Be a Maker of Disciples; Helping Others know and Grow in Christ

  The question “what’s in a heart” (well, besides blood 😊) is an odd place to begin talk of starting a home church. Especially since the Bible says “man’s heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?”(Jer. 17:9)

Yet, God knows it, and longs for people to let Him change them on the inside. I share job chances at camp (youth 15-college) next year in the last part; where God really works. You don’t have to be a soulwinner, just pray and see if God calls you to be on staff..

Canton Baptist had a great Memorial Day service you can hear online. (Also, a big praise, I saw vans outside CBT a few times so Canton Baptist must have buses running again.) The message said God is giving people a chance in this age of Grace.  While we can’t change others’ hearts, God can. And, He wants to use us in His work.

Here, I can share a longer pot pourri of how to disciple, with keys to understanding people. A key part of this is listening to others. So, you could start your own Bible study, church, or even 501c3 (you just need an adult for certain things.)

 We’ve been over several things vital to that. 1. Being humble, realizing we’re all sinners. Not acting better than others but coming alongside and helping; 2. Understanding not everyone has a great home and may even need to unlearn some things (the cycle breaking of last month); 3. Letting the Holy Spirit guide as we discuss things and aski questions to understand people; 4. Keeping God’s Word as our foundational truth, but knowing what’s vital doctrinally (like the virgin birth) versus what is just tradition.

Putting these together is vital. I heard of a church whose senior pastor retired. He always had a place on the pulpit to put his reading glasses. If I recall right, a new, younger pastor came in soon before the pulpit was replaced. The church insisted on the exact same type of pulpit even though the new preacher had no need for reading glasses.

That shows how silly some are with traditions. Now, even if they’d had someone bring the reading glasses to him, I’m sure you can think of how that person could still be used. Perhaps he or she puts a cup of water there. Anyone can just smile and work something out there. But, it’s bad if tradition gets in the way of God’s plan.

God’s plan, of course, is for people to trust Him as Saviouir, then grow in Him. It’s of the Great Commission of Mat. 28:18-20 and other verses near the end of the Gospels and Acts 1:8. This means that should be our main goal.

So, to those who talk about the need to sustain the world’s population, or any problems with capitalism or whatever, the idea is to just get them to the cross. As we’ve said, we’re not here to win arguments. We’re here to win souls. If anyone wants to complain about something, why not just agree and say “that’s part of the human nature which makes us all sinners” and share how to be saved. How God gives us free will to choose whether to trust Him or not – He’s not going to use cartoon physics to stop evil.

Think about it – every belief in the world about how to make things better or create a better society is all about man reaching up to God. Maybe the person doesn’t think they’re reaching up to God. But, they are trying to create Heaven on Earth – called a utopia, a perfect world. But, we can’t make a perfect one ourselves.

Of course, we have the right – and privilege – to try to make things better. In the Roman Empire, for instance, it was legal to kill your children at any time. Who do you think put a stop to that? Early followers of Jesus. Who was behind the final end of centuries of evil slavery? It was mostly Christians. We have long fought injustice.

We didn’t do it just to create a perfect world, though. We did it to glorify God.

Think about the Lone Ranger. This is a good place to point to man’s heart, so let’s park here for a second. Actually, no, I hope you weren’t driving in the first place while reading. 😊 We don’t know what was in his heart all the time, but he probably wasn’t prideful but gave God praise for his abilities, etc.. Whether he had head or heart knowledge of Jesus, I don’t know, but we can pretty much agree he had good intentions.

That’s a great example of how someone can have good intentions (helping others) but we shouldn’t just presume they know Jesus. They could have head knowledge only and never have called on Him by faith to save them.  Still, we can tell much about a person by their fruit. Never expecting thanks, or his thanks being that he helped someone, is far different than wanting everybody's attention. Someone who complains about evil, yet won’t stop doing the same thing, is a hypocrite, and makes one wonder if they really believe what they say. And yet, some struggle so much their complaints may just be cries for help.

Right now you might say, “I thought having a church in my home, or meeting friends at the park for Bible study, or something was easy; now I think it’s way too complex for me to try to help people.” That’s okay – God wants us to fully rely on Him. So, this is more about just putting together things we’ve shared earlier.

So, if you’re on a team and want to invite someone to study the Bible with you, or if you have neighbors you want to invite to talk about God in the middle of your play time, it’s best not to just abruptly say, “Let’s have a Bible study.” Start the discussion by talking about family or anything where you can maybe bring the subject to eternal things. This is why just talking about how your faith in God gets you through life can help.

But, only by understanding what they are going through can we help someone who is really hurting to see how God can help them – because that’s how we show how personal God is, by being personal with them.

Say you’re in the Old West and yo meet the Lone Ranger. It might have been harder even then for a kid to just start to talk with an adult, but this is pretend, and he was good at relating to others, so it’s plausible. If he just helped figure out why that old lady keeps eating spiders (that wriggle and tickle and jiggle inside her) or find your best milking cow which some thieves took (I don’t know how, but they pilfered a cow!), picture how you’d start the discussion. It could just start by sharing what this silly Sunday school teacher did with the “old lady who swallowed a fly” jokes. 😊 Or, compliment him on what he did.

