Matthew-122

The Church’s commission: Make disciples

Today, God willing, I shall expound to you Matthew 28:18-20. This passage takes place after the resurrection:

In this passage, the Lord Jesus is telling his eleven disciples and us what is our commission in the world, and that mainly is, to make disciples. You have to know what a disciple is in order to make disciples. And I am speaking about this particularly in view of those who are intending to be baptized. Let us notice what the Lord Jesus says as to what kind of persons may be baptized. He says they are to be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. But who are the “them” who are to be baptized? Naturally, those are disciples. “Make disciples …and baptize them,” that is, baptize the disciples. The only kind of persons that are to be accepted for baptism are therefore disciples. Now the question we need to ask is: What is a disciple?

A disciple of Jesus follows Jesus

But first, before we come to this, let us also look at the other matter, the authority of the Lord Jesus. Surely, a disciple is first and foremost someone who follows. But the important matter is, who do you follow? We follow Jesus if we are a disciple of Jesus. Who then is this Jesus?

Notice, the Lord Jesus says after the resurrection, after his saving work has been completed on the cross, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth” It is sufficient for us to ask this question: Why did God give Jesus all authority? One must carefully understand that God sent Jesus into the world not for his own sake but for our sake. He came as truly man in order that he may redeem us by his blood. The apostle Paul tells us in Romans 5:1-2,

It is important for us to notice that all this authority is given to him as our Lord, Messiah-king and Savior, for he was obedient unto death to finish his mission to save mankind. And on the basis of this authority he can send us out. We see the same point in Hebrews 2:8,

We do not yet see all things under the dominion of man which was the intention of creation. But we see all things under Jesus. What does all this mean? It means when God created man, he was meant to be the king of creation, and Genesis tells us that God gave man dominion over all the creatures. But when man sinned, he lost the dominion; he lost the power. Today, not everything is by any means under man’s authority. In fact, he is becoming the victim of his own works.

A spiritual principle: A Christian who sins immediately loses power

Here is a spiritual principle: that when man sins, he loses dominion, he loses authority, power. The moment a Christian sins, he immediately becomes powerless. If you are a Christian who has never been freed from sin, you will never know what power is. So when Adam sinned, he lost the glory of God that was on him. When you are holy, you carry God’s glory upon you, and that is how you become the light of the world. But the moment you sin, you become ugly and powerless; you live in darkness. That is why you read in Romans, all have sinned and they have come short of God’s glory. They cannot reach that glory anymore.

That is why in the world there are powerful Christians and there are very feeble Christians. Some Christians carry all kinds of great power whether it is in preaching the Word, or doing God’s work, or praying for the sick, or in dealing with spiritual evil powers. You only need to read the biographies of mighty men of God, and you will see why they are mighty. Why does God use people like John Sung to raise not only the sick but even the dead? The whole secret is in his favorite word: holiness (sheng jie聖潔). When you read through his writings or his commentaries, he is always talking about holiness. The man who walks in holiness and righteousness carries the power of God with him.

When the Lord Jesus says, “All authority and the power and dominion that come with that authority, have been given to me,” he is speaking as the redeemer-man sent by God, the man who has reversed what Adam had done through sin. So it is in this light we must understand that the Lord Jesus is fulfilling that prophecy in Daniel 7:13-14.

Jesus is spoken of as “son of man” because he is a man, the only perfect man. And there we see a son of man in Daniel chapter 7, all authority, the kingdom, the dominion is given over to this son of man. So God’s saving purpose of mankind has been completely fulfilled in Christ by the words, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth” in Matthew 28:18.

A true disciple follows Jesus and carries God’s power that is in Jesus

So when we are sent out into the world, we are sent out with power. God’s power that rests on Jesus—all authority in heaven and on earth that was given him—is now with us. A disciple is a person who follows Jesus and carries God’s power, and he represents God and the Lord Jesus wherever he goes. That is why the Lord Jesus said, “If anyone rejects you, he has rejected me! And if anyone accepts you, he has accepted me.” Think of the authority that we carry, that is, provided that I am a true disciple. So today, when we see the immense privilege and responsibility and authority of the disciple, we really have to look carefully at what is a disciple.

How do we become a disciple?

