Training disciples
training disciples who make disciples
Jason Procopio
We’re in week 2 of our series on the church’s vision—and we have a lot to see this week, so we’re going to jump right in. Just as a reminder, here it is in its entirety (it’s simple). Eglise Connexion exists to:
• Embody the gospel for the residents of Paris;
• Train disciples who make disciples;
• Send out equipped Christians to serve the church of Jesus Christ.
Last week we looked at this first point of our vision—to embody the gospel for the residents of Paris. That is, we exist to live out the gospel together in community in such a way that this lived-out gospel is visible to those outside—that they might see our lives together, and glorify God.
Today we’ll be looking at that second point: training disciples who make disciples. Now just for a bit of context to understand why we’re even talking about this…
When Loanne and I arrived in France seventeen years ago as a newly married couple, we landed in a church which was the only evangelical church in our town, and in which there was almost no real community. On Sundays, there was—on Sundays, we loved each other and ate together and enjoyed each other… But every other day of the week, we were satellites, turning around the gospel and living it out in our own ways, without ever living it out together.
And as a result, our attempts to “embody the gospel” for those outside, as we saw last week, fell flat. It was impossible to show people the good news of the gospel the way the Bible calls us to because we were almost never together outside of our Sunday services—to which unbelievers almost never came. (And I don’t want to be too hard on this church—this is unfortunately the norm rather than the exception in the Western world. I honestly don’t think they had any other frame of reference to think about what church should be—I certainly didn’t at the time.)
So when we came to plant this church, one of the biggest weights on us was to not reproduce that problem. We felt very strongly that one of our main goals—one of the Bible’s main goals for the church—was to make disciples who make disciples.
We’re going to be going to a couple of places in the Bible to see this, but first we need to make a one thing really clear: what do we mean when we use the word “disciple,” and what do we mean when we use the word “church”?
disciples in the church
The word “disciple” is very easy to define: a disciple is a person who receives and adheres to the teachings of a master. Disciples follow their masters; they listen to them; they observe them; and they grow to be like them. (And we’ll come back to this concept a bit later.)
The word “church” is a little more complex.
When we use the word “church,” or when the Bible uses the word “church,” it can mean several different things, but most often it’s one of two. The word “church” can refer to what we call the universal church—that is, all people, from all points in history, from all places on earth, who have or who will place their faith in Christ. If you are a true Christian, who have repented of your sins and placed your faith in Christ for salvation, you are part of the universal church.
This is the obvious meaning of the word “church” that we see, for example, in Ephesians 5.25, where Paul says that Christ loved THE CHURCH and gave himself up for her. He’s not saying that Christ only died for one specific church at one specific time, but rather for all the church, at all times, and in all places.
The other meaning of the word “church” refers to local churches—that is, individual groups of believers at specific places and at specific times. In 1 Corinthians 16.19, for example, Paul tells the Corinthians, “Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house send you hearty greetings in the Lord”. So this was a church that met in the home of this couple—at a specific point in time, in a specific place.
Do you see the difference? No one church can be properly understood as the whole church (we want to affirm the faith of our brothers and sisters everywhere, even if we don’t know them). And at the same time, the universal church cannot be visible in the world without local churches, living out the gospel in their communities, in their contexts, at their time in history (even we can’t see everything God is doing in all places). Or to put it another way, the universal church is an invisible, spiritual reality; the local church is a visible, temporal reality.
This distinction is really important, for many reasons—but I’ll just give you two for now, since they relate to our discussion today.
If we don’t recognize the universal church, we won’t see the point in resources which come from outside the church. When we benefit from things like seminaries, or Bible colleges, or publishers which publish Christian books, or reading books or sermons from Christians who lived hundreds of years ago—or, for that matter, blogs or podcasts—we benefit from the universal church (as long as they are faithful to the Bible).
But if we’re honest, recognizing the universal church isn’t the problem for most Christians. The problem is that a lot of Christians—a disturbing number of Christians—don’t recognize the importance of the local church. They spend far more time listening to podcasts and reading blogs than they spend in the local church to which they belong. They care more about what such-and-such theologian thinks about such-and-such issue than what is going on in the lives of their brothers and sisters in their church. In other words, they spend more time benefitting from the universal church—through books or Bible studies or online forums—than they do from the local church they’re actually a part of.
