This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

[Music] Hi, I want to welcome you to day four of our look through Matthew
chapter 28. And let me begin by reading again for you the last couple of verses,
what Jesus told us to do. And as I read this, listen for the one thing he told
us to do, 19 and 20.

"Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey
everything I've commanded you. And surely I'm with you always to the very end of
the age. " We're talking about living this life of authentic authority and
genuine growth and absolute assurance.

We looked at authentic authority yesterday, all authority has been given to me.
So here he says, "Therefore," and he talks about genuine growth, genuine growth
for our lives, and genuine growth for his body, the church, and tells us what to
do about that. And then tomorrow we're going to talk about the absolute
assurance that we can live in.

But growth, genuine growth, how do you measure that? How do you measure genuine
growth? By the number of times that you attend church, or the number of chapters
of the Bible that you've read this year?

Those could be, they could be reflections of your growth, but genuine growth is
a lot deeper than that. You cannot count genuine growth, but you can describe
it. The New Testament reveals the test of genuine growth in a single word here,
the word "disciple.

" Disciple, that was the most popular name for early Christians. A disciple was
a life apprentice. Genuine growth means a lifetime of learning how to live from
Jesus Christ.

He's the one that we learn from. And that is the one thing that Jesus asks us to
do in these verses. He says, "I want you to go and I want you to make disciples.

" Jesus told us the central command of the Great Commission is to make
disciples. Now, in doing that, we're to baptize, we're to go, we're to teach,
but those are all means to the end of making disciples. That's what you and I
are to do.

The central command in this verse, the Great Commission, is not to witness, not
to go, it is to make disciples. Now, is there a difference? Well, you better
believe it.

Witnessing is only one step in making disciples. So today, I want to focus in on
this. If it's the one command, what does it mean?

Because it's not a word that we use a lot these days, "disciple. " What is a
disciple? We use this word in so many different ways.

We use it to refer to Jesus as 12 first followers. We use it to refer sometimes
to a churchgoer or maybe to a great saint. What does this word mean?

The best way to see exactly what this word means is to understand what it meant
when Jesus first said it. What did it picture for people? And when you think of
what a disciple is, think of four pictures.

Just sort of in your mind's eye, for the next few minutes with me, I want you to
imagine with me these four pictures. First picture in your mind, picture a
school room with two, three, four rows of pupils sitting in their desks, their
little wooden desks, leaning forward to learn what the teacher has to teach them
that day. Not leaning back, not chewing on their pencil, not messing around with
the person that's sitting next to them, but every one of them leaning forward to
hear what the teacher has to say that day.

That's a disciple. A disciple is a learner, someone who's leaning forward to
learn life from Jesus. That's the simplicity of it.

A disciple of Jesus is a person who is learning about Jesus, not someone who's
going to learn about Jesus someday. Oh, I'd like to do that someday. I'm
interested in that.

That's just curiosity. That's not discipleship, and neither is it someone who
thinks they've already learned what they need to learn from Jesus. If you think
you've learned it all, you're not a learner anymore.

You don't have anything else to learn. You've already learned it all. You are a
former learner, and there are some former disciples out there.

They think they've learned it all, so they're not learning from Jesus anymore.
You've got enough to learn. If you live to be 120 years old, you've got enough
to learn multiplied a million times in your life.

There's a lot to learn from Jesus. A good past record doesn't make you Jesus's
disciple today. School is never out for disciples.

You never complete your degree and hang it on the wall somehow. No, school's
still in session. So are you a disciple?

Are you sitting in that desk leaning forward to learn life from Jesus? Second
picture. Picture a woodworking shop, maybe a carpenter's shop, with an old
gray-haired man leaning over a younger man.

Maybe with his hand on the younger man's hand, showing him exactly how to plane
the wood so that the wood would be of lasting value and quality and would fit
exactly into the chair that they're making or exactly how to stitch the shoe so
that the stitch would not pull out. A disciple is an apprentice. We aren't just
learning about Jesus.

We're learning from Jesus. Now, he uses teachers in the church. He uses other
people, but essentially we're learning from Jesus.

He is the one who's using those other people in our lives. We're learning life
from him. We're not learning a trade.

