Tony Evans - The Goal of Discipleship (03/20/2018)
Discipleship is the local church's intentional process to transform believers from spiritual infancy to maturity, enabling them to replicate it in others—God's goal for the church, testing its success not by buildings, budgets, or programs, but by crafting disciples through extreme spiritual makeovers of the soul.
The Purpose of the Church: Making Disciples
Discipleship is that developmental process of the local church that seeks to bring Christians from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity so that they can replicate the process with someone else. God's goal for creating the church was to be the location where disciples are crafted and made.
The test of a church is in its ability and capacity to make disciples. When a church cannot or will not or does not make disciples, it does not matter how many buildings they build, what the budget is, and how many programs they have going on, they have failed the purpose for why it was created.
Everyone here should be being a disciple, or being a disciple maker, or a combination of the two. God never created the church for people to come sit, soak, and sour on a weekly basis without being changed in the process. The goal of discipleship is spiritual transformation.
Extreme Makeover of the Soul
There have been a series of television reality shows in recent years that have been quite the hits. One among them is, "Extreme Makeover." This is where people who were dissatisfied with their looks would go to a professional, or a professional would come to them and make them over. You would be shocked at the change. Some people, you could not recognize the before and after because of the makeover.
Then there was "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," where they would come into the house and redo the home that was decayed or dilapidated, making it look virtually brand new. It was an extreme makeover because something that was shattered got fixed. Well, what was true in the television program "Extreme Makeover" God wants to be true for you and me in our souls.
Our souls need to be made over. And we know it, they need extreme makeovers. Because if the truth were told, where we live, deep down in—I am not talking about the façade that everybody sees. I am talking about the real us on the inside. We need a makeover. We need to be made brand new.
So the goal of God for his children is an extreme makeover. So, we want to talk today about your extreme makeover, or the goal of spiritual transformation.