What Has Your Yes?
Welcome to next steps weekend, where we discuss the mission and strategy of Koza!
This weekend allows each of us to have an opportunity to plug in and become part of this church’s mission through being involved in the ministries of the church. Being disciples of Jesus Christ on mission with Him.
Today we are also starting a new sermon series on biblical discipleship.
The series is titled Yes and Amen, Living a Christ Centered Life.
It will closely follow the illustrations of the discipleship model found in the book Disciple’s cross, a part of the Masterlife program of discipleship.
While you could go through the material by yourself, I also highly recommend that you walk through it with someone.
It will be a great way for each of you to discuss and hold each other accountable for the completion of the work.
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All About Discipleship
This series is all about discipleship.
All of our ministries have a discipleship focus. But we must recognize that discipleship is not relegated to some ministry of the church.
While all of our ministries have a discipleship focus, discipleship, more than any programmatic ministry, is a personal journey of growth in the Lord.
This personal journey must be engaged by every believer. We’ll see through this series that there are some simple disciplines that every believer can engage in to embark on that lifelong journey of growth called discipleship.
And all of those steps are connected to the fact that we have Christ at the center of our lives. When we say yes to Him we place Him at the center of our lives.
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Six Steps To The Disciples Cross
Walk through the disciple’s cross illustration.
There are six steps to the disciples cross:
1. Lord
2. Relationships
a. Vertical
b. Horizontal
3. Commitments (Luke 9:23)
a. Deny
b. Take
c. Follow
4. Resources
a. Word
b. Prayer
c. Fellowship
d. Witnessing
5. Ministries
6. Disciplines
a. Spend time with the Master
b. Live in the Word
c. Pray in Faith
d. Fellowship with other believers
e. Witness to non-believers
f. Minister to all
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Memory Verses For This Series From The Book Of John
Jesus at the Center- John 15:5
Rooted in God’s word- John 8:31,32
Connected to God in prayer- John 15:7
Fellowship with believers- John 13:34-35
Witness to non-believers- John 15:8
Service to others- John 15:13
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Be Disciples And Make Disciples
If you follow this series closely, you will have all these verses hidden in your heart, and you will have a system of discipleship committed to memory that you can share and replicate.
That is important, we are not just receiving information, this information is actionable, and meant for us to take and use, not only as a disciple, but as a disciple maker who makes disciples who makes disciples.
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What Is A Disciple?
Mark Dever says in his book entitled Discipling:
A disciple is a follower. You can do that by following someone’s teaching from afar, like someone might say he follows the teaching and example of Gandhi. And being a disciple of Christ means at least that much. A disciple of Jesus follows in Jesus’s steps doing as Jesus taught and lived. But it means more than that. Following Jesus first means that you have entered into a personal, saving relationship with Him. You have been “United with Christ” through the new covenant of His blood. Through His death and resurrection, all the guilt of sin that is yours becomes His, and all the righteousness that is His becomes yours. Being a disciple of Christ in other words, does not begin with something we do. It begins with something Christ did.
That is why we follow Him.
Back to the center of the cross.
John 15:5 says
“I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
We can do nothing in His name apart from Him.
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Simply Respond And Follow
2 Chronicles 16:9 says
“The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him.”
He is pursuing your heart. He is the one who is strengthening your heart. It is up to us to simply respond and follow.
This requires some adjustments in my life. And where I have made those, I have not been sorry…I don’t miss the things that I have adjusted because He is so much better than all those things.
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Followers, Seekers And Scoffers
Jesus was continuously surrounded by large crowds of people.
In those crowds, there were followers, seekers, and scoffers.
Followers knew and loved Him and left their nets and followed Him.
Seekers had heard of Him and were intrigued by His teaching.
And scoffers were actively working against Him, trying to trap and catch Him, discredit Him.
Those categories still exist today.
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Our First Priority
The word says in Luke 14:25-27
Now great crowds accompanied Him, and He turned and said to them,“If anyone comes to me and does not hate His own Father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”
Jesus was saying that His disciples must forsake families, possessions, or anything else that might keep them from following Him.
