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NewCity Orlando Sermons
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NewCity Orlando Sermons
What Is A Disciple of Jesus? | 2 Timothy 2:1-7
Pastor of Formation & Mission Benjamin Kandt kicked off our January vision series, preaching from 2 Timothy 2:1-7. He unpacks the essential elements of disciple-making—trustworthiness, teaching, and grit—drawing parallels to Paul's instructions in 2 Timothy. He asks us to imagine a movement so powerful, it sustains itself across four generations. That's the vision he shares as he discuss the qualities needed for a disciple-making movement to thrive.
Pastor Ben also draws on the wisdom from near-death experiences in "Imagine Heaven," intertwining spiritual growth with the concept of stewardship. He then encourages us to boldly step into the grit and grace of disciple-making, to embrace the call to spread our faith. The power of generational disciple-making is how we hope to truly see the Father answer the Lord's Prayer at NewCity, in Orlando, and beyond.
Hello everyone. This is Pastor Damian. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life. For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom. Thanks for listening. Guide us, o God, by your Word and Spirit, that in your light we may see light, in your truth, find freedom and, in your will, discover your peace. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.
Speaker 1:Today's scripture reading comes from 2 Timothy 2, verses 1 through 7. You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus and what you had heard from me in the presence of many witnesses. Entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hardworking farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. This is God's word. Thanks be to God. You may be seated.
Speaker 2:I wonder how you are stepping into the new year. If you were to summarize that in one word just the state you find yourself stepping into 2025, I wonder what that word would be. Mine might be anticipation, and some of that is from what Damien shared early in the service which is Seek First was an incredible gathering of the Church of Orlando. All of the outpourings of the Holy Spirit in the history of biblically and in church history have always been preceded by extraordinary united kingdom-focused prayer. And then one of the most beautiful things about Seek First was that there was nobody's name on it except for one, like it wasn't New City's thing, it wasn't Adoration or One Church, the name of Jesus was the only name you could find anywhere on Seek First and I think that honored him. I think there was a real sense of that. And then, as Damien said, we're midway through Seek Week, 168 continuous hours to start off 2025 with Extraordinary United Kingdom-Focused Prayer. There's churches from all over Orlando that are gathering, that are joining. I should say, rather, to do this together, and I have anticipation for what God might do. That's what I would say. You can pray for me. I've got a 2 pm and then a 2 am slot today, and so we'll see how that goes. I'm genuinely concerned about oversleeping through my alarm and then I thought theologically, the Spirit and Christ are always interceding for us, so maybe they'll cover that hour for me and I'll be all right, but I'm hoping I wake up to make it happen. I know some of you have already done your night watch and you can tell me any pro tips you might have. So, stepping into a new year with anticipation for me, what is it for you? Maybe this will be helpful, maybe it won't, but let me tell you some, as we step into the new year.
Speaker 2:Some people's last words. I have a note where I collect the dying words of famous people, and so here's some. Winston Churchill's last words were I'm bored with it all. Pistol Pete Maravich collapsed during a basketball game and his last words were I feel great. Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, his last words were oh wow, oh wow, oh wow.
Speaker 2:I actually don't know what to make of that. What would you say if you knew you were going to die and you could choose your last words? It's an interesting question. What would your final words be?
Speaker 2:Well, at New City, we choose to take Jesus's final words and make them our first priority. Now they're different in that these are not the final words of a dying man. These are the final words of a resurrected man who will never die again, and we find those words in Matthew 28, where Jesus says all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that. I've commanded you, and behold, I will be with you always, at the very end of the age. Those are Jesus's final words, and they become New City's first priority.
Speaker 2:They really matter to us. The way we articulate that is in our mission, which is to call, form and send disciple makers, disciples who can make disciples, who can make disciples, who can make disciples, on and on and on. That's what we've given ourselves to, and so disciple making is a corporate goal for every church, but it's also a personal call to every believer. Every disciple of Jesus is called to be able to reproduce that life, the life of Christ in them, into someone else. And that's really what I want to spend this entire sermon talking about Now in January and in August, because those are both kind of a new year in their own way January and in August, because those are both kind of a new year in their own way the beginning of calendar year, the beginning of a school year. We usually reorient ourselves around our vision, mission values, something like that, and so our mission is to call, form and send disciples who make disciples.
