"Disciple?"

Intro: When I went shopping at the mall for Christmas every year. I would get 20$ to get presents. What I heard was, get presents with this and what you have left is for you.

We're going to be looking at the Great Commission, which we looked at in the past, but taking a second look at it today. Often, we will look at it and miss the truest point of what He is saying.

If you have a Bible, and if you don't have one there is one in the seat in front of you or it will be on the screen, we're going to be in Matthew 28:16-20.

Let's jump into Matthew 28:16-20. Like I said, we're taking a second look. Today, I want to try to answer a simple question for us.

It's a question that often goes unanswered, but it's the first question we should ask when we look at a text like this. That question is: What is a disciple? What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus?

What is Jesus talking about when he says make disciples? That's the question I want to try and answer today. Read: Matthew 28:16-20

Matthew 28:16–20 ESV

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

What is discipleship? What is Jesus asking us to do? As he speaks these last words to his disciples, what is he telling us to do as we go make disciples?

You see, often this text is used to command us to do other things other than make disciples. Like go, teach, or baptize, but in the original language, those aren't the commands.

The command in this text is to make disciples. Go, not a command. Teach, not a command. Baptize, not a command. In the original language, the only command is make disciples.

It could be translated like this: As you're going, make disciples. As you're teaching, make disciples. As you're baptizing, make disciples. The emphasis of this passage is on discipleship.

Often discipleship is misunderstood. People will think, "If I could just know more of the Bible. Or if I could just get my sin patterns more controlled. Or if I could just…" fill in the blank.

That's what discipleship looks like to many. How does Jesus define discipleship? The term discipleship is used 269 times in the NT. The word Christian is only used three times.

It would be easy for us to define what a Christian is, as least sub culturally in American evangelicalism, but can we define, the way Jesus would, discipleship?

I think, based upon this text, Jesus would say there are three things that are true for disciples.

Disciples have been adopted by God, disciples are being formed by God, and disciples are empowered by God for life and mission.

What does it look like to have been adopted by God? Look back at the text, verse 19:

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…" Baptism.

If you have been here over the years, you have witnessed incredible testimonies of people of dying to self and now being alive to Christ.

That they were one person, but they are now somebody else, so they have received a new identity. Illus: Jonah and Taylor.

They were once orphans in the world, separated from God because of their sinfulness, their wickedness, their rebellion, and their sin patterns. They had rejected God.

The Bible is very clear that Genesis, chapter 3, has affected all of humanity, that all of us before God are sinners.

Another term we don't often talk a lot about is the Bible would describe us as orphans, fatherless in the world, lonely, desperate, and seeking to make an identity for ourselves by ourselves.

To be baptized in this text, though, literally means to be re-identified with the Father, to be given a new identity, to be possessed by God.

You see, this is harder for us to understand, perhaps, in the twenty-first century, but in the world of the Bible, one's identity and vocation are tied up with what their name is and who their father is.

This might make sense why often James and John are called the sons of Zebedee, because that was their identity. Or Joshua would be called the son of Nun. Right?

Who your father was, had everything to do with who you identified with. They even say this about Jesus, "Isn't that Jesus, the son of Joseph?"

Because your identity was wrapped up with who your father was and what your name was. We understand this a little bit in our culture. Illus: Being the son of Jim Slack or my kids being mine.

If I am honest with you, I wish my kids did not have to carry the burden of a name with them. I wish they could just be who they are in God and outside of me.

I’m not a big fan of Lebron James, but I respect what he said in an interview one time in dealing with his son. He said in the interview, "I regret naming my son after me." I understand that.

His reason was because at the age of 14 the media was already buzzing about the potential of his son and what he might be able to do in basketball.

Could you imagine those expectations? To have the expectation of this being your father and that identity placed upon you? So much pressure living up to that expectation.

I want you to look back at the text. What does Jesus say a disciple is? A disciple is somebody who has been baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

What is Jesus saying? "Go into all the nations, find the orphans of the world, the sinners who are lost, needy, desperate, broken, separated from God, finding their identity in other things.

Tell them they have a Father in heaven who loves them, who sent his Son to die for them so they might receive forgiveness of sins and is ready to indwell and empower them with the Holy Spirit.

Tell the orphans I want to adopt them, they can come home and the expectations have already been met and cannot be changed."

What's different about this Father than that father who said, "I wish I hadn't given you my name," is this Father has already defined the expectations and it does not matter what the world thinks of you.

He says, "Give them my name." An immovable name. Here is what Jesus is saying. "The orphans who find their identity in what they do, what they have, their greatness.

The orphans who are identified in their best accomplishments, their worst accomplishments, their best moment, or their worst moment, tell those orphans they have a better identity waiting.

Through conversion, through adoption, through baptism, they can become sons and daughters, and I will give them my identity.

They're no longer going to be known as an orphan. They'll be known as a son or a daughter of the Most High King, Whose name is above all names"

You see, LeBron expresses some hesitation to name his son after him. I expressed some hesitation to my children carrying my name because of unfair expectations.

