“Go and Make Disciples”

The Great Commission

¹⁶ Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷ When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted. ¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

At that time Jesus was speaking to His eleven core disciples. Who is this passage directed at today? Most messages I have heard on this passage present this as a general statement to all regular church attenders. However, if we look at the passage with an Inductive Bible Study approach, I believe there is a different answer. Inductive Bible Study has three steps: Observation, Interpretation, Application.

Observation-

Reading this passage, we see that Jesus told the eleven to “go to the mountain,” a place away from everyone else. We know He had more followers than eleven. One time He sent seventy out to proclaim the Gospel. Many times, there where hundreds even thousands of people around Him and He taught them God’s truth. And yet, in this case He chose to give this message to the remaining eleven disciples, not everyone else.

Interpretation-

The greatest problem we all have in communication is definition of terms. If my definition is different than yours, but I don’t explain what I mean by that term, then you will not fully understand what I mean. For example, if I say I will see you soon and I mean in the next few days, but you assume I mean in the next few hours, I will not have communicated well.

So, what is the definition of a disciple? Here are a couple of definitions.

Definition of Disciple in Cambridge Dictionary-

A person who believes in the ideas and principles of someone famous and tries to live the way that person does or did.

From Wikipedia-

In Christianity, disciple primarily refers to a dedicated follower of Jesus. This term is found in adherent of a teacher. It is not the same as being a student in the modern sense. A disciple in the ancient biblical world actively imitated both the life and teaching of the master. It was a deliberate apprenticeship which made the fully formed disciple a living copy of the master.

So, I asked myself are all believers disciples? While pondering this question I realized scripture says the demons believe Jesus is the Son of God and they tremble. They obviously are not disciples. Also, I went to catechism classes every week until I was eighteen. I learned Biblical facts like Jesus is the Son of God, the virgin birth, Jesus died on the cross for our sins, etc. and never doubted any of them my whole life. I believed all of it but was not a disciple of anyone. I believed it like I believe George Washington was our first President. A fact, but it did not affect my life in any way.

My next question was are all disciples that call themselves Christian Jesus’ followers (Wikipedia definition) or are they simply following their pastor or other leader (Cambridge Dictionary definition)? I started going to church in my mid-thirties. At that time, I became a disciple of our charismatic pastor. He was a motivating speaker. He excited me and even asked me to become and elder, because of my business knowledge, before I truly became a Christ follower. Remember the Cambridge Dictionary definition of a disciple, “A person who believes in the ideas and principles of someone famous and tries to live the way that person does or did.” That was me. A disciple of a man.

Through my study of the Bible, God’s Spirit slowly opened my eyes and showed me we are called to follow Jesus, not a pastor or teacher. Think about how many times in the Gospels Jesus said, “Follow Me”. In my teens I was a “believer of facts”, in my thirties I became a “disciple of a man”, in my forties and on the Spirit help me become a “disciple of Jesus”, changing my goal to be a “living copy of the Master.” Therefore, I have personal knowledge that all believers are not necessarily disciples, and all disciples are not necessarily following Jesus.

Jesus is telling His remaining eleven core Disciples, those that have walked with Him for three years, those He has spent intimate time with teaching God’s truth versus the religion of their time, “Go make disciples”. He purposely separated the eleven from others. He challenged them to repeat the process He put them through and help others become Christ followers, disciples of Jesus.

So, how do we interpret who this message is for today? Who is charged to “go make disciples”?

Application-

There is a book I read a few years ago that I believe speaks to this question. The name of the book is Not A Fan by Pastor Kyle Idleman. He separates church attenders into two categories: “Followers of Jesus” and “Fans of Jesus”. In his description he defines Fans as people that sit on the sideline but are not “on the field”. They may get all excited about things they hear. They may look and sound like followers of Jesus and even wear the team “colors.” However, unless they are entertained with what they want to hear, they will find another place to be a Fan. The Followers are just that. They are committed followers of Jesus. My favorite verse is John 6:68. When Jesus asked the twelve if they would also leave after He spoke a hard-to-understand truth and the masses left Him, Peter said, “But Lord to whom should we go? You have the words of eternal life.” That is a Follower, sometimes not understanding, but always committed to Jesus.

I believe the message in this passage is not a general message to all church attenders. It is a message to those that match the true meaning of Jesus’ disciple, “a living copy of the Master.” A message to people who are Jesus’ disciples 24/7/365. Whose life, or “fruit” as the Bible defines it, shows they desire to be “a dedicated follower of Jesus.” How can a Fan create Followers? It takes a true Jesus’ disciple to “go and make disciples.” You cannot teach what you do not know. You cannot lead someone if you don’t know the way. A Fan can only produce more Fans that follow men, not fully committed to Jesus.

I believe we as His church should determine who are the true disciples of Jesus and do what Jesus did, spend in-depth time with them. Jesus spent three years with them day in and day out. Jesus showed it takes time to “make disciples”. The idea is to multiply. Jesus made eleven disciples. Then the eleven were charged with building into people and making new disciples. Then their disciples would make disciples. A good example was Paul and Timothy. Paul even calls Timothy his spiritual son. That is relational discipleship.

Think about Paul’s letters. Repeatedly Paul wrote that the people were given the truth, said they believed it, but when a different message was given to them, they fell away. Fans not Followers. It took time for Paul to build into Timothy. Over time, God built other disciples of Jesus through Paul and His original eleven. In our “hurry up” world we want everything to happen quickly. It appears to me that making disciples of Jesus is a process that takes one-on-one focus over a period time.

I believe people are so concerned about where their families and friends will spend eternity that they want to hear them say they “prayed a prayer of commitment”. But what are they committing to? What do they think the life of a Christ follower is like? Jesus said in Luke 9:23-24 “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it.” Are they ready to “Deny themselves, pick up their cross and follow Jesus” or do they just want to “fit in” with their church family? Are they Followers or Fans?

The scariest passage in the Bible to me is Matthew 25:31-46, what is called separating the Sheep and the Goats. Jesus has a great multitude in front of Him and separates them into two groups. All these people believed they were followers and even call Him “Lord,” but Jesus tells the second group He never knew them and sent them to hell. I believe this is a picture of the church today, Followers and Fans. We are allowing Fans to be comfortable, but they are not Followers. The problem is where will they end up spending their eternity? Are they sheep or goats?

Eph 4:11-13 says, “Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachersto equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” Are we equipping people to be disciple makers? Is our goal to reach unity in the faith? Are we striving to attain the whole measure of the fullness of Christ?

My prayer is that pastors and church leaders will determine who the true followers are and build into them to produce the disciples Jesus asked His followers to build. “We will know them by their fruit”. Once they are fully disciples of Jesus, they too can teach others. These disciples could be the teachers and small group leaders of our congregations. Then I believe the church can “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Teachers must be followers… disciples of Jesus…not fans or disciples of men.