Our Mission: Making Disciples (9/10/17 Standalone)

ATTENTION: Last Sunday, Ange shared her stirring testimony of growing up in a bi-racial home and I followed her, linking what she shared with what our church’s vision is. If you missed it, it’s on our website. Do listen to it as it spells out what our church is about. Today, I want to share with you what our mission is – what we are to do. The mission is what we exist to do as spelled out by our Maker. Now, our vision is a specific way in which our church will attempt to achieve that mission. So, our vision of Diversity Brought Together As One in Christ is there in order to help us achieve the mission that God has given to us. And that mission is to make disciples – Matthew 28:19.

We are getting into the topic of the purpose of our lives. There really are two choices when it comes to our ultimate. Either we have no purpose or we do. If we weren’t created – if we are indeed a product of random chance plus matter plus time, then we have no purpose. Therefore, we have no specific thing we must do. Sun will burn out and everything we ever built will  die with it and so what does it matter what we do? Death will end it all. “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die!” But if we are created by an intelligent being, then we do have a purpose. And the Creator decides what that purpose is. We do not decide it, no more than a smartphone decides its own purpose. The engineer who created it decides what and how it will be used. So, our Maker and Redeemer, Jesus, spells out what that is.

“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing the in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit, and teaching them to obey everything i have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19)

So, if you are a Christian – a follower of Christ – there is a mission for you And that is to lead yourself and others to trust, love, and find joy in Christ – to be a disciple. What is a disciple? A disciple is a follower or a learner. It refers to someone who takes up the ways of someone else. In the Christian sense, a disciple is someone who learns from Jesus to live like him. Or you’ve heard this: disciples of Jesus are themselves mini-Christs. We are to be disciples of Jesus and to help others become disciples of Jesus. This is not only for serious Christians. All Christians are to be disciples. There is not a category for Christians and then if you want to be more serious, you become a disciple. The Bible does not make that distinction. James 2:19 You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. 20 How foolish! Can’t you see that faith without good deeds is useless?

And what are the good deeds? It’s the deeds to become a disciple of Christ. It is what D.A. Carson says is grave-drive effort. It is not good deeds to earn God’s grace but good deeds that prove God’s grace has been received. Janet makes dinner for our kids every night not in order to become their mother. She makes them because she is their mother. And the Bible concludes that those who do not strive those good deeds prove that they never received grace.

With that said, let’s take Jesus’ great commission one phrase at a time.

1. “Go and make disciples”

        You see that it must be intentional. Go and make. Those are active verbs commanding us to act. We don’t just lay back and wait for things to come our way. No. We actively seek for potential disciples and help them become impassioned followers of Christ. Jesus went around looking for His disciples. He didn’t set up church in his house and waited for disciples to come. No. He went after them and actively sought out these disciples and then lived with them for 3 years, rebuking them, correcting them and encouraging them to become His followers. So, we are to actively seek to make disciples.

Now, what are the characteristics of a disciple? 3 things here:

1. A) “baptizing them in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit.

    Baptism is a symbol of our joining the family of God. Baptism represents Christ’s death and resurrection. When we go under water, it represents our death to the old self. And when we come out, it represent resurrection. Just like Jesus was put to death and laid in the tomb and 3 days later, came back to life. Baptism symbolizes that we are identifying ourselves with that Christ and by being baptized, we are also signaling to other believers, we are becoming their family. Now that we have the common Father in God the Father and common brother in Jesus Christ, we are becoming a family. So, a disciple is someone who is identified with God and a body of believers called the local church. The operative word I want to use is: BELONG.

 

1. B) “Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

Part of disciple making is to helping our disciple to obey everything Jesus has commanded. The word I want to use is submission. We are to teach people to submit to God’s authority on their lives.

