Lead Others to do the Same: How did Jesus do it?

By Steven Nelms People all across the world have an inherent desire to do something or be a part of something that is bigger than themselves. It is one of those built-in qualities of humans. We all seek the purpose that is greater than ourselves. Throughout all of human thought that has tried to seek truth apart from God, there have been different conclusions as to how to make your life mean something more. Plato said that all material substance is always changing, therefore truth must be entirely spiritual and we must seek truth from inside of our own essence. Aristotle said that we must seek truth through pure natural science that derives itself in observations and conclusions drawn therein. Kant stated that there must be a moral taste through which all other subjective preferences must be filtered. Marx said that there is only meaning in our existence as we seek for societal perfection by individual submission. Nietzsche said that each individual must create value within their own lives by fully dedicating themselves to their own purpose, thereby setting the frame work for existentialism. And still there is no answer to the one ultimate purpose of life. The wisest man to ever live wrote in his book Ecclesiastes, I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? (2:18-19) He made observation of the fact that no matter what purpose you create for yourself in this life, the product of your work will be left to other hands. In fact, the author of this book, King Solomon, could be considered the worlds first nihilist, which simply means that he seems to be making the argument that there is no purpose to life and trying to live it. But at the end of all of his questions and complaints comes one statement that sums up the findings of all of his wisdom. He states, Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man (12:13). The one duty of mankind, as written by Solomon, is to fear God and keep His commandments. Now when we look at the last command given by Jesus to His Church, He commissions them to, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Matt. 28:19-20). So in one statement, Solomon summarizes the sole purpose of mankind and in the commission from Christ to His Church He commands us to lead others to follow the same purpose. Naturally, the first step to leading someone else to do something is first understanding how to do it yourself. One cannot teach another how to swim accurately if that person has not themselves mastered swimming. You can read the books, study the mechanics, and sit in on seminars, but ultimately you will not have the insight of personal experience and relatable applications necessary to truly instruct someone on how to swim. Because really all you know is the textbook version of the function and not its real life applicability. It is the same with anything. I can attempt to teach you how to build a car by reading a manual out loud to you. But that is not leading you or teaching you. It is merely instructing you how to complete certain steps and

procedures in order to accomplish the task, but all from a distance. There is no leading, only instructing. There is no sharing; only dictating. Anyone can teach another how to look like a Christian. Read your Bible. Memorize a few popular verses. And while youre at it, underline and highlight a few obscure passages in your Bible. Wear some kind of jewelry that has a cross on it. Better yet, get a cross tattooed on you somewhere so you can relate to the fastest growing age group in the church today. Make sure to keep a prayer journal that you write in a couple times a week. Of course go to Sunday morning service. Now if you want to be a super Christian, then try to go to a mid-week service as well and sign up for any and all ministries that apply to your age bracket, gender, and marital status. And if you really want to get serious, learn how to play the guitar and have a few choice worship songs memorized for those especially spiritually charged moments of spontaneity. But inconveniently, the saying, fake it till you make it, does not apply to following Christ. The point is anyone who has been in church long enough can learn by observation what a Christian should look like and then instruct others on how to act in order to fit the role. But the truth is, very few Christians have been led in the ways of a Christian lifestyle. Very few people in the Church today could read a letter like first or second Timothy and relate to the kind of relationship of mentor and student that Paul and Timothy shared. The Church today has suffered the effects of industrialization and mass evangelism that leads to little to none discipleship of new believers, which in turn has led to Christians who were born again decades ago and suffer from chronic infancy in their spirituality. The problem in the church is a result of a lack of attention to the concept of leading others to follow the principles of teaching Gods Word and sharing Gods love because of a lack of stress on its importance in the average Sunday morning Christian. In order to correct this, we must understand the current tendency of the church and seek to alter our mentality of the Great Commission. The church as I have noticed it operate tends to drift more naturally to a type of discipleship that reminds me of the Old Testament account of the very first king of Israel. When Saul was anointed as King over Israel, he was the obvious