Sermon Notes: KDSC – Disciple

Published

Matthew 28:19-20

Vision: For the glory of God disciple the nations.

Mission: Be and produce radical followers of Jesus Christ.

Strategy: RL – UP/IN/OUT

DNA: KDSC – Drives the RL

What about the order of the DNA?

K>D>S>C The order of our spiritual DNA is vital because the order is how God gives it to us in the Bible. The good news of the kingdom (Mark 1:14-15) is what saves people and makes them disciples. Disciples are sent on mission to the nations as God’s plan from creation to the Great Commission through the created grid of society in creation’s domains. And from those glocal domains, Jesus builds his church from disciples who are transformed by the good news.

Just like in creation if DNA sequencing is rearranged, a person or creature’s existence is unhealthy, when the church gets God’s spiritual DNA out of sequence the church can exist with slick organizational tools, but its existence is off and unhealthy, just accepted.

We make sure we know the spiritual DNA as the Bible presents it and keep that DNA in the correct sequence so that we are on mission and healthy. So, we preach on this every January and as Stephen said last week, we strive to make sure it’s the framework your Ministry Directors lead by.

Today we will unpack the second part of our DNA, disciple.

kDsc: Disciple

Jon Tyson said that if we don’t believe our faith should be part of our public lives and our workplaces, and if we are hesitant to speak about Jesus and his rightful rule over all things in our workplaces without reservation or fear, and if we seem more concerned with strategies for not offending people, then we have been discipled by the world not the kingdom of God.

The word “disciple” in the New Testament is the word “mathetes”, and it means “one who follows”.

We are either disciples of Jesus and his kingdom or disciples of the world. We either follow Jesus or we follow the world.

There is no neutrality. There can’t be. If Jesus is alive, then we must follow him, we must hear him and obey him. If Jesus is alive, we must choose a side.

Matthew 12:30 (ESV) 30 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

We will either be disciples of Jesus or disciples of the Serpent/Dragon (Revelation 12:9; 20:2). We either gather with Jesus or we are agents of the Serpent/Dragon sowing chaos.

Everyone is a disciple. The question is: Who is discipling us and by what means are we being discipled? We are either being discipled by Jesus through the local church (and thus all the means of grace available in God’s kingdom), or we are being discipled by the Serpent/Dragon’s dark forces through the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and pride of life (1 John 2:15-17), which the Bible calls “the world”.  

Who you follow determines how you view and interpret everything, and whether you realize it or not, you are an ambassador of that worldview.

If you are a disciple of someone or something not Jesus, repent and follow Jesus today.

Let’s read our text: Matthew 28:19-20

We will ask and answer three questions about discipleship from Matthew 28:19-20:

1. What is Jesus’ command?

2. What is the foundation of discipleship?

3. What does discipleship look like as a strategy?

We understand that discipleship is a deep, nuanced, and robust biblical topic, and we are going to let Jesus’ lay a foundation we can build on from the rest of the Bible. I say build on because Jesus gives us the building blocks and sends us to do the work, and the rest of the New Testament is a “manual” on how to execute the command he gives us in Matthew 29:19-20 as we build on those building blocks by employing multiple tools in making disciples

We could accurately say that discipleship is Genesis to Revelation understood and obeyed.

Discipleship takes a lifetime together and we won’t be done with its study in one sermon.

We’ll do our best today to put the Bible’s foundation pieces in place so we can build on it as we obey Jesus together.

So, let’s answer our questions.

What is Jesus’ command in the Great Commission?

Jesus commands the church to make disciples (of all nations).
1. Jesus’ command to make disciples is the main verb.
  1. Everything else modifies the main verb Jesus calls us to.
2. If we are to make disciples, then we begin with people who are not disciples, preach to them the good news of the kingdom of Jesus Christ so that they can believe and become a disciple, and then learn to follow Jesus in the local church.
  1. The truth is that many who have responded to the preaching of the good news have not been taught Jesus’ means of making them mature disciples that he gives us in Matthew 28:19-20.
    1. Therefore, so much of what passes as disciple-making is some truncated version of Jesus’ instructions.
      1. This is mostly due to poor evangelism strategies, a weak theology of church membership, and negligence.
3. Based on people’s response to the good news of the kingdom, there must be follow-up work.
4. We need to ask what a disciple is to know if we’ve made one so that we can begin doing Jesus’ follow-up work to make disciples who mature in the faith.
  1. So, what is a disciple?
    1. A disciple is a person who has heard God’s call of the gospel and responded to that call in faith.
      1. A disciple has heard and obeyed the call of the good news.
        NOTE: Becoming a Christian is a discipleship lesson in how to live like a Christian by hearing and obeying.
        Just like we receive the Lord Jesus by hearing the gospel and obeying in faith, we continue to live just like that.
        
