Matthew 28:18-20

Good morning, Saylorville. My name is Lucas Bair. For those who don’t know me, my wife was up here singing a little bit ago, Teresa Bair. And we have three boys, Nathaniel, Jackson, and Owen. All three of them now live here in the United States. Our youngest just moved out a few months ago. We’re empty nesters. All three of them are here attending DMACC. They all three attend here [Saylorville Church] and they’re involved in exciting… getting ready to add a new member of our family here in June as my oldest son, Nathaniel’s, engaged to Sawyer Grant. You guys probably know who she is, or some of you do. She also attends here with her family.

Anyway, a little update on what’s going on in our life. It’s been kind of crazy. We’ve been in Brazil making disciples, establishing churches for the past 14 years. You guys, this church sent us out 14 years ago. That blows my mind even to try to contemplate that. Don’t know why you’re clapping, because it’s been crazy. It’s been hard. It’s been gut-wrenching. It’s been chaos. There’s been valleys. It’s been awesome. You guys have been walking with us through all that these past… 14 years. You have been our partners. Many of you are our dearest friends. Some of you are even our mentors. All of you have been a conduit of God’s blessing into our lives. I have other things I want to say today, but I want to start by just saying thank you. We deeply love you guys in this church. So thank you.

Two years ago, we launched a brand new church plant. We were coming out of COVID and God was just kind of meshing. (That’s Portuguese. That’s like a combination of Portuguese and English. I don’t know how to say that. He was, whatever, I’m losing my English now.) He was really kind of directing us to plant a new church that was very simple, very relational, very family-centric. That’s what we did. We had no idea what we were doing. We were just kind of following the Lord as He was leading us. Through the process of establishing this church that’s a little bit different, God has really been challenging and reshaping my ideas of what it means to be and make disciples.

That’s what I want to talk to you about today. He has simplified and at the same time deepened my thoughts on what I’m supposed to do and who I am supposed to be as a disciple. He’s used a really familiar passage to do it. Really familiar. In fact, it’s so familiar that it’s almost cliche for a missionary to use this passage to preach on during a missions conference. That’s what we’re doing. We’re closing out. Today’s the last day of the missions weekend here at Saylorville. I’m almost a little embarrassed to stand up here and open the Bible to this passage because it’s so cliche, so predictable for a missionary to do this. I want you to know this morning that I am willing to risk the embarrassment to share this passage. (That was kind of funny. It didn’t really hit. I’m sorry.) I’m willing to risk the embarrassment this morning to go to this super familiar passage to share some things that God has been teaching me these last couple years. That passage is known as the Great Commission, found in Matthew chapter 28:19-20. Let’s look at that passage. It’ll be up here on the screen. I’m just going to read it. You can follow along. If you have your own copy of the scriptures, you can open up on your phone if you want to. I’m actually going to start in verse 18 to kind of run up into the passage. Let’s start there.

Matthew 28:18, “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.”

This comes shortly after the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus had told his disciples to go to Galilee. There he would meet them. This is that moment when he’s meeting his disciples after his resurrection. There Jesus gives his followers, his apostles, a commission, last marching orders. Matthew ends his gospel right here. He ends it with these words of Jesus. He understands that these words of Jesus need to be emphasized.

We emphasize people’s last words. Just a few months back I was flipping through YouTube, the reels, you know, the shorts. Flipping through the shorts, (you might do that too. It’s really addicting) and I came up to a short about Einstein. This is a 30-second video about Einstein when he was in the hospital dying. So here’s this great man who had a tremendous influence on the world through science and his mind. And there he is, dying in the hospital. And he’s in and out of consciousness. And right before he dies he comes into consciousness and he begins to speak. And these are the last words of Einstein. Whoa! What’s he going to say at the end? And there’s a nurse there that could hear him… But he spoke in German, and she didn’t speak German. She didn’t understand. And the whole video is this travesty, this tragedy. The last words of Einstein have been lost.

We have this belief that someone’s last words have extra weight to them, that we need to listen to them, that we need to heed them. Almost as if the person is saving the most important thing to the end. And for this reason I think Matthew ends his gospel with these words. In Matthew’s gospel these are the last and weighty words of Jesus.

Now in this these last words of Jesus there are really four things that Jesus is telling his followers to do: to go, make disciples, baptize them, and teach them. But there’s only really one command. And that command is make disciples. Everything else is subordinate to this one central command. And when the disciples left the mount there was no confusion what they were supposed to do with the rest of their lives. They were to make disciples of and for Jesus. Full stop.

