On Mission: Developing Disciples

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. The disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. But when they saw him, they worshiped him, and some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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 all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. — Matthew 28

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

So I don't presume this anymore. Do people still know who Vince Lombardi is? Coach Vince Lombardi? Okay, a couple of you are old like me. Famous NFL football coach, a legendary NFL football coach of the Green Bay Packers. And he had this odd way of starting the season every year. He would come into the locker room at the very beginning of the season, and he always began the same way. "Gentlemen, this is a football." And they would take them out into the field, which these men knew really well, and said, "Now that over there, that's the end zone. This is the out of bounds. This is the 50 yard line. And the point of the whole game is to get the ball into the end zone."

Now it's a funny way of beginning a season, but what was coach Lombardi doing? He was reminding his players: this is the basics. And I want you to think about the people he was speaking to. To whom was he addressing these words? These are seasoned NFL professional football players. These people probably know the plays and the playbook better than their kids' names. And yet this is the group to whom Lombardi addressed this regularly at every beginning of the season—reminding them of the fundamentals, of what we're here to do, of what we're about.

The passage for today from Matthew 28 is sort of Jesus's Vince Lombardi speech. Gentlemen, this is a football. This is His great commission, famously known as the Great Commission.

Our Mission as a Church

This morning, we're going to start a six-week series on our new mission as a church, our new mission statement, which is really a rehashed version of a really old vision statement we had as a church. So nothing really new here, but it's a sense of going back and saying: What are we about? What are our fundamentals?

And it goes like this. We have it printed up for you here. You can't see it in the back—the blue disappears for some reason in the back of the room. But CTK exists to develop disciples who delight in Jesus and worship and discover Jesus in community and display Jesus' Kingdom in our lives.

Now, to be honest, I'm not much on mission and vision statements for the Church. Because the Church isn't like any other organization—it's not a business. We don't have a marketing department, and a vision or mission statement doesn't mean the same thing to a church as it does to people who sell Hondas or Hot Wings. And yet the language of mission comes from the Bible. The language of mission precedes all American business marketing strategies. It comes from this passage about Jesus' great commission for His church.

And while it doesn't mean all the same things it does for a business, it's important for us. We're not Chick-fil-A, we're not Walmart, but it's important for us to remember why we're doing what we're doing. What is this about? Where are we trying to take the football?

And here's why we rewrote our vision, our mission statement as a church: our mission statement is what we do. What's our bread and butter? Here's why—over the pandemic, like with a lot of organizations, church leadership here discovered we had some cracks in the foundation and some leaky places in the roof, metaphorically speaking.

We found out our shepherding strategy wasn't as effective as we thought it was, so we redid that. We've looked at our staff structure and said, "Hey, we need to restructure this to be more effective." Our diaconate has looked at the structure with which they're approaching everything and said, "We need to rethink this." And we've been looking at this, especially today with regard to our discipleship. I would say especially our discipleship, because here's what we found during the pandemic.

It's like when there's a big storm that blows through Raleigh and big trees get knocked over—you find out what wasn't rooted very well. We found out our discipleship was too thin. A lot of churches found this out. People have been rooted in all kinds of things other than Jesus. And so when the big wind of the coronavirus blew through our culture, lots of people were uprooted. There were lots of confusing things going on. There are lots of conspiracy theories.

The pandemic revealed that we didn't have roots deep enough. We have this really beautiful vision statement about bearing fruit for Jesus—all these biblical fruits that we think really matter: planting churches, biblical justice, and cross-cultural discipleship. And we realize, hey, in order to produce fruit, you have to have deep roots. So that's what we're doing. Back to the basics.

Here's our bread and butter. The first point here is maturity, not certainty.

Now remember to whom Jesus is speaking. Jesus is talking to His team, His guys, His football players. Jesus gathers His disciples in Galilee, the place where He'd given them so much of His teaching and training. Let me give you this picture. Israel is a very odd shaped country. Jerusalem is at the very bottom, and that big lake at the top is the Sea of Galilee. Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem, at the bottom of the screen, but most of the ministry of Jesus with His disciples took place at the top of the screen around the Sea of Galilee.

Jesus appearing resurrected from the dead appears first in Jerusalem and says, guess what guys? I want to meet you up in Galilee. So it's a seven-day journey—you've got to walk all the way up from the South from Jerusalem all the way back to what for Jesus and his team was their home field, the Sea of Galilee, where they'd done all their training. He makes them go back there. That's where this great commission was given.

