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Biblical Exercises for Spiritual Health & Fitness in 2014 Series
The Discipline of Disciple-Making:
āDoing What Christ Left Us to Doā
1 Timothy 4:11
Transcript
Let’s open our Bibles to Matthew 28. As you’re turning there, we’ve come in our studies of these exercises for biblical health, the disciplines, the training that were taught by Paul to Timothy for the early Church. We’ve come now to the central element, the central discipline, which happens to also be our job descriptions. If you’ve ever been hired for any type of job and you wanted to retain that job, you carefully tried to find out what was expected from you, and you tried to excel in that area because you wanted, if it’s a job you wanted. Of course, if you didn’t want it, you didn’t do it. This is our job description. This is what the Lord crystallizes down as our purpose for being left here on Earth. When God saved us, the reason He didn’t evacuate us to Heaven is He says, I’ve left you here for a singular purpose: to go into all the world and make disciples. And the discipline of disciple making is a choice we make in life. What is the choice? To turn everything in our life toward this singular purpose of our existence on Earth. We glorify God when we do what He created us to do. He created us, in Christ, to make disciples.
That’s why we’re here. We’re not here to accumulate stuff. The longer you live, the harder it is, you have to start getting rid of it. We’re not here merely to make money. You need money to live; that’s not why we’re here. We’re not here for the most comfortable, adjusted lifestyle to live as long as possible, as comfortably and healthy as possible. We’re here to make disciples, and once you see that, no matter where we are, that is the blessed privilege we have in life. Brings us to a question: are we doing what Christ left us to do? This morning, is everything in your life and in my life somehow tied to my job description as a Christian? Matthew 28 has that job description, and let’s go through that this morning because we’ve come to our very own personal job description left by Christ as the reason He saved us. Starting in verse 18 of chapter 28. He left us here to serve Him through life making disciples. And the question is, are we doing, and more personally, am I doing what God, through Christ, left me to do? God has always desired to be glorified by reaching the world with His message of love. God wants us telling people about his forgiveness of sin. God wants us to offer His reconciliation leading to eternal life. You and I are dispensers of reconciliation. We know about it. We can dispense it. It’s like a doctor who can write prescriptions. You and I have the inside track knowing how reconciliationāwhich is being made right with God no longer enemies, recipients of His graceāwe know how that happens. They don’t. Lost people don’t understand that, and God has left us to be ministers of His reconciliation, which leads to eternal life. God is not willing that any should perish. So, God has always desired that the world hear His message, that they need to repent, that they might be saved. Now why? The reason is because God is a Savior.
Did you know there’s a unifying? A lot of people are always searching for some mystical theme that will fit together the Bible. If you just plainly read it, as soon as mankind fell into sin, as soon as Adam and Eve departed from God’s way, who came looking for them? God the Savior. Chapter 3, God says, where art thou, in Genesis. In the New… That’s the whole Old Testament: God coming and seeking a lost world. And He sought them through Noah, He sought them through His chosen people of promise, the Jewish people. They wouldn’t do it, so He replaced them, temporarily setting them aside, with a currentāus, the Churchāalso to minister His reconciliation. But by the way, the Jews are coming back. They’re the stars of the Tribulation. From chapter 7 through chapter 14 in Revelation, they are the evangelists of the world. But God is a Savior. God had Noah preach for a hundred years. God established Israel as a light to the nations, but they mostly refused, so He set them aside temporarily. God has, for the past 2000 years, worked through us, His Church, to spread His message. God has future plans. In Revelation, we see those, but God has always been glorified through people who would witness and proclaim the message of salvation. God is a Savior. He wants us to do that. That’s what glorifies Him.
At this moment, God is working His plan of redemption through us as Church. In the Old Testament, God clearly laid down His plans for Israel. By the time we get to Deuteronomy, God says, cling to me, the LORD; love Me, your LORD; serve Me, your LORD; and through your love, love outsiders. They were to share God with outsiders. That’s why they built that tent and that temple. They were supposed to be a magnet. People were supposed to see God’s rich blessing on them, wonder why they were so wonderfully blessed, and they would bring them to see, and learn about, and understand the God who is a Savior. But Israel wasn’t interested in that. They sadly disregarded that calling and commission, so God temporarily sets them aside.
So, that’s where we get to the New Testament. God opens the New Testament, and even more clearly than He told the Israel in the Old Testament, He tells the Church right here, right as the Church is being launched, right as His first generation of the leaders of His Church are being sent out, He hands them their marching orders, their job description. And they are to go throughout the whole world, teaching and leading others into becoming followers of Jesus Christ, disciple makers. And He crystallizes that message right here. In the power of the resurrection, in verse 18, as the leaders of the first generation of the Church, in verse 19, they were given His clear commission. And this chapter, Matthew 28, is such an amazing linkage of the Old and the New Testament to God, the Savior, wanting His people to proclaim that truth. We’re just continuing in what He’s always wanted done. The Savior’s plan, given to Israel and ignored, is now given to His Church, and the magnitude of these words has never diminished. It is so singularly focused that you can go through life, no matter what you do, no matter where you live.
I grew up in a factory worker’s home. My dad worked in the same building for 46 years, doing the same thing for 46 years, but he knew that wasn’t what he lived for. He was the biggest purveyor of Christian literature in General Motors. He would bring in his lunchbox packed with material, and when all those men had their mandatory union-mandated breaks, and when they’d run out of every other thing to talk about, he’d say, could I talk about something? They go, oh, sure. We have nothing else to talk about, and we have to sit here for 20 minutes or however long the break was, and he would share Christ. He knew that he was here for a purpose. He had to work at Oldsmobile, but he was here for a purpose.
It’s crystallized right here, the clearest marching orders for every believer alive today. Matthew 28:18-20 is the distillation of all Jesus was doing in His earthly ministry as recorded in the Gospel. The Gospels are Jesus discipling 12 men, one drops out, 11 men meet Him on the mountain, and He commissions them to do what He trained them to do. And He said, and that’s what you’re supposed to train every succeeding generation to do. And by the way, the book of Acts is a continuation of that, and the epistles are examples and exclamations of the Great Commission to the Church, and Revelation is the finish of the Church’s term of service, the return of Israel to active duty. And God’s plans and expectations are stated in this commissioning job description.