        Colossians 2:6-7 (ESV) 6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
    2. A disciple is baptized after repentance and faith and enters the fellowship of the kingdom of God through membership in the local church.
    3. A disciple is on the life-long mission of growth into maturity in Christ where they live and act like Jesus, hear and obey God’s word, and participates in making disciples of all nations.
      1. Does Jesus tell us how to obey his command to make disciples like this?
      2. HE DOES!
        Jesus shares three participles that show us how to obey the command to make disciples.
  2. We obey the command to make disciples by GOING.
    1. “Going” is aorist passive and implies that we are to be in the act of going and thus to be making disciples as we are in the act of being on mission in the public square.
      1. The “on mission” component is rooted in the first proclamation of the Great Commission in Genesis 1:26-28 when the Lord’s created purpose for mankind was to go from Eden to cultivate the whole earth and multiply humans who join the Lord’s mission of cultivating creation.
    2. Why would Jesus teach “going” like this?
      1. Because going into the whole earth is what mankind was created to do as co-regent image-bearers of the Lord.
        Sin distorted mankind’s powerful authority the Lord had given him under his oversight to steward creation fully by having dominion in the earth.
        
        Therefore, when Jesus takes all authority in heaven and earth (v. 18), he commands us under his authority restored for us to make disciples of all nations.
        
        The first tool he gives us to make disciples is to be about the business of “going”, that is getting after exiting Eden to make the rest of creation like Eden.
        
        To say it another way we are to be getting after leaving the confines of the fellowship to preach the good news that transforms people into followers of Jesus who get joined up to the outpost of the kingdom of God, the church, and healing creation through our vocations.
        So, disciples are a going group of people.
      2. Disciples are to get after “going” and teaching their disciples to get after “going”, that is being on mission preaching the good news of the kingdom and making other disciples of Jesus as we heal through our vocations.
        NOTE: We’ll say more about our vocations and Jesus’ instructions in Luke 10:1-12.
  3. We obey the command to make disciples by BAPTIZING those who believe.
    1. Jesus set the example for us by his baptism, as our elder brother (Matt. 3:16; Mark 1:9; Luke 3:21; Hebrews 2), we are to follow.
    2. Jesus teaches us that the firs act of discipleship is obedience in baptism.
    3. The church in Acts baptized new Jesus followers after they repented and believed.
      1. We baptize repentant followers of Jesus who will confess Jesus as Lord, turn from sin with the power and help of the Holy Spirit, and be united to the local church.
      2. Baptism rightly administered is one of the ways the local church keeps its witness in the world.
        Because a person believes the good news and has then entered the family of the kingdom of God, their first act of obedience to the Lord is baptism, and thus baptism is inextricably linked to obedience.
  4. We obey the command to make disciples by TEACHING all of God’s word and how to obey it to those who believe and are baptized.
    1. We make disciples by teaching all of God’s word to one another and join the life-long pursuit of hearing and obeying God’s word together in the local church.
      1. Since Jesus does not indicate that the audience is limited to a few “special Christians” (we know this because Matthew records Jesus’ words for all who hear to know and obey), it means that the whole church is to be preaching the good news, reaping the fruit of disciples who repent and believe, participating in baptizing those won to the faith, integrating those new folks into the life of the local church, and then teaching them to obey all of God’s word.
      2. Jesus’ intent is that the whole church is supposed to be the missionary.
        Therefore, we ask, “What if the whole church were the missionary?”
        
        We’ll talk about this more in depth when we talk about “C” Church.
    2. Disciple-makers read and study the whole Bible, and they teach new disciples to read and study the whole Bible.
      1. We simply cannot boil discipleship down to a curriculum, a document, or a series of doctrinal classes.
        We must read, understand, and teach all of God’s word to each other.
    3. Disciple-makers labor to hear the meaning of the Scriptures, the easy parts and the hard parts.
      1. Disciple-makers embrace Proverbs 25:2 which tells us it is the glory of God to conceal a matter and the glory of kings to seek it out, so we dive into understanding the hard parts also.
    4. Going/Baptizing/Teaching.
      1. That is what a disciple is, does, and multiplies in the local church according to Jesus.

What is the foundation of discipleship?

Being a disciple requires that we are saved by faith, and that we continue to live by faith.
1. A life of faith that fuels going, baptizing, and teaching requires us to hear and obey God’s word.
  1. So, we say that hearing and obeying God’s word is the foundation of discipleship.

2.    How can we confidently say that hearing and obeying is the foundation of the disciple’s life of going, baptizing, and teaching?

a.    Let’s see what Jesus has to say.

Matthew 7:24-27 (ESV) 24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
Who is the “everyone” in verse 24?
1. The “everyone” who hears and obeys are disciples of the kingdom who repent and follow Jesus.
2. The “everyone” who does not hear and obey are those who have not repented and followed Jesus.
  1. So, we must conclude that disciples who go preach the good news, baptize new believers, and teach those new believers to obey are those who hear the Lord and obey.

What does discipleship look like as a strategy?

