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InVerse, 3rd Quarter 2020: Foundations of Discipleship

Sebastien Braxton

Sikhu Daco

Justin Kim

Callie Williams

01-Instruments of Discipleship

Before Jesus ascended up to heaven, there were these last words of Jesus.

We'll find out on this episode of Inverse.

Coming to you from Silver Spring, Maryland, welcome to Inverse, a Bible-based conversation on life principles, contemporary issues, and thought-provoking perspectives.

Now here's your host, Justin Kim, with Inverse.

Hey friends, we're so excited that you decided to join us here at Inverse.

And as you see, our environment is a little bit different as it may be in your case as well.

My friends and I are all over the world and we are now through this new medium, next upcoming weeks, and we're gonna be studying the topic of discipleship.

So I want to welcome you, and if you don't have it already, we want to have your Inverse Bible Study Guides, which you can get online at inversebible.org.

At this point, I'm going to ask that the 3 of my friends be invited and we're going to get into our discussion.

We're going to go to Matthew chapter 28, Matthew 28, but before we read Scripture, I'm gonna ask Siku, can you pray for us?

Loving Father, we would love to thank you for the opportunity that we have to delve into your Word.

We pray that you'd give us understanding, that the Holy Spirit would be our teacher, and that at the end of this, we would know that we have spent time with you, coming to know the mind of Christ even better.

Make us more effective witnesses for you, so that others can learn about Jesus as well.

We're gonna go to the Gospel of Matthew, and we're gonna go towards all the way at the end to chapter 28.

And Sebastian, if you can read from verse 16 to the end of the Gospel.

Matthew chapter 28 beginning in verse 16 the Bible says, Then the 11 disciples went away into Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them.

When they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted.

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.

And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

We are in this topic of discipleship, and I don't know about you guys, but when I think of discipleship, I think of sandals.

Yeah, I mean like a beach, and then sand, and then just sandals walking along.

I wanna ask Callie, when you hear of discipleship, like what, there are some negative connotations and there are some positive connotations, but what immediately comes to your mind?

Well, I do need to say, I now feel pressured to come up with a weird answer, but I don't have a weird answer.

When I think of discipleship, I think mainly of 2 things.

So I think about, you know, the times that Jesus called to his disciples and when he was calling them, he said, you follow me.

And even in like a bad way, if you call someone like, oh, you're a disciple of so-and-so, it means you like copy them or you follow them to even a bad degree.

And then another part of discipleship, it's probably just because I spent so much time being a teacher is like, yeah, just the teaching part of about sharing knowledge and sharing ways.

So like through copying and then also just through what they say.

Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of rhetoric out there about discipleship.

And it's it's in many ways kind of like this pop word that a lot of people say, at least in church circles or religious circles.

Well, when I think about discipleship, I think about an experience of taking a person's life, right?

And as you observe that life, as you listen to the things that they teach, the way they speak, how they live, how they make choices, how they relate to various people in society, you're actually kind of taking in who that person is.

And it's almost like, you know, when you see someone that really inspires you or amazes you, you kind of think to yourself, man, I wish I could get into that person's head.

And to me, discipleship is the method of doing that simply by proximity, by access and by living with that person.

And like I said in my opener, this is a really profound passage in Matthew 28.

And Jesus talks about, you know, replicating this discipleship thing.

Sikhu, let's actually look at this verse a little bit more deeper, and for the rest of you guys, let's actually get into the text here.

Verse 16, he has his 11 of his disciples there, and then he gives what many Christians call the Great Commission.

So Jesus is, he died, he rose again, and he calls the disciples to, yes, amen.

They've spent some time with him after his resurrection.

He's been teaching them more things, learning more from him, but now he's about to go to heaven.

And these are his final words to his disciples where he first assures them that what he's about to say to them is based on authority that he has.

And the instructions that he's giving to them are authoritative and they carry authority, as in, they'll be able to accomplish these things.

It's a commandment and a promise, because he has all authority to say these things and then he tells him to go and make disciples So it's it's beautiful in verse 16.

It starts with he had the 11 disciples with him.

They go up to the mountain And then he says in verse 19 go therefore and make disciples It's kind of like you have been my disciples now what you have experienced with me, I want you to go and impart to somebody else.

Make more disciples just like I have been discipling you.

