Discipleship is Replicable

every Christian is in one of two categories either we are fumbling the hand off you know to the next generation leaving a legacy or we're running with passion and we're running with passion in order to give that on to the people behind us I think discipleship is investing the gospel in someone who's going to invest it in other people so I first met Jim Shaddix when I went down to New Orleans seminaries looking at potentially going to school there and he hosted me for a meal and we're sitting there over lunch and got to know him some I'd heard about him cuz he's written books about preaching and somebody had said to me David when you go to seminary find somebody but you can really study under and just learn from and I knew pretty quick that this is somebody I wanted to learn from and study under so when my wife and I moved down to New Orleans we were living on campus and so were the Shattuck PSA's and so our discipleship relationship really was just in the context of life on a regular basis we would go over to their house for meals Jim would run a lot around campus just exercising I wasn't a big runner but I was like ah I'm gonna learn from this brother that I guess I got to learn to run and so I'd go on long runs with him and and it was during those kind of times that he was running and would quote scripture to one another or just be sharing about different things and he said there's life and then we'd have times together where we where we pray together or we'd study the word and then of course I was interacting with a little class and then we'd travel together he would take me along one place who's going so it's really in the rhythms of everyday life that he just by God's grace just invited me into those rhythms God benefited my life as much from David as I you know what whatever contribution I could have made his life so that I think there were numerous times that we've had the opportunity to minister to one another you know one that stands out during the you know the journey that we had together in the word Sameer was the unexpected death of his dad immediately my wife Heather called Jim Deborah Jim's wife and Jimmy they came over to the house and just remember I'm walking in give me a big hug and crying with me there and then driving me from New Orleans Atlanta for the funeral and yeah just that really summarizes what he has done in my life he's been that kind of influence on me that's father like and and the kind of influence that has it has enabled me to walk through difficult times that's what yeah our asylum Meaghan relationship has really played out and the furnace of affliction that just becomes all the sweeter one of the verse of scripture I guess if David had a life verse you know was John the Baptist words he must increase but I must decrease and I had the privilege of preaching david's ordination and preached from that text knowing that it was you know was a verse that was really really at his heart well i think about what i would want people to know about Jim chantix I just I would I want him to know that he's a normal person so when you think of somebody disciple in somebody else it's like oh you have to be like a super Christian to do that like no like he's just a normal person at the same time this is a brother who and I I respect so deeply his walk with the Lord this is a man who walks humbly with God in order to understand the impact of David disciple in me I need to tell you a little bit about my testimony to show you what happened leading up to that so I was radically saved from a life of drug and alcohol addiction and so I'm like eight months removed from that I got saved in November August right after the summer I'm sitting in Edgewater Baptist Church at a church service Jim Shaddix is the pastor David Platt is an evangelist seminary student and leading up to this time about June a girl I'd known from college said to me she said Robby you're like a sponge you're really excited about learning things in the Christian life you need to be discipled you're like a Timothy you need a Paul and so I said to people still do that and she said yeah if you pray for it so I'll be going to pray for two months God sends someone to invest in me so one day I'm standing in the lobby of a church building when I was serving part time and this huge dude walks in the lobby he comes up starts talking to me and I'm like just kind of swallowed up by this guy I just didn't conversation with him trying to shake his hand or whatever and he starts telling me about what God has done in his life and just recently saving him from all kinds of things and he said I need somebody to show me what it means to follow Christ and so I'm like all right well are you doing for lunch Monday let's get together we began to meet once a week after that and he just invested in me we shared life together we studied the word together he gave me at that time a passion for the unreached onion unengaged people groups of the world one of the things I love most about Robby is its hunger his hunger for God is hunger to learn and a humility that's there like we would sit every week just having lunch and he'd just write notes on napkins like everything I'm saying now I was always a note-taker and David would even probably say that that I'd come with napkins and I would write down things and he would tell me and and I'd have notebooks full of insights that he'd give me so you knew like I knew when I'm talking with him that he's not just taking this he's just not kind letting this roll off like he's taking this in he is hungry to grow in Christ and he told me this years ago he said Robby you never learning for yourself you're learning for the person behind you so early on I learned I'm not learning for me I'm taking notes I'm writing down in order to pass on who would come after me yeah so my line first would be second Timothy 2:2 what you've heard from me in the presence of many witnesses and Trust the faithful men who are able to teach others also so much so that we my wife and I impacted by David impacted by another man Tim Lafleur years later two men just poured their life to me and you know the greatest gift you can give back to a disciple maker is not anything material anything monetary the greatest giving give back to the disciple maker is to pass on what was given to you I really believe when we get to heaven Jesus not going to be impressed with how big our churches are it's not gonna be impressed with how wide our ministries grow it's not going to be impressed with how much money we made or even our 401ks I do believe one of the first questions will be how well have we obeyed Jesus's final words or in essence have we made his final words the Great Commission to go therefore make disciples our first work and hopefully we can say we did you

Channel: Lifeway Adults Ministry

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Id: nr3maicVyEk

Length: 7min 28sec (448 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 06 2016