Sermon: "Make Disciples"

1st in the "Being a Jesus Follower" series.
Delivered January 3, 2010 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Sermon Text: Matthew 28:16-20

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Let's just pray for a moment. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity to be here, to worship, to hear your Word, to have fellowship together. Lord, inspire my words. Soften our hearts. Open our eyes. For we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

I have a friend named Joey in New Orleans who is a lawyer. And there is one particularly interesting part of his job, something that he has really enjoyed over the years. And his job is to bring money to people who didn't know they had it. That's part of his job. It seems like, you know, every state has this department... few people who are trying to get people who have had some kind of settlement or inheritance and have never come to claim it; they're trying to always find out who these people are. They have websites about it and stuff like that. And if they do find the right people and they confirm it, and the amount is high enough, then my friend gets to fly to whatever city it is, fill out the final bit of paper work, confirm the identity, and hand over a check. And if I'm not mistaken, he said that at one time, it was over a million dollars he got a chance to give. I think that's kind of a cool job to have.

It seems like there are a lot of people out there who don't know how rich they really are. It's the same kind of issue that I think is going on spiritually in the world right now because God has done something amazing that has made us all rich if we'd only line up and receive it. God came in on a rescue mission in Jesus Christ. What did he rescue us from? Well God created us to be in fellowship with him. He created us as a special part of creation to have fellowship with him, to know God. And then to be his representatives on earth to shape the world, to enact his will on the world, to make the world bear the fruit it was created to give, to rule, to tend, to steward.

But then we decided to do it on our own, not as God's representatives. What happened when we rebelled against God is that the life that comes from that relationship with God is cut off. And on top of all of that, we still retain the authority and power over creation, but when we use it on our own instead of God's way, creation itself starts to suffer. So our rule, instead of making everything flourish and bear fruit, there are times that we rule creation and destroy it in the process.

So all creation groans under our leadership, and we groan as we impact each other in our brokenness. And so when Jesus came on this rescue mission, he came as one of us. He came to be the human that lives out life as humanity was supposed to... the perfect person. And then as he lived, he taught us about God's rescue mission. He taught us the things that we needed to believe, and to accept, to understand in order to receive what God was doing. And then most profoundly, he took our place. If humanity deserved to be punished, well he stood in our place. As the human who doesn't deserve to be punished, the only human that doesn't deserve to be punished, he took our place. Most than that, on top of all of that, not only he took our place in God's punishment, but when we stepped away from God, we didn't step from obedience to God into liberty. We stepped from obedience from God into slavery because there are all kinds of other spiritual powers out there.

And so we became enslaved to our own selfishness as well as to evil in the world, and so when Jesus died on the cross, not only did he bring forgiveness, but he brought a decisive moment of victory over the spiritual powers that held humanity back. So when Jesus was resurrected from the dead, he is the first fruits of a new creation. Right now, humanity can once again be in the kind of relationship we were created to be in and can once again steward creation, impact creation as God's people and not our own.

Now it's going to be imperfect. There are all kinds of obstacles now, and it's in the future where this is brought to its fullness, but even right now there is a new creation. The old is passed away. All has become new. Great news... God's riches poured out on the world to deal with the most fundamental human problem that impacts every other aspect of human life. And so now we're in the final parts of this rescue mission where God has done everything needed to bring liberty to us as people. He's told us that we have to let the world know about it because there is a whole world out there, just like my friend Joey found out, there are a lot of people out there that don't know how rich they are. They don't know how much good news is out there from the hand of God.

That's where today's text comes in, so I'd like us to go to Matthew, chapter 28. It's on page 911 of the Bibles you have in the chairs in front of you. Matthew 28, beginning at verse 16. This is after Jesus becomes human. After he teaches us. After he dies to release us from spiritual slavery. After he is resurrected as king with full power and authority to bring good news to the world, he tells his followers these words.

"Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.'"

He begins by saying, "All authority is given to me in heaven and on earth." So Jesus is not asking us to somehow do something he wasn't able to do. Please, do this for me. I have some unfinished business, and I don't have the power to do it. It's not what's happening. Jesus says, "All authority over all things in heaven and earth belong to me, and from this position of authority, and power, I'm asking you, I'm commanding you to join me in the final stages of what I'm doing in the world." So then he says, "Go and make disciples of all nations." Make disciples. It's a churchy word. It's a good word, but it's a churchy word. What a disciple means is that we are learners, but it's not learner like you know just memorize something, get intellectual comprehension, take a test. It's a learning that actually affects the way we live.

