Skip to content 16. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Disciple Makers - Part 2 Sep 7 · 27 min ...more
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Rev. Paul Jeyachandran leads the Intentional Disciple Making Church (IDMC) Movement, which is all about calling churches back to its disciplemaking roots. Visit us at idmcmovement.com
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0:09 Shall we give the Lord a clap offering church? Hallelujah. It is always a joy and a privilege to bring God's word into your homes. Again, this morning, we're gonna be studying a0:20 specific topic. Today, it's not an expository sermon, but rather a topical sermon, which I usually preach to the leaders in churches. And I want this to be a0:32 training for anyone who is in Christian ministry. Not only that, it is also a training for every Christian. Now this is what I'm titling this, 7 traits of0:43 highly effective disciple makers. Let's look to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly father, we thank you for this day. I pray that the holy spirit be our teacher. Give us listening ears and a heart that is willing to obey0:54 mighty God. Lord, we know that we are on a journey, that we are continually being transformed into the likeness of Christ. And even today, I pray that the Holy Spirit will remind us of what it is that He is transforming1:05 towards. We thank You, Lord. In Jesus' name, and people of God said, amen and amen. As a church consultant, whenever I sit down with a leadership team of a church,1:17 I help them to understand what are some of the key things to look for in the life of the church. 1 of the most important things is you can either structure a church for growth1:29 or you can structure the church for help. See, what it means is many times, people are focused on growing, growing in numbers, growing the leaders, growing. It's always1:41 about growth oriented, performance oriented mindset. But on the other hand, what you need to do is to be able to think about how can I grow the leadership of the church into health? How can1:53 I get the core of the church, the people in the church to be healthy, healthy individuals who are following the Lord, healthy families that are serving together, healthy leadership teams?2:05 Now why I emphasize this is because healthy things grow. You don't have to go after growth. If you remain healthy, anything that is healthy will continue to grow. Growth2:17 is a byproduct. That's why I wanna talk about the 7 traits of highly effective disciple makers in this video because I want you to catch what are some of the2:29 traits that that causes a person to truly embrace the mission of Jesus Christ? See, we are in a business of converting people. Correct? We convert people threefold. I want you2:41 to convert them to Christ. I want them to I want you to convert them to the church, and I also want you to convert them to the cause. What I mean by convert, you know, convert meaning that you are2:52 changing the cause. You're bringing alignment to their life, and you're bringing them to Christ. So when you're connecting them to Christ, you're making them to convert and make Christ the lord of their life. At the same3:04 time, you're converting them to a church. In other words, you're connecting them to a local church. In other words, you're helping them to embrace the vision and the culture and the values that govern a local church. Now3:15 this is important. But most importantly, you're not only connecting them to Christ and to the church, but you're connecting them to the cause of Jesus Christ. And the core mission that Christ has left for us is to make3:26 disciples of all nations, beginning at our home. So I wanna be authentic in my discipleship. I wanna disciple my wife, my children. At the same time, I wanna bring on my journey a few key3:38 individuals whose hearts the Lord has touched, and I want to intentionally disciple them. So what makes an effective disciple maker? There are 7 traits I want you to see. So if you're a zone3:49 shepherd leading a group of life group leaders, I want you to listen to me carefully. When you sit down with your life group leaders, these are the 7 things I look for in life group leaders, and I want you to cultivate4:00 in them constantly to keep reminding them, bringing them back to that place to keep cultivating and growing in these 7 traits. If you are a life group leader, this is what I look for in you,4:12 and I pray that God will cultivate in this. The third trait is humble. Humble is that you have a proper self assessment. You know your weakness. You know your strengths. You know what are some of the4:23 pitfalls that you would have in your life. You know what are the gift sets that you carry. You need to be aware. Everyone needs to have awareness of their blind spots. And this4:35 humility is important because the Bible says, first Peter chapter 5 in and verse 5 and 6, likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Right there, it says, be subject to the elders. But, you know, you won't4:47 want to submit if you don't have humility, if you cannot invite correction, if you cannot invite that that kind of rebuke, if you cannot invite that kind of accountability, you can't submit. And the