Speaker 2:And so this series really is about what is a disciple of Jesus? What is a disciple of Jesus, of Jesus? What is a disciple of Jesus? In other words, what is New City's biblical, robust, simple, reproducible and compelling definition of a disciple? What is that? Now, this isn't going to be some great unveiling. It's not been hidden. It's been around in some form since like 2016. It's in the All of Life Guide, it's in the Circle Guide, it's in our new members course. So it's not new and it's not going to be a surprise.
Speaker 2:But I'm not going to tell you until the end of the sermon our biblical, robust, simple, reproducible and compelling definition of a disciple. But what I want to do is I want to talk about why do we emphasize, prioritize personal disciple making within this church so much. Why is it such a big deal to us? Well, part of it is because it was Jesus's final words that we make our first priority. And so, in order to see this, I want to actually look at the last words of someone else, and that is the last words of the Apostle Paul, maybe the most prolific disciple-maker in the history of humanity besides Jesus, and many scholars would agree that 2 Timothy is probably Paul's last written letter in the Bible right before he dies. And so these are his last words of sorts. And so what I wanna do is I wanna look at Paul giving his last words to his disciple Timothy, in order to encourage, challenge him to carry on the mission that Paul received from Jesus, and I think those words are for us today.
Speaker 2:So, if you have a Bible or device, get 2 Timothy 2 in front of you. We're going to be in 2 Timothy 2, chapter 1. I'm sorry, chapter 2, verse 1. And I want to look at the grid, the goal, the grit and the grace of disciple-making. The grid, the goal, the grit and the grace of disciple-making. First things first, the grid for disciple-making in verse 1. 2 Timothy 2, verse 1, says this you, then my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. My child that's a significant word here my child. That is the grid for disciple making, or what I'm going to just call a form of spiritual parenting, spiritual fatherhood, spiritual motherhood.
Speaker 2:It's actually a really big deal in the story of Scripture. Why big deal in the story of Scripture? Why, well, because God's primary and most common metaphor for the church is the household of God, the family of God. It's why we're often called brothers and sisters. We have one father, we have one big brother. His name's Jesus. This is God's design for his people. So the question is Paul writes to Timothy, says you, then, my child? How did Timothy become Paul's child? Well, because Paul discipled him.
Speaker 2:Look with me at 1 Corinthians 4. You can turn there if you want to, or you can just listen. 1 Corinthians 4, verse 14, says this Paul's writing to the church at Corinth I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children that's what Paul calls the church at Corinth. My beloved children Not just the children of God, the Father, that's true, but my beloved children. Paul has a spiritual fatherhood in their lives. He goes on, he says for, though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me. That is why I sent you, timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere, in every church.
Speaker 2:I'm almost tempted to preach a sermon on that text. It's so amazing, but I'm just going to make a couple points. Paul is saying you have many podcasts but not many parents. You have lots of gurus but two little mothers. You have teachers that abound, but fathers that are few, and this is a problem, because we need spiritual fathers and mothers. Paul says it like this I became your father in Christ Jesus. That's the spiritual component. It's in Christ that I'm your father, he says. He says Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord. So we can infer something here that I think is actually really powerful.
Speaker 2:When you see Timothy's story, we can infer that from Timothy's story that he had a faithful mother and a faithless father. Some of you here this morning, you're married, you've got a spouse that doesn't know Jesus, doesn't walk with Jesus, and you're wondering what that means for your children and you agonize before the Lord over the future of your children, that they might know Jesus. That's your story. That's Timothy's story. His mom was a faithful woman, his dad was faithless. I get this from Acts 16, verse 1. It says this Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there. Now notice, timothy's already a disciple. Paul didn't see him get converted. He didn't come to know Jesus through Paul, he was already a disciple. How did that happen? Well, his father was a Greek, which implies that his dad was a Gentile, and there's other reasons to believe. He probably was not a believer. He probably was not. Otherwise it would have said that in the text, like it says about his mom. So what that means is in Timothy's family. Growing up, his mom and his dad had a cultural and religious divide between them. That's the family. It's a blended family of sorts that Timothy grew up in.
