NOTE:
This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.
ENGAGE
In his book, How Do I Know If I’m Really Saved, pastor John Ortberg shared a story about two students from a Christian college that were going door to door sharing their faith. One of the doors was opened by a harried mother carrying an infant in one arm and operating a vacuum with the other. As they looked in, the students could hear another child crying in the background, and see a toddler scribbling on the wall with a crayon, a pot boiling over on the stove and a pile of dirty laundry in the corner.
“Ma’am”, one of them asked, “Are you interested in eternal life?”
Utterly frazzled, the mother heaved an exasperated sigh and replied, “Frankly, I don’t think I could stand it.”
Ortberg comments on that story:
I think this is how many people today think about salvation. When we die, we are either headed for the castle (heaven) or the abyss (hell), and “salvation” is knowing the right answers so that God has to allow us to cross the bridge.
In his book, The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard, wrote about this same idea in terms of “barcode” Christians. He described a popular brand of Christianity where a “decision for Christ” is believed to be all that is needed. That decision instantly grants the decider a barcode that guarantees that he or she is a Christian in good standing, guaranteed a spot in heaven, with no expectation of personal transformation. You have the barcode, you’re in!
TENSION
This week I had some interesting conversations that revolved around a question that relates to the ideas expressed by both Ortberg and Willard:
Is it possible to be a Christian and not be a disciple?
So let me pose that same question to you this morning. I’m not going to ask for a show of hands or for you to answer out loud, but I want you to think about how you would answer that question.
Is it possible to be a Christian and not be a disciple?
TRUTH
This morning’s message is the 5th of 6 messages in our current series – 40 Days with Jesus. We’ve been studying the encounters that Jesus had with various people in the 40 days between His resurrection and His ascension to be with the Father.
Today’s passage is going to help us answer the question I just posed and it will also take us one step beyond that and help us understand our mission as a church and some practical ways to carry out that mission effectively.
That passage, which is found at the end of Matthew’s gospel account is probably familiar to many of us, and if that is true for you, I want to ask you to view those words of Jesus with some fresh eyes today and not let your preconceived ideas about those words keep you from seeing what I believe Jesus wants us to take from this passage this morning.
[Read Matthew 28:16-20]
While we can’t pinpoint the exact timing of this encounter, we can narrow it down. We know that Jesus appeared to His disciples in Jerusalem on the day of His resurrection and then again 8 days later. And we know that traveling on foot from Jerusalem to Galilee would have probably taken at least a week. And we know from the passage that we read last week in John 21, that some time after they returned to Galilee, at least some of the disciples had gone on a fishing trip were they met Jesus and had breakfast with Him.
We also know from Acts 1:3 that Jesus ascended to the Father 40 days after His resurrection, and that He did that in Jerusalem, where the disciples were present. So the disciples would have needed another week or so to get back to Jerusalem after this. So it appears that this encounter occurs roughly 20-30 days after the resurrection.
It is also quite likely that this is the same event Paul refers to in 1 Corinthians 15:
Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
(1 Corinthians 15:6 ESV)
It is very unlikely that event took place in Jerusalem, where the hostility toward Jesus’ followers was much greater. On the day of Pentecost only a few weeks later than this, there were only 120 followers of Jesus gathered together. And we also know that the large majority of Jesus’ ministry had taken place in Galilee.
The eleven go to the specific mountain where Jesus had previously told them that He would meet them. Perhaps this was even the same mountain where He had preached the Sermon on the Mount, which would have been the perfect place to address a large crowd.
And as soon as the disciples saw Jesus, they worshiped Him. This is very significant because these men, who were devout Jews, would never worship anyone or anything that was not God. So by their action, they were just confirming what Thomas had proclaimed with his words only a week or so earlier – Jesus is God.
But then at the end of verse 17, we read that “some doubted”. It’s important to note that the word Matthew uses here does not mean that anyone did not believe this was the risen Lord. The verb he uses means “to be uncertain” or “to hesitate to accept something”. If this is indeed the large crowd of over 500 people, this makes a lot of sense. Other than the eleven, none of them had seen Jesus since His resurrection, and especially from a distance they might have been uncertain if it was really Him.
And just like He often did, Jesus did what He needed to in order to help them believe. Verse 18 literally says that Jesus approached the people that were gathered there so that they could see that it was really Him.
I think that there was another kind of doubt that Jesus addresses here. Many, if not most of the people gathered there, expected Jesus to be a different kind of Messiah. They were probably wondering why, if He was really alive, that He wasn’t leading an army to overthrow the Roman government. But with His words here, Jesus confirms what he had tried to tell them before He was not that kind of Messiah – at least not at His first coming. But He also gives a hint here that one day, He will in fact return and establish His earthly rule. The phrase “end of the age” in verse 20 would have been clearly understood by His disciples as a reference to the fact that the age we are in right now will come to an end on the Day of the Lord when Jesus returns to this earth.
So what does this have to do with the question I posed to you earlier:
Is it possible to be a Christian and not be a disciple?
