Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five
Part One
At each point of the creation story where God pauses He says that it is “good”. He doesn’t call it “perfect”. From the beginning, God infused all He created with potential to bring positive change. In the same way, in each one of us there are the gifts, talents, values and qualities that God has given us so that we can impact and influence the lives of people around us for good. We are called to “multiply” ourselves.
Discover
Read Genesis 1:20-28. To help get a good understanding of the passage, try to describe what is happening or being said in your own words. Take a moment to reflect and note down what stands out as important, significant or meaningful to you. What does this passage tell us about God? What does this passage tell us about people? How does this passage change how we live?
Discuss
1. In what ways can we “multiply” ourselves in the lives of others? Why is our influence sometimes actually negative?
2. Read Genesis 1:11-12, 20-22, 26-28. In what ways did God speak potential into His creation?
3. God said creation was “good”. Why didn’t He say it was “perfect”?
4. How can we “partner with God in the ongoing creation of the world”?
5. How has other people’s influence shaped your life?
6. What barriers get in the way of you “multiplying” your life to influence others?
Respond
Take time together to talk about what specific gifts, values and qualities you each have that are actually blessings from God. Speak about the gifts you see in each other. Then discuss the people you can uniquely influence or the opportunities that you can take to “multiply” what God has given to you. Spend time praying for each other.
Part Two
Jesus’ final direction to us was to make disciples as we go about living our lives. He promised to empower us with His authority and His presence. So how are we doing? Who are we discipling? Who are we multiplying our lives into? May God move us from guilty inactivity to whole-hearted, sincere obedience that multiplies disciples and honours Him.
Discover
Read Acts 19:8-12. To help get a good understanding of the passage, try to describe what is happening or being said in your own words. Take a moment to reflect and note down what stands out as important, significant or meaningful to you. What does this passage tell us about God? What does this passage tell us about people? How does this passage change how we live?
Discuss
1. When you hear the phrase ‘disciples that multiply’, what is your understanding of it?
2. In recent months, what have your family, friends, colleagues or neighbours learnt about faith in God from you?
3. What barriers can prevent us multiplying our lives into others?
4. For Paul, discipling meant teaching and training others in a way of life by following his example. What has God done in your life or what gifts and skills has He given you that you can use to invest in others?
5. Read Acts 19:9. Paul stopped planting churches and started teaching and investing in individuals. Who could you spiritually invest into this year?
6. Read 2 Timothy 2:2. Do you see yourself as a spiritual “bucket” or as a “channel”, passing on what God has taught and done in you?
Respond
Take time together to discuss one step you can take this week to live as a disciple and disciple-maker. Think about who you can serve, encourage, challenge or inspire. What life-skill or experience will you draw on to make an investment into them? Share your plans and pray that the Lord will open up opportunities that might even surprise you.
Part Three
The call to make disciples is the call to invest in the lives of people around us out of what God has done in our own lives. It is the call to be disciples that multiply. It has never been a call reserved for the spiritual elite. Mission and discipleship always belong in the hands of ordinary people.
Discover
Read Acts 4:12-14. To help get a good understanding of the passage, try to describe what is happening or being said in your own words. Take a moment to reflect and note down what stands out as important, significant or meaningful to you. What does this passage tell us about God? What does this passage tell us about people? How does this passage change how we live?
Discuss
1. When we read the verse, “Come follow Me and I will send you out to fish for people,” do we usually focus on the first part of this verse and place all of our efforts into our spiritual growth?
2. “As the Father, so the son……” For Jesus to know God’s will and way He had to make time to be with Him. Are we spending enough time with ’our Father’ for us to know His will and way for us? (John 5:21,26)
3. What does making a disciple look like for you today? (John 20:21)
4. How do you recognise somebody who has been with Jesus? (Acts 4:13) What do you look for?
5. If we are not seeing God at work in our own personal life, what can we do about that?
6. If making a disciple is something that you and I can do, what needs to change in our mindset, our calendar, our priorities or our network?
7. Even if nobody ever discipled you, do you know enough about Jesus to share with somebody who has never heard about Him? Discuss. (Matthew 28:19-20)
Respond
Take some time to reflect personally about what challenges you face in going forward as a disciple that multiplies what God has done in your life. Think through any frustrations you feel. What missional opportunities do you have in life right now to make progress? What stands in your way? After a few minutes, share together what came to mind. Commit yourself to making one concrete action this week.
Part Four
Jesus calls us to join Him in the global mission to make disciples of people from all nations. But He is very clear: we participate in the work, but God is always the one who draws people to Himself and saves their souls. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them” (John 6:44).
Discover
Read John 6:44-51. To help get a good understanding of the passage, try to describe what is happening or being said in your own words. Take a moment to reflect and note down what stands out as important, significant or meaningful to you. What does this passage tell us about God? What does this passage tell us about people? How does this passage change how we live?
Discuss
1. What is our responsibility in disciple making? Discuss.
2. What is God’s responsibility in disciple making? Discuss.
3. Sharing Jesus has to be something that every person who knows Jesus can do. What are some things that make us think we can’t do that?
4. How do we recognise where God is at work? Discuss.
5. How do we provide an environment where people can listen and learn from God?
Respond
Take time to talk about people who might be “people of peace” for you. They’re those who like you, listen to and love to help you when they can. There’s an openness in them to you that might hint at an openness to Jesus. As you share their names with each other, pray for them individually. Commit yourselves in the coming days to ask one person you’ve prayed for if they would like to read the Bible. Report back what happens!
Part Five
Stephen Baskerville of Howard University writes: “Virtually every major social pathology has been linked to fatherlessness. Violent crime, drug and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, suicide – all correlate more strongly to fatherlessness than to any other single factor.” Over the past few decades there’s been an underlying push to remove fathers from the core of the family. Reducing the need for them as primary parents, minimising their input and calling issues regarding parenting ‘women’s issues’; and the increase in broken homes has meant dads have felt less valued in the lives of kids. All sorts of social issues have resulted. And a lack of self-worth, self-confidence and identity can be found at the core of a lot of those issues. As God’s people, we have the opportunity to display a better way for the world to see.
Discover
Read Matthew 3:16-4.11. To help get a good understanding of the passage, try to describe what is happening or being said in your own words. Take a moment to reflect and note down what stands out as important, significant or meaningful to you. What does this passage tell us about God? What does this passage tell us about people? How does this passage change how we live?
Discuss
1. When you picture God as your Father, how would you describe that relationship? Discuss.
2. When God speaks to you and tells you that we bring Him pleasure, how does that sit with you?
3. Read Matthew 3:16-17. In this moment God the father give Jesus his Identity. “This is my son.” Where do we get our identity from?
4. In verse 17 Father God declares His love for His Son. What impact does it have on a child to hear this from their father? What impact does it have on a child not to hear this?
5. God the Father says that with His son, He is well pleased. Have you ever had this said to you by a significant person in your life? By your father? What impact might this statement have upon a child to hear this from their father?
6. Read John 5:19. What can we learn and apply from these words of Jesus?
Respond
We need to widen the circle of relationships to raise healthy, resilient children. Take time together to identify the children in your relational network. Write their names on a list. Spend time praying for them individually. Then commit yourself to an “act of investment” into 3 of them this week. It could be writing them a note of encouragement, going on an outing with them, or offering to pray for them.
Watch full sermons – Disciples That Multiply