Today, Johnathan and Jake have a conversation about what exactly discipleship is, what it looks like, and why it is so important.
📍 welcome to another conversation for life here on the what now podcast. I am pastor Jonathan Bass and I'm joined by pastor. Jake Easter, I don't know why I struggled with that per se..I looked right at you and I went, well, you forgot my doctorate. I'm sorry. I apologize. Dr. Jake Easter. And it's good to be here with you this morning. And we've got a topic today we're going to talk about, but brother, Jake, how you doing, man? Doing good,,doing well, and Lord's, Lord's been blessing us here in recent days, been blessing the church, and thankful for those that's been saved here recently, and then the Lord has brought in some visitors that continue to return.
It's always good to have first time visitors, but it's even a greater blessing to have returning visitors. And so. So we've the Lord's blessed us and the Lord's blessing the church and how's things going at Shining Light? It's good. I have no sad stories. The Lord is good to us and much of the same thing.
We're seeing visitors come in and people, I tell you, we were talking a little bit about this before we got started recording this morning, but Seeing a lot of people come in that are hungry for the word of God. Absolutely. And man, as a pastor, that just does my heart good to see that. And so I've got no sad stories.
The Lord is good to us. He's blessing and there's nothing like serving the Lord. That's right. And ironically, that's kind of what we're going to talk about today. So not necessarily just serving the Lord.
I told the church the other day, I just wish I'd got started, started sooner. Amen. I've said the same.
I had a young man come up to me after he said, I thought you surrendered to preach when he was 15. I said, I did, but I wish I'd have started sooner.
Well, that's me. I didn't get started that soon in life. I messed around for quite a few years. And if I don't watch out, I'll let the devil bring that up and I'll get hung up on that.
But the fact of the matter is. I'm right with God. I'm where he wants me to be right now. And today is all that we've got. That's right.
Forgetting those things which are behind. Reaching forward to those things which
are before us. That's exactly right. But but I, I do agree with that. My only regret is not getting started sooner.
Yeah. And but that's okay. As long as we keep focusing on what we're doing now and how God is working and, and hallelujah. So we're not necessarily just going to talk about serving the Lord, but it kind of goes into the topic at hand and that is discipleship. We want to talk about that today.
That's a topic that seems to have been kind of fallen off in the past several years. And, you know where we're coming at is basically from the angle of. You know, how important it is to, you know, when you become a Christian, it's just like, well, if you think about in the Bible. When you look at the followers of Christ, I mean, that, that is the whole idea here.
You are now a follower of Christ. And it's not just, you know, in our society or in the Bible belt, especially around here. One of the things I know you've preached on it, I've preached on, I've heard Pastor Jonathan preach on it is how. Salvation seems to almost be a bucket list item, and this is something I need to do and check off my list before I die so I can go to heaven.
And so people will come to an altar, they'll come to the preacher or pastor or come into the church, they'll make a profession of faith, and it's almost like they just check that mark off. They walk right on out the door and they live their life just like nothing's ever changed. You know, if, if you're if that salvation hasn't changed you, I'll go ahead and say that salvation was not worth anything.
Right. And, and, you know in the Bible, when we read about discipleship, I mean, that was, they were called the disciples of God. Why were they the disciples of Jesus? Because they followed Jesus. Well, what did following him mean? Well, that meant Learning of him and obeying what you learned. And that's something that has fallen off, man, in our society.
As one preacher, and I know you do, and Brother Jonathan does as well you read, sometimes you get to read in so many books, and sometimes you forget the source of a quote, or, and I heard a preacher saying I can't remember if I was sitting in a service or read it in a book, so I If a person's listening that originally quoted this, I'm sorry that I can't give you credit because I don't remember.
But I heard a preacher say one time, he said, before we're saved, he said, the choice is heaven or hell. And he said, you know, the Holy Spirit of God convicts our heart, shows us our need of a savior. You're presented with one or two eternal destinations. You know, if you accept Christ as your savior heaven's going to be your home.
And but just as what brother Bass was talking about the next step. The next step, the preacher went on to say this. He said, as a Christian, as a child of God, you've, you've been saved. He said, the next question is heaven or earth. He said, you know, you're going to, you know, you're going to go to heaven when you die.
You know, you've trusted Christ as your savior. You have that foundation that's settled. He said, then he said, it's heaven or earth. Are you going to live for? temporal things. Are you going to live for eternal things? And I think that when we talk about discipleship today discipleship and I'm on, I'm going to come up with my own quote here.