He is the priority in our lives.
He is Lord of our lives. All is for Him.
In our lives, Christ should be at the center.
Everything we do should reflect Christ.
And He is the overflow of everything we say and do.
At Koza, Christ is at the center of everything we do. He is the Master and Lord of our lives.
We need to spend time with the master every day.
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How To Spend Time With God
One of the sections in the Masterlife Book Disciples cross, shows some steps on how to have a quiet time.
1. Make a personal quiet time the top priority of your day.
Select a time to spend with God that fits your schedule. Usually morning is preferable, but you may want or need to choose another time.
2. Prepare the night before.
a. If your quiet time is in the morning, set your alarm. If it is difficult for you to wake up, plan to exercise, bathe, dress, and eat before your quiet time.
b. Select a place where you can be alone. Gather materials such as your Bible, notebook, and a pen or a pencil, and put them in the place selected so that you will not waste time in the morning.
3. Develop a balanced plan of Bible reading and prayer.
a. Pray for guidance during your quiet time.
b. Follow a systematic plan to read your bible.
c. Make notes of what God says to you through His word
d. Pray in response to the scriptures you have read.
e. As you pray, use a model for prayer. One example is ACTS (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication)
If you follow these steps, it will keep you connected to the vine.
Remember John 15:5
“I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
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Our Mission Statement
I will start by discussing our mission statement. You should all know this as members/attenders of Koza.
Members
Members have committed in covenant relationship to one another, as a member of the Church to do certain things.
In order to become a member one must know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, be baptized by immersion, and attend the membership class called “Discover Koza”. In this they learn the history, mission and strategy of Koza, learn about the ministries, and sign a membership covenant.
This class is offered monthly.
Attenders
Attenders are welcome, and you should know that I want both in our church. Why?
Because Jesus had great crowds around Him. In those crowds not all were followers of Christ, but some became followers.
Our Mission Statement
“To Become Followers of Christ on Mission with God.”
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Go -︎ Make Discple - Baptizing
Jesus tells us in Matthew 28:19-20
19 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,20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
The primary verb in this passage is μαθητεύω
Pronounced mathēteuō
Meaning:
I. to be a disciple of one
a. to follow his precepts and instructions
II. to make a disciple
a. to teach, instruct
To become implies that we are becoming, we have never truly “arrived”. If we believe we have learned all that Christ can teach us, if we believe we have reached the threshold, we have more discipleship needs than we think.
This is a journey of growth that begins with our trusting Christ as our Lord and Savior, and continues even after we stand before Him in Glory.
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The title for today’s message is “What has your yes?” The truth is that we all say yes to something. Have you said yes to Christ? Not just initially in some salvation experience, but daily as we follow Him.
There are plenty things in the world today to follow. The favorite sports team, the latest stats on COVID, the political wrangling, the stock market. We are followers of Christ. That doesn’t mean that we ignore those other things, but our joy is not determined by them.
We are On Mission with God. He has a mission. When we say yes to Him, He has a work for us to do, and it is for His glory.
We are not on mission by ourselves, He is on mission with us. It is not our mission, it is His mission. That is a little about our mission statement.
Three key moves of Our Mission Statement
Worship, Connect and Serve.
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Everything we have discussed here relates to how our Church and we as individuals, Follow Christ.
We are on mission with Him, not just here on Sunday morning, but every day.
We take this into our homes, into the workplace, into the marketplace and the community around us.
We invite You To Say Yes!
Say yes to Jesus
Say yes to Discipleship,
Say yes to membership in His church,
Say yes to being actively involved, in a ministry,
Say yes to giving tithes and offerings to support the work of the church,
but most importantly,
Say yes to Him each and every day to making Him Lord of your life.
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Questions for Discussion:
- What are some things that you have said yes to that have taken away from your time with Him?
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- Is there one person in your life that you can connect with and walk through some discipleship material with?
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- What are your next steps in ensuring you spend time with the Master daily?
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Memory Verse: John 8:31-32
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
