FOUNDATIONS is a ?” A disciple is a fully devoted follower of What Every Believer Needs to Know Christ. (2) The Command to Make Disciples Matthew 28:18-20 This morning we will look ’ command to make disciples. If you have a this morning I want to invite you to turn with me to Matthew 28. Our text this morning will be Illustration: Keep your eye on the ball! Matthew 28:18-20. Last week we began a new series My daughter, Madison, started playing softball in the 3rd called “Foundations: What Every Believer Needs to Know.” grade. Beginning her 4th grade year I started helping coach. In this series we are attempting to lay a foundation on If you have ever tried to teach an 8 – 9 year old girl how to which we can stand as believers. Just as every building hit a softball, you know it is quite an experience. There are needs a strong foundation; as believers we need a strong a lot of different mechanics involved in hitting a moving ball foundation. We need solid ground on which we can stand. with a bat: grip, stance, stride, swing, etc. But when you In His parable of the wise and foolish builders Jesus are teaching little girl or boy how to hit a softball or established obedience to His Word as the foundation on baseball you have to start with the most basic, and the which we are to build our lives. Obedience to the Word of most important thing – keep your eye on the ball. That God is the only foundation on which we can stand that will basic discipline applies to 3rd grade girls and major league give us the strength to withstand the storms of life that are all stars. You can have the most beautiful, powerful, and certain to come. technically perfect swing, but if you don’t keep your eyes on the ball you are not going to hit it. Keeping your eye on Last week we began this series by asking the question, the ball is so important that it has become a metaphor in “What is a disciple?” Though we usually refer to ourselves life for staying focused, keeping your priorities in order, and as Christians, and we are, the bible uses the term disciple. keeping the main thing, the main thing. 1In the NT the word “Christian” only appears 3 times, while the word “disciple” appears 281 times. A disciple is a What is the ball for Christians? What is the ball for the follower or a learner. Every true believer is a lifelong church? There is one thing we as Christians, and as a follower and learner of Jesus. As we follow Jesus, and as church must do well – make disciples! If we are not making we learn from Jesus, an amazing thing happens – we disciples then everything else we do is must meaningless become like Him. Last week we asked the question, “What activity and it is irrelevant and useless. We can have the coolest building, serve the best coffee, have the best volunteers, the best praise band, the best children, youth, 1 Robby Gallaty, “Growing Up.” and college ministries, great programs, and the best proclamation. The is the command for preaching, but if we are not making disciples we are failing believers to bring unbelievers throughout the world to as a church and all of those other things are meaningless. salvation in Christ and the term Jesus uses for that process Our ball is discipleship. For us, “keeping our eyes on the is “make disciples.” Jesus said to those first disciples, ball” means maintaining a clear and focused emphasis on “Follow Me and I’ll make you become ” discipleship. (Matt. 4:19). If you are following Jesus you will be fishing for men. That was His passion and as we follow Him His Jesus established His will for His followers and for His passion will become our passion. 2When a person church in The Great Commission – Matthew 28:18-20. genuinely confesses Christ as Lord and Savior, he is immediately saved, immediately made a disciple, and After His resurrection and before His ascension, Jesus immediately filled with the Holy Spirit. There is not one appeared to His disciples and gave them one final example in Scripture of a person receiving Christ as Savior command – “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and not surrendering to Him as Lord. and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of Jesus’ supreme command is for His disciples to make the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all disciples of all the nations. God’s will for each of our lives things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you is to be a disciple who makes disciples; to follow Jesus and always, even to the end of the age.” fish for men.

Making disciples is the central element of the mission for The Great Commission contains one command – make every believer and for every church. disciples! Our obedience to this command requires three things. Christ’s commission to His church contains one command and three requirements. THREE REQUIREMENTS

ONE COMMAND – MAKE DISCIPLES! 1. Authority

The central command of the Great Commission is “make In order for you and me to fulfill the Great Commission we disciples.” The command to make disciples is the command need authority. We don’t have the authority to call people to share the good news of the with a lost and dying to repentance. We don’t have the authority to tell people world. Fulfilling the Great Commission begins with gospel 2 John MacArthur, “The MacArthur Commentary: -28” what to believe. We don’t have the authority to tell people from the president of the U.S. Our commission comes from how to live their lives. We need an authority greater than the one who is highly exalted, whose name is above every and far beyond ourselves. other name, and at whose name every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the Listen to the words of Jesus. Before giving the Great earth, and every tongue will confess that He is Lord. Commission, Jesus established His authority to give such a command. Our authority to fulfill the Great Commission comes from the One who has authority in heaven and on earth – the Matthew 28:18 – And Jesus came and spoke to them, Lord Jesus Christ. saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” 2. Obedience

