Understanding Spiritual Growth - Lesson 4

Dr. Stephen Martyn 
Understanding Spiritual Growth  
sf304-04
Jesus’ Commitment to You 
Lesson Transcript

As we gather back together for our fourth session, I want to share with you what is without question the most important commitment level in the beginning of this, and that is the commitment of the Lord Jesus to you, to be with you through this whole process. That's actually a promise that we're going to read here. You know, the Great Commission from Matthew 28, 18 through 20.

And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to you, to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always to the end of the age.

He's committed to us in the great task that he has given us. But he's also asking for a high level of commitment from you, either as a congregational leader or as a lay person who understands himself or herself as a full-time minister of the gospel. And you are being called to disciple others.

So, the Great Commission really does set the agenda. It sets the great agenda for God's church. And I want to go back to that dashboard illustration I used earlier in the first session.

And that is, while numbers are important, while giving may be important in a local congregation, while numbers of people in small groups may be important, really it is important, even while confessions of faith or professions of faith or baptisms are important. Listen, here's your main dashboard, the main metric that we are given from Jesus himself. So, this dashboard, this command lets us know whether or not we have been faithful to his gospel.

It lets us know what is actually driving our ministries for the Lord. It lets us know if his agenda, the Lord's agenda, is our agenda, or if we have our own agenda in play, or even if we have the agenda of others around us in play. I think he's saying, here's what counts most, disciples, disciples, people raised up, grown, matured, discipled in a process that brings them to maturity in Christ.

But we have substituted many other things on our dashboard for this primary activity of God's people. So, what's it going to take on our parts if we ourselves want to be grown and transformed into mature disciples? In other words, if I've got to eat what I sell here, I've got to be who I'm trying to raise up, I've got to be an incarnation of maturity in Christ in my own life. What's it going to take for my life? And what are going to be the requirements then for me to bring this into the lives of others? Well, I want to outline just a few major components for you as a leader that you need to take on yourself.

Now, these are not going to be rocket science, but it may rock your world, and I hope it confronts your world. The first thing is, obviously, there's going to have to be a substantial time commitment. A time commitment means that I understand a priority, a major priority in my life is to be involved for me personally on a daily basis of being immersed in the means of grace.

This is a daily obedience in the same direction, that I am to be a woman, a man of prayer. I am to be a person who is in the Word. I am to be a person who is living in the community of God's church.

I am to be a person who understands the concept and practices the concept of fasting. Even if I'm a diabetic, there are healthy ways where I can cut certain things out, and never would the Lord Jesus call you to do something that would harm your own health. I am to be a person who's committed to the body of Christ and to a small group covenant living with others.

I am a person who's called to service. So these are first priorities in my life. So a time commitment to personally follow.

There's also going to be a time commitment to invest in others. So not just a personal time commitment for my own relationship, because it's never a matter of me and Jesus in this. The time commitment also is to invest in others.

And I'm talking about not on a casual basis, but on a formal basis, on a weekly basis. Christianity is not a me. Christianity is a we, W-E.

It's plural. And I am called to walk with others and to be in community with others. Now for you, it's got to be a first level commitment.

If you are in ministry, for instance, or if you're a pastor, you're going to find that there are all sorts of screaming demands coming into your life to meet this need, to do that task, to fulfill this part of the programmatic efforts of the congregation, to meet with these people, to be a leader in so many different areas, to supervise, to prepare, preaching, teaching, all of that. Yet if I understand the gospel correctly, the word is calling you to this first primary commitment. Now who's our model here? Just think of the action of Christ himself.

He preached, he taught, he ministered to the needs of the masses around him. And they were so tied up in meeting needs, they didn't even have time to eat. It was a constant press.

Yet Jesus himself modeled for us this pulling away, this setting aside time to be one-on-one with either the three or to be one-on-one with one of the twelve, but to live in tight, tight day and night community with the twelve. He's our model. He's our joy that we set before us.

Now following right along with this is hands-on interaction. Now what do I mean by this? Well, hands-on interaction means that as a leader, the worst possible thing you could do is to pass this off to subordinates. No, this is yours to model.

This is yours to be in ministry. This is yours to show the way for the body of Christ. So direct involvement with people on a very faithful and on a very regular, minimal, weekly basis.

It's a process where you don't pass it off, but you take on this great privilege of growing people. I mean, in the end, what do we have? Do we have big buildings? Do we have any buildings? In the end, what do we have? All we've got are the relationships that the Lord has blessed us with and that the Lord has used us. Now here's a big one.

I believe that the Lord also is going to ask you for what? For appropriate, this is a hard one, appropriate vulnerability. Oh, we don't like that one as leaders in God's church. Now, appropriate vulnerability is a willingness to walk as a fellow disciple.

Now, I think the first thing he's going to say is that, hey, I am in this process right along with you. And while as a leader, I may, or in some cases may not, but normally you're going to be maybe a few years, maybe a few decades, maybe just a few steps ahead of those you're leading. But let me assure you, even if you're not a few steps ahead of those you're leading, if you're humbly submitting your life to the Lord, then he'll work through you as his leader through this process.

So, I'm walking as a fellow disciple. I'm loving those under my care. I'm loving the people that have been given to me.

Now, here's the key about this. Loving others also means that you allow them to love and serve you. Now, as leaders, we love the being in charge part and we love doing the ministry part.

It becomes a little harder when the shoes on the other person or the action of love is coming from others and action of service is coming from others toward us. But that's appropriate vulnerability. Now, it's also going to mean that I am going to share along the way, along this journey, you know, the needs I have as well and where I need accountability points to come along and where I need them to be praying for me.