Speaker 2:But then in 2 Timothy 1, just a page earlier in your Bible from today's text, it says this in verse 5. Paul says I am reminded of your sincere faith, timothy. You have sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother, lois, and your mother, eunice, and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. Do you see this generational faith? There's faith. Lois had faith, eunice had faith. Timothy has faith. That's why he's a disciple already.
Speaker 2:When Paul rolls up to Lystra and Derby, okay, this matters because biological family, disciple making is a big deal in the scriptures. That's why we baptize babies. That faith was passed down generationally. We expect that we take God's promises seriously and anticipate that that's going to happen. But we also need spiritual families, spiritual fathers and mothers like Paul to Timothy, to faithful men, to others also, which we'll see in the text in a moment. Both really matter in the New Testament biological family and spiritual family. And Paul became a spiritual father to Timothy because Timothy was spiritually fatherless. His own bio dad did not know Jesus, so he needed a father in the faith.
Speaker 2:There are young men and women who are in their 20s who never had a father or a mother model what it looks like to walk with Jesus. They need you. Where else are they going to find that if not in the local church? There are boys and girls that are growing up in this church without a father or a mother, or at least not one that knows Jesus, and they don't know what it looks like to walk with Jesus generationally. They need you. Who else is going to be that for them. This is Timothy his story.
Speaker 2:Now in the United States, almost 25% that's one in four US households that have children are single-parent homes. 25% of households in the US with children are single-parent homes. 80% of those are only mothers or grandmothers. It's just women in the home. It's the only parent that's in the house. There is a significant problem of fatherlessness in our generation. It's a big deal. It was a big deal in Timothy's generation too. So what do we do? Well, we realize that disciple-making is about spiritual parenting. It's a big deal. It's a significant way in which you can enter in and change the trajectory of someone's life.
Speaker 2:One man named Jack Deere wrote a biography and he tells this story in there. He grew up in a fatherless home where man after man after man after man would date his mom. Some of them were abusive. Some of them were kind but none of them were abusive. Some of them were kind but none of them stayed. And this is what Jack Deere said my discipler was the first person to love me apart from my usefulness. New City. There are people in our city that need to be loved apart from their usefulness. That will never receive that from a father or a mother, but they could receive it from you. This is the grid of disciple-making. A good church family makes sons and daughters that eventually mature into fathers and mothers generationally, on and on and on. And so the grid of disciple-making is spiritual parenting, but the goal of disciple-making is generational discipleship. Generational discipleship that's the point too.
Speaker 2:So if you have the Bible in front of you, go to 2 Timothy 2.2. You can remember this one. It's a good one. 2 Tim 2.2. All right, put that in your mind. 2 Tim 2.2. This is what it says and what you've heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men. Now the NIV reads people there. I think that's preferable. This isn't men. Only Entrust to faithful people, men and women who will be able to teach others also. All right, it says what did what you heard from me? What did he hear? He heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. He heard the good news of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. That's what Timothy heard from Paul. And another question, not in the text but elsewhere, what did he see? Well, in Paul he saw a pattern of life that lived out, that adorned the gospel. So he needed both of those. Now it says here that the point of what this is about is that he needs to entrust this to faithful people.
Speaker 2:Okay, you see, the church is always trying to devise new methods, new models, new modes, new plans, new ways of doing things. But consider for a moment. Jesus staked everything on a few faithful, trustworthy, reliable men and women that were filled with the Holy Spirit to carry on the Jesus revolution for two millennia. That's what Jesus staked it all on. Never wrote a book. Jesus Never created a new tech, never. I mean he didn't do a lot of the things that today we would do if we wanted to have our mission carried on. He invested in a few men and women and expected that they would be faithful to the fourth generation. That's significant.