We also need to ask: How do we become a disciple? The word “disciple” occurs very frequently, 262 times in the New Testament! Think about that. What does this word mean then? The word basically means someone who learns from a master, an expert. In Chinese, it means an apprentice (學徒, xue tu), that is, someone who does not just learn at a distance by listening to his master’s teaching and reading books, but is like an apprentice attached to that teacher. In those days, if you wanted to learn any trade or skill, you did not go to some college; you would go to the master who knows and teaches that particular trade.

For example, Paul learned tent making as he was a tent maker. How do you learn tent making? He did not go to the University of Jerusalem and enroll in a course of tent making. No, he went to a specialist, a master of tent making, and the master would teach him, but he would have to stay with that master for any length of time that was required. We are very familiar with how every Chinese craftsman and specialist learned his skills from the specialist, the master. If you wanted to learn medicine in China, you would request to be accepted as a student by a Chinese doctor, and if he accepted you, he would teach you the secrets of his trade. Many teachers did not pass down all their secrets, that is why secrets of the trade sometimes got lost. His student would live with this man, follow him wherever he went, and watch what he was doing as he practiced his medicine. The disciple would ask his master: Why did you do this? What’s the meaning of this? And he would explain to his student. And if he doesn’t, then that’s the end of it. To what standard of skill you will acquire depended on the skill of your teacher. So if you are studying medicine, it was important to find a really good doctor, otherwise you will end up being a quack doctor! In Israel too, the people went to various teachers and became their disciples to learn the skills.

A disciple follows, observes and learns from his teacher

The key word in discipleship in the New Testament is the word “to follow.” This is the reason why the word “follow” occurs repeatedly in the New Testament. It is always a question of following Jesus. So the disciples followed Jesus wherever he went. In the Early Church, the theological seminary or Bible school did not exist. So where did these mighty men of God come from? Where did the pastors and the teachers come from? They learned in exactly the same way. They followed another man of God until they acquired the skills from him. Paul had a whole group of disciples following him around as he was doing his work and as he taught them. These great men of God, such as Timothy, Titus, were all trained by Paul himself. What would most of us not have given to have a chance to be taught by Paul! But even more wonderful, to have been taught by the Lord Jesus!

So what a disciple means was someone who followed his teacher in such a way that his whole life was with the teacher all the time, during the period of training. We can see the wisdom of Yahweh God in the Lord Jesus in training his disciples in this way. You can learn engineering, or you can learn medicine without having to live with your teacher. But I suspect that if you had the privilege of living with your engineering professor or with your medical professor, you would learn far more medicine than by sitting in a classroom to listen to lectures. Imagine, if you were studying medicine, instead of reading a textbook or listening to a lecture, you were allowed the privilege to live with the finest surgeon there is available, and you were allowed to ask him questions, to watch how he did his work and ask him why he did this, day after day, you would soak the knowledge out of him. You would learn far more from him in three years than reading any number of textbooks or listening to a few lectures a day. Every student knows how often he has read a text­book and just could not understand what it was saying, but who is he going to ask? How fortunate if the professor can spare you five minutes! However, consider the privilege of the man who can be living with that professor who is the living textbook! You could learn medicine and engineering better that way, but you don’t have to learn it that way. Medicine and engineering is just knowledge, and you can acquire knowledge through books or through other means.

But there is a sense in which you simply cannot learn the spiritual life effectively that way because the spiritual life is not just a question of knowledge; it is a question of life! Everyone knows that fellowship with the people of God makes a difference to your life. The most precious period of my training was during the time when I could live with men of God like Yang Zhi Jie, from whom I could learn not just the knowledge, but absorb the spirit of the man of God. I could learn from the way he did things, not just from what he said, what he talked about, what book he wrote, but the way he did it. I could observe his character. I could observe how and by what means God works through this man. These are not things you read in a book, it is by observing. And that is how the Lord Jesus trained his disciples. He did not just give them lectures, but they could converse with him, ask him questions when following him around.

