Lifestyle Discipleship

Last Sunday, Jimmy introduced our working definition of "Lifestyle Discipleship" as he explained Jesus' incredibly simple, easily repeated, proven plan of discipleship. Lifestyle discipleship is:

Cultivating complete followers of Jesus 
in every context 
by sharing my redemptive life with others, 
surrendered to the Father 
and empowered by the Spirit.

Let's look at this definition phrase by phrase:

Cultivating complete followers of Jesus: The idea of cultivating, as we taught a couple of weeks ago, pictures co-laboring with God, doing the hard work of cultivating, planting, watering, and weeding in the lives of one another, while God is the one who causes the spiritual growth within any of us. We do this for the purpose of developing complete followers - followers of Jesus who are 1) fully devoted to Jesus, and 2) being fully formed in thoughts, words, and actions. That's a disciple.

In every context: Jesus didn't cultivate complete followers in the sterile environment of a classroom, or even in the synagogue. He cultivated them in the marketplace, along the road, and inside the homes of others. He didn't just cultivate on the Sabbath day, but every day of the week. It wasn't an extra "program" he added into His busy schedule - it was His schedule.

By sharing my redemptive life with others: Jesus was always relational in how He cultivated complete followers. He offered redemption in Himself through relationship with Him. We can't offer redemption in ourselves, but we can offer our "redemptive lives," redeemed in Christ and instruments of redemption to others through authentic relationships.

Surrendered to the Father: Jesus repeatedly taught that His earthly ministry was conducted completely surrendered to His Father (e.g. John 14:10). As we follow Christ, we follow in His method, too. "Surrender" is the humble act of "giving up the fight." Our selfish motivations drive us to serve ourselves, whereas surrendering means we follow the will of our Lord. It's God's mission first and foremost, so to participate in His mission is to surrender our will to His.

Empowered by the Spirit: Jesus temporarily set aside the free exercise of His divine attributes when He took on human flesh  (Php 2:1-11). As a result, everything He did in his earthly ministry of cultivating complete followers was done by the divine power of the Holy Spirit who indwelt Him and empowered Him (Luke 3:21-22). We have no power in ourselves to "make disciples" - the power lies solely in the Spirit who indwells and empowers us.

Jesus is our model. His ministry here was to cultivate complete followers. Therefore, as we join Him in this mission, we model our methods and practices after His. The Church can at times overcomplicate our mission in our earnest desire to fulfill the mission. Jesus' ministry wasn't complicated. He was merely effective, surrendered to His Father, empowered by the Spirit.

A Journey

I'm on a journey that leads to destinations unknown. The ride has been good - a bit rough at times, but interesting. Sometimes I feel like I can see over the horizon and get a glimpse of the destination, but then it slips away, and I'm not sure I saw anything at all. But I know I will get to a good destination - I just can't tell you what that place looks like. I'm taking this journey at the pace of one step each morning.

For my daily Quiet Time, I'm spending time in the Word on the topic of God's Spirit. I made a list of every occurrence of the word "spirit" in Scripture, and am identifying which ones refer to the Holy Spirit in some fashion. Plus, there are some references that don't use the word "spirit" at all, such as "Comforter," "Helper," and "Counselor." I take one reference in context each day, study it, journal about it, and then pray through the passage for my own life. And then I pray that passage for those who are on my prayer list for that day - whoever is on the list, I'm praying from that passage for them.

There are 628 occurrences of the word "spirit" in the New American Standard translation, and a large portion of those refer to the Holy Spirit in particular. So - this journey will take a while. I'm in no hurry. I've already made it as far as Matthew. Most of my journaling is asking questions rather than answering them - and that's OK.

After I finish going through all the passages, I plan to then retrace my steps and collect my observations and questions into categories. I want to be able to see the variety of lessons there are for us about the Holy Spirit. I'm learning new things about the Spirit already, and I expect to find out more new things when I make this second pass.

I'm not sure where the journey is going, but I know it's good, and I'm excited to find out where it will lead me. Maybe it will become the stuff of a future sermon series on the Spirit, but even if it does not, I pray that I will know the Spirit more deeply as a result. Not just know more about Him, but to know Him better.

For your own Quiet Time, consider taking a topic and discovering all that you can from the Bible about it. There are plenty of tools and helps available to make this easier - I'm happy to help you with that part. Remember always to study a passage in context - most passages are understood rightly only by knowing the context (historical, cultural, and literary). At minimum, study a paragraph at a time.

The Other Valuable Lesson on Bible Study

In my previous article, I talked about one of the toughest classes I ever had, and the valuable lesson I learned about studying the Bible by learning how to ask good questions about the Scripture. There are plenty of ways to find the answers, but asking good questions first will help lead you to the most valuable answers. I mentioned that this was one of two highly valuable methods I've learned to study the Word.

The second method sounds more scary than it really is. I have learned that finding the basic structure of a passage is tremendously helpful in studying what it means. Yikes! That's sounds hard and complicated! It can be, depending on how deep you want to go, but it doesn't have to be all that complicated.

Learning how to do this is more than a single article can teach, but I want to at least give you a favorite example of mine. Read Ephesians 1:3-14. Take a second to answer the question, "What is this passage about?"

There's a three-part structure to this passage. In this case, the three-part structure is marked by a phrase that is repeated. Look for it - see if you can find a phrase repeated three times in the passage. It's not verbatim the same, but it's close, and it's important to the passage. (Look for it on your own, but if you get stuck, keep reading for a hint.)

(Hint: Look in verses 6, 12, and 14.)

The repeated phrase is "to the praise of His glory," or something similar. If you didn't find it, stop and look for it until you see it.

Now, who is each one of these phrases talking about? (It's not the same person in each case.) Take a look before continuing.

That phrase occurs once for each person of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And that gives us a basic structure of Eph 1:3-14 (vv. 3-10 are about the Father, 11-12 are about the Son, and 13-14 are about the Holy Spirit). Furthermore, each section tells us something about the unique ministry of each one. Plus, the passage as a whole shows us the Trinity (without even using the word "trinity").

Now, re-read the passage and re-answer the question we asked before, "What is this passage about?" Did the structure give you a deeper answer to the question (even a little)?

Finding the structure of a passage can help us understand it much better. Next week, we'll look at the structure of chapter 2 and how that helps us understand it better.