The Command To Make Disciples

Pastor Derek Wheeler

Multiply • Sermon • Submitted 7 years ago

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Last week recap

What a disciple was

How we become disciples

More than a prayer for salvation, it’s a call to follow

The cost

How many of us here tonight consider ourselves to be a follower of Jesus Christ?

Let me see your hands

If you aren’t sure, if you raised your hand because everybody else did, come see me tonight…or one of the leaders, we would love nothing more than to share with you how you can become a follower of Jesus Christ.

But a lot of us raised our hands, so let me ask you this, how is this evident in your life?

If somebody hired a private detective, who put a bug on you so they could hear everything you said everyday, they had cameras follow you so they could see everywhere you went, everything you watched everyday.......

What would they find?

Would the evidence overwhelmingly prove that yes, without a doubt this person is a follower of Jesus Christ?

Or would it show that there is no actual proof? Would it prove that the only person you are following is yourself?

This is a HUGE question.....how do you answer it?

Tonight we are going to look at the next chapter in Multiply.....”The Command to Make Disciples”....and what we are going to see is that if we claim to be followers, disciples, of Jesus Christ, then this next step has to be a part of our daily lives.

Remember last week how we talked about how Jesus radically changed these disciples lives, these 12 that he selected to walk with Him; and how their lives were never going to be the same?

Think about the things they saw Jesus do:

Cause blind people to see

Feed thousands of people with a little bit of fish and bread

Watched Jesus forgive sins and restore people’s lives

And as they saw all of this happen they became more and more convinced that Jesus, this man they were following as going to restore the kingdom of God.

And then poof! He died.

And for 3 days, imaging being the disciples, the feeling of loneliness, despair, confusion, agony, lostness, all these emotions going through your head as you are trying to process what just happened.

And then poof! He was back.

And those feelings of loneliness, despair, confusion, agony, lostness, they all went rushing away

And now it seemed even more certain that Jesus really would restore the kingdom of God, that He really could restore their hope and fortunes, that Israel would finally be redeemed.

And then poof! He’s gone again, this time ascending into Heaven.

But....He leaves the disciples with a command, with a job to do, and we have a title for this job today, don’t we?

We know it as THE GREAT COMMISSION.

, “ 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.”

The Great Commission

So, imagine being 1 of the 12 disciples, and He says this and disappears....what’s your reaction, what’s your real life reaction. Don’t give me a church answer because that’s what I want to hear. I want to know how you think you’d respond:

Student Examples

As we’ll continue to find out in our study of Acts on Sunday nights, we’re going to see their response. And it wasn’t a:

Pointing at each other saying, “He was talking to you.”

Like when you get volunteered for something out of a group.

I’ll do it on those random times when someone comes up to me and specifically asks me who Jesus is.

I’ll share a verse on Snapchat or Instagram and hope that people come to Christ because of it!

It was a sold out, all in, self-denying, for the win, my time, to shine, Christ always, first in line type of response

And as you look through the NT, we see not just the apostles, but regular old believers in Jesus Christ telling other people about Jesus Christ.

So then, when we look at Cornerstone, when we look at Strive Student Ministries, why don’t we see disciple making happening? Why don’t we see people sharing the Gospel? Why don’t we see this plan that Jesus Christ himself set in place, why don’t we see it still functioning?

Student responses

A Wrong View of the Church

We have a wrong view of the purpose of a church, and the purpose of it’s pastors. So, maybe you have a wrong view of my duty here even.

My job is not to do the evangelism for you guys.

My job does not mean that I’m the only way your friends can hear about Jesus

The same goes for the other pastors, Pastor Dave, or Dave, or Dave, or whoever the Pastor of your church is.

The purpose of the church is to teach, equip, model, and send

Teach you the Gospel if you aren’t a follower

Equip you to be a Christ-follower, help you to see how we need to follow Christ

Model what it looks like for you.

Send you out to make disciples.

I’m just a facilitator to you guys. But I have individual responsibility to do the same.

See, the command is simple:

Make Disciples

By sharing with them the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Baptize

A public declaration that yes I am a Christian. It does not save you, but it’s a significant step in your walk with Christ.