Discipleship I think is the key. Discipleship is the key between a Christian making a profession, a sinner making a profession of faith and living for heaven or living for earth. I think the key, I think a lot of what we're seeing today, we're reaping a generation that. Checked off a box when somebody got saved, added it to the roll but never took the next step into leading that person as to what it means to follow the Lord.
And, you know, there's people that from time to time in the ministry will come to me. I know we've dealt with it on the podcast. What does a prayer life look like? What does Bible study look like? What about the tithe? You know, many questions that Right after they got saved could have been dealt with and discipleship and they could have been enjoying and reaping the blessings of Fellowship with the Lord, you know in a in a greater way Now they've been denied that because they really wasn't discipled.
And but that learning, that learning of Christ, that's what discipleship is all about. And he said in Matthew 11, 28, Coming to me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. That's salvation. Hebrews chapter 4 speaks of that rest that we enter into when we come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior.
There's no greater joy, no greater peace, and spiritually we come to a place that we rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. But he goes on to say in that same scripture, he says I have to go back to verse number 28. He said, Come unto me all ye that labor and heavy laden, I'll give you rest. That's salvation.
Then he says, Take my yoke upon you. And learn of me, and that, that process, you know, you've already been saved, you're saved by grace through faith but that next step is coming to him to learn of him, getting in the word of God, and developing a the, the fellowship aspect of the relationship.
That you now have. And that's what discipleship does. Discipleship, you, you come along somebody that's been saved and you know it don't have to be somebody that's been saved for 50 years. Somebody that's been saved just a few years but has been trained in the Word of God and developed that close walk with the Lord could take somebody else and and, and teach them the ways of the Lord.
Right. And that's what he equipped his disciples. One of the reasons we see such a Spread of the gospel in the book of acts is they were equipped. That was three and a half years of training Under the under the leadership of the Lord in order to enable them to do the ministry And I know in acts 2 they were empowered by the Holy Spirit And that's essential if we're gonna see people saved and see people discipled But one of the things I've been encouraged in our church God's blessed sweet home Baptist Church.
We have Some that's fourth generation Christians that have been members of the same church and, you know, that's just in and of itself. God honors faithfulness and faithfulness honors God. But I was encouraging our people the other day, especially those that are Sunday school teachers, hold a position in the church.
I said, mentorship taking somebody under your wing that's younger than you. And teaching them you know, and, and of course, we want people to go through discipleship before we put them into Sunday school or being a deacon, things of that nature, but it's just a step upon step. And I think that that's, that step of discipleship is something that's been missing for a long time.
And I hope, as we were talking about before the podcast today, I hope it's something that we're getting back around to understanding and seeing the importance of. And I think it's a key, Matthew chapter number 28 we always talk about the. The Great Commission, the Lord's last command should be our first concern, as Dr.
Blue says, and, It says in Matthew 28, 18, And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. So if you're not going in the name of the Lord and under the direction of the Holy Spirit, you're not going to accomplish anything of eternal value. He said, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations. So the teaching, the teaching all nations, that's preaching the gospel. Mark chapter number 16 deals with that. Go into all the world and preach the gospel. And, but he said, Go ye therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
You know, I've never really seen many churches that argue against when a person gets saved baptizing them. Most people, I mean, Baptist churches independent, fundamental, we believe that when a person gets saved, we need to baptize that individual. But somewhere, verse 20 has fell off. And verse 20 says, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.
And of course, we want to Conclude with the promise that he gave. He said, lo, I'm with you all way, even until the end of the world. Amen. But he said, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever. I command you that's
discipleship. That's right. Yes, sir. And you know you, you've got, you got all of that covered really well.
We've got in this day though, and you kind of alluded to it just a minute ago. We've got. So many places that are just trying to draw crowds in they're just trying to draw numbers in and The problem with that is when you grow a church that way It seldom last because the theology is so shallow, the people are not going to be grounded.
Many of them may not even be saved, you know, and, and so attracting people is not the same as a group as growing a church or growing a ministry. You know one of the things when I started pastoring, I got hung up on that and I think everybody does because as humans, that's what we look. You know, that church you know, we're, we've normally been running 40, but today we had 50 and that was a great service.
Well, why does it all hinge on a number?
I think that's part of the country we live in. The success driven side of
it, the, the site, you know, the physical eye. But one thing God showed me just last year, cause I, I was. You know, just having a hard time with some things some numbers had fell off and, and but I was, I was sat down one time kind of having my little pity party and it was like, it was like the Holy Spirit just said, you know, growth is not just about a number.
