We Desire to Equip Believers and to be Discipleship-Focused (Matt 28:16-20)

Introduction

If you have your Bible, please turn it to Matthew 28:16-20.

Last week, Josh kickstarted a new series for us on our church’s Core Values and he tackled our first one—that we desire to be completely Bible-based. He utilized 2 Timothy 3:16-4:4 to explain why exactly we focus so intently on the Bible—that it is God’s Word and there are purposes behind having God’s Word.

This morning, we’re looking at our church’s second core value, which is that we desire to equip believers and to be discipleship-focused. Anyone who spends any amount of time, I think, will recognize that this is a vital aspect of our church—from even what we call the different things that we do (we don’t call it Sunday School, we call it Discipleship Groups; we call our Thursday evening courses Equip Classes) to my weekly reminder for us all to leave this place and make disciples of every nation.

Equipping believers and making disciples is at the core of who we are, which is partly why our mission statement is that we exist to make mature believers of Jesus Christ.

We believe firmly that it is not enough for the church to convince people to pray a prayer for salvation, but then not actually teach them and help them to mature in their faith. In fact, we would make the argument that if a person prays a prayer, but then they don’t actually grow or mature in their faith whatsoever—they probably weren’t genuine in their prayer and they’re probably not actually saved, but that’s a different discussion.

At Grace, we want every person who comes and worships with us and joins us to not just say a prayer and then remain spiritual infants for the rest of their lives—we want every person who comes in and becomes part of our church to be equipped, to be a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ.

That’s why this is such a core value for us—we want you to be healthy, spiritually mature disciples who make more disciples of Jesus Christ.

And we base the starting point of this idea of equipping believers and being discipleship-focused on the Great Commission itself and so, it makes sense for us to focus in on the Great Commission as our primary text for the morning.

Let’s read Matthew 28:16-20.

Matthew 28:16–20 ESV

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 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, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

As we study this passage and really as we think through this idea of equipping believers and being discipleship-focused, we’re going to break this sermon into two parts: (1) The Great Commission (16-20) and (2) What does it mean to Equip Believers and to be Discipleship-Focused? The goal for today is actually really simple—we want you to walk away this morning understanding why we put such a high emphasis on this core value—why it is so important for us. And in conjunction with that, we’re hoping that you take a moment to consider where you are when it comes to this core value—are you as a believer being equipped by the ministries of our church, are you as a believer focused on discipleship? That’s our goal for today—to get everyone on task when it comes to being equipped and being discipleship-focused.

Prayer for Illumination

The Great Commission (16-20)

Background information about Matthew 28:16-20

After Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection

These aren’t exactly Jesus’ last words, but they are very close to His last Words while on earth

The ascension in Acts 1 happens pretty soon after the event in Matthew 28 and as part of the ascension we do see Jesus giving another statement, but I would argue that the statement given in Acts 1 ties in with the Great Commission

In Acts 1:6, the disciples ask Jesus if it’s now time for Him to restore the kingdom to Isreal, but He responds with the statement that it is not for them to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed.

Instead, in v. 8, He continues and says “But [they] will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Or, in other words, the last bit that Jesus speaks before His ascension points back to the Great Commission—that they are to make disciples—and while they make disciples, the Holy Spirit will empower them to do so.

I’m saying all this to point out that often when someone gives last words, they’re really meant to be memorable—a call to action or something that motivates and that’s precisely what the Great Commission is.

No one can read the Great Commission or hear the Great Commission and think—oh, that means I can just stay at home and not bother doing anything.

If we’re thinking with military terminology—Jesus has given His disciples an order.

To do anything less than what He has ordered is insubordination (at least) and treason (at most)—it’s significant.

So, we’re right after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus—Jesus is with His disciples—and it’s right before His ascension into heaven in Acts 1.

Now, before we even read what Jesus has said, we’re told exactly where they are, who is with him, and their response.

V. 16 says that they are in Galilee, which is a region, and they went to the mountain that Jesus had directed them.

And yet, even as they obey Jesus’ direction to go to this mountain, you can see a bit of hesitation from the disciples.

v. 16 shows us that they did indeed follow Jesus’ instructions, but v. 17 shows us something different.

The Bible tells us that when they saw Him, they worshiped him, but some doubted.

I find it interesting that the Bible is quick to point out their doubt and the reason I find it so intriguing is that often doubt is looked at in such a negative light in our present world—that if we have doubt whatsoever, we must not actually know Jesus.

