Come and See

We've been looking at the Great Commission because we know that Jesus told us to make disciples. And I hope that by now, you've figured out that I don't think making disciples means getting folks to come to church with us so that the pastor can do all the work. 

Rather, we've seen that if we truly want to make disciples, we need to invest ourselves in the way that Jesus did it: 

By meeting folks where they are and honoring the skills, passions, and experience they already have and by doing life together. 

But honestly, at this point, I know that you might still have one big question: how do you even get started? 

And I think the Gospels have the answer to that one, too. 

The magic words are, "Come and see." 

Philip said those words to Nathanael when he was sitting under the tree, not doing much of anything. That invitation changed his life. 

Jesus said those words to Thomas when the disciple was doubting after the resurrection. That invitation changed his life. 

The woman at the well said those words to the town when she ran back to excitedly tell them about this man she met who knew everything she'd ever done. That invitation changed that region. 

Jesus said very similar words to each of the disciples as He called them one by one. He said, "Come. Follow me." In other words, come and watch what's going to happen. 

Come and see. 

And you might think that sounds an awful lot like inviting someone to come to church with you. But that's not the way that it's used in the Gospels. 

In the Gospels, it's used as an invitation to go on an adventured together. To get involved in the same things. To get invested in the same story. It was an invitation to jump into whatever this is that is developing. 

Not a program. Not a system. Not an organization. Just a ragtag sort of thing where we hang out and make memories and build faith and look at the same things that are happening. So we've all got our eyes on the same thing. 

It was an invitation to something authentic, and that doesn't require a church. It requires a willingness to invite someone to see how Jesus lives and works and moves and loves in your life. 

Want someone to know who Jesus is? Invite them to come and see what He's already doing where you already are. 

The adventure only grows from there. 

So if you're trying to figure out how to make disciples and it sounds good, but you aren't sure how to get started, try these three simple words: 

Come and see. 

Then watch something beautiful happen. ...together. 

Life Together

If we're going to make disciples the way that Jesus commissioned us to do, then we have to look at how Jesus made disciples.

We started by saying we can't just wait for them to come to us; we have to meet them where they are. And once we meet them where they are, we have to honor who they already are - the skills and experience and passion they already have. 

And then what? 

We have to do life together. 

That is perhaps the greatest secret to Jesus's disciple making; these men went everywhere together. Even when Jesus needed some time alone, the disciples were not far away. 

They saw everything that He did. They heard every word that He spoke. They met every person He engaged. They witnessed every thread that wove through His story. 

We, in contrast, might give someone an hour or so of our week. At a designated meeting place. When the rest of the calendar is empty and there won't be any nagging interruptions and we might be able to manage some kind of civility for a short period of time with guarded self-revelation and intentional, but limited, sharing. 

These disciples saw Jesus angry. They saw Him sad. They were there when He cried. They faced hunger together. They had the same dirt on their feet. They heard the longings of His heart. They heard His exhaustion and His excitement and His frustration and His resoluteness. 

And the thing is, when you're truly doing life together, you can risk your more vulnerable moments, too. 

If the only thing the disciples had known about Jesus was the way that He cleared the Temple, I doubt they would have loved Him so much. But if He had told them to hang out at the Temple all day and wait for Him to show up, that might have been one of the very few things of Him they had seen. 

What do you do with a guy who finally shows up to the place He said He'd meet you and that's what you see of Him?

It's very different than how you respond when a guy you've spent day in and day out with, one whose hunger and compassion and fatigue and tenderness and work ethic and love you've known happens to do that same thing one day. 

Most of us struggle to share our lives with others. They're too messy. We're human; our lives are all messy. So we polish up, plaster on a smile, meet on neutral territory, and share an hour, but that doesn't demonstrate anything about what our faith knows. It doesn't give anyone a chance to understand our heart. It doesn't give them an indication of what life with Jesus is really like. Which yes, is sometimes messy, but the mess is the only place you can really see faith in action. 

So we have to meet them where they are, honor who they already are, and start doing life together. Real life. Together. That's how we start to make disciples. 

Individuals

If we're going to make disciples the way that Jesus commissioned us to do, then we have to look at how Jesus made disciples.

We started by saying that we can't just wait for them to come to us; that's not biblical. Yesterday, we saw that if we want to be like Jesus, we have to meet them where they are. 

So what next? 

Honor who they are. 

Jesus chose twelve men who were different kinds of guys, and He didn't ask them to change. Not one of them. 

He took Simon and Andrew, James and John out of the water where they were fishing. He didn't tell them fishing was dumb and a waste of their time; He told them He would teach them to use their fishing skills to hook persons for the Kingdom. 

And then, if you look, a lot of Jesus's ministry takes place on or around water. You don't have to turn the page very much to find Him in a boat again. Crossing a lake. Relying on the skills of the master fishermen to help Him get to where He is going. When He feeds the crowds, He uses fish, and when He meets the disciples after His resurrection, He's on the shore of the sea...frying fish. 

That's great, you say, but what about the other eight guys? 

A fair question. 

Notice how Matthew isn't the only tax collector we meet in the Gospels? Jesus also reaches out and talks to Zacchaeus. 

He meets a rich young man who loves his money more than anything else, and he uses the man as a teaching point...while Judas Iscariot is right there. Remember what they said about Judas? He loved the money, too. 

All thirty pieces worth. 

Philip and Nathanael were friends, which is how one of them got dragged along, and Jesus very frequently deals with folks who are "talking among themselves," while He clues us in on what that amounts to. 

The other Simon was a zealot, a feverishly passionate man, and we see Jesus gently teaching the zealous what to do with their fire, such as the men he often healed who declared they wanted to go with Him everywhere. He told them to go back home, do the quiet thing, the faithful thing, and be a steady witness; their fire would have the most impact in the places they knew best. 

