Next Step Christian Church
Worship 1/3/26
      • Bible Trivia
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  • No Not One
  • Light The Fire Again
  • Cry In My Heart
  • Abide
  • In every gospel (and Acts) Jesus Commissions his disciples to go, proclaim the gospels and make disciples. In every gospel, Jesus sends his disciples on training missions to practice that. Nearly every church agrees this is our Mission and Purpose… and yet we are nervous, vague on “how”, and very rarely do it on purpose. What would it look like to make “disciple making” the point and purpose of our church?

    What is the Point?

    Have you ever watched a bunch of littles play soccer? Just a clump of kids wherever the ball goes, furiously kicking and running in a pile.
    Logan played soccer a bit different. He’s in California, so I can pick on him.
    As soon as the ball moves a single foot in the direction of his goal, Logan charges all the way back to the goal to stop them.
    Of course, by the time he gets back to the goal, the ball has moved back to the other team’s goal.
    And then the ball moves back towards Logan’s goal… guess where he’s going?
    If you want to see the video after, come see me. Hilarious.
    So when you watch the littles play, what do you conclude is the most important thing in soccer? Kicking the ball. Touching the ball. Being where the ball is. Doesn’t matter where it goes, just get in there, kick the ball.
    There’s a bit of truth in there, but it misses the real point.
    If you watch Logan play soccer, as a little, what would you conclude is the goal? At all costs, no matter what happens, don’t let the ball go near your goal.
    Again, there’s a bit of truth in there, but it misses the real point.
    If you watch a team like Ella’s soccer team this past Fall, just scoring goal after goal, mercy ruling 10 goals up again and again, what would you conclude is the point?
    Scoring goals, more goals, most goals. Kicking the ball… part of it, towards scoring goals. Defending the goal? Also part of it, towards scoring MORE goals than the other team.
    What is the point of what we are doing here?
    What is the point of church?
    Now, I hope you have an answer in mind. You’ve been in the church for a minute, it likely isn’t new.
    But here is a similar but different question. If you watched us, like watching a soccer game, seeing what the Logan is doing, what the littles are doing, what the folks are doing… what would you guess is the point of church?
    By the language we use, by the things we celebrate and get excited about, what would someone guess is the point?
    Good news: Like Logan, like the littles, we are getting a whole lot of things right. We got some pieces right for sure.
    Challenge: I think most of the goals we score are almost by accident.
    I think most of our “making disciples” is kind of by accident.
    I think “discipleship” in church very often misses the point.
    Again, this isn’t about feeling guilty about what we aren’t doing. We are free from guilt and shame.
    BECAUSE I am excited about the Mission God has given us, being a part of it, being a piece of it, coworker with Christ, filled with the Spirit, advancing the Kingdom… because I WANT to carry out His mission, I want to be all about it.
    I want to do it well. I want to do it on purpose. I want us, Next Step Christian Church, to be all about it.
    What is the mission and how do we actually go and do it?
    How did Jesus do it? How did his disciples do it?
    All of the gospels have Jesus commissioning his disciples to Go, Proclaim the Gospel, Teach the Commands, Make Disciples, when filled by the Holy Spirit.
    I know you believe me, but let’s read it. This is the final words, the final mission Jesus leaves His Church, His Disciples with in every gospel, plus a bonus one in Acts. Not ONE great Commission, Five Great Commissions.

    Five Great Commissions

    Matthew 28:19–20 ESV
    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.”
    Famous, classic, memorize it, put it on the wall. That’s our mission, the most famous expression of it, the “Great Commission.”
    But it isn’t alone:
    (End of Mark was added later)
    Mark 16:15 ESV
    15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.
    That bit in Mark is to be held loosely, probably has at least an asterisk in your Bible, but this part is pretty solid in agreement with Scripture. Great Commission from Mark, put in good Greek language.
    How about Dr. Luke?
    Luke 24:45–49 ESV
    45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
    Luke uses the language of “witness” and “proclaim”… and there’s still the sending, and the power from the Spirit. It’s all there.
    John, you there?
    John 20:19–23 ESV
    19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”
    In John, he gives the Holy Spirit, even though Pentecost is still coming, and he sends them “as the Father is sending me.” and he sends them with the meat and potatoes of the gospel: go and forgive sins. We have that power in the name of Jesus.
    Finally, Dr. Luke round 2, Jesus’ last words before ascension in Acts:
    Acts 1:7–8 ESV
    7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 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.”
    Again, the promise of the Spirit, again the language of witness to world.
    So, some different words as they speak to different audiences, but this is my claim:
    All of the gospels have Jesus commissioning his disciples to Go, Proclaim the Gospel, Teach the Commands, Make Disciples, when filled by the Holy Spirit.
    And those words are my breakdown of the pieces of the Commissions, the common pieces. They don’t all major on all of them, but we will talk about them this way in detail. Going. Proclaiming the Gospel. Teaching the Commands of Jesus. Making Disciples (baptizing them in his name)… all filled by the Holy Spirit.
    And just to be clear, the heart of it, the center of those five, the only actual verb in the sentence of Matthew’s Great Commission is this: make disciples.
    This is supposed to be the center. It is supposed to be the point.
    And here is why I think we often miss the point.
    If I ask many of us, most churches, what does discipleship look like in your church, I am likely to hear a whole lot about what time bible study starts. That is part of it, like kicking the ball is part of soccer… but even the word “discipleship” misses the point.
    We get super vague and dodgy about how and if you specifically are “making disciples” and I struggled to even build a picture of what that means.
    The church should look a lot more like going, proclaiming the gospel, teaching the commands, making disciples, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
    It should look like an intentional curriculum that does this, accomplishes this mission, on purpose.
    Jesus clearly knew how to do this, and he set out to prepare his disciples to do it themselves. Not just the 12, the 72 and beyond.
    They, clearly, continued that model for the gospel spread like wildfire across the Roman Empire, by their own hands and the generations after.

