Knowing, Teaching, and Loving Christ in all the Scriptures
by: Kandice Barley
We believe that through the power of the Holy Spirit we have been given all that we need to grow in the knowledge of God’s will and character of Jesus Christ, living out God’s plan to establish His kingdom and share the hope of Jesus Christ as communicated in Scripture. We believe that Christ is the main subject of all the Scripture, and that all obedience to Scripture and the proclamation of biblical truth are the means of sharing the gospel faithfully. God has graciously given us the Word to help us grow in knowledge and love of Him through Jesus Christ as disciples and people who are called to disciple others.
As Christians we hear often that Jesus meets and loves us where we are, but never wants to leave us there. This is because where Jesus meets us is in the midst of the muck and the mire and never will Jesus stay there. Once we surrender to Jesus as Lord of our life, and the Holy Spirit indwells us, sitting in ignorance of WHO the Trinity is will never do. Instead God is revealed to us in so many beautiful ways through the course of our Christian walk.
We know that the Word is the testimony of Jesus shared with us. From it we are to learn, to grow, to love. But as Christian we must partner with other believers to do just that.
A disciple is a follower of Christ. And in John 8:31 we see this: “Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are really my disciples. You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”” See, you can say you believe and never truly follow Him. To follow Him, we must know what the Word of God says and in those pages there is so much freedom. Discipleship is when we sit under the teaching of another in order to learn of God. But just like Jesus and His disciples, it is an intimate learning community. It is a place for accountability, for rebuking (correcting one another in love), for digging into the Word to understand more of who God is, and for learning how to pray bringing everything before the Lord. It is a place where we as Jesus’s people, learn the DISCIPLINE of following His greatest command, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and will all your soul and with all your strength.” The second is, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
I’m 38 and I gave my life to Christ at 16. I’ve been a Christian for many years, but the greatest growth in my walk has happened in the last 3 years. Do you know why? Discipleship. I’ve been to many churches in my lifetime, but it wasn’t until God landed me here, at Faith, that Discipleship truly happened. As the granddaughter of a lay minister, I have visited more churches than I can even count in my lifetime. As an adult, my husband and I also “church-hopped” for years. Then we walked into Faith and I have no doubt in my mind that choice was God ordained. You see, that very first visit my husband walked to the front and gave His life to Christ. From that very first visit, people started reaching out to my family welcoming us in. But it was more than a welcome committee kind of love. This church is an obvious community that isn’t exclusive to others. You know what I mean. There are some churches you walk into and there are obvious cliques that no one is welcome to invade (which is not Christ-like by the way). Instead, this church poured into my family. First, they started with a community group. Simply come and get to know some other families in our church. Out of that community group, for me came TRUE DISCIPLESHIP. T’Naya pulled me aside one day and said, “let’s get our community group ladies together and do a study. She organized it, choosing a book (which by the way was a fantastic starting point) and our community group ladies met every Tues night to walk through that study. When that was over she and I decided, “let’s go deeper.” And we started meeting regularly studying book after book of the bible. Then God brought us Angie.
You see, it was when I humbly submitted myself first to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and then to the process of discipleship that the Holy Spirit was able to do a transformative work in my life. God began to reveal spiritual gifts I had no clue were there. He began to show me things I believed about Him that weren’t biblical. He began to and is still showing me things within myself that don’t reflect His character so that I can surrender them and allow the Spirit to do the heart work there. Discipleship is critically important in your walk with Christ because Discipleship should change the way you view everything.
You may say, “I have Godly friends, isn’t that good enough?” Having Godly friends is also important, but like all things we must weigh those friendships against the Word to see if they are the intimate discipleship design Jesus had with His disciples. How do we do that? Let’s break it down. Colossians 1:28-29 is a great place to do this. It says, “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works within me.”
The root of it all must be PROCLAIMING JESUS. To proclaim means to speak up, to shout it with joy, to be excited in your speech. Do your conversations not just involve Jesus occasionally, but REVOLVE around Him. Is He the center of it all? In Discipleship, women do not gather to gossip but to proclaim the good news of Jesus. They speak of redemption, of the sins being overcome by the power of His blood, of the renewing of their minds through His Word, of the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in their lives. The difference in an intimate discipleship friendship and a “Godly friendship” (and you all can gather that I am using that phrase loosely) is that the first proclaims Jesus always and not self while the second proclaims self and maybe occasionally Jesus.
