Disciples

Love: The Catalyst of Missions

Love: The Catalyst of Missions

Guest Speaker - Jay Armstrong - 10/1/2023

Key Passage: 1 Timothy 1:5

Missions Emphasis Week - Part 1

What do we mean when we say Gospel / Disciple?

- The gospel that you preach determines the disciples we produce.

Axiom: Christianity without Discipleship is always Christianity without Christ

- “Christianity without Discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A Better Question: Jesus, how am I doing loving the people you’ve given me to love?

- What are we practicing?

- How are we preparing?

Grow in Grace

- Grace is God at work on our behalf to help us become and do what we could never become nor do on our own for our best good and His highest glory.

- Titus 2:11-15

The Disciple’s Process

1. Believe like Jesus

2. Live like Jesus

3. Love like Jesus

4. Serve like Jesus

5. Lead like Jesus

The Royal Command

- Love God. Love People.

- Matthew 22:32-40

A Divine Example

- As I have loved you

- John 15:11-17

A Disciple’s Duty

- Live as people of love

- Can we ever really say, we love God whom we haven’t seen if we are not willing to love the people he commands us to love who live right next door?

- Information alone doesn’t create transformation.

The Church: a community of faithful love.

- Motivated by relationships built on love, not on traditions, personalities, finances, programs, buildings, or events.

Relationships

- The end

- The means

- The message

Without Wax

- When love is sincere

Defining Love

- Love is the ongoing sacrificial pursuit of God’s best for another person.

Paul’s Purpose

- 1 Timothy 1:5

- The goal of our instruction is love

Two Goals

1. Love more people than we’ve ever loved before

2. Love people longer than we ever have before

Axiom:

- it’s more important to be than do

- It’s more important what happens in you than to you.

- You cannot give to others what you do not posses yourself.

Missions Emphasis Week - A Love for Jesus

Missions Emphasis Week - A Love for Jesus

10/9/2022 - Micah Williams

Key Passage: John 14:23-24

A love for Jesus looks like a love for the marginalized

  • Matthew 25:31-40

    • Hungry, thirsty, naked, imprisoned, strangers

    • Do we see those who are on the margins?

    • What if it was Jesus in need?

A love for Jesus looks like a love for the lost

  • Matthew 28:19-20

  • Mark 16:15-16

    • The gospel is good news.

      • Not everybody knows the good news.

      • The vast majority of people we brush shoulders with do not know Jesus.

A love for Jesus looks like a commitment to living missionally  

  • Romans 10:13-17

    • We have to tell others.

    • They won’t hear unless somebody says something.

    • How do you spend your time and your money?

Set your sights on eternity 

  • Revelation 19:6-7

Why Family on Mission?

Why Family on Mission?

6/13/21 - Dave Riddle 

Key passages: 1 Timothy 3:15, Matthew 28:18-20

We use the word family because it’s biblical.

Family = oikos (Greek: οἶκος) - an inhabited house, a physical dwelling place. Also, the inhabitants of a house, all the persons forming one family - a household. 

  • 1 Timothy 3:15 - we are the household of God.

  • The church is called “brother and sisters” over 20 times in the book of Acts alone!

What is our mission?

  • Matthew 28:18-20 - The great commission. Go make disciples…

  • Disciple = mathetes (Greek: μαθητής) - pupil/learner/student - a disciple. In the New Testament, a disciple is one who not only learns, but accepts and adverse to the instruction given to them, making it their personal everyday way of living .

  • Teaching them = didaskō (Greek: διδάσκω) - teaching with the purpose of transformation.

  • Acts 1:8

  • “The church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that [everything else is] simply a waste of time. God became man for no other purpose.” CS Lewis

  • Luke 6:40

Helping People Follow Jesus Together

  1. UP

    • Living in right relationship with the Father.

      • Jesus prioritized his relationship with his Father.

  2. IN

    • Living in right relationship with our church family.

      • You can’t walk in obedience with the will of God if you aren’t walking in right relationship with your brothers and sisters.

  3. OUT

    • Living on mission to reach the world.

      • We are ambassadors, as if God was making his appeal through us!

The First Five Disciples

The First Five Disciples

The Gospel of John - Part 3

8/23/20

Key passage: John 1:35-51

What are you looking for?

  • John 1:38

Come and see

  • John 1:39

You will be called Peter

  • John 1:42

Follow me!

  • John 1:43

  • Follow = akoloutheō 

How do you know me?

  • John 1:48

The Role of “Others”

  • Who are the “others” in your life who pointed you to Christ?

    • Who was your John, Andrew, or Phillip?

  • Who are you pointing to Jesus?

Customized Connection

  • He connected with each disciple in an individualized way.

  • He wants to connect with you in an individualized way too!

Balance of invitation and challenge 

  • Come and see - invitation

  • Follow me - challenge 

  • You will be called “rock” - challenge

The Necessity and Power of Revelation

  • John knew Jesus was the messiah through the revelation of the Holy Spirit

  • Likewise for Andrew, Phillip, and Peter 

God’s Household

A Family on Mission - God’s Household

Dave Riddle - 06/09/19

Key Passages: 1 Timothy 3:15, Matthew 28:18-20, Luke 6:40

Our mission: Helping People Follow Jesus Together!

  • A family on mission!

1 Timothy 3:15 - ... I have written so that you will know how people ought to act in God’s household, which is the church of the living God,  the pillar and foundation of the truth.

  • Household = oikos (Greek: οἶκος) - an inhabited house, a physical dwelling place. Also, the inhabitants of a house, all the persons forming one family - a household. 

    • In the New Testament: the family of God: Where God has made his home. Us!

Matthew 28:18-20 - Then Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.  19 Go, therefore, and make disciples  of  all nations,  baptizing  them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember,  I am with you always,  to the end of the age.” 

  • Disciples = mathēteuō (Greek: μαθητεύω) -  to be a disciple of another, or to make someone a disciple. 

  • mathetes (Greek: μαθητής) - pupil/leaner/student - a disciple. In the New Testament, a disciple is one who not only learns, but accepts and adverse to the instruction given to them, making it their personal everyday way of living .

Luke 6:40 - A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.

  • we are called to become like Jesus and help others become like Him too!

Three-Dimensional Discipleship 

  1. Up (Father)

    • Reconnect with our Father God through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. 

  2. In (Family)

    • We are connected. We can’t do this apart from our brothers and sisters. United in Christ. 

  3. Out (World)

    • Salt and light, ambassadors and witnesses to the world! We exist to reach out into the world to see them become like Jesus too!