The Charge of a Disciple
Matthew 28:18-20a
They found themselves wrapped in darkness, hiding behind locked doors and wrestling with their lost dreams and how things could have gone so horribly wrong. Just three years prior, a stranger walked up to them and uttered three words which forever changed their lives, “Come, follow me.” Each responded immediately, leaving everything they owned, everything they knew and everyone they loved. It was the dream of every young boy to grow up, choose a rabbi and follow him. But after a young man’s bar mitzvah, only the most promising were encouraged to continue their education under a rabbi. At this point, each of the disciples dropped out realizing they weren’t promising enough to follow the path to becoming a rabbi. Such hopes and aspirations like so many of our own childhood dreams, begin to fade away as we grow older and reality begins to set in. Imagination is replaced with the reality of the circumstances of our lives. Many of those hopes and dreams are left behind in the ashes of the dull monotony of daily life.
But then the disciples heard those words. These men who were destined to stay in the family business of fishing were now being called beyond that. “Come, follow me.” Breaking all convention and turning the process of a student choosing a rabbi upside down, a rabbi named Jesus of Nazareth comes to them and invites them to join him! Over the course of the three years they spent with Jesus, they saw his ministry grow as more and more people showed up to listen to him. They heard him speak with such wisdom and insight that spoke of God. They saw him forgive sinners, heal the sick, give sight to the blind and even raise the dead. They saw countless lives changed. Slowly but surely, the idea that Jesus might be more than a rabbi but could in fact, be the long awaited and sought after Messiah. This journey to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, the time when Jews remember God’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt, must have fueled the hopes and expectations of the disciples that the time had come when Jesus would take his throne and deliver Israel from the bonds of Rome.
But then it was over just like that. The man who had power over demons, the winds and even death itself, either could not or would not stop his own. And with him, all of the hopes and dreams of the disciples died, nailed to the cross with Jesus. Imagine for just a moment what those three days of darkness must have been like for the disciples. Fear, confusion and despair. They found themselves behind locked doors, in fear of their own lives wondering how it could have gone so terribly wrong. And then in the midst of that, Jesus reappeared back from dead! And suddenly, apparent defeat became victory, shattered dreams became hope once again. Now that he had conquered sin and death, certainly he would take his rightful seat on the throne of Israel, make all that was wrong in the world right and deliver Israel. Once again, Jesus surprised everyone. He hadn’t come back to start His work of redemption and delivering Israel but instead he came back to prepare the disciples to continue his work and finish what He had started. In his resurrection and appearance to the disciples and through the Day of Pentecost, Jesus accomplished two things: He gave them their mission and empowered them for it and He created His Church, the body of Christ. Their mission was to take His message and the Good News of His death and resurrection to the very ends of the earth. As people came to faith, they would build His church, a community of fellowship, reconciliation and redemption.
The rest of the New Testament is the story of how they disciples followed Jesus’ last command. In the Day of Pentecost, they threw caution to the wind, stepped into the streets of Jerusalem and began to proclaim the Good News. They made their way throughout Jerusalem and then Judea and even beyond the boundaries of Israel so that all people might hear the Good News and have the chance to respond and receive eternal life. Reading through the New Testament, it becomes crystal clear that the disciples focused on making disciples. They were intent on fulfilling Jesus last command to them, the Great Commission.
But if we look at most of churches and most disciples of Jesus today, we see very little disciple making. Why is that? Is it because we think that Jesus’ last command was for the disciples and not for us? Is it because we think we have full-time paid clergy to do that work and all I have to do is show up for worship, put a few dollars in the offering plate, and leave knowing I fulfilled my duty to God to keep the Sabbath holy? Jesus’ last words make one thing clear: a disciple is a disciple maker. If you want to follow Jesus, you have to make disciples. And yet, disciple making has become foreign to the average Christian’s walk with Jesus that many don’t have a clear idea what that looks like. Most of our churches are so program oriented that many of us think making disciples is getting people to attend worship and a 2 or 3 month class and then make a commitment and we’re done. Making disciples is more than a program. It’s our calling, our mission and the very purpose for which we were born.
What does it look like to make disciples? Jesus gives us three words to describe how we are to make disciples. It’s pretty simple when you think about it. But the problem with the simplest things is that they are often the most difficult to live out. So let’s look at each of these steps to making disciples. First is go. Go is influencing your oikos and beyond. When most of us think of evangelism and hear that first command to go, our greatest fear is that God is going to send us overseas to become a missionary. While a few may be called to respond globally to the call, ‘Go’, most of us won’t be. Instead, God calls most of us to impact a much smaller circle of people, the 8 and 15 people whom God has strategically placed in our relational world. The Greeks called that circle of influence your oikos. Those are the people who make up your world and God wants you to go them and influence them for Jesus Christ!