Speaker 2:Ian Bounds says it like this Men are God's method. The church is looking for better methods. God is looking for better men. You could say women as well, but men and women and methods don't alliterate as well. What kind of people is God looking for? What better people is God looking for?
Speaker 2:Well, in this text, there's only one characteristic and one competency. Notice here. The one characteristic is that they will be faithful, that they are faithful people, they are trustworthy, they are able to be trusted, and the one competency is that they are able to teach. Trustworthy and able to teach, those are the two things that are required, according to this text, to be a disciple maker. Now I want to point something out here. If you're familiar with the scriptures, you know that this language of able to teach is actually a qualification for elders as well. Now, 1 Timothy 3, titus 1, you can go there on your own time. Find the qualifications for an elder. They are all character qualifications, every one of them, except for one, the one that is not a character qualification is they have to be able to teach. Now, this is super important. That does not mean they have to be able to do what I'm doing right now. This is relatively easy.
Speaker 2:What elders in the church of Jesus Christ have to be able to do is teach others to obey all that jesus commanded them and then teach them to do that, so that they could teach them to do that and they can teach them to do that. Why is this such a big deal? Well, elders play this role. They're they're actually fathers in the local church. If this is the household of god, the father figures are your elders. It's a big deal. They have have to have high characters. They have to have high character. They have to be exemplars of the Christian faith. It's a big deal. Now.
Speaker 2:Anybody who's ever led an organization knows that you want to entrust your authority to people who really get the mission. They're in on it, because if you don't, this is mission critical. If you don't do that, if you give your authority away to people that don't get the thing you're about, you'll have mission drift. And so when Jesus sets up his church and then puts authority over that church spiritual authority called elders he says the one thing they really got to be able to do super godly character that they can then teach others what that looks like in their life. They got to be able to make disciples. If they can't, they cannot be an elder in the church of Jesus Christ. Let me dig in on that a little bit for a moment. They can have the most robust, sound theology that you can ever imagine, but if they can't make a disciple, they're not qualified to be an elder. They could have the most devout prayer life just on their knees before the Lord, begging him for all kinds of incredible things on your behalf, because they love you, because they're your elders. If they cannot make a disciple, they are not qualified to be an elder in Jesus's church. They might have an incredible marriage, like we just loop them into premarital counseling all the time, because they're just always telling people what it looks like to embody the gospel in their marriage before a watching world but if they cannot make a disciple, they're not qualified to be an elder in the church of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:Do you see how mission critical disciple making is to what Jesus is about in the world? This is a big deal. All of your elders here at new city lead or have led circles. All of your elders are men of incredible trustworthiness and are able to teach others to obey all that jesus commanded us. This is true of the people who have spiritual authority in this church. All of this matters because the goal of this church and of the church of Jesus Christ is generational disciple making.
Speaker 2:Now look with me at the text again. Look at verse two. I'm going to point something out here that cursory reading you might miss. Verse two says this what you, timothy, have heard from me Okay, so there's two generations, paul to Timothy, in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful people. That's generation three faithful people who will be able to teach others also. That's four generations Paul, timothy, faithful people, others also. You see the four generations that are listed there. This is significant.
Speaker 2:Missiologists, people who study the progress of the gospel in the world would say that four generations are required before something becomes a disciple-making movement. Why? Because the first generation person, in this case Paul, is no longer able to micromanage to the fourth generation. It's just too much, you can't do that, so I'm going to do something. This feels a little bit risky for me right now's just too much, you can't do that, so I'm gonna do something. This feels a little bit risky for me right now, but just lean in bear with me, give me grace.
Speaker 2:So, from 2017 to 2025, I have discipled 27 men over eight years in circles. There's been others, but I went back and tried to like, calculate and just do the thing. Then I texted all of them and I said hey, if you're gonna be there on Jan 5th, could you please stand up when I tell you to Now's the time gang, could y'all stand up? If you have been in a circle with me, stand up at this point. Amazing, okay. Anybody who's been in a circle with me, you stand up. That's amazing, okay, so generation one. That's generation two. Anybody who's ever been in a circle with any of these guys? Would you please stand up? Okay, that's generation three. Okay, amazing, anybody who's been in a circle with any of these guys will you please stand up? Okay, this is generation four. So fantastic. Hey, look around. This is how generational disciple-making works.
