The Christian Mission
Our Twofold Task for the Ages
Productivity apps, gurus, journals, and training courses are in high demand because we live in a busy, distracted age. Our task lists are long, and even super-organized, but how many of our tasks are important or necessary? How many prevent us from doing what may be the most important thing of all –reaching and teaching people to follow Christ?
If we believe that Jesus Christ is God, that he created the world and is the Savior promised to us from the beginning of time … if we believe that he lived a perfect life, suffered death for our sins, resurrected from the grave, returned to heaven as King, and will return to judge all people and rule the world forever … then we should agree that we should reflect our belief in him through whatever we do with our lives.
Christ himself has told us what to do.
He said that if you believe on and follow him as Savior and King, then you should teach others to do the same. You should be reaching people and teaching them how to follow Christ. Have you believed on Christ as your God and Savior? If so, are you reaching and teaching others to do the same?
After Christ resurrected, he chose a day to meet with his disciples on a mountain. By calling a meeting on a mountain, Christ recalled the kind of meeting God called with Moses on Mount Sinai when he gave him the instructions for the nation of Israel which was about to form. They were to be a holy nation who lived according to God’s law by faith as a witness to the goodness and greatness of God to the nations of the world. Apart from producing the Messiah, they didn’t do very well at their mission. Now, Christ (who is God) has fulfilled the law and he called his followers up to a mountain to give them instructions for the church, which he was about to form only days and weeks from then.
We know his 11 close and chosen disciples were at this meeting. It’s also possible that another 500+ were there (1 Cor 15:6). At this meeting, Christ explained what he wanted his followers to do, and those instructions continue to guide us today. They provide the basic guideline for our mission and purpose as a church.
Our mission is simple, “go and make disciples.”
This command tells us to increase the number of people who are following Christ as Savior and King.
It is not our responsibility to merely come into a relationship with God through Christ by faith and to become more like Christ throughout the course of our lives. It is our responsibility to bring others to come into a relationship with him and to become more like him as well.
That’s why we need to “make disciples” for Christ. What is a disciple? Bible teacher, Warren Wiersbe, answers this way:
A disciple attached himself to a teacher, identified with him, learned from him, and lived with him. He learned, not simply by listening, but also by doing.1
Warren Wiersbe
We help people follow Jesus tis way by achieving two specific tasks, “baptize” and “teach.” Are you doing these things?
Christ calls us to baptism at the start of our journey in following him.
So, we should know the significance of this practice from Scripture. I emphasize from Scripture because over time many ideas and traditions about baptism have emerged which Scripture doesn’t teach.
- Baptism always occurred after a person had already turned to Christ and believed on him alone as God and Savior. This change of heart and mind about Christ does not occur at or through baptism but before baptism.
- Baptism never occurred to infants or children unable to understand for themselves that Jesus Christ was God and Savior, nor was it a ritual assigned to children at a prescribed age. Infant baptism didn’t even occur until at least 200 years after Christ. An infant can’t know who Jesus is neither can they follow him.
- Baptism was a personal decision made by people who had already believed on Christ through which they would publicly announce their faith. It is a practice through which people announce, “I have believed on Christ and intend to follow him for the rest of my life.”
- Baptism always occurred as a full immersion into water. Immersion is what the word for baptism means in Scripture and the descriptive details of baptisms recorded in Scripture, including the baptism of Christ himself, consistently portray it this way. This method is theologically and visually significant because:
- Baptism provides a visual illustration not only of how Christ died, was buried, and rose again, but how the person being baptized has also died to his or her former sinful life and been joined with Christ in a new life that is dependent on and committed to him.
So, to “make disciples” for Christ by “baptizing” them means to influence and guide people to know who Christ is, to understand what he has done, and to believe on him as God and Savior. We should further persuade them to announce their faith publicly through baptism. This is our first task in making disciples of Christ.
There is a sense in which baptism by immersion following a personal faith in Christ alone as God and Savior is to the believing community, the church, like a drivers’ license is to the driving community. There’s a lot of things to see and places to go when you drive, but you need a license first. You can know how to drive from watching your parents and even know how to drive from first-hand practice on the farm! But for the rest of the driving world to take your abilities seriously, you need a license.