But note that this is not doubt in such a way that they don’t have faith in Jesus whatsoever—they’re still worshiping Him.

Maybe we can think of this almost like a hesitation—and I think we can understand their hesitation.

Consider Thomas who (though we tend to look down on because of his doubt), simply needed a little more time and once he did understand that this is indeed Jesus, he worships.

And truthfully, if this was a genuine lack of faith—I don’t think Jesus would hesitate to say something, for instance, He calls out other people throughout His life for their lack of faith—why wouldn’t He do that here if it was indeed an issue?

He doesn’t really confront their doubt whatsoever, He jumps straight into a command—in vv. 18-20, we read that command, “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.”

Note that the foundation for this command is actually from the end of v. 18. What predicates this command? It’s the fact that “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to [Him].”

Now, you might ask, “since Jesus is God, didn’t He already have all authority?” That’s a great question. Paul actually explains how that whole situation works in Philippians 2:6-8 when he explains that Jesus by taking on the form of a servant, by being born in the likeness of men emptied himself—not of His divinity, but by limiting Himself by taking on the form of man, He emptied Himself.

Thus, part of His limiting of Himself was in the area of authority. Kevin DeYoung while preaching Philippians 2 explains it like this, “What does it mean that Christ emptied Himself? It means that though He was fully God, Christ did not cling to His Godhood as something to be used for selfish gain. Rather He set aside some of His divine rights as God and came to earth as a servant . . . He was rightfully a sovereign king, but He came as a lowly servant . . . If you want this [emptying] rightly understood in one sentence . . . Christ Jesus emptied Himself, not of His divine nature, not of His divine attributes, but of certain divine prerogatives.” (Kevin DeYoung, Good Friday sermon, Christ Covenant Church, Matthews, NC, April 7, 2023.)

So, what Jesus states in v. 18 of Matthew 28 is that all His authority, all of His rights as King, as Creator have been restored to Him now that He has accomplished what He had come to earth for.

The statement really adds weightiness or depth of meaning behind what He’s about to say.

Not only are these Jesus’ final words before ascending into heaven and sitting on the right hand of the Father to reign, these are words that are built on the assertion that Jesus now has all His authority back.

So, what does He tell them (and us by extension) to do? “Go . . . 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.”

Now often, when this passage is taught, it’s taught sequentially—as in, go and then make disciples and then baptize them and then teach them, but let me explain that that’s not what He’s actually saying (and the evidence for that is in the original languages)

First, we need to clarify that the and in “go and make” isn’t actually there in the Greek manuscripts—so there aren’t two different ideas there (as is often presented when thinking through this sequentially), but rather one idea go make disciples.

Second, when reading the text in Greek, the primary verb here is to make disciples and all the other verbs are subordinate to that verb—or, in other words, the idea that Jesus has is that it is your job or duty to go make disciples of all nations—now, how do you actually do that? And that’s what the rest of the verbs answer. So, How do we make disciples? There are three answers to that (1) by going, (2) by baptizing them, and (3) by teaching them everything Jesus has taught. Let’s talk about those ideas:

First, it starts by going—much has been said about this in a way that has suggested that only certain people go, when that was never intended.

What I mean by that is this, the Great Commission is a significant focus when we talk about missions-related work—or in other words, the people that go they really go.

They go to other nations, they go to third-world countries, they go.

And, if we apply that in our own culture at all, it’s typically just thought that the professional Christians go—the pastors, the evangelists and so on.

However, the idea of going doesn’t necessarily mean going to a different place—nation or culture, but rather, it simply means to go out amongst the people regardless of what nation they’re representing and make disciples.

It’s not necessarily a missionary thing, but rather an exhortation for you as a disciple to make the effort of making more disciples—that’s what it means to go.

Second, it involves baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and here, I do need to clarify—this is more than just the physical act of dunking someone in physical water as a sign of their belief in Jesus Christ.

How do I know this? I know it from the New Testament and the early church’s understanding of baptism.

In contrast to how modern churches view baptism, the New Testament and really the early church had always understood baptism to be a part of salvation—not that it saves you, but rather, if you truly believe, you will respond in baptism, which is your public profession or confession of faith.

Or, in other words, they tied baptism so tightly with salvation, that there was never a question that you as a believer would be baptized—because they assumed that if you weren’t baptized, you weren’t saved at all; and if you had no desire to be baptized, you weren’t a Christian whatsoever.