Going back to Colossians 1:28 Paul gives us some basics in this passage: “warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom.” Teaching, or instruction, might seem like an obvious component of discipleship. We must train those we lead in the Word of God and show them how to live in a way that glorifies Him. But this passage reveals that our responsibility is not only to teach those we disciple, but also to warn them when they are stepping out of line with the Word of God. Out of love for those we disciple, we must not be silent when they are living in opposition to the Scriptures. However, this must be done in LOVE. Many people want to harshly correct others in judgement and call it truth. If we are not correcting others in love, we too are stepping out of line with the Word.
Paul says that we teach and train everyone “with all wisdom”. James 1:5 says to ask God for wisdom, and this is so important. As we disciple others and as we are discipled, we must continually seek the Lord’s wisdom and guidance. We must be spending regular time in the Word and in prayer. Any time we teach or warn, we must make sure we are doing so in submission to Him.
Not only does the book of Colossians emphasize that Christ’s redeeming work saves His people, but it also teaches that through Christ’s redeeming work, believers grow in maturity. The goal of discipleship, therefore, is not only to make converts that make converts, this is evangelism which also has a place in the growing of the Kingdom. However, discipleship focuses on all believers becoming increasingly like Jesus. True discipleship involves investing in younger believers, walking through life with them, and shepherding them to Christian maturity. Did you catch that keyword investing. Yes, it is time consuming. Yes, it takes sacrifice on our part. But look at the model we see in the Word. Jesus discipled 12 men. Those men turned around and discipled countless others. And let’s be frank, if those disciples of the early church had not carried on true discipleship false teaching would have run rampant. Instead, they remained faithful to the Word as Jesus said to be in John 8:31.
Let’s look at it metaphorically. Throughout Scripture, discipleship is compared to parenting. It is easy to compare the two as they have so many parallels. It is appropriate to view yourself as a sort of spiritual parent to those you disciple. Like a good mother, seek to nurture and love those you lead, and like a good father, seek to meet their needs and encourage them to live lives worthy of their calling as we see explained 1 Thessalonians Chapter 2. However, don’t coddle those you disciple. Good parents don’t spoon feed their children forever, but train them to feed and take care of themselves. They have an ultimate goal of launching their children out. In spiritual parenting, we must think through the same lens. Just like Jesus, we want to teach others to proclaim Him and truly know Him, and in turn they then can turn around and disciple others.
Discipleship is rewarding. It is one of the greatest joys of my life. However, like most valuable things, discipleship also requires energy, time, and hard work. It is costly.
In this description of his ministry, Paul uses the words “toil” and “struggle”. The Greek word which is translated as “toil” in this passage is kopos which means “to grow weary, tired, exhausted”, or “to labor with wearisome effort”. And the word for “struggle” is often used to describe the strenuous exertion that goes into an athletic competition or a fight. Paul fought and labored to the point of exhaustion to present believers mature in Christ. Discipleship cost him greatly, and it should cost us as well. You really must ask yourself, if it isn’t costing you anything, are you doing it correctly? And I don’t mean monetarily, I mean sacrificially. Is this costing you time, energy, emotion, etc?
Paul says in the last part of Colossians here that he toils and struggles, but he follows those words with a very important phrase. He writes, “I toil, struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works within me.”
While discipleship takes a lot of energy, the good news is that the Lord gives us His energy. We toil and struggle, yet we have Him to depend on. We cannot do this in our own power, and when we try is when it fails. No matter how experienced you are in discipleship, it is crucial that you are constantly coming to the Lord to ask for His energy and power. While we do exert our energy, it is not ultimately our energy that will do the work of transforming hearts and lives, but the Holy Spirit’s. We are simply instruments in God’s hands. He allows us to partner in the work, to say YES when He calls us go and to do. It is simply beautiful that He allows us to partner in it with Him. But make no mistake, it is through the power of the Holy Spirit, no power of our own, that hearts, minds, and lives are renewed and transformed.
With that I do want to point out to you ladies that if you aren’t currently in a group that sounds like what is described above, Faith Baptist offers two different outlets for you.
One of those is actually called Discipleship groups. Pastor Larry is in charge of those and if you are interested in joining one of those you can contact him. He will send you a short survey and he places you in a group accordingly.
The second is by joining Devoted. We essentially use and maintain this Discipleship model. We meet every Monday night to study God’s Word and to pray together, but more than that we do life together y’all. And we are a place where every woman is welcome. We have a seat for you at the table.
Both ministries are God ordained and we are in no way competitors! Instead, we support one another. With that we do recommend every woman in this room participate in one or the other (but not both because of workload and burnout). Please pray about which one God is leading you to, but do one. Do not leave this Story of Scripture study without committing to the Lord and to yourself to get plugged into a group of women who will disciple you further in His story.