And biblically, that is a massive problem. The majority of the New Testament consists of letters written to local churches—Paul’s letters to the Romans, the Corinthians, the Philippians, the Ephesians, etc.; Peter’s letters to the Christians in Asia Minor—and nearly all of the commands we find in these writings are impossible to apply outside of a local church setting.
For example, in Colossians 3.12-13, which we saw last week, Paul says,
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
We can’t be patient and bear with my brothers and sisters in Christ who lived 200 years ago, or whom we’ve never met. This command only makes sense in the context of the local church—where we can actually see and interact with one another.
So with that in mind, here’s the question we need to look at today: Where and how are disciples made?
To start answering that question, let’s turn to Ephesians 4; we’ll be looking at v. 11-16.
Ministry in the local church
When we came to France, we landed in a church in which the pastor did everything. He did all the preaching; he made all the decisions; he did all the hospital visits and home visits. If you were having trouble in your faith, you went to see the pastor.
Now, again, I don’t want to be too hard on him; I understand why he did things this way. But I don’t think it was healthy, or actually biblical.
Here’s how it should work—let’s look at v. 11-12 first.
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers—
Stop there for a second. So the “he” there is Christ; and all these other people listed after are the leaders of the church. From the highest office of the apostles (the guys who were disciples of Christ and then sent out by Christ to build the church), down to the lowliest local church pastor (the “shepherds and teachers”), leaders have been given to the church. They each do different things in slightly different ways, but they all have the same goal—and we see that goal in v. 12:
12 …to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ…
Now if you’ve grown up in a church like the kinds I grew up in, in which the pastor did everything, this short verse should take your idea of what church is and turn it completely on its head.
If I could rephrase what Paul says here… I am one of the pastors of this church (the guy people call “the pastor” because I’m full-time, and I’m up front more often). And as pastor of this church, I have a job to do, and a lot of responsibilities that fall under that job description.
But here’s what my job is not… It is not my job to do bring all of you to maturity in your faith. It is not my job to build all of you up. My job is to equip you for the work of ministry. My job is to teach and train you to build up the body of Christ.
Actually doing it…that’s your job.
(Of course, it’s partially my job too, but not my job as the pastor. It’s my job as a Christian to build up other Christians, to do the work of ministry. And that is a job I share with each and every one of you.)
Or to put it yet another way… Often we talk about being “called to the ministry”. When we say that, we usually have in mind the idea that God calls certain people to take on specific leadership roles in the local church (like a pastor). And that’s not wrong—but it’s not all. We need to think far more broadly than that. Because according to this verse, the call to ministry in the local church is for all believers. No matter how old or young you are, no matter how mature or immature in your faith you are, you are called to the ministry—and the goal of ministry, Paul says, is to build up the body of Christ.
Now, what happens when the church does its job? V. 13:
13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
When the church does its job fulfilling its ministry, to build up the body of Christ, there is unity (v. 13); there is knowledge of Christ (v. 13); there is full maturity (that is, maturity that keeps growing, even after you’ve hit the age of thirty, v. 13); there is stability and discernment (v. 14—you’re not easily swayed by arguments which seem convincing, but which are actually wrong, or which come from unfaithful men and women who will cause you harm if you follow them); there is (v. 15) the constant sharing of the gospel, not just outside the church, but to one another, which causes the whole body to grow. (That, by the way, is the “truth” he says we should be speaking in love; it’s the gospel.)
When the church—when the individual members of the local church—do their job, the body of Christ functions properly and builds itself up in love (v. 16).
It is not my job to make this happen. It is OUR job to make this happen.
Now if you’ve been paying attention, this reality means that several things are true, things that Christians neglect all the time.
Firstly: if you are a Christian, you must be a part of a local church. This is not negotiable. Because what is the main vehicle that God uses to bring us to maturity in our faith? It’s not books. It’s not blogs. It’s not podcasts. It’s the church. Because the church is where the gospel puts on skin; the church is where the gospel has a face. The church is where the gospel is embodied (as we saw last week), lived out in such a way as to be visible. This embodied gospel is how God brings Christians to maturity. If you are a Christian, you must be a part of a local church.