Speaker 2:Now, let me me be clear. I wasn't a spiritual father to all these men, but I discipled these men and taught them how to give their life away in a certain way. Thank you, you can sit down now. I wanted you to see that before I show you this one, because if I showed you this one first, I'd be a little more embarrassed. Uh, this is a guy named akashi. This should be on the screen behind me. That is a man in East Africa where the church is exploding, numerically because the gospel spreads through relationship and they get it in East Africa. We don't get that. We think the gospel spreads primarily through pulpits and podcasts and things like that. They recognize that it primarily spreads through life-on-life disciple-making that's reproduced generationally, and so you can see the fruit of Akashi's labors. He's poured into a few that have poured into a few that have poured into a few generational disciple-making. This is the goal of what we're up to here at New City and what Jesus is up to in the world.
Speaker 2:Now I want to show you another slide about how life spreads. Notice the branching pattern in Akashi's tree of disciple making, and in these trees you see how life spreads. God, in his divine wisdom, architected the world where these branching patterns are the way in which life spreads, whether that's the life of a river flowing and watering the ground, or that's the life of a river flowing and watering the ground, or that's the life of a circulatory system bringing blood and nutrients through the rest of your body, or that's the life of the good news of Jesus Christ spreading through generations of relationships. This is how life spreads in the genius of Jesus. Now what I want to show you is one more slide on this topic, which is this insane math. I'm really bad at math, so I had to quadruple check this. But here we go. This is the way it works One disciple maker disciples two people per year, and those disciples repeat that pattern for each year for 32 years.
Speaker 2:Okay, so year one, two disciples. Right, you got Paul to Timothy and Titus. Let's just say Year two. Those disciples then go disciple two more. Year three, they disciple two more.
Speaker 2:Look at how it works Two disciples, six disciples, 18 disciples, five billion disciples. What that's insane. It's called exponential growth. It's why you invest your money, I think it's why you right and then you reinvest the dividends, because this is how things grow multiplicatively, not additionally. We don't just want to add people to the faith, we want to add people to the faith, then train them up to add other people to the faith, then train them up so that the goal of disciple making is realized, which is generations that know Jesus.
Speaker 2:One of the ways that I think about this because, if you couldn't tell, I'm trying to persuade you to be about this thing. Okay, there's cards on the table. Think about your maybe children or grandchildren on the table. Think about your maybe children or grandchildren. Like, who's going to disciple the dude that marries my two-year-old girl, selah, one day. Well, maybe if that little boy grows up in this church, it'll be me discipling somebody in their 20s who disciples somebody who's in their teens, in middle school here, who then disciples that boy in G45, who then marries my little girl. Think about that for you. Who's going to raise up godly men and women for the next generations, if not you. And this is the call that we all have. Again, it's a call for every church. It's a goal for every church, but it's a call for each one of you as a disciple of Jesus, which is to be able to reproduce the life of God in you, into other people as well.
Speaker 2:Now you might be hearing the goal of disciple-making, generational disciple-making, spiritual, father, mother, all these things and you might be thinking that's cool for full-time vocational ministry people or college students, but that doesn't really work for those of us who have real lives. That's a little hurtful, first of all. Second of all, second of all, you're right, this will require a reorientation and a sacrificial commitment. I promise you that, and Paul knew that too, which is why the third point is the grit of disciple-making. The grit of disciple-making. Look at verse three.
Speaker 2:Paul calls this share in suffering. Okay, you want to be about disciple-making? Here's the first thing you might need to know. You got to share in some suffering. It's going to cost you, it's going to be painful, it's going to be difficult, and he predicted that we might immediately go. Ah, not for me. Which is why he then activates your imagination. He gives you three metaphors the soldier, the athlete, the farmer in order to pick up this question and say, okay, if it's going to be costly.
