Albert Williams told the story of a king who once gave a challenge to some young, strong men to swim across a pool.
But before the king could explain that the pool was shark infested or explain the prize — his daughter’s hand in marriage, money or half the kingdom — someone was already in the water.
“The king said, ‘Which do you want, sir?’ And the man said, ‘I just want to know who pushed me in,’” said Williams, pastor of St. James Baptist Church in Dothan.
Pushing someone in doesn’t work with discipleship any more than it works in that scenario, he told messengers to the Alabama Baptist State Convention annual meeting Nov. 13 at Eastern Shore Baptist Church in Daphne.
During the meeting’s third DifferenceMakers theme interpretation, Williams said that was his testimony — for three years, he was in church but wasn’t making a difference for God because he wasn’t motivated by the right things.
Finally during a health crisis, “for the first time in my life I realized I really needed Christ,” Williams said. “What I needed was discipleship. I was a Timothy looking for my Paul. Nobody pushed me in; I came willingly to be discipled.”
Preaching from 2 Timothy 4:7–8, he said that in order to make it to the end as a difference maker, he knew he needed someone to disciple him who “really knew the power of Christ and the power of His resurrection.”
“I don’t want to multiply people who look like me, talk like me, act like me if I’m not in the right relationship of obedience to God myself,” Williams said. “Why do you want to make more people who look like you when we’re not dedicated to God, not sold out to God, not living for God, not on the path of life for God?”
The first step toward discipleship is fix your eyes on Jesus and have a right relationship with him, Williams said. After that, to make disciples, start building relationships.
“To me, there’s nothing more important in discipleship than relationship,” he said. “If you’re going to disciple people, you must love them.”
Then as you walk with them, keep fighting the good fight, Williams said. That gives context plus relationship.
“I am the disciple-making tool that God has made me to be if I live the Word of God like I’m supposed to,” he said.
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