Here is the thing though, God has no hesitation in adopting you as a son or daughter. "Baptize them in my name, He says. Give them a new identity, He says."

He freely and fully extends his name to you through the forgiveness of sins. Disciples have received adoption and are given a new name, the name of God.

The first mark of a disciple is an orphan who has been adopted by God and is now a son or a daughter because they have been given a new name.

Disciples aren't just adopted by God, though, they are also formed by God. We wouldn't just come into a new family but would begin to resemble and look like the family.

Jesus says in verse 20, "We don't just baptize them, we also teach them." He tells his disciples, "…teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you."

We need to do some real talk for a second. I believe one of the greatest challenges we face today as a church, whether we're talking about the contemporary church as a whole.

A big issue is we have put forward methods of ministry and a philosophy of ministry that believes discipleship ends with conversion.

We have removed the concept of learning, striving, imitation, growth, and development from our understanding of what a disciple is.

But evangelism without discipleship is cheap grace. Any kind of evangelism that only preaches justification by faith, but not sanctification and grace is not only a small gospel; it's a false gospel.

Evangelism without discipleship is cheap grace. It tells us that conversion is the touchdown. Friends, conversion is not the touchdown; it's the kickoff. It's the beginning of the game.

Being adopted into the family is not the end of life; it's the beginning of life. It's not enough just for us to be adopted into God's family, but as children of God now, we now pursue maturity into adulthood.

Jesus says, "…teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." Up until this point in the gospel, the only teacher Matthew refers to is whom? Who is the teacher? Jesus.

He says, "Now that I am leaving, now that I am going to our Father in heaven, you're the teachers." You go teach all nations…what? What are they teaching? All that Jesus commanded.

One of the greatest scandals of the contemporary church is the scandal of Bible illiteracy. For the most part, the evangelical church does not have a firsthand knowledge of the Bible text.

I call this discipleship by proxy. I have participated in this. It's easy to think I know a lot about the Bible, if I'm around somebody who does.

You cannot rely upon my message on Sunday morning to do discipleship for you. You must be as familiar with your Bible as anyone you know that has knowledge.

You are required to have a firsthand knowledge of the Bible. Why? Because it tells you that you are required and invited into teaching about Jesus. How can you teach what you don't know?

Study after study has come out that suggests evangelicals have never been less familiar with our Bibles or the claims of Christianity than we are today.

In fact, a study in 2016 suggested non-Christians…secularists, pagans, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses…are more familiar with the claims of the Bible than evangelicals are.

They know more about what you and I believe than we do. In other words, we confess that the Bible is our authority, but we practice that we are our own authority.

Don’t be afraid to learn the Gospel friends! Don’t let the fear of knowing something you are called to share stop you from learning and knowing it. Don't be afraid about sharing the gospel.

It's not up to you anyway. It's up to the Holy Spirit to show people the beauty of Jesus Christ. But I am blown away by so many stuck in spiritual infancy.

Some have been walking with the Lord for 5, 10, 15, 20 years, sometimes longer, and have never left the stage of spiritual infancy.

Hear me, I'm not trying to bring guilt or condemnation or shame upon anyone. Here is the reason why this happens. They have not been discipled. They haven’t had anybody show them the way.

They had simply been adopted into God's family, but were never told, "It's now time for you to pursue maturity and growth so to bring up other children and disciples in the faith."

I want you to hear this. Firsthand knowledge of the biblical text, not knowledge through me or anyone else is an absolute necessity of every disciple of Jesus. Period.

It is Discipleship Spiritual Formation 101. Start somewhere. I know it feels incredibly intimidating, but this is where God reveals himself. This is where we come to meet Jesus.

This isn't where we come just to be intellectual and smart. It's where we come to have fellowship with God. Why do we have to grow in an intimate knowledge of Jesus through the Scriptures?

The Scriptures are for life. Friends, we have so much room for growth here. Opportunity to grow in our knowledge of God.

If we punt and kick the can down the street, we will miss out on what God has for us, growing in our knowledge from God, moving from spiritual infancy and adolescence into adulthood.

Friends, we should be a community of brothers and sisters who are poring over the pages of Scripture together, learning from each other.

We should desire to see men and women flourish as they come to a greater knowledge of God in the Scriptures.

We have an awesome opportunity in front of that to be the case, but we have to grasp after it. We have to be the ones who change the narrative and change the story.

If you want to grow in your relationship with God, you have to be, without any equivocation, a student of the Bible.

There is simply no other way to grow in your relationship with Christ and to grow in your knowledge of Scriptures.

I want to be abundantly clear, as Jesus says in verse 20, "…teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." This teaching is not just informational, it's transformational.

Another great scandal in the church today is the Great Commission has been divorced from the Great Commandment.