Now the simplicity of Jesus’s marching orders are grounding and clarifying for the follower of Jesus. I remember when God really got ahold of my heart about this truth. I remember right where I was. I was driving home from a meeting and I was really frustrated. (This is a few years back, quite a few years back, five, six years back.) And I was really frustrated because we were in the process of launching a new church at the time and we kept hitting blockades and road bumps and shut doors, and I was getting so frustrated. I’m like, ‘Lord, can we just get our services launched? Can we just get a building rented? Can we get a church planted?’ And I was so frustrated. (And I don’t know if you talk to yourself. I mean I talk to myself all the time. I mean there’s like even this moment, there are like numerous conversations going on in my head, and now they happen in like two different languages, which is really crazy.) And so it’s not uncommon for me to talk to myself as I’m driving. But as I was kind of wrestling and frustrated, a voice was in my head. Now it was in my own voice. I’m not going to say God spoke to me. It’s kind of weird to say ‘God spoke to me.’ No. But I will say this. It was like spirit-directed thoughts were entering my mind. Call it what you want, but in that moment, my voice in my head says, ‘Lucas, do you know that Jesus never commanded anybody to plant a church?’ I’m driving. I’m like, ‘That’s true. There’s no command in Scripture to plant a church.’ (which is interesting because I call myself a church planter.) I’ve given myself a title that’s not even found in Scripture. There is no command to plant a church. What is the command? Make disciples. And that voice in my head is saying, ‘Lucas, stop getting frustrated about the details. Make disciples. If you make disciples, you’re being obedient. Everything else will work its way out.’ That was a grounding moment for me. And it continues to be to this day because there are moments when there is tremendous chaos in our ministry.

I’m not kidding.

About once a month, I’m trying to figure out what it takes to become a plumber because I’m like, I’m done with this. I can’t do this. There is chaos monthly in our church plant and in this church too. It’s just a thing. It just happens. There’s so many times where I’m like, this isn’t going to work. This is going to collapse. We need to shut the doors. We need to start over. Every time I have those frustrating thoughts in my mind, I just want to quit. It’s not going to work. I get discouraged. That voice comes in my mind, ‘Lucas, just make disciples. Don’t worry about it. Just make … are you making disciples?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Okay, good. You’re being obedient. That’s what Jesus has called you to do.’

Now you might be thinking, ‘Lucas, I am so glad that you have found some clarity and some security and some calm in the storm in the midst of the Great Commission. Awesome. I can see how for like a missionary or for like a pastor, that would be great. Clarifying. It’d be very helpful. But what’s that have to do with me? I’m not a pastor. I’m not a missionary. Does it even apply to me? I mean, who was up on that mount? It was Jesus and his apostles. He gave this commission, these marching orders to the apostles. Does it even matter for me today where I am?’ It does. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t be up here preaching to you. But I want to show you in Scripture that it clearly does.

In Acts chapter 8, it records a moment in time when Stephen was killed. Stephen was the very first Christian martyr. (You can look. I’ll throw up on the screen or Tanner will throw it up on the screen behind me.) Acts chapter 8 says this,

Acts 8:1, “And Saul approved of his execution, (that of Stephen, the first Christian martyr) And there arose that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered (all the disciples scattered) throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles…” (the ones who got the commission from Jesus)

Now flip over to Acts chapter 11. He picks up on this story again.

Acts 11:19-20,  “Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except the Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, (The Hellenists were the non-Jews) preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.”

This is so significant because it wasn’t the apostles that were obeying Jesus’ last words here. It was the Church. It was us, every follower of Jesus. Jesus has given every one of his followers, his disciples, this clear and simple command, make disciples.

But what is a disciple? And by implication, who as a disciple am I called to be? Because disciples make disciples, you have to be one before you make one. Now Jesus lays that out in the rest of the passage. He starts in verse 19.

Matthew 28:19 says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

The first step in making a disciple or to be a disciple is baptism. Now there’s a lot I could say here, but it’s not really what I want to focus on this morning. So let me just summarize it real quick. How I understand baptism here, or how he’s using it, is it’s shorthand for the whole process of evangelism and conversion. It’s referring to somebody who has heard the gospel, has repented, and believes in Jesus. Their sins being forgiven, and their heart being changed and transformed through their faith in Christ. Now that decision that each one of us needs to make, that decision is private. It’s personal. But Jesus made it very clear that that decision cannot stay personal and private. It must be declared publicly. That is what baptism is. Baptism is the public declaration of my private decision to trust in Jesus as my Savior. Baptism isn’t magic. It doesn’t change me. Faith in Jesus changes me. Baptism is the public declaration of my life-changing faith in Jesus. Jesus here is saying that a disciple is someone who has believed in him, has made the decision to follow him, then choosing to go public through baptism. That’s where your lifelong journey as a disciple begins. But it’s only the beginning. When you believe in Jesus, you are a disciple. But the expectation is that we will grow and develop as disciples. How we do that is laid out by Jesus in the next verse. This is really what I want to lean into. It’s really fascinating to me. A disciple needs to be taught. As disciples, we are learners at our core. But what are we supposed to be teaching and what are we supposed to be learning? Verse 20, he says… Watch this.

