Belonging Before Believing | Ps Greame Politanski

Hey, welcome to the City Point Church podcast.

Thanks for joining us. Every day is an opportunity to

take hold of so we hope this message inspires you and build

your faith that it helps you have more of the God perspective

for your day. Enjoy SO.

Today I just want to continue on the theme that we have had of

discipleship. So Mel and I have obviously for

this year, we've got in our hearts to direct this church

into full alignment down the lines of discipleship in order

for us to grow into our future. And so the title of my message

today is belonging before believing, belonging before

believing. And So what I'm going to do this

morning is take us on a different angle when we are

looking at the concept of discipleship in the life of this

church. So Matthew 2819 says, go

therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them

in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

So I have a question for us this morning.

Where and when does discipleship biblically begin?

Where and when does the Bible teach us that discipleship

actually begins? So the apostle Paul wrote in the

Bible. In Romans 10, verse 14, he says,

Romans 10:14

How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?

And how shall they believe in Him on whom they have not heard?

And how shall they hear without a preacher?

And how shall they preach, unless they are sent as it is

written? How beautiful are the feet of

those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of

good things, but they have not all obeyed the gospel.

For Rosiah says, Lord, who has believed our report.

So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

You can have faith that Jesus is the Son of God, but until you

exercise evangelism you do not see the power or the evidence of

your God flowing through your life.

See, the reality is is God does many things for us, but there is

a level that God calls His church up to and too many people

don't go up to that next level. And I'm talking this morning

about a level where our discipleship is not just for our

fellow Christian, but we move into a an evangelistic idea

where we are disciple in the world that God has given around

us. In other words, discipleship is

before people even become Christians.

Before people have a relationship with Jesus, they

may must hear all about him. See what it's like for someone

who has Jesus in their life. They don't see that unless you

and I example that. Let me tell you, being a

Christian isn't a fad. It's not something that we go,

you know what? I've given my life to God, but

I'm just going to live the way I want to live or I'm going to

come to church because that's what Christians do.

But I'm going to hang around in my voluntary time environments

that aren't showing Christ in me or doing things that don't show

Christ in me. You know, I'm never hung up

about things like drugs or smoking or alcohol and things

like that. But the reality is, is as we

mature in our salvation, in our relationship with God, we begin

to live a life that examples the Christ transformation that is

inside of us. And so every person, no matter

how big or how small your struggle might be, we all have

to come to a, a maturing in our faith or our relationship with

God where we say that thing is no longer acceptable by me in my

life because it does not evidence to the world around me

that God is bringing, bringing, bringing transformation into who

I am. Does that make sense?

And so there is an onus on all Christians to allow God to

challenge us, as Pastor Dan so greatly did today, that to allow

God to challenge us and then transform us and grow us into a,

a, a greater reality of what it is to live like Christ, to

behave like Christ, to talk like Christ.

Does this make sense? So you and I in the church, we

are the carriers of the Holy Spirit.

But that's not a simple byproduct.

You have to be in your word and and in prayer to understand what

you're carrying. Does this make sense?

We, we are living in an era where words alone don't carry

enough. Words alone don't carry enough.

Saying I love Jesus, people want the proof saying that Jesus is

he loves me in spite. People need the evidence.

Does this make sense? And so this is what discipleship

is about. Even before people are in the

church, in your lunch room, at work, in your university rooms,

in class. You know the Bible says to do

all things as as though unto the Lord.

So you might be in class and you might hate your class but fake

it. This is awesome.

You know God's transforming. I'm learning from my lecturer

right now. You might hate it, but God is

growing you through it. Does this make sense?

So you might hate the thing, but you love the transformation

God's bringing into your life. And so we have to evidence if we

gossip and stay at the same level at lunchtime that of the

conversations that are around us, what's the difference?

Why would they want to come to church then alone give their

whole lives to Jesus Christ? So we have to live as people

that are being transformed. If God's transforming your life,

which I know He is, He's transforming all of our lives in

this great church. If it's transforming our lives,

we need to let that out so it's seen by other people.

We need to evidence what God is doing on the inside by wearing

it on the outside. So belonging before believing

it's it's discipleship before salvation.

Now discipleship has many layers to it and all layers begin to

disciple someone when there is intention behind it.

So you might go, well, how is that discipleship like in the

church? You I've been talking about

discipleship groups or life groups that are discipleship

focused. We do discipleship in our YA

youth Friday nights. They break up into the

discipleship. This is more influenced than

what It's discipleship. No, if you, if you just allow it

to stay in the word influence, there's this connotation that we

do something and then we just walk away from it.

