You are called to drop your nets and follow Jesus with radical intentionality in your daily life. Start by inviting someone into your world to see how you pray, handle conflict, and pursue God. Join Real Church today to build the relationships necessary for true discipleship to flourish.
Welcome to The Real Church podcast. Our mission is for you to know the love of Jesus and live out your God given purpose. Now join us and listen in to the latest message from pastor David John Phillips.
Father God, I thank you for who you are. Lord, I thank you for everybody tuning in right now. And, it's my prayer that we would all walk away knowing you more. Lord, I I pray that when what people hear coming from my mouth is more than just my words. I pray it's your words.
Anointed, Lord God, let these words be anointed, Father, so that people hear it and it encourages them in their next steps and their relationship with you. Father, I pray that people are healed of old wounds. Lord, as they watch this, that people are physically healed, even as they as they they receive this word by faith, Father, as they receive this word about Jesus by you. By faith, Lord God. Lord, I I I thank you for what you're going to do.
I thank you for the honor that it is to preach. In Jesus name, amen and amen. Jesus said, **Follow me**. That's discipleship. I have burned into my memory a picture of myself and my middle child.
She was about 3 years old at the time. We had just moved to the Clearwater, Florida area and we're standing on the edge of the ocean. And the picture that you see is a silhouette of myself looking off into the sunset, and my 3 year old daughter, her name is Psalm, holding my hand with her head cocked to the side, her eyes focused on her daddy, watching to see what I'm going to do next. Another image that's burned into my memory is of just about a month or so ago, I took my son surfing and went on his first surf trip. He's 8 years old.
I'm holding my surfboard, he's holding his boogie board, and somebody snapped picture from behind. You see the sunrise in the background, you see us going, and it looks like I have my mini me right beside me. And he's watching me, excited to see what's about to happen next. See, I see so much of myself in them, and in many ways, they are just like me. They laugh like me.
Some of them make the same kind of jokes that I make. They're annoying in many ways, just like I'm annoying in many different ways if you you really get to know me. They have the same mannerisms. They pick up some of my same habits. Why?
It's because they have access to my life. They see the ups. They see the downs, they see how I respond to conflict, they see how I pray, they see how I pursue Jesus, they see when I get angry and they see how I apologize, they see every aspect of my life and they *reproduce* what they see. See, we're created to reproduce, to to repeat what we focus on. And so whether they like it or not, as they grow up, a lot of their time with me, a lot of who I am is going to impact the rest of their life.
Why? Because they're created to repeat and reproduce what they see. *Jesus* said, follow me. That's *discipleship*. What is discipleship really?
It's what Jesus did. Yes, Jesus focused on I mean, yes, Jesus preached to to crowds of 15,000 sometimes and and 20,000 people, but that in itself wasn't necessarily discipleship. It was him having the 12 disciples with him while he was doing that. It was them getting to see the conversations before and after that. It was them getting to see him go off to the the mountaintop to to be alone with his father.
It was them getting to hear his prayers, getting to see how he responded to conflict, how he responded to opposition, seeing the ins and outs of them. And it was those 12 disciples, really 11 of them, 3 years of of bearing Jesus, bearing his life to them, them getting to see the ins and outs. It was those 11 disciples that were with him until the end. It was those 11 that Jesus gave the great commission to. He didn't commission the 20,000.
He didn't commission the 15,000, he commissioned the ones that saw every aspect of his life, that he spent time discipling. And where do you think that, you know, we get the writings that we have of Jesus' prayers? It's from them who got to see the way that Jesus has Jesus prayed. Why do you think that in the book of Acts that the disciples acted the way that they did? Why do you think that they prayed the way that they did?
Why do you think that they performed the miracles that they performed? Why do you think that they were as bold as they were? Why do you think all of those things happened in the book of Acts? It was because they were reproducing what they saw in their master. They were reproducing what they had focused on for 3 years, and they had become what Jesus said, You will do the same things I do, and even greater.
They were repeating what they had focused on. *Jesus said, Follow me. That's discipleship*. I think a lot of times, you you hear preachers, we as preachers pick on the disciples because they were just the lowly fishermen. But man, you know what I see?