Speaker 2:Anytime you do any leadership and there's change management involved, one of the questions you have to answer for the people you're trying to lead is this question what's in it for me? So if you've been asking that question or maybe now you are, it's not a selfish question, it's a legitimate question. If something difficult is going to be asked of you, you should ask the question what's in it for me? Well, let me tell you, let Paul tell you. Actually, let's look at these three metaphors. First one is the soldier in verse three. This is what he says Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
Speaker 2:No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. Okay, what makes a quote good soldier, according to verse three? Well, one of my favorite things is the motto of the Coast Guard which says you have to go out, you don't have to come back. It says something about a good soldier. It's somebody who is missional, they know the mission and they're willing to sacrifice for the mission. That's somebody who makes a good soldier.
Speaker 2:A good soldier is not distracted by quote civilian pursuits in verse four, which I'm just going to call comfort and consumerism. Maybe those are the two primary civilian pursuits that distract and entangle us today Our own personal comfort and our commitment to getting more for me at all times, at all costs. Why else would I be a part of a church if it's not about me and getting what I want? Those are civilian pursuits. Be a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Do the thing that your commander in chief told you to do. And so that's what he says.
Speaker 2:Now you might be asking okay, ben, I don't want to be a soldier. What's in it for me? Okay, a soldier gains the honor of serving a mission greater than themselves, like if your life exists for you, it's an incredibly myopic and ingrown existence. Experience the joy of living for something bigger than you, something bigger than your horizon. But a soldier also knows what victory looks like If they've got a good commander and we do. It says in verse four. His aim is to please the one who enlisted him. Listen, if you feel just a taste, just a drop of the pleasure of Jesus in you, or the Father speaking over you, this is my beloved son or daughter, with whom I am well pleased. If you just taste some of that, it's worth sacrificing everything for the pleasure of God over our lives. It's a worthy aim, but here's another what's in it for me?
Speaker 2:One of the primary populations in my counseling practice over the years has been people in the military Marines and Air Force and Army and all these different branches and one of the things that is just true for everybody in the military it's also true for many first responders is you have this level of camaraderie and brotherhood that can be forged in no other way except for on the battlefield. And so, listen, when you're a part of a church, a community that has given themselves to disciple making, and you feel the costs and the sacrifice, but you know they're paying the same costs and sacrifice and then you get to share in the joy of somebody like Dylan coming to know Jesus and the group of people, the comrades up here. There's few things more rich and rewarding than those deep relationships forged on mission together. That's why Paul says be a good soldier. Number two, he says be like an athlete. Look at verse five. It says this An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.
Speaker 2:And one of the first things you notice about an athlete is that they are intentional or they're bad. They're intentional about what they eat, about their schedules, about their workout routines, about they watch their game footage, they watch their. I mean, they're so intentional. They plan, they do, they review, they plan, they do. They're just. They're intentional people. They're putting their best intent into what they're doing. They're intentional people. They're putting their best intent into what they're doing.
Speaker 2:Disciple-making requires the level of intentionality Like. I love it when I can look at the men in my circles and have an idea of what God's next step in their life might be. I don't come up with that it's usually through dialogue, but I know what season their soul is in. I know what maybe next looks like for them, because there's an intentionality around disciple making. The other thing is that notice in verse five. It says athletes compete according to the rules. They are submissive to an authority above them. Good disciple makers are obedient to Jesus in scripture and that's one of the things they're reproducing in other people. They're teaching people to obey, to live according to the rules, to play the game, if you will.
Speaker 2:Now, what's in it for me? An athlete gets to experience the joy of competing for an imperishable crown. 1 Corinthians 9.25 says there's a deep fulfillment when you train others to love Jesus so that they can train others to love Jesus. There's few things more exhilarating. You get pardon me, just working this metaphor you get a little bit of a runner's high when you get to walk with other people and teach them how to run the race that is set before them, looking to Jesus, with a cloud of witnesses around them, and you get to see them running towards the finish line, just as you are, and some of the people that were spiritual children become spiritual brothers and sisters. They're running alongside you. You're keeping pace together. There's few things more exhilarating than that, and you can't experience that unless you give yourself to disciple-making.
