ESC Shabbat Service: 5 Pillars: Discipleship - Timothy Briner

I love this quote. I love this saying from the Jewish world. May we be covered in the dust of our rabbi. Now I've added Yeshua, but may we be walking so closely to Yeshua with one another that we're dusty from the dirt that kicks up where he walks. That's where I want to be. That's where I hope we all want to be together. I don't want to be there alone. I want to be there with you guys. So this is the flavor of our community. We're built on the foundation of Yeshua, who is the word made flesh. And our specific flavor within all of the different communities around the world is Jewish calling, word of God and power of the spirit, covenant relationships, prophetic intercession, and discipleship. [01:50:24] (66 seconds)  #FollowInHisDust

And so suddenly, there's a separation from community of we can be very lonely, we can be very isolated even if it's not on purpose. Now we can do it purposefully. It's very easy to do it purposefully. But even if it's not on purpose, we can still become isolated. And this is where then it takes a lot of intention to say, okay, how do I find community? How do I find a village? How do I become a part of it? And that takes availability. That takes us being willing to say, I am available to you, and I'm going to pursue being with you. So when somebody says, hey, I'd love to get together sometime, being like, okay, I've got to find time in my schedule. I'm going to make it happen. And then it also says, hey, I'm going to ask people, when can I get together with you? [01:39:02] (59 seconds)  #MakeTimeForCommunity

And so we need to be a part of communities that when we're calling somebody in, they can come be around us, but they can also be around other people who have the strengths that we don't have, who don't have the blind spots that we have, so that they can become more like Messiah. A little bit through me, a little bit through Mark, a little bit through other people around us, we can become like Messiah as we rub off on each other. So I'm going circle back to this. Opportunities for discipleship expression in the context of the congregational family. And as we kind of just look at these items, I'm not gonna go in-depth on all of them, but there are different seasons of life. Before I got married, shortly after I got married, before I had kids, I would come to service, and I would hang out with friends after service, and we'd go to lunch, and maybe we'd play board games or volleyball, and we'd hang out all through the evening. I have kids, and I don't do that anymore. And there's a piece of me that misses it, [01:43:25] (75 seconds)  #SeasonsOfCommunity

And this is important because discipleship happens on the day by day. You know, it's not just meeting with somebody every once in a while. You know, we do that with counselors, with therapists. That's a good thing, but that's different than living life day by day with one another. Proverbs 27, As iron sharpens iron, so a person sharpens the countenance of his friend. We rub off on each other, and sometimes it's not comfortable. Hopefully, it's towards becoming in the image of Messiah, but we become like the people who we're with. And the question is, who are we spending time with? You know, I got to choose to spend time with my wife, Bailey, and I spend more time with her than anyone else. I would say that in terms of discipleship relationship, you know, there's that relationship of we rub off on each other. [01:40:01] (73 seconds)  #IronSharpensIron

Discipleship. A possible definition is to model our life on someone else's life. Okay? It requires somebody who disciples and who is a disciple. Discipleship can't be done alone. Again, you can't be a disciple if there's nobody you're following. You can't be a discipler if there's nobody who's following you. You're just on your own. So discipleship requires both. A couple cinemas that sometimes come up are mentorship and apprenticeship. I think they're good. My personal opinion is there's a slight distinction. [01:22:10] (43 seconds)  #ModelAndMultiply

discipleship starts in the family, but it takes a village because we're not perfect. My mom was great, and she discipled some great things into my life. But you know what? It wasn't comprehensive. It wasn't everything. She had blind spots, just like I have blind spots, just like we all have blind spots. And so this is where we kind of come back to this idea of mentorship and apprenticeship is, you know what? We're not going to get everything we need from our families. Hopefully, we get a good amount. Sometimes, maybe we get almost nothing at all. But the Lord's provided us with community, and that's so that we can look around at other people and say, hey, where is somebody who has a really heart for prayer [01:35:49] (58 seconds)  #ItTakesAVillage

And when Yeshua says to us, come follow me, come be with me, there's also this call to become like him, and that's calling us to the cross. It's calling us to to lay down our will and say, Lord, let your will be done every day. You know? This is what, you know, theologians sometimes talk about as sanctification, is there's the there's the step of salvation. There's the step of saying, yes, Yeshua, I want to follow you. And then, there's the next day, and the next day, and the [01:27:16] (38 seconds)  #DailyFollow

there's the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and it's, Yeshua, I'm going to follow you today. Yeshua, I'm going to follow you today. Oh, man, I messed up yesterday. You know what? I'm going to get back up, and I'm going to follow you today. It's an everyday thing, and as we're with him, we become conformed into his image, day by day. [01:27:50] (27 seconds)  #FollowHimToday