 All right. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the session. Our lessons begin this time with a word of prayer. We start with the teaching. Father, we thank you so much for this beautiful time of God you've given us. We thank you for your word. We thank you for ministering to us, Lord, and we pray that you will continue to speak to us and Lord may your Holy Spirit lead and guide us about. We thank you for this entire course and all that you've been learning in this course with God. I pray that you will apply and use it in our lives with God. We thank you and Jesus may be praying amen. All right. I hope my audio is all right. Maybe a little bit echoing. It's all right. Okay. All right. So today we will come to a close on this entire course. But what I wanted to do is I just wanted to wrap up with a few thoughts that I'd like to just everything that we've talked about. But it's just a few additional thoughts that I just thought I would share this. Then if we have any questions, we can ask those questions and then we can close for this semester. All right. So I just want to talk about, you know, lessons on discipleship and there are about 10 lessons that we can just pick up from discipleship. I just thought I'd briefly share them and three demands when it comes to discipleship and this is just for us to, you know, learn more or to understand more. Okay. So just 10 very important lessons. I'm sure, you know, if you read through the scriptures, we have a lot of lessons that we can learn. A lot of lessons when it comes to discipleship. So these are just 10 that we just put down and we just want to look at these 10 and then, of course, there's many more that we can learn. So I just wasted here on the chat. First one is prayer. So when it comes to discipleship, it is always important to, you know, we talked about all these points, right? All 10 of them we have talked about. But I just want to bring this close to a close. Just making sure that we understand the whole aspect of discipleship. Okay. Number one is prayer. Let me talk about prayer, right? We talked about how everything that we do in ministry must be undergirded in prayer. The Lord Jesus He had His times of prayer. He went alone to be with himself in the mountains to be with the Lord and He spent time in prayer, right? Now, when it comes to discipleship, prayer is of the essence. We have to learn to develop our prayer life. We must never come to a place where you say, okay, I pray this much. So then pray this much. Okay, my ministry will be this good. It's not about that. Prayer is a relationship that we build with God and God ministers to us. And that same thing that we receive from God, we release it, bringing in discipleship, right? So as disciples, never come to a place where you say, okay, I will stick to what I'm doing, maybe one hour or two hours. Always look to develop in your prayer life. It's never too less or it's never too much. You can never say, okay, five hours of prayer is enough. You can never say that. That's the most beautiful part, right? Especially when we are fellowshiping with God. It can just go on for time and on and on and on. Number two is love. All rights to the Corinthians. We've talked about this again. You know, if you have all kinds of gifts and skills and you have all kinds of prophecies and word of knowledge and all of these things, but if you do not have love, it's of no use. So as we pray, we receive the love of God and then we begin to walk in love. So when I look at a person and I feel that God is calling me to be a mentor to this person, it's not a task, right? It's not another tick in our resume, so to speak. It is an aspect of learning to love that person. They say, God, just as how you love him, help me to love this person. I may not agree with everything that he is saying, everything that he is doing, but help me to walk in love. Remember that was a love that was love covers a multitude of servants. So the person who is coming to you to be discipled or in your cell group or maybe even one-on-one, learn to love them. It's not easy. It's not something that can come naturally at times, but we put in that effort of loving them. Again, number three, this building relationships. We talked about this, right? As a leader, we must be people oriented. We must learn how to build relationships. And when it comes to discipleship, when it comes to mentoring either one-on-one or many people, learn to build relationships. And these relationships can vary from being formal to very informal. Look at the Lord Jesus. I'm sure you had very informal relationships with his disciples, right? And when we build relationships, we are able to speak into their lives. We talked about this, right? Even the mentee or the person who is being mentored will be able to openly share their thoughts and their feelings and what they are going through. So building relationships is the key. The Lord Jesus set the example for us. He built relationships and then he spoke into their lives and they were able to do what God told, what the Lord Jesus told them to do. He never had to force them. Nowhere in the scriptures, nowhere in Jesus's earthly ministry did he force his disciples to do something. He never forced them. Remember when Jesus was talking to the Pharisees and the Sadducees and this, when he said, I am the bread of