We need to look at what it means to follow Jesus. To follow a person inevitably means that you have to leave all kinds of other things behind. It is like the person who is going to be a disciple (徒弟) say, of a doctor or of a tent maker, or whoever the master, he has to leave his home, occupation and all other interests and occupation to be with this master. So it is the same thing if you are going to follow Jesus. What do we have to leave behind? The Lord Jesus tells us, everything. He says, “If a man loves father or mother or brother or sister or husband or wife or children, anyone more than me, he is not worthy of me.” We don’t follow anyone else, only Jesus. We also leave behind first and foremost, our sins.

To be a disciple, you need to understand and practice all three things

We are going to notice three things in Matthew 28:18-20 that need to be done concerning the disciple:

• First, a disciple is to be baptized in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
• Secondly, a disciple is to be taught to observe everything that Jesus commanded.
• Thirdly, a disciple has to abide in the fellowship of God which is available to him when he becomes the new man who is united with Christ Jesus, to live as he lived. That is why Christ has promised: “I am with you always.”

To help you to remember these three points, I shall tie it up with the well-known words in John 14:6,

I am the way, the first point; I am the truth, the second point; and I am the life, the third and final point. And I hope that these words sink deeply into your minds. To be a disciple, you need to understand and to practice all these three things.

1. Follow the new way of life with Christ: Completely break with the old

What is the way for? The way is what you follow. If there is no way, there is nothing to follow. If you stand in the middle of the desert where there is no way, there is nothing to follow. You don’t know where you are and where you’re going. But if you want to reach the destination, you follow the way. Once you are willing to go forward following the way, you must leave the past behind. If you are not willing to leave the old way of life behind, you will never go forward to follow Christ; you cannot be a disciple and enter into the new way of life with Christ. Unless you are willing to leave the old, sinful way of life behind, you will not be baptized. So the first thing you must notice is that baptism means a break with the old way of life. I say to those who are going to be baptized, if you don’t want to break with your sins, if you don’t want to break with the world, if you don’t want to break with your self, then don’t deceive yourself by going to baptism. So if you want to start upon the way, you must leave behind the world, sin and self.

“Baptized into the name” of God: be identified with him

Now this raises the question as to what it means to be “baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” The word in the original is literally, “baptized into the name,” but we are used to saying, “baptized in the name.” What does that mean? One way to help us to understand what it means is like when a woman is being married, she is married into the name of her husband. That is how she becomes a “Mrs. so and so” and her maiden name is no longer in use.

I confess I take certain exception to those people who get married and retain their own maiden name as though they were still single. They don’t seem to think that they have been married into the name of their husband. It implies that their husband’s name is not good enough for them. If you love him so little that you shun from taking his name, why marry him? I have known Christian workers, who retain their maiden name even after they got married. That is really very poor witness.

So when we become Christians, we are baptized into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, which means we belong to God and we carry God’s name in our lives. It means we are now identified with him, and that is a very serious responsibility because hence­forth, everything I do is going to reflect on God. If I do anything sinful, people will say, “Look at him, that’s a Christian!” And the names of God and Christ are dishonored. In the same way, as long as you are not married, what you do affects only yourself. But once you are united with your husband, you carry his name, and what you do affects him and his family.

Therefore let no one fool around with baptism. The step of baptism is very serious. I want to impress this on the minds of everyone in the church today, especially in a church that takes baptism either so lightly, or doesn’t even understand what it means. Once we are united with Christ Jesus in baptism, we are taking the first big step in following him. Just as the wife having taken the big step of marriage, husband and wife are now committed to each other, and the wife would be following where the husband goes.

It is commonly understood that there are two types of following Jesus where there seems to be some difference in level: one is higher class and one is lower class. The higher class of Christians gives up their jobs and professions to follow Jesus literally as a full-time worker. The other Christians are not “full-time,” they are following Jesus spiritually, that is, following his teaching although not literally giving up everything to follow him. So both of these, the “full-time” and the “non-full-time”, as it is called, are following in the way.

It is quite true there are those who follow Jesus literally in that they have given up their jobs. Or it is another question if they never had any job, but they have given up whatever they had to give up, if any­thing. So many preachers today never gave up anything that I could know of to follow Jesus. If they did not become a preacher, they would probably be starving somewhere. But if we are now talking about those who have actually given up something to follow Jesus, is this then some kind of a higher grade of following Jesus? Not neces­sarily.