Right. Look at your people. Yeah. And I started noticing how much this one over here had grown spiritually. Right. How this one had went from. You know, it's just, you could see the people mature and it was like, yeah, growth can't be measured by numbers. And I would rather, and you know, and I wholeheartedly say this, I'd rather have 10 people that are mature spiritually and on fire for God than a hundred.
That aren't serious, you know, a hundred that don't that's shallow that, you know, and, and how do we keep from doing that? It's, it's discipleship. We have to invest in the, you know, the apostle Paul. He didn't just lead people to the Lord. He led people to the Lord. Disciples of them. And the only way we're going to do that is if we invest into the lives, not just the lives of the people visiting and coming in, but the people that are already with us that have been in the church.
There's a lot of, this might be a whole nother ball game or a whole nother topic, but you know, as well as I know, growing up in church, excuse me growing up in church. You've seen a lot. You've been around a lot. There's a lot of baby Christians in the Bible belt. There are. And something's wrong. I'm sure you've preached it.
Yeah. But there's something wrong when a baby don't grow. Right. And you know you can go out here in the physical world, you can Have a little baby and something would be awful wrong with that little baby within six months Well, you know as as well as I do when when that younging comes around the first thing in the hospital They're gonna make sure the first couple days that it's gaining some weight if it's not gaining weight We got a problem.
That's right. And and that's what they look for that first doctor visit How much weight has that little baby gain? Well, we've got Christians sitting in churches for 30 years. That ain't gained no weight whatsoever. You know, and we have to disciple people. Now I can't help if you're not going to receive what I'm dishing out, you know, you know, as a pastor, you can go in and you can lay that table out of that spiritual food on Sundays and you can, you can.
put forth a seven course meal. If that person in that pew has got you turned off mentally, if they're not interested in being there, they'd rather be somewhere else. Then you can't do a whole lot about that. But there's a young man. He he just got saved in our church a couple of weeks ago. And the first thing I told him, I picked him up a couple of books that, that I knew would help him as far as getting started in the Christian life.
And I just told him, I said, And here's what I told him, I said, go home, open your Bible, start reading the book of John between now and next Sunday, read the book of John in the Bible. Read this book, which was a little, it's a small little book from Paul Chapel on the beginning of your new life, you know, and it's just very practical, kind of new convert material, you know, I said, read this after you read John and I said, come in here on Sunday and we're going to go to Sunday school and start teaching, you know, we're going to start talking about what your life is now, what, what happens, you know, it's like yeah.
It's like with a lot of people, it's, well, I'm saved now what, and I think for the most part we've left that off and, and it's time that we get back to discipling because we need people that will stick in there. We need to invest in lives and we're not going to do it if we don't disciple people. Right.
And it's, it's hard work. It's just like soul winning. You know, if you take the effort to reach your community with the gospel it, it takes work. And it also discipleship takes time. It takes sacrifice. And I was saying, as you was talking about the church Dr. Clarence Sexton always said the measure of a new Testament church is in their likeness.
to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's how you measure, you know, there might be a pastor tuning in today. How do you measure church success? It's in your likeness to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so as you're teaching and preaching the word of God, that spiritual growth is, is the greatest thing and, and in our likeness to the Lord.
And so discipleship, I think we've covered the basis of where we find it in the word of God, being part of the great commission, the, the need for it and dealt some with the lack of it. But. What would it look like? I think the one that wrote into us about discipleship what does that look like?
And, you know me and brother Jonathan was talking just a moment ago. One of the things that I've found that has helped our church is very seldom do I eat lunch alone. You know, now there's some days that I do, but a lot of times I use lunch as an opportunity to whether it's somebody that's visited our church, whether somebody's recently got saved just.
to begin to open up the door of conversation and there's the context of Sunday school. I love a new converts class if that's available and to be able to do a new converts class is very good. And then just the one on one. You know, if it's if it's a lady, I'm gonna ask my wife to to step in or one of our seasoned ladies there in the church asked her to step in and, and disciple and, and meet with this person on a regular basis outside of Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday nights, you know as a pastor, you're going to be feeding them the word of God three times a week.
But we all know that. you know, if you take, you preach a average sermon, 45 minutes, 35 to 45 minutes. You know, you're looking at 2. 5 hours and that's not a drop in a bucket to entire week. Seven days, 24 hours. And so meeting with that individual one on one and I've learned lunch is a really good opportunity to pour into somebody else's life.
But the greatest thing we have as believers is our influence and the power of influence and, and that's where discipleship, they, they link hand in hand as you invest in someone else's life. That's, that's, those are eternal things. Those are things that's going to last. Absolutely. There's nothing like it as far as. Joy that comes from that investing in, you know, everybody today is hung up on doing something that matters. We should do something that matters, but can I just say nothing matters more. That's right. Nothing in this world, nothing you're going to do in this world. I mean, you may, you know, we need nurses, we need paramedics, we need police officers.
