The Importance of Allowing a Person the Freedom to Serve Jesus Christ According to His Gifts and Opportunities.
Eldon Brock, DD
I trust you are passionate about the need for people worldwide to hear the Gospel. But you say I can’t go to those restricted countries. Then you discover that some of the most effective people for sharing this message to their own language group live near us in America. If so you may try to direct and control them to fulfill your passion. You may even want them to do the work so you don’t feel guilty. We should accept the responsibilities and opportunities God gives so we can obediently serve where God places us.
We must always keep in mind that each person is part of God’s total plan. We are servants of the one Lord. He gives us opportunities to serve so He can complete His plan and reveal His supreme Lordship. Our responsibility is to serve where we are and allow God to lead and direct the other person to serve with his/her gifts. They can do things we can’t.
Therefore, we need to evaluate “what is in your hand”, as God said to Moses. We have the Bible, salvation, and servant gifts. We live in a country where nearly 40,000,000 residents are foreign born. They have great loyalty to their homeland. Our opportunity is to show God’s love and disciple them so they can enjoy forgiveness and freedom from the fear of their false God.
I believe those who are from a different ethnic group will want their people to have the same joy. I believe God will give them a passion for their family so they are serving God rather than being accountable to us, our church or even our mission agency.
Below is one plan for discipleship training. I like to remind myself, “The way we disciple may be the way they will disciple”. Are we willing to serve others sacrificially in a way that they will learn how to effectively share this Good News with people in their homeland. Let’s give freedom to others who want to follow Christ.
EIGHT STEPS FOR TRAINING DISCIPLES
From Robert Coleman's book The Master Plan of Evangelism
1. Selection-people were his method.
Jesus believed that people should reach other people. He could have used an exclusive barrage of miracles, or He could have brought everything to conclusion while on earth. Instead He chose common men and women like us to reach the world. This demonstrates not only His love for us, but also His confidence in us.
2. Association-He stayed with them.
With the first disciples, the essence of Jesus' training meant just letting His disciples follow Him. He drew them close to Himself, becoming His own school and curriculum.
3. Consecration-He required obedience.
Jesus expected His disciples to obey Him. He didn't require them to be smart, but He wanted them to be loyal-to the extent that obeying Him became the distinguishing mark they were known by. "Disciples" meant they were the Master's "learners" or "pupils". Later Jesus' disciples became known as "Christians" (Acts 11 :26), a fitting description of obedient followers who took on the character of their leader.
4. Impartation-He gave Himself away.
Jesus gave His disciples everything: what the Father had given Him (John 15:5); His peace (John 16:33); His joy (John 15: 11); the keys to His kingdom (Matthew 16: 19); and His own glory (John 17:22,24). He withheld nothing, not even His life.
5. Demonstration-He showed them how to live.
Jesus showed the disciples how to pray, study, and relate to others. More than twenty times the Gospels recount Jesus' practice of prayer. He taught the disciples about the use of Scripture by extensively using works from the Old Testament. As the disciples saw Jesus interact with Nicodemus, the woman ant the well, the rich young ruler, and many others, Jesus showed them how to talk to and how to treat others.
6. Delegation-He assigned them work.
From day one, Jesus prepared His disciples to take over the mission. He gradually turned over responsibility, sending out the seventy (Matthew 10: 1-42) and giving extensive instructions to the Twelve (Luke 10:1-20). He told the disciples to follow His methods, to expect hardships, and to go out in pairs. Following His resurrection, He clearly gave the disciples the responsibility to take the gospel to the entire world (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8).
7. Supervision-He kept checking on them.
When Jesus gave the disciples work to do, He followed up. He listened to their reports and blessed them. When He was with the disciples, He spent time helping them understand the reason for a previous action or preparing them for a new experience. He used questions, illustrations, warnings, and admonitions to teach the disciples what they needed to know to reach the world.
8. Reproduction-He expected them to reproduce.
Jesus told the disciples to pray for workers (Matthew 9:36-38), and He called them to teach everyone to obey His teaching (Matthew 28:20). He required the costly elements of leadership development and reproductions, and expected the disciples to reproduce by finding other disciples who would also follow Jesus.
Quoted in The Complete Book of Discipleship: On Being and Making Followers of Christ, Bill Hull, Navpress