It’s a declaration that your life, identity, priorities, and focus is centered completely on Jesus Christ.

Have you been baptized? September 24th baptism service.

If you are interested, let me know.

Teach Them

Walk with them, disciple them, and then the process starts again, they go and make disciples, baptize, and teach them, and so on and so on and so on.

But in order to teach, we have to know right?

This is where I come into play, and your leaders, and someone that is discipling you, like your parents or someone else in your life.

Do you have those people? You’ve got 6 leaders sitting here with you tonight, seven including me, who would love nothing more than to meet with you and disciple you.

Example: Let’s illustrate what we have done as a modern day church when it comes to making disciples, shall we? 483

I need 4 volunteers, come sit in these 4 chairs up front here

Here is a lock box, that has something of value inside

For this example, I’m going to be one of the 12 apostles, we’ll go with Peter

Now this lock box has a combination that you have to know to be able to access what is inside alright.

I already know the combination, it’s been given to me. But you see, what’s inside here is too valuable for me to keep to myself. It’s too important, plus, the person that passed it to me told me that I couldn’t keep it to myself. That I had to share it with others.

So I do, I share it with - and the early church is growing. Because I couldn’t contain it, I had to share it

And what she is going to do is she then is going to share it with - see, she couldn’t contain it either, she was also taught that she had to share it with someone as well. So she shares it with

And then he is going to share it with - because, you get the picture, it’s something of value, something that is worth sharing. And the church is growing

But for some reason, , decides this information isn’t really that valuable to them. Sure, they’ll take it for themselves, but it’s not important enough to share with anyone else. It’s still the same exact thing, it’s still the same object of value, but they just can’t be bothered with it

So it gets to . Now, , I want you to open the box. Come on, open it.

Today, please, while we’re young.

Why aren’t you opening it?

Because you don’t know how, because you haven’t been told how, and you can try and try and try everything in your power, but it’s not going to happen.

You will not receive the thing of value because didn’t tell you how.

See guys, this is our modern church today. We’ve decided for some inexplicable reason that the message of what Jesus Christ did on the cross for our sins isn’t worth sharing anymore.

Do you see the problem? If you say you see it, then why aren’t we fixing it?

How have we gotten to this point where we “follow” Jesus, but He’s not important enough to us to:

Read His Word

Learn His Word

Tell others about Him

Teach others about Him

We’ve gotten it so terribly wrong as a church, haven’t we?

And I think it is because we haven’t been truly transformed into followers of Jesus Christ. I know a lot of us say we have been, that maybe we prayed the prayer, but when is the last time you intentionally sought to make a disciple of Jesus Christ in your life?

Be honest with yourself, if you can’t think of a time, or it’s been a long time ago, you’ve got a problem.

Turn with me to

See, we all have unique roles in the church of Jesus Christ, and this doesn’t just apply to Cornerstone, but the body of believers that is His church:

Some of us are pastors, yes, me, for example:

Prophets

Evangelists

Shepherds

But my role is to what....”equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ”

Teachers

You. Are. The. Saints. in this passage

Saints (lay people)

You are to do the work of the ministry, as am I.

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you don’t get a pass. That wasn’t the system He designed!

Excuses

We all have reasons why we don’t, and here are some I’ve heard from some of you:

I don’t have friends

Will = 325 people

Gracee = 71

I don’t have time or I’m too busy

I don’t know what to say

is a passage of people giving excuses for why they can’t follow Christ, albeit some good ones

Christ is telling us that this is our duty, first and foremost

That nothing can get in the way of this

Now look at your life…how much is getting in the way of you making disciples?

A New Viewpoint

I asked your student leaders this week to do something for me. I asked them to count how many people they came into contact with in a day of their life:

Gracee - 71, 11 talked to

Madi

Kieran

Will - 325

Listen, we’ve got to see these people differently than we obviously do.

These are people that need the hope that you claim to have. They need the combination.

And you have it. You don’t have to know a lot of theology, you don’t have to know all the answers.

By the way, that’s one of the reasons we are here though, as leaders, to help you answer the tough questions.

You simply tell them who Jesus is, what He’s done for you, and how He changed your life.

The Command To Make Disciples

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