Episode 240: Paul's Great Commission | Dave Sloop

Introduction

Well, good morning. Good morning. For those of you that have no idea who I am, my name is Dave Sloop, and we moved here a few months ago at the June. My wife is the new director of youth and family here at Church of the Holy Spirit, and we could not be happier to be a part of this church family. In fact, my oldest daughter Sydney, just a week ago, came up to Melissa, and she said, Mom, Sunday is my favorite day of the week. Isn't that fantastic? Did anybody else say that when you were 11 years old? I promise you I didn't, and Sydney saying that is not a referendum on our parenting. It doesn't even speak to her character, but what it does speak volumes to is what is happening within the walls of this church.

We are so grateful and honored to be a part of it, so thank you.

We are in second Timothy chapter two, and if you have your Bible, you can go ahead and turn there. We're gonna start in verse one. And as you're turning, I wanted to remind you something that Tim Henderson said to us a couple weeks ago when we started this walk through second Timothy. He said, Paul wrote this letter to Timothy, but God, if you're willing to believe it, wrote it to you. That this is not just words and instructions for a first-century pastor, but they are actually, in a real sense, words and instructions for you and for me, how we are to think about and order our lives in this day and age.

And I share that with you because today is one of those passages where we might be tempted to go, I think that was for Timothy. I think that was for the pastors, but this is very much for you and for me.

The Context of the Passage

So far in chapter one, Paul has been reminding Timothy who he is. He starts out by saying, Timothy, I am an apostle appointed by God, and I've been serving God faithfully just like my ancestors did. And then he says to Timothy, and Timothy, you're just like me. You've been serving God. I'm convinced that the same faith lives in you just as it was passed down to you from your ancestors. And Timothy, in the same way that I have been appointed by God, you have been appointed by God.

Do you remember when I laid my hands on you and you received the gift? Fan that gift in to flame, Timothy. Don't shrink back. Don't be afraid. Be strong. Be brave. The spirit that lives in you and me is not a spirit that leads to fear, but it gives us power in love and self discipline.

See, Timothy needed to be reminded who he was because he was shrinking back. He was afraid. Paul says, Timothy, this is how I want you to be thinking about who God is and who you are. But as we move into chapter two, Paul is going to get more specific, and he's gonna start telling Timothy what he wants him, not just to be thinking, but what he wants him to be doing.

In verse two, he's gonna say, Timothy, the things you've heard me say, pass them on to others. Timothy, I want you to make disciples. Now remember, this is Paul's farewell address. It's his last words that Timothy would ever receive in writing and that any of us would get. And what was top of mind and top of his heart was Timothy, pass it on. Make disciples.

And do you know, Paul was not the only one speaking this way at the end of his life. When we examine the gospels, Jesus' last conversations that he had with his disciples, we see an interesting theme. Mark is the only gospel writer who doesn't have any post-resurrection words of Jesus, but Mark and Luke and John all do.

And I want to share with you these final three conversations in each of those gospel accounts, and I want you to see if you can catch the theme.

In Luke's account, which, of course, is Luke and Acts together, in Acts 1:8, Jesus' final words to his disciples are this,

but you will receive power when my spirit comes upon you, and then you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. — Acts 1:8

In John's gospel, we see Jesus talking to a defeated disciple, Peter, who had just previously denied him publicly three times, and now he sits there with his risen savior on the beach as they share breakfast, and Jesus asks him this piercing question three times in a row.

Peter, do you love me? And each time Peter said, Lord, you know I love you. And Jesus said, some variation each time in answer to that response, then feed my sheep.

Then in Matthew's gospel, Matthew's the only gospel writer who ends his gospel in red ink with a quote from Jesus, a passage that we know is the great commission, Matthew 28:18-20, and it says this,

therefore, all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I've commanded, and surely, I am with you always, even to the very end of the age. — Matthew 28:18-20

Be my witnesses. Feed my sheep. Go and make disciples.

See, Jesus could not have been more clear at the end of his life. To be his disciple necessarily include the call to make disciples. It's part of what it meant to be one of his kids.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said this, Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ, because you see, Christ never separated those two things. Maybe we see that most clearly in his relationship with Peter. What's the last thing he said to Peter? Feed my sheep. What's the first thing he said to Peter? Come follow me, and I will make you a fisher of men. It was always about making disciples.

You see, to follow Jesus is to make disciples. That's who we are. That's what we do. That's what it's all about.