So, Matthew 28:18-20, let’s stand together for the reading of God’s Word. I’m going to put it on the screen because I want you to see the main verb. I bolded it for you; this is the verb. All the other verb forms are participles that are pointing toward this central purpose of every believer. If you’re saved this morning, this is your and my job description, and this is what Jesus says. And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, all authority has been given to Me in Heaven and on Earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen.
Let’s bow for a word of prayer. Father, I pray that Your Spirit working within us would quicken our hearts, our understandings, our minds to the truth of what You left us to do, what Your expectations are of our time investment while we pass our days awaiting being reunited with You and serving You forever in Heaven. What You are going to ask us about at the Judgment Seat of Christ is simply, did you do what I left you to do? Did you point every part of your life, for all of your days, toward making disciples? It’s so simple, it’s so clear, it’s so focused, and we’re not, often. And I pray that today might be a sharpening of our focus on what You left us here to do and considering and pondering how we can adjust and turn every facet of our life to focus on making disciples, followersāthose who love, and serve, and follow You, O Christ. May we be those followers, first and foremost, before we try and talk to anybody else. And then may we focus our lives on as many people as possible, exposing them to the ministry of reconciliation until You come or call for us. In the name of Jesus we pray, amen.
You may be seated. As you’re seated, this is a graphic, if your English teacher was outlining this passage of Scripture, she would’ve reminded you of these things because the key that unlocks what God has left us here on Earth after salvation for is right in verse 19. When Jesus said, make disciples, those words were carefully engineered by the Holy Spirit to explain the focus of every day of our life. If we want to please God, if you want to please God, you have to be involved in making disciples. If you’re not involved with making disciples, you’re not pleasing God because He said, this is what I want you to do, and when we choose to not do that, it doesn’t please Him. It’s such a simple way of life. All the verbs in this passage are participles: the going, the teaching, and the baptizing. Long ago in English grammar, we all learned that participles were verb forms that are to modify the main verb. Just as the participle points itself toward the main verb and is attached completely to that main verb, each of our lives are to be attached to the main verb of our existence. We were designed by God to be disciple makers, and we are to discipline, and train, and focus, and choose to do what we were designed to do. That just simplifies life. We have been placed by God in this world to be making disciples.
So, we could put it this way. What on Earth do we live for? Think about it. What are you living for? Are you living for collecting? Are you living for experiencing? Are you living for enjoying? Are you living for amassing? What are you living for? God says, those are all nice things and people do them, but that’s not what you and I were designed, and called, and saved to live for. In fact, you can outline the whole New Testament. The purpose of the Church is to make disciples. He says it here in the Gospels. Jesus trained His 12 disciples in how to make disciples. Then here at the Great Commission, Jesus charged the disciples, as He was leaving, for them to connect every point of their life toward making disciples. Everything they did in life was to be focused on the goal of disciple making.
The book of Acts is the record of how these men were used by God, empowered by the Holy Spirit to stir up everyone they got near in the Church of Christ to be going, to be talking, to be giving, to be living for making disciples. And when discipleship was needed in a new place, the people actually, you read the book of Acts, they said, we’re going to invest, we’re going to invest. We want to be a part of not only making disciples here but wherever God is at work, and it seems like the whole Church all had the same script. When you read the book of Acts, everybody is talking, everybody is going, everybody is doing, everybody is continuing from house to house, encouraging one another, saying, how are you doing as a disciple and making disciples? They weren’t distracted.
The epistles become the instruction manual, how to keep the impossible job of disciple making running smoothly. And what the epistles are about is that only obedience-surrendered and Spirit-filled believers are able to make disciples. When the Spirit is grieved, He’s quenched, His power doesn’t flow when we’re not obedient and Spirit-filled, and so we don’t make disciples. So, if you’re not making disciples, that means that either you’re not obedient or you’re not Spirit-filled. Because if the Holy Spirit fills us, He prompts us to obey what He’s asked us to do, our job description. It’s like showing up at work and doing something outside, clipping the roses, when you’re supposed to be running the checkout counter, and all the customers are lined up, and you’re saying, I’m busy. I’m busy. And they say, yeah, but we hired you to be a clerk over here. See, our job description in life is so focused, and so many people aren’t focused on the job description. They’re just focused on whatever they’ve chosen as important in their life. The Lord said, that doesn’t please Me.
By the way, Revelation shows the results. The numberless crowds of disciples are there. They’re in Heaven. They’re surrounding the throne of God, the Savior. See, the whole focus of the Bible is God redeeming a people, saving them that they would worship and glorify Him. And so, the Bible culminates with the God, who came looking for fallen humanity and left all of these witnesses, sitting on the throne with all of those disciples, those who were following Him and obeying Him, worshiping around His throne because of His wonderful message of love, because they experienced His forgiveness of sin, because they accepted His offer of reconciliation that led to eternal life. That’s the whole Bible. That’s God’s plan. God’s desire could not be clearer. God’s plan for us could not be more simply stated. The Great Commission is learning to focus every part of our life on the main verb of God’s plan: making disciples of all the nations, the kindreds, the tongues, the tribes, the people. God is glorified when He’s proclaimed for who He is, God the Savior.
I remember when I was sent out from Grace Community Church many years ago. In fact, I remember it so well, I have it written down. This is what John MacArthur, when he trained us who were under his ministry going out into the pastorate in the 1980s, this is what he told us. The mission of the Church is not fellowship. The mission of the Church is not teaching or preaching. The mission of the Church is not praising and worshiping. These are all functions of the Church. They strengthen; they motivate it. They direct it toward the mission of the Church, which is to make disciples of all nations, all peoples, all races, all tribes, all ethnic groups across the face of the Earth. That’s the only reason we’re here, because every other function of the Church would be better accomplished in Heaven. I can still hear him saying that. He said, everything we do would be better done in Heaven. The fellowship’s better, the teaching’s better, the truth’s better up there, but we’re left for the one thing. Kind of like the book, the only thing that won’t be in Heaven. What is that? Evangelism. There’s no evangelism in Heaven. That’s the only thing that we are left to do is make disciples. He goes on to say, the reason you’re here in this world is so that you might be an instrument by which God can reconcile others to Himself.