During His earthly ministry Jesus demonstrated His Fulfilling the Great Commission requires obedience. The authority over death, disease, demons, the weather, sin process of making disciples involves three things that and sickness. He had just demonstrated authority over Jesus instructs us to do: go, baptize, and teach. death, hell, and the grave, in His resurrection. Now Jesus appears before His disciples one last time as the “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations” resurrected and living King of the Universe and said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” 3The Greek verb translated go, is actually not a command Jesus, the resurrected and living Lord of the universe but a present participle (going). It literally reads, “As you claimed complete authority over heaven and earth. His are going, make disciples.” As you go about your daily life, authority is complete and universal. Because He is the make disciples. This requirement is not so much a sovereign Lord of the Universe He has both the authority to command as an assumption or an expectation. A true command us and the power to enable us to fulfill His disciple doesn’t have to be commanded to go. Disciples commission to make disciples. go, not because we are commanded to go, but because we are compelled to go. When I came to saving faith in Christ I The word “commission” is a military term meaning “an immediately became aware of the lostness in our world. authoritative order.” It is used for a document of authority There was an immediate awareness that those who die issued by the president of the U.S. to officers in the army, without Christ will perish. There was an immediate navy, and other military services. As an authoritative order, burden/desire to see others come to saving faith in Christ. obedience is not an option. Our commission doesn’t come 3 Warren Wiersbe, “The Bible Exposition Commentary, Volume I. Pg. 107” That is true of all genuine believers. We don’t go because and it is our public testimony that we belong to Him. Our we are commanded to be. We go because we are first act of obedience to Christ, after our salvation, is to compelled to go. That compulsion is evidence of the work submit to baptism as a public testimony of our union with of the Holy Spirit in our life. Him. Baptism is a requirement for church membership because the NT makes baptism a normal part of becoming a 4Jesus’ method for evangelism/discipleship wasn’t a Christian. We baptize by immersion because that is the program or a crusade – it was men and women sharing only mode of baptism that symbolizes burial and their lives with other people. We will become disciples who resurrection. make disciples when we begin to live as missionaries. Missionaries understand that their neighborhood is their Baptism has no saving power, but it is commanded by mission field; their kid’s school is their mission field; their Jesus. The only example of an un-baptized believer in the high school is their mission field; their college campus is Bible is the thief on the cross, who died on his cross without their mission field; their job or career is not just a way to ever having the opportunity to be baptized. A person who make money but a platform to share the gospel and make is unwilling to be baptized brings into question the disciples. Author and Pastor, Tim Chester said, “Evangelism genuineness of his faith. 5If a person is unwilling to is doing normal life with gospel intentionality.” publically profess Christ before believers in the church, how will he/she be expected to profess faith in Christ before Jesus’ final message to his followers was, “As you go unbelievers in the world? In the context of the Great throughout your life, live with gospel intentionality. Be Commission, baptism is synonymous with salvation which is disciples who make disciples. Give your life to something synonymous with being a disciple. far greater than you and that will outlive you. Go and make disciples of all the nations.” Jesus said we must go, baptize, and teach.

“…baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son “…teaching them to observe all things that I have and of the Holy Spirit…” commanded you…”

To baptize literally means to immerse in water. Christian The church’s mission is not simply to convert, but to teach. baptism is an outward, visible, and public act, by which we Our mission is not to get decisions, but to make disciples. identify with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, Baptism is not the touchdown, it’s the kickoff. A true disciple is a learner. All true disciples have a desire/hunger 4 J.D. Greear made this statement in a sermon entitled, “The Mission: Making Disciples,” preached at The Summit Church on October 12, 2014 5 MacArthur, “The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Matthew 24-28.” to learn more about Christ and His purpose for our lives to fulfill HIs mission for your life of being a disciple who through the study of His Word. As a church we have a makes disciples. responsibility to teach our children, our youth, our college students, our young adults, our mature adults, the Word of Conclusion: God. Our primary avenue to do that is through our Life Groups. The church’s responsibility is not just to teach you, Have you ever had a day when you were busy doing but to teach you how to feed yourself. Disciples have a something the entire day, and at the end of the day you hunger for God’s Word that can’t be satisfied by a Sunday were exhausted, but you couldn’t think of one thing you did morning sermon or a life group Bible study. Disciples feed the entire day that was significant? You didn’t mark one on God’s Word throughout the weeks. Disciples desire time thing off of your to-do list, and you didn’t fill like you alone with God every day. accomplished anything that day. We have all had those days – days filled with endless activity with kids, work, and Next week we will provide you with a resource that you can tasks – but at the end of the day we didn’t really fill like we use to teach and disciple new believer’s one on one. accomplished much. One day we will live the last day of our life on this earth. Many people will come to that last In order to fulfill the Great Commission we need the day with the realization that, though their life was filled authority that has been given to us by Christ; we need to be with a lot of activity, and though they did a lot of things, obedient to go, baptize, and teach; and we need power. they never did the one thing Jesus commanded us to do – make disciples. How many are in heaven today because of 3. Power you? How many people will be in heaven one day because of you? Jesus ended the Great Commission with these words, “…and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the Talk about identifying your ONE this year age.” Christ’s will for each of our lives is that we become The Lord never calls us to a task in which He doesn’t disciples who make disciples. promise to supply the power we need to accomplish that task. If you are Christ’s disciple, you have the assurance of His enabling presence in your life every moment of every day of your life. His enabling presence ensures that you will have the power to endure the storms of life and the power