So not only will I be praying for others in this group, I'm going to ask for prayer from them and I'm going to receive prayer and blessings from them. Now, do I share things in my own life that would bring disruption into the followers, into the people I'm discipling? Of course not. The Lord's going to give you appropriate discretion.

But what you cannot do is hide the fact that you too are a woman or a man in need of God's grace, i.e. you too are working through the sinful nature that is to be destroyed. The Lord has to destroy that nature. And we admit we need transformation in our lives.

So, I'm open, I'm vulnerable, I'm humble. Also, all of this is going to work itself out into what? It's going to work itself out into spiritual friendship. I'm truly going to see these as my friends.

I mean, is that not in the gospel of John? Is that not part of what we are? We're going to do life together. How wonderful then to maybe take this group of people you're going to work with over a two-year period, take them on mission trips with you or take them backpacking, take them fishing with you. We did this.

And I mean, sitting around a campfire, a lot of good spiritual conversations can take place. Go into life with them, play games with them, move into an action of service with them. While you are discipling this group, take on an important action of service, maybe to your local congregation, to those in need in your congregation, to places in the community where you can go and serve the body of Christ.

Most of all, this is going to require you, hear this kind of trite phrase again, but true phrase, you're going to need to eat what you sell. I'm always leery of anyone who sells something but doesn't use it themselves. That's called hypocrisy for us.

So, I'm going to recommend, we're going to go over in the following session, a covenant that everyone is agreeing upon. But in this covenant, you are called to join fully into the means of grace. And you are called to be a Christ follower as well.

There's a great joy in this for you. So, I'm walking hand in hand with the people of God. I'm walking hand in hand with those that I am called to serve.

Now, there's another really, really important commitment level from you. And that commitment level in any kind of a discipleship process is that I am going to allow, I'm going to allow the Holy Spirit to set ministry outcomes. Now, let me explain why that's so important.

So the Holy, I'm committed to allowing the Holy Spirit to set ministry outcomes. What in the world do I mean by that? Listen, I've been a pastor. I know what it's like.

There's always need for volunteers. There's always need for help in the local church. There's always gaps that need leadership people there.

I beg you, don't pre-position people in your own mind, going into this whole process and say, gosh, they'd be perfect here. They'd be perfect there. They might be, but it is also very probable, highly probable that the Holy Spirit knows better what they will be good at and what they need than what you think they would be good at.

Allow the Spirit to open people's hearts, to set them on a path of ministry service. Be open to what the Lord wants them to do and encourage them to seek this out. We'll talk about this later about gifts and graces and how you can encourage that and help pull it out.

You'll be shocked, delightfully so, joyfully so, at outcomes when you let go of how you think they ought to serve. Now, does that not mean that some of them at the end might come to you and they might say, just as people have said to me, they've said, Steve, where do you think I need to serve? How do you think I need to start this out? And at that point we discern together. But I'm telling you, if they're going to be in a process that helps them listen to the Lord and helps them to grow in the Lord, he'll set their path for them.

So, I'm wondering if there's any other comments now about the commitment level of the leader that would help fill this out. Brother Bill. Actually, I just had a clarifying question.

You've used the phrase means of grace. Thank you. Yes.

What is that? Well, the means of grace. We're going to talk more about this. The means of grace are whatever disciplines the Lord gives us, especially as outlined in the Word that help us draw closer to the Lord.

Now, let me give you a quick illustration. When I was growing up, I was surrounded by wheat fields and, you know, I was a part of America's breadbasket. I've plowed, you know, who knows how many thousands of acres of wheat fields.

I've harvested wheat. While I could set some of the conditions, just a few, just a few conditions for that wheat to grow. I never, ever caused one single grain of wheat to sprout forth and bring forth 30-fold, 50-fold, 100-fold.

I've seen 150 plus fold grains coming forth from one grain. I didn't cause that. That's the Lord's work to bring forth the growth.

I just helped the conditions. So, in means of grace, we know that a prayer, Jesus modeled prayer for us, right? We know that Jesus is the living word of God and that the word of God is inspired. And so, we love that word.

We allow it to speak to us. We are trained by that word. We know that we're called to worship the Lord, to partake in the holy sacraments with the body of Christ.

We know, we know, we know that we're called to fast appropriately and take that bigger word of fasting. Yes, fasting on a weekly basis as you are physically able to, but also pulling away from anything that would hold my heart down. We know the word of God calls us to serve.

So service is a means of grace. And we know we're not, we're called to not neglect coming together, meeting, discipling one another. So that's just to start.

So let me let you follow on. Well, as you were talking, I was thinking back to one of the earlier sessions about our understanding of the church and how some people have this two-part, you know, the paid people have to be the holy ones and we can sit in the back seat. And I think our understanding of the nature of the body of Christ really does affect this because if you have one person that's doing three people's jobs, they're not going to have time to disciple.

And I know pastors that can't because they're too busy mowing the lawn. And then there's other people that don't think it's their responsibility. So it just really, who are we in Christ and what is the body of Christ really does affect this, doesn't it? I love it.

Classic over-dependence upon the pastor. Classic underperforming in the body of Christ. And really both sides are guilty of this.

There's a long, long history. Sometimes at Asbury, we talk about the Christendom era, which probably has its early roots in the 300s when it became OK to be a church. But the Christendom era sets certain people in authority, tasks certain people with a ministry position and then pacifies 95 percent, right? Whatever the percentage is.

That's not a Christian model. It's a Christendom era where the church had prominence in the society. That's collapsing.

Well, that has collapsed, right? Thank the Lord in this postmodern world. That Christendom model is dead. It's time to resurrect a Christian model where every member of the body of Christ has responsibility.