And he used to love to tell the story. I don’t know it as well as he does, but he talked about a rescue operation on some coast where there was a dangerous stretch where ships were always crashing and people were drowning, and they set up a rescue station there. And they trained people to be looking for ships that were in distress, and to go out in boats, and to pull them in the boats, and bring them back, and get them all warmed up, and save them. And this rescue outfit got so good, it got so much attention that people came, and they added onto it, and they started putting up memorials to great rescues of the past. Until finally the whole place started looking inward at all their great rescuers, and the ships were all crashing out on the rocks, and they had gone from being a rescue station to a place that extolled rescuing but not doing it. And that’s where the Church is nowadays. We’re talking about everything that’s great stuff. We’re just not doing it. We talk about it; we don’t do it. And I remember 30 years ago him reminding us that salvation is knowing and following Christ. And Jesus Christ said, I left you here to go everywhere for all your life and make sure everything that’s in your life, whether you’re a slave in the first century, working in some master’s house, or whether you’re a leather worker in your shop like Paul, or whether you’re a fisherman like the apostles began as. He says, I want everything in your life to be focused on making disciples.
Now for just a moment, turn to chapter 10 of the Gospel by John. So, you’re at the end of Matthew. Go to the right, John 10. And first I want to clarify what we’re talking about making disciples. We’re not talking about making church members, we’re not talking about getting people to sign up for something, or pray a prayer, or make a decision, or get baptized. What we’re talking about is what Jesus talked about. Look what it says, salvation is knowing and following Jesus Christ. John 10:27, just follow along in your Bible, underline this in your heart. My sheep hear My voice, I know them, they follow Me. Really knowing Jesus Christ leads to really following Him. Salvation is knowing Jesus Christ personally, not about Him, intimately experiencing Him. That’s why Jesus talks about communion as eating My flesh, drinking My blood. Eating and drinking are something we can only do for ourself. You can watch someone all day. You can read about, you can study it, you can watch videos on it on YouTube and learn how to be better at cooking. But if you don’t eat, it doesn’t do any good. That’s why Jesus said, you have to personally experience, you have to know Me. My sheep hear My voice, I know them, they follow Me. Knowing and following Jesus is the call of every believer, and it’s the only assurance of really being a member of His family. Did you know that? This is Jesus talking near the end of His ministry. The next chapter, 11, is the raising of Lazarus, and then we go into the last day of His life. The events are quickly coming to an end. This is at the end of His ministry, and He says, hey, knowing and following Me is the evidence of being a disciple, of being a truly born-again person.
Now, turn back to Matthew 7. I’ll show you how He began His ministry. Matthew 7:13, Jesus started off His ministry with a bang at the start of His public teaching at the end of His longest message. The message, by the way, starts in chapter 5 of Matthew. Look in chapter 7 and verse 13. It’s His longest message and look what Jesus says at the end of it about knowing and following Him. In Matthew 7:13, remember, this is a public message directed at Christ’s disciples. It starts out, He’s talking to His disciples, and everybody else is listening because Matthew’s all about how to be a disciple maker. And to be a disciple maker, you have to know who a disciple is. That’s very vital. I think we’ve even lost that in modern Christendom. It’s like there are many kinds of disciples. No, there’s only one type of disciple, the ones that know, hear, and follow Jesus Christ.
Now, look at verse 13. Jesus said this, enter by the narrow gate; wide is the gate, broad is the way that leads to destruction; there are many who go in by that gate. Because, verse 14, narrow is the gate and difficult is the way that leads to life, and few who find it. Beware of false prophets, verse 15, they come to you in sheep’s clothing, inwardly they’re ravenous wolves. You’ll know them by their fruit. Do you gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit; a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Verse 19, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown in the fire. Therefore, by their fruits you will know them. Do you get them? He’s saying, you will know by what comes out of someone’s life what they are. Are they good or bad? Now, verse 21, not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord. Not everybody who prays the prayer, we could put that in 21st century terms. Not everybody who makes a decision, not everybody who joins the church, not everybody who gets baptized shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Then who will, Lord? Look at verse 21 continues, but he who does the will of My Father in Heaven, those who know Christ because they’ve heard His voice and they follow Him. Notice what it says, do the will of my Father in Heaven.
We are born with our own will. We want our own way. We’re like wandering sheep where everybody’s going their own way, and when we get saved, we hear His voice, we respond to Him as our Shepherd, and we start following Him. That’s what salvation is. It’s not being inside of a building. It’s not having your name on a roll. It’s not saying, 30 years ago I did that, I prayed that. Do you know Him and follow His will? Now He gets, you talk about scaring people, look at verse 22. Many will say unto Me in that day, Lord, Lord, haven’t we prophesied Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders? We were involved! We spent our whole lives attached to the rescue station. And I will declare to them, I never knew you. He didn’t say, liar. He didn’t say, you weren’t in church all your life. He didn’t say that you did all those wonderful things in His name. He says, yeah, but I never knew you. But here’s how you know if you know Him. Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness. That’s parallel with doing the will of My Father. See, the parallel is that lost people do their own will, which is lawlessness, not God’s will. It’s lawlessness. But saved people know, and follow, and obey God. And it’s a miracle! We humanly can’t do that. And so, Jesus goes on to say, and I will declare to them, in verse 23, I never knew you.
So basically, what He’s saying is, disciples know and follow Jesus Christ. That’s why the early Church is called the disciples. It’s not just the 11, the original 12, then the 11, then they add Matthias. It’s not just those. All the way through the Book of Acts, all the way through chapter 21 verse 16, Christians are called disciples. When Paul went on all his missionary journeys, he went, and made disciples, and trained, and led people to becoming obedient followers of Christādisciples. That’s what a Christian isāa disciple. And a disciple knows and follows Jesus Christ.
