Sermon By Mark Engler
Sr. Minister
Mt. Vernon Christian Church
Mt. Vernon, MO
Any familiarity with any other sermon on the site is totally coincidental.
Make Disciples
Mt. 28:16-20
INTRO: A man was in the hospital close to death. A minister came to see him and asked: “Have you made your peace with God? I didn’t know,” said the man, “that we had ever quarreled.”
That’s the sentiment of many typical American’s today. They don’t go to bed at night with the burning awareness that they are at war with God. But do you know that if you are outside of Christ, if you haven’t taken Him as your Lord and Savior and gone through that watery grave of baptism in Christian obedience that being at war with God is exactly what you are?
There are a great number of people today who feel that they will go to heaven when they die and that many others will go to heaven when they die because they are good moral people. Many would say, “It makes no difference who or what you follow, you can be Islamic, Muslim, follow Buddhism, Hinduism, and so on and so on, and still end up in the same place as if you follow Christ.” But that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
ILLUS: 1999 National Missionary Convention a workshop leader slipped through the crakes. Those who put on the convention thought they had a good teacher, someone who was dedicated to Christ, someone who would teach Christ as the only way. Instead, he used an illustration in which he put God at the top of a mountain and he was demonstrating that there were many different paths to the top. Whether it be Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Muslim, Islamic and so on.
A good friend of mine was in that workshop as well were other classmates of mine from C.C.C.B. When he did that illustration they couldn’t believe their ears. And my friend Salonique Aldophe stood up and disputed the workshop leader. I don’t know exactly what was said, but I do know that the workshop was the talk of the convention. And that Salonique who was a very courageous young Christian with little Christian education at the time, stood up when others wouldn’t and defended his faith in disputing this very educated workshop leader. The people in that workshop sided with my friend and when the workshop was over many people thanked Salonique for his bravery and for defending the faith. That workshop leader has never been back to the National Missionary Convention.
Many people today don’t believe in what the Bible has to tell us. Many don’t believe that the Bible is the God breathed and is God’s inspired Word. It was obvious that the workshop leader that day didn’t believe that either. So when you quote them Scriptures like John 14:7 “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Or like Acts 4:12 “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” When you take them to Scriptures like that they don’t believe that what you are telling them is truth and they say that there has to be more than one way to get to heaven.
ILLUS: Terry Bowland in his book Make Disciples – Reaching The Postmodern World for Christ writes this: “Many today balk at the teaching of the church. ‘Do you mean to say,” they ask, ‘that all those outside the church have no hope whatsoever? What about all the sincere folks who never come to Christ? What of the billions in the worlds of Islam, Buddism and Hinduism? What of those who have never heard? What of my neighbors and friends who are good-hearted people, but who have never made Christ their Lord and Savior? Are you saying that they are lost? Why, if that’s true, then this ‘gospel’ has made you Christians the most narrow-minded, bigoted people on the face of the earth.”
He continues, “Perhaps, we should reply by saying, that far from being narrow-minded and bigoted, Christian are, in fact, the most loving people in the world.”
“Suppose you are a doctor and an individual comes to you one day and describes his symptoms. After taking a blood test you realize that this fellow has acute diabetes. You prescribe insulin injections. ‘Insulin!’ he cries. ‘I don’t want to take insulin.’ You assure him that he must take insulin.
‘But, I don’t want to take insulin,’ he complains. ‘Can’t I take some other drug. How about penicillin? How about a double dose of Tylenol? Won’t those do?’ Again you reaffirm that without the insulin, he will die.
Then he exclaims, ‘Why doctor, I believe you are the most narrow, closed-minded, bigoted physician I have ever met.’ Now, here’s the question: Is the doctor narrow and bigoted or is the doctor loving, because he is telling the man the truth – the only truth which will give him life!”
Christians have a tough row to hoe. We have to fight against a world that believes evolution is the cause for creation and not God. The world tries to tell us that there is no need for God that we evolved from nothing and we are going back to nothing, that when you die that is the end. Let me tell you in very clear words, the world is wrong. But we are left with a question and that question is how do you show them that Jesus is the only way, the truth and the life and that no one come to the Father except through Him.
I believe the answer is in YOUR life, it’s in MY life, and it’s in the life of CHRISTIANS all over the world. It has been said that the proof of Christianity is not a book, but a life. The power of Christianity is not a creed, but a character and that when you see a life that has been transformed by the grace of God, you see a witness to the resurrection of Jesus.
We can show people the Bible, we can invite people to church, and we can lead them to good Christian literature, but until Christians, until you and I, live out the Word of God in close personal relationship with Christ many people will never believe that God’s Word is God breathed and God inspired and that He sent His Son to die on a cross for the redemption of all mankind.
When Christians, will we take our duties of being a Christian seriously.