When, you know, those, those are jobs that matter. You are you are putting in, you are investing in your community and you're making it better. You are helping lives every day, but there's nothing like the service of God. And, and it's like, I think about the apostle Paul. When he's writing to the church in Thessalonica, he, he, he says something really interesting.
Here's what I thought first Thessalonians chapter two in verse number 19. He says, for what is our hope or joy or crown of rejoicing are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ that is coming. For ye are our glory and joy, right? If you take the whole context of what he's saying there and read that whole chapter and where he's at, he's literally saying that here's, here's the takeaway.
His joy wasn't based on personal accomplishments and he was accomplished. He was, you know his joy didn't come from that. His joy didn't come from professional success. It came. in the relationships with the people he had led to Christ and discipled. He's preaching or he's, he's writing to a church.
He's telling him, Hey, you guys are my joy. You guys are, you know, I love y'all. And I think it goes back. Again, saying there is nothing like serving the Lord. And there's nothing like, you know, we've got, we've got a lot of people that's never led one person to Christ. There is, there is no joy like leading someone to Christ. It's like getting saved all over again if you could.
Absolutely. And, and then besides leading someone to Christ, there's no greater joy. And I didn't experience this a hundred percent until I became a pastor, but there is no better joy than to see people grow, see people mature and see people learn of Christ and, and see there was a lady, there's a lady in our church that she just.
Bless me all the pieces last night after the service. She, she came up to me and just talked about how much she was growing and, and how good it was that she said, you step on my toes sometimes, but she said, I pray thanking God for that because it's what I need. And she said, I just. You see people go from not hardly coming to church at all to not missing a service and, and you can see that they're hungry.
There's no greater joy than that. I can, I mean, I know what the apostle Paul is writing about right there and you'll never get the satisfaction. Out of anything in life, like you do that, and that goes with discipling people, helping people grow. See
them saved, see them discipled, and then see them bring somebody bring them to the house of God, see them lead their first soul to the Lord.
That's how the first century church worked.
It did. That's how it got started. And that is how, if it gets done today, anything that's going to last, anything that's going to last today is going to be done that way.
And I think the key to that whether it's soul winning discipleship, seeing people as souls rather than a number on a row.
We actually we don't even have our, our number board up anymore. We had some remodeling that went on in the four year and I just told him, I said, look. It's all right with y'all. It's not all right with y'all. No, I didn't say that, but let's get rid of it. They were all in agreeance. And we have a means of, you know, we still take attendance.
We still have you know, counting of our offering and all that. But as far as it publicly displayed on a board and one of the things I like about that. Is, you know, not to trying to hide anything. It's just with that board up there with that number on there that is just fixated in that pastor's mind.
Yes, sir. Because I've done it both ways. I've had it and then I've not. And and a lot of times you look at that number and if you're not careful, you can move into a position. We sort of coming back around to where we started. You can get into that position of, of church growth being solely. The desire to say, well, I've got 150 coming to my church rather than saying, you know, I've got so many that, you know, we're walking through the steps of what it is to be saved.
This many has been saved. This is now we're walking through what it is to be a child of God and and the steps of discipleship taking that individual from where they've trusted the Lord to understanding the relationship they have with the Lord and what that fellowship looks like. And then, and then the basics of. what it means to be a church member. And I know we've done, I think we've done a podcast on that. What what a pastor would look for in a church member. But when you think about the everything from study in the Bible to a prayer life, all of those things are things that can be learned from an individual that.
is practicing those things themself and and pour it into somebody else's life. I think one of the saddest things is when we take the gospel and and we've been saved and we know the truth of God's word. Maybe we even study our Bible, but we keep all of that to ourself. I think that's one of the saddest things.
You know, we've got a treasure. Paul said, we've got a treasure in these earthen vessels and we ought to share that.
Yes. I just I just picked up on something here that I thought I'd just throw in when it comes to making disciples to be patient. Yeah. You know, you said it earlier you was talking about how Jesus, you know, his earthly ministry, he spent three and a half years with these men.
Right. Yeah. He invested three and a half years and then Ordained them, you know, and so I've never thought much about that off the top of my head, you know now I have thought about, I have thought about the fact that Jesus prepared for 30 years and his, you know, and his ministry was three and a half years there.
Now that's something to be said about patience as well. But but on the other hand, it hit me, you know, you said it a while ago, it's not necessarily easy. It takes time. And we need to remember that. Look at the bunch that he had to deal with. How diverse. I mean, you got James and John, the Sons of Thunder, you got Peter.