Now, let’s go to 1 Timothy 4 because I want to see how we even got to where we are today. First Timothy 4, by the way, that’s our series, and this whole section of 1 Timothy 4 is predicated on this truth we’ve been looking at this morning. We are Christ’s disciples. This is what we desire to do. We want to train ourselves in what a disciple is to be, and Paul is teaching Timothy. See, the whole Christian life is showing and telling. You tell them the truth of God, but you show them by your life. You show them how to do it. You tell them what God says, the command, but you teach them, by example, how to do it, so Paul is telling Timothy. Because we’re Christ’s disciples, 1 Timothy 4:1-6, we discipline ourselves in truth. What does that mean? Our source is God’s Word. Our source of truth is God’s Word. His Word of truth is what we found salvation through. So then, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the what? Word of God! Receive the engrafted Word, which is able to save your souls. You understand that the Scriptures are the power of God unto salvation. I’m not ashamed of the Gospel. The Gospel is contained in the Word of God. It’s a declaration of the truth of God, and we know God through His Word. And so, the first discipline is the discipline of truth. We realize our source in God’s Word is our source of truth.
That leads us to the discipline of devotion. We love God’s Word, and the more we spend time, and it feeds us. That was the whole connected to the cord, making sure you’re connected to God. When you open the Bible, people have mindlessly read the Bibles for centuries, for thousands of years actually, since Moses first wrote it 3,500 years ago. People have been reading it and not going to Heaven. You just can’t read it; you have to read it connected, it has to be connected, to God. Your and my soul connects to God by faith, and all of a sudden, the Bible feeds us, it charges us. The discipline of devotion is we love God’s Word, and it feeds us.
And that leads us to thirdly, the discipline of time. We begin to invest our lives in eternal things, not worthless things. All of a sudden, we start seeing things as profane, and empty, and godless, and they’re not really worth wasting life on. That’s what the discipline of time is about.
And then as that continues, that leads us to the discipline of integrity. We saw last time where we actually personally pursue godliness. We start seeing parts of our life. It’s kind of like you go through a museum, and they have the black light section, where they’re showing where your white shirt just glows, and they’re showing all those rocks, they have all those pretty colors. And all of a sudden, you look at your clothes, and what you couldn’t see in normal light, you see all the lint. I remember I used to go through the museum just to pick off, I’d stand in there and just go like this. You get in bright enough light; you can see stuff that needs to go. Did you know that’s what happens with this? James says that we look in the perfect law of liberty, which is how he describes the Word of God, and we see ourselves, and we see what needs to be changed. And that’s why every time we’re in the Word and we’re connected to God, He changes us. Because what we say is, I don’t want that in my life. I don’t want that. That doesn’t please You. I didn’t know about that. Oh!
And we’re growing in Christ’s likeness, which leads us to the discipline of disciple making. As soon as we come to that point where we’re growing, we explain to others what knowing and following Jesus is all about. We have mystified the process of discipleship so much that people think if you haven’t taken three courses, and have five books, and have forty-seven things, and you never get through the list. Do you know what discipleship is? What did Jesus teach his disciples how to do? You can see it right in Matthew. He teaches them to feed on the Word of God. He teaches them to pray. They want, they’re coming to Him saying, teach us how to pray. He teaches them about how they’re supposed to overcome the evil one. Watch out for the devil, and then He tells them how they’re supposed to share the Gospel. It’s so simple. We’ve made it mystifying.
You go to someone, you explain to them the Gospel, and you make sure they’re saved. That’s usually my first lesson. When I disciple someone, I go through the Gospel and I say, here, this is what you need to lead someone to Christ. Do you know how many times I’ve done that? And people have turned to me and they’ve said, after the whole session they go, I couldn’t share that with him. That hasn’t happened to me. I knew it hadn’t; I could tell. They didn’t know, and they all of a sudden realized they were not saved. So, you go through the Word of God pointing to salvation. Once you’re sure they’re saved, then you show them how to get something out of the Bible. Have you ever read the Bible and received a truth that has just burned in your heart? If that’s happened to you, you explain to others how you did that. That’s how to read the Bible. Have you ever prayed? I’m discipling someone; I’m teaching them how to pray. The first time we met, I said, okay, I’m going to have you close in prayer. They said, I don’t pray out loud. I said you’re going to pray out loud. You’ve heard this story over and over again. Months have gone by, and I recently met with them, and I said, okay, that’s the last of our session. They said, you’re not going to ask me to pray? Because you see, they’d been practicing. They wanted to pray out loud.
Do you see, we’re supposed to explain to others. It’s not rocket science. It’s not nuclear physics. It’s not understanding something that is incomprehensible. It’s us saying, this is how you read the Bible. This is how I read the Bible, and I’m going to explain to you how to read the Bible. This is how you pray. This is how I pray. Let’s learn how to pray. This is how you lead someone to Christ. This is how I lead someone to Christ. This is how you memorize Scripture. This is how I memorize Scripture. These are the verses I’ve learned. This is how… And you just explain, and you come to the end. As soon as they know how to do it, their last assignment is now find someone and go do this with them. Did you know, if you are sitting in this pew and saved, this is what every one of us in this room are going to stand in front of God and hear Him ask us whether we did on Earth what He left us to do, making disciples.
Can you this morning put your finger on parts of your life that are attached to making disciples of Jesus Christ? If not, you’re not doing what He left us to do on Earth. It’s very sobering to think about. A disciple is someone who knows and follows Jesus Christ, so discipleship is teaching someone how to know and follow Jesus Christ, and it’s teaching them that God, by His grace, wants to master every area of our life and make our lives pleasing in His sight. We sit with them and say, this is, the Lord has convicted me here, He is changing me there, He’s working in my heart in this area.