In Matthew-4:19 where Jesus said, Come follow me and I'll make you fishers of men. You know what they did? Immediately. It says immediately, they "dropped their nets", symbolizing that they're dropping what they always knew. They're dropping their Father's business.
They're letting go for this new life that Jesus is calling them to do. And that's amazing. And my prayer is that you and myself in every area of our life, when Jesus says, Follow me, it's dropping what we've always thought, dropping what we've always held onto, dropping our boxes, dropping our hopes, dropping our dreams, and putting them in the hands of Jesus and saying, If this hope and dream that I've always had, if this is from you, take it and let's let's do it. And if it's not, God, I trust you to do away with it because I know you created me, I know you love me, and I know that your hopes and dreams for my life are what's best. I'm following you no matter the cost.
Even if it cost me what I always thought, Jesus, I am yours. Jesus said, follow me. That's *discipleship*. So what's really going on when we talk about follow me, when we talk about discipleship like that? What what is what's really going on?
See, in Jesus' day, 2000 years ago, when a teenage boy finished school, he's about 14, 15 years old, the religious leaders, the teachers called rabbis, they would go to the school and they would interview the different boys. They were looking for the best and the brightest. They were looking for the ones that they thought could follow them, *reproduce* what they were doing. And when they found 1, they would say, they would look him in the eyes and say to him, Follow me. And that boy would drop what he was doing.
That boy would give up going back to to do his father's trade. He would become dead to his old life and alive to his teacher's life, alive to his new life. And he knew that in following his teacher, it meant it meant that he was supposed to learn what his teacher taught and watch him and follow him so well that he would be able to propagate to say his teacher's teachings throughout the generations and teach other. But not just that. They would follow so closely that they wouldn't just say the same things, but they would say them in the same ways.
They would watch their rabbi, their teacher so closely that they would have the same mannerisms and the same form in the way that they spoke because they were reproducing what they saw. And, the rabbi, in choosing the boys, was saying to them, I believe that you are gonna be capable of teaching in the same way that I teach. You're gonna be capable. You're gonna be able to do what I do. It was a vote of confidence in those boys.
Those boys that were rejected, the ones that didn't make the cut, the rabbis would tell them, Hey, I want you to go and pick up your father's trade. If he was a fisherman, go become a fisherman. Get married, have children, and pray that your children 1 day get to become a rabbi. They were rejected. See, these disciples, they were rejected because they were fishermen.
They were in their father's trade. But now, had a rabbi come, Jesus Christ, and he said, follow me. What was he telling them? He was telling them that, I believe that you can follow after my teachings. But only that, you can teach others in the same way that I'm going to.
Follow me. He was telling them, I'm going to empower you to do the same, and we hear that in the very next line. He says, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. That's what Jesus was. That's what Jesus is.
And that's what he called us to do. Some of you, maybe you've been rejected. You've been rejected by the religious of the day. Different churches, different things have rejected you. Stop it.
*Jesus* doesn't reject you. Jesus loves you and he chooses you and he's telling you to drop everything and follow him. Follow Jesus. Drop everything. Drop your nets.
Drop your hopes and dreams. Put them in his arms and follow him. He wants to make you into a fisher of men, a fisher of people. What does that mean? What does it mean when He's saying that?
It's the purpose of discipleship. *Matthew-4:19 is what Jesus* said, Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. That's a discipleship like that is a radical proposition. It is a huge ask. He's saying, Look, you can follow me, you have to trust me because you're gonna get persecuted.
And, I'm not always gonna be with you, but I'll send the helper. You're gonna have to trust my word, is what he was telling the disciples. He was saying, follow me and when he tells you that same thing, there's no promise of a title. He's not giving you any assurance that all your hopes and dreams are going to come true. No.
He's saying, you can trust me. Jesus is saying you can follow me and trust me, and I'm going to make you. I'm going to form you. He's not helping you along in your dreams. No.