choice. He was a tall, strapping young man who could lead and fight and defend the country. By mere physical attributes, he demanded respect. No need to campaign his anointing. He had support enough just from the qualities that everyone naturally assumed him to have. Sadly, it seems that there is a King Saul mentality in the church that says, unless you are a leader in some capacity within the ministries of the church body, all you need to do is show up on Sunday mornings for the milk that were happy to serve you. If a leader in the church doesnt recognize ministerial potential in you then you can expect to take your spot at the back of the line to be poured into by a mentor. Leave the deeper things of God to those who are leading small groups and the various ministries. We can only afford so many steak knives, so volunteers will learn sooner or later from the leaders and, well, as far as the Sunday morning Christians, were just happy you made it back this week. We only look to feed the meat to those Christians whom we perceive as the Sauls who are the best prospective leaders and have the potential to produce the desired results in the church

as needed. This unspoken school of thought has delineated the commission of the church to mass marketing of the Gospel with the hopes of providing higher numbers of baptisms to report this quarter than there was last quarter. It leads to a pursuit of numbers that reflect prosperity in the church rather than a pursuit of relationships that lead young Christians into a deeper understanding of their new found relationship with their Creator. While no church would want to admit it, by action weve adopted the idea that many are dunked, but few are baptized. Many get wet, but few get God. There is no teaching of His commandments that follows the profession of His name. There is no expression of a Christ-centered lifestyle that follows a profession of faith. Christ says in Matthew 7:22-23 that many will profess to have done miraculous works in His name and He will declare, I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Professing His name and claiming the works in the ministries of the church to be for Him is not the commission that He gave to the Church. It takes more than simple instruction on how to act like a Christian and more than dunking the masses and hoping for the best to adhere to the commands Christ set forth in His commission to us. Now allow me to disclaim that I do know plenty of Christians who experienced a dramatic and obvious life change after coming to acknowledge the sacrifice Christ made for them and putting their faith in Jesus. I know of men and women who dropped everything at Jesus feet and committed their entire lives to following Him in a way that screamed of their devoted faith in His truth. But sadly, in America today these stories seem to be the minority. It is true that if you are not part of the solution, then youre part of the problem. So lets stop being part of the problem and start working towards the solution. We accept two core tenets as a church. The first of which is to teach His Word. We derive this from 2 Timothy 3:16-17 that states, All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work and also from John 14:15 where Jesus states, If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Here we see that our expression of love for Christ is in our obedience to Him and we understand His commandments and our obedience to Him through His Word which is inspired and infallible as we accept it as Gods revelation. By this we come to understand God and our relationship with Him. Therefore, as knowing His Word leads us into obedience to Him, we understand the importance of teaching His Word to others. The second statement we follow is to share His love. We derive this from John 13:35 where Jesus says, By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another and also from 1 John 4:19 that states, We love because he first loved us. Sharing Gods love to one another is the first and foremost way that the world sees Christs work and also by God first loving us we are now capable of sharing that same love in order to bring the truth of Christ to others. So by the compilation of these verses, we come to the Biblical principles of teaching His Word and sharing His love. We know these to be true and in accordance with the commandments to love the Lord our God and love one another as He loved us as well as aligning with the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Now the principle we pursue

lastly is the leading of others to do the same. So we look to Scripture to deduce how we are to lead others to teach His Word and share His love and by so doing, lead Christians into a deeper intimacy with Christ through which God will work in and through the Church. Biblically, the expansion of Gods Kingdom has always been affected by Christians who learned how to follow very well. By following another, and participating in their practices and disciplines of faith, they in turn learned how to more closely follow Christ and be faithful to His purpose. Paul had such a relationship with Timothy, whom he said was his son in Christ. In Pauls letter to Corinth, he writes words that express this kind of relationship as he says, Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ (1 Cor. 11:1). Paul was intentional in living a life of faithfulness in order to be an example to those around him so that, by imitating him, they would be imitating