Latest / Breakthrough Church Podcast / Following Jesus is More Simple Than We Think

Transcript

Following Jesus is More Simple Than We Think · Breakthrough Church Podcast

• riverside edit josh breakthrough church (5): Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Breakthrough Church podcast. just want to share a few things in my heart this week related to discipleship and the call of Jesus to follow him. few testimonies just to to to get us going. I think I might have shared this one actually already, but I'm gonna share it anyways. last Monday. I went into FedEx and was returning some returning some packages, and there was a woman there, and I asked if she needed prayer, and she said she was in pain, that her knees hurt. I told her a story of somebody I prayed for whose knee was healed. I said, Can I pray for your knees? She said, Okay. I awkwardly asked her to come around front so that I could put my hands on her knees. I did that and her pain went away. She said it was very faint afterwards, and I told her, Jesus. Healed her. It wasn't me, it was Jesus. And she was really blessed. And it was so cool. And I it had been a while since I had done something like that. Just you kind of get in a rut or you get distracted. And that was like the Lord kind of jolting me and being like, Hey, come on. You know, like this is this is this is what you're called to do. The kingdom of heaven's at hand. Let's go. So that was cool. I guess I'll just jump right into to discipleship. So I I read this book by Bobby Harrington and Josh Howard. They're really well known in discipleships circles. Renew.org is one of the companies that they're a part of. And anyways, I I read it yesterday because I really felt the Holy Spirit leading me to read it. And they talk about level five churches. A level five church. There's five levels of churches. Level one is a subtracting church. They're dying. They're losing people. 28% of churches in the US fit this category. These are churches that are declining and losing people. There's plateauing with disciples in in terms of they're just kind of stagnant. 42% of churches in the US fit into this category. So get that. 70% of churches are either in America, are either, this was back in 2020, so only six years ago, were either subtracting or plateauing. And actually I'm gonna say this, this Yeah, this was in twenty twenty. and and then there's twenty-six percent of churches were in level three where they're adding disciples. They're marked by attractional growth, they're adding disciples. and it's usually because of some preaching prowess of the lead pastor or program that they're running, or the people or the places the place that they're at. They're they're there's addition. That's f one, two, and three. Level four has addition, but also has reproduction. So what The thing that makes that marks a level four church is re reproduction, meaning that they're really characterized by discipleship and reproducing disciples. And so, for example, me going to disciple somebody and teaching them everything that I've learned and they go and teach somebody else and they go and teach somebody else. So it's kind of marked by the pastoral staff, their coaches who focus on intentionally developing disciple makers. Guess how many percent churches in America as of 2020 were considered level four? Less than 5% of churches fit in the fit in that category. They asked 1,000 pastors across denominations all these questions, trying to determine what level of church they were in, and less than 5% said level four. Level five is where ever the churches are marked by everyday people naturally participating in and fueling, multiplying discipling disciple-making activities. So this is multiplying disciples. A level five church is marked by multiplication. Think about it. It's a math term. Addition is one plus one is two. Multiplication is two times two is four. Four times four is sixteen. Sixteen times sixteen is what? I actually don't even know that off the top of head. but you get the point. Multiplication it it is way more effective at growth than just addition. he used, I'm going somewhere with this, so bear with me. But he used a simple analogy in the first page of this book that. he was talking about them they went to where were they? India. They were in India and they were like, man, we gotta figure out how to reach, one point three billion people. it's India. And they f they felt called to do that. One point three billion people that they needed to save. So one one team member was like, Well, what if we could reach one hundred thousand people a year? Wouldn't that be incredible? And you and I would think that a hundred thousand people in a year would be insane to to reach that many people and to see them come to know Jesus. But he this guy pulled out his calculator, and at that rate, it would take 13,000 years to reach everyone, assuming population didn't grow. so even if they reached one million people a