Application

Some years ago, Melissa and I were on staff with Young Life in Blacksburg, Virginia, and we had the great privilege of overseeing some college age kids who were sharing their lives, some of them are in this room, who were sharing their lives with younger high school and middle school kids.

One day, a handful of these college age girls came up to Melissa, and they said, Melissa, we would love for you to meet with us weekly, to pour into us, to talk to us about what it looks like to follow Christ.

They said, But here's the deal. We don't want to talk about ministry. We just want to talk about our relationship with Christ. And Melissa smiled at them, and without hesitating, she looked back at them, and she said, I would love to meet with you, but I don't think I'm the right person because I don't know what it means. I I don't know how to talk about our relationship with Christ without talking about the ministry that he's called us to.

They got the message. To be a disciple is to make disciples.

And I gotta be honest with you. As I began to prepare for this message, a passage that is very familiar to me, second Timothy 2:2, I had that memorized as a high school kid. But as I began to prepare for this message, I started to feel some guilt. Because you see, for nineteen years, making disciples was my full-time job. It was baked into my nine-to-five. It's what I was paid to do.

But for the last two years, I am in a different career, and that has slowly fallen off my plate. Now, I was thinking to myself, I am not the guy to stand in front of these people and tell them what it means to go and make disciples because I don't feel like I'm really doing a great job of that right now.

But as I stand before you this morning, I think I'm exactly who God wanted to share this message. And here's why. If we were being taught this passage from one of our full-time pastors, it might be easy to sit in the comfort of our pew and look at them and say, you know, that's easy for you to say because you're paid to do it. But I have a full-time job. I don't have time.

But this is not just a call for our full-time ministers. It's a call for all of us. There’s not one of us in here who would call ourselves a disciple of Jesus Christ that is exempt from this call.

Paul said it to Timothy, but God is saying it to you and to me. So I think there's one of two traps that we could fall into this morning. On the one hand, we might feel some shame and guilt already knowing, like, I have not been doing this, but I want to encourage you to not take that bait because shame and guilt are not from God. Do you know that? When you ever feel those emotions, just know that is not His voice. That is not how God moves or leads us.

But on the other hand, you might be tempted to tune me out this morning. You might be tempted to think, this is not really how I do my relationship with Christ. And I would encourage you not to take that path either. Instead, would you be willing to stand in the middle of those two extremes and take a different posture? Would you be willing to have a soft heart? Would you be open to the conviction of the Holy Spirit? Because here's what conviction is. It is not shame and guilt. Conviction of the Holy Spirit is an invitation from our savior to live more fully into who he created and called us to be. It's an invitation from our savior who, by the way, is not angry, mad, and disappointed with you. He's not, but he never stops pursuing. He remembers that you are from the dust, but he has more for us.

So can I pray for us that God, and I know that we're still in the intro here, that God would give us the right heart to hear his word?

Let me pray.

Father, would you soften every heart, including mine in this room, that we might be open to the conviction of your holy spirit, that we might more fully walk into what it means to be your disciples. In Christ's name. Amen.

The Call to Make Disciples

Okay. Second Timothy chapter two verse one. Paul says to Timothy, you then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

Literally, what Paul says here is be strengthened continually by his grace. It's an interesting phrase because it's passive and active. Be strengthened is in the passive voice, which means that it's a force upon us. It's happening to us. It's somebody else's strength, but he frames it as a command.

There's an action here. Be strengthened. Paul is saying, Timothy, there's something that you must do and keep doing.

I wonder how many of us think of grace as a one-time transaction between us and God. At the moment of conversion, we receive His grace when we get our sins forgiven, and that is true. But Paul here is suggesting that we are meant to have an ongoing relationship with grace, a grace that we cannot and will not experience without effort.

We don't often use those two words in the same sentence, do we? Grace, effort, but Paul has no problem with this. He says it even more harshly in Philippians 2:12-13. Let's see if you remember this verse.

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. — Philippians 2:12

At first glance, that verse is antithetical to everything that you and I understand about what it means to follow Christ. We don't work out our salvation. We don't earn it. It's a free gift, but Paul makes no apologies. Work it out. Why?

For it is He who works in you both to will and to act according to His good purpose. — Philippians 2:13

What is Paul saying? He's saying, when you work, when you exercise effort, that is when you activate His grace, and you see His strength show up in your life.

Timothy, you are gonna have to drag yourself to sometimes kicking and screaming underneath the fountain of his grace where he will supply all of your needs.

Second Peter 1:3 says, his divine power has given us everything that we need for life and godliness.

