Make disciples (Matt 28:18 - 20)

Short teachings from Hillcrest Church further exploring Sunday's teachings.

Transcript

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Hey, how are you doing? Tim here. And we are diving deep into the series Living Scent. Hope you're doing well today. And yeah, I just wanted to pick up with what Jeff Jenkins talked about yesterday. Thank you, Jeff, for talking about the life of uh the life of discipleship and calling people into the life of discipleship. So Jeff had us look at the end of the book of Matthew. Very if you've been around church for a while, it's a passage that gets talked about a lot called the Great Commission. And Jesus says, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. I would tie that to the kingship hymn, the kingdom of God, Jesus' kingship. Therefore, go um and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. And um and what Jeff wanted us to recognize is uh that that our kind of what we're sent to do is to uh lead people into this life of full discipleship. If you remember a number of weeks back we talked about um the four relationships um and that Jesus uh is is restoring, he makes a way for us to be right uh with God, the triune God, and also restoring our relationship with ourselves, uh with others, and uh with all creation. And the reality is um this is both there's a moment of entry into that, and also uh a lifetime of transformation, of growing uh deeper into that. We see both of these reflected in this passage that we just read and that Jeff led us to. Um go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them. Um to be baptized in the name of the triune God, it's one name, Father, Son, and Spirit, which is interesting. Um, to be baptized, it uh represents this moment of entry, right? This beginning of this relationship, this beginning of this journey. Uh and then uh Jesus goes on to say, and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you. And um assuming, uh I think it's a very fair thing to assume, you don't teach that one time, and then the person masters all of it, uh, that would not line up with any of the human experience uh that I'm familiar with. That this is a lifetime of uh for those uh those who become disciples who enter into the life of faith, are baptized in the name of the one name of the Father, Son, Spirit, they then enter into a lifetime of learning everything Jesus taught and learning to obey, submit, to walk in everything Jesus taught. And so it's a both represents this entry into apprenticeship to Jesus and a lifetime of learning to obey all that Jesus instructed us in. Uh, and that uh to be a disciple is that whole package, right? And I think uh Jeff was pushing back the idea that um you know only the entry is what we should focus on. No, it's a lifetime, it's an entry and a lifetime of learning to obey everything uh Jesus taught. I think it's even interesting the term uh disciple. Jesus says, go and make disciples or learners or or apprentices, sometimes I translate it. Um you could translate it students. Each one of these kind of has its own disciples, very Christian language. Um, student really focuses on the kind of the head part of it. I like the term apprentice because it, I think to me, it implies more kind of learning, um, kind of emulating the master. Uh, but it's uh, you know, learner, I think also kind of evident. But this is the idea uh that Jesus is getting at. Now it's interesting because um I go to the book of Acts and talk about this terminology. Uh it seems like the early church uh didn't differentiate between believer, disciple, or Christian. These were all kind of interchangeable. And so, you know, at the beginning of Acts, and obviously Acts is a different author than the book of Matthew, and you've got to be careful comparing terminology for one author, because one author might use terminology a little different than another author. But I think Acts does give a representative sampling of how the early church used these terms. And so, like in the book of Acts, at the very beginning, you get uh uh you get followers of Jesus referred to as believers. So, like in Acts, um, let's see, uh, Acts 2, 44, all the believers were together and had everything in common. So that's uh, you know, it they were believers. Um, Acts 4.32, all the believers were in one heart and mind. And so here you get kind of this emphasis on faith or belief. Those terms, it's the same Greek lies behind each of those. Uh whereas by the time you get to Acts 6.1, you get the term in those days when the number of disciples was increasing, uh and Acts 6.7, so the Word of God spread, the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly. Uh, I don't think Luke's trying to differentiate between believers and disciples. I think he's just using, you know, just varying his vocabulary. He's describing the same group of people. Sometimes he calls them believers, sometimes he calls them disciples. Uh and then by the time you get to Acts 11, let's see, 1126, the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. And then you get the term Christian introduced, and he says the disciples were called Christians. And so he's saying the same group, the disciples and the Christians, the same term to refer to the same people, and then earlier in Acts it seems like believers. And it seems for Luke, and I think Luke representing the very early Jesus movement, believers, disciples, Christians, all kind of describing the same people. And I and I think sometimes, you know, I think all these are fair language to use in our world today, just recognizing different ones carry different connotations. Um believers can connote, uh, can kind of point to this initial belief or trust in Jesus. Um disciple I think has a little more emphasis on this lifetime learning and followership. Um, and Christian is kind of more this identity label, just recognizing the different emphases in these, and um, and to know that clearly when Jesus, you know, going back to Matthew 28, Jesus uh both this initial step of trust, be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit, and this lifelong learning to become like Jesus, teaching them to obey everything I've taught you. These both they cannot be separated uh from uh the life of faith. And uh, and so you know, the final takeaway, I would say the way we think of ourselves, I think Jesus wants us to think of ourselves as lifetime learners of Jesus, lifelong learners, apprentices, followers, continuing to learn what he taught and walk in his ways. And then for, you know, kind of in this Living Sent series, when we think about what we're sent to do, we are sent to introduce others and to help others in this uh this lifelong process of becoming like Jesus. And so that shows up in all sorts of ways as we are introducing uh people to faith in Jesus, uh, making sure that people understand hey, uh this is this is a lifetime apprenticeship under King Jesus, um, not an earning thing, but a lifetime transformation we're entering on. Um and uh to understand even the church, the church is a community of mutual discipleship. We're not a group of people who have arrived, we're a group of people who uh the Spirit is working in to continue to help us all learn better what it looks like to walk in obedience to Jesus. Because the direction, the invitation is always, regardless of where a person is at, whether they're hostile to faith, considering faith, or they've been walking with Jesus for a long time, our invitation is always to join with what God is doing in that person's life to help them move along farther in the life of faith. And whether that's a step closer to considering Jesus, whether that's a step of making that initial step of faith, or whether that's somebody who's been walking with Jesus for decades and helping them take one step further into walk to to knowing and obeying everything Jesus taught. This is what we are called to. We're called to join with what God is doing in people's lives and help them move deeper into the life of followership. All right, praise some peace.