[Matthew 28:19-20 “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.”]

This is where it gets kind of interesting. We are supposed to be teaching and learning everything Jesus taught and commanded. I wonder how many of us here really understand what Jesus taught, what he commanded. I wonder that because in my own life, when I was reading through this and thinking about it, I thought to myself, ‘Wow, what did Jesus command? Really, what did he teach?’ It’s so easy to fall into the loop of just learning about Jesus and learning theology and studying Paul and Peter. Awesome things. We need to do that. They are just rifting off the things Jesus taught. It’s good. But it’s so easy just to learn about Jesus and theology and never actually study and understand and learn what Jesus taught and what he commanded.

I remember I was talking to a friend of mine. I said, “Look, if you want to just wreck your faith and just blow your mind, spend six months just studying what Jesus taught. It’ll blow your mind.” But he says even more than that. If you look at verse 20 again, he says, “teaching them” (what?) “to observe all that I’ve commanded them.” We are to observe. Now, observe here does not mean to look at. Observe here means to obey. In fact, some translations translate it that way. This is significant to me. A disciple is not simply defined by what he knows but by what he does. I know as a church you’re going through James. That is a major theme in James. Jesus doesn’t want us to learn his teachings so that we can pass an exam. It’s not discipleship. He wants us to learn his teachings so we can live and conduct ourselves like he did. He’s not simply passing down a body of information. He’s passing down a way to live, a way to conduct ourselves so that the disciples of Jesus, through their conduct, through their way of life, in obedience to his teachings would be the reflection and even the revelation of Jesus to those around them. I love that idea. Be the revelation of Jesus to those around you. It’s a powerful image to me. And that is what Jesus has called us to. That’s what it means to be a disciple.

Now, I’m going to say something that may sound controversial. And if you know me, you’ve been waiting for this moment because I always say something that sounds wrong. It may be wrong. But I don’t think it is. So hold on. Maybe it’s not even that controversial. But I’ve observed something true in my life and it may be true also in yours. Now listen, for many of us, not all of us, but for many of us here, we could go through the rest of our life and never learn one more theological fact and we’d be fine. For many of us, our learning has greatly outpaced our obedience. Now I’m not trying to diminish the importance of learning. I’m just trying, what I’m trying to do is I want to raise obedience to the level where Jesus put it. We cannot divorce learning and obedience. But I’m afraid that we’ve done that.

So let me give you an example of what we do in Brazil. This is a phrase we use in Brazil. You know the book, the Five Love Languages? Great book. Never read it. But I hear it’s a good book. Something we say in Brazil is we say, ‘Look, God’s love language is obedience.’ That’s how we tell… that’s very scriptural. How we tell God we love him is through obedience, and the way that we try to implement this or to create this culture in our church in Brazil is like this. Every Bible study that we have in Brazil, it could be the gathering of the church on Sunday when we study the scriptures. It might be the ladies ministry that’s reading a book together of a Christian author and studying the scriptures and the words of the author together in the group. It could be an evangelistic study of somebody who doesn’t even know Jesus as Savior. Every Bible study that we do in Brazil ends with this question. ‘Okay, so what does God want me to do this week because of this passage?’ Then we make what we call an “I will…” statement, and we put a challenge to ourself. I will do this this week. And it’s specific. It’s measurable. It’s attainable. There’s times you’re like, ‘Well, I’m going to pray more this week. That’s what God wants me to do.’ Great. Okay, but what’s that mean? ‘Okay, I’m going to pray 10 minutes every morning.’ Great. That’s an ‘I will’ statement. You can do that. You can pass and fail. That’s what we’re looking for. And then we keep each other accountable as a form of discipleship. You know, that little step, it’s so elementary. It’s so simple. That little step has transformed and deepened my walk with the Lord the past couple of years. It’s so simple, and yet it’s been so profound to me, because it helps drive home that scripture is not to simply be studied. It’s to be applied and obeyed. Marrying learning with obedience… We don’t want our learning to outpace our obedience.

