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.

D17 Part 2: Led by the Spirit

With precious little time left with His disciples, Jesus wastes no breath on trivial matters. He will soon be gone, and the disciples still need His instruction in order to continue on after the crucifixion, so everything He says is discipleship gold. One valuable nugget of that gold is: Discipleship must be Spirit-led.

In John 16:8-13, Jesus unpacks some of the roles that the Holy Spirit will play in the lives of the disciples after Jesus departs to be with the Father. The Spirit is going to take on the job of convicting the world of its bankrupt worldview and guide Jesus' followers into all truth. The Spirit's "job" is to be a reliable, accessible source of truth for believers as they carry out Jesus' mission after He departs.

In 1 Corinthians 2:9-16, the Apostle Paul expands on the role of the Holy Spirit in the ministry of making disciples. He declares with certitude, "No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God" (11). And since this Spirit indwells all those who have been born again, we therefore "have the mind of Christ" (16).

Paul is teaching about his ministry in particular. We don't have the mind of Christ so that we can better choose which soup to have for lunch. We have the mind of Christ for the purpose of carrying out the will of Christ, and the will of Christ has "make disciples of all nations" toward the top of the list.

Through the indwelling Holy Spirit, who perfectly knows the mind of the Father, we can "know the things that are freely given to us by God" (12). Human wisdom cannot fathom the breadth and impact of these truths - they are taught only by the Spirit (13). Therefore, there are things about the missional will of Christ that we can only learn through the Spirit. We must learn from the Spirit, along with the other means of learning God gives us (His Word, wise counselors, experience, etc.).

We conclude, then, that discipleship must be Spirit-led. We cannot make disciples as Jesus intends without choosing to be led by the Spirit. Any attempt to make disciples by leaving the Spirit out of it will not be the Jesus way.

Even Jesus did not make disciples without being led by the Spirit, who guided Him into the wilderness, guided Him in selecting His disciples, empowered Him to teach the disciples all that the Father revealed to Him, and so on. If Jesus doesn't make disciples without being Spirit-led, what use is it for us to even try?

The discipleship of you must be Spirit-led, and your discipleship of others must be Spirit-led. Seek out the Spirit's leading in prayer. Ask and wait. Expect Him to move, to guide, to reveal. When you sense His leading, check it against Scripture and wise counselors, take a step in faith, and then ask Him again if you're walking in the right direction. Make disciples this way! Books and guides can be helpful (or get in the way), but seeking out the leading of the Spirit is not optional!

Listening to the Spirit takes patience, discipline, and practice. I once worked on a software product that used modems, and so we tested every model we could find. In the lab, at first it just sounded like a bunch of noise as the modems screeched their way into data connections. Over time, with practice, I was able to tell you the modem brand, model, and data speed just by listening (we all could - it was hard to avoid!). The same is true with the Spirit - with enough practice and patience, we begin to discern His voice from out of all the noise.

Then once we hear His voice, the only thing left is to obey what He says. Make disciples this way.

(This is the 2nd of 17 truths about discipleship that we are discussing in this series. The idea for this article comes from Caesar Kalinowski.)

D17 Part 1: From Unbelief to Belief in Every Area

A frantic man steps out of the buzzing crowd, his son in his arms, and the weariness of his son's affliction carved deep into his face. "Teacher! Here's my son. He can't talk. A spirit has possessed him - it thrashes him and pounds him into the ground. My son ... he ... foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth uncontrollably. And then he stiffens up as hard as a board. I've tried everything ... everything! I tried your disciples, and not even they could help." He didn't need to ask Jesus for anything - his utter helplessness was enough of a plea. Jesus steps forward, and the demon attacks the boy yet again, but for the last time.

9:21 Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. 9:22 It has often thrown him into fire or water to destroy him. But if you are able to do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 9:23 Then Jesus said to him, “ ‘If you are able?’ All things are possible for the one who believes.” 9:24 Immediately the father of the boy cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

(Mark 9:21-24)

What an amazing admission! "I believe; help my unbelief!" I believe. I believe enough to bring my boy to your disciples. Even their failure doesn't deter me - I still believe you can have compassion and can help us. But I also don't believe. I hedge my request by asking "if you are able," because I don't yet fully believe you are. I don't really understand you, and I don't know all that it means for me if you actually pull this off. So, not only will you help us by saving my son, will you help me with my unbelief? Because you said anything is possible for those who believe.