year, it would still take 1300 years. So he's addition alone was never going to get the job done, is his point. Addition, just adding people, Is not going to get the job done. Now, let me pause right there and remind you of Jesus' words. Jesus says, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I commanded you. And behold, I'm with you until the very end of the age. Jesus' mission was to make disciples of all nations, not make converts, but disciples. Big difference. A convert is somebody who maybe agrees with the facts of the religion and says yes and gets involved in some of the activity. a disciple is somebody who truly catches a vision of the kingdom, surrenders their life to Jesus, and joins him on his mission to make more disciples. Multiplication. Me pouring into two who pour into two, who pour into two, who pour into two. If I pour into two people, I reach two. If those two pour into two, they reach four. If those four pour into two, that's eight. You get what I'm saying? So he was talking about in India, addition was never going to get the job done. So they just prayed, they asked the Lord for different paths. and they they they were led to a story of Ying Kai and his wife Grace in South China. They intentionally focused on multiplying disciples rather than simply adding attendees. And over 10 years, they planted more than 200,000 churches and over a million people were baptized in 10 years, because they changed their focus from gathering a crowd to releasing disciples. So this guy that's right writing this book, they decided to make the same, the same shift. and last year alone, so this book was written, I don't even know when, but there was one year where they launched 8,070 new churches. That's twenty-two churches every single day. This is the power of multiplication. It's the power of what Jesus called us to do, to go and make disciples of all nations. And to to be a disciple means you're making disciples. As you grow in maturity in Jesus, you you do so by learning to make disciples, right? To join his mission. So what's a disciple? Let's talk about this. I'm just spitting some things at you right now and I'll land the plane. because I think this is like really important when it comes to church, specifically in the Bible Belt, where it's so easy to be consumeristic and it's so easy to just go to church, feel good about it because you like the pastor, you like what they say, they st they preach the truth, or you like a program. or or they have a lot of events and all of that. And and all of that is is fine unless you're just doing a bunch of Christian activity without any life change or desire and ability to reproduce yourself and somebody else. Like how much of the activity that you're involved in at a church is helping you reproduce a disciple of Jesus so that they would reproduce a disciple of Jesus, so that they would reproduce a disciple of Jesus. and that's the point that it talks about here. There's a gap between activity in a church and actual reproduction, between busyness and transformation. And that they they call this the quiet crisis of the modern church. Okay, so let's look at the words of Jesus. At the beginning of his journey with his disciples, he says, Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men. Right there, you have the definition of a disciple. There's three components. A disciple is one who follows Jesus. So there's a decision. There's a decisive moment where I say, I'm in with Jesus. He's the Savior and my Lord. I follow him. Number two, and I will make you. A disciple is someone who is being changed by Jesus. There's transformation in this process of discipleship. As a disciple, I'm going through a process in which Jesus is changing me from the inside out to become more like him. Thirdly, you will become a fisher of men. That's joining the mission of Jesus. From the beginning of his call to the disciples was the call to follow him, be changed by him, and to join him in his mission on the earth. What was his mission on the earth? Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus' mission was to release the kingdom of heaven on the earth by the power of the Holy Spirit. And he did so through preaching, proclaiming the gospel, demonstrating the gospel through signs, wonders, healings, deliverance. But he wasn't just doing it in that way. He wanted to reproduce what he was doing in 12 other guys. So as they followed him around, they observed what he was doing, they saw his life, they saw his practices, his rhythms, and they were simply changed by it. They they were re there were many moments where they didn't understand something that Jesus said in the parable, and they'd have to lean in and be like, Jesus, what did you mean by that? And Jesus would explain it to them. And then there were times when they weren't able to cast out a demon and Jesus would rebuke them publicly in front of everyone. you have little faith. How long must I dwell with this