When I was in high school, I was a cheerleader, some of you may know that. As a cheerleader, I went to every single football game. Footballs games were lots of fun, I remember the excitement and anticipation on Fridays leading up to a game, and we always had a great time. The marching band would play really cool songs for us to cheer along with and the crowd would go really crazy and get really involved. In short, we were really good cheerleaders. Not only did we give support to the football team with us cheering, but we got the whole crowd involved in cheering the football team on.
But here’s the thing, as great as we were at rallying cheer and support for the football team, as great as it was for the football team to have so much encouragement, we couldn’t play the game for them. The band couldn’t play the game for them either. Neither could the crowd of fans. No matter how much we cheered and clapped and shouted and danced, the only people who could play a good game that would lead them to victory was the football team.
Church is the same way. See, we’ve got the crowd that comes once a week and they feel really good about the message and then go home and probably don’t give the church or its mission a second thought until the next Sunday. And we’ve got the cheerleaders and the band who do a great job of encouraging and supporting, “yay, go church”. They may tithe and attend a bible study throughout the week, and they fully support the message and idea of the church, may even bring in things for food drives or candy for Easter events. And then there’s the football team. They lead the studies, apply the message, put together ministries, teach others, and take on the mission of the church in a personal way. They understand that they have a personal responsibility for bringing people to Christ and seeing them mature.
A good church has all three of these types of church-goers: the crowd, the cheerleaders, and the football team. But a church that is mission-minded will constantly be helping move people from being a part of the crowd to the cheerleaders, and ultimately to the football team.
Let’s remind ourselves of the mission, the reason the church exists: the mission is to make disciples of Christ in all the nations. That’s why we are here. That’s why Cornerstone church is a church and not just a social club. We are here to make disciples.
To be a mission-minded church means we have to be always in the process of making disciples and becoming better disciples ourselves. We’re always moving toward deeper discipleship. That means in our analogy of a football game, if we want to be a mission-minded church, it’s time for each and every one of us to put aside any excuses we might have and get out of the stands. We don’t want to be in the crowd. We don’t even want to be cheerleaders. If we want to be a mission-minded church, all of us need to strap on our helmets and play some football. Metaphorically speaking.
Cornerstone church, it’s time to get out of the chairs and start being a part of the mission, it’s time to start being intentional and purposeful about making disciples in our community. I hope and have been praying this last week that as I issued the invitation to be a part of God’s mission for the church, you came back to church this week because you have accepted that invitation to make disciples. So this week, I want to talk about how we do that. How do we make disciples?
How will we, Cornerstone church, go about the important mission of making disciples?
I’d love for you to join me in Matthew 22:37-39. Jesus had just been asked what the greatest commandment was, of all of Moses’ commands, which one was the most important. They were trying to trap Him of course, the Pharisees were trying to trip Him up. But Jesus knew this and wasn’t phased by it at all.
He told them exactly what the most important commandment was, the greatest commandment. “And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” NASB
Jesus went on to say that all the other commandments hang on these two commands. All other commands can be summed up with these two and are included in these two, so these are the greatest and most important. This is what drives the mission. This is how we make disciples. At the core of this making disciples is two very simple principles. Love God. Love others.
Just like I did with the mission given in Matthew 28:19-20, I want to break down the actions in these verses so we understand what the command says fully.
Jesus told them to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. There is nothing more important, Jesus said. What does that mean though, to love the Lord? Is love an emotion here? Or is love for the Lord more than just a feeling?
The feeling of love for the Lord is good, but when Jesus said to love with heart, soul, and mind, He was implicating that love is deeper than feelings, more than emotions. Love is an action, it’s an intentional choice.
Love for the Lord means that we grow the relationship we have with Him. This is what Paul spoke about in many places throughout his letters. In 1 Corinthians 14:20 he wrote, “Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. Be like babies as far as evil is concerned. But be grown up in your thinking.” NIRV
And in Ephesians 4:12-16 he wrote, “He gave all these people so that they might prepare God’s people to serve. Then the body of Christ will be built up. That will continue until we all become one in the faith. We will also become one in the knowledge of God’s Son. Then we will be grown up in the faith. We will receive everything that Christ has for us. We will no longer be babies in the faith. We won’t be like ships tossed around by the waves. We won’t be blown here and there by every new teaching. We won’t be blown around by cleverness and tricks. Certain people use them to hide their evil plans. Instead, we will speak the truth in love. So we will grow up in every way to become the body of Christ. Christ is the head of the body. He makes the whole body grow and build itself up in love. Under the control of Christ, each part of the body does its work. It supports the other parts. In that way, the body is joined and held together.” NIRV
Paul understood that loving the Lord is more than emotion, more than a feeling, it’s seeking after Him and growing the relationship we have with Him. He tells us that growing in our love for God is how we mature as Christians. This is the discipleship of ourselves.