Too often, we reduce following Jesus to a binary question, yes or no. Do you believe? Yes or no! Check one. How cruel would Jesus have been shove a note into this man's hand with only two checkboxes, yes or no, like the binary love letters we passed around in grade school. The man believes, but he doesn't believe. We believe, but we don't believe.

Yes, there is a singular moment when a person can pass from the kingdom of this world to the Kingdom of God, and that happens only through believing. But we don't pass so cleanly in binary fashion from belief to unbelief. We believe unto salvation, but even as we are born anew, we are not completely rid of unbelief. There remain areas of our lives where we continue in unbelief, sometimes for years.

I have received the irrevocable gift of eternal life (by grace through faith), but I still don't fully believe God in every area of life. For me, it's sometimes about my future. Sometimes, it's about taking a risk in the present, needing God to "show up," but not fully believing that He will. Sometimes, it's unbelief about where my true happiness will be found - in things or experiences, rather than in Christ alone. I believe! Help my unbelief!

"Discipleship is the process of moving from unbelief to belief in every area of your life in light of the Gospel." If we understand that the moment of salvation where we become "regenerate" (reborn) is an event of incomplete faith, but faith nonetheless, we can then see that the rest of our walk with Christ is the ongoing process of replacing every remaining area of unbelief with belief. My unbelief about my happiness or my future replaced by belief in the Gospel of Christ says about happiness and the future - that's me being discipled. In other words, becoming a more complete follower of Jesus. It's not "just believe Jesus more," but "believe Jesus in ways that I have been stuck in unbelief."

But remember, "discipleship" is not something that begins after salvation. Discipling someone can (and should!) happen before salvation. We see it in the pages of the Gospels, but also in our daily lives - those curious about Jesus, moving from ways of unbelief to belief in areas of their lives before they receive eternal life. Eventually, that faith intersects with God's sovereign election, and a person becomes regenerate. But he merely continues on, moving from unbelief to belief in more areas of life. Discipleship.

The Elders have been wrestling with a list we're calling "The Discipleship 17" - 17 truths about discipleship that cause us to dig deeper into what it means to follow Jesus and live life on mission. This truth of moving from unbelief to belief is the first of the "D17," a definition we pulled from a book by Cesar Kalinowski.

Spend a few moments pondering this definition. How does this truth affect what your life as a follower should be? How can you help one another move from unbelief to belief in various areas of light in light of the Gospel? How does this change how to raise your children? How does this help you interact with those who are unconvinced that Jesus is the Son of God? What would it mean for the areas of unbelief in your life were one by one replaced by belief?

Squeak

I really wanted to go to this particular conference this week - a new topic with a free book. But, I had scheduled a repairman to come to the house at that time, so I couldn't go. Whine. Just as I'm considering the hassle of rescheduling the repairman, the washer goes out, and it must be repaired as soon as possible, so I book another repairman to come at the same time as the first, since I'd be homebound anyway. Smart, but now I really can't go to the conference. Whine. Then, the first repairman calls and says that he must reschedule, so I could have scheduled the other repairman for another time and still have gone to the conference, but no - I outsmarted myself. Whine. Then the second repairman calls and says he must reschedule for later in the day. Great! Now I can go to the conference. As it turns out, the conference was really not all that beneficial after all. Whine.

I whine at times. You whine at times. Sometimes I whine because you whine. But whining is the behavior. What is the real activity of whining?

At the simplest level, whining is the noise we make when we don't get what we want, and so we squeak like a toy squeezed too hard. I want A, instead reality serves me B, squeak. But this is not compelling enough to explain whining. A lot of things don't go my way, and I don't always squeak about those.

Dig a little deeper and we see that whining betrays those moments when we don't get what we think we deserve. I want a latte, but I deserve good service when I order one, but then the barista is careless with my order. Squeak. Again, this explanation is true enough, but too shallow.

Burrowing one more layer down, whining is the cry of a self-described king not being treated as royalty. More than just want or deserve, my kingdom is the realm of what I control. I fancy my realm to be rather large and significant, and it includes many residents who must bear evidence of my control. One exposure of my faux royalty, and squeak.