Jesus answers that question and more with the words He speaks in verses 18-20. And here is how I would summarize the main idea He is communicating here:
The mission of the church is to
make disciples who make disciples
It can be difficult to identify this main idea in our English translations of this passage. Almost every English translation makes the verb “go” appear to be a command. But if we look at the underlying Greek, we find that there is only one command here and three participles that describe three ways that command is to be carried out. I’ll give you the command and they see if you can help me pick out the three participles. For those of you who haven’t brushed up on your grammar lately, the simplest way to identify a participle is that it usually ends with “ing”.
Make disciples (command) by:
• Going (past tense – literally “having gone”)
• Baptizing
• Teaching
We’ll come back and talk about those three participles in a moment, but first I want us to concentrate on this idea of “making disciples”. And in order for us to understand that command, wouldn’t you agree that it would be important for us to understand the meaning of the word “disciple”?
In classical Greek, the word simply means “a learner”, or “a pupil”. But in the Jewish culture of that day, it meant much more than that. A disciple was someone who devoted his life to learn so much from his master that they would come to resemble that master. So the learning was much more application based than knowledge based. Jesus captured that idea earlier in Matthew’s gospel:
It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master.
(Matthew 10:25 ESV)
Here is my favorite definition of a disciple of Jesus:
A disciple of Jesus is one who learns from Him
to live like Him
So hopefully at this point, you have a pretty good idea of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. So with that in mind, let’s go back to our question:
Is it possible to be a Christian and not be a disciple?
If the answer to that question is “yes”, then it means that there are essentially two classes of Christians – “regular” Christians and “disciples”. Or to go back to our opening discussion, there are “barcode” Christians and “disciples.
But I just can’t find that kind of distinction anywhere in the Bible. In fact, did you realize that the term “Christian” is only found 3 times in the entire New Testament? And very likely, it is a term that was coined by non-Christians that was intended to be a derogatory way to refer to those who were disciples of Jesus. It was probably similar to the way our culture today would use the term “fundamentalist” or “barefooted Jesus freak”.
On the other hand, the term “disciple” appears over 260 times in the New Testament and is the word Jesus most often uses to describe those who are learning from Him so that they can live like Him.
It is significant here that Jesus didn’t say to make Christians; He didn’t say to make converts, He didn’t say to get people to pray a prayer; He didn’t say to make church members. He commanded His disciples to make disciples. So I am confident in saying that from Jesus’ perspective, there is no such thing as a Christian who is not also a disciple.
So now do you see why I said that…
The mission of the church is to
make disciples who make disciples
Like most churches, here at TFC, we have a mission statement that is intended to communicate why we exist:
Know Jesus. Grow and Serve. Go and Share.
When we developed that mission statement several years ago, it was based on the mission that Jesus gave to His disciples here in this passage. But we wanted to word it in a way that avoided using religious terms like “disciple” that might not be understood by non-Christians. But what I hope you’ll see is that those words express exactly what we’ve been talking about today. We are here to help people know Jesus and learn from Him in a way that is reflected in the way they live their lives. And as we do that, those same people are equipped to go out and reproduce that in the lives of others. In other words, our mission is to make disciples who make disciples. That is the reason we exist as a church.
So how do we do that?
APPLICATION
HOW TO BE A DISCIPLE WHO MAKES DISCIPLES
Earlier I mentioned that we’d be coming back to the three participles in this passage and that’s where we’ll begin.
1. Be outwardly focused
As I mentioned earlier what looks like a command to “go” is actually a past tense participle, which would literally be translated something like “having gone”. In the past, the disciples had gone out on assignments given by Jesus on several occasions. But in each case, they had been sent primarily to their fellow Jews.
But here Jesus is giving them a new assignment in which their going is to include making disciples of “all nations”. The word “nations” there does not refer to nations which are defined by their borders, but rather to various people groups. Jesus seems to be setting the table here for the final commission He will give to them in just a couple weeks when they return to Jerusalem. We will look at that more next week, and we’ll see that it includes a command to take the gospel outside their own little community of Jews in Jerusalem to the entire world, including the Gentiles.
For us today, that doesn’t seem like a big deal. But to these primarily Jewish disciples who had been expecting the Messiah to be a conquering hero who would overthrow the Roman government, the idea that Jesus was a Savior for Gentiles as well as Jews was a radical idea. And frankly it took quite some time after the resurrection of Jesus for many of the Jews to come to grips with that.
The idea that the gospel is just for the benefit of those who are already disciples or maybe those who are similar to us is one that still permeates the church today, unfortunately. Far too many churches have become more like country clubs that exist only for the benefit of those who are already part of the club. And if they reach out at all, it is only to those who already run in their circles and who are like them in terms of race, socioeconomic status, education, and politics.
One of the reasons that I made a decision several years ago not to discuss politics on social media is that I don’t want my political views, which I hold quite strongly by the way, to be a barrier to being able to influence people with the gospel. In a country that is pretty much split down the middle politically, when we start to call those on the other side names and claim that they can’t possibly be Christians, we immediately lose our ability to reach those people with the gospel, which is far more important than trying to get them to agree with our politics.
That is just one area, where we can get so self-focused that we fail to take the gospel to people who are different than us. So as individuals and as a church, we need to constantly be evaluating whether we are putting up barriers that will keep people who are unlike us from hearing and responding to the gospel.