main4:59 reason you need that is humility. Clothe yourself, all of you, with humility toward 1 another for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. You and I know5:10 this. When you are proud, you are on opposition with God. Do you want to be in opposition with God? My goodness. Humble yourself. Not only that, when you5:22 want to be like Christ, Christ modeled for us what humility is like. Whereas the devil, Satan, he was lifted up in pride, the Bible says, and that was the downfall for the Satan. So listen to5:34 me. When you are proud, you align yourself with the devil. You're not Christ like. Listen. John Stott said this. At every stage of our Christian development and in every sphere of our Christian5:45 discipleship, pride is the greatest enemy and humility, our greatest friend. Pride is more than the first of the 7 deadly sins. It is itself the essence of all sin. Listen to5:57 that. Pride is the essence of all sin. At the core of our sin, sinful tendency, sinful habit is pride. And that is why you and6:09 I, we need to humble ourselves. The bible doesn't say go and humble your wife. The Bible doesn't say go and humble your husband. You cannot humble another person. You can humiliate another person, but6:21 humble is something that you and I need to do ourselves. Look at that. First Peter chapter 5 in verse 6. Humble yourselves, therefore, in the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time, he may exalt6:33 you. Humble yourselves. Doesn't mean that you put down yourself. Doesn't mean that you think lowly of yourself. Humility doesn't mean to think lowly of oneself.6:46 Humility is not thinking lowly or thinking highly about oneself. Humility is not thinking about yourself at all. That means you don't think about yourself. You think about6:57 Christ and his glory. Hallelujah. A pastor was given the title, the most humble pastor in America. So there was a badge that they gave.7:09 The church gave the badge to the pastor to say, you are the most humble pastor in America. And the following week, they took the badge from him because he started wearing it.7:22 See, humility is a very peculiar thing. Listen to this. Bernard said this. Humility is a most strange thing. The moment that you think you have acquired it, it is just the moment you have lost it. The moment7:34 you think you have arrived, the moment you lost it. In other words, humility should be at the core of our being. And the 1 way I've helped I've to walk in humility, I need to remind7:45 myself of where I came from and how God has brought me where I am today. You know, this month of March, I'm recording this on the seventh of March. 22 years ago, on seventh7:57 of March, I met my wife for the first time. 22 years ago. And in that time, I had nothing in my pocket. Third of March, I received a visa after 72 they said8:09 72 weeks of processing. We will reject your visa to come to Australia on a permanent migration visa. But after 26 weeks, miraculously, that visa was granted to me on the third of March. That was 21 years8:21 ago. Why I recollect these things? On the fifth of March, I landed in this country. When I landed in this country, Qantas lost my luggage. I walked out of the airport absolutely with nothing in my hand.8:33 And that is how I came into this country. So 21 years ago, when I recollect these things, I see the faithfulness of God. It brings nothing else but tears in my eyes and recollecting the8:45 faithfulness and the goodness of God. I know I don't have what it takes to be what God has called me to be, but he has stood with me, blessed me, chose me, called me, anointed me,8:57 and blessed me, and graced me, and favored me to do what I do today. That is what I'm a man of tears. My wife knows these people who are closest to me know. I'm very quick to cry. And9:09 the reason I flow in tears is because deep down in my heart, I know it is he who has given me his grace. And that is humility. Humility is to come to the9:20 place to recognize that he is everything, and we are nothing. I'm gonna give you 6 ways you can live humbly. Read this together with me. Come on. 3, 2, 1. Listen more than you9:32 speak. If you're humble, you will listen more than you speak. You will shy away from things that feed your ego. 1 of the things that greatest temptations that people fall is they want people to always9:44 stroke their ego. Stay away from those things. If you're humble, you will walk away from this. Thirdly, submit to accountability of a mentor. Choose to obey. If not, you become a god to yourself. In other words,9:56 no 1 can correct you. No 1 can rebuke you. No 1 can bring any criticism into your life. What will happen is you become a god to yourself. So learn to submit to a wise mentor. Now there are mentors, and there are mentors.10:08 What do I mean by that? There are mentors and there are tormentors. There are people who will abuse the leadership that's given to them. So you got to choose wisely. Right? But the key thing is here. Do10:20 not shy away from jobs responsibilities that you do not enjoy. That's 1 core thing of humility. All our church leadership teams, whoever the couple that are serving we10:32 invite couples to serve in ministries, and all the couples that are serving in ministries, they