There were a lot of people who followed Jesus literally in those days. There was one particularly, a man named Judas, who, like all the other apostles followed Jesus, having given up whatever he had to give up. Think about this man Judas. Did he walk on the way to follow Jesus? Yes. Didn’t he answer Jesus’ call and gave up everything to follow Jesus? Jesus called him and he followed. But what went wrong?

2. Walk in total obedience to the truth of all of Jesus’ teaching

To understand this correctly, we must come the second point, from the way to the truth. If we are going to walk in the way and walk it to the end, we must walk according to the truth, not just walk anywhere you like. Only when we walk according to the truth will we arrive at the life. The Lord Jesus said, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” The little word “all” is absolutely essential, and it is the key word to this second part. The truth must be all the truth, not just some of it. The partial truth is more danger­ous than a lie because we are more easily taken in by something that is partially true. A straightforward lie would not catch us, but it is so easy to fall for something that is 80% true, only 20% false. Therefore, the Lord Jesus says it is important “to teach disciples not just to observe what I have taught, but to teach them to observe all that I have taught.”

You will notice that Judas fell exactly there. He had taken the first step, he was baptized, he followed Jesus, but on the second step, the truth, he did not obey all the truth. This takes us into the under­standing of the truth of God that the Lord Jesus lives out and teaches. The truth of God in the Lord Jesus is not merely something that we learn. It is something that must come into and control our lives, and only when God’s whole truth controls our lives are we not in danger of going the way Judas went.

Follow Jesus only because he is the truth

What exactly do we mean by this? We may give up a lot of things to follow Jesus for many reasons. We may even give up a lot of things because we think that we might get even more by following Jesus. It may not necessarily be material things but other things which are just as worthwhile. Some people cannot find peace and joy in the world, and finally, they discover that being a disciple of Jesus gives them the sense of satisfaction that they needed and could not find in the world. There is nothing wrong with that but if that is the only reason you are following Jesus, then you are following him for the wrong reason. Unless you are following Jesus because he is the truth, the true representative of God, and not merely what you can get out of it, you are following Jesus for the wrong reason.

Some people are attracted by the church because they find that the church has very many possibilities for them. I suspect many young people go to church because they know they can use the church in what seems to be a legitimate way. You will be surprised how many people go to church because they find it a very useful training ground for leadership qualities, public speaking, and other useful abilities. I knew a lawyer, and it seemed to me that he was in church so that he could practice all his argumentative skills in the church committee meetings. You can also learn to deal with people. It’s very useful from a sociological, psychological point of view. You know that the people in church are good, so you can be quite safe, whereas if you mix closely with people in the world, they might just hurt you.

Another reason is that there are nice girls and boys in the church. If you want to have a nice partner in life in the future, what is better than a nice, religious girl? And what can be better than the church to find one? You cannot be sure of those girls in the world. They will divorce you, but the Christian girl is not even allowed to divorce you! Of course, a girl can also see the advantage of finding her life partner in the church. Her man cannot run away from her because the church will not allow that. There is nothing wrong with looking for a nice life partner, or wanting to be trained in public speaking or organizational skills, but you can see why people enter the church for quite the wrong reasons.

What is more, it doesn’t mean that those people who go into the church in this way are actually not truly Christians at all. The problem is that what really motivates them to follow Jesus is all those other reasons, not so much for the sake of following him. There are also people like Judas who come into the church. Perhaps he came in with the right reason at the beginning, but somewhere along the line, his motive changed because he did not keep the whole teaching of Jesus. What is important is that the whole teaching of Jesus had not yet become part of his system.

The churches today don’t know what the Lord Jesus taught

In the second stage, in order to observe the whole teaching of God’s truth that Jesus lived and taught, we must know the Lord Jesus’ teaching. But where are the Christians today who know what the Lord Jesus taught? Take a student out of the seminary, whether his degree be a Ph.D. or a D.D., let him be cross-examined for ten minutes and you will see his utter ignorance on the teaching of the Lord Jesus. From this, you will see the general ignorance in the church. The Christian doesn’t know what the Lord Jesus taught. Let me ask Christians the meaning of just any parable, and I will see how many will pass within five minutes. I think their knowledge of any parable will be exhausted within one or two minutes flat. If you don’t believe, choose any parable in Matthew 13 for example and just tell me what it means. By this, I am not merely talking about academic knowledge but the spiritual principle that the Lord Jesus is teaching in those parables. What is he saying to us? He says, “Observe all that I have commanded,” but you don’t even know the first thing about what he commanded, how are you going to observe all?

