Teacher and Student - Matthew 28:18-20

Introduction

As most of you probably know, my wife and I had a son a year and a half ago — Josiah. And, honestly, it kinda scares me to death. I’m close with my two daughters, but I’ve always kind of felt like Megan was so great that she be able to make sure they turned out okay. But, I feel a unique responsibility in having a son to teach him how to be a man and how to hit a golf ball and how to clean a fish and how to treat a woman. There’s just so much that I need to teach him how to do, and I don’t want to mess him up. Parents, you feel that, don’t you? There’s a lot of good you want to do for your children, but sometimes you’d just settle for not messing them up.

I feel completely inadequate for the job at hand because, honestly, I don’t feel like I know very much. There’s still so much that I don’t understand or skills that I haven’t mastered or disciplines that I struggle to implement. You see, I’m in that unique place in life where I have a son and I am a son. I have so much that I need to teach my son, but I still have so much that I need to learn from my own dad. I need to teach my son how to be a man, and, yet, I’m still learning from dad how to be a man. So, it feels strange, and even overwhelming, to have the responsibility to teach something that I haven’t mastered myself.

God’s Word

That’s similar to the tension that we find and feel within the Great Commission. Who is the “them” that’s referenced in verse 18? It’s referring to Jesus’ disciples. And, what is a disciple? The literal definition of a disciple is a “learner.” It’s someone who commits themselves to learning someones teachings and way of life. So, the disciples are the men who have been learning from Jesus, and, if you read the gospels, you realize they’re a lot like we are. They struggle to figure it all out. But, look at what Jesus commands his disciples/learners to do. He commands them to make more disciples, more learners by “teaching them to observe all that (He) commanded.” There’s a reason why for us at ICBC “disciple” is both a noun and a verb. It’s embedded right here within the Great Commission. Disciples are learners, and disciples are teachers. They’re like those of us who have sons and are sons. They’re learning and they’re teaching. They’re being disciples, and they’re making disciples.

And, when you realize that this is a command that Jesus has placed upon all of us who follow him without exemption, it feels overwhelming, doesn’t it? There’s so much that we don’t know and don’t understand and don’t live out. There’s so much we’re still trying to figure out that we feel totally inadequate. And, that’s why verse 20 is the most neglected part of the Great Commission. That’s why we’ve reduced “making disciples” to counting decisions at a rally or a week away on a mission trip. Teaching while you’re still a learner, teaching while you’re struggling to be a practitioner is hard and daunting. But, if we’re being honest when we tell Jesus that we will follow him and obey him in whatever He teaches and wherever He leads, we must come to the realization that He has called all of us to both be disciples and make disciples, to be learners and teachers. And, that’s what we’re talking about on our second step of d-ship process. We want to teach you so that you can teach. So, let’s look at this neglected sentence and see how discipleship should look: (headline)

We teach “how” Jesus taught.

28:20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The first question we should ask is: What does Jesus mean by “teaching?” When Jesus commanded his disciples to teach the disciples they were making, what did He mean by that? And, the only reasonable answer is that Jesus was commanding his disciples to make disciples in the same way that He did. Jesus had just invested 3+ years of his life in teaching his disciples, and it’s hard to believe that he had in mind an 8 week class on Wednesday nights when He commanded them to go and make disciples for themselves. If being a disciple entails following Jesus and learning from Jesus, then it must be that Jesus is here commanding them to teach in the way which He has established. So, how did Jesus teach? You’ll notice that Jesus taught in the way in which we all learn.

He taught by instruction. Jesus started where we always start by explaining to them the truth about who He was, what He had come to do, and what was expected of them. You can think about the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus explained to them what life and obedience in the Kingdom looked like. After an interaction with the Pharisees, Jesus would pull his disciples aside to instruct them on why He had reacted as He did. Think of the woman at the well in John 4 and how Jesus taught her the nature of true worship and hope. It’s important that we spend time in the classroom. It’s important that we start by learning the concepts and hearing new truth for the first time. We need to read books together and interact with the Bible together. But, the most common difference between Jesus’ teaching and ours, between Jesus’ disciple-making and ours is that Jesus didn’t stop at the classroom. The classroom was just the introduction, and if we’re going to fulfill the command of Jesus to teach in the way of Jesus the same must be true of us.