And that’s how we’re supposed to train tomorrow’s godly men and women. Did you know that the Bible says that Christianity is all about personal face-to-face training? Paul compared himself to a nursing mother. Have you ever seen a mother nurse a child from afar? The child has to be quite close to her. You know, it is very much, Paul said, I am nurturing you up close. I am to you like a father and a nursing mother. I am closely involved in face-to-face training.
Now Jesus, if you study the Gospels, there are 17 big crowd ministries Jesus has that are very clear. He’s speaking to vast crowds, 17. There are 46 recorded times when He pulls away from the vast crowds and gets with His small group of disciples. Now, if you add 17 and 46 together and get 63, what you find is it’s about one fifth big crowd and about 80 percent face to face. That’s the essence of what the Church is about. We’re supposed to be face to face with other people, explaining to them. Just as a baby never grows, and matures, and it’s considered sick unless they’re eating, so any believer that doesn’t grow and mature is also sick. So, we go to them, we say, we’re concerned about your spiritual health. You don’t appear to be growing. Are you sick? In the Church often people are physically well and mature, yet if we could see them spiritually, they’re stunted, weak, and underdeveloped and sick.
So, what was God’s plan? If you understand Matthew 28 model, you understand this was the simple discipleship curriculum, that everything in life was geared toward making disciples. And so, if there’s anything we’re going to talk about, we’re going to talk about where are you reading in the Bible? And how’s the Lord changing you? How are you seeing Him in your life? And who do you know in your life that you’re going to seek to talk to? And what are you praying about these days? And how are you seeing the Word of God change your life? What verses are you memorizing to overcome your fears and anxieties and struggles with this or that? And how are you seeing the Lord modifying this area in your life? And how are you doing it? Did you know that’s why the early Church was so vibrant? There weren’t any spectators there. It was uncomfortable. You weren’t interested in going to those services because everybody was coming to you and finding out about your spiritual life, and if you didn’t have a spiritual life, you didn’t want to be there.
Now we flipped all that around. Do you know what the going paradigm for the Church is? Make everybody comfortable. Why? So, they can all be spectators, not really be involved. Just make sure they give, but don’t expect them to do anything else. That’s not the New Testament Church. Genuine disciples are needed, and the Scriptures tell us that perhaps the single greatest weakness we can see in contemporary Christianity is we have millions of supposed members who are not involved at all. I don’t mean involved in coming and going from the building. They’re not involved in hands-on, face-to-face discipleship. It’s not enough to spectate; it’s actually being involved in making disciples. To make disciples, you have to get around people, even people you’re not comfortable with.
I met someone very interesting this morning. Someone ran up to me in first service said, I want you to meet someone! I said, I want to meet them, whoever they are. They said, three weeks in a row, we’ve been driving here to church, and we’ve seen them three weeks walking to the building. So, we pulled over the third week and said, are you coming to Calvary? And they go, yeah. They said, oh, where did you walk from? They said, oh, Gull Road over by the old Pfizer farms. They said, how long does it take to get over here? They said, two hours. Wow! You know what they did? Instead of rolling the window up and driving on, they said, jump in. We’ll take you the last 40 feet. Do you need a ride next week? Do you mind if we don’t come two hours before the service? It’s faster in our car, and they are investing their life in someone they saw who is completely different than them. I can tell you that. I met both of them. Someone that we would not all be totally comfortable with, but they are given to face-to-face making of disciples because they’ve read their job description.
As soon as we recognize Christ’s intentions to make His Church a company that is out going to the world, we will understand that once the conventional arrangement of the Church continues any longer, it will not suffice. There is no chance of accomplishing what Christ desired if 99 percent of the soldiers are untrained and uninvolved. See, you can measure your involvement by how many people you directly are nurturing in Christ. That’s why it’s so much to do with the family. It starts out, are you nurturing your wife? Are you, husband and wife, building each other up? Are you personally involved in your children’s life? You get all practiced up, and as soon as they move on, you just fill in with other people, and you go through life that way. Basically, discipleship is showing and telling. We tell them what God says, we show them how to do it.
Hebrews 5 says this, and it’s amazing. It says, we have much to say about this, but it’s hard to explain because you are so slow to learn. The writer of Hebrews was pointed, wasn’t he? In fact, though by this time you ought to be teaching others, you still need someone to teach you the elementary truths over again; you need milk, not solid food. Solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves. There’s that exercise yourself to godliness. See, this is, this was the heartbeat of the New Testament. The whole New Testament is disciple-making focused. Disciples, followers of Christ, were making other followers of Christ. They were dispensing the word of reconciliation.
Paul went on to say, this is why I live my life, Galatians 2:20, I was crucified with Christ. When I got saved, I didn’t have anything else. It’s no longer my life. I now have Christ living in me, and when Christ lives in me, I live for Him who loved me and gave Himself for me. See, that’s what salvation’s all about, the exchanged life. I exchange my plans and purposes and everything else for His. That’s what being crucified with Him is all about.
So, the question is, what on Earth do we live for? If in the Gospels, Jesus spent all this time training 12 and making them disciples. If the book of Acts is the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to stir everybody up to be going, and talking, and giving, and living for making disciples. If the epistles are all tune-ups in an instruction manual to how to keep this impossible job running smoothly. And if all of us are headed to the results, to a numberless crowd of disciples in Heaven surrounding the throne. If that’s what it’s all about, if you’re really in the family, then we need to start focusing our life like the participles focused on the main verb of life, which is making disciples.
So, that brings us to this question. Are you measuring your life by Christ’s standard? You ask most people how they’re doing, and they think, hmm, I don’t feel sick, I still have a job, have money, car’s running. What are we measuring life by? All temporary, physical, earthly things. If we measure life by Christ’s standard today, we say, I want to personally follow Jesus because that’s what a disciple is. My sheep hear My voice, I know them, they follow Me. So, if you’re saved, that is the evidence. And then, since we know what He wants us to do, we ask ourself, is my day revolving around His desire to make disciples? Did I start my day like the family that saw the guy walking? They had to have thought and prayed about this, and they come driving up beside him, put the window down, say, are you headed to Calvary? That was kind of a fearful thing. If the guy would’ve said, are you kidding? And kicked their car, a little danger there. But they started their day, they intentionally went driving to look, his pathway they’d seen.