PROP: As Christians we have been given our orders, it’s time we took them seriously. It is time we stopped being passive in a lost and dieing world. It’s time we lived out the Word of God.
ILLUS: Charles Spurgeon who lived from 1834 to 1892 and was the greatest preacher of his day in the English-speaking world. Twice a week he preached to overflowing crowds in the 6,000 seat Metropolitan Tabernacle. When asked “If the heathen who had never heard the gospel would be saved.” He answered “It is more a question with me whether we who hear the gospel, and fail to give it to those who have not, can be saved.”
Are we doing what we know needs to be done? Are we telling others? Do we really care is Susan down the street hears or not? My answers to those questions are, no, not all of us, yes and no, and yes. I sincerely believe that we as Christian do care about Susan down the street, and Joe around the corner, and Pedro down in Mexico, Hop Sing in China. The problem is we don’t know what to do and how to reach them.
Now I don’t have all the answers, but we can look for some this morning, first let us look at our orders, let’s take a look at what we have been commissioned to do.
There are 5 different places in Scripture where Jesus gives us a commission to go, sending us out to preach and be witnesses. Lets take a look at some of the lesser-known passages and then look at the most known. John 20:19-23, Luke 24:44-48, Acts 1:6-8, Mark 16:15-16, Mt. 28:16-20
If you’ve heard my sermon “How to be a Good Evangelist” and remember it, you’ll know that I put quite an influence on the word “make” in the Great Commission. Today the title of the message is Make Disciples and today if we are going to be serious about fulfilling our Christian orders we have to be serious about making disciples. This morning I want to give you some practical ways we can seriously go about making disciples based on Mt. 28:19-20.
ILLUS: If you tell your child to go to your room and clean it, and you say I want you to pick up all the clothes, make your bed, throw away the trash, and vacuum the floor. What have you done? You’ve told your child that involved in cleaning the room is going, picking up clothes, making the bed, throwing away the trash, and vacuuming the floor. In order to have a clean room all those things need to be done.
Well Jesus did the same thing, He told us to make disciples, and then He told us how. First go, second baptize, third, teach them to obey. In order to make disciples we must follow the orders Jesus has given us and in order to make disciples according to the context in which Jesus is talking, we must understand one very basic thing. It’s very basic, but it must be understood. We are to make disciples of Jesus, so understanding that is underlying in each point we talk about today.
1. Therefore Go
As in the illustration of telling your child to go clean his/her room the first thing you have to do is go. If we are going to be serious about making disciples we must first go.
This is the point many people begin to get scared. “But I don’t want to go to Africa, or China, or South America.” “I want to stay right here where I’m comfortable.”
There’s a song that I have on CD that is not very well known entitled Please Don’t Send Me To Africa, I’d like to share with you the lyrics of the song, because it seems to be the sentiment of many typical American Christians today.
(Verse 1) Oh Lord I am your willing servant, you know I have been for years, I am here in this pew every Sunday and Wednesday, I’ve stained it with many a tear, I given you years of my service, and I’ve always given you my best, and I’ve never asked You for anything much, so Lord, I deserve this request.
(Chorus) Please don’t send me to Africa, I don’t think I’ve got what it takes, I’m just a man, I’m not a trazan, I don’t like lions, gorillas, or snakes, I’ll serve you here in suburbia, in my comfortable middle class life, please don’t send out into the bush where the natives are restless at night.
(Verse 2) I’ll see that the money is gathered, and I’ll see that the money is sent, and I’ll wash and stack the communion cups, I’ll tithe 11 percent, I’ll volunteer for the nursery, and I’ll go on the youth group retreat, I’ll usher, I’ll deacon, I’ll go door to door, just let me keep warming this seat.
Unfortunately this is what many people think of when they think about “going,” but that’s not what has to be done. They think they have to go to Africa or some far off place. But what we simply need to do is take what we learn in here, when you come to Sunday school & Worship Service (by the way if you aren’t in Sunday school your missing out on what probably is the most productive study time you can have all week, unless of course you are in a more intensive study group or have quality study and devotion time on a regular basis). What we need to do is simply take what we learn and go tell it to others outside of this church building.
I’ve thought on several occasions about having signs made up and putting them above the exit doors of the church and putting them up at the exits of the parking lot that say, “You are now entering the mission field.” Now that idea isn’t original with me, I’ve seen them at other churches, but I think it’s totally appropriate because once you leave this building and this meeting together as a church you are in the mission field and what you have done is gone. You leave this fellowship of believers and you have done the going part of the Great Commission. The problem is that many Christians don’t realize that, they think like a spoke about earlier that you have to go off to some far-fetched place like Africa.