Secondly: if you are a Christian, your brothers and sisters need you. Turn your heads and look at the people around you. It is not only my job to help those people you saw grow in their faith; it’s your job. If you don’t do it, if you don’t step up, your brothers and sisters will not grow in their faith the way they should. Because the means God has willed to do this is the saints, doing the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. If you are a Christian, your brothers and sisters need you.
And by the same token: if you are a Christian, you need your brothers and sisters. One of the greatest dangers facing Christians today—especially if they’re young—is the danger of having a digital faith rather than an embodied faith. (That’s why, if you’re listening to this sermon online, I’m happy you’re listening…but listening to our sermon podcast, or following the service online, is not a replacement for the life you are called to live in the local church.) Think about it—how much of your growth in your faith depends on what you read on your computer, or on your phone? How many of your discussions about Christianity happen online, where you can keep the other person safely at a distance, where you can hide behind your avatar and speak to people in a way which would be frankly offensive if they were sitting in front of you?
If we are going to mature in our faith, we need our brothers and sisters. And we need them here—in front of us—interacting with us day in and day out, getting to know us so well that they can perceive in us those areas in which we are growing (to encourage us) and those areas in which we are struggling (to help us struggle well).
This makes complete sense when we remember that the church is often referred to in the Bible as “the family of God.”
J .T. English writes about the danger of trying to grow as disciples far from the church; he says that in essence, we act as if we were “spiritual orphans,” separated from the family of God. He says, “Spiritual orphans do not have spiritual fathers and mothers to care for them. They do not have spiritual siblings to encourage them. They do not have their own spiritual sons and daughters to grow in the faith. In this setting, spiritual orphans learn only to look out for themselves because they do not have a family to consider. One of the primary characteristics of this family [of God, in the church] is…that we are to pursue, not just our own formation, but the formation of the whole family.”
You see, the gospel truth that changes everything here is that the church is not a group of people with a common belief, but a family of adopted sons and daughters of God. The director of theological training for our church planting network, Tony Merida, has five adopted children. He tells the story of his first Christmas with their first adopted son, whom they adopted from Ethiopia. He was five at the time, and their house was packed with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who had come for Christmas. He asked Tony, “Papa, are all these people are family?” And of course his only response could be, “Yes—all these people are our family.”
I’m quoting Tony now: “Every time we walk into our church’s large or small gatherings, we can say of fellow believers, ‘All of these people are our family.’”
If you are a Christian, you must be part of a local church family. Because if you are a Christian, your brothers and sisters in Christ need you, and you need them. If we are going to grow in maturity, it happens here.
Training disciples
So that’s the where and the why of discipleship—of growing to be disciples of Jesus Christ. One question remains: how does this happen? What does it look like?
To see this, I’d ask you to turn one more time, to 2 Timothy 3, and we’re going to camp out here for the rest of our time today. This is the apostle Paul writing to Timothy, his young protégé and now an elder in the church in Ephesus (Paul is writing from prison in Rome, shortly before his death). Let’s start reading in v. 10.
10 You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, 11 my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me.
So here we have our first window into what this looks like. We have Paul, a disciple of Christ, who follows Christ’s teaching and learns to walk as Christ walked and who believes what Christ said. And we have Timothy, a younger man who followed Paul, and learned from him what it looks like to be a disciple of Christ. And Paul gives us here a hint of what their relationship was like.
Timothy not only heard Paul’s teaching; he also observed his conduct. He got to see what Paul was like. He spent enough time with him to be able to see how Paul responded under pressure, how he responded when he was actively persecuted. He knew him well enough to know (not just suppose, but know) Paul’s aim in life, his faith, patience, love, and steadfastness. He knew these things, because he knew Paul, and he knew him well. He saw him in action, in good times and bad.