Yet I find all three explanations still inadequate, because they are all focused on self. At its heart, whining is God-oriented. Whining is a protest that God is doing it wrong. Whining says all the wrong things about Him ... to Him:

1) "Your provision for me is inadequate. You gave me less than You should have. I can't possibly do as You please with this little provision."

2) "I don't believe this will serve a better purpose. I can handle a few inconveniences, but only when the reasons are small enough for me to understand so that I can clearly see the better purpose. You have not shown me the better purpose in ways I can understand or am willing to accept, and therefore Your actions are objectionable."

3) "My purposes exceed Yours. You may well have Your purposes, and I may well even accept that as an intellectual concept. But whatever Your purposes may be, mine are more important to me. So take back Your purposes and succumb to mine."

4) "This can't possibly be to adjust my attitude. You can't be doing this because I need some change in my thoughts, feelings, attitudes, actions, or priorities. There's no way you're that much of a loving parent that You would use discomfort or inconvenience to mold me into a more Christlike person. Therefore, give in to my demands."

The core of whining is profoundly theological. Our view of God and of how involved He is in our lives directly registers on the whinometer. The less I see His hand, the more a peg red on the scale.

Some adopt a "no whining" policy. Although the rest of us really appreciate that, this is just a less annoying form of bad theology in practice. The biblical antidote for whining is not zipping one's lip, but contentment. Contentment is accepting the unassailable, persistent goodness of God's head-to-toe involvement in my broken and sometimes uncomfortable life. I can be content because I never slip from His perfect and beneficent care, not even a little.

Challenging Images

My privilege this past week was to be one of the adult leaders for our youth group at Challenge. Challenge is a national youth conference for the Evangelical Free Church of America held every two years in different cities around the country. This year, we got to be the host city for 5400 youth and over 1000 leaders. (See #ChallengeKC on social media.) This little blog can in no way contain the breadth, depth, and value of all that happened.

One of the events at the conference was the Berlin Walk - a tour through the down-and-out "streets" of Berlin. It was an immersion experience to learn about the enormous problem of human trafficking that plagues the world, but is so focused in Germany, particularly in Berlin, that this great country is called the "Brothel of Europe." Trafficking is not just for sex, but also for labor and other forms of exploitation. The EFCA is ramping up an enormous effort in Berlin in collaboration with many other organizations to bring the reality of Jesus to the city, expressed in ways like dismantling human trafficking.

Most often trafficked are women and children, usually with false promises and dreams. It is a violation that is almost universally decried and battled by people from different countries, religions, ethnicities, and class. I believe the vilest offense is that these trafficked persons bear the image of God, and the very act of trafficking them is a violent attack on that image.

No animal should endure what these people endure, and therefore trafficking is horrendous. More than this, tho, these people are image bearers, and treating them as chattel is a loud lie that they are not - a kind of graffiti of the soul.

As we walked through these "streets" and learned, I watched our youth, also image bearers. Safe, untrafficked, properly fed, groomed, and clothed, listening, reading, and praying about defaced image bearers. They even learned how American teens' appetite for porn on their smartphones actually feeds the problem of trafficking in Berlin (and around the world). But still ... standing there, clean, loved, valued, safe image bearers at a conference to pour more light on what it means to live as image bearers, politely learning about other image bearers who have no one to remind them they, too, bear the image of God. Set in juxtaposition, my heart broke for both our youth and their counterparts in places like Berlin.

I applaud those who deny God and yet still fight trafficking. We care about the same thing. For my tribe, the reality of the image of God in others moves us to respect them, to demand justice for them, and to forsake ways in which we steal from their identity as image bearers.

Yet it's not just because the trafficked bear God's image, but because I, too, bear God's image. And our youth. I want to fight trafficking because they bear His image and because I bear His image. What else does an image bearer do in order to reflect that image than to fight for the oppressed image bearers?

The world conspires to tell us we don't bear that image - the image doesn't exist, God doesn't exist, you're just a more intelligent critter than average on this planet, and so on. The message of Jesus says you are an image bearer, and therefore valuable on His scale. My love for youth fostered even deeper, our love shared with those we served in our projects, and our growing love for the trafficked persons conspire to say that yes, indeed, the image of God is real in all of us.