carry loads beyond their ability, beyond their gift sets. They do abound beyond. You know the reason why they do it.10:44 And many of them do it not because they are very good at it. They do it because they see a need, and they fill it. And they don't shy away from doing the hard work. They don't shy away from doing the dirty work.10:56 They don't shy away from doing what needs to be done, even responsibilities that they don't enjoy. That's called humility. Serve more in secret than in public. Don't wait for someone to give you a platform.11:08 Don't ask for positional leadership. Have an influential leadership. Influence doesn't require a title. Influence is that you're able to live out the gospel, and people will be naturally attracted attracted to that. You11:20 don't need a title. You don't need a position. You don't need anyone to come and say, you are a leader. You will have influence if you just start serving, serving more in secret than in public. Lastly, be the first to11:31 humble yourself in a conflict and to repent of your own mistakes. How often I find this funny that leaders who are supposed to be humble are the leaders who who you know, they're11:42 supposed to be humble. They would they need to take ownership of the issue. Doesn't matter who was in the wrong. The first 1 to be able to take ownership of the problem and admit and repent,11:54 this is a sign of maturity and a sign of humility. I want you to pay attention to this. This. How do you react when people criticize you? How do you react when12:06 people, compliment you? How do you react when people overlook you and underappreciate you? How do you receive corrections? All these things are questions that you and I, we need to12:18 examine. Number 4, the fourth trait is happy. A Christian owes it to the world to be supernaturally joyful. AW Tozer said that. A Christian owes it to the world to be12:30 supernaturally joyful. How many of you know joy is not dependent on the happenstance? If the happenings are happening the way you want it to happen, then you will be happy. But12:41 joy is a byproduct of being so god centered. Holy spirit filled, holy, humble, you will be happy.12:53 Look at what the Bible says about the disciples in Acts chapter 13 verse 52. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. The disciples were filled with13:05 joy and with the Holy Spirit. I love these 2 distinct fillings. They were filled with joy and filled with the holy spirit. You and I know holy13:16 spirit is the 1 that produces the joy, isn't it? Love, joy, peace. But there is a double portion of love, a joy here. He says they are filled with joy. They are joyful. They are13:28 grateful. They are filled with happy. You cannot be a Christian and have a face that is baptized in tom yum soup. Now if you don't know what tom yum soup is, it could be lemon juice. It's not you're baptized in lemon13:40 juice. I want you to listen to me. You and I have to express the joy of the Lord, and the joy of the Lord can can can can be there. Now I want you to listen. Paul commands this13:51 twice. The whole book of Philippians, you and I studied together. Philippians is a book that speaks about the joy of the Lord. But more importantly, the emotions for emotions to be filled with joy, it is how you think14:03 about things. The more you think about things, if you think rightly, you will feel rightly. That's why 1 of the core things that you and I need to understand is joy is a command. It's a commandment. Command means14:15 that you have to obey it. That means Paul knows that you can trigger joy in your life. You can live in a constant state of joy. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I would say rejoice. Nehemiah 8 10, the Bible14:27 says, The joy of the Lord is your strength. If you're a life group leader, is your life filled with joy? If you walk into your marriage, is14:39 there joy in your marriage? You know, is there is there laughter at home? You know, 1 of the core things I'm thankful to the Lord is I look around when we come together as a14:51 leadership team. We laugh at things. We do laugh. We have the joy of serving the Lord together because we are invested in each one's life. When I go my go back to my home,15:03 there's joy in the house. I I wanna see my wife filled with the joy of the Lord. I want to see my children serve the Lord with gladness of heart. This is important. It is something that you work15:14 towards. It's a byproduct of living and thinking right. The Bible says, if you do not have joy and you serve the Lord without joy, there is a15:26 severe punishment. In the Old Testament, they were punished. Look look at this. In Deuteronomy chapter 28 verse 47, because you did not serve the Lord with your with the Lord your God with15:38 joyfulness and gladness of heart because of the abundance of all things, therefore, you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. He will put15:49 a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you. Listen. You don't serve the Lord with joy and gratefulness and gladness of heart. You will be serving the enemy, and he will put a heavy burden on you,16:01 and you will have everything. You will have lacking in everything. Listen. How severe that is. In other words, don't