Peter speaks from this perspective in 1 Peter 3:21 when he says that baptism now saves you—he’s not referring to the physical act of baptism itself as your salvation, but the confession that you make while you’re being baptized—that Jesus is the Christ and you’re now trusting Him for your salvation.

Part of making disciples, which you are commissioned to do, is leading them to the truth and pointing them at Jesus with the hope and desire that they repent, believe, and get baptized.

If you never even attempt to lead people to the truth and point them to Jesus with the desire for them to repent, believe, and get baptized, you aren’t obeying the Great Commission.

Third, it includes teaching the new disciple everything that Jesus has commanded us to do—and this part is often missed.

For example, this is not negating all the good that Billy Graham did through his evangelistic campaigns—some of you may have come to faith because of his campaigns—and that’s great.

However, there has been a common critique from those outside of the campaigns in that the campaigns encouraged easy believe-ism and didn’t do enough to connect people to churches who would disciple them—who would then teach them everything Jesus had commanded.

They missed part of the Great Commission—again, not negating the good that came out of the evangelistic campaigns, just pointing out that part of Jesus’ command wasn’t done effectively through their campaigns.

What resulted was that several thousand people prayed a prayer during the campaign,

but didn’t actually become disciples either because they didn’t mean what they prayed when they prayed it (that happened a lot in churches that did what we now refer to as altar calls (which is a descendent of what Charles Finney (who I don’t recommend) called the anxious bench).

Or, they became disciples, but they remained baby Christians who only drank milk rather than matured in their faith—those that Paul condemns because of their lack of maturity in the faith.

Neither of which are good options at all.

Part of the Great Commission is discipling people into spiritual maturity—Jesus wants His people to learn and to grow. Or, as our church puts it, we desire to be a church that equips believers and is discipleship-focused.

And that causes us to ask a really important question.

What does it mean to equip believers and to be discipleship-focused?

And I want to answer this in two ways, which will then lead us to our application. I want to answer this question personally—as in, when I say that I want to equip believers and be discipleship-focused, what do I mean? And I want to answer this question ecclesiologically—as in, when we say that we want to equip believers and be discipleship-focused, what do we mean as a church?

What do I mean as a pastor or even just as a Christian?

As a Christian, when I say that I want to equip believers and be discipleship-focused, what it means is that everything that I do within my life is hyper-fixated on these ideas.

So, for instance, some have asked why I’ve spent so much time in college, grad school, and seminary—the reason is because I want to equip you and if I don’t have the knowledge, I can’t equip you.

Some ask why I spend such a large amount of time teaching—whether that’s through preaching, Equip classes, Discipleship Groups, or various conferences that I speak at—it’s because I want to equip you, which disciples you.

Ultimately, the whole goal is for the teaching to transform your minds and influence your heart’s affections, which then leads to good works.

At Grace, I do that as a pastor, but it isn’t something that necessarily needs to be done in a pastoral sense—we’ll talk about that in the application.

What do we mean as a church?

For our church to say that we desire to equip believers and to be discipleship-focused, it means that everything that we do is geared for this.

You may not know this, but everything that we do during Sunday morning worship is thought-through with the intent of equipping you and discipling you—why do we sing the songs we sing? To disciple and to equip. Why do we pray the prayers that we pray? To disciple and to equip. Why do our sermons focus so heavily on teaching? To disciple and to equip. Why do we do a catechism, which is actually meant to teach kids the truths of Christianity? To equip and disciple.

This is the purpose behind why we do Discipleship Groups on Sunday mornings as well—that’s why Discipleship Groups is actually formatted the way it is—some folks learn better in a Q&A format, so we do Discipleship Groups in that way. You’ll also note that the curriculum, though it does a good job at looking at the overall storyline of Scripture, works its way through all Scripture intentionally.

This is the reason why we offer Equip classes—we want everyone who attends those modules to develop a biblical worldview that influences every aspect of their life—we do it to disciple and to equip.

Essentially, for our local church, what it means to desire equipping believers and being disciple-focused means that everything we do as a church has to do these things in some way.

That means that other things that other churches might do—even if they might be good things, if the things don’t equip or disciple people, we just don’t do them.

So, why don’t we have traveling musical groups stop by our church—because the purpose wouldn’t fulfill equipping and discipling.

