Commission By The King
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We will Obey the Command of Christ
We will Obey the Command of Christ
After telling us of His authority over heaven and earth, the next words out of Jesus’ moth are “Go, therefore.”
It is as if He’s saying, “In light of My authority, GO!”
This is not a comfortable call inviting most Christians to come, be baptized, and sit in one location.
Yet, that is exactly what we are tempted to turn our mission into, and if we are not careful, this is what our Christianity will consist of. We may come to a worship service, participate in the life of the church, serve in the church, and give regularly, all the wile neglecting to make disciples.
The church is filled with people who have been Christians for 5, 10, 15, or even 50 years, who have never led someone outside of their family to be a reproducing disciple.
We have missed our mission.
In his book, Born to Reproduce, Dawson Trotman comments on our tendency in the church today:
The curse of today is that we are too busy. I am not talking about being busy earning money to buy food. I am talking about being busy doing Christian things. We have spiritual activity with little productivity.
The Gospel spread to the known world during the first century without radio, television or the printing press, because [the writings of the apostles] produced men who were reproducing. But today we have a lot of pew-sitters - people think that if they are faithful in church attendance, put good sized gifts into the offering plate and get people to come, they have done their part.
If is not a comfortable call for most Christians, then what is it? This is a costly command directing every Christian to go, baptize, and make disciples of all nations.
This has been the plan from the beginning.
From the very beginning, Jesus made clear that everyone who followed Him would fish for men.
Jesus’ introduction in : Every follower of Jesus is a fisher of men.
Jesus’ conclusion in : Every disciple is a disciple maker.
According to Jesus, from beginning to end, to be a disciple is to make disciples. Scripture knows nothing of disciples who aren’t making disciples. Yet, if you were to ask Christians today what it means to make disciples, you’d likely get jumbled thoughts, debatable answers, and probably even some blank stares.
We urgently need biblical guidance on this foundational command.
contains one imperative verb and it is surrounded by three participles: going, baptizing, and teaching. Based on this verse, we’ll look at four non-negotiable points of disciple making.
We Share the Word
We Share the Word
This is absolutely foundational to making disciples. We speak about the gospel as we live according to the gospel.
The spirit of God lives inside God’s people so that they can bear witness to the gospel to the ends of the earth ().
The evangelistic strategy of the church is built upon every member engaging the world with the gospel.
Yet making disciples doesn’t end when people respond to the gospel. When people turn from their sin to Christ, we baptize them.
We Show the Word
We Show the Word
Baptism is a part of what it means to make disciples because baptism symbolizes identification with the person of Christ and inclusion in the body of Christ. Every disciple is baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (V. 19). This is a command of Jesus Christ.
The number of people sho say they are Christians today but have not been baptized is shocking. If you are a follower of Christ and have not been baptized, you are living in direct disobedience to Christ. The New Testament knows nothing of unbaptized Christians.
It’s not that one has to be baptized in order to become a Christian, but once you are a Christian, your public declaration of faith in Christ necessarily involves baptism. To neglect baptism is to dishonor and disobey Christ. In fact, if you continue to be unrepentant in this area, refusing to identify with Christ in baptism, then there is serious reason to question whether or not you are a Christian at all.
Once someone is baptized, showing the word involves sharing life together as a member of the church. Disciple making is not simply what happens in a classroom for an hour or so each week; it’s what happens when we walk through life together as a community of faith, modeling for one another how to follow Christ.
We show one another how to pray, how to study God’s Word., how to grow in Christ, and how to lead others to Christ. This is what Christ body is to be about.
We Teach the Word
We Teach the Word
Jesus speaks of “teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you” (v. 19).
We don’t just receive the Word; we reproduce the Word. God has gifted some in the church to teach however, every disciple of Jesus should saturate their words with God’s Word. Our conversations ought to be filled with Scripture as we teach people all that Christ has taught us.
We Serve the World.
We Serve the World.
Jesus speaks of making disciples of “all nations,” a phrase which in the original refers not simply to nations or countries as we usually think of the, but rather to tribes, families, clans, and people groups.
There are more than 11,000 people groups spread throughout the world. These groups share similar language, heritage, and cultural characteristics.
This is not just a general command to make disciples among as many people as possible. Rather, this is a specific command to make disciples among every people group in the world.
There are around 6,000 unreached people groups. Therefore, obedience to the Great Commission necessarily involves intentionally in going after theres 6,000 people groups.
May we make disciples and multiply churches in our neighborhoods among all people.
We live in a world of sin, rebellion , suffering, and pain, a world where over three billion people live on less than $2 a day, and a billion of those people live in desperate poverty. Hundreds of millions are starving and dying of preventable diseases.
Yet the spiritual condition of the world is even worse: billions of people across the world are engrossed in false religions, and approximately two billion of them have never even had a chance to hear the gospel.