What is happening in the Church today? The churches today think they know something about what Paul taught because they can quote quickly enough that he taught “justification by faith.” It is pathetic how they don’t know what the Lord Jesus taught. The teaching of Jesus is not being expounded from the pulpits. They may preach about the life of Jesus to some extent, because I share a secret with you as a preacher, it is easier to preach a sermon from the life of Jesus. Most preachers will find that it is tough-going to expound the teaching of Jesus. So if you choose a Gospel to preach on, you would be wise to choose the Gospel of Mark because apart from a few parables, there is almost nothing of the Lord’s teaching. The teaching of the Lord Jesus is found in Matthew, in Luke and in John. When will the people of God be taught what the Lord Jesus taught them? Christians need to know.

I want to share with you from the depth of my heart that the teaching of the Lord Jesus stands on an entirely different level from anything in the Scriptures, as the Scriptures itself so stated. For example, we read in Hebrews 1:1-2a,

God’s Son the Messiah king stands in distinction from all the others as servants. The Lord Jesus says, “You have heard it said that it shall be eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, but I say to you…” The Old Testament statement of law is modified by him who is the plenipo­tentiary of God, the supreme Lawgiver. He does not cancel the law but raises the standard to a higher level in the Sermon on the Mount. That is why you will find those words of the Lord Jesus in all the Gospels:

Again, in John 6:63 Jesus says,

The apostle Paul also taught about wholly following the teaching of Jesus

The apostle Paul was an interpreter of the Lord Jesus’ teaching. Everything he writes is commentary on the Lord Jesus’ teaching; he wrote nothing original at all. You will find that once you understand the teaching of the Lord Jesus, everything that is in Paul becomes very clear to understand. Once you understand the text, you will understand the commentary. But if you don’t understand the text, you will surely not understand the commentary either. The apostle Paul’s letters and teaching are extremely precious to us because he is an authoritative interpreter and expositor of the teaching of the Lord Jesus. If you want to know what the Lord Jesus said, and you are not sure you have understood it correctly, check with the apostle Paul, and you will have it right. When you look at the writings of Paul, you will realize that here is a man of God who has completely soaked in the whole teaching of the Lord Jesus. Then he is taught by the Spirit of God, led into all the truth to expound the truth of the Lord Jesus’ words to us. Now you can see why Paul exhorts every Christian in Colossians 3:16, “Let the words of Christ (the teaching of Jesus) dwell richly in you,” exactly as the words of Jesus dwelt richly in him.

In 1 Timothy 6:3-4a, he says that if anyone does not obey the teach­ing of the Lord Jesus, he is a spiritual reject. So Paul himself defines a disciple as someone who obeys the teaching of the Lord Jesus. He was also teaching his own disciples, for example, Timothy to follow wholly the teaching of Jesus, as we just saw in 1 Timothy 6:3-5.

Incidentally, one of the main reasons why Paul does not use the word “disciple” is because he himself had disciples under him. In Acts 9:25 we read that the disciples of Paul rescued him when he was in trouble in Damascus. If he used the word “disciple” for the people he was talking about, they would not be very sure whether he might be referring to his own disciples or to the disciples of the Lord Jesus. From this also, we can see that is the way the apostles trained other disciples to follow Jesus, and it is remarkable that so early on in Paul’s own Christian life as in Acts 9:25, he was already having disciples. This may be because of his very advanced training as a rabbi.

To summarize, the second point is that a disciple walks on the way in truth because he follows all of the Lord Jesus’ teaching.

Follow Jesus spiritually then literally

Before we leave this, we have one last question quickly to ask: When we said that there are two kinds of following Jesus in the truth, does it mean that we only need to follow his teaching spiritually, but we don’t need to literally follow him by giving up everything materially? No, this is not what we mean when we study his teaching. What it means is that we must first follow the Lord Jesus spiritually before we can follow him literally. We must get the order right. It is not following him literally first, then hopefully, we will also follow him spiritually afterwards. Only when we have spiritually followed him will we be in the right position to take the second step, to follow him literally, in that order.