Are you starting the day seeking Him as you go through the day? Are you saying, I want ways to serve You? At the end of the day, do you thank Him for the opportunities He gave you? Did you know, you’ll never take someone with you to Heaven by leading them to Christ if you’re not asking the Lord to give you that opportunity, if you’re not arming yourself with the tools you needāa Gospel presentation, a Gospel tractāif you’re not intentionally going and face-to-face talking to people. If the only thing we can take with us to Heaven are people we lead to Christ, and we’re supposed to do that, why aren’t we pointing our life that direction? We never get where we’re not pointed. In our desires and actions, believers are disciples who grow every day as a Christ follower, imitating Christ who did, everything was focused on making disciples, those 12, and we become like Him in this Christless world.
It’s time to go. It’s 11:43, so let’s all stand. And as you stand, I have two questions. Number one, are you a disciple of Jesus Christ? Not, did you pray something 30 years ago? Is Christ alive and powerfully evident to you today in your life? If not, maybe you need a tune-up on that whole relationship. Maybe you need someone to explain to you again what it means. And at the end of the service, we always have elders and our godly Titus 2 women in the faith that are up here with their Bibles, and they would love to pull off the side, get in a pew with you, or take you somewhere, and go through the Gospel. That’s number one. Are you a disciple of Christ, born-again follower of Jesus Christ? If not, today you can cry out to Him. There’s no incantation. There’s no certain words you have to say. It’s me crying out to the God who is the living and true God, who is the Savior, who actually came and died for my sins, and I cry out to Him. That’s number one.
Number two, are you making disciples? Is every, is the main verb of your life making disciples, and every decision and plan, where you live, what you do. I have people, I ask them, oh, what kind of house you looking for? I want one on the golf course. I said, oh, you’re going to try and win all those people to the Lord? You’re trying to make me feel bad about my house? I said, no, I’m trying to ask you if you’re living for what you live for. Where are you looking for a house? On the lake. Oh, you’re trying to win all those people and those boats to the Lord? Are you trying to make me feel bad about it? No! Have a house on an island on a golf course in the middle of a lake if you’re trying to reach the people for Christ. Otherwise, confess you’re not living for what your job description says. See, we have to be honest. Are you doing what Christ left you and me to do?
Let’s bow for a word of prayer. Father, I pray that though this is a place of fellowship, and worship, and teaching, and preaching, those are just to aid the mission. And the mission for every one of us is to make disciples, and I pray that we would seriously begin to sort through our lives and start asking You to turn every part of us that’s not facing toward the main verb of our lives, making disciples, to turn it that way. And if it won’t turn, to ask You to get rid of that because we don’t want that because it’s hindering why we’re here. And I pray more and more we’d see the fervor and focus of the early Church who knew why they were here, and they lived for You wherever they were in life. May we do that too, for Your glory. In the precious name of Jesus, we pray, and all God’s people said, amen. God bless you as you go.
Notes
As we come to the Discipline of Disciple-Making, we come to our very own personal Job Description, left by Christ as the reason He saved us and left us here to serve Him through life. A question that should frame each day of our lives is: āAm I Doing What Christ Left Me to Do?ā
God has always desired to be glorified by reaching this world with His message of love, His forgiveness of sin, and His offer of reconciliation leading to eternal life. God is not willing that any should perish, so He has always desired that the world to hear His message and repent, so that they may be saved. Because:
God is a Savior
God had Noah preach for a hundred years calling the world to repent. God established Israel as a light to the nations, but they mostly refused, so He set them aside temporarily.
God has for the past 2,000 years worked through His Church to spread His message of love, forgiveness, repentance, and reconciliation unto life eternal. God has future plans clearly written down for Israel to again spread His message around the world as Revelation 7-14 details. But for now, we the Church are His plan.
So God has always been glorified through people who would witness and proclaim His message of salvation. At this moment, God is working His plan of redemption through us His Church. Just as in the Old Testament, God clearly laid down His plans for Israel, as Deuteronomy says: they were to cling to the Lord, love the Lord, serve the Lord, and through their love for outsiders, they were to share His love, and declare His faithfulness.Ā As the Old Testament details, Israel sadly disregarded that calling and commission, and so God temporarily sets them aside.
Now, as the New Testament opens, God has even more clearly told us His Church what He expects from us. In fact, at the climax of Christ’s earthly ministry, He gathers His Apostles, and in the power of the Resurrection, they as the leaders of the first generation of the Church were: given His Clear Commission. As we open to Matthew 28, we are opening to the amazing linkage of God the Saviorās plan, given to Israel but ignored by them; and now given to us His Church.
The magnitude of these words has never faded. These are the clearest marching orders for every believer alive today. Matthew 28:18-20 is the distillation of all that Jesus was doing in His Earthly ministry as recorded in the Gospels. All the rest of the Epistles are written as examples and explanations of the Great Commission to the Church. Revelation is the finish of the Churchās term of service, and the return of Israel to active duty. Please stand, and hear in no uncertain terms Godās plans, expectations, and desires expressed in our Commission:
Matthew 28:18-20 (NKJV) And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, āAll authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.ā Amen.
What On Earth Do We Live For
The key that unlocks why God has left us here on Earth, after our salvation, is in verse 19 where Christ said: “Make disciples.” These words were carefully engineered by the Spirit of God to explain the focus of every day of our lives, if we want to please God.
All the other verbs in v. 19 are participles: āgoingā, āteachingā, ābaptizingā. Long ago in English grammar we all learned that participles are verb forms that are to modify the main verb. Just as each participle points itself towards the main verb, and is attached completely to that main verb: so each of us are to live our life with every part of us in some way attached to the purpose in life we have been given by God: making disciples.
