The Great Commission: Making Disciples

Commonly known as the Great Commission, the final words of Jesus on earth were commands to his followers to go and make disciples, “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” (Matt. 28:19–20). With those words, Jesus gave every believer their ultimate task: make disciples. But what are disciples? And how do we make them?

Thankfully, Jesus answered both of those questions. While much could be said on the last two verses in Matthew, notice the word "observe." Other ways to translate “observe” would be follow, obey, or keep. Disciples are sinners who have been saved from darkness into light and are learning what Jesus said in order to follow, observe, obey, and keep His commands. But it's more than learning commands; it's learning the person of Jesus and emulating Him in our lives. Learning Jesus means laying down our lives, taking up our cross like Christ did, and following Him.

A disciple is much more than a person who has one-on-one relationships with other Christians or attends church on Sunday. A disciple is being transformed into the image of Jesus through active, day-by-day, grace-empowered, sacrificial obedience to His commands (Rom. 8:29). To quote the authors of The Vine Project,* Colin Marshall and Tony Payne, discipleship “cannot be thought of as a subset or a stage in the Christian life. It is simply one way to describe the totality of the Christian life.”[1]

In essence, being a Christian means being a disciple. It is a weighty calling, but it is the privilege and joy of every Christian! With His amazing grace, God not only saves us, but calls us to actively learn Christ in a way that transforms our thoughts, words and actions. Some may be at the beginning of learning Jesus, some further down the path, but we are all disciples of Jesus, looking forward to the final result of our learning and discipleship: being reunited with our risen King!

As Marshall and Payne again write, we make disciples by “proclamation of the word of God by the people of God in prayerful dependence on the Spirit of God.”[2]* Short and sweet, but not quite so simple to practically live out. So, in the rest of this article, we’ll look at all three elements of Christ’s command: 1) proclaiming the Word of God, 2) by the people of God, 3) in prayerful dependence on the Spirit of God, as they relate to disciple-making.

Proclaiming the Word of God

The first element we’ll consider is proclaiming the Word of God. At its core, disciple-making is about growing in Christlikeness, and the only means to grow in Christlikeness is to know the word of God. Disciple making cannot merely be programized Bible studies, church events, and planned outreaches. The core pursuit must be the pursuit of the knowledge of God in the truth of his Word. Yet each of us battles "a constant tendency to lose sight of what’s important, to be distracted by false or half-true alternatives, and to grow weary or lose sight along our way in the face of multiple pressures."[3]

Knowing that proclamation of God’s Word is central to disciple-making, it is crucial that we strive to obey Christ’s call by setting our minds on Scripture, meditating on the Word that it may dwell richly in us (Col. 3:16). As it overflows into our speech, we must exhort one another daily (Heb. 3:13), and we must hold fast to the truth, letting what we heard from the beginning abide in us (1 John 2:24), that we may endeavor to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel of God, the calling to which we have been called (Phil. 1:27, Eph. 4:1)

The call to make disciples, even in Christian community, involves battling against the temptations of the world, flesh, the devil, and the daily temptations that press against our defenses. Sadly, during the heat of affliction, how often do we grow weary and set aside the life-giving proclamation of God’s Word, resorting to our own strength, our own programs, our own clever words and strategies? That is like a soldier dropping the sword in the dirt in the midst of the battle, or a patient ripping out the IV in the middle of an operation. While proclaiming the Word of God to ourselves, our brothers and sisters, and the world is far from easy, it is the bread of life we need to fulfill the Lord’s command. It cuts like a two-edged sword and it refines like fire, and it is powerful to renew our minds and restore our souls. Proclaiming the Word of God to each other and the world is not optional: it is the essence of Christian living. It is the only method by which we make disciples. We know that it is ultimately and completely God who draws and sustains, but his living and active Word is one of the primary ways he accomplishes this work.

The Joy of Disciple Making

The Great Commission emphasizes that God makes disciples through his people. Clearly, God is the subject of that sentence; he is the one doing the work and he deserves the credit. At the same time, we learn that his saints is the method he uses to draw his people from every tribe and tongue. The reality is, each daily interaction is God-ordained and an opportunity to build a relationship, point someone to the gospel, or encourage a fellow saint as they learn Christ. Practicing a mindset of prayer, readiness and humility will sharpen our senses to our King’s disciple-making call in every opportunity he provides.

