The Passions Of Christ - Making Disciples Series

The Passions of Christ - Making Disciples

Pastor Glenn Newton

March 6, 2005

18 Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matt. 28:18-20

JN 20:19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

JN 20:21 Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." John 20:19-21

This morning we will continue our look at those things that we can identify in Scripture that Jesus Christ was very passionate about during His ministry… and of coarse we believe He is still passionate about… through us.

I want to make sure your with me this morning… so I’m going to ask a question, you give me the answer.. OK?

When you think of Tyson, what do you think of? (chicken)

What is it that Sara Lee is producing at their plant? (panty hose)

What about McDonalds, what are they producing? (Big Mac… Hamburgers) Remember their signs that used to read (billions served)?

Whitson Morgan… what do they sell everyday? (Ford)

How about the Hospital, what do they provide? (health care, hopefully)

What about the High School, what are they trying to produce? (graduates)

All of these enterprises are all about producing a product that will benefit you and I, and when they do it well they also benefit from it also, right… they get paid.

I ask you this morning… What should a healthy, growing church be producing as it’s product? As a result of a person coming into our church, accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior and being involved in all that we do here at the church…. What should be the end result? A Reproducing Disciple.

George Orwell’s statement, “We now have sunk to such a depth that the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men,” deserves a look. What I would suggest to you this morning is this….. The obvious observation is that the church needs to upgrade it’s product….. We can call it renewal, restoration, or revival… But our churches in general have not been producing healthy growing reproducing disciples as we have been commanded to by our Lord.

This morning I don’t want to spend my time defending that statement, I will just ask one question and I want you that have been in the church for over a year to answer this to yourself…. How many disciples have I made, how many have I led to the Lord and then spent time nurturing them and encouraging them in the ways of the Lord?

This morning I believe that you and I understand the “go” part of this Great commission, we are in fact learning right now on Sunday nights how to better “go”, wherever you go is the implication from the Greek, “as you are going”.. in other words, as you are going through your daily work, your daily life….. Make disciples… wherever you are, whatever job you have, find people who are close to you and teach them, win them, and train them to be Christ followers.

Let’s bring this to where we live right now…. We have read what Jesus instructed us to do…. I look around this morning and see a good number of new Christians who have been saved in the last couple of years… We’ve actually been doing a good job of winning lost people, and I believe we are working on the discipleship, but we need to do more as individuals… taking responsibility for each person. If you have been a Christian for more than a year, you should be focusing not just on your own personal growth, but also now you should be allowing God to use you to mentor, to disciple someone else.

For to long we have treated our new converts like a cake mix. Now I’m not an expert cook so forgive me if I don’t get this exactly right….. But in many ways we treat our new people like they are a cake mix…..

They come to church, most likely because someone invited them, someone befriended them and loved them enough to invite them to church… they started coming, and at a point in time…. This new person makes a personal commitment to follow Jesus Christ…and then the cake mix discipleship program starts….