The Great Commission, "Go…make disciples of all nations," The Great Commandment where Jesus says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength…”

Jesus says to make a disciple, adopt them into the kingdom and teach them to obey. Of course, friends, not perfect obedience.

None of us will ever reach that this side of glory, but growth in obedience, a desire and a delight in things that are holy. A desire and a delight to be more like Christ.

Converts find Jesus to be useful. Disciples find Jesus to be beautiful. Do you want to follow him? Do you just want access to his benefits?

Those who are growing in holiness are finding Jesus to be lovely and beautiful and worthy of everything.

If the Great Commission is not informed by the Great Commandment, it ceases to be the Great Commission and becomes the great omission.

Paul says it this way… He says the goal of his ministry is (Colossians 1:28

Colossians 1:28 ESV

28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

God's will for your life, if you've been adopted as a son or a daughter, is to grow you in maturity. I'm not talking about some kind of a perfect curve of growing.

I'm not talking about growing in perfect obedience, I'm talking about being more intimately connected with Jesus. Are you more connected with Jesus today than you were yesterday?

Through your failures, through your faults, through your doubts. Do you want to be more connected to him tomorrow? That's what Jesus is talking about here.

Obeying all that Jesus commands. The first move of discipleship is orphan to child, but the second move of discipleship is infancy to maturity.

I don't know about you, but as I was preparing this text and now giving it, this feels really challenging. Can I get an amen? This is hard. This is challenging and difficult.

We all are aware of the aspects of our life that don't look as much like Jesus as we wish they did. We're all intimately aware of our own ignorance of the Scriptures or things we think we should know but we don't.

We're all aware of our imperfections and our faults and our doubts. Friends, our confidence is not in ourselves. Our confidence is in God and his presence with us.

Disciples have been adopted, they're growing towards adulthood by being formed by God, but what is the fuel for this? Jesus tells us in verse 20.

He says, "…behold, I am with you always…." I am with you always. Look back up at verse 17. What's the kind of disciple Jesus gives this Great Commission to?

"And when they saw him they worshipped him, but some doubted." Jesus is giving this Great Commission, this work of taking the gospel to all nations.

This is not to perfect theologians, not to perfect pastors and great preachers, not to the spiritual elite who have it more together.

He is giving it to a ragtag group of misfits who, after the resurrection, still have doubts. Think about that. They're looking at a resurrected man, and it says, "Some worshipped and some doubted."

They were doubting their own abilities. Perhaps doubting the truthfulness, perhaps doubting whether or not they would live or die or whether they were competent or incompetent.

Jesus says, "I can use a community just like that, imperfect people who are willing to give their lives for the sake of this mission."

Worshipful doubters are the people Jesus is going to use to accomplish his Great Commission. Our confidence is not in ourselves, but in God.

Jesus gives us two truths we can take as we seek to live out the Great Commission. He says, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me."

"This mission will not fail," in other words. "I am the King of glory. I am accomplishing my mission, and I desire to use you."

Then he tells them at the end of verse 20, no matter what, no matter your doubts, no matter your fears, no matter your inadequacies, where you still need to grow.

He says where you're intimately aware of where your life doesn't look like me still or where you're intimately aware of your ignorance of the Scriptures or whatever it is, listen to His words.

"You're the kind of person I'm going to use, and I'm not going anywhere. I will be with you to the end of the age."

The presence of Jesus enables our Great Commission obedience. It's not our skills. It's not our talents. We're not left to our own devices.

Jesus says, "I will be the one accomplishing this in your midst."

One thing I want to make sure that is abundantly clear as we wrap up is growth in the Christian life is not fueled by guilt. It's not fueled by shame. It's fueled by the presence of Christ.

If the Holy Spirit has brought conviction today, do not run towards guilt or shame. Run to the presence of Christ.

The Holy Spirit's job, his work, is to show us our hearts, to convict us of sin, and to point you to the presence of Christ in your life.

If you're feeling a sense of "Man, this is really hard and challenging," good! That's the Holy Spirit convicting you.

Ask the presence of Christ to invade that part of your life. Ask him to transform and change you. As we wrap up, I just have a question for you that I want you to consider.

Are you stagnating or growing?

How long have you been walking with Christ? Weeks, months, years, decades for many of us?

Do you feel like you've continued a process of growth, or do you feel like there has been some stagnation and kind of a slowdown? Is your life plagued by a kind of spiritual adolescence? Or are you growing into maturity in Christ?

I want to remind you if you are a spiritual orphan, you can be adopted by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, receiving a new identity and forgiveness of sins freely and fully forgiven.

Come home. We want you to be a part of this family. You are wanted here and welcome. You don't have to strive after another identity. You can simply be a brother or sister with us. We want you here.

If you are a son or a daughter, have been adopted by God, and you're wanting to grow, I would ask that you would pursue growth through discipleship.

Jesus wants you to be a teacher of his gospel so we can teach the nations to obey the way of Jesus. Let's pray.

Related Media

Related Sermons