Speaker 2:Now, in the late 19th century, there was a guy named CT Studd, which you know. Damien, do you ever think about this? Like Sheeter and Kant, like, could we have gotten Studd as a last name? It's almost not fair. Whatever, ct Studd, I didn't even warn you about that, I'm sorry. Ct Studd was like the Michael Jordan of cricket. I was like what's that game called that we know nothing about? He was like the Michael Jordan of cricket in London in the 19th century and everybody thought that he was gonna be the jam. Like he was it. He had fame and fortune and glory, all these things. He was an athlete that knew how to compete according to the rules, and he penned a poem that I scribed into the cover inside cover of my journal for 2025. And this is a stanza from that poem. He says this only one life, yes, only one. Now let me say, thy will be done, and when, at last, I'll hear the call, I know I'll say it was worth it all. Only one life to soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. This is what it means to be an athlete that competes, that competes for something bigger, that knows what victory looks like. Ct Studd knew what victory looked like.
Speaker 2:There's a book that I know some of y'all have read because we've talked about it, called Imagine Heaven, and it's a compilation, almost like qualitative research, of near-death experiences, and the most impactful chapter in that book for me was I think it was chapter 17, which is just called the Life Review. Now, in thousands of interviews with people who've had near-death experiences, one of the common experiences that they have is something called a life review, where their whole life flashes before them like a reel, like a movie reel, and they see it all very quickly. And then they look at Jesus and Jesus says something to them with profound kindness. But he evaluates their life, he's reviewing it with them. And here's the two questions, almost all of them. This is almost unanimous across all of them.
Speaker 2:There's really only two questions Jesus evaluates our lives based on, according to these near-death experiences. Number one what did you do with the life that I gave you? I'll call that the stewardship question. Number two did you show the love? Did you show love the way that you should have? We'll call that the relational question. If this is true, I think you can substantiate those two questions from scripture. But if this is true that one day you'll stand before Jesus and he will evaluate your entire life based on what did you do with what he gave you and how did you love the people around you, I hope you can see how it would make sense that a pastor would lead a church to take disciple-making very seriously. I want you to live a life worth living.
Speaker 2:Third image here that Paul gives us is the farmer, verse 6. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Okay, paul, what makes a hardworking farmer? Just think for a moment. It's effort, it's patience, it's delayed gratification right, because there's sowing and there's reaping. But there's also something else. While farmers work hard, they're also reliant. They don't confuse their inputs with the outputs that they get, what they sow with what they reap. They know that they're connected, but they know that there's an interruption in between, which is called the sun, the rain, the soil, the birds, the weeds, the vermin, all the things right. This is why farming is a powerful metaphor for the spiritual life, because we sow and we reap, but what happens in between is the grace of God, the temptations of the devil, the world, the flesh all these things intervene in between, and this is a big deal, because we want to be reliant on the Spirit as we make disciples.
Speaker 2:But a farmer also knows that the thing that they're after is fruitfulness. It's fruitfulness that you might bear much fruit, that you might reproduce the life of Jesus into other people through your life. Jesus puts it like this in John 12, 24, truly, truly, I say to you unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. So listen, if you want to live a life about you, just self-focused, self-centered, self-satisfied. You can do that. Your life will be in no way fruitful. That's what Jesus is saying. You will remain alone, but he goes on. He says but if it dies, it bears much fruit. There's an invitation to share in the suffering, which is the suffering of Jesus, the death and resurrection of Jesus. Your death equals resurrection for other people. Your investment of pouring your life into people results in their life in Christ growing and experiencing fruitfulness. You get a vision of what the harvest would look like. That's the question of what's in it. For me, as the farmer, is that you get to share in the satisfaction of seeing the fruitfulness of God's harvest in the people around you and you get to reap some of those things.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you a quick story. When I was a senior in college, I met a freshman in college We'll call him John and John just moved to Orlando to go to UCF and I met him at a lunch and I said hey, let's grab coffee together sometime. Over the course of time I spent, I was very intentional and met with John a good bit, ended up leading him to come to know Jesus, and then spent years discipling him over time. A few years ago, john said something to me that was so meaningful. He said hey, you know what? I never thought about this before, but my parents divorced and when you came in to my life, as soon as I moved from my hometown to Orlando, you really were a father figure for me. I was 21. He was 18.