The purpose of the Church is to make disciples. In the Gospels, Jesus trained His 12 in making disciples. Then here at the Great Commission, Jesus Christ charged the disciples as He was leaving: to connect and point everything they did in life towards that goal of disciple-making.
The Book of Acts is the record of how those men were used by God, and empowered by His Spirit to stir up everyone in the Church to be going, talking, giving, and living for making disciples.
The Epistles become the instruction manual for how to keep the impossible job of disciple-making running smoothly: since only obedient, surrendered, Spirit-filled believers are able to make disciples.
Then, Revelation shows the results, the numberless crowds of disciples that are in Heaven, surrounding the Throne of God the Savior, worshipping Him because of His wonderful message of love, His forgiveness of sin, and His offer of reconciliation leading to eternal life.
Godās desire could not be clearer. Godās plan for us could not be more simply stated. The Great Commission is focusing every part of our life upon the main verb of Godās plan: making disciples of all the nations, kindreds, tongues, and tribes of people. God is glorified as He is proclaimed for Who He really is: God the Savior.
When I was sent out as a pastor from Grace Church in the 1980ās, I will never forget what John MacArthur taught us men, trained under his ministry[1]:
āThe mission of the church is not fellowship, the mission of the church is not teaching and preaching, the mission of the church is not praise and worship. Those are all functions of the church, which strengthen it and motivate it and direct it toward the mission of the church, which is to make disciples of all nations, all people, all races, all tribes, all ethnic groups across the face of the earth. That’s the only reason we’re here because every other function of the church would be better accomplished in heaven, better fellowship, better knowledge of the truth, better worship in heaven. Ā The reason you’re here in this world, is so that you might be an instrument by which God can reconcile others to Himself.
Salvation was simply described by Jesus in John 10, as we open there next, to John 10:27, note what Jesus says: Jesus Christ is the Shepherd, and we are His sheep if we hear His voice, He knows us, and we follow Him.
Salvation = Knowing & Following Jesus Christ
Follow along with me as I read those words:
John 10:27 (NKJV) My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
Really knowing Jesus Christ leads to really following Him. Knowing & following Jesus is the call of every believer, and the only assurance of really being a member of Godās family.
Earlier, at the start of His public teaching, at the end of His longest message, note what Jesus said about knowing and following Him. Turn back there with me to Matthew 7:13. Ā As we read these words in just a moment, remember that this is a public message, directed at Christ’s disciples. We who are also His disciples, followers, and those who know Him, should be reminded again about how serious Jesus was about the call to salvation. Please stand and listen with me to the voice of Christ through His Word:
Matthew 7:13-29 (NKJV) āEnter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. 15 āBeware of false prophets, who come to you in sheepās clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them. 21 āNot everyone who says to Me, āLord, Lord,ā shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, āLord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?ā 23 And then I will declare to them, āI never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!ā 24 āTherefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. 26 āBut everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.ā 28 And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, 29 for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
Disciples Know & Follow Jesus Christ
Really knowing Jesus Christ leads to really following Him.
Knowing & following Jesus is the call of every believer, and the only assurance of really being a member of Godās family. Jesus ends His first big message to the crowds just starting to follow Him with a bang.
Jesus thunders out the most terrifying warning of His entire ministry in His longest and fullest message: Watch out! Donāt get to the end of your life and think you are saved and find out that you were not really saved.
How did Jesus say that they (and we today) could really know true salvation? It is only through knowing & following Jesus Christ. That is the essence of salvation: truly saved people are Christ’s disciples. They know Him, and they follow Him.
As the Apostle John was inspired to say, it is also the test of true salvation. Listen to him in his first letter: āWhoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.ā (1 John 2:6)
Walking as Jesus walked is what disciple-making is all about. Welcome to our study of the Discipline of Disciple-Making. We are in the fifth element of the ten elements that Paul taught Timothy, will characterize a life of godliness, in 1 Timothy 4. We can call these the:
Biblical Exercises for Spiritual Health & Fitness in 2014
The Discipline of Truth (our source is in God’s Word of Truth v. 1-6a) leads us toĀ >
The Discipline of Devotion (we love of God’s Word that feeds us v. 6b) leads us to >
The Discipline of Time (we invest our lives in the eternal not the worthless v. 7a) leads us to >
The Discipline of Integrity (we actually personally pursue godliness v. 7b-10) leads to >
The Discipline of Disciple-Making (we explain to others what knowing & following Jesus is all about) v. 11.
Note how short, sweet, and to the point Paul gets, here in 1 Timothy 4:11 (NKJV) These things command and teach.
Those are both imperatives, by the way. They were not optional, they were required. To be a good and faithful servant of Jesus Christ, we are to all spend time in life pointing others to what Christ ācommandedā and then āteachingā them how to do those things, from the example of our own lives lived in the power of His Spirit.
We have already covered the first four elements of these exercises, or disciplines for godliness, in the previous ten verses.
The Discipline of Truth: Expose False Doctrines & Teachers (4:1-6a)
The Discipline of Devotion: Nourish your own Soul spiritually (6:6b)
The Discipline of Time: Reject all forms of profane & empty living (4:7a)
The Discipline of Integrity: Pursue personal Godliness (4:7b-10)
The Discipline of Disciple-Making: Command and Teach others in God’s Ways Ā (4:11)
Discipleship: Knowing & Following Jesus Christ
Christ’s first words, to His first disciples, should be our first priority as His disciples today. āFollow Meā is still the essence of Biblical Christianity.
Those two words were what He spoke to Peter, Andrew, James and John as they fished (Matthew 4:19) and to Matthew as he sat at the tax office (Luke 5:27); and those two words are what He still calls for as He walks through this world.
Godās plan is all about personal, face-to-face training.
Just as a baby needs nurturing, feeding, protection, and careāso every person born into Godās family is to be nurtured, fed, trained, and cared for by matured believers until they grow enough to care for another.
Just as a baby that never grows and matures is considered sick, so any believer that doesnāt grow and mature is also sick.
But in the church often people are physically well and mature, yet if we could see them spiritually they are stunted, weak, under-developed, and sick.