When they saw Him, they worshiped Him. But some doubted. — Matthew 28:17

I love this line: "but some doubted." Now, I think that's fascinating. Notice certainty is not what Jesus is about in this moment. Jesus doesn't divide up His disciples between the certain and the cautious, or the devoted and the doubters. He doesn't divide them up between the unquestioning and the unsure.

And man, this is helpful to me because I'm not so sure that certainty is spiritual maturity. Now that's a bold statement to make in a Presbyterian church. Because I think that we think having your right theology down, being rock solid certain of everything, having no questions is the main point. And I don't know that that's the main point. I think it's dangerous when we confuse certainty with maturity.

Jesus doesn't separate them. He gives this great commission to all of them. Hey, those of you who have questions, you still get the great commission. Those of you who have doubts, you still get the great commission. Maybe certainty isn't the point.

Saving faith in Jesus—the kind of faith that gets you into heaven—is not about having a strong faith. It's having a strong savior. It's not about the strength of your convictions. It's about the strength of that man who hung on the cross, who was raised from the dead, ascended to heaven, and gave His Holy Spirit for you. That's what makes you a Christian. His strength, not your convictions. Even a weak faith that's filled with questions and doubts is saving faith because it's faith in the strong savior.

My kids go to camp every summer where they have to learn how to canoe. You get in a canoe and if you can get in without falling over, you've done well already. But going across the lake, it doesn't matter if you're a confident canoeist or if you are a fearful canoeist. What matters is: is that a good canoe? That's what's going to get you across the lake. Is this a solid boat? Can it take you where you want to go?

And brothers and sisters, we have a strong savior. We have a Jesus in whom even with our shaky doubts and fears, Jesus He is more than able to deliver you. He is more than able. Are y'all here this morning? Anybody with me this morning?

I'd like to hear from you. Do we not believe in a strong savior? Yes, we do. And that's what our hope is in.

So this group of disciples has been huddling in fear in Jerusalem for a good reason. They saw what Rome and the religious authorities had done to their friend, to their rabbi. And they're afraid of the same thing happening to them. So they're in hiding. Peter and John had been recognized in that garden outside the high priest's house. They were identified as disciples. They were afraid, and with good reason. It's not like there's nothing to fear—there was a lot to fear. But they had a strong savior.

Brothers and sisters, what is the church? Back to basics. What is the church? It's a group of deeply flawed, sinful people—not always the awesomest team—with an amazing savior and a gift of the Holy Spirit. And this remains Jesus's plan A for the universe. Believe it or not, the local church remains Jesus's plan A. The church has never been an elite fighting force. It's never been a think tank of the best and brightest. It's never been people with the strongest faith that we can find. It's never been the NFL players. It's always been just normal people like us.

And when they saw him, they worshiped, but some doubted. Which means guess what? You're in the right place this morning. You're filled with doubts and questions. You are in the right place. You are among friends this morning. Because we're not looking for superheroes for Jesus. We're looking for ordinary people who know that they have a super savior and have his spirit.

The point is not what we're going to do for God, but what God can do through ordinary people. I know that it's hard for some of you to hear this great commission. Some of you have come up in faith traditions where you feel like this has just been beaten over your head. It comes with a nice side helping of guilt—free of charge.

But what if? What if the great commission is not about the great super acts you're going to do for Jesus? What if it's more about what Jesus is still able to do through us, even with our weaknesses and failures and doubts and questions? What if it's not about what we're going to do for God, but what He's going to do through us? Hallelujah. That is a word of hope.

Discipleship: Maturity, Not Certainty

So maturity, not certainty. Second, a plant, not a rock. Jesus' Great Commission is specific. It's about making disciples, but I'm afraid that word disciple has lost much of its meaning for us today.

Russell McCutcheon, our church planner at Southeast Raleigh Knightdale, he always says discipleship is like the junk drawer of the church. I don't know what's in your junk drawer at home—actually, I do know what's in your junk drawer. It's the same thing that's in mine. It's random stuff we don't know what to do with. It appears in the junk drawer, and discipleship in the church can sort of become the same thing. Anything? Yeah, sure. We'll call that discipleship.

Over two billion people on the planet refer to themselves as Christians. Now that's fascinating because we might not all consider those people to be Christians. Some of those include cults, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and lots of other groups we might say, I don't know about. But over two billion people on this planet refer to themselves as Christian.

Have you ever done a word study? How many times do you think the word Christian appears in the Bible? Twenty? Fifty? Three times. Three times it appears in the Bible.

Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. When he found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. — Acts 11

In Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. Do you hear this? The disciples were first called Christians. So what's the point? Christian was a word that the unbelieving world was beginning to use to say, what are these people? We don't know what to do with them. It was a term invented by people outside of God's people to identify them. They said these people are associated with this person, Jesus, the Christ. So we'll call them Christians.

But what's important for us is that they were disciples first. They were disciples first before they were identified as Christians. Hold on to that thought.

He's about to be sent to Rome and the King asks Paul, "Paul, do you really think in such a short time you could persuade me to become a Christian?" And he's using that word with a nuance to it, with a tone of distaste. This became a slur. This was not a compliment. He's not saying, "Well, I really would love to hear more about this." He's saying, "Really? Do you think that you could make me into one of your type? Into one of your people?"

Finally, First Peter 4:16, Peter says:

If anybody suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. — 1 Peter 4:16

Now during the reign of Emperor Nero, Nero famously was persecuting the very early church, brand new Christians. And Peter was writing to Jewish and Gentile believers who had been dispersed throughout the Roman Empire. He writes them and he says this: he's implying, "Hey, this word Christian is a slur against you." He tells them that this shameful caricature of Christian is not an identity to run away from, but it's a suffering to embrace. It's a suffering to embrace. Peter's not telling them, "Hey, call yourselves Christians, but be willing to embrace the suffering that comes from that name." See, by contrast, the prominent word used throughout the New Testament to refer to the home team here is disciples. And disciple means, of course, learner or follower. The Pharisees had disciples. John the Baptist had disciples. It was a common word in that time period. And particularly it identified having a rabbi that you followed and did everything with, and like that person.

Marty Solomon, who's a Bible scholar, says this: "A rabbinical disciple is someone who does what the rabbi does in order to know what the rabbi knows, in order to have a relationship with God like the rabbi has a relationship with God." That's what a disciple did. They did everything with this person and followed them to learn what they know, in order to have the relationship with God that was like that of the rabbi's relationship with God.

Discipleship as Total Commitment

This is why when Jesus talks about discipleship, He's talking about a total commitment. He invites them to come. The first disciples, He calls them out of the fishing trade. He says, "Come follow me." And they left their nets. They left everything behind to go do that. Jesus says, "This is a totally committed life."

Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be My disciple. — Matthew (paraphrased)

And it involves sacrifice and total commitment.

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. — Matthew (paraphrased)

So what do you notice in discipleship versus Christian? The word disciple is an active word. It requires a decision and an active followership. Christian by contrast is a passive word. And so here's the question for us: Are you a Christian or are you a disciple? And I want to distinguish between those.

Now, I'm not telling you to never use the word Christian anymore. But while we would say this—all true disciples are Christians—not all Christians today are really disciples. They're not actually following with full life commitment. I'm all the way in. I want to do what the rabbi does so I can know what the rabbi knows so I can have the relationship with God that the rabbi has. Do you get it?

So often here's the problem: the church in America is more happy about collecting Christians than it is about truly making disciples. Disciple is an active word. You're not a rock; you're a plant growing.

The Question of Passivity and Growth

Wait a second—time out. Some of you may say, "I thought the gospel says that we are entirely passive in our salvation?" Hey, good point. And you're right. We are entirely passive in our salvation. We don't believe in a two-hands salvation, right? My hand reaching up, God's hand reaching down. We say we are dead in our sins. That's what we believe. We're dead in our sins and trespasses. There's no "heaven helps those who help themselves." We don't believe that.

And yet our salvation means that God makes dead things alive. God makes those who are spiritually dead alive. Are you alive? Are you alive in your faith? Are you living? Living things grow. A thing that is not alive can't grow. If you have been made alive to God in Christ, then you must be a person who's growing, who's demonstrating this in their life. There's fruit coming out of you. You are growing as a disciple.

So again, the question: Am I a disciple? Now, I'm gonna put it that way because I don't want to put it this way. I don't want to say, "Are you a disciple?" because you'll immediately think of who else you know that really should be asked that question. I want you to think about this question for yourself.

In the last twelve months, can you identify that you're growing?

Can you identify that there's a living, vital connection to Jesus? Or is it, yeah, I'm a Christian. The difference between that is whether we are a church that's a rock collection or a greenhouse. Are we growing?

Our family tried baseball for a number of years. When my kids were young—six boys—it was natural to try a lot of sports. We did T-ball and baseball and it wasn't great, to be really honest. As a man whose only team experience was math team, I didn't bring a lot to helping the kids. I can't hit a baseball. So as an invested dad, I decided to help coach T-ball. I coached the Looney Tunes, which was a group of five year olds, and the motto for our league was everybody hits.

