come in and be comfortable? Or are our "chairs" facing the visitor, guest, friend, or neighbor - attentive and ready? "You're welcome here in my home, my church, my life. In fact, I've been expecting you."

D17 Part 5: Individual Identity

After the resurrection, Jesus has a famous exchange with the one who denied Him three times, Peter. Jesus questions him three times about whether or not he really loves Him like he claimed to. A perfectly tailored moment meant only for Peter. Jesus' method of discipleship of Peter would not have made sense applied to anyone else on the planet. Asking John those questions just wouldn't have been fitting. Jesus concludes this discipleship moment in the same way He first introduced Himself to the disciples in chapter 1, "Follow Me."

Peter thinks this is great! He's back in a positive relationship with Jesus, plus he has some direct instructions, "Tend My lambs." Yes! We've got ourselves a discipleship model with Jesus! Everyone should go through this process! John! John should do this!

But then Jesus also tells Peter that following Him is going to end up in his own death. He will be a martyr for the Gospel.

Then looking around at John, Peter asks Jesus, "What about him?" In essence, what's going to happen to him as Your follower? How do our two paths of discipleship relate to each other? Will our paths be similar?

Jesus says, "If I want him to live until I come back, what concern is that of yours? You follow me!" (Jn 21:21-22).

Jesus, who had just tailored a discipleship moment uniquely to Peter, tells him that He will work in the lives of disciples individually. There is no "one size fits all" in discipleship. Jesus will not ask John the same questions he asked Peter, He won't necessarily give him the same instructions to tend lambs, and He won't prescribe a cookie-cutter set of experiences as a follower. He will deal with John individually, just like with Peter, just like with you.

This leads us to our fifth of the "Seventeen Truths of Discipleship" (D17):

Discipleship must be individually-tailored, based in one’s identity in Christ.

Last week, we said that discipleship must be community-based. That's no less true - we must do discipleship in community, but community is the unity of a diverse group of people. God has designed each person uniquely, and does so for a purpose. How we're uniquely designed is a revelation of how God wants us to walk and serve as disciples.

Therefore, our discipleship of one another must be tailored to how God individually designs each one. We cannot create a set formula, set curriculum, set sequence, cookie-cutter form of discipleship.

Furthermore, we must based discipleship on our identity is Christ. Who we are as "in Christ" ones defines everything else - our doing flows from our being. Who we are in Christ is completely (COMPLETELY!!!) forgiven followers who stand before God covered entirely (ENTIRELY!!!) by the righteousness of Christ. Once in Christ, there is nothing (NOTHING!!!) we can do improve our standing before God. So complete is Grace that we have nothing left but to accept that we can't do one little thing that will make God more satisfied with us, because we are in the One who satisfies Him completely. Once we accept that, then we can begin to really grow as disciples.

Therefore, to disciple one another, we must get to know one another, to see how God has made each one unique, and then encourage one another especially in the unique ways God has made us, to fit together like a mosaic creating a picture of Christ far greater than any one of us. We must based our discipleship on who we are in Christ, not based on who are in the world.

In order to disciple one another, we must first be authentic friends who listen first and rely very little (or not at all) on pre-manufactured, one size fits all, discipleship methods. We must have an eye to how each one of us can be uniquely discipled to more of how God designed us each to be, and everything must grow from our true standing before God "in Christ."

D17 Part 4: Discipleship Must Be Community-Based

The Gospels are, among other things, the narrative of discipleship training. We can trace the story of how Jesus chose to train and deploy His disciples to carry on His mission, which means that the Gospels are invaluable for teaching us how to disciple one another. In fact, last week we discussed how discipleship must be "Gospel-saturated."

One of prominent episodes of this training is recorded in Luke 10, when Jesus sent out the disciples to minister in His name. But He did not send them out alone - He sent them two-by-two. In fact, He made a habit of it. He sent people out in ministry (and even on seemingly menial tasks), and He consistently sent them out in groups ... as an intentional part of how he was training them for discipleship. Don't miss this! It wasn't just practical - He was always training them in discipleship. Sending them out in pairs or groups was part of their discipleship.

We see very few examples in Scripture where someone is sent out in ministry by himself. No doubt, it happened (see Philip, for example). But the overwhelming pattern is in groups. Not even the great missionary Paul traveled alone very often. Furthermore, he usually sent his disciples out in groups, too. Many of his letters were intentionally inclusive of those who were ministering with him, and he wrote to people who were in ministry as groups (cf. 1 Thess 1:1; Phm 1-3).

This overwhelming pattern leads us to our fourth truth about discipleship:

Discipleship must be community-based.

Discipleship is designed to be done in community, in pairs, in groups, with one another. Our 21st C Western individualism tends to read Scripture with a filter that interprets everything for "me" rather than "us," especially something so personal as discipleship. When we read discipleship as individualistic, we are misinterpreting Scripture. Community-based discipleship is clearly the model of the New Testament.

