Designing the Disciple
Text: Acts 18: 1-17
Proposition: God designs disciples through opportunity, relationship, crisis, faith and perseverance that they would be effective in glorifying Him.
Introduction: I once belonged to the union of elevator operators and prison guards. The job involved cleaning hospital rooms after patients were discharged, sometimes cleaning the morgue when it’s occupants were taken away and then generally doing whatever was needed in a small nursing station. That’s what I was doing when I first believed in Jesus Christ asking Him to save me. Once a week a man older than I would come by the station and have lunch with me. We’d sit and talk and pray and though I didn’t know what being a disciple meant or even looked like it was taking shape in my life. I believe that God designs disciples much like a potter raises up a mound of clay on his wheel. Each time it doesn’t look like much to start with and each time the pot that is made is unique in some way. The potter has a design in mind. He sees it one day being used to bring water to thirsty lips, to hold things that would otherwise be lost, to be vessels of function and beauty. This morning let’s take a trip to Greece, let’s see how God designed some disciples in the midst of a place that was messy, dangerous and full of prickly, precious people. Let’s go to Corinth, have a look at Acts 18: 1-17.
I. When God Designs Disciples… Change Occurs.
Corinth is a unique place, its about 100 kilometers west of Athens, situated right where the land narrows. http://www.texva.com/greece/images/corinth_canal.jpg It had two natural harbors and ships were often pulled over land for the five kilometer trip between the Ionian Sea and the Aegean Sea. This short cut made the region a hub of trade. The worship of Aphrodite was also centered here making prostitution almost synonymous with the name Corinth. It’s to this place that God directs Paul, to a town that was rough and morally dark, a place where he would spend the next two years. It’s true that making disciples will require change, change in location, occupation, relationship, activity… all of this and more but what is most exciting is that in every case God has already gotten there ahead of you. When Paul comes to Corinth he connects with a couple that have recently been displaced from Rome. Aquila was originally from Pontus, an area on the north coast of Turkey, so he was likely of Persian descent though a Jew by faith and upbringing. They are skilled leather workers, a trade that Paul had also learned. So it’s becomes a series of points of commonality that connects them, work, faith, immigrants and now a new hope in Christ. What Paul did changed, who and where he stayed changed, even his method of just using the synagogue changed but in every case God was there ahead of him in every change. When God designs disciples change occurs and it’s not just the transformative change in the person you are discipling, it’s changes in your life too. So how are you with be willing to change? If you are going to be a disciple and if that means discipling others then expect change. It’s how God designed it.
II. When God Designs Disciples… He’s Also Designing Others Around You.
You aren’t the only one in process, look at this account. Paul meets Aquila and Priscila, then Silas and Timothy catch up to him, then Justus who was next door to the synagogue, then the Crispus the synagogue leader, then Sosthenes the next synagogue leader and on and on. Silas and Timothy had been discipling the people in Berea and Philippi and they continued that with Paul in Corinth. Justus and Crispus were brand new believers in Christ as was Sosthenes. In each of these there were all kinds of changes taking place but the really cool part is that they were as in over their heads as Paul was. The wonderful thing about making disciples is that God has designed it so that when you connect with one you are automatically connected to others. There is a community of people moving as one body in faith in Christ. It’s like a human body as it grows, the foot grows in length as the arm grows and the legs grow all at the same rate so that the body remains in proportion and more importantly so that the body functions as God designed it. There are people around you right now who are making disciples as they go, who are being discipled as they go. We sometimes mistake discipleship for friendship, people who go to the same church as I, who live in the same place I do or who like the same things that I do. We often see discipleship as being as spontaneous an action as friendship is, that it just sort of happens. The thing is no design just sort of happens, it requires intentionality. Did Jesus just sort of happen to be born of a virgin, did He just sort of happen to raise a handful of disciples into becoming the transforming core of an everlasting church? Did He just sort of happen to die on a cross? Will His return just sort of happen? Everything to do with Jesus the Son of God occurred by design and it’s no happenstance that if our lives belong to Him then we too are disciples made by design. Intentionality recognizes that truth and awakens to it. It begins to reach out to those who are all around you, co-members of the body of Christ, co-disciples in Him, co-operating in Christ.
III. When God Designs Disciples… He Designs What You Can’t Yet See.
I love what verses 9, 10 say, “Now the Lord spoke to Paul in the night by a vision, “Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent for I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you; for I have many people in this city.” I love this because it’s very familiar to each of us. God did not promise Paul that it would be easy or that he would not experience opposition or even rejection, He promised Paul that He was with him. Why was a critical point for Paul? It’s because Paul had become afraid, had become silent, had become invisible because fitting in was a much safer place than sticking out.
In verse 5 it says that when Timothy and Silas came to Paul that things changed. The NKJ says that… “Paul was compelled by the Spirit, and testified to the Jews thatJesus is the Christ.” When you are compelled in spirit by the Spirit to testify that Jesus is the Christ, the One the Jews looked for but missed, the One that to the Gentiles was foolishness because why do you need a Savior if things are all okay, then that testimony will be conspicuous. Paul had become afraid and had pulled back. I think this too is an experience common to most disciples of Christ as we take ourselves off the altar that Romans 12:1,2 refers to. So it’s at this time that God speaks rather directly to Paul, assuring him that he is not alone nor is he ineffective in all that he has done. But it’s the last part of this that I think really ignites Paul’s faith… “for I have many people in this city”. What is it that God sees that Paul couldn’t yet see? It was the many who were yet to believe in Christ. It was the many who had believed but no one discipled them and when things got rough they dropped out but they were still there, unseen. It was the many who were even on their way to this city that had never been there before but were soon to become residents. It’s like kids who dig in a pile of snow in order to find the coins hidden there in a treasure hunt. They find the first few and are about to quit when the person who hid the coins says to them, “You’ve only found $10 dollars so far, I’ve hidden $300 dollars in there!”
Do you think that perhaps that is how God looks at our town, at our lives and the people around us? When God designs disciples He designs what you can’t see yet and He designs us to live by faith for that very purpose. He intends surprise, discovery, reward, work, frustration, suffering and joy in the whole work of making disciples. Change occurs, others are being designed right next to you and He sees what you can’t see… yet. So begins the discipleship at Corinth.