But Timothy, you have to go and get it.

See, there's an interesting relationship in the life of the believer between grace and effort. We will never be effective disciples in our own strength. We need his. But we will never experience his strength until we exercise our own effort.

It's a partnership. See, God's grace is a free gift to all. But listen to this, we will not all experience that grace equally. We will experience that grace only to the degree that we are strengthened by it, and that will always be a choice.

We will not stumble into strength any more than someone will stumble into getting ripped without going to the gym. It doesn't happen. We will not just drift into godliness and holiness. It is a conscious daily decision.

That's why he says, be strengthened, how often? Continually. Over and over again, moment by moment.

Timothy, be strengthened by His grace. And Paul wants to make sure that Timothy understands in verse one where his strength is coming from before he tells him in verse two to go and make disciples.

Jesus follows the same pattern. Did you notice in Acts 1:8, My spirit will come upon you, then you'll have power, then you will be my witnesses.

We had a senior vice president on Young Life staff, a man named Ty Saltsgeiver, who was notorious for training the younger staff, and every year, he would have several 100 Young Life staff candidates in front of him, and without fail, every year, he would ask this question, what is the Great Commission?

Inevitably, there would be some young, eager to impress, arrogant staff person who would raise his hand and go, Therefore, go and make disciples, and before he could even finish the sentence, Ty would point at him and go, Wrong. And that kid would sit down, red-faced, ashamed, but Ty needed to make an example of him for the benefit of everyone.

He would say, the great commission begins all authority in heaven and on earth. It's been given to me. Therefore, go. He said, you don't go in your own strength. You don't go in your authority. You go in his, and don't you ever forget it. We never did. We never raised our hands again. It's painful.

Timothy, you be strong, but make sure it's in his grace, not in your own strength.

But then, in verse two, the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust a reliable man who will be qualified also to teach others.

Timothy, the things that you've heard me say. Timothy, you could probably complete my sentences by this time. You've been hearing me talk about following Christ for so long. You've heard me proclaim the gospel. You know it forwards and backwards.

Timothy, take what you've learned from me and pass it on to other people. And here's what I want those people to be like. Make sure they're reliable people. People who will receive God's word and not twist and bend it to say whatever they want it to say, but rather they will twist and bend their lives to conform to what it says.

Then, Timothy, I want you to go one step further and make sure that they teach other people. Did you notice how many generations of disciples there are in that one verse? Paul to Timothy, to reliable men, to others, and by implication, who would teach others, who would then teach others, who would teach others, and on and on.

And this is how God's kingdom advances here on the earth. And you know what? This was always Jesus' strategy. Sure, there are places in the New Testament where we see Jesus speaking to large crowds of people, but the overwhelming majority of Jesus' ministry was on dusty roads with ordinary men. Guys that he said, come a little bit closer and see what I'm really like. Live life with me. Follow me.

The things that Jesus heard from his father, he passed on to his disciples, and then eventually he would say, hey, you guys should go out in twos and proclaim the coming of the kingdom of God. They would come back, and they'd tell Jesus all that they saw and heard and learned, and Jesus was making disciples.

But then before Jesus left the earth, he said, now you go and do the same thing.

When I was a freshman in high school, or the summer before that year, I began a relationship with Christ. And I didn't have anybody to help me know what that meant, so I kind of stumbled through my first year in my relationship with Christ.

But then in the beginning of my sophomore year, a man named Joe Harsell moved to town, and Joe would become my Young Life leader. Joe started teaching me what it meant to read and study my Bible for myself. He taught me how to pray. He taught me the importance of memorizing Scripture.

Joe said, Sloop, I want you to keep a list of names, guys that you're hoping will have a chance to hear about Jesus too, and I made a list. I kept it in my journal.

Then one day, Joe was like, Dave, I think that the things I've been teaching you, that you could grab some younger guys and teach them the same things, and I was like, okay.

So in my junior year, every Wednesday morning, I went to breakfast with Ross and Matt and Thomas, and I was cutting my teeth, making disciples.

It's not complicated to understand, but for some reason, it's so hard to work into the rhythms of our life, isn't it? Why is that? I mean, we could probably talk for the next couple hours about why it's hard to do, but Paul is gonna give us three reasons. He's gonna say, number one, we could get distracted. Number two, we could get disqualified, and number three, we could get discouraged.

Look with me in verse three. He says, endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs. He wants to please his commanding officer.

Notice three things. We're in a battle, we have an enemy, and we have a commanding officer.