We as disciples of Jesus are to make disciples. A disciple is someone who believes in him and has decided to become his follower as represented by publicly proclaiming in baptism his belief in him. And is learning to live by and obey the teachings of Jesus being the reflection and revelation of Jesus to the world around him. So a disciple not only believes in Jesus, not only learns about the teachings of Jesus, but also strives to obey and put into practice the teachings of Jesus.

So let’s think practically. Let’s think through this. How we need to apply and implement these ideas in our life. And the thing I want to do right now is I want to show you a graphic, a picture, I don’t know what you’d call it, an idea. There it is. It’s like a wi-fi picture.

This kind of sums up some of these ideas. This is what we use down in Brazil in our church plant. And we push everything through this. This is the heart of our ministry in our church down in Brazil. At the top of that [illustration] it has our phrase, “To Be and to Make Disciples.” That comes right out of this passage. That’s like the motto of our church and everything revolves around it. When you look at that, it starts with Me. You just got to apply this thought. I need to be and make disciples in this sphere, which is me. I start with me. Well how do you be and make disciples of yourself? You need to self-disciple. You have some responsibility in this. God has given you the Holy Spirit. He’s given you the scriptures. He’s given you some disciplines like prayer and fasting, service. I need to start self-discipling, pursuing the Lord. I have that responsibility. And so as I do that and take responsibility and start seeking God and start doing these disciplines to deepen my faith of Him, that begins to overflow into my home, into the next sphere of relationships that are closest to me, which for me is my Family.

If you live in a home with family, that’s the next sphere. If you don’t, you actually are given permission to skip that sphere and go right into the next one, which is the Church. We’ll get back to that. So as I pursue the Lord, as I self-disciple, as I walk closer to Him, that begins to overflow into my home. In there, I am called in my home to be and to make disciples. I have that calling by God. You have that calling by God. But what’s that mean? To be a disciple in your home. That means that the way that I respond and react and act and speak needs to reveal Jesus to those in my home. That’s what it means to be a disciple in your home. To be the revelation of Jesus to your spouse, to your children, that they can see Jesus in you in the way you speak and act and react. It also means that I need to make disciples in my home, pointing them to Jesus, helping my spouse walk more closely to Jesus, evangelizing my children if I need to, pointing them to Jesus, helping them follow Jesus, learn about Jesus.

This is so profound to me, because I’ve seen in the Brazilian culture and in the American culture, a lot of similarities. But I think what’s happened is in the church, our ministries, our youth ministries, our children’s ministries are so darn good and such an enormous blessing. God has given amazing people to do those things. But those things are there to accompany us parents. It’s not there to replace us. But as parents, (I saw this in my own life) as parents, it’s so easy to just give the responsibility, the calling of God in my life to be and make disciples of my home, to give that over to somebody else. But God has this calling, parents, in our life to reassume the role of spiritual influencer of our children, the primary spiritual influencer of our children. That’s a calling that we have in this passage to be and to make disciples in our home. And as we do that, as we begin to create that culture of the kingdom in our home, that begins to overflow into our church.

Each one of us who know Christ as our Savior have this calling to be and make disciples here. It’s not simply the job of the leadership. That calling has been given to you, follower of Jesus, to come here and reflect and reveal Jesus to those around you. But not just on Sundays. Church is not just on Sunday. Throughout the week, breaking bread with the other believers, encouraging them, praying with them, reflecting Jesus to them, pointing them to Jesus, helping them walk with Jesus. This needs to be a self-discipling community. You have that calling by God. And as we begin to do that well and do that right, that begins to overflow into our mission.

Now, what I’m talking about is the people that God has placed in your life already. Your social networks, people at work, at school, and your hobbies, these relationships that you have. You have the calling by God to be a disciple out there, to be the revelation of Jesus to them, and to make disciples of them. So often we think, and again it’s because our churches do such a darn good job, they make these Sundays so amazing and awesome that we think, oh, the only thing I need to do is just invite people. I don’t need to actually make disciples. I’ll just invite somebody and the professionals can make the disciples. That’s not the calling of Jesus in your life. It’s not a bad thing. Don’t get me wrong. Not a bad thing to invite people to church, but don’t miss the opportunities that God’s placed in your life to understand that you have this calling to be and to make disciples out there. We’re called to be and to make disciples in every sphere of our life.