He's forming you into the image of himself, what you were created to look like from the beginning. In the beginning, God created you to be in his image, to be a representation of him to the world. He's gonna form you like a blacksmith forms metal. Right? It gets all black and crusty on the outside when it goes through the process and and he the blacksmith hammers the black stuff off, forming it to be sharp in order to be able to carry out its duty, to carry out his call.
Sometimes, in following Jesus, it seems like we're getting beaten. It seems like there's some tough stuff that we go through, but we can trust our blacksmith. We can trust our Lord, our Master, our Rabbi. He's making us into what he's called us to be. He'll never leave us or forsake us.
Not only that, he's making you into the image of Christ, saying you'll do the same things I do and even greater. You I'm a fisher of people. You will be a fisher of people. If you follow Jesus, then you are called to help others to follow Jesus. If you are a disciple of Jesus, then you are called to be a disciple maker.
Period. See today, we're in the globally connected series. We started last week with a globally connected church must be a relational church. And remember, every local church is called to be a globally connected church. We're called to be relational and connect with the global body of Christ.
But first, we gotta be relational and connect with those around us. A globally connected church is number 1, a relational church. But number 2, a globally connected church is a discipling church. And for the church to be those things, the individuals in the church must be those things. See, a critical mass, when when the majority of people in our church becomes relational, our church, real church, is a relational church.
Some of you are like, well, I'm I'm not supposed to be relational. Yes, you are. Well, I'm that's not my personality. It's not about you anymore. It's about Jesus, and Jesus is relational.
It's you're dead to your old life and alive to Christ, and Christ is in you that makes you relational. It's time to start believing it and living it. Not just that, you can't be a disciple discipling, you can't follow in discipleship without deep relationship, and you can't disciple others without allowing deep relationship. And when a critical mass, the majority of our church becomes intentional about discipleship, guess what? Our church becomes a discipling church.
To effectively disciple people, once again, write that down, you have to have deep relationships. And discipling, what you're saying is, I'm going to give you access, just like Jesus gave the disciples access to his life. I'm going to give you access to my life. Whether you're being discipled or discipling, and all are following the call Jesus. The essence of discipleship, *1 Corinthians-11:1*, Paul says, follow me as I follow Christ.
What is he saying? Saying the essence of discipleship is this, my eyes are on *Jesus* and I'm following him with everything I have. But not only that, I'm going to invite you into a place where you can see me follow Jesus with all of Christ, with all that I have, where you can see how I follow Christ. I'm not gonna try to control you. I'm not gonna try to make you into myself, a reproduction of myself.
No, no, no. But what I am gonna do is I'm gonna be in radical pursuit of Jesus, and I'm gonna open my life up so that you can see my "radical pursuit" of Jesus Christ. That's what discipleship is saying. See, some of you are good at being in pursuit of Jesus, but you're terrible at letting others see your pursuit of Jesus. You're terrible at giving people access to your life.
Why is that? Maybe because you've been hurt in the past, and so now you have all these walls up that are keeping people out. But what you don't realize in putting all these walls up that are keeping people out, you're also preventing yourself from moving forward in your relationship with Jesus Christ. Because it's our relationships with 1 another that encourage us and help us to take the steps that he's called us to be. Take the steps that he's called us to take.
A lot of times, it's our relationship with that person or our relationship with that person who's discipling us or who we're discipling that helps to push us forward into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. Well, pastor, how do I "tear down those walls"? How do I tear them down? I've been hurt so bad. Look, you have to get to a place where you are so secure in your relationship with Jesus that like Jesus, when people persecute persecute you, when people hurt you, when people rail against you, you say, Father, forgive them for they don't know what they're they're doing.
See, that's a statement of compassion. That's a statement of hurt. But not being hurt by them, hurting for them. And that's what he wants you to do. In your relationship with Christ, tear down all the walls and let him see every aspect of your heart.
Let him see all of your thoughts, which he already does, but just realize that. Let him speak to him about the deepest, darkest place of your heart. Let him see everything and he'll shine light on that. But not just that, tear down the walls in your relationships with other people. Let them really see you.
But what if they hurt me? No, no, no, no. When you're secure here and you've allowed God, you've allowed Jesus to really come in, then you can be secure here. And when they rail against you, when they abandon you, when they persecute you, when they hurt you, when they leave you, when they talk bad about you, you can know that hurt people hurt people. And when they're trying to hurt you, it's coming from a place of hurt in their heart.