Most of us would assent to our need for God, particularly in the disciple-making context. But if you’re anything like me, you tend to forget that reality in the mundane, day-to-day conversations that become missed discipleship opportunities. In prayer, we actively communicate our dependence and reorient our mindset to an eternal focus. And as we ask God for opportunities to encourage a co-worker, brother, spouse, or neighbor to learn Christ, we look expectantly for his answer, trusting that the same God who ordained the opportunity will equip us with wisdom for the moment.

Prayer nourishes a mindset of readiness. Most parents will tell you, deep conversations of a discipleship nature happen at the end of a long day, right in the middle of trying to get the child to be quiet and go to sleep. In a similar way, many of the opportunities we will have to disciple a lost world or our weary brother, will not be neatly planned or prepared, but will come unexpectedly. We must not only plan times of exhortation and encouragement but be prayerfully watching for the undesigned opportunities.

With readiness comes a mindset of humility. We know that we can’t make any discipleship opportunity happen, and more than likely, if we were left on our own, we’d mess it up. Readiness forces a reliance on God by reminding us of our place in disciple-making: we are unworthy slaves who have only done that which was our duty (Luke 17:10). It is God who is changing lives (1 Cor. 3:8). The King who humbled himself by taking on flesh saved us from our sins and has given us a calling to humbly serve him. What joy this should inspire in our hearts! Rather than seeing discipleship as a special gifting for the elite Christian or a dreary obligation, discipleship is the gift from God to proclaim the excellencies of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light! Take joy, beloved, in the mission God has set us on, it is a mission like no other.

God’s Mission, God’s Work

In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul talks about how he and his fellow disciple-makers do not lose heart, boldly declare the truth, and proclaim not themselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord. Then, in verse six, Paul switches the subject of the sentence to God. His point is essentially that the God who illuminated the world with light is the same God who illuminates the hearts of men, enabling them to know God. While the ministers of the gospel are proclaiming Christ, God is saying, “Let there be light” in the hearts of blind men. As one evangelist said, “We proclaim Christ; God opens blind eyes.”

Our mission is to make disciples by declaring the truth of Christ with boldness, without losing heart or relying on human cunning. And all the while, in His own divine timeline, God is at work transforming people. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” (1 Cor. 3:7-8) We are all servants, responsible to do as our Commander-in-Chief directs and proclaim the hope of the gospel to a blind and dying world. But we must make no mistake: God is the one who opens blind eyes and raises dead souls. This should immediately give us boldness to speak as we ought to speak (Col. 4:4), and speak the truth of the gospel with love, proclaiming the excellencies of him who has delivered us out of the domain of darkness and into the kingdom of His beloved son (1 Pet. 2:10, Col. 1:13).

This gives us great relief, for the pressure is not on us to force blind eyes open or resurrect dead men. In a similar way that a postman must deliver the message of a bill to be paid but is not responsible to make the person pay it, we give the gospel out of service to our Master who has sent us, equipped us for the task, and yet does the heavy lifting himself.

As Hudson Taylor said, “God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.” God has given us the message, given us the tools of His word and His people, given us the power we need, and promises to take care of the rest. He’s done it all! While the Spirit raises dead hearts, we simply trust Him to do what he has promised, and proclaim the gospel with our words and lives. The harvest is plentiful, the workers are few. And God is equipping you, His saint and servant, to do His mission. If you are part of Christ’s kingdom, you have been given Christ’s mission. And anyone who is seeking to complete Christ’s mission has the guarantee of God’s supplies, and the assurance that the results are in His hands. What joy! Let us boldly preach Christ with confidence in a God who opens blind eyes.

*I am deeply indebted to this book for informing the thoughts and definitions of this article.

[1] Colin Marshall and Tony Payne, The Vine Project (Matthias Media, 2016), 71.

[2] Ibid., 83.

[3] Ibid.