Jesus's Plan to Change the Planet - John Tolson

well good morning good to see you all today it is a privilege to introduce our chapel speaker today and my friend dr john tolson of the tolson group founder of the gathering usa john tolzin has taught and spoken nationally and internationally for more than 45 years because he started speaking when he was three john has spiritually mentored hundreds of thousands of adults and students through conferences chaplaincy and the books that he has written in fact about one million people have been helped through the gathering a discipling ministry that he founded john's deepest desire is to see people become the leaders god has created them to be successful in family life and business he has served as a faith developer for some of the nation's leading executives celebrities and athletes he started one of the very first chaplain programs in the nba and has served multiple professional sports teams he's an avid basketball player and fan and he holds a personal best please listen to this a personal best record of 127 straight free throws we just need to pause and give him congratulations for that there's a fascinating story that you need to hear about that at some point in time married to punky leonard tolson in 2001 and would you please join me in welcoming punky who is here with us today john is the father of two grown children with his late wife ruth ann and has three adorable grandchildren he received his master of divinity from columbia seminary and doctorate of ministry from fuller theological seminary he is a longtime friend of dallas seminary and we're just thrilled to have him here today would you please join me in welcoming dr john tolson today here's something else man [Laughter] don't forget that mask okay uh there was a couple um that had a daughter who was brilliant and she was getting ready to decide where she was going to go to college and they wanted her to go they lived on the east coast they wanted to go to school on the east coast but she wanted to go to school on the west coast well her parents understood that all the funky stuff usually happens on the west coast sorry if you're from the west coast but all the funky stuff and trends start on the west coast they come back through texas they go back to the east coast and there we go but she her will prevailed and she went to college on the west coast so a week goes by two weeks goes by three weeks goes by no emails no text no nothing no letters finally one day this letter came in the mail dear mom and dad i'm sorry that i've not written you for so long but all my stationery was lost the night the tormentory was burned down by the demonstrators i'm out of the hospital now the doctor says my eyesight should be back to normal sooner or later the wonderful boy bill who rescued me from the fire kindly offered to share his apartment with me until i found a new place to live you always wanted a grandchild so you'd be glad to know you'll be grandparents next month love mary then at the bottom there was a ps please disregard the above exercise in creative writing there was no fire i haven't been in the hospital i'm not pregnant in fact i don't even have a boyfriend but i did get a d in french and f of mathematics and i want to make sure you receive this news and the proper perspective so i hope you'll receive what i'm going to say today in the proper perspective and let me make it very clear i'm not here to waste your time i'm not here to waste my time i don't have a lot of time i'm probably older than all of you in this room not put together but older than most of you in this room so uh let me just make one statement then i'm gonna dive right in and i hope you'll take notes unless you have a photographic memory this is big time important so um if you do what i'm going to suggest you do today from the scripture if you do it your life and everything you do until he calls you home wherever you work wherever you're employed whatever minister you're leading or whatever you're doing will never be the same again and you're wondering is this guy smoking something i ain't smoking nothing i'm just going to tell you the truth and a lot of times people don't tell us the truth so you ready here we go i believe jesus had a strategy to change the planet i believe that the strategy that jesus had to change the planet is not being employed today in our churches and ministries around the united states and around the world probably more outside the united states than in the united states if at all the strategy to change the planet that jesus laid out in the scripture works the problem is a lot of times we don't work it nothing wrong with a strategy and so hang on we're going to jump in here so if you look in your scripture and make a note of this and go to matthew chapter number four uh verse number uh i think it's number uh chap verse number 17 chapter number four jesus begins his uh ministry and it begins with verse 17 saying from that time jesus began to preach and to say repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand so i mean he hits hard boom right at it so he comes with a very tough message and jesus was never superfluous he was never shallow he always spoke the truth he came right at you so it's a tough message then if you go to verses 18 to 22 he gives a tough challenge and at verse 18 and jesus walking by the sea of galilee saw two brothers simon called peter and andrew his brother casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen then he said to them follow me and i'll make you fishers of fish no fishers of men are you listening and so then he goes on down and you can read the rest of the passage so now he gives a tough challenge but then he goes further if you go to matthew 5 6 and 7 which we know as a sermon on the mount he now gives a tough surgery because he knew that what a disciple is is determined by what a disciple is inside what a disciple is determined by the character so he gets out literally the spiritual scalpel and begins to go deep inside the hearts of these disciples because he knows this is an inside job if i don't get the job done on the inside then the outside it's not going to be what he wants it to be he is literally setting up a group of men that will begin a movement to turn the world upside down and he