It was all like, "Way to go, Joey!" at every game. Everybody gets to take a turn at the tee. What was funny is you could tell the kids who were aging out of tee ball because they were bored. It turns out that a game where everybody hits and you don't keep score is kind of boring. It's boring for kids and they soon catch on. They're like, "Wait a second, right? Everybody gets a trophy, everybody wins. This is no good."

But I'm afraid in many ways, the church has often been playing T-ball. No outs, no strikes, no score. And when that happens, the church can become bored and boring. It's just like, "Hey, our thing is just perpetuating our ministry, our existence, or maybe just being a little bit better than other churches." But Jesus has given us a scorecard, a way of measuring and keeping score. The church has to move from tee ball to baseball in our mindset. We're not just here to exist. We are here to make disciples, to develop disciples.

The Next Generation

Let me make this super concrete for you. We need to think about this for the next generation. Do we want the next generation to be Christians or do we want them to be disciples? Do we want them to grow up in a Christian home where somebody took them to church every once in a while, or do we want them to actually follow Jesus and know His word?

Last Sunday in our church, we had 151 children between newborn and fifth grade in our classes. We have 350 adults here. That's a lot of kids, y'all. The question really is, do we want them to become disciples? And if we do, that means we have to disciple them. We have to invest in them and teach them God's word and model that to them and pray with them and encourage them and notice when they're not here and follow up with them. Not just the people assigned to them, but as a community. Do we hear the call as a church to raise up the next generation and be invested in that? It really matters.

This is of course a calling for you as parents. The reality is we're discipling our children all the time in something. We're training them in something. We're always holding up before our kids a vision of the good life. These are the things that really matter. This is how we spend our money and our time. This is what we worry about. This is what mom and dad are doing. Are we holding up for them a discipleship unto Jesus? Or are we discipling them toward other things?

We're praying about as a church—I mentioned this last week—adding a Sunday school in the next year. The reason we're hungry to do that is we see the need for discipleship in our church. But that's going to require something of us. I'm going to ask you a really honest question: Are you willing to come here on Sunday morning for two and a half hours instead of one? That's the kind of skin in the game. It may not sound like a lot, but trust me on Sunday mornings, that's a lot, especially for those of you with children. But we're doing that because we want to raise up the next generation. We want to disciple adults. Are you willing to do that?

We're going to be looking for Sunday school teachers—not to replace parents, but for spiritual aunts and uncles to help instruct our kids and to teach adults and our youth.

We're really excited about that. Are you willing to be a part? Second, we need to think about cross cultural discipleship. Again, remember where they are. Remember I showed you this picture. Jesus made them take a seven day journey from Jerusalem in the South, seven day journey all the way up to where He gave His great commission. And you know what else He did before His ascension? He said, Go back to Jerusalem. So they had to go all the way back down to Jerusalem another seven days.

Clearly Jesus is taking them up to the Sea Of Galilee to remind them of something. So what is He reminding them of? Well, I think it's this. In all of His time up in the Sea Of Galilee, Jesus took His disciples on six cross cultural mission trips.

First mission trip: He went to Samaria. This is where the woman was at the well. The Samaritans were a mixed race of people. They actually had to kind of go around Samaria to get up between Jerusalem all the way to Galilee. And Jesus models for them relational evangelism. He moves toward her. He greets her, engages her. This mission trip lasted less than a week, but it was a heart check for the disciples like, hey, are you going to have predispositions against people that actually could hear the Gospel?

Second mission trip was to the Gerasenes on the other side of the Sea Of Galilee. This is where the demoniac was. That region is called the Decapolis, means ten cities. This trip just lasted one day, and they went to the other side, leaving the safety of Israel and Jewish community to go to those pagans across the sea.

Third mission trip: Tyre and Sidon, which is up on the coast, former Philistine and Phoenician towns. Matthew 15, there's a Syrophoenician woman. Jesus had just fed the 5,000 people and He goes there sort of on a break. And He's accosted by this woman who's like, can I be a part too? I'm not of Israel. And she gives Jesus this really smart reply and again, modeling for His disciples. Yeah, the gospel crosses all kinds of boundaries. It's for all kinds of people.

Fourth mission trip is back to the Decapolis on the other side of the Sea Of Galilee and this is where He fed the 4,000. Now what's funny about this is we think of Jesus feeding the 5,000, the 4,000 is like the same group of people. The 5,000 were Jews, the 4,000 were Gentiles. The people who didn't know that there was a bread of life that was coming.