You know, in a lot of Christian circles, like, and I guess in, I don't know, when you kind of like look at church and religion and spirituality, sometimes it's just kind of like, oh, you read your Bibles, you pray and just be a good person and you have that that level of spirituality.

But then there's this other side that talks about, you know, evangelism and discipleship.

And these are kind of like program words.

I mean, Jesus clearly here is talking about some kind of process here.

And it's it's it's I mean, I know you guys don't understand the tension there.

I mean, cause we're, we're still talking about perceptions and the way that people view things.

You mentioned the 2 extremes where, you know, there's kind of the spirituality and I'm a hermit and I live by myself and I do my spiritual thing.

And then there's the other side that's kind of like, you know, go out there and do evangelism.

In my experience, I found that both of these don't espouse discipleship, actually.

That on the 1 side, it's me and Jesus, as long as I'm a Christian, in my heart, and I don't have to say anything to anybody, they'll just see my life, and then somehow a miracle will happen, and they become a Christian as well.

And on the other hand, I'm gonna, you know, do evangelism.

And typically, the way that I've seen it, evangelism looks like telling them stuff, you know, imparting information, I'm going to give them more information.

And based on their head knowledge, they're going to make a decision to transform their lives.

Like they're going to just, you know, poof, they become a different person because I imparted information to them.

And both methods actually do not embrace what discipleship is as Jesus taught it or as Jesus lived it, because it's actually a combination of both.

And it's more a relational thing, an experiential thing that is head knowledge, nor than it is just a personal and selfish kind of experience.

There's a relational component to the discipleship that I think both extremes don't espouse.

So if those 2 extremes appeal to us in some way, then we may be on those extremes and have to learn to embrace both of them.

Well, I was just going to build off of Siku's point.

Israel Ramos

02-Goal of Discipleship

Have you ever done something, or sat a certain way, or said something where totally reminded of your parents?

How does Jesus use this aspect about the human brain?

Hey friends, you're watching Inverse here, and we are in the midst of a discussion on the topic of discipleship for the next 12 or 13 weeks.

And here we're looking at the topic of the goal of discipleship.

So we want to welcome you to study the Inverse Bible Study Guides along with us.

Once again, inversebible.org and you'll see the past topics that we've discussed and studied and you'll see this quarter on the topic of discipleship.

This time I'm gonna invite my friends, Callie, Israel, and Siku to come online.

I wanna welcome you guys into our virtual studios.

As you see, we're all over the world, and we praise the Lord for this wonderful medium to allow our program to continue in the midst of these times.

I'm gonna ask Callie if you can pray for us and we'll get into scripture right away.

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for the privilege it is to study your word together, and I ask that right now you would open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things from your word.

Please guide us by your Holy Spirit, and may we see things clearly, and that we can apply to our lives even today.

We ask all this with confidence, in Jesus' name, Amen.

Well for today we're going to go to philippians chapter 3 philippians chapter 3 verse 12 through 20 and we're going to ask our resident dj israel if you can read those bible verses all right philippians 3 verse 12 it says not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but 1 thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind, and if anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.

Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.

Brethren, join in following my example and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern.

For many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their mind on earthly things, for our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

I know that's a longer passage that we read today.

And you know, friends, we don't really, we don't read that to, for any legalistic purposes or formality.

So if you have your Bibles or take them out, turn them on, whatever you gotta do, and we're gonna get into scripture together.

Before we get into Philippians 3, I'm gonna give a little bit, just to back up a little bit.

And then Siku, can you kind of recap what we talked about last week and we're gonna plunge into this week's topic.

Okay, I guess as a quick recap, in summary, what we talked about last week was discipleship is not just about programs.

Firstly, our relationship with God as he disciples us, and then our relationship with other people as we lead them into a relationship with Jesus.

So discipleship is a relational experience where we are following Jesus.

And as we follow him, We need others to follow him as well in relationship.

Yeah, and we see that at least in the Christian walk, we're always being discipled by someone.

And then whether we're doing it explicit or implicitly, we're also discipling other people through our example and through our ministry in some way.

So we're in this kind of nexus and web, we're always influencing each other.

And that's kind of the beauty and perhaps even danger of human relationships.

We're always feeding in this fluidity of behavior and belief.

I wanna ask you guys, what are some, you know, we're all in this walk with Jesus.

We all believe in the same Jesus, the capital J, but is it possible that even the name is the same, that we have different identities of Jesus?