Why don’t we have a soup kitchen or something along those lines—because the purpose doesn’t necessarily fulfill equipping and discipling (though soup kitchens are good).

With the limited resources that we have, we can’t do everything—so we focus on our core values.

Now I could go at length about what all this means, but time prohibits that if we intend to talk about application at all.

Application

So, let’s take a few minutes to discuss application.

To do so, I want to think through the question What does it mean to equip believers and to be discipleship-focused from a personal standpoint—as in, what does this mean for you as a Christians—and from a church standpoint—what does this mean for us as a church?

It’s clear from the Great Commission that as Christians, we ought to be making disciples, which includes telling people the truth, pointing them to Jesus hoping that they repent, believe, and get baptized; and then we teach them everything Jesus has taught us.

It is a major task, but Jesus does remind us at the end of Matthew 28, that He is always with us until the end of the age and the Holy Spirit helps us in this.

The issue is that often, we don’t even bother and that’s where the application starts:

If you, as a believer, want to equip others and be discipleship-focused, which is what the Great Commission tells us to do then this is what it means:

It starts by simply telling people the truth and pointing them to Jesus with the hope that they repent and believe—now there are all sorts of reasons given as to why Christians struggle with this, but often the primary reason is fear.

We’re afraid of what people will say, we’re afraid of how they’ll react, we’re afraid that they won’t like us as much—but fear of man is never a good reason to not do what God has called you to do—and He has certainly called you to proclaim the Gospel and make disciples.

The reality is that people will respond to the Gospel in a variety of different ways—and you aren’t responsible for how people respond to Jesus, you’re only responsible for telling them to look to Jesus—to repent and believe for salvation.

It continues by teaching them everything that Jesus has taught you, which is found in God’s Word.

This is the often neglected side of the Great Commission, but it’s clearly there, to teach them to observe all that Jesus has commanded.

This is the process of discipleship that they as a new disciple learn from Jesus and follows Jesus more intimately—first through faith and baptism, but then in every area of their life.

Now, you might hear that and think “but I don’t know enough, I can’t do this” and I have two responses for that:

First and foremost, I know you can’t do this—better yet, Jesus knows you can’t do this, which is why he ends the Great Commission with “I am with you always to the end of the age.”

You’re absolutely right that you can’t evangelize and disciple someone on your own, but Jesus didn’t leave you on our own, He gave us the Holy Spirit who indwells us and helps us as we obey the Great Commission.

The reality is that if you try any part of the Great Commission through your own effort, if someone repents, believes, and is discipled it’s despite your own effort.

It’s God who gives, it’s Jesus who saves, and the Spirit who leads, directs, and convicts. It’s also the Holy Spirit who sanctifies through the Word of God—not you.

So, no, you can’t do it on your own—and the moment that you try, you’re going to fail—you need to rely on God as you make disciples as you focus on discipleship and as you equip others.

I also know that you might think that you might not know enough (or maybe, you really don’t know enough), that’s why our church is so focused on equipping you and discipling you.

We want you to learn and to grow in such a way that you fulfill the Great Commission in not just evangelism—telling people about Jesus, but also discipleship—teaching people all that Jesus has taught us.

We do that in all sorts of different ways—through preaching on Sunday mornings, through Discipleship Groups, equip classes, and even monthly prayer meetings.

The idea is that if you come, get involved, and hear what’s being taught—you’ll walk away with a well-developed biblical worldview, a great understanding of what Scripture actually teaches, and a heart for others.

But us trying to equip you and disciple you only works if you come—if you come to Discipleship Groups and Equip Classes, if you participate in worship with us; and it only works if you get involved and participate.

Truthfully, it’s hard to be equipped and discipled if church is an afterthought for you—if the gathering of the saints, the fellowship of the believers in which we are equipped and equip others is no more than just something that you occasionally do, but not something that you genuinely care about—you won’t be equipped and you won’t be discipled.

And then it’s really no wonder—if you take the church for granted why you aren’t being equipped and discipled and why you aren’t discipling and equipping others—or, in other words, it’s really no wonder why you aren’t obeying the Great Commission.

At our church the whole mission is to make mature believers of Jesus Christ—and that’s rooted completely in the Great Commission.

You need to do everything you can to equip others and to be discipleship-focused—it’s literally the Great Commission—Jesus’ last words.

This is why our church desires to equip believers and to be discipleship-focused.

Pastoral Prayer