be mad about things. Don't be sad about things. Be glad because God16:13 is still sovereign. God is still on the throne, and God still has things to do in your life. Hallelujah. Fifthly, harmonious. A man who is holy spirit filled, who is humble, who16:24 is holy, who is happy, will also be harmonious in how he works with others. First Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 10 to 12, the Bible says, I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that16:36 all of you agree that there be no divisions among you, that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. Paul commands here and says, don't have16:48 any divisions among you. You know how sad it is when church goes through conflict, when there is polarization. People are in 1 camp, leaders are in another camp. All these kind of16:59 polarization and divisions, these are things that you and I have to avoid, the bible says. You need to be united in the same mind and in the same judgment. Verse 11 says, it is reported to me by Chloe's17:11 people that there is quarreling among you. What I mean is that each 1 of you says, I follow Paul. I follow Apollos. I follow Cephas. I follow Christ. In other words, look at this.17:23 Today, it may not be following a personality. It could be, oh, I'm a Armenian. I'm a Calvinist. Oh, I'm a Baptist. I'm a Pentecostal. I'm a charismatic. Today, have different labels, and people fight over these things.17:35 Oh, I prefer expository preaching every Sunday. I don't want any topical sermon. People fight over these things. People will say, every time you preach, you have to preach the gospel. Every time you need to say, you need17:46 to mention, you need to come back to that. I want you to listen to me carefully. All these things can be a point of contention, but we shouldn't allow that to be. Romans17:57 chapter 16 in verse 17, Paul writes, I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions. Watch out for people who are contentious, can cantankerous, and create obstacles18:09 contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught. Avoid them. Circle that word. Avoid them. In other words, you sit down with somebody who is causing division, who speaks divisively. You know,18:21 sometimes you this is something I have to say this. Over the course of my, journey with church leaders, I've sat down with church18:32 pastors who are working in a team in other churches. And or maybe it's an elder of a church or a board member. When I'm sitting down with them, sometimes you get this18:44 feeling that they can do the job better than their senior pastor. They may not say it outrightly, but they can portray that to you,18:56 that somehow he doesn't measure up. Somehow that person is failing. Somehow they can do a better job if it was given to them. That's the devil. Listen to me carefully. That is19:08 not of God. The Bible says, humble yourself in the mighty hand of God that he will exalt you in due time. The moment you put yourself up, you will have a19:19 great fall. Listen to me carefully. Why I'm saying these things is because conflict arises out of 1 man's ambition. Conflict in a church arises of 1 man's deep19:31 desire to have prominence or to be preeminent or to have glory or to have platform or to have appreciation or recognition or whatever it is. That's why I want you to listen. In an intentional disciple making19:43 church, we emphasize we don't serve the people. We serve the audience of 1. We don't live for the applause of men. We live for the approval of God. Will God approve your life? And if he does, he will lift you up. The19:55 station, the portion, and the season for your life will come. But you gotta wait in humility. But the moment you run wild to cause divisions and chaos, the Bible20:06 says, avoid them. Look at this. In Titus chapter 3, Paul goes on to say in verse 10, as for a person who stirs up division after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with20:18 him. If anyone is contentious, this is what I want you to do. Zone shepherds, life group leaders, listen carefully. If anyone causes keeps causing the same kind of stirring of division, 1 him20:30 once, 1 him twice. After that, nothing to do with him. Why? Because this is serious issue in the eyes of God. Knowing that such a person is whooped up and sinful, he is self20:42 condemned. In other words, there's no humility in that person. There is no harmony. He doesn't wanna work towards unity in the body of Christ. Now I wanna take a moment20:54 to address this because as a church, I'm grateful to the Lord that God has brought in our midst people from different church backgrounds. In other words, people who have been in Presbyterian church, Baptist church,21:06 Anglican church, charismatic church, Pentecostal church are here. So people who are Calvinist or Armenians are here. People who love the word of God and want to grow together, they are here in this house.21:17 And I'm grateful to the Lord for bringing us together and showing us that we are from diverse cultures, diverse church backgrounds, but we are united in the cause of disciple making of all nations.21:29 I'm grateful to the Lord for that. But can I humbly say this? When you sit down and talk about things, there will be disagreements because we may not agree on how we structure ourselves, what programs21:41 we run, or how we do things, or whether we speak in tongues, we don't speak in tongues, whether we lift our hands in worship, whether we sing hymns or do the there could be a lot of lot of things which we may not21:52 agree with. But I want you to listen to me. Those things don't matter in the long run. Can I give you there are 3 things when it comes to beliefs? 