So it's kind of like an adherent or a follower, someone who learns something in order to live differently. The image is maybe like a music teacher or a football coach. A music teacher actually shows you skills, actually affects the way you handle the instrument, sends you out. You practice. You come back. They evaluate what you've done; give you more suggestions so you can change in the future. A coach does the same thing. A coach has a certain thing in mind, helps shape the way the individuals and the team plays together. And things change.

And that's what a disciples is, someone who actually learns something in order to be different. Eugene Peterson captures this when he takes the same passage in the Message. He uses some different words rather than "make disciples." I'd like that to go on the screen at the moment. In the Message, verses 19-20, he says, "Go out and train everyone you meet." That idea of actually showing them something that makes them different. That's what being a disciple is all about. "Far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I'll be with you as you do this, day after day, right up to the end of the age." That's where we are right now. Day after day until the end of the age.

Jesus is with us to get these things to happen. We're training people. We're instructing people. And it's a process. We begin with people who don't know anything about Jesus, nothing meaningful, and we help them from that position to take a step towards Christ, to move towards Christ. Then it's a journey where we are constantly stepping into the greatness and the beauty and the riches of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. It's not just one step. And that's where my image with my friend Joey breaks down because all he does is he brings the check and he hands it to them and what they do after he leaves is entirely up to them.

The actuality of what we experience is more as if instead of receiving money, we receive thousands and thousands of acres of fertile land that we had to learn how to tend and make productive. We're city goers, city dwellers; we don't know anything about this, and so when we receive the gift, we have to learn how to use the tools, watch the seasons, plant the right sort of crops because if we do nothing, the land won't produce. But if we do the right things, and we learn to do the right things, it will be incredibly productive and fruitful. That's what our walk of discipleship is all about. That's why we keep on journeying is because there is always another step. There is always something deeper, more productive, more beautiful, more powerful that God is willing to do.

So today is the first Sunday of the new year. And in the year ahead we're going to be working on this journey, on this process of discipleship. And that process has an inward focus and an outward focus. There is a balance here in what happens in our lives. When we go into Lent, we're going to be focusing in on the inward part, spiritual disciplines, soul training. We're going to be looking at time-tested tools that saints have used all throughout Christian history to build their relationship with God. But then after we get past Easter, we're going to be outward focused. There is something coming called Serve Fest. You'll hear a lot more about that in the future. We're going to be involved in Serve Fest then we're going to run into our opportunities for VBS, mission trips in the summer... outward focus.

And then when we come back into the fall, we'll focus in again on the inner life because that's what it is to be a disciple. It's tending both. Both things are part of our growth. And that's also what you're going to hear about this month in this series on being a follower of Jesus. There are inward things and outward things that are part of this walk with God.

Last summer, the session of the church thought long and hard about how we could encourage discipleship at Central because we are firmly committed not just in preaching a word for people to make an initial commitment to Jesus, but help people walk into that inheritance, to make that land productive, to make our lives productive in Jesus. We're committed to that. So how do we do that? How do we help people understand this calling? As we thought about, we came up with something we've called a discipleship path. It's not designed to be detailed and formulistic. It's not meant to be a law. Instead, it's just intended to state clearly some of the core parts of our walk with God.

It can't measure the heart. But if somebody has their heart in the right place and is trying to grow, there are going to be certain external things that are true in a life of a disciple. That's what we tried to focus in on. So when we look at that, when we look at the life of a Christ follower, what are some of the things we're going to see?

The first thing we're going to see, and I'm going to hit... just go through the list the four, and then I'm going to come back. The first thing is knowing God. That's the first part of discipleship. People are going to be committed not to an intellectual understanding of God, but an experience with God. I'll come back to that in a moment. The next thing is they're going to be committed to growing. A disciple is going to be intentional about making progress in this relationship with God, in this purpose that God has given for us in the world. They're going to grow.

The third is serving. Particularly we're focusing in on the issue of serving the body. That's why you use this circle. It's kind of like we come back to serve the community, the Body, the church that God has used to bless us. And then the fourth is sharing. Sharing Christ with the world. We have, in one case, the circle, the arrow comes back. In this case, the arrow goes out to the world because our calling as a church will always be outwardly focused as well. And that's true for our individual lives.

Now I want to go through each one of these things a little more carefully, but we're going to be looking at this all month, so each week in the month we're going to take one of these four to look at it.

The first one, knowing God. The heart statement of that is I desire to worship and experience the living God. That's the heart cry of a real disciple, not know about God, but experience a living relationship with God. That's what we're shooting for. It's one of the fundamentals of a relationship with God. Now as we thought about it, we said, "Okay, what are the marks, what are the habits we're going to see if somebody has that heart cry, that hunger, what will be true in their lives?"

