Ordinary Men, Extraordinary Obedience

How the Apostles Carried Out the Commands of Christ

1 John 2:3–6 ESV

3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

John 21:15-17; Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8, 14; 2:42-47

INTRODUCTION

Turn with me this morning to John 21. In a few moments we're going to walk through several commands Jesus gave His apostles before He ascended — and then trace how those same men actually lived them out.

Here's why this matters: Jesus didn't leave the church a philosophy. He left it a command structure, carried by ordinary men, empowered by an extraordinary Spirit. Peter was a fisherman. John was a fisherman. Matthew was a tax collector. None of them had seminary training. None of them had a platform. What they had was a Risen Lord who gave them marching orders — and the astonishing thing is, they obeyed.

This morning I want to look at five commands Jesus gave the apostles, and show you how those very men carried them out — because if they could obey, by the same Spirit, so can we.

I. THE COMMAND TO WAIT — Acts 1:4-5, 8, 14

"And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father... But you 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." (Acts 1:4-5, 8, ESV)

Before there was a command to go, there was a command to wait. That's worth sitting with. For driven, action-oriented men, restraint is often harder than activity.

Notice the result in verse 14: "All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer." The Greek word for "with one accord" is homothumadon (ὁμοθυμαδόν) — a term Luke uses repeatedly in Acts to describe the unified posture of the early church (Acts 2:46; 4:24; 5:12). It's not just that they were in the same room. It's that they were of one mind, one purpose, one waiting heart.

Application: Sometimes obedience looks like stillness before it looks like mission. Before God sends you out, He wants to settle you down — in prayer, in unity with the body, in dependence on the Spirit rather than your own strength.

II. THE COMMAND TO GO AND MAKE DISCIPLES — Matthew 28:18-20

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." (Matthew 28:19-20, ESV)

The main verb here is mathēteusate (μαθητεύσατε) — "make disciples." It's an aorist imperative, decisive and urgent. The participle "go" (poreuthentes, πορευθέντες) carries the force of the command — literally, "as you go" or "having gone." Going wasn't optional; it was assumed. The only question was what they would do once they got there.

Watch how literally the apostles followed the geographic pattern Jesus laid out in Acts 1:8:

— Peter preaches at Pentecost, and three thousand souls are added in a single day (Acts 2:14-41).Jerusalem

— Philip carries the gospel into Samaritan territory, and God confirms it with signs (Acts 8:5-8).Judea and Samaria

— Philip is then sent to an Ethiopian official on a desert road — representing the far reaches of the known world (Acts 8:26-39). And Paul, though not one of the Twelve, becomes the primary instrument carrying the gospel from Antioch all the way to Rome itself (Acts 28:30-31), fulfilling his own testimony that he was sent "to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light" (Acts 26:18).The end of the earth

Illustration: These weren't strategists with a five-year plan. They were men who had just watched their Lord die and rise again, and they went where the Spirit pushed them — city by city, household by household, obedience by obedience.

Application: You don't need a perfect strategy to obey the Great Commission. You need a willingness to go where God opens the door — your workplace, your family, your neighborhood — and make disciples there.

III. THE COMMAND TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER — John 13:34-35

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34-35, ESV)

Jesus calls this a kainē entolē (καινὴ ἐντολή) — a "new" commandment, not new in the sense that love was previously unknown (Leviticus 19:18 already commanded neighbor-love), but new in its standard: "as I have loved you." The bar is no longer human affection. It's the self-giving, cross-shaped love of Christ Himself.

How did the apostles carry this out?

, who leaned on Jesus' breast at the Last Supper, makes love the theological center of his first epistle: "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love" (1 John 4:8). For John, love isn't sentiment — it's the proof of new birth.John

commands the church, "having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart" (1 Peter 1:22).Peter

gives us the most famous exposition of this command in all of Scripture — 1 Corinthians 13 — and elsewhere calls love "the fulfilling of the law" (Romans 13:10).Paul

Application: These men didn't just quote the command back to their churches — they lived under it themselves, sacrificially, to the point of death. Love, for them, was not a slogan. It was the identifying mark by which a watching world would know whether Jesus was real.

IV. THE COMMAND TO SHEPHERD THE FLOCK — John 21:15-17

"When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, 'Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?' He said to him, 'Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.' He said to him, 'Feed my lambs.'" (John 21:15, ESV)

This is personal restoration turned into commission. Three times Peter denied Christ; three times Jesus restores him, and each restoration comes wrapped in a command: "Feed my lambs" (boske ta arnia mou), "Tend my sheep" (poimaine ta probata mou), "Feed my sheep" (boske ta probata mou).

Here's what's remarkable — Peter never forgets it. Decades later, writing to elders scattered across Asia Minor, he uses the very same verb Jesus used with him: "shepherd the flock of God that is among you" (poimanate to en humin poimnion tou theou, 1 Peter 5:2). The command Jesus gave him privately on a beach in Galilee becomes the command Peter hands down to an entire generation of pastors.

Paul does the same thing with the Ephesian elders: "Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God" (Acts 20:28).

Application: Brothers and sisters, if you lead — whether as an elder, a parent, a teacher, or a mentor — you are under this same command. Restoration from failure doesn't disqualify you from shepherding. Sometimes it's the very thing that qualifies you for it, as it did for Peter.

V. THE COMMAND TO REMEMBER — Luke 22:19

"And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'" (Luke 22:19, ESV)

The apostles obeyed this command almost immediately and continuously. Acts 2:42 tells us the early church "devoted themselves... to the breaking of bread" as a regular, structured pattern of worship — not an occasional afterthought, but a defining rhythm of their common life.

Paul takes this so seriously that when the Corinthian church begins abusing the Table, he corrects them by appealing directly to apostolic tradition received from the Lord Himself: "For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you" (1 Corinthians 11:23). The command to remember was not left to personal preference — it was guarded and handed down with precision.

Application: When we come to the Table, we are doing what the apostles did the moment Jesus gave the command — not out of ritual habit, but out of obedient remembrance of what He accomplished for us.

CONCLUSION

Here's what strikes me across every one of these commands: the apostles did not simply comply with rules from a distance. They metabolized Christ's commands into their own lives and theology. Peter doesn't just remember "feed my sheep" — he becomes a shepherd of shepherds. John doesn't just recall "love one another" — he makes love the very test of whether someone truly knows God. Paul doesn't just retell the Great Commission — he spends his life, and ultimately gives his life, fulfilling it to the ends of the earth.

That's the pattern for us too. Christ's commands were never meant to be admired from a distance. They were meant to be carried — in your home, your workplace, your church family — the same way ordinary, unremarkable men carried them two thousand years ago by the power of the same Holy Spirit who indwells you today.

The question this morning isn't whether you've heard these commands. You have, many times. The question is whether you, like the apostles, will let the Spirit of the Risen Christ turn hearing into obedience.

If you're here this morning and you've never surrendered your life to this same Lord Jesus Christ — the one who gave His body and blood for you, who rose again, and who commands His followers still — I invite you this morning to come to Him. He is not just Lord over the apostles. He is King of Kings, and He is calling you to Himself today.

Let's pray.