I want to tell you something this morning. You remember the saying that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink? Well, you can lead a Christian to the Word, but you can’t make him grow.
I preach a message nearly every Sunday, direct from the Word of God, allowing the Spirit to guide and direct me as I prepare and preach. We have two Sunday school classes that teach sound Biblical teaching. We have a women’s Bible study and a young adult Bible study. The Discipled by Jesus group I’ll be leading starts at the beginning of June and Janice is planning on starting another group soon. We’ve even got church-wide access to over 20,000 digital Bible studies and videos through RightNow Media. And we’ll be putting into place a discipleship path for the church within the year. We have so many opportunities to grow here in your love for the Lord. We have so many opportunities here to grow your faith and to become what Paul calls a mature Christian, a “grown-up” Christian.
But…I can’t make you grow. I want you to grow. I can urge you to grow. I can provide more and more opportunities for the church to grow. I can preach great sermons full of doctrinal truth and Biblical foundations. But I can’t make you grow. I can’t make you grow up in your love for the Lord. Even the best Pastor can’t make you grow in your love for the Lord if you don’t want to grow. At some point, you’re going to have to play the football game.
But if you want to be a part of a mission-minded church, that means making disciples. And that means first, making a disciple of yourself. To always be growing in your love for the Lord, seeking Him more each day, reading His word in depth and allowing His Spirit to convict you into repentance and a changed life, praying as a foundation for your walk with Him. Always changing every day into a different person who looks more and more like Christ in character.
So the first thing we learn about how to do the mission, how to make disciples is to be growing UP in our love for God. We have to make disciples of ourselves first before we can make disciples of others. After all, how can you teach someone to do something that you yourself haven’t done? But if you know what it means to be a disciple because you yourself have been walking closely with the Lord as a disciple, you can teach what you know.
To do the mission we must first be growing up in our love for God.
Next, Jesus said, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” We make disciples of others by loving them. Much in the same way that we must grow up in our love for God, grow in our maturity, we have to grow our relationship with others as well. We make the choice to love them, moving beyond mere emotions or feelings, to seeing them as worthy of the love of Christ and someone He desires to have a relationship with.
Love for others drives our discipleship efforts. So, as a mission-minded church, we must be growing deeper in our love for each other, the church, each other. In the passage I read from Ephesians 4:12-16, we read that the gifts the Spirit gives us serve two purposes, one is to help us grow up in our relationship with the Lord, and the other is to help us grow deeper in our relationships with the rest of the church, the body of Christ.
Jesus told His disciples, “By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.” John 13:35, NASB. If we’re in the mission of making disciples, we show that we are disciples by loving other believers. All believers. Even believers we don’t always agree with, we love them. In the verse just before this, John 13:34, Jesus says we should love each other the same way God loves us. It’s an unconditional love that is more than feeling, it is action that comes from a carefully nurtured relationship.
We do the mission, we make disciples by first growing up in our love for God, and secondly by growing DEEPER in our love for each other, the church. We make disciples of each other. We help one another grow, we encourage each other to grow, we grow alongside each other. We purposefully, intentionally, and thoughtfully deepen the connections we have with others in the church.
But our neighbors aren’t just each other, right? Our neighbors exist outside the walls of the church as well. Our neighbors are…every one. Being a mission-minded church focused on making disciples means we love every one. Again, it goes beyond feeling, beyond emotion. It’s action. It’s deepening relationships and showing the character of Christ to others. It’s looking for places of brokenness in the community and showing how Christ can make what is broken, whole again.
Luke 6:32-35 says, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. But love your enemies and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil people.”
Love your enemies and do good to them.
So, to be a mission-minded church, focused on making disciples, we must be growing up in our love for God, growing deeper in our love for each other, and going OUT to share the love of Christ with our community. This is how we do the mission. It has to be, because it’s the greatest command, and love is what drives the mission. We exist to make disciples, and we do that through love. Loving God, loving each other, sharing the love of Christ with those who do not yet believe.
Growing up. Growing deeper. Going out. Make disciples.
1. Which of these three areas do you struggle with the most? Why do you think that might be?
2. Which of these three areas do you think Cornerstone church struggles with the most? Why do you think that might be? How can you be a part of moving us in that direction as a church?
3. As we move toward developing an intentional discipleship plan for Cornerstone, pray about leading in these areas that will need leadership: men’s group, youth group, prayer group, foundation study group.