He taught by illustration. By that, I don’t so much mean that Jesus used illustrations, though He certainly did and brilliantly so. I mean that Jesus offered himself as the illustration, as the example of what He’d taught. Jesus brought his disciples close enough so that they could see him living by the same instruction. They walked with him every day so that they could see what these concepts look like in real life. Jesus made the abstract concrete by his own life. The disciples didn’t just hear Jesus teach that you should turn the other cheek when you’re struck; they saw him live it. They didn’t just hear him teach not to be anxious when you don’t know what you will eat; they were there when the Son of Man had no place to lay his head. True teaching requires an example in close range to show how truth looks in real life. We need to be teachers who don’t just read through marriage books with one another but live out a godly marriage in close range. We need to be teachers who don’t just explain Christian generosity, but demonstrate it in a faithful and non-ostentatious way. We need to invite our people into our suffering so they can see what it looks like to wrestle with and trust God.

He taught by immersion. Jesus didn’t just let them hear and see it; He insisted his disciples experience it. He immersed them in the life He was insisting them learn so that they could learn the in and outs, the nuances and difficulties. So, that they could develop a deep, practical, applicable understanding that would carry them forward for the rest of their lives. Think in Matthew 10 how Jesus sent out his disciples to preach and heal in his name as a type of trial run of the future. When the crowd of 5000 was hungry, Jesus told his disciples to feed them so that they could learn the source of their dependence. In Matthew 17, Jesus’ disciples failed to cast a demon out of a boy, and Jesus uses it as an opportunity to teach them about faith. He immersed them so that they could know what they didn’t know in order that they might be actually helped in their future lives and ministries.

It reminds me of when I decided that I wanted to learn how to play golf. I bought a book from the book fair on the golf swing, and I read it. One of my teachers gave me a VHS on how to hit a golf ball, and I watched it. But then, when I went to the driving range to actually swing, I missed the ball entirely. I realized that I knew a lot about it, but that didn’t mean that I really understood it or could apply it. Far too often, we’ve reduced disciple-making to handing out books and sitting in classes, and then we wonder why we and our disciples fail to implement in the real world. It’s because we’re short-changing the method of Jesus. Instruction + Illustration + Immersion/Instruction + Example + Practice.

We teach “why” Jesus taught.

28:20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The method of Jesus makes it clear that the goal of Jesus isn’t just to pass a test. I so admire all of you who are bilingual. I took two years of Spanish in high school and two semesters of Spanish in college, and I can’t speak a lick. Why? I only did enough to pass the tests and as soon as the tests were over, I forgot it all. We’ve been trained to learn that way, and we’ve imported that same approach to our discipleship with Jesus. We memorize the Bible when we have to, but it’s just to pass the test in our d groups. We read the books or take notes during the sermons, but it feels like we’re prepping for a test we plan to take. But, we can have notes on trusting Christ in our Bibles and still fail to see how it impacts our daily anxiety. That’s because we’re not really learning in the way that a disciple is intended to learn. Notice what’s included in Jesus’ command, “teaching them TO OBSERVE all that I have commanded you.” Don’t just teach them to know it. Don’t just prep them for the test. Teach them to observe it, obey, apply it, live it. The goal of Jesus’ teaching isn’t primarily the passing of information; it’s transformation.

When you study how Jesus uses “observe” throughout the gospels, it becomes even more clear that the goal of our teaching is transformation over information. “Observe” is often translated as “keep” in the gospels, but it’s the same word. And, it teaches us why Jesus expects us to obey what He says. First, you obey Jesus because you trust Jesus. Jesus says in John 8:51 “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”” That is, if anyone trusts that my word is the way to life, if anyone trusts that my words are the good news, if anyone is willing to step on to this narrow, difficult path with me because they believe me, then they’ll find life. Do you see how Jesus grounds outward obedience in this inward trust? Why would you disobey Jesus? Why would you take a different stance on sex or money than Jesus? It’s because you don’t trust him. You don’t trust that his way is the best way. You believe you know a better way for life. But, if you keep his word, if you keep his way, your obedience is in sex and relationships and the treatment of your deadbeat dad and your kindness to your disrespectful boss are outflows of trust and faith that Jesus is worth following. Disciples of Jesus don’t just trust Jesus with the afterlife; they trust Jesus today. It’s the outflow of a transformation.

