Discipleship is the Fruit of Being a Christian

David Platt:

Now a community of guys, folks who are gathering together in the morning, praying together, sharing the gospel, and not everybody. I mean, there are other folks. I mean, I know you guys gather together once a week. When you talk about re-looking at what it means to be the church or I don’t know what the best word is, what are the things that are really forefront of your heart and mind when you think about what the church should look like?

Your Life Should Look Different

Francis Chan:

Yeah. Well, you know why I love that gathering in the mornings, is I have the confidence of these people that they really are believers, that they really are followers and I think a lot of times when we gather for what we call the church, I don’t know that I have that same confidence because when I read scripture I see, gosh, when the Holy Spirit enters into a person there should be some pretty serious life change.

There should be a difference between a person who’s dead in their trespasses and sins and a person who now has the spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead dwelling in them. There should be a marked difference and I believe I see that. I mean, we’ve seen it where you go, Wow, that’s not normal. That person has been turned around. That person is filled with the Spirit.

But then there’s also such a big number of people that come to these Sunday gatherings where you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference by their lifestyle, actions, even words and so now you’re trying to get everyone in this gathering to do something together and I’m concerned that a lot of them have not really made a commitment to follow Jesus.

The other day I just was reading through the Book of Mark and I thought wow. I mean, Jesus just goes to these people, “Follow Me,” and that just means, “Whatever I’m asking you to do, you just do it,” and those who try to make excuses, well, let me just … They seem legitimate.

David Platt:

Sure.

Francis Chan:

Let me say goodbye to my-

David Platt:

Really good excuses.

Francis Chan:

Family or-

David Platt:

Yes.

Francis Chan:

Yeah, of course. Of course. You get your family. yeah.

David Platt:

Yeah, you want to go say goodbye to your mom and dad. Yeah.

Francis Chan:

And Jesus is like, “Well, if we’re going to do that, then don’t even bother.” I’m like, wow. What it means to follow Jesus, to surrender, I mean, that’s what we’re saying today of walking the Spirit is, Holy Spirit, what would you like me to say? What would you like me to do? I’ve surrendered to You. I’ve died to myself and I want to follow You.

I mean, are those the people that show up on a Sunday morning, is that what they’re thinking or is it something else that’s been created of, repeat after me. Pray this prayer. You’re not going to hell anymore. I just don’t see that in scripture. I see a, “Follow Me,” and so for me, gathering with people where I go, man, I see it in their life, it’s just a lot different.

The Importance of Making Disciples

David Platt:

So I mean, that hits something really important. To call people, to make disciples who are not disciples, that’s pretty much a dead end. I mean, I think about one guy in the church that I pastor who had come to the church a few years ago. He had grown up in the church. He’d done the deal, prayed the prayer, been baptized, and had been involved in church leadership.

The church that he came from called us. The pastor of that church called us and said, “Hey, just want you to know you’re getting a great guy. This guy is going to serve your church well. He’s going to be a great church member.” So he comes and about a year later he gets saved.

He was not a follower of Jesus. He’d been on every committee team. He’d done all this stuff in the church. But he’d never become a follower of Jesus and then as soon as he did this, this supernatural compulsion was in him. I mean, he started looking around at his life and his workplace.

He’s a really successful businessman and says, “How can I use this business to leverage for the gospel to make disciples?” He and his wife started taking couples into their homes and started intentionally making disciples. I mean, his wife came the other day and said, “Pastor, making disciples is better than having grandkids.” They are just going at it and the fundamental change was he became a follower of Jesus.

Now, I don’t want to say that everybody who struggles with making disciples is clearly not a disciple. But when you look at this book, from the very beginning of Christianity, “Follow Me, I will make you a fisher of men.” Every follower, a fisher, every disciple, disciple maker. So if we’re not making disciples somewhere along the way, we may have missed what it means to be a disciple.

What It Means to Be a Christian

Francis Chan:

Yeah, yeah. My concern is … Okay, let me put it this way. There was one time this guy that was struggling sexually and he was actually even on our staff and just decided to go the other direction and walk away from things, but still was saying he’s still a Christian. He’s still a follower and there was just that whole thing of, I don’t want to judge anyone and I don’t know.

But at the end of the day, I said, here’s my concern is if Jesus said to him, “Hey, drop these relationships and follow Me,” he would say, “No, I’m not going to leave that and just do whatever You ask me to do.” He would say no to that.

But yet we would still call him a Christian and that’s such a weird disconnect to me and yet many people would say, “Well, yeah, I’m not ready to drop everything. But I consider myself a Christian. It’ll grow in that. I’ll get there one day. But I’m not there.” I just get concerned. I mean, I sometimes look at my own life and go, man, this is inconsistent.

This is inconsistent and I’m not saying I even have this figured out. I just really wrestle with that and there are times in my life when I feel total peace. I surrendered today. I really did and so I don’t even know what I’m saying right now.

I’m just saying I wrestle with what I read in scripture and I wrestle with other people and judge just out of concern. I love these people. I want to believe that we’re going to spend eternity together.