Go down to v. 14:
14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
So you see, Paul gave Timothy teaching, encouragement and council. He talks about Scripture’s importance, and its inspiration by the Spirit of God, because he knows that Scripture—the Word of God—is what Timothy needs more than anything else. And Timothy knows it too, because in all the time he spent with Paul, he got to see Paul applying the Word, not only to his own life, but to Timothy’s life as well. He got to see how Paul took the Word and put it into practice, and he remembers how Paul taught him to do the same.
Can I just state the obvious? Most Christians go their entire lives without having this kind of a relationship with a brother or sister in Christ. This is not your average friendship, and it is not your run-of-the-mill, master-apprentice relationship either. This is a relationship which was intimate, and reciprocal.
I’ve told this story before. One of the greatest gifts God ever gave to Loanne and me is Philip and Rachel Moore (some of you know Philip; most of you haven’t had the chance to meet Rachel—but if you can, you should take it; she’s wonderful). When we met them, we were new parents (Jack was three months old), and we were stressed and tired, and still trying to figure out a lot of what it looked like to be Christian parents and to live a Christian marriage. Philip took me under his wing, and Rachel took Loanne under hers. We had a lot of conversations with them—me with Philip and Loanne with Rachel—about what it is to be a Christian husband, a Christian wife, Christian parents.
But the most extraordinary thing Philip and Rachel did for us was also the simplest: they invited us over, a lot. When we’d go to their house, we wouldn’t talk about anything in particular, most of the time. We didn’t have Bible studies or anything like that. We just watched them. We watched how they interacted with one another. We watched how they interacted with their kids. When things were relaxed and when things were stressful. They were open about their own struggles, and helped us navigate ours.
This is what we see here with Paul and Timothy. Paul had to be open and transparent enough with Timothy so that Timothy could know how he was actually applying the gospel to his own life. Timothy had to have spent enough time with Paul to be able to observe how he was living in all of these different situations, and to see what it looks like to actually live the gospel, and not just teach it.
And in the same way, Timothy had to be open and transparent with Paul, so that Paul could know how to help him in his walk with Christ. And Paul had to spend enough time with Timothy to be able to see how he was living and applying the gospel to his own life.
Is it any wonder that Paul can recommend Timothy so warmly in his writings to the Philippian church? He can recommend him without reservation, because he knows him; he knows that this young man is now mature. He helped him get there.
Conclusion
One final question we need to see, and it’s important that we see it, because we need to know what the stakes are. What is the risk of us not living like this together?
One of our greatest dangers—and I’m speaking to the specific context of our church—is imagining that the accumulation of information is the same thing as growth. When you know a lot of things—when you are well-educated in Christian theology, and when you can explain what you know to others—you can easily imagine that you have grown. But that’s just not true. Your intellect has grown, maybe—but that doesn’t mean you have grown.
As J. T. English says, “Discipleship is not just the transfer of ideas but the transformation of the whole person.” You can have perfect theology, and be able to teach it in such a way that people are helped and drawn to Christ and changed. This does not mean you are a mature Christian.
If you still have your Bibles open to 2 Timothy 3, lift your eyes a bit to the verses which came just before: verses 1-7. Paul says,
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. 6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.
In these verses, Paul describes the antithesis of the kind of man Timothy has become (that’s what the “however” was referring to in v. 10). Having the appearance of godliness (because man, do you know your way around the Bible!), but denying its power… Always learning, but never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth—a knowledge that goes beyond the head, puts its feet on the ground, and lives.
If we are going to mature, we need to grow as disciples of Christ. And if we are going to grow as disciples, we need to disciple others. We will not grow without the rest of the body.
So ask yourselves this question: Where do I go to be discipled? Where do I look when I want to know how to live for Christ? Do I look online? Or do I look to the brothers and sisters whom God has placed around me? Do I go to a Bible study? Or do I go to church? Do I read a blog, or do I spend time with the family of God?
Keep finding good resources. Keep reading good blogs, listening to good podcasts, going to good Bible schools. These are all blessings that God has given us—particularly for specialized training in specific areas.
But never let those things take precendence over the main means of growth God has put at your disposal. Look around you again—those people you see? They are the main means of growth God has given you. Invest in them. Spend a lot of time with them. Help them grow. Let them help you grow. Be open and transparent with one another, and grow together. Be disciples of Christ who make disciples of Christ.
