Making Disciples - Bill Hull

my name is Bill hull and I am a former pastor and writer and a discipleship evangelist and for that reason I'm going to talk with you a few minutes about the whole issue of what conversion and discipleship is and conversions relationship to discipleship because the gospel oftentimes people think is simply about a decision and you get into heaven well let me explain what I think that is a false belief about the gospel and why it's important to understand the gospel in all its fullness recently there's a resident Renaissance in the whole area of making disciples and of discipleship but like Charles Dickens famous novel The Tale of Two Cities it was the best of times and it was the worst of times so it's the best of time in that there is this Renaissance and we thank God for that it's the worst of times in that we have some problems with our gospel and there are many kinds of Gospels that are preached in America and around the world for that matter but what I like to talk with you today about is a clearer way of understanding what it is and what I believe that whatever the gospel is that essentially when it calls us to salvation it calls us all to discipleship as well no exceptions and no excuses in fact the way I would explain this is simple simply in a some drawings the first thing that you'll notice is I'm just going to make a box a simple box and everybody agrees I have yet to met me the pastor a Christian leader who doesn't believe that making disciples is a priority that this is really what it's all about but also most discussions about making disciples starts here with the commission that Jesus gave us and you can understand why that would be the case and so then the next thing is okay we need to have a vision and the next person would say we need to have models or we need to have a strategy and so people essentially the conversation is all around methods ways to implement if we can find people who are doing it really good then we need to model that or follow that and learn from it and that has its place but a number of years ago I met a Christian writer and philosopher named Dallas Willard and when he mentioned to me one day that there was no theology of discipleship in America and anywhere in the world as far as he understood it while it was there in the scriptures that nobody really had was clear about it and as a result it was costing us a great deal and it was creating a severe problem and the problem that it was creating was that people believe and teach that you could become a Christian and not follow Jesus think about that that's huge that's a huge problem because essentially then anything other than getting saved and getting into heaven and having your sins forgiven was an option any if you wanted to live for Christ if you wanted to walk with Him if you wanted to be dedicated to him then you would have to then add on something that you really don't have to do because it's not going to touch you whether or not you end up in heaven or not and so as a result many many people don't take up the option on their contract additionally pastors spend much of their ministry life trying to talk people into something doing something which is improve their game be more dedicated and devoted yet those people don't believe that they have to do it that it's really necessary and so what dallas willard and i talked about was there's a box above the box and the box above the box is the gospel because the gospel that we believe in determines the kind of disciple we make and that all of these downstream issues are important but upstream at the source is the message that we have and what does the gospel we believe in naturally lead to does it lead to people who are living for others people who are dedicated to the agenda that christ gave us that he authorized us to do to make and be disciples and to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth and then the end would come or is it about how we're doing getting closer to God or the in Soleri way in which is non-reproductive discipleship plans that oftentimes are just based on this down stream but you have to connect the gospel to the ultimate goal but the gospel then is anyone who is called to salvation is also called to discipleship no exceptions no excuses now why is this important the reason it's important is because let me draw some more boxes this box is what we would call our non discipleship gospel so the non discipleship gospel then is going to create a disciple and this disciple is going to be a reflection of what this particular gospel is now most of the Gospels that are preached in America today are about self or self fulfillment or religious goods and services and so we are so well trained as consumers that it's almost impossible for us to think outside of that consumer box and so over here we let's say we have another box and in this box we're going to put christ-like disciple if you start with a non discipleship gospel and try to create a desai tack right like disciple you cannot get from here to there that's the problem so the problem is what kind of people are we placing into the harvest field or into the community what kind of people are we producing as a church and essentially you have to have a christ-like gospel but let me pull call it this just for our purposes today hey follow me gospel because essentially this is about self and Jesus was about others that's the major distinction jesus said I have come not to be served but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for others and so that is why it really does matter what we believe the gospel is because the gospel essentially you cannot get for a non discipleship gospel to a Christ like disciple and if that's what we're trying to achieve then we have to switch from the Gospels that the God kind of gospel that we're teaching to one that naturally leads to a follower of Christ now there's a couple of other matters and for that we need to draw another picture just as the gospel needs to be for others in order to reap to produce disciples who live for others who are Christ's like in the in our country and frankly what dominates the entire Christian