Going Deeper
Last week we introduced the idea of being a follower of Jesus and continually tuning our hearts to his. However, being a disciple doesn’t just stop with observation and learning. The point of following is learning to put what you learn into action.
The challenge of Christian living is not just knowing but doing.
James, the younger brother of Jesus, said in James 2 that “faith without works is dead.” He was not advocating for a works-righteousness system. He was emphasizing that genuine faith naturally produces fruit. A lot of us believe in Jesus. We trust in his free gift of salvation. We go to church and want to learn more. But often there is a breakdown between what we know and how we live. So, what’s the missing link?
When we think about making disciples of Jesus at City Awakening, we use three helpful categories: Discover, Deepen, and Display.
These do not necessarily form sequential steps in our growth and maturity but are three major ways Christians experience and exhibit a growing trust in Jesus. Each category overlaps and will form more of an ongoing cycle than a linear track in the life of a disciple. These three phases of growth show the natural way that we learn and grow, and they act as a diagnostic tool for our spiritual lives. Anytime you learn a new subject or skill there is a discovery phase. This entails learning new grammar and facts, and often there is an excitement in the discovery. Secondly, there is a deepening phase. You now take the information and learn to process it, examine what it really means, how to apply it. Lastly, there is the display phase. This is where the fruit of your hard work begins to show. You can put knowledge into action.
Imagine learning to play basketball for the very first time. You learn how to hold the ball, how to dribble, and proper form for shooting. You learn the rules of the game, the layout of the court, and even basic strategy for play. But if you take your newly formed knowledge and jump straight to a game you are very unlikely to walk away a winner. You might manage to get some shots off and even score a few points, but not much more. Why? You didn’t learn how to put your knowledge into practice. You didn’t shoot thousands of shots, dribble up and down the court, run play after play until the game became more natural to you. There can be a big gap between knowing and doing.
We often hope to go straight from discovery to display in our faith.
All three “D’s” are important, but Deepening is often the more grueling work and harder to measure. When we go deeper in our faith it requires peeling back layers of unbelief, sin, and past hurts. This can only happen when we take the truth of Scripture and press it deep into our hearts. It doesn’t come at a passing glance. There’s not a step-by-step process, and it’s not work that can be done on our own. It requires the help of other people, which means making time for meaningful relationships and conversations. This goes against the hurried and filtered lifestyle many of us lead.
However, just like basketball (or any other subject), if we want to see real, lasting fruit, we have to put in the practice. We have to discipline ourselves. In our paradigm of Discover, Deepen, Display, deepening is the two-a-days, the early morning workouts, and studying film. It’s your coach teaching and correcting and your teammates being patient when you make a mistake. This is the work that sets apart the all-stars from the benchwarmers. I may be stretching the metaphor too far, but the question is:
Are you willing to go deep?
Jesus’s disciples spent three years with him, first in discovery mode learning his teachings and observing his life, and then slowly, he took them deeper and gave them opportunity to put their faith into practice. He was coaching his team and preparing them for the game. It worked beautifully. Following the resurrection and ascension, they may have had a brief moment of adjustment as they shifted their mindset to this new reality, but with the power of the Holy Spirit they had the last component needed to truly begin to display the fruit of their faith. Muscle memory began to take over and they went to the streets preaching and healing just as Jesus had done. They met people in their deepest needs and the church grew in exponential fashion.
We have become accustomed to instant results. We are consumers of fast and convenient. Going deep with Jesus is neither of those things. It is a life-long journey. Like the Israelites thousands of years before us (who spent 40 years in the dessert learning to trust God!), if we are going to be people set apart in a post-Christian world, we have to head for deeper waters. Slow down and sit with the Savior, practice prayer, learn to be fluent in the Gospel, work towards profound relationships. Paul said in 1 Timothy 4:10, “For this reason we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.” (emphasis added) Put forth the effort to sweat for the Lord, and don’t grow weary of the spiritual practice needed to be a growing disciple of Jesus.