Speaker 2:He experienced it as a form of spiritual fatherhood. Why? Because I loved him regardless of his usefulness, because I was intentional with him, because I invited him into my life, because we shared life together. Well, earlier this year also wrote this down in my journal he came to me and he said hey, you know that my wife and I are pregnant. And I said, yeah, so excited, I got to officiate their wedding. And he said, hey, if it's a boy, we're going to name him Benjamin.
Speaker 2:He said because nobody's had as much of an impact in my life as you and I want my firstborn boy to know that, listen, a farmer gets to share in the reaping of the harvest of their sowing and sowing, and sowing and sowing. You better believe there's few things that have been more meaningful in my life than to hear those words come from John's lives. So, all three of them the soldier, the athlete, the farmer they know what they're about. Success is pretty clearly defined for them. They work hard, it's arduous, there's labor for sure, they have to sacrifice and they all know what delayed gratification looks like.
Speaker 2:But listen, the grit of disciple-making, which is this giving your life away cannot happen unless you have the grace for disciple-making. Paul knows this, because if you have grace without grit, it's this like sloppy agape, passivity, lazy Christianity. It doesn't work. Grace without grit does not work. But if you have grit without grace, it's a form of religious striving that results in burnout and it's exhausting and depleting and people just give up on Jesus altogether. But when grace and grit come together, it creates this robust, muscular Christianity that can disciple the nations but is not threatened by your weakness. So let's look at verse one back at the top and see the grace for disciple making as we close what is New City's biblical robust, simple, reproducible and compelling definition of a disciple?
Speaker 2:Disciples are united to Jesus in communion with God, community with one another and co-mission for the world. I'm not going to spend any time on that because that's the next three weeks in January, but I am going to talk about what it means to be united to Jesus. You see, there in verse one, it says you then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. As you are about the mission of Jesus, it's important that you understand that by faith, you are one with him. All that is his becomes yours. His righteousness covers your sin. His strength overcomes your weakness. His victory secures your hope for the future. You are not just following Jesus at a distance, you are in him and he is in you.
Speaker 2:Colossians 3 says it like this your life is hidden with Christ in God. This is good news, because the number one hesitation I hear from what I'm saying this morning is who am I to look at somebody and say follow me, as I follow Jesus in all of life? The answer is it's not about you. It's not about what you have to offer People who you are inviting to disciple. They need your repentance as much as your righteousness. They need to look at what it looks like to be weak and to be clothed with the strength of Jesus. They need to know what it means that Jesus has a grace that embraces and a grace that empowers. So I wanna close where I started.
Speaker 2:Buddha's last words were, quote strive without ceasing end. Quote Christ's dying breath. He said it is finished. See the difference between Buddhism and Christianity. See the fact that Christianity is built on a grace that embraces the weak and the needy and the broken and sinners, embraces them, draws them to himself and then empowers them to be about bringing that good news to whomever can hear it. And so the grid for disciple-making, the goal of disciple-making, the grid of disciple-making, the grace for disciple-making.
Speaker 2:Let me end where Paul ends with verse 7, which I think is an interesting flex. By the way, he says this think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. And I'm just saying insofar as my words have been according to Paul's words in this text. Think over what I said and the Lord will give you understanding in it. What will be your last words? Who knows? But I know this if you give your life to making disciples, who make disciples generationally, I don't know what your last words will be, but the first words you hear after your death will be well done, good and faithful servant. You were faithful with little. Now you're entrusted with much. Enter into the joy of your master. Let's pray, jesus, we believe this. We believe that you gave yourself to the very thing that we want to give ourselves to that we're following you and being about multiplying your life into other people. Help us, for your beautiful name's sake. We pray Amen.