life. You eat my body and drink my blood. Many of them were so offended, they walked away. Jesus did not say, no, no, please come back. I'll tell you better things. He looked at the disciples and he said, if you want to leave also the door is open, you can leave. But they didn't. The disciples said, where can we go? You have the words of life with you. So when you build relationships you don't have to, you know, at one point you know that as a leader you're able to speak into their life and they are able to, you know, you're able to lead them towards the things of God. Number four is to lead by example. Remember we talked about this? People will remember may not remember all the sermons and all the teachings that I've made that they will remember your life. The example that you'll live. And so lead by example. You know, I'm sure you've heard of this thing, right? Preach it, I mean, sorry, do it, then preach it. Don't just be, just hear those of the word but be doers of the word. If I, as a leader, want to see people grow in the things of God and I say, hey, everyone, you know, if I'm ministering or mentoring somebody and say, hey, read the word, pray. And I'm saying this and if I myself don't do it, what's happening? I'm not leading by example. If I tell people, hey, walk in humility, walk in love, but I myself am not walking in humility and love. I'm not leading by example. Now, this is not just a, you know, a pretense leading by example. Oh, just because people are watching me, I will walk in this kind of way. But when nobody is watching, this is what I will do. Just being the opposite. That's not what Jesus is talking about. Jesus calls that hypocrisy. He says to the Pharisees, what does he say? He says, don't be like them because they stand in the street corners and pray so that people can see them and, you know, praise them for their pretending to be holy. Now, when we lead by example, we don't put on a pretend. But we lead in a way that, you know, a character is seen and a character is when nobody is watching us. What do we do? Right? To lead by an example, I love the Apostle Paul. He says, all of me, this says I follow Christ. And again, every, I think many, many preachers and pastors around the world, there are maybe millions of them around the world. Nobody can say it yet. The Apostle Paul could say, follow me as I follow the example of Jesus. So very important as leaders when it comes to discipleship is to lead by example. Right? So let's go to the fifth point, right? Fifth point. Being spirit led and spirit empowered when it comes to discipleship. One of the verses that always comes to my mind when we talk about spirit led and spirit empowered is Zechariah chapter 4 and verse 6. Can one of us please read that? Zechariah 4-6 and I'll give you the context for what's happening here. Zechariah is in the Old Testament. Zechariah chapter 4 and verse 6. Let's go ahead. Anyone can please read. Zechariah chapter 4 verse 6. So he answered and said to me, this is the word of the Lord to serve other, not by might, not by power, but by my spirit says the Lord of hosts. Yes. Even in the book of Galatians it says that those who are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Right? So in Zechariah 4-6, it's a very powerful story. If you read that portion and how God with his mighty hands was able to use King Zerubbabel to build the temple in a time where there was constant attack from the enemies from every side. And Zerubbabel was a good king. He honored the Lord. But he was in a place where he says, okay, what's the point of building this temple that we build it, the enemy is going to come. Babylonians on one side, you got the Assyrians on another side, you got enemies all across and they're going to come and destroy this temple even before we can probably put up the pillars. They're going to come and destroy it. There's no point of building this. And so Zerubbabel never took it seriously. He said, okay, I'm not going to even think about building this temple. But God speaks through the prophet Zechariah and says, Zerubbabel it is not by might, it is not by your power, but it's by the spirit of the Lord, by the spirit of the Lord, by the anointing power of the Holy Spirit, by the power of God, the Holy Spirit right? I will build this temple. All you need to do Zerubbabel is follow the instructions that Zechariah my prophet is going to give you. And sure enough he was able to build the temple. It was a time of unrest in Jerusalem. It was a time of complete unrest, chaos all over the place. But when we are led by the spirit of God, God does the work through us. When it comes to discipleship number one, you know, you talk about these two aspects, be spirit led. Right now on Sunday sermons we're talking about being led by the spirit. And so there are many ways that we can pray and ask the Holy Spirit to lead us. He can give us a picture. He can give us a word. He can give us, he can stir our spirit of knowing within, of full knowledge within. You know, he can press into us for certain things to minister to the person. Let me tell you this one thing. It's very important that we must remember this. When it comes to discipleship, we can speak a hundred words and it can touch the person. But remember just one word of the scriptures, of the word of God led by the Holy Spirit can really penetrate into