faithless generation? And then he deals with the demon. So there's rebuking when Jesus has an expectation, you don't meet it, sometimes he rebukes and corrects, right? This is the ongoing transformation. It's proximity to Jesus, it's obedience to Jesus, and then it's saying yes to whatever he's calling you into. That's what a disciple is. How does that sound different than what most people might think of Christianity in modern Western church, specifically in the Bible belt? Think about what it is. A a I just was talking to somebody this morning who leads this is on staff in this ministry called Claim Your Campus. And we were talking about she she brought this up, she said, I'm I'm from Ohio. I don't know if you're seeing this here, but I see this all the time in Ohio where there's this gap. There's these these people who just graduated college before they're like officially adults, married with kids, and they're just starting all these young adult Bible studies 'cause they feel like, well, the church doesn't have something for me. And so so I gotta start this Bible study or start this ministry. And we started talking would just pause and I was like, that's so sad. I would hope that by the time, if you've been in church your whole life, by the time you're graduating from college, you're like a fully functional disciple maker, where you're not so worried about starting a ministry, but you'd rather invite one or two people into your life to reproduce Jesus in them, to see them go and do the same. But what it speaks to, if if the they're saying the church doesn't have something for me, so we gotta start this ministry. The underlying assumption is the church is designed for me to receive. Did Jesus like ever do that for his disciples? Now they received a bunch, right? They received relationship, they received the Holy Spirit, they received salvation. Disciples receive a lot, but unto what? Becoming fishers of men. This was the vision Jesus had. Like, I'm gonna put you through a process that's gonna challenge you, that's gonna bring you to the end of yourself. And at the end of it, you're gonna become the type of person that's able to catch men from the grip of Satan and bring him in. To the loving arms of Jesus and the loving arms of our Father in heaven. That's the process and the goal for everybody who says yes to Jesus. It's transformation unto maturity and disciple making. That's what Jesus called us into. So a disciple is someone who follows Jesus, is being changed by Jesus, and is joining the mission of Jesus. And discipleship is the state of being a disciple. It's I'm committed to being somebody who follows Jesus. and and wants to be changed by Jesus, acknowledging my need for transformation. And then I want to join him on his mission. I just was thinking about this yesterday and I was processing this and I was just how how easy it was it is for me. No, I'll stop there. Hold on. How about I say this? Discipleship is the single mission of the church. Jesus said, go make disciples. At the end of Matthew 28, go make disciples baptize and teach, right? Teach them to what? To obey. So, so core, foundational to discipleship is obedience. It's learning to obey what Jesus commands. We have a lot of those commands in scripture. And also the Holy Spirit speaks to us all the time. We're called to obey those. As we obey, we're transformed. And that obedience will lead you into the mission of Jesus. As you seek to share what you learn from the Word and with the Lord, and also as you pray for people and share the gospel with them. Which you will be led to do if you just listen to the Lord and his word and say yes to whatever he tells you to do, right? So that was the vision that Jesus gave them, the mission Jesus gave them before he left. So then he leaves, and then the the disciples in Acts receive the power of the Holy Spirit, and then they go and do the stuff. It works. They preach the gospel, they do everything Jesus taught them to do, and it works. They commit to prayer, they're dependent on the Holy Spirit, but they just do the things that Jesus taught them to do. They pray. They hear God, they obey when He says to do something, and people get saved left and right, and not just saved, but welcomed into a community where the expectation was you would go and do the same. Most of the Acts in the book of Acts weren't by the 12. They were by just ordinary believers who got changed by Jesus, decided to follow him and gave their life to joining his mission to the point where they literally gave their lives for it. It works because I believe it was so simple. What Jesus had presented to them was so simple, it was almost impossible to not reproduce it. Now, I think sometimes I'm I make discipleship really complicated. I I make it where you have to know a certain amount of stuff. You have to know this or that or this or that. And you have to, okay, you have to be able to preach the gospel from stage, or you have to, and