First of all, we are in a battle. Do you know that we will interact with people every single day that have an eternal death sentence hanging over them and they don't even know? We are in a battle for the hearts and souls of every human being on planet Earth. It's our mission.

The fact that we are in a battle necessarily means that we have an enemy who is opposed to that mission, and his greatest weapon against you and me is to cause us to forget that we are in a battle.

Did you hear what he said to Timothy? He said, Timothy, soldiers don't get involved in civilian affairs. What are civilian affairs? They're not bad things, wrong things, sinful things. They're just not what soldiers do because they're a distraction from the soldiers' mission.

In Mark 4, parable of the sower, Jesus said some of the seed fell among the thorns. Do you remember what grew up with the thorns? With the word, rather? The cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things, and it choked the word, and it proved unfruitful. The quickest way for you and I to become ineffective, unfruitful disciples of Jesus Christ is just to start to care a little bit too much about this life.

The cares of this world, guilty. The deceitfulness of riches. Anyone else? How about this one? The desire for other things.

Jesus says, if you love other stuff, anything more than me, the word will get choked out, and it will be unfruitful and unproductive in your life. Don't get distracted, Timothy.

See, we can get so focused building our kingdom that we forget about his. Remember the mission. Don't get distracted.

But then secondly, he's going to tell him not to get disqualified. In verse five, similarly, anyone if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor's crown unless he competes according to the rules.

What does need what does an athlete have to do? A good athlete has to train his body to say no to what his body wants to do, and he has to train his body to say yes to what his body does not want to do.

Where are my high school football players? Okay. Not a very athletic crowd. That's okay. But maybe some of you have heard of two-a-day workouts. See, your coach gives you two-a-day workouts to train your body to say yes to what it does not want to do.

Someone in between services told me, hey, swimmers have even harder two-a-day workouts. Okay? So, but the point is they train their bodies to say yes to what the body doesn't want to do, but it doesn't stop there.

Good athletes also have to train their bodies to say no to what their bodies do want to do. McDonald's. Some of us say being an athlete is not worth it. There's better things to do.

But here's what an athlete has learned. If I'm going to achieve my goals, if I'm going get where I want to go, I can't listen to this. If I listen to what my body says, it will lead me to some wrong places.

This is why it is such a fantastic metaphor for the disciple of Jesus Christ. Paul says it even more clearly in 2 Corinthians 9. Maybe this passage is familiar to you. He says,

do you not know that in a race, all the runners run, but only one wins the prize? Run in such a way as to win the prize. Anyone who competes in the games goes into strict training, and they do it to win a crown that will not last, but you and I, we do it to win a crown that will last forever. — 2 Corinthians 9:24-25

Therefore, I do not run as a man running aimlessly. I don't fight as a man beating the air. No. I beat my body, and I make it my slave so that after I've preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

What was Paul saying here? He was saying, if athletes have learned the secret of training their bodies so that they can get a crown that is going to wither, how much more should you and me as disciples of Jesus Christ train our bodies so that we're not disqualified from the prize that is going to last forever?

The souls of men and women.

Don't get disqualified. Here's the deal. If you get distracted, you won't make disciples. But if you get disqualified, you can't.

See, all of us could rattle off the name of some celebrity pastor who was effective for the kingdom of God and sincere in heart, but he didn't train his body. And now, he no longer gets to speak about Jesus Christ. He's not disqualified from heaven, but he doesn't have the platform that he used to have. He got disqualified.

Maybe some of us here in our home or at our place of work feel like, I don't have much to say about Jesus Christ because my life doesn't match. We'd be disqualified in a sense. The beauty of following Christ is that we're not disqualified forever, but we do have to bring our life in alignment with the message if anyone is going to listen.

Don't get distracted. Don't get disqualified. Then he says, Don't get discouraged.

Verse six, The hardworking farmers should be the first to receive a share of the crops. A farmer can be many things, but one thing a farmer cannot be is lazy. In fact, if you're a lazy farmer, you just don't have a farm anymore because the ground will not till itself, the seeds will not plant themselves, and the crops will not harvest themselves.

It is hard work, but the farmer also has to be something else. The farmer has to be patient because the hard work of the farmer does not produce an immediate result. You don't throw out the seeds at breakfast and go looking for plants at lunchtime. It takes time, and this is a great metaphor to the life of the disciple because sometimes following Christ feels like this. It feels like it's hard work. It's sacrifice, and there's no fruit, no reward, and we might even ask the question, is it worth it?