a person's heart and change their lives forever. That is the difference of being spirit led. Now I'm not saying that we don't use our mental abilities, our natural abilities, think and to minister and to help a person. But it's also very important to be spirit led. How can I apply it? Spend time and take on, very spirit. I'm going to start to sell a group today evening or I'm going to minister to this person, maybe a person who's lost a loved one in their family. What do I say to them? Or maybe a person who is going through suicidal tendencies, maybe somebody who's going through extreme financial difficulties. It's been going on for many years. We can come up with a hundred solutions but remember we are not the people who are making the solution. God is the one who does the solutions. He has the answers to everything and so when we are spirit led we are able to minister into the person's life. Just one word can touch them. One picture or an image that you see can touch that person's life. Because that is not from your own but it's by the spirit. So heavily depend on the Holy Spirit when it comes to discipleship. No matter how many years you and I have been ministering, no matter how much of capabilities or skills we have in that area heavily depend on the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, I can't do this on my own but you speak to me. Remember this one time I was speaking to a young man many years ago and he was going through one of the most painful seasons of his life and as I was talking to him he was just sharing it but he was sharing all the troubles and difficulties going through but he had a smile on his face and I kept thinking of this verse you know when the enemy comes in like a flood the spirit of the Lord will raise a standard against it. As he was talking to me I just kept thinking of that verse and I said Holy Spirit this is from you. I'm going to share it with him but let it be so meaningful to him. Let it touch his life. Let it minister to him powerfully that this pain that he is going through will be wiped away. You will give him the strength. He lost his mother, he lost his job. He was just going through everything at the same time. It was a terrible, terrible, painful time but I remember I just put my hand on him many years ago and I said there's this portion in the Bible. I didn't say thus says the Lord Isaiah 55 and all of that just said there's this portion of scripture in the Bible it says when the enemy comes in like a flood the spirit of the Lord will raise a standard against it. It just began to briefly, very briefly explain see what the spirit of the Lord does sometimes floods coming you know when you look at a sea the floods just can come in at any time the storms of life it can just rise up at any time but the spirit of the Lord raises a standard and the Hebrew when you talk about standard is to raise up like a solid wall in front of you. And so I just explain that to him. The spirit of the Lord will raise up a wall but the enemy cannot penetrate that wall and I remember it just it just brought so much of relief to that person now I could have told him hey meet me next week meet me tomorrow after two days and I'll talk to you I'll counsel you and all of that. That is good. Maybe he needs it but at that moment being spirit live being spirit empowered speak into that person's life and so as leaders as disciples that God is calling us remember to be spirit live. How can I be spirit live for all times. We've got the scriptures we've got the Bible we've got we can always go back to God and pray and ask the Holy Spirit and as from our side we can also learn to step out into the by using the gifts of the Holy Spirit step out and don't just say okay this is how I'm going to do it don't just depend on your our natural abilities but depend on the Holy Spirit as well okay we are at the sixth point one two three four five yes sixth point equipping others to equip ourselves now this is something that at ABC that we always want to do we want to equip people many of you are from different parts of India different parts of the nation and all that you've been learning in these three years at Bible college is an equipping what maybe you already knew most of it if you have learned a lot of new things you've learned to spend time in God's word you've learned you've grown if you look back from the first year first semester when you joined up to now the last semester you have definitely grown in the things of God right and you've been equipped for every good work right so the equipping happens not just so that we can say that hey I finished my degree or I finished my course that's just in the natural but you are equipped you and I are equipped to equip others what we learn we share it with others and we want to see others do as much as what we do or even more than that and we want to see that chain a ripple effect as a leader our mindset must be not to look at people he's just learning so he's still small he's still immature when you look at a person look at him what you see in the future remember we talked about the relationship between Paul and Timothy I'm sure when Paul saw Timothy he didn't see a 13 year old boy who was with a good testimony probably the apostle Paul saw Timothy as a leader equipped in the things of God leading a church he saw him as to what God saw