We've influenced or we've put a smell or an aroma in the room

with our words, but then we walk away from that.

What I'm saying to us as a church is discipleship because

more than that we are standing with those people.

Sin is sin. So don't be shocked by that.

But through their sin, we can still be there for them.

We can just say, hey, here's my number.

If you ever need me, here I am. I'm not talking about giving

personal bank accounts and and making them your best friend.

But what I'm saying is we don't just say God loves you and walk

away. What we do is we say God loves

you and then we show them through our own lives the an

example of what God could do in their lives.

Does that make sense? But words alone don't doesn't do

that. It's going to skip for the sake

of time. The system of discipleship isn't

really all that clear in the Bible.

And this is because discipleship is a journey that requires

growth, learning, maturing, and the application.

In the church. We have systems to help people

grow in knowledge, faith, relationship with God, connect

with other believers to disciple and big disciple to outwork what

we learn. We do this through life groups,

next steps courses, youth group conferences, Sunday gatherings,

camps, counseling, so many things.

But there's belonging before believing.

Discipleship starts as someone hearing from you, then someone

trusting you, and then someone following you, hearing,

trusting, and following. But the goal is that people

follow Jesus, learn from His word, the Bible, and live more

and more like Jesus lived when he was here on planet earth.

How do they understand that? It's not by telling them, it's

by showing them. So it's the next level.

This is a call up that our whole lives has to if we're having a,

a party at our house or over a friend's party.

It's not an exception card from Christian walking from your

faith. Does that make sense?

It's an opportunity for you to bring Christ who's in you into

that environment. If you've been invited into

something, you've been, you've been given an opportunity.

If someone's invited me, that's because they want me to bring

Christ to that situation. That's they don't, they're not

after my dancing. I'm not a good dancer,

definitely not after my karaoke. I make karaoke sound bad, like

they're not after that. They've invited me because they

want Christ to walk into that room.

And that's the way I view it anyway, right.

And so if you're in the shopping centre, in a workplace

lunchroom, This is why. Now evangelism and discipleship

are joined at the hip. Christian, let me tell you

today, if you're in this room, you've been called to

evangelism. Discipleship and evangelism are

joined at the hip. 2 more minutes and we'll we'll pause.

The relationship between discipling and witnessing is

seamless. Evangelism without its partner

discipleship either creates religion or rebellion.

I'm going to say that again. Evangelism without its partner

discipleship either creates religion or rebellion.

Billy Hull and Bobby Harrington says evangelism is simply a form

of pre conversion discipleship. The two evangelism and

discipleship are the front and the back of the same coin.

So let me tell you evangelists in the house, if you've got that

definite gift on your life, I don't OK, but doesn't exempt me

from evangelizing. It just means it's it doesn't

energize me. It just means you're not going

to see me putting in to my calendar, walking around

shopping centres, OK, What I'm probably doing is leadership

training and leadership resourcing, OK.

But everywhere I go, I'm an evangelist.

And so if you're an evangelist, well, you are right.

So as evangelist, when we say the word evangelist, we are also

saying the word discipleship. So everywhere you and I go,

shopping centres, work rooms, University, School, no matter

where it is, if you're retired, every friendship, relationship,

every time you're out in the caravan, whatever you're doing,

you're not leaving Christianity behind at the church on Sunday.

And we'll get back to that in two weeks when we're back from

our trip. Everywhere you go as a

Christian, you're evangelizing and discipling all at once.

You're evangelizing someone and telling them about the goodness

of God, but you're also imparting into them Christianity

or the faith that God or the transformation of God has placed

in your life. We are imparting, not just

telling. We aren't just sharing, we're

also showing. We also giving them tips of how

to move forward in this area of the We are not just telling them

of the goodness of God and leaving it at that.

If you're going to tell them of the goodness of God, you also

need to show them that God heals, which means you need to

pray. Does this make sense?

And as they see the power and the wonder of God move through

their life more and more, and God sends them people like you,

you will find them in a church on a Sunday because the Father

draws people to the Spirit. Does this make sense?

And so you might be in this place this morning and you're

hearing and watching and the testimonies and even just what's

happened with young Jay. And you're like, man, this is

like real stuff. This is real life.

This is real living. Let me tell you.

It sure is. It's very exciting, actually,

every day. Nothing more exciting than

getting her a text from from Pastor Rach.

He's going all the way. I are at my house.

My son just grew 2 centimetres. Yeah, it's pretty exciting

stuff, being a Christian.