So instead of letting impact you, you're already secure here, now you can hurt for them. And they can see your love for them despite they're trying to hurt you. They can see you praying for them. They can see your kindness to them. You're giving them grace and undeserved favor relationship, and they thought they were penetrating and hurting your heart, and really, in doing that, your kindness, because you had let the walls down and they were getting in, your kindness is penetrating their heart, and you're discipling them even in the midst of them trying to hurt you.
Come on, that's true discipleship. It's amazing. In relationships, there's friction, and sometimes friction hurts, but it's necessary. It's causing us to be sharper. It's causing us to grow closely into what we look like, what we're supposed to look like, more closely look like Jesus Christ.
*1 John-4:17*, In this world, we are like Jesus. So, let's tear down those walls. Because if you're really pursuing Christ, and you're really allowing others to have access to your pursuit of Christ, you're really letting them closely see your pursuit of Christ, those people are gonna push you into an even deeper pursuit of Christ Jesus. As I started in the beginning, talking about my parenting with my kids, parenting is a discipleship relationship. I'm discipling my kids because of their access to me to either "be like Jesus" or to "be like Satan", 1 or the other.
Constantly in my discipleship relationship with them, I'm either discipling to be like Jesus or be like Satan. There's no in between. You might say, Woah, did you just say? I did just say that. Because we're either servants of Christ or we're servants of Satan.
And when we're discipling people, we're either discipling them to be like Jesus or discipling them to be like Satan. So when I make a mistake, I don't want them to see pride. I want them to see humility. I want them to see me ask their mama, Baby, I'm so sorry. Would you forgive me?
I shouldn't have said those things. I want them to see me talk to them, Son, daughter, I'm sorry. You know, when I reacted in anger, it wasn't okay. I should have reacted in grace. Will you forgive me?
Humble myself. When they see that, they'll repeat it in their life. We we need to give other people the same similar kind of access. But watch this. Watch this.
When you give people access to your life, when you give people access, when you tear down the walls, when you let them really see inside, you're either going to be leading them or you're gonna be following them, 1 or the other. So, be careful who you follow and how you follow them. Because, when I'm in in discipleship, I have mentors, I have people who pastor me, I have people who hold me accountable, which is very important in all of your relationships. You should have some people like that, and let them really see in. But in that, in their advice to me, I'm listening not for them, I'm listening for Christ.
Because I know that I'm not following, I'm not really following a man. I'm not really following a person, I'm following Jesus. And when they speak *Christ* into me because maybe they've a little further along the path, they can see some things about what I'm going through that Jesus has already taught them. I'm listening for Jesus because I'm really following and following them. I'm following Jesus in them.
And, I'm listening for Jesus. If they ever tell me something that's not in line with what the Holy Spirit says through his word, I don't follow. I follow Jesus. But I always honor them. Because if Christ has put me in a discipleship relationship with them, then to honor them is to honor Christ Jesus.
And in many ways, when they're leading me to Christ, to follow them is to follow Christ Jesus. Not just that, I'll and giving people access to my life and when I'm leading them in different areas of my life. I have to honor them in the way and I can't force them because the heavenly Father doesn't force us. No. All I'm doing, all we do when we disciple others is we "point them to Jesus".
We're constantly and consistently pointing people to Jesus. And so as brothers and sisters in Christ, intentional discipleship relationships are constantly and continually encouraging 1 another and pointing them to Jesus. Period. So, when we're intentionally discipling others, what does it look like to have a deep relationship with that? It means, and I'm not saying with everybody in your life, no, Jesus was really close with 3.
He discipled 12, you know, he discipled the masses by his life, but he really brought 12 in, and then he was extremely close for 3. Right? You you can't disciple a 100 people. I can as a pastor. I can't.
But, I can really Those that God has really brought, I can disciple them and trust them to disciple others. And, as we're intentional about discipling people, man, it's gonna multiply. But, what does it mean? It means calling them. It means praying for them.