The fifth mission trip, he takes them to Caesarea Philippi, way up on the top there. This is the heart of the pagan world. This is a place where there's a cleft in the rock that is called the Gates Of Hell. And the pagans in that area believe that spirits came up out of the ground right there, that's where the intersection was of hell and earth. And Jesus takes them to that place and says, who do you say that I am? And he's showing them again, like his power, not only over his gospel can go to all nations, but over the spirit world as well.

And then finally, sixth trip is to Samaria and beyond where he sends out the 72 and he says the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Do you see what Jesus is doing? He takes them back there and says, do you remember? Remember, remember, remember, remember, remember? And then he gives them these words.

Go into all the world, make disciples, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth

And they're like, okay, we get it. We get you Jesus. We know exactly what you're talking about because they're on the top of Mount Tabor and they can see all the surrounding area.

Our Commitment to Cross Cultural Discipleship

Brothers and sisters, we're remaining committed as a church to cross cultural discipleship, not because we're going some kind of crazy woke direction, not because that's popular, but because we want to tear down any barrier for everyone to know the gospel. And we want our church to reflect the diversity of our city, not just more of the same, but people who are different. So everyone can see and hear and experience it.

And the other thing about this too is we can't all stay here together. It's been part of the beautiful heritage of our church to send out our best. And we believe in that. And we're praying for the Lord to send out more missionaries, pastors, and churches, and people out of our church. And if Jesus calls us to the nations, hallelujah, the nations are coming to Raleigh, but we also have to be willing to go to the nations, including our own kids. Are we willing to send?

If you think about our civil authorities and the jobs that they do, firemen and policemen. What kind of a fireman would I be if I showed up at your house while it's burning to the ground and I'm like, well, it looks like it's about to go out anyway. Hey, it's fine.

We want a fireman who puts out fires and a policeman who handles criminals. And we want as a church to be people who warn people that there's a real hell, that there's real danger apart from Christ. And the question is, do we care? A fireman who let your house burn down, a policeman who just says, "Boys will be boys"—they don't care. Do we care? Do we care for the next generation? Do we care for our neighbors? Do we care for the nations?

The Yoke and the Promise

Now, let me wrap this up this way. I know that this is hard. Jesus lays this commission on us. This great commission and it feels heavy. And this is the same Jesus who says:

My yoke is easy and my burden is light. — Matthew 11:30

So how do we hold these two things together? This is what I want to say. We're sent with two things. We're sent first with the presence of our King.

A yoke is something we don't use anymore, but you would put two cattle into a yoke and yoke them together to pull a plow for farming. Jesus describes us being yoked. We are yoked with Him. This is not, "Go reach the nations by yourself. Have a good time." This is an invitation to be yoked with the word of God Himself, with the King of the universe, with the very creator. Is that an honor or a burden, do you think? To me, that strikes me as an honor. Jesus is saying, I want to be yoked with you. Come receive my yoke. I am gracious and humble in heart. He reminds us, he is with us.

And second, we're sent with the promise of the King. I think one of the regular things for Christians who've been Christians for a long time is, "I would really like to experience God." We may be able to remember back to experiences in the past where we felt that Jesus was real. The good news was great news for us. And we were stirred. We did things in the early years after our conversion. We followed God in ways that maybe we don't anymore.

And what many of us want is to experience God in fresh and new ways. Yet listen to the context of these two things. The great commission: go and make disciples. And I'm with you always. There's a promise where His presence and our experience of His presence is linked to our witness. If you want to experience Christ, make disciples. You want a front row seat to the kingdom? You want to see what God's doing? You want to experience God's mercy? You want to see His spirit at work? Be a part of disciple making. Watch people come to know Him. Raise up the next generation. Create opportunities for you to depend on God and look to God and see how God is going to meet.

Wouldn't it be great? A lot of us read stories in the Old Testament and New Testament like, "I wish I could see this. I wish I could experience this." And Jesus isn't done with His mission. There's more. Do we want more? Man, I want more. I want to see God's spirit alive in our church. We've watched some of this year. We've heard stories of God's work in Asbury. There's a church right now in Africa that is exploding in our own denomination. I love hearing stories of the spirit of God at work. Don't you want to taste it? Let's ask Him. Let's ask Him to lead us.

Father, we thank you, Lord. We thank you that you've promised that we are yoked to you, that you are with us. We pray, Father, we want to see your power at work in us. Lord, turn us inside out. Lord, we pray that you would use us for the expansion of your kingdom, for our joy, and for the good of our city. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

Would you stand and respond to God's...