2. Do my part
The second participle here is “baptizing” and you’re probably wonder how I came up with this principle based on that. But let’s think for a moment about the nature and purpose of baptism.
We’ve talked about this before, but the Greek word baptizo has just been transliterated here rather than translated. If it were translated, it would likely be rendered “immerse” or “place into”, which is what the underlying Greek word means. In the New Testament, it is used in two distinct ways:
• It describes the physical act of being immersed in water as a public proclamation that someone has become a disciple of Jesus by placing his or her faith in Him. When we are baptized we are publicly identifying ourselves with Jesus and saying that we belong to Him. Baptism itself does not save us nor is it required for salvation, but it is something that every disciple should do as both an act of obedience and out of a desire to let others know we are fully committed to Jesus.
In a sense, baptism is like a wedding ring. Just wearing a ring doesn’t make me married. It is merely a symbol and public testimony of the fact that I’ve already married my spouse and made a covenant to love him or her for as long as we both shall live.
• The second way the word baptize is used in the New Testament is in the sense that all disciples are immersed into the body of Christ, the church.
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
(1 Corinthians 12:13 ESV)
While it seems that Jesus primarily has the physical act of baptism in mind here, there is no reason to conclude that He is not also referring here to the idea of His disciples being immersed into the church. So while the physical act of baptism is an important aspect of being a disciple, what is even more important here is the importance of being a disciple who is a functioning member of a local church.
While there is an individual aspect of making disciples, the command that Jesus gives here is primarily an assignment for the church as a whole. It is not, limited just to the eleven disciples, but rather is given to all the disciples that were gathered there. We know, especially from what Paul writes in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4, that the church consists of individuals who have each been gifted by God. And the church only functions as Jesus intended when every single member of the body does his or her part. And that is certainly true when it comes to making disciples. So while my role here at TFC is different than each of yours, your role is equally important when it comes to making disciples and we can’t do that effectively unless you do your part.
3. Be transformed by living the truth
This third idea comes from the verb “teaching”. But notice the kind of teaching that is to take place. It is not merely the teaching of facts or ideas, but rather the kind of teaching that results in people actually living out what they are learning.
Since this is an idea that we’ve spent a lot of time talking about recently, I’m not going to spend a lot of time here. But I do want to remind us that the purpose of our Bible reading and study, the purpose of listening to these messages each week, the purpose of gathering together each Sunday, is not just so we can get more knowledge. It is for the purpose of putting what we are learning into practice so that Jesus can transform our lives and then use us in the process of doing that in the lives of others.
That is why each week, we emphasize the importance of making some practical application of the message in your life personally.
The last idea I’m going to share is based on what Jesus says before and after He gives His command to make disciples.
4. Depend on Jesus
The command to make disciples was a daunting task for the disciples that were gathered there on that mountain in Galilee. These were largely uneducated men and women who had no formal religious training. They hadn’t been to seminary or attended an evangelism seminar. They had merely spent time with Jesus and knew how He had changed their lives.
Knowing that, Jesus prefaced His command with the declaration that all authority in heaven and on earth had been give to Him. And after giving the command, He encouraged the disciples that He would be with them to the end of the age, when He will return to this earth and establish an earthly as well as heavenly kingdom.
Those same promises are still in effect today. We don’t have to carry out this assignment of making disciples on our own. We do that under the authority of Jesus, who is with us and will continue to be with us. He has given us His Holy Spirit, who dwells permanently in our lives and who will lead us and guide us as we make disciples, if we will yield to His leadership.
ACTION
We began earlier with this question:
Is it possible to be a Christian and not be a disciple?
I hope that after what we’ve learned today that you would now answer that question with a resounding “no”. That means that everyone here this morning fits into one of two categories: You are either a disciple of Jesus who is learning from Him so you can live like Him or you are not.
If you are not yet a disciple of Jesus, then I want to invite you today to become one. As we’ve seen this morning, becoming a disciple requires more than just raising your hand, or praying a prayer, which is why we always tell people that it’s important to fully understand the commitment you are making before you do that. If that is something you are interested in, we’d love to talk to you more about that. Some of our Elders will be at the back during our last song and would love to talk to you more about that. Or if that seems too intimidating, just contact one of us this week. Our contact information is on the back of the bulletin.
If you are already a disciple of Jesus, then the command to make disciples applies to you. So I want to encourage you to think about one practical thing you could do in order to do your part right here at TFC to help make disciples. And if you need some help figuring out what that might be, again I want to encourage you to talk to one of our Elders. We’d love to help you do your part.
INSPIRATION
The mission of the church is to
make disciples who make disciples
Will you join me in carrying out that mission?
Discussion questions for Bible Roundtable
1. Why is it not possible to be a Christian, but not be a disciple?
2. What are some of the barriers that keep us from making disciples of those who are not like us? What are some practical ways we can overcome those barriers?
3. What are the two ways the word “baptize” is used in the New Testament? Why are both important?
4. Jesus uses the word “all” four times in this passage (“always” is literally “all the days”). What is the significance of each use?
5. What are some practical things we can do as a church to make disciples?