Here are the two things, the marks or habits. The first is I will regularly attend worship. That's going to be a pattern in the life of any growing follower of Jesus. To gather together with God's people in order to gather to worship the God who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.

The second thing is this person won't have a spiritual life just when they're together. This person has a spiritual life when they're alone or when they're with their families. I will regularly spend time in prayer and personal devotions. So that's one of the marks we're looking for. That's one of the things we want to encourage you to do. It's not that you don't know God if all of these things aren't in place. It means that you're not growing into the depth and height and breadth of what God has given if some of these things, most of these things, aren't in place.

The second area is growing. But particularly growing in faith together. The heart statement here is I accept responsibility to grow in my faith with the assistance of others. I accept responsibility to grow in my faith, okay? So what that means is if you're not growing, you can't blame me. You can say, "Pastor John, your sermon didn't help me today." That's fine. But you are responsible for your growth. You can't go to church for 20 years, cop out, and say, "You know it's because of the worship service." Bull! It's because you haven't made a choice.

I accept responsibility. What else does it say? With the assistance of others. Wouldn't have to say this in other cultures, but American culture is so independent, we believe that just us and God can do it. It's not the way we were created. You have things that I need in order to grow. I have things you need in order grow. We grow with the assistance of others, with the input of others, with the accountability that other people can give to our lives, with the challenges they can give to us.

So what are some of the marks or habits? If this heart cry is true in somebody's life, what will it look like. Here are the marks or habits: I participate in a grow group or small group. You're going to take the opportunity to grow together, to center around the Word with other people. The other thing is I will have an intentional spiritual development plan. Doesn't have to be incredibly ornate. It doesn't have to be on five pages and footnotes, but are you making decisions about where you need to grow, what you need to do to grow?

If you're not being intentional about your spiritual growth, then you are being intentional about not growing. You have made a decision that growing is not important enough to give any thought or time to it. Let's just admit it. A disciple, somebody who is going to follow Jesus, is going to be intentional because this is life-giving stuff.

Third area... serving, particularly serving the body. Now let's face it. We're called to serve the whole world. Service is our basic posture as Christians, but one of the things we realized here at Central is we have such a focus on the world around us that there were times people were actually asking the question, "Is it legitimate for me to be involved with the kids here, you know, or is that second-class?" No! It's not second-class to serve the body here. In fact, very often when Scripture calls us to serve the world it tags onto it, "And especially the brothers and sisters." We have a responsibility to serve the community God has called us into. And so even though we serve all the time, we use this word "serving" to specifically talk about our responsibility to uphold the ministry God has called us together to do in this world.

And so what would that look like? What are some of the marks or habits of a person that has this heart cry, "I worship God by serving the body of Christ?" What would that look like? The first is I serve the body at Central through the use of my spiritual gifts. I've learned what they are through trial and error, through tests, through conversations with people, and then I use them. And then the second mark is I give regularly and generously of my material resources to see God's purposes happen. These are marks we're going to see in the lives of every growing disciple.

Final area... sharing Christ with the world. Again, I want to remind you. We serve. That's our posture in the world, but what we also realized as elders is that if we just talk about serving the world, then we've sort of got an easy out for people at Central, at least. You know most of us would love an opportunity to just do something nice for somebody, to give a few hours to some kind of thing and never have to mention Jesus. But that's not our calling. It says, "Make disciples of all nations." That is our calling, so that means we have to share Christ as well. Yes, we do it from a posture of service, but there are things we're called to share. And so the heart cry of this part of the path is I join God in his purposes where I live, work, and play. God is already at work. I join God in his purposes there sharing my time, talents, and treasure. We give of ourselves in order to share Christ with the world.

So what does this look like in somebody's life? What are some of the marks? This sort of person will invest themselves in personal relationships beyond Central's walls. The longer you're a Christian, the easier it is to become surrounded by just Christian people, but we need to be making some special effort to invest ourselves in love, not with any manipulation involved, just because they're worth it. We invest ourselves.

I invite people to opportunities to move toward Christ. It's not enough to just have a relationship, but when the time is right, the opportunity is there, we invite them to respond. It might be in a conversation. It might be a step they need to take in their journey toward Christ. It might be something we're doing at church or an event that we encourage them to be involved in. It might be we invite them to join us in a habitat group to just hang around with other people doing something good in the world. We invite them.

Then finally, we impact the world with compassion and justice. God's kingdom has a certain beauty in its justice and righteousness, and we're called to live for that now and to stand up for that now even if the world around us doesn't stand up for it.