God’s call to ministry comes by the powerful drawing of the Holy Spirit

Then how do we know that we also ought to be among those who follow him literally? How do we know that we have been called to follow him in this “full-time” way and not only in this spiritual way? By following him “full-time,” I am speaking in the sense that you are not working at any other job but only serving him as a preacher, a teacher, a pastor, or a missionary, because every true Christian is full-time. How does God’s call to ministry come to a person? If you are already following Jesus on the spiritual path, you are going to be receptive to his call in this special sense. When we speak of this call in the second stage, I am not meaning that this call is somehow different from the general call, but that it is an internal part of that call. How does the call come to us? How does a true Christian know that God wants him or her to be his servant to preach the gospel in a full-time way? Does he hear a voice? Does a vision appear to him in the sky? What is “a call”?

What constitutes this “call” is the powerful drawing of God’s Holy Spirit, and you will find the drawing becoming harder and harder to resist. Sometimes, the call of a true servant of God does come in the way of a vision, but generally, it comes through the inner drawing of the Holy Spirit. Just as in my own case, even as a young Christian, I found the drawing, the pulling magnetic power of God was so great that I just kept following on. I had many spiritual experiences, but those experiences themselves did not constitute the call. The call is always deeply spiritual; it is God’s Holy Spirit drawing you on. This word elkuō “draw”, is used in John 12:32 exactly in this way, and here it is Christ draws you. You will experience this pulling.

You can resist God’s call effectively as many people do

But does it mean that because we have this inner spiritual drawing that we are somehow unable to resist this “call”? That is not true. You can resist that call very effectively as many people do. If every person had not resisted God’s call, this powerful drawing of God, there would be many more people in full-time preaching and minis­try today. The point is that you can effectively stop that call.

Jesus called the rich, young ruler in Luke chapter 18. Jesus said to him, “Sell all you have and come and follow me.” Oh! What a privilege! Jesus had called him. Think of this, he was called to be one of the close disciples of the Lord Jesus, to follow Jesus personally. Did he follow? He did not follow Jesus even though Jesus had specifically called him. He went away. I have the feeling that he is going to be one of the saddest men in all eternity. He had so many riches which he did not want to leave. Where are his riches now? He has nothing! He lost everything when he went to the grave. And he threw away his once-in-a-lifetime chance to be a disciple of Jesus, to go with the apostles! One must say here is a man who doesn’t have the sense of eternal values.

Yet, how many Christians are doing just that today? They can experience God powerfully drawing them, but they make all kinds of excuses like the rich, young ruler and they never follow as they should. It doesn’t mean the rich, young ruler did not believe in Jesus. If he had not believed in Jesus at all, he would not have come to Jesus in the way he did. But he did not follow as God’s Holy Spirit was drawing him to follow Jesus in the “full-time” sense of being an apostle.

3. You enjoy communion with God through obeying all of Christ’ teaching

We see now that a disciple is someone who follows Jesus as the way; he obeys the whole truth as Jesus lives and teaches it; and lastly, he experiences the life of Jesus in him when the power of God trans­forms him to become a new person (cf. Rom 6:5). He also experi­ences the abiding presence of God’s Holy Spirit in the new life of Christ that God gives him, and so the Lord Jesus promises, “I am with you always.”

However, why do so many Christians not experience God’s presence? They are not following Christ Jesus, not walking in his way. They are not walking in the way because they have not left the old, sinful way of life behind; they are not obeying the whole truth of the Lord Jesus’ teaching. They don’t even know what that teaching is, so how can they experience the power and presence of God’s Holy Spirit in the life of Christ in the new life of a true disciple?

While fighting in the American Civil War, someone said to Washington, “If God be with us, we can’t fail to win.” Washington replied, “The question is not whether God is with us; the question is whether we are with God.”

If you want to experience God’s presence, it’s no good sitting there and saying, “Why doesn’t God’s presence come to be with me?” You must follow Jesus, then you’ll have God’s presence. So if we want to enjoy God’s presence, we must go through these steps in the path of discipleship.

Let us be quiet before God in prayer.