This article is based on Pastor Adrian Rogers' message, Missionary Challenge.
“The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.” So said Hudson Taylor, the great nineteenth-century missionary to China.
To say “missionary” and to say “Christian” is to say the same thing.
Every Christian has an obligation to make disciples, will have the opportunity to make disciples, and will at some point encounter opposition to his or her work in making disciples.
When Jesus Christ died for you, He purchased you. Though salvation is the gift of God’s grace, the great paradox is that when you are saved by grace, you become a slave to the Lord Christ.
Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s (1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Emphasis added).
The Church did not just happen. God foreordained it before the foundations of time. Christ came and shed His blood. And you and I stand now on the shoulders, and reap the legacy, of the disciples of Christ who have gone before us.
How did you come to know Jesus? Didn’t somebody tell you? You are a debtor to those who’ve gone before...
And you have a responsibility to pass it on.
The word disciple means a learner, a pupil, a follower. We are to be disciples of Christ, and we are to go and make more disciples. This is the heart of the Great Commission. (Read Matthew 28:18-20.)
This means sharing the Gospel of the good news of Jesus. But after that, it means discipling new believers so that they grow strong as followers of Christ.
When you receive Christ, God does not just wind you up and let you go: He puts His Holy Spirit’s power into you.
He also puts you in community with other, stronger, more mature Christians—this is the Church—to help you grow. Then, you have a responsibility to disciple other believers, too.
But to reap the benefits of discipleship from mature believers, and to be a mature influence on new believers, you have to live in community.
The local church must have fellowship.
As a congregation, you are a mix of ideas, of aspirations, of tastes. You come from different backgrounds, different ethnicities.
For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another (Romans 12:4-5).
So, what makes your church alive? Jesus. The Church is a body, with Jesus as her Head. The Church is not an organization. She is an organism, and we are members together.
This is koinonia, the Greek word for fellowship. It means to hold something in common—namely, Jesus Christ. In worship, we express our love to God; in fellowship, we express our love to one another.
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity (Proverbs 17:17).
Fellowship multiplies our joys and divides our sorrows. Fellowship within a church will strengthen your prayer life, bless you with love, and encourage you with hope. The Bible does not teach a lone ranger Christianity. You need your fellow believers, and they need you.
Spend time together. Share meals, share work, share fun. Visit one another’s homes—do not limit your fellowship to Sunday; be a family all week long. Let others in on your joys and sorrows, and you help them to bear theirs as well.
As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend (Proverbs 27:17).
Bad friends will blunt and dull your testimony and your witness. But real fellowship will put a keen edge on your life. When you are around godly men and women and children, you come away a better person.
The local church has two responsibilities:
One, to disciple the followers of Christ who are part of that church body. Fellowship is God’s everyday means of maturing followers of Jesus.
Two, to grow the church—to make new disciples, according to the Great Commission.
Evangelism is God’s means of reaching new souls and making disciples of all nations.
Why should we evangelize? Because Christ commanded us to. “We make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him” (2 Corinthians 5:9). If you are not endeavoring to make disciples for Christ, you are not acceptable to God.
One day, your life will be reviewed before the Lord, and your works will be tested by fire. (Read 1 Corinthians 3:11-15.) It will be a time of reward for some, but regret for others. If you are a disciple-maker, you will be rewarded by God.
The apostles were soul winners because they knew what it meant for a soul to die unredeemed and go to Hell. “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Corinthians 5:11a).
When sinners become followers of Jesus, no longer are they facing eternity in Hell, nor the wrath and the terror of the Lord. Now, those new believers, those new disciples, know the grace of the Lord.
This should motivate you to make disciples!
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek (Romans 1:6).
Paul was faithful to the obligations of the Gospel. But to whom was Paul indebted? In Romans 1:1, Paul introduced himself as “a bondservant of Jesus Christ.” All followers of Christ are bondslaves to the One who died for us.
Therefore, we are duty-bound to obey Christ’s command to make disciples of all the nations.
People say, “I would die for Jesus.” But are you willing to live for Jesus?
Are you flexible enough that God could totally change the course of your life? Are you willing to go? Are you willing to stay?
Are you ashamed to speak Christ’s name in public? We should be publicly grateful that we received redemption and be eager to share that good news with others.
Jesus said,
“Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 10:32-33).
Romans 1:14-16, 12:4-5; 1 Corinthians 3:11-15, 6:19-20; Matthew 10:32-33, 28:18-20; Proverbs 17:17, 27:17; 2 Corinthians 5:9-11
And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:15-16).
Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).
For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil (Hebrews 5:13-14).