Each one of these things has a corporate aspect. In the first place, knowing God, corporately because it's so important for people to worship, we are willing to change our schedule on Sunday if it somehow makes it a better opportunity for people to gather for worship. For growing. We've recognized that it was too hard to get into small groups as we designed them. We designed grow groups in order to maximize the opportunity for people to regularly get involved around the Word of God with other believers or with other seekers. So we're changing the way we do church, our lives, in order to impact these things.

The third area, serving, we're trying to make it easier for you to be aware of what are the needs and how to get involved. And then in sharing. Sharing is such an important part of who we are. There are so many wonderful ways of doing it, but one of the best ways, one of the ways that most epitomizes all the values that we have as a congregation together is the Alpha Program. And so I want to invite Kevin Hula to come on up and share with us a little bit about Alpha.

Kevin Hula: As many of you know, the Alpha Program is a 10-week practical introduction to the Christian faith. It's an opportunity to explore the meaning of life over a series of talks and small group discussions. And one of the things that I've noticed about the Alpha course is that when guests come to Alpha, they often come because they're specifically invited by someone, or many folks come with someone else. They sign up for the Alpha course themselves and they bring along their spouse or they bring along a friend from work, or they bring along one of their brothers or sisters, or they bring along a daughter or a son. It's a grown up program, but we see a lot of different kinds of relationships where people are coming together.

And over the last few days, I've had an opportunity to go back and to re-read over 250 comment sheets from the people who have gone through Alpha over the last five or six years. And there were several themes that stood out time after time, as I went through these. And I want to share a handful of those from just a handful of the guests in their own words. I think the thing that makes these particular comments special is for each one of these that I'm going to read to you, I could have read a dozen that said virtually the same thing.

One woman came to Alpha a few years ago when her husband invited her. And she wrote that she had come, and I'm quoting, "looking for proof that God is alive." She described her faith before Alpha as being "inactive." And yet 10 weeks later, she made a decision to follow Jesus, and she wrote this, "I'm anxious to learn more and to tell others about my experience. My faith is now firm and genuine." For her, the key wasn't just sitting there listening to a series of talks. For her it was being in the small group, being in a discussion group with other people who were on a pilgrimage that had their own questions, who were seeking answers together.

Another person came to Alpha from Towson when she was invited by a friend who went to Central Presbyterian Church. For this particular individual, there was a big question. And the big question was, "I don't even know if there is a God. I don't know if I believe in God or not." And during the course of this Alpha experience, she participated in discussions about what the Bible is and how to read it and why we pray and how to pray. And so she decided, "I'm going to try that. I'm going to go home, and I'm going to start trying to read the Bible, and I'm going to start trying to pray."

And she did, and over time in the discussions and through her experience reading the Bible and trying to pray on her own, she came to the point where her doubts were much, much narrower. She came in as a complete agnostic just simply not knowing whether there was even a God, and yet, at the end of the course, she hadn't become a Christian, but she'd narrowed her question down. She realized the question now was, "Do I want to accept Jesus Christ into my life? Do I want to follow him, Jesus?"

For her it was a process of dealing with the questions and the doubts one at a time, just going through the sequence. And she discovered that the question of Jesus was primary, and all the other questions, for her, were secondary. You know she's still on that pilgrimage, and yet you can see God's fingerprints all over her in the decisions she's making and the questions she's asking.

Another individual came to Alpha when a friend who really, really yearned for this woman to come and know Christ invited her. She believed in God. In fact, she'd been coming to this church for years. And yet, she didn't know what to do with Jesus. She didn't know who Jesus really was. And so she took that season of Alpha to wrestle with that question, the question of who Jesus was. And she wrote at the end of the course, "I now believe that Jesus is the Son of God." And she said that this conclusion came slowly thought the small group discussions where she had a chance to explore questions week after week without criticism or pressure. And she discovered what it meant to come into a relationship with Jesus.

I'm so thankful for the friends who invite each other to come along with them for Jesus. It is a joy to see God in people's live, working. And it's awesome to realize that as we go through our journey of discipleship, we can bring people along with us as they go through their journey of discipleship.

John Schmidt: We're disciples as individuals. We're disciples together. So I want to spend the last few minutes focusing in on what is our corporate calling? We've talked a little bit about the generalities about our discipleship path as individuals, but as a church, if we're all walking with God, if we're all growing in this walk with God, what will our church be like? What are going to be the priorities in our future as God works within us? We have to remember, it begins with the fact that God has done something amazing, and there is this incredible grace that's about ready to be poured on the world, and God is always doing this through his people.