knows he can't mess around we just can't go to class take a few notes get a couple degrees by the way i think most of us are educated way beyond our intelligence think about that one point being we know more than we do so he's saying here i'm going to dig deep matthew 5 3 blessed are the poor in spirit blessed well off to be envy 2 be congratulated are those who understand their spiritual bankruptcy before a holy god and then to understanding that say to him lord i need your help help me then he goes on blessed are those who in the verse four are mourned and it has a lot of renderings but one of the things that means is blessed are those who are willing to say they're sorry for their sin and sorry enough to quit oh that kind of gets in there a little bit doesn't it then he goes on blessed are the meek not the weak but the meek and he said if you want to be meek then you've got to be teachable and you've got to be under god's control well we can find out real quickly if we evaluate that one if we're meek if we're teachable and for enter is control because the way you know whether you're under his control or not are you doing what he says to do very simple you're doing what he says to do so jesus method to change the planet is this you ready 12 men 12 people we would say today 12 men he spends three years building into 12 men the majority of his time all studies say and even a reading of the four gospels will tell you the majority of his time was with 12 men they got the best of him so here it is twelve men three years i believe that strategy was either stupid or it was supernatural i believe it was supernatural so he sets a movement in motion he dies he's buried he's raised from the dead everything is in place to begin this movement he meets the disciples in galilee on a mountain and then he utters these unbelievable final famous words and marching order in matthew 28 some of the most misunderstood words in the bible when people read this they think it's talking about evangelism that's a component but that's not the major understanding of this passage i would suggest to you humbly matthew 28 i'm going to verse 19. you really want to read 16-20 verse 19 go translate it as you are going therefore make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit teaching them to observe all the things i have commanded you and lo i am with you always even to the end of the age and so here he comes with his philosophy this this this thing about making disciples so what in the world does it mean to make a disciple if you're a football fan and if you're not if you look back in in nfl history one of the great coaches of all time was a man a coach named vince lombardi and the story is told that every year when he would start a new season what he would do is the first meeting he'd get the whole team together all the staff and he'd get out of football he'd look at these gentlemen and he would say gentlemen this is a football you say why did he do that they knew what a football on all he was trying to say we are here to play and focus on the game of football so what i'm going to do today is i'm going to throw another concept out disciple it's very interesting in the bible the word christian is only mentioned three times three the word disciple and it all depends on what translation you look at is mentioned around 269 times so if i see something that's mentioned three times and something 269 i'm you know i'm not real smart i was a pe major but i can figure out this must be pretty important over here so if you do your study and your research and your due diligence you look all those up and you take all that research and pour it in the top of the filter out of the bottom of the filter drop three things it means in the new testament you've got to get this i mean this is a life changer number one a disciple first of all is a learner now i hang around a lot of people that pride themselves in being very astute and they like to read and study and they they'd like to tell you what they know but let me tell you something about learning biblically speaking to know and not to do is not to know at all true learning biblically speaking only takes place when it changes how we live if it's not changing you you haven't learned it you got information but it's not transforming you so when you're out there someday doing some minister even now going through school is wrong desperately wrong so that's a learner the second thing a disciple is a disciple is a follower and it comes from a concept of like an adhesive it's something that sticks to something else and in this case a person sticking to jesus he's the leader i'm not now the implications of following him are daunting but that's part of being a disciple but the third part is where we mostly leave out an understanding of disciple making and this is the critical part i've talked to pastors and leaders ministry leaders all across this country for over 40 some years and when i begin asking them what does it mean what does it mean to be a disciple make disciples it's like a deer in headlights literally i was meeting with a group of church planters in a church not too far from here a couple years ago about 20 church planters and i was asked to come in to make some thoughts and comments about disciple making and so i asked him what does matthew 28 19 mean go make disciples i mean there's like a three or four minute sinus nobody was saying anything finally one out of 20 raised his hand and said something which was kind of halfway right we think because we read it and familiarity with verse we know what it means i don't think that's always true so a follower and a learner are the first two components but thirdly a disciple is a re-producer it's taking what the spirit of god through the scripture and through another person investing in you taking that and beginning to live it out faithfully and intentionally taking someone else pouring that into them not just the information but also the relationship pause for a second most of me i've worked with men around this country for over 43 years and let me tell you there's one and women need the same thing females need the same thing but men are isolated as christians often and have no one walking with them building them up helping them to be strong in their families in their personal life