We must remember what Acts 1 and Luke 24 says, Lk 24:47, “and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” Acts 1:8, “…and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
You see God’s plan for evangelism or making disciples begins right were you are. Jerusalem was where they were and Mt. Vernon is where we are. Mt. Vernon is for the majority of us our mission field. Some will take it farther; some will go to the Judea’s and the Samaria’s. Some will widen their mission field to the state of MO and then across the U.S. and some will even take it to “the ends of the earth” and their mission field will be worldwide.
Part of taking our orders seriously and fulfilling our commission is going out these doors and putting into practice the teachings of the Scripture. So when you go out these doors today remember that to people who don’t know Jesus as there Lord and Savior, to the lost and dieing of the world, you are a living and breathing Bible. People will judge by you, by the way you act, by the way you talk, and by the way you live whether God is real and His Word is true. You may be the only contact they ever have with the living Scriptures and it’s imperative that people see Christ in you. So go today and live out the Word of God.
If you go out of here today not knowing what to do, then you need to seriously consider sitting down, reading your Bible, and coming back on Wed. night for Bible study, or Aftershock, and being here next Sunday morning at 9:30 am for Sunday school.
2. Baptizing Them
The second thing we are to do is baptize. Now I’m not going to argue or debate baptism here this morning, I don’t think I need to; there may be some here that don’t fully understand what it is to be baptized, but I’m confident that many here this morning do. If you don’t understand then I’ll be more than happy to talk with you about it after the service.
The main thing we need to understand here is that baptism is part of making disciples. It’s clearly seen in Scripture that baptism is necessary for becoming a Christian. I can refer you to many different Scriptures that speak about the subject of Christian baptism. Mt. 28:19, Mk. 16:16, Acts 2:38, Act 2:41, Acts 8:12, 13, & 38, Acts 9:18, Acts 10:47 & 48, Acts 16:15 & 33, Acts 18:8, Acts 19:5, Acts 22:16, Rom. 6:1-7, 1 Cor. 12:13, Gal. 3:27, 1 Peter 3:21. I think you get the idea. Baptism is NOT something we can leave out of God’s plan for making disciples.
Just like the child you tell to clean their room, in order for the room to be clean you have to follow certain steps. When you are in the business of making disciples, which if you are a Christian, you are in that business, baptism is necessary.
Now let me just say, because there is some confusion on the subject of who is a disciple and who is a Christian. Again, remember this basic thing and it’s underlying through this whole subject, we are making disciples of Jesus. And it’s not until they are baptized that they are a disciple of Jesus and it’s at that point that they become a Christian as well.
You see, while you are on the “go”, out in your mission field, and being the living Word for people you have to first gain their trust. When you first share your witness with someone, telling about what Jesus has done for you, and how He has changed your life, and what He can do for their life you are in the process of gaining there trust. They have to first trust you, before they can trust in Christ. They have to see in you the Word lived out and when they trust the Word lived out in you, then they begin trusting in Jesus.
It’s at the point when they trust in Jesus, that they follow that trust in Christian baptism. Before, they were following you in the way you were showing them to Christ. But after obedience in Christian baptism they are following Jesus, and following God’s Word, thus being a disciple of Jesus and being a Christian.
Now all that may be confusing to some and I don’t mean to confuse you, but it may be that for some, understanding that is absolutely necessary for understand God’s plan for salvation.
I hope you see that at baptism is when someone first becomes a Christian and a disciple of Jesus. That’s why the next part of seriously making disciples is so important.
3. Teaching Them to Obey
Jesus said “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” What is it that we are to teach them? All that He commanded. And all that He commanded didn’t end when He ascended into heaven, His commands and His Word continued to be lived out and written down by the Holy Spirit inspired apostles.
So we are to teach them the Word of God, in particular the New Testament. I’m not saying that the Old Testament is not to be taught, it is a valuable tool in teaching people about God and about Jesus. There is no doubt that Jesus can be seen throughout the New & Old Testament. But I believe we are to teach the New Testament as the faith and practice of Christians today. In the New Testament you will find all you need to know about how live, and lead a Christian life, and how to lead others to becoming a disciple of Jesus.
And that’s the cycle of making disciples. A Christian shares with someone through their life and words about Jesus and the salvation offered through Him. That someone moves through the trust they have in the Christian, to trusting in Jesus and following that trust in Christian baptism, then they learn what Jesus commanded in His Word and then that someone who is now a Christian, like you are, begins the process all over again.
Where are you in the process today? Are you trusting in and learning from that Christian friend? Are you just now beginning to trust in Jesus and need to follow that trust in Christian baptism? Have you been trusting in Jesus and are you being obedient in following His commands? Have you been putting into practice God’s Word and making disciples of others? Somewhere in there we all fall and somewhere in there many of us fail and we stop the cycle of discipleship.
So leave here today and live out the Word of God! Take up the process of discipleship where you may have left off days, months, or years ago. Let’s get serious again about our Christian duty to make disciples.