Now, before I wrap up, (we’re just about out of time) before I wrap up, you might be thinking, Lucas, you missed something. Where’s the “Go?” Because the passage starts out with, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.” That’s a pretty big thing, right? “Go.” Often that’s what we focus on. “Go.” Where’s the “Go?” Did you miss it? I missed it a little bit, but it’s important to think through something. The “Go” is only significant if you are already “being” and “making disciples” here. If we’re not heeding the call of God in our life to “be” and to “make” disciples here, the “go” is futile. Go and do what? Go and start doing something you’ve never done before in a harder location, in a more difficult culture, in a brand new language? That doesn’t make any sense. The go only makes sense if we’re already being and making disciples here. If we understand and obey our calling that we already have from Jesus to be and to make disciples, we will better hear with our ears and heed his calling to be and make disciples over there, wherever over there is.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There are tremendous needs around this world. Thursday morning, I had the opportunity to come. They have a prayer time here in the mornings at 6:00 and 8:00, I think. I came to the early one and had the opportunity to pray. It’s to pray for people who don’t know Jesus. The topic, the theme that morning was “Unreached people groups around the world,” people who don’t have the gospel. We take that for granted if we hear it all around here in the United States. I grabbed a couple of different pieces of paper about different people groups. There was one over in the Philippines, 1.5 million people in this people group. There’s one little area in the Philippines. There was 0.00% of people who in any form would call themselves Christian. I mean, cast a broad net, anything under the umbrella that can remotely call themselves Christian, and they had zero. I wept as I looked at that. I can’t even get my mind around that. 1.5 million people who don’t even have access to the gospel.

There are tremendous needs around the world. We need to go. The gospel demands it. I don’t want to downplay the go. What I want to say though is that we need to obey the calling that we already have today. So often we’re like, ‘Oh what’s God calling me to do? What’s he want me to do?’ We get lost in this like potential future. Stop. He has called you to be and to make disciples in your own life, in your family’s life, in your church, and in your mission, people around you who don’t know Christ. We need to bow the knee to Jesus and place our life on the altar in preparation for that potential future call to go. That call may come as soon as today. So we are to be and to make disciples.

And here’s the question as we close. Are you? Are you? Are you? Now you might be here thinking today, well I’d call myself a Christian, but I don’t think I’d call myself a disciple. Now here in the United States and other places in the world, we have something called cultural Christianity. And it’s danger. It’s a trap. We can grow up in this country and be surrounded by the church and just think, ‘Oh no. I believe in God and Jesus.’ And we have this idea of this like kind of this nonchalant belief in these things. That does not make you a disciple. There needs to come a moment.

I grew up in cultural Christianity, hearing about Jesus, thinking I was okay. But when I was 13 years old, I came under conviction. And I realized that Jesus did not simply die for the sins of the world. He died for my sins. And I personally needed to respond to that as a sinner. And I bowed my knee and I placed my faith in Christ. And I more or less along the lines of, ‘Lord, I want to be your disciple. I want to believe in you.’

There’s some here who need to make that decision. You have these ideas of Jesus, that you’re a disciple. You don’t know Christ as your Savior. He is calling you to believe, to trust in Christ, be forgiven of your sins, become a disciple.

For those here who are disciples, are you learning to obey everything that Jesus commanded? Are you being the revelation of Jesus to the people around you? Are you making disciples? Are you pointing people to Jesus? Are you helping them to know Him and follow Him? Are you heeding the call of God in your life right now that He’s given you?

As we close, I mentioned earlier down in Brazil, we always have an obedience step at the end. Every time we get together, we don’t ever want learning to outpace our obedience, and so as we close, I want you to make an obedience step this week, an “I will…” statement. Think of something that grabbed your attention this morning. It could be anything. It could have been out in the foyer, it could have been a worship song, something that the Spirit of God just grabbed your attention. Take that, make an “I will…” statement out of it. This week, I will do this. Share it with somebody. Help them hold you accountable. Don’t just be a hearer of the Word. Be a doer of the Word, and for those here who don’t know Christ, your “I will…” statement needs to be this, “I will bow my knee and trust Christ as my Savior.” That’s where it starts.

Let’s pray. Father, thank you so much for this morning. I thank you for this opportunity to take this very familiar passage and look at it again. Lord, I know at times it’s easy to think that the Great Commission, that’s for the apostles, that’s for the professionals, that’s for the leaders, and we’re mistaken. It’s for every disciple of Jesus. We cannot give that calling to somebody else. We are called by God, Himself, to be and to make disciples. Lord, help us to do that. May we be obedient. May we speak your love language of obedience. May we be faithful to the Great Commission to be and to make disciples. Lord, I pray to you in your Son’s name. Amen.