him remember we talked about that everyone saw Peter as a fisherman Jesus saw Peter as a leader of the church so when we are equipping ourselves we are going to learn to give it up learn to equip others now you may feel hey I'm just in the workplace how do I equip others you can in small ways you can probably start a small group you can start a Bible study you can you know in some ways now when things going online or zoom and all of that you know just probably do once a week Bible study take a topical studies take word studies character studies so much that we can you can do and it may be you know you start you want to start a Bible study session and you may have you know two people joining don't be discouraged remember you are equipped to equip others those two people are as much as important if there are 2,000 people so remember that you are equipping others you are discipling them it's a process when it comes to discipleship because you know in a time and age that we're living in everyone's seen numbers people are fascinated by numbers 10,000 people 20,000 people in the church now all of that is it's good we want to see that Jesus Jesus himself said I will build my church the Lord added to the church so it's good that a church grows many people come to Christ but it's not about having a huge church and not being able to equip others you can have 100 people in your church and have all 100 of them equipped in the word of God and those 100 can go out and minister to another 100 people each so always look at the bigger picture whether it's two you never know you're teaching somebody the word of God and two people have joined online and in those two one of them could be the next Billy Graham or the other person could be the next Reinhard Bonke we don't know is we are being faithful to minister to the to what God has given us we are equipped to equip others look at the great Apostle Paul he learned all of this he had these great revelations he had this extremely high understanding of this Old Testament and when he saw Jesus he was able to relate probably and he asked that every offering, levitical offering he could relate it to Christ and he just could bring that whole puzzle together and he had such a strong understanding of the Old and the New Cover he didn't keep it to himself he went on he says you are my glory you the people you are my crown you are my joy and his heart was to see people raised up and turned to Christ and that should be our heart as well whatever I've learned whatever I know had me not to be selfish I know none of us are selfish it's not like we don't want to share it but it's not a small I don't despise those small beginnings even if it's one person even if it's a child that you're ministering to it's okay it could be your 10 year old child that you're ministering to down on them because that child can grow up to be a next great Apostle or Prophet of God used greatly for the Kingdom of God what happens you're equipped to equip others and then the next point okay group discipleship when it comes to discipling in a group not one on one but group discipleship it's very important to we talked a little bit about this right too be very sensitive culturally sensitive understand you know people are coming from different backgrounds different levels of understanding people are different levels and they walk with God so you are very sensitive to each of their level of understanding and also be available for them when it comes to group discipleship right so when it comes to mentorship we look also at three demands when it comes to discipleship but mentoring calls for action sacrifice to be able to bring in your expertise also when it comes to mentoring meaning for example mentoring doesn't always have to be in terms of the scripture right now for example you know as a group leader you may have a young man who's just completed this college and he may say hey I don't know what to do what course to take up or what should I do whatever which work I should go to or I want to start a small business I don't know how to go about doing it now you may be just a teacher for example right but you know somebody who is in small business so you can connect them and they are able to mentor each other so as a leader be you know self freely make sure that it shouldn't be selfish ambition you know this person should be mentored by me so that whoever he meets or she meets they will say my mentor is this person you know now if I don't know anything about business and a person a young man says I want to be mentored and I want to know how to start a business if I hold on to it and say okay first let me learn about business and then I will teach you about business you're just going to give him head knowledge but if there is a person who has already gone through who has maybe 15 years of experience in business gone through the ups and downs seen failures seen challenges seen victories they know how the system works when you connect them it is so much more fruitful to the other person so one of the responsibilities as a disciple as a mentor is to connect people to be you know it comes under building relationships as well is to connect the right person to the right mentor to the right mentee as well right then teaching from God's word we talked about this right the ability to teach God's word the ability to