world is this that a person starts down here and they believe that up here is where they want to go and so we say if you'll practice certain disciplines fasting praying giving serving being missional a whole list of things that would be spiritual disciplines that if you practice these then you will reach X which is the spot the problem with this is no one ever really arrives because we realize that as we develop over the years that we find out more and more reasons why we're not a really amateur follower of Christ and because this ask a question how am i doing how am i doing is the question that drives this paradigm we call this the human paradigm and it's a closed system meaning that it does not reproduce it cannot break out of the shell that it's in it's the human paradigm we call this the false promise of discipleship it's a false promise because we say we can get from here to here by doing these activities and we don't get there now what is the alternative the alternative is to draw another circle and put a cross in the middle of it and essentially you see these people think that discipleship primarily in this closed system and it'll solve all your problems essentially if you get closer to God however because you don't arrive you don't really ever get as close to God as you think you ought to be and you spend a lot of your life lamenting the fact that you aren't close to God but you get up here and the thing is you've already arrived now this is just more than theology but it's you've already arrived you're already close to Jesus you can't get any closer than being adopted into his family and so essentially it's about being aware then of all of what God has provided and accomplished in you so X here marks the spot you don't get to X becomes a cross now what does this mean how does this work out in any way that's definitively different well we have another circle down here and this circle is filled with other people and these other people are the people that God has already put in your life and so we have a different question it's a question that Christ asked and he was continually prodding his disciples with this question and it is how am i doing loving the people that God has already put in my life that's the question because now these people are made up of different segments of our life like family so we have our family and we have our friends we have our spiritual family our church and we have what might even be called the people of peace these are people that they're not followers of Christ but they like us they've invited us into their lives and so the reason we state it this way how am i doing loving the people that God has already put in my life because this word already gives you names and faces now love is an ethereal kind of concept but think about it back to the very origin God is love that simple statement God is love is irrelevant unless God loves unless he asks someone to love so God loves us and he gave to us he sacrificed for us it's been demonstrated over and over again in our lives so as a result what we understand is that love is an action taken for the benefit of another person so how am I in very concrete ways loving these people my wife or my husband my children my extended family my friends at church the people that are my friends the people who are well let's face it sometimes aren't my enemies or my irritants and then the people I work with and associates and the people in the neighborhood in the community and if you are loving those people as Christ loved the church then essentially what's going to happen is that if you love is Christ loved then the least of your problems will be finding somebody who really wanted wants to be around you that wants to be attracted to you into Christ and you now here is another issue right here we have what we might call the spiritual disciplines so you say what are the role of the spiritual disciplines well the spiritual disciplines are in our life in order to create in us a Christ likeness and qualities where we're willing to live for others that we can love these people that's what makes sense now it all comes together so you have really three big questions how am i doing which leads to a closed system it's non reproducible God why how can you be so good which creates in me and awareness of all that God is completely done for me and then out of that awareness I'm asking myself this question how am i doing loving the people that God has already put in my life and as that happens then I began to understand the role of the Bible and prayer and fasting and silence and solitude and frugality and secrecy and all the other kinds of spiritual disciplines that God has introduced into us but remember this unless Jesus did it don't bother with it so this is what I think essentially is the message the message is that if we are all called to salvation everyone whose call to salvation is also called to discipleship and as disciples it's not about living for ourselves it's about living for others and as my friend Dallas Willard once said if you take a fun when you take all the discipleship principles and all the discipleship techniques and all the things we've all learned and you pour it into the top of a funnel and out of the bottom comes only one thing that's really of value and that's God's agape love love that's concrete and extending to others and so I hope that you think about the problem and see what the solution is and just to reiterate the problem is that we believe in a gospel oftentimes and teach it and it's quite too common that you can become a Christian and not follow Jesus and that needs to be changed to everyone who is called to salvation is called to discipleship no exceptions no excuses and then we can move into this new realm of understanding what the gospel is and how it relates to other people and as Jesus said the worst kept secret in all the world if you give up your life you'll get it back

Channel: Exponential

Views: 18,289

Rating: 4.9352226 out of 5

Keywords: Bill Hull, discipleship, Exponential, church planting, multiplication

Id: 1x3cIie-xEk

Length: 17min 31sec (1051 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 09 2016