Hanging out with them. Letting them see how you study the Bible. Letting them see how you pray. Letting them see how you respond to conflict. Letting them see how you minister to people, letting them see how you handle conflict.
And if you're having trouble, and if in any of those areas that I talked about, or maybe it's sin, maybe you're having trouble in addiction, or sexual immorality, maybe you're having trouble with greed, or trouble with this, find someone that is stronger than you in that area of Jesus Christ, in that area of your life, and pray to God. Pray to God that he would show you someone, and then go be intentional about building relationship with them and learning from them in that area. Letting Jesus disciple you through that person. Be intentional about growing and getting disciple and being intentional about finding other people and letting them see your pursuit of Jesus. Because in doing that, you are discipling.
How can you do that at real church? Get in a Sunday gathering. We're we're getting closer than ever before to having a building. Pray. We got some important meetings coming up, I'll let you know when we get closer, and that's awesome.
Right now, we're meeting in in different people's homes. Get in a Sunday gathering. Build relationships. Watch the Sunday online service. Share it with people.
Get in a small group. Come to our monthly celebration. Build relationships because in building relationships, you're opening the door to discipleship, which is a huge deal. Stay as connected as you possibly can because you're as connected as you want to be. We wanna give you every opportunity to do so.
See, for real church, we are going to be a globally connected church. And for because God has called every local church to do so and we're in pursuit of what God's called us to be. So, real church, we must be relational and we must be discipling. And, I'm gonna continue to ring that bell. You'll hear it over and over and over because It's what God called us to do.
And, as you allow, tear down the walls, and allow relationships to be built, and you're intentional about those relationships, as you're faithful with a little, God's gonna out of those relationships, bring discipleship type relationships to you, where you're discipling and being discipled. And as you're faithful with the little, your discipleship network and your relational network will grow. And as this person grows, and this person grows, and this person grows, guess what? Us as a church, our whole, our influence will grow influence for the kingdom. And we're doing this not to build our kingdom, but to build the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
Amen? So when the majority of our or you can't have relate as I've said before, you can't have relationships or you can't have discipleship without relationships, without being relational. And, as long as you're being relational in pursuit of Jesus, there's discipleship there. Jesus focused on 3 and 12 and changed the world. What intentional relationships and intentional discipleship relationships has he put in your life or do you need to pray that he puts in your life?
And, when he puts them there, don't don't just wait and say, well, they're not. No. Go be intentional yourself about being relation with them. You take the first step. You're as connected as you wanna be.
A globally connected church is a discipling church. Let me ask you this before we enter into worship now. We're about to sing a couple songs and reflect on what God has done. Pray, sing these songs as a prayer. But, what I want you to focus on is is what area of life of your life?
What areas of your life? So Holy Spirit saying, hey, you need discipleship in this area. Is it prayer? How you pray? Is it is it how you read scripture?
Is it your finances? Is it your purity? Is it business being it is it your work ethic? Like, is it your time? Is it your relationships with your family?
Parenting? What relate what what areas of your life do you need discipling in? Because we all do. What areas of your life is God highlighting? Pray and ask God to send mighty men and women of God into your life so that you could build a relationship and learn from them, learn from Jesus in them.
But also, I want you to pray that God would send people in your life that need to pursue *Jesus* like you are and be in a radical pray God help me to be in a radical pursuit of Jesus so that I can help others to do the same. And then I want you to radically worship Jesus as we sing. Do business recognize that he's right there. Do business with God right now. He's in the room and he loves you and he cares for you and he wants a deep relationship with you.
You. Be still right now and know that he's God. Let me pray for you, and then we're gonna worship. Lord God, I pray that everybody watching right now would sense your presence, would know that you're there, and would have flipped off of this just because we're going into worship. No, Lord God, it would be intentional about being still and doing business, praying with you personally, and singing these songs as a prayer, and praying about what we just talked about, and realizing that you're inside them, so because of that, if they've received you because of that, they can have a relationship, a deeper relationship with you, a deeper relationship with people, and they can be discipling.
Lord God, help them to grow there. In Jesus' name, Lord, I pray. Amen.
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