Christ. We are to live such lives. We are to be intentional with the time we spend with another so that we would have opportunity to demonstrate faithfulness, thereby leading each other closer to the image of Christ. Whether you are a disciplined devout follower of Jesus or the most adamant selfproclaimed atheist, one thing cannot be denied; that Jesus life has been the single most historically influential life ever lived. He changed the course of history forever. After He was taken to the cross and killed in the most humiliating and shameful way imaginable, His followers continued to profess His name in the face of persecution and execution. If you do not believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ, what other reason could have been good enough for these men to preach the Gospel at the risk of being burnt alive? So either way, whether you believe in the divinity of Christ or see Him as only a man, He led a group of men so effectively that they gave up their mortal lives in His name. So my question is what curriculum did He use for His weekly discipleship classes? What small group structure did He establish and were His sermon series expositional or topical? More importantly, did they sing hymns or were they more of a contemporary band of fishermen and tax collectors? I know Judas was their treasurer, if that tells you anything about their budget meetings. So the question is, how is it that Jesus led twelve men to go on to influence 108 other people to pray fervently for ten days straight in preparation for Pentecost at which point 3,000 people came to the knowledge of the truth of God and put their faith in Christ. If you created a seminar that outlined an evangelistic strategy that promised these kinds of results there is not a pastor in the country who would not be flying out to attend. And while the principle is there in the scriptures, we look onward to the next fad of the churchs next generation. Instead lets sit at the feet of Jesus and shut up for a second so we can have ears to hear His plan. The way that Jesus led others into unity with His vision and purpose was by demonstrating His faith through the use of intentionally spent time while sharing life with His disciples. So the three components that we can break Jesus leadership down to is sharing life, being intentional, and demonstrating faithfulness. Look at the ministry of Jesus as it is recorded in the Gospels. He went to a wedding with His disciples (John 2:2). He shared meals with them over at their houses (Matt. 8:15; 9:10) and discussed the things of God with them in His own house (Mark 2:2) and in the temple (Luke

21:37). They traveled together across Palestine, and He demonstrated Gods love to the Samaritan woman, the blind, the sick, and the hungry. In all that He did, He shared His life with His disciples. They followed Him and were taught not only by His words but most effectively by His example. His life was an expression of His teaching. He did not just meet them on Sundays to share some words of encouragement and offer some scripture for their problems. He beckoned them to follow His footsteps and practice faith in the arena of the faithless and minister not to themselves but minister to the world. Jesus spent all three years of His ministry focusing all of His energy in leading twelve men to continue doing what He started to do and more specifically focused on three of the twelve, Peter, John, and James. These three He made sure to share nearly everything with so that they would be able to adequately lead the other nine who in turn would be capable of leading the other one hundred and eight whom had continued in their faith. This created a group of one hundred and twenty believers who were all capable of leading others into the same lifestyle characteristic of full devotion to Christ because this lifestyle had been demonstrated for them by someone else. Our working definition for a Christian leader would then be one who is actively deepening their understanding of God and their relationship with Christ every day, making a practice of teaching Gods Word and sharing Gods love, and capable of leading a fellow Christian by demonstration into a lifestyle characteristic of the same discipline and devotion to these spiritual practices. How then do we implement this kind of leadership? Primarily, we need to spend time together. This is the sharing life component of Christlike discipleship. Small groups are meant to facilitate fellowship, not put limitations on it. In hopes of creating an environment in which Christians can share life together and help lead those who need direction in their faith, it has unintentionally encouraged limits as to how often a group of Christians share life to once a week. And at most, it can make fellowship feel like an obligation rather than a privilege. But in reality, such times that Christians gather in fellowship to share in their common relationship with Christ, is an opportunity to lead one another in the teaching of Gods word and the sharing of His love. So then, if we are sharing life together, we are losing the fruitfulness of that time because of our lack of being intentional with that time. When we come together, are we intentionally demonstrating the teaching of His Word? When we have the opportunity to share life together, are we intentionally demonstrating the sharing of His love? We must be intentional in what we do with the time that we share. Every moment is precious. Every moment is valuable. The way we spend our time with one another should be demonstrative of the principle of leading one another in teaching His Word and sharing His love. It should start to become evident that these three components of sharing life, being intentional, and demonstrating faithfulness all go hand in hand. There is not really a chronological order to accomplishing these. Thats why they are not steps. They are components, or factors that must all be present and working together in order to effectively lead one another towards Christ. I have a friend. He is new to the whole Christian thing. Its not that he hasnt ever been to church before, but he just hasnt made it a pursuit in his life until very recently. He is currently in

