Discipleship Begins with Relationships: Love, Follow, Invite

Where does the ability come for us to do that? Through the Holy Spirit. Right? Galatians five twenty two says, the fruit of the spirit is love. It's the first one. It's the most important one. No wonder Jesus would say a new command I give you is to love. It makes sense and then Ephesians five one through two, it says, be imitators of god therefore as loved children and live a life of love. We do it because that's what Christ did for us. He gave himself up as a sacrifice as an offering. [00:57:54] (31 seconds)  #LoveByTheSpirit

Can you imagine that one time? Jesus is sitting there and he is cleaning the feet of his disciples before they sit down to eat, washing the dust off from the road, making sure that they were prepped and ready to hang out, visit, talk, to feel good. And then, they go to another home probably days down the road and they repeat this process and Jesus is washing feet but what happens? The disciple now are leaning down by him, and they're washing other people's feet. [00:49:33] (37 seconds)  #ServeLikeJesus

What was the example? As I have. Not as you have, not on your standard, not where you just wanna kinda like get in and get out, right? That I'm just gonna kinda do this one little thing. But to where you come alongside people and say, I wanna do life with you. I wanna journey with you. Where your neighbors become friends and then become family. Where your people at work, you walk alongside them through challenges and difficulties, where we get to know the person that we see every week at the supermarket because we go to the same one and we have a tendency to go to the same register. [00:51:39] (44 seconds)  #DoLifeTogether

That's all it takes for us to lean in and be the disciple maker that god wants us to be. And we don't do it like it's a project or anything like that. It's not. It's because why? We genuinely care about people. Why? Because Jesus did. God has put every person around you for a reason. Get to know them. Let them become family. Do life together. Journey together. God made y'all both for the same exact purpose to love him and to love each other. Just invite them into it. [00:56:28] (40 seconds)  #InviteAndInvest

Discipleship is simple. It's not complex, and it's what it looks like when those two relationships, your relationship with God and your relationship with others comes together. That's the sweet spot. That's the spot where you begin to look back and go, god, I get it. I get what you've been doing all this time. I get the people that you've been bringing into my life, and I get how you've been teaching me and how you've been guiding me. [00:43:33] (27 seconds)  #DiscipleshipIsSimple

This isn't a bunch of verses for just a banner or a flag for socialism or something like that. It's not. It's for loving one another, for coming alongside, for embracing each other, for meeting needs, and for sharing Jesus while you do it. If you're here today and and you're in the room and you are not growing with other believers, can I just encourage you to do that? [00:58:49] (26 seconds)  #LoveInAction

I did not live for god the way I should. I was running as far from him. I got to where I hated going to church. I was mad at mom and dad for dragging me there And yet each and every week, we were still there. And then there was a time that I think that I got to rock bottom. I realized that in all of my efforts to chase after all the things that I thought were super important, popularity, just being respected among everybody at my school, wishing that there were all these things that I could accomplish outside of God that I realized I didn't have anything. [00:28:35] (39 seconds)  #FromRockBottomToFaith

Jesus had modeled it for them. That is what disciple making is about. We get close to god. He rubs off on us. We bring others along and they go out on their own. Jesus was clear what this was supposed to look like. It was supposed to be in the context of love. Jesus' method of discipleship is intentional and relational love. John thirteen thirty four through 35, a new command I give you. This was in addition to those first two. [00:50:49] (38 seconds)  #RelationalDiscipleship