in their work in their place of work and in their influence through that and so as a result we never see them flourish and so we to reproduce means take another believer build a foundation of faith in that person's life that not only they can know but live by but to get them ready to go with somebody else and build into their lives then the original person takes somebody else so that that mathematical multiplying exponential factor kicks in and it beats addition all the time most of us operate with addition not multiplication addition will never change the planet jesus was into multiplication 12 men got them ready in three years cut them loose that's why you're here today because some of those 12 men what they did even though one pooped out on him what they did faithfully for christ is why we're here today who knows who knows him because of you who has a foundation in their life of faith and is multiplying because of you who is it a man the other night in florida where i was doing a wedding my wife and i were down in sarasota did his beautiful wedding and talking to some people afterwards and the guy with the gentleman was talking about disciple making and and and so uh um i said who are you discipling he seemed to be so excited about i said who are you who's your man he said well i don't have one well then you don't understand disciple making i wasn't quite that bold with him but i said i said then you're then you're not doing it let me tell you in dallas texas and around the country here's what disciple making means to most people it's a biblical theological truck it but it backs up to your church it dumps out all the theology and all the bible as good as it may be dumps it out pulls off and say we discipled you that is not disciple making my friends that's an information dump important information so we need to understand well let's read another passage second timothy 2 2. oh this is a good one and we need to know this one and it says ii timothy 2 2 paul says to timothy who's probably 17 18 years old we're not sure and the things timothy you have heard from me among many witnesses in trust the word entrust is a banking term make a deposit in in trust make a deposit in these two faithful men or women i'll add who will be able to teach others also it's not very hard to understand that this thing is supposed to be passed on you know what we do is we become a depository for truth instead of a dispenser of truth we're to dispense it in people's life ordinary people who can live it and build their life in other ordinary people and if we're not doing that forget it charlie you can have all the greatest churches in the world and all the greatest sermons and all the great exposition exegetical expository experiences but let me tell you ain't going to change the planet you'll change a few but what he said was you're going to do what i tell you to do or not go and make disciples who was this for this was for all true believers of all times sometimes people say well it's not my gift i don't have the there's nowhere in the bible where it mentions in any of the gift list in the new testament the gift of disciple making it's not mentioned there so why haven't people discipled i think first of all they've never been discipled you can't give something away you've not experienced or have you can only take a person as far as you've gone yourself so i was meeting with one of the leading one of the greatest one of the most famous bible teachers in the world about five years ago and we went to another city my friend two friends and myself and we sat with this man believing that if this person could ever get an understanding of disciple making because of their platform he could help us spread this literally all across the country and beyond so we had dinner went to his home sat there and he said would you give me just a little reason why you're here i said well i'll talk about this thing called disciple make and i gave him about a 15-minute overview after 15 minutes and if i all i need to say is give you the first name and you'll know who he is known worldwide he put his hand on my arm and this is what he said he said let me just tell you something this learner follow or reproduces stuff he said no one and he was 82 years old at the time taught on matthew 28 probably a hundred thousand times and he said john what you just said learner father he said no one ever did that with me and i've never done it with one person you know most of people that i haven't been discipled pastors i'll stake my life on it i'm sad to say some we we've mentored them we walk with them we answer questions about the minute that's great that's not disciple making this is a whole if you are not multiplying in other people's life and getting them ready to multiply in others and that is your key word here lifestyle then you're not doing biblical life you're not doing biblical disciple making this is not another program to put on your list of a hundred things you're doing in your church this is your lifestyle it's what every believer is to be doing and equipped to do and so therefore what are some of the objections to this i'm going to do these quickly because i got some more good stuff to get to here's what i hear from people i'm too busy okay so you're going to tell me that when you meet the lord someday and he says where are your disciples you're going to say what lord i was do no you ain't going to say that you're going to be embarrassed or here's another one i'm not called to be a disciple i say easy answer on that one i'm not called to be a disciple either i'm commanded to be a disciple matthew 28 19 is in the imperative it's a command it's not an option amen you know pick and choose why wait why am i gonna this is my style i move better this way come on this is what he said to do listen to me so stick with me well that's meant for the professionals those are people that go to cemetery i mean seminary and so no wrong again i don't know enough you'll never know enough you're always going to be learning so i was training 40 guys one night across town in dallas when it was over they were ready to go start discipling one of the guys comes up to me wait to everybody was gone he came up to me 45 years old very successful in business and he said john john i can't do this so what are you