Committing to the Commission — the Great Commission is not the general suggestion

From a sermon · Matthew 4:18–22; 16:24; 28:16–20

Follow me

Jesus walks by the Sea of Galilee, sees Peter and Andrew casting a net, and says, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." They drop the nets. He sees James and John mending nets with their father, calls them, and they leave the boat and their dad. He passes a tax booth and says to Matthew, "Follow me," and Matthew gets up. And to all of them: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me" (Matthew 16:24).

Jesus has the same request for you. Follow Me. Two of the most important words in the Bible. Follow My steps, My words, My love, My Father, My joy, My pain, My cross, My death, My resurrection. Follow Me.

So — are we following Jesus? Or are we following other things: a church, a pastor, other people in the church, a movement, a set of standards? Have we become so identified by what we aren't that we don't know who we are? Here's who we are. We're disciples. Followers of Jesus.

What a disciple is and does

A disciple is a follower — someone who holds to the teaching of another. A Christian disciple is someone who follows Jesus and does what He says. Among Christians, disciples love each other: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:35). Among the world, disciples teach and train others to follow Jesus: "The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also" (2 Timothy 2:2). Paul trained Timothy; Timothy trained faithful men; those men trained others. Jesus commissioned His disciples to make disciples. We call it the Great Commission.

Unfortunately, we tend to treat the Great Commission like the general suggestion. We all know things that are overrated — we buy into the hype and then live like it didn't deserve it. That's what a lot of us do with the Great Commission: we nod at it and don't let it change how we live. Jesus' last command should be our first priority.

The commission (Matthew 28:16–20)

"All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. 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, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

A commission is a charge, a mandate, authority given. Jesus has the authority — as Lord of our lives and Lord of the universe — to commission us to go make disciples. And we don't go unarmed or alone. We carry "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Ephesians 6:17), which is "quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword" (Hebrews 4:12). We go "as sheep in the midst of wolves" (Matthew 10:16), but with the promise: "I am with you always." You plus God is a majority.

What the Great Commission is not

It is not leading someone to pray a prayer. It is not getting someone to a church service. It is not getting someone baptized. All of those are part of it. None of them is the fulfillment of it.

Imagine a mechanic changes your oil — drains it, replaces the filter, wipes everything clean — and never puts new oil in. Would you be pleased? Imagine a pizza place takes your order, makes the pizza, boxes it, cuts it, hands it over — and never put it in the oven. Would you pay for that? Imagine a couple has a baby — labor, delivery, everyone healthy — and leaves the baby at the hospital, not because anything's wrong, but because "we did it, we had a baby." We'd say they're out of their minds. The work has just begun. Those sound ridiculous. But isn't that exactly what we do with the Great Commission?

What it is

The Great Commission is to make disciples of Jesus — to help a person all the way from first hearing to spiritual maturity, and then train them to do the same. Disciples making disciples who make disciples. Jesus showed us how: for more than three years He had people following Him whom He trained. So the commission is to find people, lead them to salvation in Jesus, walk with them as they become disciples, and then teach them to do it themselves.

Why we fail at it

The process isn't the problem. If there were a better way to reach the world, Christ would have used it. The problem is us. We go without the Holy Spirit — chasing our goals instead of God's, persuading people to do what we want. We go with the wrong motive — numbers, approval, checking a box; looking for a prayer instead of a transformed life. We feel finished when someone gets saved and never help them toward maturity — but following up with a new believer is every bit as important as seeing them saved. And probably the biggest one: we're not willing to do what it takes. It's hard work. People have big problems. But this is what we've been commissioned to do, and this is how to do it.

Are you doing it?

Follow-up is a Christian in a local church, with a life worth imitating, committing for an extended time to a few teachable believers to guide them to maturity — teaching them Bible truth and Christian character, and teaching them to reproduce themselves in a third generation. So: are you personally helping someone become a disciple of Jesus? We don't get to pick the parts we like. The whole command is to make disciples. Every Christian should be a disciple and be making one — pursuing the people we've had good conversations with, the people who've trusted Christ, and especially the people who walk through the door. How many visitors have to sit alone through a service before we realize they need Jesus? If we won't reach out to the people God brings us, we're not doing what we're called to do.

The math

If a famous evangelist won ten thousand people to Christ every single day for thirty years, that's about 109 million people — in a world of eight billion. It wouldn't scratch the surface. But if one person discipled one person a year, and each of them did the same: two after year one, four after year two, 256 after year eight, about a thousand after year ten, 32,000 after fifteen, a million after twenty, a billion after thirty. The world reached in about thirty-five years. That's the process Jesus gave us. Why do we think it's impossible? "All authority has been given to me." We weren't sent to fail. We weren't sent to be overcome. We were sent to be victorious.

What it does

A while back I received an email from a man who'd visited a service. He said he hadn't been a good man for as long as he could remember — that he'd damaged others and himself and it had never bothered him, until the last year or so, when something changed and he felt broken, empty, guilty, like a weight was crushing whatever soul he had left. Something brought him to church that Sunday. He said he needed to change and thought only God could help, but he was afraid he wasn't worthy. He needed to become a new man — for himself, and for the family his brokenness was hurting.

Jesus changes lives. He isn't only out to change people's eternal destiny; He's out to change their everyday destiny. There are more people like that man out there, and no excuse will sound sufficient when we stand before God for why we didn't pursue the commission. We have the commission. We have the power of God to carry it out. We have the truth. Let's do this.

Commit to the commission

Will you commit to disciple one person by this time next year? Write it down with the date. Jesus' one prayer request was for more laborers in the harvest — will you be one? Most of us aren't going to a foreign country. We have to go across the street, to a coworker, to a friend, to family, to the stranger next to us. Husbands and wives, partner on it. And if you need to grow yourself, the best way to get strong in your faith is to share it and guide someone else to Jesus. Don't commit to a pastor or a church. Commit to Jesus. There's someone you can reach. Go reach them, and make them a disciple of Jesus.

Before you write the name down

Before you write anybody else's name on that paper, make sure yours is settled. You can't hand somebody a Savior you've never met. If that's where you are, it isn't complicated and it was never meant to be: you've sinned, He died in your place, He's alive, and He saves everyone who asks Him to. Ask Him today. Then you've got something to tell the person you're about to go find.

Now the paper. Get one out this week, write down one name and today's date, and then do the part everybody skips — reach out before Sunday. Coffee, a stop by the shop, a text that says can I buy you lunch. Right? Because you'll talk yourself out of it by Tuesday if you sit on it.

Related: A lifestyle of evangelism and Are you bearing fruit?