Disciple Making Disciples: Matthew 28:16-20

Greetings!  It's good to be back in Dry Creek.  One thing a mission trip always does is bring to my attention things that I ought to already be doing here where I live.  So I thought I would take this opportunity to not only recap our trip but also remind our church of what we are supposed to be doing, not only among the K. people in Africa, but also here in Dry Creek, LA.  The mission of Dry Creek Baptist Church is to bring glory to God by making disciples of who will treasure Jesus Christ and carry Him to the ends of the earth.  Our passage this morning is one of the places this mission statement comes from: 

[16] Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. [17] And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. [18] And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. [19] Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, [20] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:16-20 ESV)

I.              What it Means to BE a DISCIPLE of Jesus

A “disciple” is a learner, or follower, of Jesus.  From the text we also see that a disciple of Jesus is someone who WORSHIPS and OBEYS Jesus (16-17).  Since a disciple is someone who obeys Jesus, a disciple is also someone who MAKES DISCIPLES (19).  A disciple of Jesus makes disciples of Jesus or they are not a faithful disciple of Jesus.  There is no such thing as a Christian who is not a disciple, and there should be no such thing as a disciple who isn’t making disciples.

In Mark 1:17, we see that to be a disciple is to be a fisher of men.  Can someone who never fishes call themselves a fisherman?  Are you fishing for men?  Are you learning and following?  Are you worshipping and obeying?  Can you call yourself a disciple of Jesus Christ?

II.            What it Means to MAKE DISCIPLES of Jesus

If you were to grammatically diagram this sentence, there is really only one command given, and that is to "Go...make disciples" (18).  This is the one thing that Jesus has left us to do.  But what does it mean to make disciples?  First of all notice that it says to make disciples, not just converts.  There is a difference, just like there is a difference between having a baby and raising a baby!  This passage unpacks what this command entails.  It entails two things: (1) baptizing and (2) teaching.

Baptism assumes evangelism and conversion.  It assumes that Jesus’ disciples are out sharing the good news about Jesus with those who haven’t heard.  Making disciples begins with a disciple sharing their faith and winning another person to Christ. 

To make a disciple, we must also teach someone to OBSERVE all that Jesus commanded.  Notice that Jesus does not say to teach them all that He has commanded, but to teach them to “observe” all that He has commanded.  What’s the difference?

Disciple making is aimed at teaching obedience, not merely information, or as Colin Marshall and Tony Payne point out, making disciples involves imparting DOCTRINE and LIFE: teaching, modeling, accountability (relationship & imitation).  The goal is to establish a pattern of Spirit-filled obedience to Christ’s commands. The book of Hebrews tells us that this is how we grow: "About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil." (Hebrews 5:11-14).

This also shows us what the ultimate material is that we are trying to communicate: the words of Christ.  Here again, I love how Marshall and Payne describe disciple making: “A Christian brings a truth from God’s Word to someone else, praying that God would make that word bear fruit through the inward working of His Spirit.”[1] In other words, disciple making takes place any time that the Word of God is shared across a relationship.  Now this also means I am going to have to know God's word if I am going to make disciples.
Knowing God's Word is critical in using a tool that we use among unreached peoples in Africa.  We use something called a "story cloth," which takes people through 42 Bible stories from creation to Christ.  In order to share these stories, you must be familiar with God's Word.  

This passage in Matthew is so rich.  Not only are we given the specifics of what disciple making is, we are also given the scope of this mission.  We are to make disciples among “all nations” (18).  The Greek word is “ethnos,” or ethic groups of people.  We are to make disciples of ALL PEOPLES in ALL PLACES (See also Acts 1:8).  Also, we are to make disciples “always,” until “the end of the age” (20).  This is something we are to do until Jesus returns. That is the scope of our mission as Christians.
Another helpful illustration of this principle of disciple making is found in 2 Timothy 2:2, where Paul tells Timothy to take the things that he has heard from Paul and teach those things to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.  That is disciple making!  It is reproducing reproducers.  That was the goal of our trip among the K. pastors this past week.

One final thing I want to point out is how the early church carried out this mission.  It takes our description of disciple making a step further.  The way the disciples carried out this mission in the book of Acts was by planting church planting churches where disciple making disciples are made.  One example is Acts 14:21-23: "When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed." The goal of each missionary journey was to leave plant reproducing churches.  Since the goal of missions is the worship of God among the nations, the strategy of missions must be the planting of churches among the nations as outposts of God's coming kingdom.

III.         Why We can BE Disciples Who MAKE Disciples of Jesus

One of the most important words in this passage is the word, "therefore" (18).  It is because all authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Jesus that we are to do this work.

Notice how these instructions are wrapped, first by Jesus' position and then by the assurance of Jesus' presence when we do this work.  "Because I have all authority in heaven and on earth, you therefore go am make disciples of all peoples in all places until the end of the world.  Also remember that when you do so, you are no doing so alone.  I am always with you when you do this work."  Church, that is why we call this passage the GREAT CO-MISSION!!!

These statements are supposed to make us feel the way Romans 8:31 makes us feel: that if God is for us, then who can be against us?  It is supposed to make us feel the way that Matthew 16:18 makes us feel: that the gates of Hades cannot stop Jesus from building His church.  Because of the power and presence of Jesus Christ, nothing can stop us from making disciples of all peoples in all places until Jesus returns.

---

[1]  Colin Marshall & Tony Payne, The Trellis and the Vine, 39