Jesus tells us in the Great Commission that we are to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all things he commanded us. He promises to be with us to the very end of the age.
A disciple is a learner, a follower, an apprentice. A disciple of Jesus is one who is continually learning how to think like Jesus thinks, feel the way Jesus feels about things, talk like Jesus, and do the things that Jesus would do. Becoming a disciple of Jesus is a lifetime calling.
One task of every disciple of Jesus is to make other disciples. And if every disciple of Jesus were to make five disciples of Jesus, and each of them made five disciples of Jesus, and so on and so on, the math would look something like this with just five generations of disciple-making:
- 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 = 3125 disciples!
Continue the disciple-making for just a few more generations and the number of people who would be disciples of Jesus in the eleventh generation would be this:
- 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 = 48,828,125 disciples!
Think about that for a moment. Wow. If you simply spent time with five people helping them to be solid followers of Jesus and then each of them did that with five people, and so on and so on, then you could impact 48 million people! And the reality is that you could make five disciples in one year if you were intentional about it, and so could each of the people you impacted.
In John chapter four, Jesus has a gospel conversation with a woman at a well in Samaria. This Samaritan woman ultimately placed her faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior, ran back to her village, and brought other people to meet Jesus. When those people spent time with Jesus, many of them placed their faith in him also.
The focus of this eight-part series has been to give you a template to follow as you make disciples. These studies give you powerful stories from the Word of God to demonstrate eight commands of Christ. With each story you want to ask three questions of the text:
- What does this story teach us about God?
- What does this story teach us about people?
- How will I apply this story to my life?
To get started in disciple-making, my challenge to you to is to begin to pray this: “God, show me one person that I can disciple. Don’t let me be settled until I begin making disciples. After I find one person to disciple, show me others that I can disciple also.”
As you begin to make disciples, challenge each of them to begin thinking about whom they can disciple as well. They can use the same eight lessons that you taught them to make disciples. Then you are on your way to impacting 48 million people with the gospel of Jesus Christ!
One Final Thought
You may already realize that those three questions can be asked of literally any text of Scripture, opening up our eyes and hearts to what it means to obey everything that the Word commands us from Genesis to Revelation. So after the initial eight lessons of the Commands of Christ series, feel free to open up the Word with your disciples to any section of the Bible you guys want to study.
Let’s obey Jesus and make disciples of people from all nations!
Thanks brother!
Great word!