And how does that play into our discipleship?

Yeah, I absolutely think that we have views of different Jesus.

I don't think there actually are different Jesus's.

Amen but we we have different views of him where maybe for For whatever reason we just like different aspects of him and we want to emphasize that over other parts.

Maybe that's because that speaks directly to a need or it speaks to something we want to triumph.

And when we do that though, is we can focus so much on that part that we say that's all Jesus is.

And so we're mimicking like 20% of Jesus, but we actually need to walk in discipleship of every part of Jesus.

Actually, it's a little bit of a little to add a little bit to what Kelly is saying as well.

I don't think that I don't think that what when this happens, I don't think we're actually mimicking Jesus.

But I think we're actually making mimicking ourselves.

And so what has happened, I think, in our world today is that we've, we've, we've made God into the image of man instead of making man into the image of God or woman or whatever, right?

So we have, but what has happened, what generally happens in our nature as human beings is to look at different aspects of Christ that we like or that are like us.

And then we turn the image of God into the image of a human being.

And so it's it's critical for us to to to to point out the fact in our last episode on Matthew, Chapter 28, there's an implied discipleship.

When Jesus says, go into all the world and make disciples of all people Baptizing them in the name of Father Son the Holy Spirit The implication that Jesus is making there is make them disciples of me of Jesus Christ Don't make them disciples of yourself and I think that that's an important critical point for us to talk about when we're talking about discipleship we need to make sure that we're talking about the discipleship of making disciples of Jesus Christ and not of ourselves.

And that's a crucial role where scripture takes place although you know in a formal sense oh we got to believe the bible and be a bible and that's true but in a very organic sense if we don't have scripture as our anchor for who Jesus is as Israel said we may be just following who really are.

I remember listening to a presentation 1, which I highly disagreed with.

And this person was saying that God is sarcastic.

God goes out and he makes fun of people and he's hanging out with them all the time.

And there is an aspect, and I think that was the point of the message, that God has humor and he does have fellowship with people, but emphasizing that too much at the expense of the rest of who Jesus is and what he's doing really was making Jesus in our image rather than us into his image.

It's just a twist on what Israel and Kelly have already said.

That we know this of ourselves, that we are multi-faceted.

You know, I'm not, you can't put me in a box and it's frustrating when people put you in a box and they treat you like This is all that you are and it's the sum total of who you are based on 1 interaction They had with you and they stereotype and typecast, right?

I think we do that with God and as Israel was saying I think that that we like about him are the things that we can relate to.

And we make that to be all of who God is.

Whereas in reality, God is the being and we are created in his image.

And if we are multifaceted, if there are different aspects to who we are, what more of the God of the universe?

And instead of putting him in a box and deciding like, this is who God is, allowing God to be God, allowing him to reveal himself to us and get to know him for who he is.

And I think that's where we, you know, put him in, make an idol, a graven image out of him and set him in stone instead of letting him be God.

Now, I want to ask you all, what are some Bible verses or some vignettes of Jesus that really describe who He is and what aspects of Jesus that we should mimic, be discipled of, copy, and not just in a mimic in a like he did this let me do it that way but in a really organic being sense let's go to Israel.

Justin yeah if I can go back a little bit to that Matthew chapter 28 component because there's another piece of that that is that that shares into our conversation and when we think about discipleship what many of us think is that we are to be like Jesus so that other people can be like us And so that when they are like us, then they become like Jesus.

At least that's what I had in my mind prior to the study of this lesson.

But what really struck me more than ever before from reading this passage again, Matthew chapter 28, it says, teach, make disciples of all people, which is in itself a very radical thing.

Like how does God use me to create a disciple of Him?

That, you know, that in itself is mind blowing.

But God says, all right, I want you to make disciples that will be disciples of me." How are you gonna do this?

Is it by mimicking certain components of who I am?

It says, by teaching them to observe all things and then notice what it says, whatsoever I have commanded you.

So this work of discipleship is not actually so much a work that God has entrusted to us.

My job is not so much to make the disciples of Jesus, but rather to be a vessel used by God to allow Him to make disciples of Himself.

He says, and this is how I see it in my mind, how it plays off, as I live my life, as I do whatever God has commanded me to do, as I live my relationship with Him, and as I unfold that, then what has happened is that God is using me as a filter to make disciples of himself.

And so I think this is the role that you and I play in discipleship.