ILL: Imagine you are a young adult and you want to make a disciple. So, you see someone who is open to Christianity and is interested. You have him over for lunch and you present the gospel to him, and he accepts it! Now what? You invite him to church and he starts attending. Are you done? No. He’s your disciple. You must teach him to obey everything Christ has commanded. Maybe he has a foul mouth? You teach him that he represents Christ now and pure things should come out of his mouth. Maybe he has greed issue. He’s too attached to his money. You teach him to be generous. Maybe he has a lust issue. You teach him to be pure. Maybe he lacks knowledge. You study with him to bring up his knowledge of the scripture. you are doing everything you can to bring up that disciple of yours to become like Christ. The operative word here is: BECOME.

 

1. C) “Go and make disciples.”

Jesus was speaking to His disciples to make disciples of their own! That disciple making is not done until your disciple is able to make other disciples. Jesus stayed with His disciples for 3 years teaching them to obey everything He commanded them. And then what did those 12 do? They went out and looked for the disciples of their own and had them follow Jesus and obey everything he commanded. and then those disciples did the same and on and on. Let me give you a mathematical possibility. Let’s say you took 2 people under your wings for a year and poured your life into them to be passionate followers of Christ. And then those 2 people went out and found 2 more each and for a year, poured their lives into them. So at the end of year one, there are 2 disciples. But at the end of year 2 there are 4. And then those four did the same for a year, so at the end of year 3, there are 8. If you went on that way, you know how long it would take to make disciples of 7 billion people – in other words, the world’s entire population? 30 years. That’s right. In our life time, if we just focused on making just 2 disciples a year and they went out and did the same, in 30 years, the entire world would come be follow Christ. And that is what disciples do. They go and make other disciples. They reproduce. The operative word here is: BEGET.

        So the disciple making involves: 1) Belonging. 2) Becoming. 3) Begetting. Now, you could add BELIEVE in there to make it rhyme. but it is assumed and here is where I would put it. I would put it between belonging and becoming. Before, I would’ve put it before belonging. You need to believe before you belong. That is true in a sense. You really need to believe in the Lordship of Jesus Christ before you can belong to the body of Christ. But the way it usually happens is that a person feels a sense of belonging before he believes. How would you get somebody to believe in Jesus Christ? By arguing and debating? No. by loving and including and persuading. Jesus didn’t approach His disciples and said, “If you want to follow me, you have to believe that I’m the son of God first.” No. He simply told them, “Come, follow me.” And he loved on them, he ate with them and they had a sense of community – in other words, these ragtag group of people had a sense of belonging and then they believed. Their belief came from their belonging first.

APP: So, picture what that looks like in your life. Maybe there is someone – one or two in your neighborhood who’s open to the gospel. build a relationship with him/her. Be intentional about it. Don’t try at first to shove the gospel down his throat at first. No. Help him know that he belongs. Better yet, introduce him to some of your Christian friends you trust. and invite him to your community group. And as a small body of Christ, really make him feel he belongs. Then, present the gospel to him. Belief will come. and then teach him to obey everything Christ said. Now he’s really becoming. And then he’s ready to beget. to have his/her own disciples.

If you yourself need to be discipled – to become like Christ, you will have to make some efforts. Grace-driven efforts. You will not grow as a disciple/Christian while no effort is being made on your part. D.A. Carson: “People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”

Either we are swimming upstream toward discipleship and holiness or we are drifting down the stream toward unbelief and godlessness.

 

APPLICATION: First step is to belong. Make an effort to belong. Belong to an Adult Bible Study Group at 11 am with Pastor Eldie. If you are a young adult or youth, they meet every Friday at 7 pm here or on Sundays at 11 am with Brad McCain. We also have community Groups starting up again, although the Puyallup Group never really stopped…. Some of you need to meet one-on-one weekly. Find someone you admire and say, “Hey, I can see Christ in you. Can you meet with me once a week for the next 3 months and teach me how to be like you?”

Listen, we weren’t created just make ends meet for family as important as that is. Or just to get through the day. We are all tired and overworked. But if we neglect becoming a disciple or making disciples, our life IS meaningless. We are neglecting the very thing we were created to do. That’s like buying the the most expensive iphone just to use it as a door stopper.  

Act! Be proactive! Swim upstream! Be discipled or disciple!