The world needs you to make disciples

When Jesus started his ministry, he quoted Isaiah 61:1-2: Preach good news to the poor. Bind up the brokenhearted. Proclaim freedom for captives. Comfort all who mourn. A few questions: How is your church at understanding what the world needs? Do they understand…

By Seth Barnes

23 August 2009, 12:08 am

By Seth Barnes

23 August 2009, 12:08 am

When Jesus started his ministry, he quoted Isaiah 61:1-2:

Preach good news to the poor.
Bind up the brokenhearted.
Proclaim freedom for captives.
Comfort all who mourn.

A few questions: How is your church at understanding what the world needs? Do they understand our mandate in Isaiah 61? Does your congregation do anything with the Sunday morning message? Does anything really change?

A lot of churches where I live in the Bible belt believe that every sermon should have elements of a gospel tract. Congregations are only ever allowed to splash around in the shallow part of the missional pool. They want to go into the deep end – they want to know how to do the stuff that Jesus did. But they leave the church still hungry for something more.

The writer of Hebrews tells us “Let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance…” (Heb. 6:1) It’s time for “Bible-believing” churches to start preaching more sermons that do just that.

Jesus never asked us to get people to pray salvation prayers. That was a 20th century invention. He asked us to make disciples. And wouldn’t you know, it’s the very thing that the world needs most. Jesus showed us the way of hope, of abundant life. To follow him is not to embrace a list of things to do – it’s to discover the key to living a hope-filled life of victory.

This video from Katie Rowland illustrates this point.

Comments (2)

Butch Maltby

August 23, 2009 at 7:14 am

Reply

Good morning Seth and thanks for the prod here punctuated by Katie’s video. She came down from Boone the other day and we spent another in our face-to-face sessions doing a certain kind of “discipling” focused on her life and fulfillment of her spiritual manifest destiny. I send emails on her behalf. Make phone calls. Probe with questions. Pray. And in the end we both receive something from the transactrion and more vitally the Jesus focused relationship.

We no I have made the Gospel so complicated at points. We try to start organizations when all the Father ever wanted was faithfulness in the small things. We equate notoriety
with spiritual impact. We think the Kingdom is built on “good ideas” neglecting to remember that as scripture says “it’s not by might nor by power but by my SPIRIT says the Lord.

We don’t conjure up the Kingdom like some genie in a bottle.

And we can’t advance the Lord’s agenda without a face-to-face and person-by-person discipleship ethic in sharing the gospel.

He’ll take the gutter over a parade any day.
Shawna

August 23, 2009 at 9:15 am

Reply

This is a very good article…I just want to thank you for it.