I don't never would never say that, but I've been acting that way. You have to be able to preach the gospel from the stage. You gotta know the word inside and out. And you gotta have all this fruit off your tree. And you gotta be this mature. Basically, I'm explaining like the most effective lead pastor ever, like whoever that might be in your mind. And Jesus didn't do that. Jesus made the kingdom of God so accessible that the ordinary fisherman could carry it and do it. How amazing is that? That your ability to release the kingdom of heaven around you is not dependent on how qualified you are, but dependent on how good Jesus is as a teacher and discipler and how accessible He's made discipleship. So I'm gonna give you an example. this morning, I I went to pray and read the Bible. And I'm trying to keep it really simple in the mornings. I'm not trying to do too much. I know I've talked a lot about prayer and and and scripture on this podcast, but I've tried to keep it really simple. I went, I went to pray. And the first thing I did is I thanked the Lord for the cross. I just woke up and I was, thank you for redeeming me for your blood. Thank you for your Holy Spirit. Thank you for washing me and cleansing me that you're with me right now. Thank you for adopting me as your son. I I just spent, I mean, it was like five minutes just thanking the Lord and immediately just felt so much peace and just the presence of the Lord. It was beautiful. And I didn't do it. I just thanked him for the cross. The next thing I did is I opened the scriptures, expecting to hear his voice. So I went to John chapter one, which is what I was supposed to be on yesterday. but I'm I was in John chapter one and John chapter two today. So I took John chapter one, and I just read it and I said, Holy Spirit, speak to me. I'm excited to hear your voice. And as I'm reading it, there was something that stuck out to me. It was the question. So John chapter one, John the Baptist is being asked. By the Pharisees and Sadducees and the scribes, who are you? and he's like, I'm not the Messiah, I'm the Messiah. They're like, Well, you're baptizing people. Like, who do you say? What no, he's they say this, what do you say about yourself? And that question popped out so clear in my mind. It was like the Holy Spirit was inviting me to reflect on that question. What do you say about yourself? Almost like God was asking me, Josh Brake, what do you say about yourself? What are the narratives in your head? You tell yourself about yourself? It's a powerful question. I just invite you to ask that right now. What are the predominant themes and thoughts you have about yourself throughout the day? It might be, man, I'm just not worthy, or just, man, I keep screwing up, or man, I'm just an embarrassment, or I can't believe I did that. Or there's no way God would love me. Or God, God loves me, but like I gotta make sure I do this stuff so that I can keep that up. What are the things that you tell yourself about yourself? And I just was really taken by that question. I processed it. And then I thought about John the Baptist's reaction. What was the thing that he said? He said, I am the voice of the one crying out in the wilderness. Where does that come from, guys? Isaiah, who is speaking the words of God. So John the Baptist's response to people asking, What do you say about yourself? is the word of God over his life. His identity is so wrapped up and saturated in God and what he says. That the natural reaction to someone asking, Who are you? He says, I'm the voice of the one crying out in the wilderness. He speaks the word of God. When my identity is aligned with what God says about me, then I'm walking in exactly what he wants me to walk in. I have peace, I'm seeing fruit. And that just really stuck out to me. I was like, wow, how often is a narrative in my head about myself generated from me? What if the narrative about myself was generated by God's word? That is such a simple thing, but so powerful, not only for me, but I I have used that like three times this today, maybe twice, two or three times, to minister to somebody else. And it like really spoke to them and was really empowered, like powerful. Where'd that come from? Me just opening the word and and and just listening and then asking, Lord, what are you saying to me? And then I also didn't stop there. I said, Lord, what do you want me to do with this? And then who do you want me to share it with? And so then I I I I said yes and I went. I I I goed. Go and make disciples. I goed today. so so here that is as that is the most simple way I can explain. What does it mean to follow Jesus, be changed by Jesus, and join him on his mission? It's coming to him in thanksgiving for what he's already done for me. It's opening up the word so I can hear his voice and listen to him. And then it's asking, what do you want me to do with this? How is this changing me? And how is this helping me share? And join your