What was Godās plan for this need of spiritual nurture? He called the plan āmaking disciplesā, and He made that the one goal for everyone in His family.
If you understand the Matthew 28:19-20 model, you understand that this was the simple discipleship curriculum of the early church. Early missionary pioneers used this method. They took only the Scriptures and trained the believers from God’s Word in what God expected. They defined, explained, and then applied the simple lessons of God’s Word.
Paul wrote down the plan God had for every person that claimed Christ as Lord and Savior. God by His grace wants to master every area of our life to make our lives pleasing in His sight. That means God wants His church to be:
Training Tomorrowās Godly Men & Women Today
But the sad part about the history of the church is that it seems like after a few years most believers in most churches have gotten inoculated by Christās words and seem to take them less-and-less seriously. Inoculations are when a powerful virus is injected, and some irritation, or redness occurs, but then it goes away; it was a slight annoyance but nothing like the actual disease.
“We have all been inoculated with Christianity, and are never likely to take it seriously now!Ā We are on Christ’s side, we wish him well, we hope that He will win, and we are even prepared to do something for Him, provided, of course, that He is reasonable, and does not make too much of an upset among our cozy comforts and our customary ways.
But there is not the passion of zeal, and the burning enthusiasm, and the eagerness of self-sacrifice, of the real faith that changes character and wins the world.”[2]
Although the word discipleship is a common term used constantly in many churches, we donāt seem to see āChrist-likeā people developing as readily as it is talked about.
Genuine Disciples Needed
We live in a land where millions of born again Christians are suffering from acute biblical illiteracy; and many of them are enslaved to culture-accommodating lifestyles. It is a critical time to reassess how God’s Word says to train people to be true followers of our Lord Jesus.
āPerhaps the greatest single weakness of the contemporary Christian Church is that millions of supposed members are not really involved at all and, what is worse, do not think it strange that they are not. As soon as we recognize Christās intention to make His Church a militant company we understand at once that the conventional arrangement cannot suffice. There is no real chance of victory in a campaign if ninety per cent of the soldiers are untrained and uninvolved, but that is exactly where we stand now.ā[3]
In analyzing the Gospels we find that Jesus ministered to the multitudes no less than 17 times; but His small group sessions recorded number no less than 46. Although this is just an observation, we could conclude that Christ’s plan was to offer a mix of 25% public training (large group sessions) and 75% small group nurturing (discipleship, hands on demonstrations and accountability).
Showing & Telling = Disciple-Making
Christians that were baptized into the hope of both eternal life and newness of life are often not successful in living Christ out in practical, every day ways. This most likely because: the Biblical concept of āteachingā is becoming more of a ātellingā or āpointingā to available resources, rather than life-style demonstration.
āWe have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of Godās Word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.ā (Heb. 5:11-14)
Living Life by Following Christ
Paul, as he wrote the New Testament epistles (or letters) to churches and individuals, he was just expanding and illustrating that life of following Christ. In Galatians 2:20 Paul explained that as believers, following Christ means we do not live our own lives. We live the life of another, or, more accurately, another lives His life through us. Look again at those words:
Galatians 2:20 (NKJV) I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
The heartbeat of Galatians 2:20 is the essence of following Christ; and that is all that is essential to live our lives as believers. But, until we grasp that as the key to the mystery of Christian living, we have not graduated from the pre-school level of the Christian life.
This morning each of us can measure our lifeās worth by the degree to which Christ is followed! But as our Bible study has reminded us, not only are we to be Christ’s followersāour lives are also to slowly become a pattern for others to follow!
What On Earth Do We Live For
The key that unlocks why God has left us here on Earth, after our salvation, is when Christ said: “Make disciples.” These words were carefully engineered by the Spirit of God to explain the focus of every day of our lives, if we want to please God.
All the other verbs in v. 19 are participles: āgoingā, āteachingā, ābaptizingā. Long ago in English grammar we all learned that participles are verb forms that are to modify the main verb. Just as each participle points itself towards the main verb, and is attached completely to that main verb: so each of us are to live our life with every part of us in some way attached to the purpose in life we have been given by God: making disciples. The purpose of the Church is to make disciples.
In the Gospels, Jesus trained His 12 in making disciples. Then here at the Great Commission, Jesus Christ charged the disciples as He was leaving: to connect and point everything they did in life towards that goal of disciple-making.
The Book of Acts is the record of how those men were used by God, and empowered by His Spirit to stir up everyone in the Church to be going, talking, giving, and living for making disciples.
The Epistles become the instruction manual for how to keep the impossible job of disciple-making running smoothly: since only obedient, surrendered, Spirit-filled believers are able to make disciples.
Then, Revelation shows the results, the numberless crowds of disciples that are in Heaven, surrounding the Throne of God the Savior, worshipping Him because of His wonderful message of love, His forgiveness of sin, and His offer of reconciliation leading to eternal life.
Godās desire could not be clearer.
Godās plan for us could not be more simply stated. The Great Commission is focusing every part of our life upon the main verb of Godās plan: making disciples of all the nations.
God is glorified as we proclaim Him for Who He really is: God the Savior.
Measuring Life by Christ’s Standard
What was Christ’s first act in ministry, as He walked along the shore of the Sea of Galilee? He called four fishermen to āfollow Meā. What did He call those who followed Him? His disciples.
Today, are you personally following Jesus?
Does your day revolve around His desire to make disciples: as you start the day with seeking Him, as you go through the day serving Him, and end the day with thanking Him?
Believers are disciples who grow each day as Christ-followers in a Christ-less world.
Jesus Christ trained His disciples, and described for them how a disciple was to behave and think.
After His death, burial, and resurrection, what did Jesus leave them (and us) to do?
Go and make disciples.
[1] http://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/2404/the-making-disciples-of-all-nations-part-1
[2] From the Edge of the Crowd, A. J. Gossip, T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh: 1924.
[3] Elton Trueblood, The Company of the Committed, NY, NY: Harper, 1961, p. 38.
