This Doesn't Have to Be Difficult (II)
part three of the "The Demand of Discipleship"
Relationship, content, and time. Three ingredients.
Today, we move into how a relationship becomes discipleship, because a Christian in relationship with other people does not discipleship make. What makes discipleship discipleship is the content of the relationship.
Content
We gravitate toward people and relationship based around “stuff”: a sports franchise or a hobby or stage of life. It isn’t hard to find a smiling face in the state of Missouri if you’re wearing any Kansas City Chiefs gear. Such paraphernalia eases conversation by providing a common interest, a safe and simple point of entry if you will.
In truth, every relationship centers on content. Husbands and wives focus on the relationship and interrelationship and finances and hobbies and binge-watching BBC crime dramas and work and the circumstances of family members—the list is endless. Friendships carry the same freight though in a less formally committed way.
We can build relationships on any number of the aforementioned things, just go look at Facebook and the sheer number of “Groups” that exist there. There are groups for homeschool parents, roller coaster enthusiasts, chess players, wrestling fans—professional and amateur, pastors, college ministers, youth ministers, children’s ministers, entrepreneurs, Wiccans, Tolkien fans, Tolkien haters, conservatives, liberals, libertarians, dad-joke professionals, dirty joke tellers; if you want to find people who think and act like you, you’ll find it on Facebook.
Even in these subcategories of affinity groups, there are smaller subcultures within each, all with their own ecospheres. It’s wild the things people unify around, but the key here is that people unify around something.
For Christians, we unify around the gospel. Paul writes that “In Christ there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.”1 We are, after all, new creations. The old you ceases to be when Christ indwells you and the Holy Spirit births a new you.2 That transforms the lens through which you view the world into a gospel-colored one. In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul writes that Christians should no longer consider others from a worldly perspective but a spiritual one. In The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis describes the impact of this new perspective:
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as now you meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long, we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to our as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours…our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object present to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat—the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.3
Your relationship to and with Christ indelibly stains every other relationship: spouse, children, coworkers, church members, neighbors, baristas, librarians.
How do you process that? How do you then live?
In Galatians 5, Paul instructs the church in Galatia about the nature of their relationship with Christ and his Spirit. “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.”4 To “keep in step” carries the weight of marching. It is an intentional choice and decision to match the Spirit’s rhythm in and for your life. Paul’s command creates a tension in me. I must know the Triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit—better and submit my steps to his steps.
I spend time studying the Bible and listening to sermons and praying and journaling and meditating, which is all well and good, but my individual spiritual growth isn’t the be-all, end-all of discipleship, right? Relationship, helping others know and glorify God is part of it as well. There is no such thing as a non-disciple-making disciple.
So what then is the content of these discipling relationships?
It sounds obvious, but the answer is the gospel.
If we view our relationships through the lens of the gospel and the work God is doing in the world through his people, every conversation presents an opportunity to be the minister of reconciliation which our Redeemer calls us to be.5
So how do we get there?
Here’s a great first step.
Find someone to talk to.
It doesn’t have to be formal. Get together for lunch after church to talk about the sermon. Grab a coffee mid-week to talk about what you’re learning in your personal bible study. Make an effort to get to know what is going on in the life of the member in the seat behind you at church so you can pray for them. Commit to studying the Bible with another person, either separately or together. When you start talking about what you’re learning, you’re on the right path. You don’t have to make it complicated, but you need to do something.
It could be in your own home. You have family who needs Jesus as much as you do. (some of you are thinking—MORE! than I do) Talk with them about what’s going on in your life and what you’re learning about being a Christian. Discuss struggles, pain-points, growing pains, school situations, life lessons.
You have neighbors and/or coworkers. Consider where we began—affinity. You have things in common with others: households, neighborhoods, churches, workplaces, and more. The “trick”, if you will, is remember that it is the power of God released through the gospel which changes people. The gospel is the message by which you are saved and upon which you stand, so talk about the gospel and all of its implications for life.
Of course, that means you must know the gospel. You need to be able to communicate how the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is good news for sinners.
The even better news is that you don’t need to know more than that to get started.
You have relationships.
You know the content.
What’s stopping you?
Photo by Niklas Ohlrogge on Unsplash
Colossians 3:11, CSB
2 Corinthians 5:17
Lewis, Clive Staples, The Weight of Glory, (HarperOne, 2001), pp. 45-46.
Galatians 5:25, CSB
2 Corinthians 5:19-20