We're learning a mission. We're not learning how to make a living. We're
learning how to live a life.

We're not learning just any business. We're learning the business of life.
That's what Jesus is apprenticing us to do.

That's what it means to be a disciple. So are you in that workshop? Do you sense
Jesus' hand on yours sometimes?

Just showing you exactly how to plane the wood, exactly how to say the right
thing in that conversation, exactly how to pray in that circumstance, exactly
how to trust him when you don't know what to say, exactly how to find his peace.
That's what it means to be learning life from Jesus. And if you think about a
woodworker's shop, they often got it wrong a lot of times before they got it
right.

To be apprenticed doesn't mean you get it perfectly the first time. If you
already knew how to do it, you wouldn't need to be apprenticed. So you've got to
keep going back.

Keep being apprenticed. Jesus, I'm back one more time. I need your wisdom one
more time.

The third picture. What does it mean to be a disciple? Picture a dusty road with
a Jewish rabbi traveling from city to city.

All the Jewish rabbis in that day had disciples. Jesus wasn't the only one with
disciples. So this Jewish rabbi, as he traveled from city to city, would not be
alone.

There'd be this small band of men that would be traveling with this Jewish
rabbi. Now, since he's a man, he would only have men travel with him in that
day. But that doesn't mean only men can be disciples.

Men and women are disciples. These were people that had committed themselves to
learn from this religious leader. And the way they were going to learn was to
follow him everywhere that he went.

We're not just learning about Jesus and from Jesus in some workshop. We're
learning by following Jesus, by going where he goes. We're not asking him to go
where we go.

We go where he goes. A Christian disciple doesn't learn about Jesus by reading a
book. You learn by following.

You might learn some things about following by reading a book. But you learn by
following. And there's something about following that's very important.

It is active. There's something you have to do to be a disciple. It's not just
something that you learn and memorize.

There's an action that takes place. It's more than a classroom religion we're
talking about. It's more than certain periods of apprenticeship.

A disciple follows Jesus every instant of our life. Now, none of us are going to
reach that ultimate goal in this life, but that is our goal. Jesus, if I could
only follow you every instant of my life, do what you would have done.

Act like you would have acted. Speak like you would have spoken. That's what I
want to do.

That's what it means to be a disciple. Now, there's a fourth picture. You
picture the classroom of students leaning forward.

You picture the apprentice with the one who's apprenticing them. The master
whose hand is showing them how to live, how to do life. You picture this dusty
road and we're following Jesus.

But finally, picture yourself. Picture yourself in the midst of this and the new
life that you found in Christ. Because a disciple is someone who is involved in
a relationship that is changing their life.

We don't just learn about Jesus or from Jesus or alongside Jesus or following
Jesus. You're learning to be like Jesus. You're learning to be like Jesus.

A disciple is growing in the grace and the character of Jesus. Becoming like
Jesus. Not just doing the things that Jesus did, but becoming like the person
that Jesus is.

Now, you're never going to become a God. That's not what we're talking about
here. We're talking about God first made you in his image in the Garden of Eden.

And Jesus is re-creating that in you. You're becoming like Jesus. What does a
disciple of Jesus look like?

He looks like Jesus. He looks like a learner, an apprentice, a follower. But in
the end, he looks like Jesus.

She looks like Jesus. God wants you to look like Jesus. So the question is, how
can I do this today?

Am I a disciple today? Let's pray together. And Jesus says we pray.

We say to you, we want to be your disciple. We refresh this commitment. So help
us to lean forward in that classroom and to learn from you.

Help us to allow you to put your hand on our hand and teach us how in the
conversation, in the business meeting, in the decision. Help us to instead of
going our own way and hoping you follow us, help us to watch for where you're
going and to follow you. Jesus, as we do this, help us to see the miracle of our
words becoming more like your words, of our character becoming more like your
character, our heart for the world becoming more like your heart for the world.

Only you can work that miracle in us. But that's what it means to be a disciple.
And so we refresh that commitment right now.

Jesus, I want to follow you. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Well, today we've talked about being a disciple. Tomorrow, we're going to talk
together about how do you make a disciple.