And so over our church, there is a wealth of grace that God is ready to pour out. If we make ourselves available, what will happen? I'd like to talk about and just mention seven things that I believe we will embrace if we embrace God's purposes for us at Central. It's not every church. Every church is different. We can't do it all. This is what I believe Central is called to.

The first thing is I believe that we're called to embrace young adults. That is a specific calling upon this congregation. From the formative years to college, through the starting of careers and families, this is a place that God has chosen to use to root people in Jesus Christ in those years. And what it means for us is that we have to make sure we have a good program for young children. It means that we have to constantly be thinking about our worship to make sure it's accessible and meaningful to people who are in that age group. It means that we can never be satisfied with that great group of young adults who have now grown to be 30 or 35. They're great folks, but we will not grow old with them.

We have some wonderful people on session right now that at one time were the young adults. They aren't anymore. But it's their job to poise this church so that we can touch the lives of the young adults that God is pouring into the communities around us. We are his tool for that... one of many, but we are his tool. And we have had leadership that is willing to make those sorts of decisions and we are going to continue to embrace that calling from God.

The second thing we're called to embrace is we are called to embrace diversity. Our neighborhoods, our schools, our work places are filled with people of every race and ethnicity, and we can't be content forever to be the most segregated part of anyone's life. The gospel is too big for that. The grace of God is too powerful for that. Our calling is too important for that, so we are called to become more of that multicolored community, multiethnic community that God is building in the world. The gospel is powerful enough for that, and we're going to learn how to make that happen.

The third thing is that we're going to have to embrace seekers, continue to embrace seekers. Even there at the... where Jesus Christ is resurrected from the dead in front of his disciples, and they're worshipping him, they say "and some doubted." People, if someone can doubt in the presence of the resurrected Jesus, it means doubt is everywhere. It's not like we who know Jesus are finished with doubt. Of course we doubt. We doubt God's timing, his goodness, his will for us. We doubt all the time. People who are seeking just have bigger doubts or ones they haven't wrestled with yet.

So we want to be a place where people can wrestle with those doubts, to belong and to feel comfortable. And that's why Alpha is one of the things we're doing best right now to create that space where people can ask those questions. But there are other ways we need to do it. It might be the times of what we do things, the styles, the words, whether we do things here at church or whether we do it in people's homes. We'll do whatever we can to embrace seekers.

The next one is we're going to embrace servants. The people we want to hold up as models are those who serve others. And we want to make room for those who serve so that if they have a great idea, we want to be a place where we can fan that idea into flame and give it a firm foundation and let it bear fruit, not step on people's ideas. We want to embrace servants.

The next one is embrace broken people. We have to be a place where you can drop the mask. You know if we're looking for people to get their act together before they come here, let's all go home. We have to have that level of reality and authenticity that people can come in knowing they're broken, but knowing that it's okay because we're broken, too.

You know our theology is such that we should expect that some of the people we reach out to are better people than us. Our theology is about God reaching out to the miserable people, us! So sometimes, the person we're reaching out to is a better person. They still need God. Our theology is big enough to handle that. And so we are called... You know there is this image you might have of a soup kitchen where the people who have prepared the meal and the people who have not come and we serve it to them. That's not the picture that we have of the church because we're all in the soup line. The one who is hosting the table is Jesus. The one who has something to give is Jesus. We all come hungry. We all come broken. We all come without anything. Let's be a place where we can admit that and other people can know that they're loved before they're all put together.

Two more. We're going to embrace the city. We are called as Central Presbyterian Church to pray for the city, to seek God's transformation in the city, to not run from the problems of the city, but to walk towards them. There are some churches that are called to ministry on the Pennsylvania line. That's not our calling. Our calling is towards the city. Where we are, in the suburbs around it, but focused in on this city that God loves.

The final is we're called into embrace the world. This is part of our foundation. These are our roots. This is our fullest calling. We will continue to support and send out servants to the ends of the earth. This is part of who we are. This is part of what we're going to do in the future. And God, by God's grace, will be glorified.

So, if we stay close to God it's going to be anything but boring in the years ahead. So people, join me in this. Join Central Presbyterian in this calling, in moving people toward Christ, disciples of Christ, Jesus Christ, King of the world, firstborn of a new creation. We are called to move people toward that Jesus in making disciples of all nations. There is just so much good news to share! So let's get on with it.

Let's pray: God, you have done so much. You have poured out magnificent grace upon this world, and so now we ask that we might receive, that we might grow into the abundance of our inheritance and touch the glory and power and love that you have so available to us, and then to be channels of that to the world around us. For we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

© 2010, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org