COV LIFE BLOG

Discipleship and the Local Church

All of us when it comes to talking about making disciples, it’s not about individual followers, just on their own, lone rangers making disciples. It’s about being a part of a body and together making disciples. So when it comes to those central practices that are involved in disciple-marking: sharing the gospel, showing the word of Christ, teaching the word of Christ. These things happen primarily through community and in our relationships with others and in the context of sharing the gospel. If we want to see unbelievers come to Christ those unbelievers need to see evidence of community around Christ. They need to see the love of Christ in action. They need to see the mercy of Christ in action. Loving one another, serving one another, caring for one another, praying for one another. The church then becomes what Francis Shaffer called “an apologetic for the gospel,” where the church becomes a picture that especially for hardened hearts of unbelievers softens their hearts towards the goodness of Christ and the community of faith. We’re showing the Word to one another in and through the church. So we don’t just walk in isolation. We walk in love and service to one another. We’re teaching the Word to each other and the Word is spreading through each other. All of that has to happen in the context of relationships with other people, and so disciple making is intricately tied to the local church and we make disciples in local churches.

The cost of non-discipleship is great for scores of people in the church sitting comfortably right now under the banner of Christianity, but have never counted the cost of following Christ—many eternally deceived. There’s great cost for all who settle for casual association with Jesus and miss out on the abundance and satisfaction and joy that he has designed for us. There’s a cost that comes to monotonous routine Christianity. Don’t do it and don’t lead churches like that. We’ll waste our lives away like that.

The cost will be great for us and the church…And the cost of nominal Christianity will be great for those who are lost in this world. For people in our communities, our cities, for people groups are the world who will go on without the Gospel, because we are content with not making disciples of all the nations. Because in our casual approach to Christianity we are leaving them on a road that leads to an eternal hell. The consequences to casual cultural Christianity are tragic—eternally tragic…Let’s follow Him with abandonment for His glory, with dependence of His grace, with adherence to His Person, and with urgent obedience to His mission.

David Platt

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Heart Preparation
Read Matthew 28:19-20, Ephesians 3:10, andEphesians 4:11-13. Consider the important connection these verses make between the church and discipleship. How can you further take advantage of the discipleship structures in place with our church?