It is a step for some Christians to accept that Jesus intends for our entire lives to be about discipleship (rather than a weekly meeting I have for the first year after coming to faith where I complete a workbook). It's yet another step for us modern Westerners to accept that Jesus intends for our entire lives to be about community-based discipleship.

This means more than Sunday school classes, small groups, and accountability groups. Those are good things to have in our lives, but there are a lot of these groups where very little discipleship actually occurs. If we take discipleship to mean moving from unbelief to belief in every area of our lives in light of the Gospel, it's safe to say many groups do very little to cultivate this move as a lifestyle.

I'm not suggesting you leave your groups. I'm suggesting you make sure that you are in a group that is pressing toward discipleship. Join a new group or help transform the one you're in. Do not conclude that you can do the life of discipleship just fine on your own. That is patently against the model Jesus carefully crafted for us.

Focused discipleship groups keep people accountable to each other in authentic relationships with appropriate vulnerability, pressing one another to move from unbelief to belief in every area, intentionally multiplying itself by making disciples who make disciples, and serving together to make the Kingdom tangible for others. This kind of group can take many forms, can meet in any location, can have any combination of followers, and can take a variety of names. Labels are not important - disciplemaking is.

I cannot encourage you strongly enough to seek out a small community that earnestly seeks to cultivate complete followers of Jesus.

This is the fourth of 17 truths about discipleship we are exploring together. This week's truth comes from various writings of Caesar Kalinowski.

D17 Part 3: Gospel-saturated Discipleship

Paul has a mess on his hands with those Corinthians. The people who claim to follow Christ ... to be disciples ... are taking advantage of the poor in their own congregation, in-fighting, and committing indecent acts against each other. Things were such a mess that Paul had to write them at least four times (only two of those letters have been preserved), send emissaries, and even revisit them personally.

His goal was never to merely adjust their behavior. Paul was always about their discipleship - the quality and strength of their following of Jesus. He taught and encouraged them to cling to the Gospel and let it fill their minds. If they would remain focused on the Gospel, the behavioral issues will largely take care of themselves. By all means, stop doing that stupid thing now, but in the long run, drown yourself in the Gospel for real change.

In 1 Corinthians 15, as he's discipling these believers through his letter to them, he states it plainly: "Now I want to make it clear to you, brothers and sisters, the gospel that I preached to you, that you received and on which you stand ... for I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received -- that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" (emphasis added). I've got to make it clear to you what is of first importance - Jesus and what He did. Everything about my discipleship of you hinges on this.

This leads us to the third of our 17 truths about discipleship that we have been considering these last several weeks (the "D17"):

Discipleship must be Gospel-saturated (1 Cor 15:1-11).

The process of cultivating one another to become fully formed followers of Jesus must be drenched with the Gospel. We cannot intend to disciple one another without basing everything on who Jesus is, what He did and said while in the flesh, and everything He accomplished on the Cross. Specifically, the books of the Bible we typically call "The Gospels" must be our foundational texts ... moreso than other books of the Bible. The story in the Old Testament is vital. Paul's letters are indispensable. The rest of the New Testament is crucial. But the Gospels are our primary text for discipleship - because in them, Jesus most directly teaches and models discipleship with His followers.

We can even turn the noun "gospel" into a verb - we can "gospel one another." Especially for those who already follow Jesus, we need to continually gospel one another - to keep reminding and encouraging one another based on Jesus' words and actions. We all need the Gospel to continually saturate every aspect of our lives. This is because the Gospel is bigger than just "getting saved." The Gospel does contain the message of receiving eternal life through the forgiveness of sins. But the Gospel also includes walking in obedience, thinking more like Jesus, surrendering more to Jesus, and seeing how the Gospel affects ... and should rule over ... every nook and cranny of our lives.

I took part in an internet-based reading plan where we read through all of the Gospels in a week. We were supposed do that six weeks in a row, but I managed only the first week. Even with that, reading large passages each day, the sweep of the Gospel opened up in surprising new ways. Now, I'm spending time each day reading smaller passages, but staying strictly within the Gospels until I've read them several times through.

I suggest making a goal that you read through (or listen to) all four Gospels at least three times through before going on to study other books of the Bible. Large passages, small passages, in a week or in a month, whatever plan will best keep you on task. (By the way, just three chapters a day gets you through all four Gospels in a month.) Then think about the question, "What is the Gospel about in full?"

Furthermore, consider the idea of "gospeling one another." Paul said in Romans 1 that he was eager to preach the Gospel to the church at Rome - but they were already believers. So, Paul wanted to "gospel" them even though they were already saved. He wanted to see the Gospel apply to more and more of their lives by "gospeling" them. Rather than trying to fix each other's behavior, let's gospel one another instead.

The phrase "Discipleship is Gospel-saturated" comes from Caesar Kalinowski.