Discipleship looks like the life of going, baptizing, and teaching.
Does the three-fold nature of going, baptizing, and teaching remind you of something?
1. That three-fold nature of discipleship is another way we see God’s rhythm of threes like we see in our strategy mined from the Bible of UP/IN/OUT: The radical life.
  1. UP/IN/OUT is what happens in salvation and mission.
2. This three-fold life of discipleship is the radical life of UP/IN/OUT worked out in disciple-making.
  1. It makes sense that Jesus’ foundation of discipleship would look like the rhythm of his kingdom.
3. UP: Because of the good news of the kingdom, we GO to preach the good news of the kingdom that reconciles people back to the Father through Jesus the Son. The preached good news restores the UP relationship for mankind with God.
4. IN: Because the good news takes sinners and makes them children of God (the people of God), the people of God are manifested in the local church, and thus we tell the whole world through the obedience of baptism that we have entered the kingdom of God and are part of the kingdom of God in the local church.
5. OUT: Because we the people of God are on mission with the Lord to all nations, we work in the public square to preach and teach the whole Bible in our vocational domains to make disciples of Jesus.
  1. This life of discipleship is what it looks like for the whole church to be the missionary.

Application

Hear the good news. Obey the call of the good news and become a follower of Jesus.
1. Get the UP relationship established through repentance and faith (Repentance and faith go hand in hand they are two sides of the same coin.)
  1. If you have not believed the gospel. Believe today and get after following Jesus.
  2. How do you start a life of obedience?
  3. Obey the first command. The first act of obedience to Jesus is baptism as the public witness that we have changed teams.
Be a present and committed member of a local church.
1. Church membership is biblical and the IN relationship of the Radical Life. Some people don’t believe that belonging to a church is taught in the Bible.
2. Understand that not everything God demands is explicitly stated in a verse. Jesus created us in his image, has sent us to the world as his intelligent co-regents to tame and maximize all of creation, and he’s sent us to make disciples of all nations.
  1. He intends us to mine the depths of his word.
  2. Proverbs 25:2 (ESV) 2 It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.
3. Church membership can be clearly mined in multiple places, but Hebrews 13:17 is my favorite. Let’s take a quick look.
  1. Hebrews 13:17 17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
  2. Hebrews 13:17 should make us all ask and answer two questions.
    1. First, if there is no requirement to belong to a local church, then which leaders should a Christian obey and which leaders are they to submit to?
    2. Second, and kind of important to your elders, who will we give an account for?
4. Be intentional about being an active, present, giving, serving, and committed member of a local church.
  1. The rhythms of gathered life help us to order our lives around hearing and obeying the Lord together.
5. Prioritize time with fellow members in a RL group and even at the micro level of discipleship relationships.
  1. RL groups are the hub of everything that happens in our church.
    1. Smaller gatherings of the church are the spiritual lifeblood of Christians and the place where spiritual gifts are most expressed in the New Testament.
6. Don’t let yourself be discipled by books and people you will never be accountable to for covenant membership and then bring those things into your church to disciple others without your elder’s knowledge and approval.
  1. This seemingly benign thing is really a clandestine act that is the source of discontent among church members in many churches, the source of disunity, and ultimately can end up breaking relationships when the discontent and disunified decided to leave.
    1. I understand that not every elder will be a book writer, host a world-renowned podcast, and be a Christian superstar with a killer digital footprint that the whole of Christianity wants to follow, yet God did not design the kingdom of God to run on superstar pastors with superstar content production.
      1. We preach, teach, and produce biblical content for you to be equipped to be faithful as a member of TRC to the vision, mission, strategy, and tactics of God’s word to do God’s work locally and globally.
      2. Be content with that.
      3. We want to produce better biblical content for you, but that content is only as good as your commitment to being a member who reads, hears, and obeys the Bible together.
Engage your vocational domain (we’ll talk about domains next week) by disrupting dark systems, healing brokenness, bringing order into chaos, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom while calling people to repent and follow Jesus.
1. Being on mission in the public square is the OUT relationship of the Radical Life.
2. Be the best employee you can be.
  1. Jobs exist because chaos exists.
  2. Bring order to creation in your vocation.
3. Speak naturally about your faith in Jesus and the kingdom of God.
  1. If you really believe and follow Jesus, work it out verbally.
  2. You are the salt of the earth. You are a city set on a hill. You are the light in the room.
4. Bring people who follow Jesus with you to worship Jesus together with their new family, and we’ll help you baptize them, get them into membership class, and y’all get after disciple-making together in a RL Group.

“We need to remember that the kingdom of God expands, not by institutions, programs, or new and improved churches, but by something much simpler and organic: the activity of committed disciples.” Bob Roberts, Real-Time Connections: Linking Your Job with God’s Global Work (Zondervan, 2010), pp, 24-25.

“What was the key to the early church’s success? They didn’t have seminaries. There were few churches and fewer pastors. The majority couldn’t even read. And there wasn’t much of a New Testament Bible as we know it today. As a result, they did not practice merely education and information-based discipleship; it was a kind of discipleship resulting in radical behavioral transformation. We want to master the information; they longed to master the life…” Bob Roberts, Real-Time Connections, pp. 104-105.