5.  What to say?

So what if some are not very good speakers, or not very bright, or too frightened, or too ignorant? Or live in what we could call a restricted context?  None of this seems to trouble the Father because he calls all those kinds of people to be disciples of Jesus, and places them just where he wants them. And gives them the message that fits them and their context.

So does that mean the message varies? Undoubtedly. But only in the way it is formed and applied. The apostles obviously adapted the message to suit the people they were speaking to (compare Acts 13 and 17 for example). But the core of the message remained the same and its central application was also the same.

The core always concerns Jesus. He is the Christ, the Lord, the one who died and was raised. He was spoken about by prophets, promised, sent and anointed. When we start to talk about Jesus, his God and Father gets drawn into the message because it is the Father who sent the Son. And the life and forgiveness that is promised through the Son is given and comes from the Father and the Son.

Furthermore the message promises that the presence of the Father and Son will be with the disciples in the person of the Holy Spirit who is sent from the Father. So the core of the message exposes the true God into whose name the disciples are baptised, the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This God is to be worshipped, loved, obeyed, and trusted.

And what are the hearers to do? They are called to change their attitude to this God so that they do actually worship, love and obey him. The message calls on people to change their mind and attitude and consequently to change their behaviour. But such a change also requires pardon – obviously because of the fundamental lack of worship, love and obedience on their part towards God.

God has to find it in his heart to forgive them. God loves them – no doubt. But can he just forgive as though nothing had happened, without any consequences? Can he act as though there was no justice or right and wrong? Would this not be the worst kind of favouritism? The message at its core also tells how God put forward his Son as a sacrifice of atonement. It tells us that forgiveness is possible because the Son willingly laid down his life for us. And that leaves disciples in considerable debt.

6.  Facing the world

The Son willingly died for our sins. That is part of the core of the message that gathers people into churches. But it places disciples in an entirely new position.  Paul put it this way, “we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” 2 Cor 5.14.

Disciples are dead people granted a new life by Jesus who took them to death in his death, and raised them to new life in his resurrection. Disciples have no claim over their lives anymore. They owe their life to Jesus. In fact the life they are living is not their life but rather his life which he is living in them. This means they can only sustain this new life by trusting Jesus to continue to live his life in them.

They are on a perpetual life support system. But an utterly reliable one which provides an entirely different kind of life – a life lived in the company of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and filled with the life of the living God.

Now that their life is under the direction of Jesus – in what direction is it facing? It is facing in the direction not of heaven but of the world. Disciples are being sent to all parts of the world – to all the nations and ethnic groups. And to all the different kinds of people in those groups. They are being sent specifically to make disciples from those groups.  And the variety of those who are sent matches the variety of those they go to. Remember that the responsibility for this lies with God. It is God who matches the talkers with the hearers. You may not think you are much good at telling the message, but the Father knows who you will be good at talking to, and he will bring you together.

Disciples are sent to make disciples. And to gather them together into churches. The disciples that Jesus first gathered were called to be together. More than called. They had their life through their relationship with Jesus. They were necessarily together as part of him. No wonder that Paul could describe the group of disciples as the body of Christ. They realised that they were the embodiment of his life.

Jesus had already given them some instructions about this. He said that people would know that they were his disciples by the fact that they loved one another as he had loved them.

The gathering of the disciples together therefore has them facing inwards as well as outwards. Always going out with the message from the Father and gathering together in the body of the Son where the Spirit of God meets with them and builds them together as one body. And that building together is one of the hardest parts of discipling.