Next, notice that you obey Jesus because you love Jesus. Our word shows up again in John 14:15 ““If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Again, Jesus focuses on the heart over the behavior. Yes, you must obey. But, obedience isn’t to prove that you’re good; obedience is to express how deeply you believe that Jesus is good. Obedience is the practical expression of a heart that is devoted to Jesus. A husband is faithful to his wife, not because she is keeping him from every other woman, but because He is so satisfied with her and his heart is so utterly devoted. A child is meant to obey his parents, not because he’ll lose his phone if he doesn’t, but because he is certain that his parents want good for him and not harm and that they love him; so, he responds back in devotion. Love is not words without action. Love is not flattery without devotion. God help us when we seek to flatter the Lord, but not obey him. As disciples of Jesus, we obey Jesus because we love him, and as disciple-makers of Jesus we teach them to love him that they might obey him. We must teach them to love Jesus while they live in a world that tempts them to love so many silly, little things.

And, you obey Jesus because you abide in Jesus. John 15:10 “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” Do you see this? This is beautiful. This gets to the transformation. Why do you keep Jesus’ commands? Because you trust him and you love him. But, this is hard! How is it possible to obey such commands when I’m so weak? Because when you love and trust him, you abide in him like a branch abides in a vine. The vine demands the branch bears fruit, but then the vine gives the branch everything that’s required to bear the fruit. The vine gives life to the branch and ability to the branch and strength to the branch. How can we obey Jesus? Jesus gives to us all that He requires from us, like a vine gives to its branch.

Have you been transformed? Salvation leads to transformation, and transformation is expressed through obedience. And, are you teaching so that others might be transformed? Test passing won’t do! Let’s teach them to love God!

We teach “what” Jesus taught.

28:20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Disciple-making today is often seen today as a place where you reproduce yourself. You take your philosophies and political ideals and opinions on every subject, and you pass them on to those you’re teaching. But, I don’t think that Jesus is at all telling his disciples to make duplicates of themselves. After all, they’re still disciples. They’re still learners. They’re still figuring stuff out. The call is higher than that. The call is to reproduce the character of Christ in others. That’s why Jesus says it the way that He does. Teach them “all that I have commanded you.” Don’t teach them your thoughts. Don’t teach them your laws. Don’t teach them your ways. Teach them what I taught to you!

I have had the privilege of speaking at a few discipleship conferences over the last year or so. And, it doesn’t matter what you’ve taught or said, or how hard you’ve worked to inspire. There’s always one question that comes up: “What curriculum should we use?” I understand the question, but I think it reveals the problem. We want teaching and discipleship to be a book we read or a study that we do. But, Jesus’ answers that very question plainly here: Jesus IS the curriculum. We think so much of birth and so much of his death, but we need to reflect more on his life. Jesus’ life is the curriculum for Christian discipleship. He is the epitome of what the transformed, Kingdom life will look like. We need to search for fewer shortcuts and fewer Christian life hacks, and spend more time with Jesus.

What did Jesus command us to do? He commanded us to love and live like him. How in the world can we do that? by spending time with him? In the culture that Jesus lived, a disciple would literally shadow and memorize every last thing their teacher did. How many steps on the Sabbath? How many hours studying and memorizing scripture? How did they play with their kids? When did they eat their meals? How long did they grow their hair? The disciples spent so much time with their teachers that they became perfect duplicates. That’s what Jesus is calling for here. As disciples we must spend so much time with Jesus that our lives become indistinguishable from his, and then, as teachers we reflect what Paul says, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” (1 Cor 11:1) We are both learners and teachers, but our responsibility really doesn’t change much in the Great Commission. Trust Jesus, love Jesus, abide in Jesus, and then imitate Jesus. And, when we imitate Jesus, we will make and teach more disciples because that’s what Jesus did.