    Training Wheels

    Jesus had a clear and intentional curriculum, a process, by which he made disciples.
    Jesus sent his disciples on little training missions, little commissions as foretastes of the Great Commission.

    The 12 disciples

    Luke 9:1-2 (also Matt 10 and Mark 6:7-13)
    Luke 9:1–2 ESV
    1 And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.
    Matthew 10:7–8 ESV
    7 And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay.
    Is it just the 12 apostles???
    No! He also sent the 72!

    The 72 disciples

    Luke 10:1 ESV
    1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go.
    Luke 10:8–9 ESV
    8 Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you. 9 Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’
    Luke 10:17 ESV
    17 The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!”
    aka: That Was Awesome!!!
    So the picture I have is that the 12 disciples… and many other disciples as well have been traveling with Jesus, learning how to do this. How to do as Jesus did. How to be like Jesus.
    First Jesus did it, proclaiming the Good News, the Gospel, the Kingdom of Heaven is here! The day of salvation is now! And how to live in it now.
    Then he sent them on little missions to try it out, test it out, give it a go. Short term. With a buddy for encouragement and accountability, perhaps. Just try it. Clear instructions about what to do and what to say.
    And I don’t think these verses represent all the times he did that, I think they are representative of many such missions over his three year ministry.
    This was intentional training in going, proclaiming, teaching, making disciples, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

    Discipling by Accident

    Evangelism by Osmosis
    To be clear, I do think this happens. We do go… and we are where we are, going about our business. We do go.
    We do proclaim. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident, sometimes folks discover we are Christians and we are witnesses to Jesus whether we intended to be or not.
    We do teach the commands of Jesus… at the very least by how we live or don’t live them out… but we study the Word of God, we have been preaching the teaching of Jesus, we at the very least teach the commands of Jesus to folks in this room once a week. And some it seeps in.
    We do make disciples… we just usually don’t know what we are doing when we do. We make disciples by accident, or just along the way. We don’t think in that language, we don’t think in those terms. We just think we are inviting someone to church… or bringing our kids up to “be Christians.”
    There is beauty happening there, God is at work, we want to recognize it so we can lean into it, participate, do it on purpose.
    We see the fruit when we see folks lining up to be baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We see the fruit when we see folks growing in Christ, growing in righteousness, exhibiting fruits of the Spirit, gifts of the Spirit.
    For this I know, we are in fact filled and sealed by the Holy Spirit… and the Spirit works through us to accomplish thing FAR beyond our intent or (sometimes) even our knowledge.
    So be encouraged by this: all of this is happening.
    But I think much of it (perhaps most of it) is happening by accident.
    I want to disciple on purpose.
    I want to go on purpose, proclaim the gospel on purpose, teach the commands on purpose, make disciples on purpose...
    For I am filled with the Holy Spirit towards that purpose!
    I am on mission: to be a disciples of Jesus… to make disciples of Jesus.

    What would it look like to make “disciple making” the point and purpose of our church?

    That isn’t rhetorical. That is an actual question. I need your help answering it.
    It’s the great “Oh no.”
    And I will be very honest: I don’t have it figured out. I have read a bunch of books on discipleship, and I want us to read more. I have questions about what this looks like in our actual life… and I want to hear your questions as we go through.
    I don’t have this all figured out, but I don’t think the disciples did either. I expect they were a bit terrified and intimidated the first time Jesus sent them out. And the 2nd. And still when they were waiting to be clothed with power at Pentecost.
    I think there were a million moments where they were just like “I don’t know, but let’s SEND IT!”
    Let’s just Go and do it.
    Let’s say, Proclaim, the Words Jesus Told Us and see what happens.
    Let’s Teach what he taught and see if it bears fruit.
    And when they couldn’t remember, when they went to teach and realized they didn’t know enough to actually teach this stuff, they poured into Scripture. I think that’s why Acts said they devoted themselves to studying the Word. Anyone who has been called on to teach or preach on a subject knows, that drives you into it, makes you learn it in a WHOLE new way… and we need that.
    And when they made disciples, they made them in the mold that Jesus had formed them into. To do as he did, to Be as He Is, so do as I do, and be as I am… follow me as I follow Christ.
    And all of it possible by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, through whom Jesus will never leave nor forsake us.
    We aren’t alone in this, it is His Mission and His Commission.
    So I am asking you to actively help me figure this out.
    It means I need your questions and objections.
    It means I need your ideas about how to try some things differently. Try some things out in the real world.
    It means “doing church” could look a bit different. At the very least, in the way we measure success. Likely in the rhythm of our weekly habits.
    And above all, it means listening to what and where the Spirit is leading.
    So first, before we go all “rah, rah, let’s go!” we need to Wait on the Lord. We need to lift up life as we have been doing it, church as we have been doing it, “discipling” as we have been do it, we hold all of that with open hands…
    It’s His. It’s all for Him, and He wants us to do it something new, something different… or really something very old… we say Yes, Lord.
    Awaken us. Fall afresh, do it again.

      • Matthew 28:19–20NIV

      • Mark 16:15NIV

      • Luke 24:45–49NIV

      • John 20:19–23NIV

      • Acts 1:7–8NIV

      • Luke 9:1–2NIV

      • Luke 10:1NIV

      • Luke 10:8–9NIV

      • Luke 10:17NIV

  • Fall Afresh
  • Come Alive (Dry Bones)
Next Step Christian Church
pastordusty@nextstepchurch.org
(720) 663-9085
https://www.nextstepchurch.org
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