that stage of his relationship with Christ that he wakes up thinking about Jesus and falls asleep with Heaven on his mind. He is on fire right now. But he doesnt know much about the doctrine of the Bible. He doesnt know a whole lot about what it is to deepen his relationship with Christ or even how to pursue Him. Right now he is in a stage where he doesnt need that structure or those tips. He listens to sermons every chance he gets and he watches every Christian movie Netflix has to offer. Its like he is in his first few months of joining a new sports team. No discipline is required in those stages. The sheer excitement and energy of newness propels you through every obstacle. But my friend also doesnt have anyone to really sit down and talk with about the things of God. He listens to a lot of sermons and has a hunger for more, but he doesnt have someone to lead him through the different doctrines and theological implications of faith in Christ and the lifestyle God desires to manifest through us. My friend knows about the Great Commission, but at this point he is still just the product of it and not yet a servant to it. So how is it that I can implement the components of Christ-like discipleship to my relationship with my friend? Sooner or later, the freshness of his new relationship with Christ will need direction or insight as to how to further pursue a Christ-like life. So how can I share life with him, be intentional with our time together, and demonstrate my faith with him? First, lets look at sharing life together. Hes in a serious relationship. Coincidentally so am I. So we have opportunity there for sharing meals together and spending time with one another based on common ground. Honestly, the more consistent you spend time together the more effective your relationship becomes. Jesus certainly did not limit Himself to once a week meetings with Peter, John, and James, and then meet up with everyone on Sunday mornings to chat. Now, with our jobs and time commitments, in todays world sometimes once a week meetings are really all we can manage. But also with todays world we have the convenience of text, emailing, Facebook, twitter, and if youre real old school you could call each other. The point is consistent contact with as much face to face time as possible. Now the industrialized thought of American churches starts making us wonder whether we are really being efficient with our time by investing in only one relationship like this. Would it not be more efficient to pour in to 10 people during a weekly meeting all at once? No, it isnt. Simply because meeting with a group of 10 people once a week is not enough time for you to intimately invest yourself in the discipleship of each and every one of those ten people. Jesus spent every day for three years with twelve men and only took the extra time to invest in three of them. If He, as the Son of God, limited Himself to this kind of leader to disciple ratio, then it is best that we not assume ourselves capable of doing more. So sharing life specifically with just one other Christian in order to disciple them up as a leader is time spent well in the fulfilling of the Great Commission. In conjunction with sharing life, there is the need of being intentional with that time. It is of the utmost importance to communicate the intentions of the time being spent with one another. Otherwise, it can become a few hours a week of catching up and socializing. There is nothing wrong with catching up and socializing. Fellowship is just as much of a spiritual discipline as fasting. But when the Great Commission includes teaching one another the Word of God, your

time is precious and the time spent needs to be intentional. In order for it to be intentional it needs to be communicated what the objective of the time is. The best way I can make my time with my friend intentional is ask him first if he would mind me sharing with him what I have learned in my walk with Christ and asking him to share more with me about his relationship with Christ. Then the times that we dedicate to the pursuit of Christ with one another can be structured by studying the Word of God together through a specific book in the Bible or following a curriculum for personal study or small group study. Either kind is very useful in one on one study. One of the number one principles of making your time intentional is remember that every moment is a teachable moment. Every time you are pursuing Christ, every time youre deepening your commitment to faith in Christ, every time you are practicing spiritual disciplines can be a teachable moment. In demonstrating your faith to the one you are discipling, you must maintain the mentality of these same kinds of teachable moments. If