minister on the power of the Holy Spirit the ability to counsel from God's word you know the ability to you know preach and teach in a way that people can understand through varied audiences right and these are abilities that we develop over time and finally in discipleship it's about living life together the book of Acts remember what happens after the Pentecost chapter 5 and going forward is people sold their properties I always wonder what people sold their properties came and put it at the feet of the disciples and said use it for ministry and they did not stop breaking of bread in homes in gladness and joy in persecution I believe in the book of Acts especially in Jerusalem there's this whole thing of Jews and Gentiles was broken off it was broken off especially in Jerusalem we could see it after a while talking about after you know the Gentiles were open to the ministry of the work of the Holy Spirit and God was just the Jews were fine they said okay everything's open anyone can receive the gift that God has for us this whole thing of Jews and Gentiles were broken off but then and the other when Paul the apostle goes he travels to many places he did see that division was still there so this all of these divisions are caused by the enemy but remember discipleship is about living life together I'm not saying that we must sell all our possessions and give it to church no what it means is to live life together be there for each other Paul says mourn with those who are mourning rejoice or be joyful with those who are joyful we will change you to the Greek we agree meaning live together and be there for each other support and strengthen each other remember that you are a body of Christ and Paul writes up so beautifully and he writes in Corinthians he writes it in Galatians again he says you're a body and all of you you're one body and Christ so as part of the body you have to live together work together to make the body function well so in discipleship work together live together spend time together and this is only going to help us to fulfill the commission no matter where we are no matter how small whatever small work we may be doing remember you're fulfilling the commission that God has given so these are few points these are all what we shared in our notes I just wanted to just summarize all of it but I also wanted to talk about three demands when it comes to discipleship first one is discipleship it demands commitment let me just put it here when you talk about discipleship it cannot be done just overnight it's not a one event when it comes to a cell group if you are recycling people you've got to call them there will be times where people are happy, people are sad people are going through seasons you've got to be with them there's time, there's resources that God has given you and you have to be committed to it it's not easy but as leaders God gives us that grace God gives us that ability to be committed when we look at scriptures especially in the New Testament the early church they were committed to the things of God many of us may say hey they didn't have much work that we have right we have an eight hour shift remember this we don't have persecutions they had intense persecution they could have just sat at home and just thought about doing their work but they were committed to the cause of the gospel they didn't fudge meaning they didn't say okay let's do something else nobody likes this gospel of Jesus Christ they were committed to the cause thankfully we are in a place where nobody is asking us to leave Christianity and maybe put to death thank God we don't have that kind of persecution but when it comes to discipleship it could be commitment and small things maybe just a 15 minute prayer with a person you're ministering to maybe just a phone call during the week there could be many other reasons but it calls for commitment okay the second point the discipleship demands sacrifice and we talked about this in Matthew chapter 16 Jesus said if any man would come after me let him deny himself take up his cross and follow him or whosoever would save his life shall lose it and whosoever shall lose his life will lose his life for my sake shall find it let me bring up your life here we're talking about sacrifice when it comes to discipleship we must be willing to sacrifice that sacrifice could be sometimes no as I said it's not always the sacrifice of life but it's sacrifice of time, money, resources sleep there are a few things that we may have to sacrifice but it's part of what discipleship carries it's wonderful when people say hey he's discipling me or he's mentoring me but it also calls for sacrifice and especially when you look at ministry or only discipleship many other things that we do in ministry calls for sacrifice and this is the third demand discipleship demands humility the Lord Jesus did something very powerful just before his sending his disciples out to preach he offered them some wisdom and he said a disciple is not above the teacher Matthew 10, Matthew 10 24 a disciple is not above his teacher nor a servant above his Lord but he also warned them and he said that they will be like sheep sent among wolves they will be delivered to councils they'll be scourged in the synagogues, they'll be brought in front of kings and governors and they'll be put to trial, they'll be persecuted