So it is with baptism. You must know who Christ is and believe on him for yourself, but to take that profession seriously in a public way, you should be baptized as Christ commanded. Baptism, then, publicly (though not privately) places you on the pathway of following Christ.
- About baptism, Stuart Weber (former longtime pastor of Good Shepherd Community Church near Portland, OR) says this about baptism: “Baptism should be experienced as soon as possible after a person trusts Christ.”
- D.A. Carson (longtime author, professor, and theologian at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) said this about baptism: “The NT can scarcely conceive of a disciple who is not baptized or is not instructed.”
These statements are true. For whatever reason, many have inherited a concept of baptism that places it either before a person believes on Christ or a long time after. As we devote ourselves to reaching followers of Christ, we should help them understand the special place of baptism – it occurs after they believe on Christ and soon after.
At baptism, the rest of our Christian journey in following Christ unfolds, just as when we hike to the top of a large hill and a long road stretches onward into a distant horizon.
After baptism Christ calls us to devote our lives to learning and obeying the rest of his commands.
This is also where our second task in fulfilling our mission begins – “teaching them.” More specifically, it is teaching people to obey everything else that Christ commanded.
- This task includes everything else Christ taught beyond our initial need to believe on him as God and Savior and to announce our faith through baptism. “All” here underscores the priority of placing baptism early not later in following Christ. If all other things must be learned and practiced after baptism, then what should come before? Not much.
- This task underscores the importance of receiving teaching from other followers of Christ. Though we should also study God’s Word for ourselves, we must not isolate ourselves from the teaching influence of other believers in the church. There is no special virtue in “studying God’s Word for yourself” with no input from mentors or other mature disciples or saying, “I don’t need the church, I can just follow Jesus by myself.” We need one another! We need each other’s gifts, abilities, and perspectives. We need to teach one another.
- This task excludes teaching which is foreign to Scripture, such as insisting upon additional man-made rules and traditions (legalism) or additional so-called revelation (Charismaticism or Catholicism).
- This task includes all of Scripture: the direct teaching of Christ in the gospels, the implications of Christ’s teaching in the rest of the NT, and even the implications of the OT in light of Christ’s teaching.
This sort of comprehensive teaching is diminishing today. Churches are reducing their teaching ministries to only those parts of Scripture which seem easiest to understand and feel most immediately relevant to life. Yet we don’t make disciples through formulaic liturgies or through TED talks masquerading as sermons.
Instead of striving to teach all Christ commanded, many are trying to eliminate as much of his teaching as possible, concentrating instead on things that are easily comprehended and unobjectionable … But the method is the world’s, and the results will be the world’s results. Robust disciples are not made by watered-down teaching.2
James Montgomery Boice
We make disciples through in-depth expositional preaching and by thorough, in-depth teaching – one-on-one, in small groups, in larger groups, and in worship services. And we make disciples not just by imparting knowledge about what Christ said but by influencing one another to feel as Christ taught, speak as he spoke, and live as he lived.
Our mission is to help people take their next steps in following Christ.
This is our mission as a group of believers called a church, a group of people who have committed to helping people take their next steps in following Christ. Though I must do my part as a pastor to equip us to fulfill this mission, we must all do this together. And if we are too busy to devote ourselves to this mission, then we are too busy.
- If you have not yet turned to Christ and believed on him alone as your God and Savior, then let me encourage you to do that today.
- If you have believed on him but have not formally begun your journey of following him through baptism, then let me encourage you to do that soon.
- If you have obeyed Christ’s command to be baptized, then let me encourage you to join with a Bible-teaching church and get involved with helping that church reach and teach followers of Christ.
When we take these steps, we join a long line of believers throughout history, from Christ to today, who have been trusting him as Savior and obeying him as King. We participate in achieving the most important tasks of all – following the one who died and rose again to offer us forgiveness and happiness through a real and lasting relationship with God.
There’s nothing more important, more satisfying, and more exciting than this! And when we do these things, we know that in a special way, we have Christ’s full authorization to do so, and we will enjoy his own special presence and enabling to do so as well. What other tasks enjoy such extraordinary assistance and guarantees?
Thomas Overmiller is the pastor of Brookdale Baptist Church in Moorhead, MN and blogs at Shepherd Thoughts. This article first appeared at Shepherd Thoughts, used here with permission.
Photo by Ben White on Unsplash
- Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 107. [↩]
- James Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2001), 649. [↩]