Jonathan Walter

03-Power of Discipleship - Prayer

When's the last time you've been raw before someone, without a filter, words coming out that you never thought you'd say, emotions coming out?

And when's the last time you were raw before God?

We want to greet each 1 of you with a warm welcome here on Inverse.

I want to invite my friends who are all around the world in their home studios in the midst of this season, and we are studying together the theme of discipleship.

And if you want to follow along with us in our Bible study guides, you can go to inversebible.org.

And there you'll see our past episodes and past Bible study guides.

And you can follow along with us in our discussion.

We're going to go to Luke chapter 11 today for this episode and we're going to have a word of prayer and Siku, can you pray for us please?

Our loving Father, we are thankful for the opportunity that we have to study your word, and we're thankful for the gift of prayer that we can communicate with you, not just hear from you, but we can open our hearts up to you.

So we pray that as we have this divine interaction that our lives would be blessed so that we can be a blessing to others as well.

Jonathan, we can go to Luke chapter 11, Luke chapter 11.

And for those who are out there watching, please get your Bibles out.

You turn them on, whatever you got to do and read with us.

This program is called In Verse, so we want to be in the verse and some passages are a little bit long and we do that because we want to get the full context of what Jesus is trying to say.

So Jonathan, can you read from verses 1 to, let's see, verse 1.

Now it came to pass as he was praying in a certain place when he ceased that 1 of his disciples said to him lord teach us to pray as john also taught his disciples so he said to them when you pray say our father in heaven hallowed be your name your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us day by day our daily bread and forgive us our sins.

For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.

And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil 1.

And he said to them, which of you shall have a friend and go to him at midnight and say to him, friend, lend me 3 loaves.

For a friend of mine has come to me on his journey and I have nothing to set before him.

And he will answer from within and say, do not trouble me.

The door is now shut and my children are with me in bed.

I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.

So I say to you ask and it will be given to you seek and you will find Knock and it will be open to you.

For everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds and to him who knocks it will be opened.

If a son asks for bread from any father among you will he give him a stone?

Or if he asks for a fish will he give him a serpent instead of a fish.

And I want to ask Israel, can you kind of recapitulate, recap for us and what we talked about on discipleship and link this to our topic today on prayer.

So the book of Luke is actually a manual on discipleship.

And from the very beginning to the very end, it discusses this important topic of discipleship.

1 of the pictures that Luke portrays of discipleship is this picture of a journey.

And many times you'll hear him refer to the people of the way, or going on the way, or being a part of the way.

This is referencing the journey that a disciple takes from being a follower to Christ from the beginning all the way to the end.

Another important picture that's 1 of my favorites that is portrayed in the book of Luke is also this picture or this idea that discipleship is something that takes place within a family circle and so over and over in the book of Luke you'll see how there are these tie-ins into the family circle.

And this is kind of what is taking place in Luke chapter 11.

Essentially what is taking place, you find Jesus Christ speaking to His disciples and telling them how God in heaven is like a father.

Like the disciples, the people on this earth are like his children.

And so he begins to portray this picture of a family, a picture between a father and a son.

And in this context, in this dialogue, prayer emerges.

And so in order to have a relationship, whether it's a relationship in the family, which the foundation, the basic foundation of these family units are between the husband and wife, there needs to be 3 things that happen.

I need to be able to speak with the people within my family circle.

The second thing is I need to be able to listen.

Series

InVerse, 3rd Quarter 2020: Foundations of Discipleship

03-Power of Discipleship - Prayer

Transcript

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Recorded

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01 Beginnings and Endings

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11 The Final Tyranny

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08 Holy to the Lord

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InVerse 3rd Quarter 2024: Stories that Transform

12 Filled with the Spirit

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InVerse, 3rd Quarter 2020: Foundations of Discipleship

11-Fishers of People

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Inverse, 3rd Quarter 2021: Sexuality

11 When Things Go Wrong

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13 Ablaze With God’s Glory

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InVerse, 2nd Quarter 2021: The Promise, God's Everlasting Covenant

07 Old Vs. New

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InVerse, 4th Quarter 2019: Nehemiah: Principles of Biblical Leadership

12-Power of Remembrance

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06-Through External Opposition: Watchfulness

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InVerse, 4th Quarter 2022: Beyond Death

07 The Rich Man and Lazarus

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07-Closer Than a Brother

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