We might look around at other people who know nothing of God, and we think they have the things that I want. They seem so much happier than me. Is it worth it?

Paul will take the next four verses and say, Timothy, it is worth it. For the soldier, there will be a victory. It's a better victory. There will be a victory. For the athlete, there will be a crown. It's a better crown. And for the farmer, there will be a harvest, but it is better. It's worth it.

Listen to what he says starting in verse seven. Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this. Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal, but God's word is not chained.

Therefore, I endure everything for the sake of the elect that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

What is Paul saying here? He's saying, Timothy, I have left it all on the field. I have spent every ounce of energy I had for the sake of this gospel. You know what? They might be able to stop me, but they're gonna have to cut off my head because as long as I have breath in my lungs, I'm gonna keep talking about Jesus.

Even if they do stop me, Timothy, they will not stop God's word. It's not bound. It's not chained. The word of the Lord will stand forever.

Timothy, this world and everything in it will pass away. You and me too, Timothy. Our life is a vapor. We are here, and then we are gone. But, Timothy, don't you think for a second that that means that this life doesn't matter. Because, Timothy, how we live in this window of time between the cradle and the grave will matter forever and forever.

Eternity will be impacted by this window. So don't miss it, Timothy, because we're not competing for a crown that's gonna fade away, but for a crown that will last forever.

Conclusion

Have you ever wondered what crown Paul was talking about? He talked about it a lot. First Thessalonians 2 gives us an idea of what motivated Paul. And he says, for what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you?

Indeed. You, Thessalonians, you are our joy and our glory. Those are strong words. You see, Paul knew that one day, he would stand face to face with a real savior who had risen from the dead. He would look him in the face, the same savior that he had spent the latter part of his life giving everything for.

And behind him in that moment, there would be an army of men and women who were there with Paul because Paul had laid everything on the field, and Paul lived for that moment because he knew that the joy of that moment would last forever.

Paul gave his life for that. What are you and I giving our lives for? Wouldn't it be a shame to get to the end of our life and realize we had spent our lives on stuff that just doesn't matter?

It's just gonna wither away and burn. You know, the only two things that will make it from this life into the next are the word of God and the souls of men and women.

So how do we apply this passage that was written not just to Timothy but to us? I want to give us a simple phrase, one that I think we will be it'll be easy to remember and hang on to, and maybe we can just start kind of talking like this with each other.

We need to be one, and we need to have one. We need to be one. If you're going to make a disciple, you've got to be a disciple first. Does he have your heart this morning? Are you his? Have you been living with him as your commanding officer, or have you forgotten your mission?

Some of us need to remember this morning that we are his disciples. Remember, he's not mad. Don't feel shame and guilt. He's calling you to live more fully into who he created you to be. To make disciples, we gotta be one.

Perhaps there's somebody here that's never trusted in Christ as your savior. Can I tell you something? You have a God in heaven who knows your name. He loves you. He's known you from before the foundations of the earth were laid.

And can I tell you something else? In every pursuit in your life, your pursuit for pleasure, for comfort, for peace, for joy, what you've actually been searching for in all of those pursuits is the God behind all of those things, the God that created those desires and put them in your life so that it would lead you to him. He wants you to know him, not just to be known by him, but to know him.

You can come home today. You can enter into a relationship with the God that made you. You weren't just made by him. You were made for him.

Be one. Be his disciple. But then don't wait too long to have one.

There's some of us in this room that have been following Christ for a really long time, and we have some things to offer, and we need to call somebody else that maybe is in this room and say, Can I take you to lunch? Can we get a coffee? I want to pass on some things, some things that I learned, some things that somebody else put into me I would like to share with you.

It's not complicated. Make disciples. Pass on to others. Don't get distracted. Don't get disqualified. Don't get discouraged. It is worth it.

Final encouragement

Be one. Have one. Let's pray.

Father, we need you. And as I'm praying, I would encourage you that if you need to deal with the Lord, if you want to respond to the conviction of his Holy Spirit, come on down to these rails. The curved rails are for you to interact with God privately. The straight rails will have people to pray with you.

Maybe you want to enter into a relationship with Christ for the first time. You can do that now. You could go home a different person. God's word says that when we enter into a relationship with him, we are a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come.

The straight rail, someone would love to pray with you and usher you in to the feet of God that you might be a child of his.

Father, thank you for this word. Thank you that it's alive, that it transforms. I pray that we as a church would more fully live as your disciples. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.