At every turn, we see Jesus interacting with persons just like the disciples that He picked. He was setting examples and showing what it looks like to be that kind of person and still be following Him. He didn't expect anyone to change and become some kind of cookie cutter disciple, all cut from the same cloth; he valued the diversity of skills and interests that they brought to the cause and how those skills and interests would spread the movement when He was gone. 

So if we want to be like Jesus and go out and make disciples, we have to find them where they are and then honor who they are, helping them to discover how their skills and experience and passions can benefit the Kingdom. Not to plug them into the "right" church volunteer position, but to give them the tools and opportunity to walk with Jesus through their very real world. The one they actually live in. 

Where They Are

If we're going to make disciples the way that Jesus commissioned us to do, then we have to look at how Jesus made disciples.

Yesterday, we saw that we can't just wait for them to come to us; that's not biblical. So then, what did Jesus do? 

Jesus met them where they were. 

Peter and Andrew were fishing, just going about their daily business. James and John, too. They were on the family fishing boat with their father. Then, Jesus shows up and calls to them. 

Matthew was in his tax collecting booth, just doing his thing. Then, there was Jesus, and he left that booth to pursue something greater. 

Philip was just hanging around, not doing anything in particular, so far as we know, but then Jesus happened by and called out to him, so he came to follow. 

But first, he went over to the fig tree, where Nathanael was just chilling in the shade. And he said to his friend, "Come on. You've got to come see this with me." 

And what does all that mean? It means that Jesus went to the places where the people were, rather than waiting for the people to come to the places where He was. 

Jesus was at the sea. He was walking on the shores, getting His feet in the wet sand. The water was lapping up over His toes. He could smell the fish that were coming out of the water, being processed, on their way to market. All of it. He was there. 

Jesus was in the town, at the tax collector's booth. He was in the same market and same place that all the rest of the people were. He was where they were doing their business, providing for their families, shopping for their homes, trading with their neighbors. He was where the deals were going down. In all the hubbub, He was right in the middle of it. 

Jesus was on the roads. He was walking the same paths that other travelers were walking, moving from one place to another. He was along the paths where the sun was so hot that the shade of a fig tree seemed very inviting. There was dust on His feet and sun in His eyes. Just like anyone else. 

Notice that not once is Jesus standing in the vestibule of the synagogue waiting to greet a first-time visitor. Not once is He sitting in the Temple with the Torah open in front of Him and waiting for someone to come up and ask Him a question. Not once is He just doing His own thing and waiting for someone to join Him. 

No. Jesus was doing their thing, then calling them out of it and into His. 

For a long time in our recent history, the church preached that there were places in this world that were untouchable, places we should never go, places where we should never be seen because it would call into question what kind of persons we actually were...and what kind of persons we were willing to associate with. 

They said the same things about Jesus, but that didn't stop Him. In fact, it just sent Him further into these places. 

And why? 

Because that's where disciples come from. From wherever they are, not from where you want them to be. 

So if we're going to make disciples the way that Jesus made disciples, the way that He taught us to make disciples, then we have to go not where the disciples are, but where the people are. Where the regular, work-a-day, run-of-the-mill persons are doing their day-to-day: at work, in the markets, on the roads. We have to meet them there. 

That's step one. 

How to Make Disciples

Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them.... 

These were Jesus's final words to His disciples, and we call it the Great Commission because we still believe that this is what Jesus wants us to do. 

But...how do you make a disciple?

Too often, we focus on the second part of Jesus's statement: baptize them. Certainly, this has become one of the key metrics for many of our churches. Each year, we talk about the number of persons we have passed through the water, and we use this as a sign of either our success or our room to grow (we would never say "failure;" we can't possibly admit we're not doing what Jesus very explicitly told us to do). 

This implies, of course, that a baptized individual is automatically a disciple. That this one act of outward submission is enough. In a lot of churches, we say something like, "Once saved, always saved," and the same is true about baptism: once baptized, a disciple forever. 

What's interesting about this perspective is...it's not biblical. Countless individuals were going out to the wilderness to see John and were being baptized by him, but the number of his disciples was much smaller. On the other hand, we are not told a single time about the baptism of any of the twelve men who traveled faithfully with Jesus, the men who we originally identified as "the disciples." Jesus Himself was baptized, but that didn't make Him a disciple. 

So then, it must be something besides baptism that makes a person a disciple. 

That's okay. We have a metric for this, too. In some churches, we just count persons who have 1) "made a decision" for Christ, who 2) make a commitment to the church, or who 3) make a statement indicating they want to be a disciple. In other words, anyone who comes and stays is a disciple. Or, at least, a disciple-in-the-making. 

What's interesting about this perspective is...it's not biblical, either. Plenty of individuals came to Jesus in various locations and times over the course of His ministry; not all of them became disciples. Many individuals expressed desire to stay and travel with Jesus and become part of what He was doing, and He told many of them to go home. They didn't become disciples, either. 

And the actual disciples? Of the ones we are told about, not a single one just showed up on their own. Peter and Andrew, James and John, were called off their boats. Matthew was called out of his tax collecting booth. Philip was on the road and Jesus called him to come, and then he went and invited Nathanael, who Jesus then affirmed and welcomed. 

Not one of the disciples heard there was a worship service that they were welcome to attend, then decided to just hang around and get in on this thing. 

So then, making a disciple is not simply baptizing an individual, and it's not simply making a space for them to come and worship and waiting for them to walk through your doors. 

Making a disciple is something much more intentional. 

And if we want to pursue the Great Commission and do this thing that Jesus called us to do, then what we really need is to look at the way that Jesus did it and try to do that. 

So...what does that look like? (Come back tomorrow, and we'll talk about it.)