1, there are22:04 3 levels of beliefs. 1, there is a belief that you die for. There are beliefs that you defend, and there are beliefs that you discuss. For me, it's very simple. What are the beliefs that I die for? There22:16 are beliefs that I would die for is that Christ Jesus is Lord. He is incarnate, son of God. He's eternal son who became an incarnate son. And I believe that Jesus Christ was born in a virgin22:27 birth, lived fully God, fully human life, died and bodily rose again, and he is ascended into heaven, and he's coming back again. That, to22:39 me, is a it's it's a it's an it's a belief to die for. The inerrancy of the scriptures, that scripture is God breathed, that all scripture is given to22:51 us from above. Now that is something that we believe. Hallelujah. So these are things that you that you are that you die for. But then there are if you ask me personally, there are23:03 beliefs that I would defend. I'm a continuation ist, not a cessationist. In other words, I believe holy spirit is for today. The gifts are for today, and the speaking of tongues, the prophesying, and all that because I23:13 move in the gifts of the holy spirit. And I've I've and and people will come and say that the lord spoke through my life, through my ministry for them prophetically. Now I can't keep sharing testimonies here. So23:25 those are things I will defend. So if I'm talking to somebody who believes that everything is ceased, cessationists believe that the gifts are not for today, that it ended when the apostolic age age ended in the book of23:36 Acts. I want you to listen. We can still dialogue, and we can still do life together because that's not something we need to die over. It is about things that you can defend. But then23:47 there are things that you can discuss. Oh, baptism. Is it sprinkling? Is it water baptism? Is it immersion? How how long you need to keep the person inside? Is it 1 second? Is it 3 seconds? Is it 5 seconds? Or is it23:58 until they die? I want you to listen to me. Those things we can discuss. Those things don't matter in the long run. So why I'm saying this is because I want you to pay attention to this. Don't make a24:10 minor thing a major thing when you walk into a new church. Don't major on minors. Major on the majors. As long there there's so much to do in the kingdom of God. Let's put our hearts together, hands24:22 together, heads together, and do the work of the gospel because salvation to all mankind needs to be preached, and then the end will come, the Bible says. Jesus is coming back to his church very soon, so24:33 let's love 1 another. John chapter 13 and verse 34 and 35, the Bible says, new commandment I give to you that you love 1 another. Just as I have loved you, you're also to love 1 another.24:46 Love 1 another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for 1 another. Love is seen in how you disagree. Yeah. I24:58 can agree to disagree, and I still love you. That's the key. Saint Augustine said this, in essentials, unity. In nonessentials,25:09 liberty. In all things, charity. In other words, in all things, show love. That's why 1 of the core things in my mentoring, I always tell the leaders25:21 to pay attention to this. There's a difference between posture and principle. You and I can agree to disagree. We can dialogue around principles. But in our25:33 disagreement, don't make the disagreement become personality issues. I will love the person, but I can dialogue about the principles because the principles will either help me25:44 strengthen my own conviction or help me to correct their wrong perception. It'll help us. Dialogue around the principles, and we still love each other. But the moment you turn it into personality25:56 clash, the disagreement has now become between 2 personalities. Now you become disagreeable. Now this is key. Don't allow it. And even when you're presenting an issue26:08 or a problem with your leadership team, always have this humility of heart to know I could be wrong, or maybe I'm not seeing everything clearly. Could you help me understand? These are language of26:19 humility. In other words, I always say this, posture is more important than your position. You may take a stand about something, but in communicate it?26:31 What posture do you approach it matters for your own soul, for your own soul's sake. Embrace the right posture. Hallelujah. Finally, I wanna give you26:42 sixth 1, heartworking. What is heartworking? Heartworking is you know, there are 2 kinds of people, someone who is hardly working, someone who is hardworking, but this is heartworking. Colossians chapter26:54 3 verse 22 says, bondservants. In other words, these are servants. These are slaves. He's talking to the slaves. Obey in everything those who are your
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