Luke 5:1–11. Jesus embodies and exemplifies purposeful, personal, relational, and intentional redemptive strategy. He was a recruiter of sorts. He was recruiting men and women from their old lives, their old ways, their old jobs and occupations, and old purposes to a new way, life, purpose, and identity. This world-wide strategy was kicked off with two words: “Follow Me.”  What was Jesus up to? Who was he about? Simply and clearly, Jesus was about disciples! Jesus started discipling the unregenerate; he discipled men and women to faith, so they could be discipled for evangelism. So, we take our cues from Him and when we do, He promises to do something in us. When disciples are discipled in following Jesus, they will inevitably disciple others.

2 Timothy 2:1-7. We have been going through our nine priorities—aspects and callings of our faith that we see come up again and again in Scripture—and today, we will talk about Discipleship. This morning as we look at discipleship, we are going to use this passage in 2 Timothy 2, that actually doesn’t use the word disciple or discipleship, to help us as we discuss discipleship. We will also look at the rest of Scripture to help describe what this thing that we call discipleship really is, and 2 Timothy has some helpful aspects that we often overlook. 

And I pray you leave this morning loving these four points about disciples and discipleship:

• Being a disciple is your identity.

• Disciples pursue joy

• Disciples replicate and grow

• Disciples persevere