talking about i can't do this i said let me ask you a question and these guys know i love them so i can kind of talk to them kind of rough let me ask you a question can you read well yeah i can read i said get out of here and go do it then so about three months ago i'm at my favorite greasy spoon breakfast place with a couple guys just visiting and here he comes towards me he's got two guys behind him just follow him like little ducks falling to mama duck got this orange book that we use under their arms he came up you remember me sure i remember you why don't you tell the guys what i told you so he told them and then he looked at us and this is what he said john this has changed my life this is a life changer not only your own but everyone else's and so i don't know no here's another one it's fanatical listen all i want to do is go to church give a little and be a good person well man how bland that is there's got to be more to it than that so why don't christians grow up and mature and thrive and because of time i'm going to have to cut short but my wife uh punky is i hope she gets to come here sometime she'll light you up but let me tell you she used to work in orlando at the neonatal intensive care unit that arnold palmer and winnie palmer had built and she says in an article she wrote that most people in christ fail to thrive because nobody takes them on and walks with them and invests in them and when you don't have the investment of someone in someone else then you are not for the most part going to thrive grow up and be mature and i think it's interesting in our country that a lot of people that are older want to be younger a lot of people that younger want to be older but very few people want to grow up and be mature and immature people ain't going to get it done for jesus let me just tell you that right now so here are some questions what is the plan here for you what is your plan to make disciples what's your plan can you write me an outline right now give me a quick little island you should know that what are you going to cover what are you going to build into it number two i want you to write out the at least the names of three to five people you've discipled what'd you do with them how did they come along and and mature third question now for those three to five people i want you to write at least one name by each of those people that they've discipled and if you don't get to the second the third and the fourth generation you're not making disciples you're having a good time with them you may love on them you may spend time with them you may pray through difficult things with them which is all part of disciple making so what is the what what happens when we don't do this so let me read a note from george barna one of my favorite researchers he said in a nationwide survey we asked people to describe their goals in life almost nine out of ten adults describe themselves as christians four out of ten say they were personally committed to jesus christ confess their sins believe they go to heaven after they die because of god's grace provided through jesus's death and resurrection but oh there's always a bud but not one of the adults we interviewed said that their goal in life was to be a committed follower of jesus christ or make disciples this survey by the way included interviews with pastors and church leaders as well as hundreds of people who regularly attended church services and programs and then dallas willard said this in the great omission for those who lead or minister there are yet greater questions what authority or bases do i have to baptize people who have not been brought to a clear decision to be a disciple of christ there i tell people as believers without discipleship that they are at peace with god and god with them where can i find justification for such a message listen perhaps most important do i minister as a minister have faith to undertake the work of disciple making is my first aim first aim to make disciples who reproduce or i do i just as a pastor run an operation a lot of people running operations not a whole lot of life coming out a lot of these places a lot of them a lot of movement a lot of business a lot of programs but not so you say what's the key to this there's a key then i'm going to give you a couple illustrations as i close the issue that has to be dealt with is the issue of obedience am i going to do what jesus said to do or not so man i think it was john 2 the wedding of canaan you remember they ran out of water great one of my favorite passages and so jesus's mom that talks to the servants you remember what he said listen listen servants just do what he tells you to do oh we get it so complicated just do open the book read it do what it says open a book read it so if you happen to come across matthew 28 19 understand what it means go do it you say well no one's ever discipled me we can help you with that we've got people we've raised up all across this country that's what they're doing we just need more of them can you imagine what would happen if we had a million people every day all across this country that we're discipling one let me show i'm going to show you what will happen if you uh if you'll put up the chart now and we're going to go one line at a time okay and so kia go to the next slide so if you start here sorry if i don't i don't know if i'm supposed to move or not but if you have one person with two people you disciple that person for a year at the end you got three and then the next year you got you got year two you got three and then six and then nine if no one drops out go to year ten starting with one person and two people you have 59 000 people you want to know how to change the plan listen jesus knew what he was talking about he wasn't just saying this to say something he was saying it so we'd obey it then if you put 10 people in a church or a group and doing that at the end of the 10th year 590 000 and some of these big mega church if you had 100 people or a thousand well it knocks the place out who wouldn't want to do this this is not hard now it takes time you got to invest in people you got to give your life to people so let me close with some illustrations in my last six or seven minutes let me tell you about ed let me tell you about ed so about i guess it was three