But we are not to consider ourselves to be limited to just our oikos. The fact is we encounter dozens if not 100’s of people each week who are far from Jesus and all we need to do is go over to them and begin a conversation and see where it leads. When you think of it, that’s exactly what Jesus did with us. In his book “Just Walk Across the Room” Bill Hybels writes, “At a certain point in history, Jesus Christ himself left the marvelous fellowship of the Trinity and the worship and adoration of the angels; he wrapped himself in human flesh, and he walked across the cosmos in order to stretch out a hand to people like you and me….to rescue us….As Christ followers, we (are to) walk across rooms because he took the ultimate walk across a room….Today, as you love people, serve people, point people toward faith in Christ, redirect wayward people, restore broken people and develop people into the peak of their spiritual potential, you affirm your understanding of your primary mission in the world.” Make disciples!
Second is baptize. Romans 6:2-4 says, “We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” Paul states there are three aspects to baptism: death, burial and new life. Baptism has always been linked to death. The image of baptism is that as one goes under water to the depths and darkness. It is as if one joins Jesus as he is buried in the ground. The death is to sin itself and your old way of life. Paul is recognizing in himself that the self is ruled by sin. To follow Christ, that part of us must die. In baptism, we die to our old selves. Baptism also speaks of resurrection. Just as Jesus was raised from the dead and emerged from the tomb, so we enter into new life in Jesus as we emerge from the waters of baptism.
Baptism in the early church was never meant to be private. It was a public ceremony declaring your identification with Jesus Christ and the beginning of living a life devoted to him, in other words, to live as He lived. It was a profound act stating that your identity and priorities were centered on Jesus and His mission, which is….making disciples is now your mission!
The third step of making disciples is teaching people to obey Jesus’ commands and to live as He did. This is what the three years the disciples spent with Jesus was all about. It was learning to live as Jesus did, think like Jesus thought and do what Jesus did. The teaching portion of making disciples is not about a sermon series or a seminar or a class to take. It’s a lifelong commitment to study the Scriptures, living in a community of accountability and applying Jesus’ teaching to our own lives. While most of us think that evangelism is trying to get people to believe in Jesus and is concluded the moment they profess their faith in Christ. It is anything but. There is a continual conversion which needs to happen in of our thoughts, our worldview, our beliefs and our actions as we surrender more and more of ourselves to Jesus and in the process become like him. In Methodism, we call this sanctification and it’s the lifelong process of growing in our knowledge and relationship to Jesus so that our life comes to reflect more closely the life of Jesus and His mission. The reality is we’re never done learning and we are never done growing. That means we must continually devote ourselves to the study of Scripture so that we might have greater depth and clarity of God, His will for our lives and what He wants us to pass on to others. We are never a finish product.
Now here’s the key to making disciples: you cannot pass on what you do not have. If you don’t have a deep knowledge of Jesus Christ, a growing relationship with Jesus and a lifestyle devoted to following him in thought, word and deed, you cannot make disciples as Jesus intends them to be. Say it with me again, “I cannot pass on what I don’t have.” That means if you are going to be a disciple of Jesus, which means making disciples, it starts first with your own spiritual growth. So let’s test that for just a moment: if someone came to you and asked what do I need to do to follow Jesus and live like him? Could you answer the question? What would you teach him or her? And here’s the most significant question of all: could you say these words of Paul as you invite people in your life to come learn what it means to be a follower of Jesus? “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 11:1 This is what it means to teach others to follow Jesus.
At the heart of being a disciple of Jesus is desire and submission and that assumed biblical literacy, living in community, transparency of one life and a willingness to wrestle with God’s Word. But at the heart of this desire to follow was emulation, to live as Jesus lived. Disciples have a passion and zeal to give up to any and all of their preconceived notions of how to live one’s life and to embrace the behavior that their rabbi as they lived to honor God. It was a radical, willing, and totally conforming submission to follow the example of his life in every aspect. This is radically different from most Christian’s understanding of teaching and learning how to follow Jesus. For Jesus and first century disciples, teaching and learning was not done in a classroom context but rather in the real world and in sharing life together. So at the heart of Jesus’ call to make disciples is the invitation to people to come along side us to see and emulate our life lived for Jesus. At the heart of this must be a passion and zeal to conform every part of our lives to our rabbi and master, Jesus of Nazareth so that we can like Paul invite people into our lives and says, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.”