Jesus put, he laid out everything for the disciples very contrary you know how many of us would take it up and say oh okay here's what is going to happen number one people are going to ridicule you and mock you two they're going to catch you, they're going to put you in a prison, three they're going to be like wolves, they're going to just eat you out in the sense they just attack you on every side how many of us would take up this you know say no but if on the flip side you know you're going to get to preach, you're going to get to travel get to see places, people are going to respect you you're going to see many miracles and healings and all of these things, most probably we'd love to see all of that and we will say yes as well but Jesus before setting out his disciples he humbled them and he said listen I know that probably he did this because he knew that Jesus knew that he was famous he knew that okay the twelve also knew that Jesus was famous if he was not famous thousands of people would never follow why would thousands of people follow five thousand people at one time another place five thousand excluding children, women and children probably eight thousand people own, why would so many people follow Jesus and I'm sure the disciples knew that you know Jesus is famous and they are in the team and you know James and John are saying give me the left spot and the right spot and there's all of these things that is happening but I'm sure they will, they had probably a little bit of head weight but Jesus says listen I'm sending you as wolves, they're going to catch you, it's not as rosy as it looks, they're going to beat you, they're going to persecute you, they're going to say all kinds of evil against you but I want you to learn to walk in humility yet when you walk in humility I will give you the power, the anointing of the Holy Spirit will destroy the works of the devil and when you see that don't ever think it's your own ability, walk in humility and know that it's God that is working for you. So even in discipleship right, we walk in humility, knowing that hey it's not about us, it's just that God is using us as a tool. I love the book of Jeremiah right, shall the portal, shall the clay say to the portal why have you made me this way the clay has no words to say and he's only trying to speak to to Israel and say you walk in humility how can you tell me why are the Babylonians coming, why are the Assyrians why are we in bondage, you know you're the clay, I'm the portal, I will make you the way I want you to be you humble yourself, just talking to the people of Israel, humble yourself, change your ways I am the portal, you are the clay, I will I will do what I promise to do for you discipleship demands commitment, demands sacrifice demands humility, there's many more but I just put all of it encompass all of it alright so we've come to a close of this course thank you so much, I really enjoyed teaching and learning throughout this entire course, do you have any questions, any thoughts that you would like to share, feel free to do so now do you have any questions, any thoughts, alright good so this is your last semester, yes go ahead I will work for you don't think I missed any of your class in my attendance, I could call it 7 to 10 and I don't think I missed any of your class, I don't know how it would be, how it would be to happen and I don't know how it would be to do something with us we are in our country here in Nigeria we are the EU of Network our network breaks and combat but I don't think that would affect the class, I look up this I'm not feeling well I just try to attend the class, do it today after 10 minutes please try to read something I didn't miss any of your class Markre, I couldn't really hear you too well because of the voice can break me up but if it's something to do with attendance, what you can do is just send an email to the administrator you can get more details on that, I did understand that you were saying that the network is low sometimes you get cut off but in terms of attendance you can just send an email, any query you have regarding classes courses, any query you have, you can just send an email to the administrator or you can just email and she will be able to give you details regarding anything you have in terms of the classes Divya, you said regarding assignment, can we give more time are you talking about the midterm assessment Divya? yes, that's it it's alright what I will do is, I will make the change if there is a due date, I will make the change I can just probably give you a couple of days extra that will be great very simple open book exam just to review ourselves thank you so much I think for the midterm exam, I didn't put a due date in you can just post it, but I will double check if there is a due date, I can extend it Saturday is the due date, I will change alright, anything else so it's interesting, it's very nice to know that each one of you are graduating, so thank you for staying the course, it's wonderful and I'm sure the Lord is going to use each one of you greatly for His kingdom and thank you so much for being here and studying together, I will see you soon probably at the graduation, so have a great time, continue to learn continue to grow, continue to be a blessing thank you so much, God bless you all have a great time ahead, God bless