years ago four years ago i was asked to go downtown to a large downtown church to do a year-long study with men uh and it was like 12 lunches and they were going to bring everybody together and i was going to speak well before i started the fellow that invited me down said there's a man at that church that heard you're just serious about disciple making i said he said well he wants to meet with i said well i'd love to meet with him so we went to breadwinners up here on northwest highway and i walk in i'm waiting for them to come in in comes my buddy and then comes this guy on a walker i said well this is going to be interesting sits down turns out he's 91 years old former attorney in this town used to own a restaurant called the highland park cafeteria for years with his family he said all right son i've been a lawyer all right son tell me about this stifle making i love it i love his demeanor is beautiful so i said let me give you a little overview so i did and then i gave him a book that we use all over the country to as a roadmap for people to disciple people i said why don't you read that week later he calls me hey john i read it this is it i read that book it's good no he's real good that's why i appreciate that ed then he said he said what i do now i said i thought you read the book it tells you in the introduction in chapter 28 what to do you got to pick somebody so i kind of gave him a few remarks and oh and some hints and stuff to do so about a month and a half later we were going to go out of town and i called it can i come over your high-rise and see you on northwest highway at the athena he said come on up so i go after the 17th floor he and his 91 year old wife meet me at the door just beautiful big i hope when i'm 91 i can be that like that this is great these are so exciting people so anyway we sit down so all right give me an update what's going on he said well uh john he said i've got five men i picked they come up here one at a time just like you told me to do and before i took them on i did exactly what you told me to do i said do not waste my time if you do not intend and can't make a commitment on the front end that when we're done you'll take somebody else and you ask the same expectation of them and you'll do that the rest of your life he said i got five of them they come up here an hour and 15 minutes every week and we're going through the four p's this is he said john why is my church doing this i said good question we won't get into that right now but anyway so uh he calls me about uh i don't know i guess maybe a month or two later john i've been i just got back from the hospital i said what's wrong yeah he said well i was i was a little weak and short of breath and he said they put a pacemaker in i'm back at it now now he's 92. so in at the beginning of 2020 he graduates five guys five i said how old are these guys ed i'm thinking they're probably 80 or 90 years old like him three of them in their 30s studs and two of them 150 and 160. now he graduates eight five of them calls me up later in the in the spring in 2020 and said well i got three more how many 92 year old people do you know that are going out like that he called me up one day he said john he said let me ask you something if something happens to me and and i don't and i don't make it i go home to be with the lord will you take these guys and finish them up and get them out there you know anybody cares like that about disciple making you ought to we should have them all over the planet so that's ed larry o'donnell a graduate of this school this past year used to be the head of waste management is in austin he is discipling people all over that city and i keep up with him every week and i think thankful for ken horton who's been doing this through this school for years and we're kind of teamed up together doing this right now as a result of starting with mark's blessing and george hillman starting this last september we now have over 100 students all across this country through the seminary that are being discipled one-on-one every week and you wouldn't believe the stories representing 13 states and 28 cities and it's getting ready to grow way beyond that so listen if you're not making disciples who are making disciples then you're simply not doing what jesus said to do you see john you're coming too hard at this that's what i do i come hard at people if i'm not doing what jesus told me to do then i'm simply not doing what he told me to do now listen to this i'm going to give you a thought then close up more time oh this is a home run more time with fewer people equals a greater impact for christ more time invested in fewer people equals a greater impact for jesus christ we're all into big how about just one or two listen it doesn't take many to change a world all you need is a handful of people jesus took 12. here's my hope and then i'm going to read something and we're out of here i hope that one day dallas seminary will be known as the place to go to understand and be equipped to make disciples who make disciples there is no seminary in the country doing that and one of the men that left this school and went home to be the lord and taught here for 40 years said my greatest greatest heartache at teaching for 40 some years at the seminary is so few of my students actually went out in the ministry and made disciples so i closed with this the next time you feel god can't use you just remember noah was a drunk abraham was too old isaac was a daydreamer jacob was a liar leah was ugly joseph was abused moses had a stuttering problem gideon was afraid sampson had long hair and was a womanizer rahab was a prostitute jeremiah timothy were too young david had an affair was a murderer elijah was suicidal isaiah preached naked that must have been a scene jonah ran from god naomi was a widow job went bankrupt peter denied christ the disciples fell asleep while praying martha worried about everything so the samaritan woman was divorced more than once zacchaeus was too small paul was too religious timothy had an ulcer lazarus was dead what's your excuse i'm out of here thank [Applause] you

Channel: Dallas Theological Seminary

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Length: 36min 26sec (2186 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 23 2021