Bless his heart. How many times he probably got frustrated with Peter, you know him just being boisterous and outspoken. Then you got Thomas, I mean, continually trying to pull him along. But then you began to see, you know, right towards the end of his time with them. And then after, of course the resurrection changed everything.
I understand that. And then the power of the Holy spirit, but to Thomas to come around from doubting to a place where he says Lord, you're, you're my Lord. You're my God, Lord, my God. And so, and then Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost and 3, 000 souls, 5, 000 souls get saved. So it's just amazing.
So when it comes to discipleship, I think patience and and perseverance, certainly both of those play a part and practice. Don't try to disciple someone if you're not doing it yourself. That's right, brother. Yeah. You know, if you're not, if you're not, if you're not studying the word, you don't, you don't have a prayer life developed.
Take the time to learn of Christ yourself. Find somebody that you can look to and and they can pour into your life And then once you get those things established in your life start pouring into someone else. That's exactly don't just be a sponge Don't be a sponge Christian. Don't just absorb it. Don't just absorb it.
That's right But you know, you know, I just thought of something else when he's talking about those disciples I mean that looks a whole lot like The church. Mm-Hmm. . When the pastor is trying to deal with, you're dealing with problems, you're answering questions. You, you've got all types. And you know, I, one of the most rewarding studies I ever did was a study of the 12 disciples
Mm-Hmm. . I mean, it's just amazing. Amazing.
I had a preacher tell me one time, he said, you, you think you're frustrated? He said, imagine the church that Jesus pastored . Right. And ever since he said that, it's just been a help to encourag. Right. It, it encourages you to just, Hey, this is normal. I mean, he even had one that was a traitor. He never, he never believed. Betrayed him. And you can, you can see man there's nothing like the word of God. That's right. And when you get into it and study it, it's just amazing. It is. And I, I think oftentimes even like Simon the Zealot, you know, and then Matthew there under normal circumstances, Simon would have done, killed Matthew.
Exactly. You know? Yeah. And yet here Jesus is, he brings them all to the same table and, you know, I wonder, and we may be getting a little off topic, but I've always wondered how they all felt about John John the beloved because they're sitting around the table and the Lord's fixing to reveal who's going to betray him.
And they're all sitting around. Who is it, Lord? Who is it? John's leaning on his bosom. He said, John you know they're all going around. Is it me? Is it me? Is it me? And then John just looks up as he's leaning on the bosom of the Lord. He said, Lord, who is it? Like he was in there close enough. That he, he knew that it wasn't him, he just said, who is it, Lord?
He was the only one, he didn't say, is it I? I wonder sometimes if that, that relationship that he had, I mean, I wonder what some of the others thought, like, was he the teacher's pet or something like that. That's funny. You never know. It just goes, it just goes to show us that the Lord, sometimes we read the Word of God and if you're not careful, you'll look at these, just like John the Beloved and you'll say, what a super saint, what a super Christian.
They were flesh and blood just like you and I. That's right. And we're going to see them all one day in heaven. Amen. And and so I'm looking forward to that day and I've got a lot of questions for them. And, of course, when we get there, I believe all that's going to fade into view when we see our Savior.
That's very brave. But, but, take the time, if you're saved today, I want to encourage you, I want you to, I want you to find somebody, I know you can think of one person that's not saved. I want you to pray about that soul and try this year to lead that individual to the Lord and then take the next step and disciple that individual and teach them what it is to be.
Part of the house of God and spend time in the word of God, spend time praying. That's what we need in these days.
Well, to close off here on discipleship, I've got a, I've got a couple of verses that have always challenged me when it comes to discipleship, when it comes to being a leader first Corinthians chapter number 11, verse one and two, the apostle Paul, he says, be ye followers of me.
Even as I also am of Christ. Exactly. Now. Man, what about that? You know, it's kind of one of those things where are you following Jesus so close that if somebody follows you, you're going to be following Jesus too. He told him, he said, follow me and I will make you fishers of man. If we're not following him, we're not fishing for man.
That's right. If we want to be made a fisher, a man, if you want to be a good soul winner and go on in discipleship, you got to follow the Lord yourself.
Yeah. So that's the challenge. A lot of, I mean, it is. We do need to invest in the lives of the people around us. We do need to take time and make disciples.
📍 That's the command that is God's chosen method of salvation and church growth and all of that. It's all in discipleship. And so we hope that was a blessing to you today. We're going to cut off here, but we hope it was a blessing. I hope we answered the question . And so as always, just keep the reviews coming in five star reviews.
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