miss mission on the earth. Another case in point of why this works, I was meeting with a guy this afternoon, just now, literally just an hour ago. And we're sitting there talking. He's explaining his life and just the struggles that he has and stuff. And I was like, you know, I'm supposed to read John chapter two. I didn't even give him my opinion or thoughts. I just said, you know, I was supposed to read John two. You want to read it with me? He's like, all right. I read it through twice and I said, What's the Holy Spirit saying to you about your situation, about this? And and the Lord reminded him of something that he had decided to do. That he tried to do, but it wasn't going great. And it just, it was affirmation in his spirit that he was supposed to do it. And I was like, you see how easy that is? We have so see how simple that is? we have these complicated problems, we're not sure what to do. We go to the word, ask the Holy Spirit to speak. And he speaks and brings clarity, cuts through all the noise, and says, This is what you're supposed to do. Let me just, let me just relieve you from all of the complications, all of the fears. Let let me just say this to you. You do not have to go to seminary. To be a fully functional, mature, powerful disciple of Jesus. You don't need to have gone through a two-year-long program at church. You don't need to be on staff at a church. You don't have to have been following Jesus for 12, 14, 30, 40 years before Jesus wants to use you and for you to join him in his mission. All you need to know is wake up every day. Engage with the Lord, hear his voice, and then do something about it. It's that simple. Can I give you an acronym? I'm working on this. This is the I'm I'm working on if this is a good acronym or not. L tag. L T A G. L tag. No, no, no, no, no. T Lag. My bad. I'm already messing it up. T lag. T-L-A-G. Thanks. Listen, ask, go. Start your morning quiet time with Thanksgiving. Thank you for the cross. And then open the word one chapter a day or less. Just open the word and read it and listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit. What jumps out on the page? What word or phrase do you get stuck on? Stay there, meditate on it, ask the Holy Spirit, what are you trying to say to me? And that should lead you to ask the question: what do you want me to do about it? What do you want me to do about this? Where what step of obedience are you calling me into? And then, gee, go do it. Just go and do it. There's no hesitation. Just commit in your heart. I'm going to do what you told me to do. And I'm going to share with someone what I learned today and what I heard from you. Lord, send me. I'm here. Literally, that's all you need to do. It can be 10 minutes. It can be 30 minutes, an hour, however long you want. It can be the Lord just is eager to meet you and to speak to you. And when He does, and you say yes and you go do it, guess what you're doing? Following Jesus. You're being a mature disciple and could and submitting to the process of transformation Jesus has for you. And guess what? I just explained that to you. T lag. Now you can go and actually train other people to spend time with God. T lag. Thank him for the cross. Listen to his word. Ask him what to do, and then go do it. It's that simple, guys. And now you can go and disciple somebody else and ask them each time you meet, what do you hear from the Lord? And what steps of obedience have you taken? And what steps of obedience have you not taken that you still need to? And who in your life are you trying to pray for and reach that they might know Jesus? Boom. You're a fully functional disciple maker and filled with the spirit to to to start and sustain a movement of kingdom multiplying disciples now and forever. This is so simple, guys. Let's just just strip it all down. Let's just say that's what discipleship is. Okay, I'm gonna get off my high horse, high horse or my podium or my soapbox, whatever it is. I just feel passionate about making things so simple. and and I'm you if you listen to my podcast, there's probably been a few where I've made it very complicated. And sometimes there's the deep things of God that we need to uncover and talk about that seem a little bit mysterious and sacramental. But at the at its core, following Jesus is as simple as just spending time with him daily and saying yes to whatever he tells you to do and who he tells you to love. So let's just do that together. Okay. as always, would love to see you at church. This weekend we have trunk or treat. So we're not meeting at five for church. We're meeting at five thirty for trunk or treat. Come and meet some neighbors. it's gonna be a blast. And then next week we'll pick it back up. We're in Acts chapter two, Pentecost. we're looking at the first sermon that Peter ever preached post resurrection and post Holy Spirit coming. So it should be a good one. thanks for tuning in. Love you guys and I'll see you next time.