you practice a spiritual discipline of prayer walking, or fasting, or serving either the Church or your community in some way, why do it alone if you can do it with someone? Dont go prayer walking alone. Invite that person to join you. Dont fast alone. Invite that person to fast at the same time you do and share the experiences and lessons God teaches you. Are you reading through a specific chapter or book in the Bible for the next couple of days? Invite that person to join you in reading and recording what God speaks to you both and share it with one another. Including them with your pursuit of Christ in faithfulness demonstrates for them what a lifestyle characterized by a disciplined pursuit of God looks like. Why do you think the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray? It is because they saw Jesus praying all the time and inviting them to pray with Him throughout their days. How did they know how to preach the Word of God? Its because they were there listening to Jesus every time He addressed the people and the Pharisees with the truth of God. How did they know how to love people unconditionally? It is because Jesus showed not only them unconditional love, but also the Samaritan women, the woman caught in adultery, the Centurions son, the Romans servant, and many others whom He served. They desired to learn to do what He had been including them in all along. He led, not by instructing them to do as He says, but by leading them to do as He did. He taught, Follow my commandments and then proceeded to show them how. We must be this kind of a leader. We must make ourselves examples worth following toward Christ. As we look to Christ as our leader and follow Him wholeheartedly, others should be able to look at us as examples to find their way to Christ through our leadership. Jesus calls the leaders of His Church to be shepherds. The western hemisphere has a very different perspective of shepherding than the eastern. In the west, a shepherd drives his flock. He walks behind them driving them forward, using dogs on either side to coral them in the direction that he desires. It is a quick and effective method of getting a large flock of sheep to go where you want them without much fuss. Now, in contrast, in the east a shepherd walks in front of his flock. By tending to them and caring for them, the sheep come to trust the shepherd and will follow his

voice wherever he goes. If a sheep gets separated from the flock the shepherd leaves the flock to graze and goes off to bring the lost sheep back to the rest of the flock. Then he takes his position back at the front and leads them, not by instructing, but by following the path ahead of them so they can watch him and see which way to go. Christ called Himself the Good Shepherd. So we all are sheep following Him and His voice. And He calls the leaders of the Church shepherds. So then Christians in the Church are sheep following their pastors and leaders who are following Jesus who was following God. The assumption is that all Christian leaders are the very best of followers, since the authority of their leadership comes from their fellowship with Christ. If you do not feel that you are following Christ with that kind of consistent fellowship and devotion, then do not hesitate to seek guidance from a Christian whom you respect and desire for your relationship with Christ the kind of fruit they show. Part of our responsibility as Christians is seeking a deeper understanding of God in order to further our depth of intimacy in our relationship with Christ so we can be the most faithful servants possible. If we are lacking in our understanding, then we must pray and seek Gods wisdom. And in His Wisdom He established a fellowship of His children that could help lead and guide one another. That fellowship is called the Church. No matter where you are in your walk with Christ, there is always someone that you can invest in and someone who can invest in you. By raising up leaders and becoming better Christian leaders ourselves, we work to multiply leaders in the Church which in hand extends the effectiveness of spreading the Gospel for His Kingdom. If you spent the next three years personally investing in three other peoples relationship with Christ, raising them up to be leaders, and then they spent the next three years doing the same for three other people, and they continued, and so on and so forth, in 15 years, your seemingly inefficient investment of time will in turn have produced 1024 Christian leaders, capable of fulfilling the working definition of Christian leadership that we outlined earlier. Now that is just Christian leaders. This does not even take into account the people that you potentially would be leading to Christ as new believers all along the way. The command has been given and we are left now with a decision to make. We can ask ourselves all sorts of questions about the Great Commission. Is it worth it? What if it doesnt work out? What if I dont know what to say? How am I supposed to lead someone? What if I dont know the answers? Discipleship is about growth. As we teach, we learn. We are always a student and should also strive to be a teacher. Never stop learning, and never stop passing along what youve been taught. We must raise up leaders for the next generation from this generation. It is not theoretical. It is practical and it can start by simply reaching out and walking along side one other person. Who will you walk beside?