So, if he has a favorable view of God and the Bible – which we said he likely does – your next step might be to share how you have a relationship with God and how He helps you. He might well agree that it’s great you have that, but some people rely on themselves. If he would say he’s relying on his own abilities, then you can point out how none of us is perfect, and use Scripture like Mat. 5:48 (“Be ye perfect as My Father in Heaven is perfect”) or Rom. 3:23 (All have sinned and come short f the glory of God.) After all, God’s Word will never return void. Sometimes, the key to sharing the Gospel is getting the other person to admit they’re not perfect; another reason humility is vital.

Now, if he says he trusts in God, you could ask if he has head knowledge or heart knowledge of Jesus – does he just know facts, or has he trusted Jesus to save him. I led someone to Christ 5 years ago by asking if she’d ever asked Jesus to forgive her. When she said “all the time,” I asked if she’d ever asked Jesus to save her. She said “no” – so I explained how what He did on the cross had saved her from her sin, and she just had to receive that once by calling on Him by faith. Then, once she was saved, she should trust Jesus to help her to be good and ask Him to forgive her when she messed up – that’s 1 John 1:9.

I explained how there are 3 judgments – our judgment as a Sinner is taken care of at the cross; our judgment as a Son is how God deals with us once we’ve trusted Him to save us; and our judgement as a Servant is based on what we do with the chances we have to serve Him. (Remember, of course, if the person hasn’t had a good home life, explain that God is a perfect Father, the kind who is never selfish or violent or chronically absent.)

You can also share the 3 P’s Jesus saves us from: 1 He saves us from the penalty of sin, which we escape when we trust that He died to take the punishment for our sin by dying on the cross and rising again; He saves us from the Power of sin as we live day by day, the more we trust Him to help us the more we can avoid temptation; and, when we get to Heave we’ll be saved from the Presence of sin.

That’s where I said emphasizing Heaven can help. This world makes people lose hope. They can have hope with Jesus, They just need to trust Him to save them and make them new inside - invite Jesus to live in them through the Holy Spirit and make them a new creature. They don’t work to be a new creature. The verse says they are a new creature because they invited Jesus to make them new inside and to live in them through the Spirit and invite Him to constantly transform by the renewing of their mind (Rom. 12:2).

So, if someone is struggling to break a bad cycle, they might need a lot more work. Jesus is the one who does the work in them because they have invited Him to save them and live in the m and make them new inside. But if they choose to rebel, or not listen to Him, they will find they lose blessings and rewards.

So, when you disciple someone, it’s important to be patient & encouraging, and speak the truth in love. Remember to listen & help them through, so they see Jesus has the answers to their problems. (In the flesh it feels better to lash out, after all, which is why following your feelings and not God’s Word causes problems.) That person might have already come a long way. The key is to encourage them to keep growing, even if the road is hard. Because it’s worth it when we get that comfort, peace, joy, etc. that comes from knowing Jesus personally and following Him closely. When we’re close to Him, we can have it no matter what our circumstances. That’s the beauty of a loving relationship with our Saviour. 

You won’t have entertainment like I do in some stuff I’ve done for others, but you have things in common with youth like this. You’re in school and around kids you can help. You lived through 2020 for another; maybe you can start a discussion by sharing how you each survived, what you did for fun. Talk or chat on the phone. Trying to talk is better, but not everyone likes to due to things like Asperger’s and such. On the other hand, you could just ask if they like to talk –– and see if they feel like noone would care. Some don’t feel anyone loves them so they don’t try. But, if they realize you care and will listen, they may open up some.

So, reaching them means they must see you care, just like with anyone. With a grand-nephew and 2 grand-nieces, msister said they’d love being characters so I included them in my comedy, with 4th wall breaking and leadoff pun. (One draws a bird in a nest. Her sister says she doesn’t know birds & goes by chest color, like a robin red-breast. She asks why one wall looks like a grape. Hannah says it’s to add color since the bird is gray. Sister says wall must be taller so the chicks don’t fall out of the nest. She comes back later, looks at the picture, and says, “Good nest, gray chest, grape wall’s up higher.”) (The pun is off of “goodness gracious, great balls of fire”)

From there, whether messaging or talking, get them to talk about their troubles, and you can show them how God’s love is so special, for instance.

Sure, some people have issues, but in looking at this case it was easy t​​o see how you could easily start to talk and eventually share your faith

 It doesn't always happen right away of course. Here are some keys to make it easier by showing we are different. This is a summary from Canton Baptist's June 5 message: 3 to don't and 3 to do. 1. Don't follow the culture. 2. Don't follow ungodly friends. 3. Don't follow only your feelings. 1. Do follow God's word as the foundation of your life. 2. Do commit each day to living for God. 3. Do walk in the spirit and not after the flesh.

Being a disciple-maker means not letting them influence you, but being an influence on them. People are desperate. Some escape in video games or worse. No matter what, they need Jesus to save them & make them new inside so they can cope with it all.