As they are heading to the back, we are going to turn our attention now to the preaching of God's Word. We're going to be looking this morning at Matthew 28. We're continuing our series, Mission Discipleship. This fall, we're taking a look at our mission at Providence and specifically our mission statement together as a body. Now, in the next few weeks, we're going to be unpacking that mission statement. Right now, we're still on the front end of it. That we are seeking to be a community of disciples, right? A community of disciples who treasure, who proclaim, and mature in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Embedded in that thought though is that we are a community of disciples. We are a place where discipleship is happening. Last week, we looked at the reality that the local church is mission central. That this is the God-ordained vehicle. Jesus has promised to no other people and no other place to build His disciple-making mechanism through the church. So we take great hope in that. This morning, we're going to look more closely at what exactly that is. Alright?
So if you want to look with me now at Matthew 28:16-20. Hear God's holy and authoritative Word. 'Now the 11 went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.' The word of the Lord.
May He write its truth upon our hearts. Would you bow your heads with me? Well, Lord, we pray that You would write Your truth upon our hearts, Lord, that the command that Jesus gave to the 11, that He has given to the church, Lord, that we would make disciples, that we would baptize, that we would teach them to obey all that you have commanded. Lord, we want to do that this morning. So as we sit under the preaching of your word, we want you, Jesus, through your Spirit, to teach us. And we want through your Spirit for obedience to be stirred up. We pray that you would do that, Jesus, that you would fill us with faith, that you are with us even to the end of the age. And so you are here. This morning, empowering the preaching of Your Word for the sanctification of Your people. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Well, one of the things I love to do when I go on vacation in the summer is I try to unplug as best I can, and I bring lots of books. So the addition of Kindle to my personal book library has been helpful. I don't have to bring like 17 books on vacation. I never get to 17 books, but I'm always in this anxious worry like, what if I don't bring one of these books and I want to read it, right? So I bring a Kindle, and then now there's a few just hardcover, hardcopy books that I bring along with me. One of them was gifted to me by a member of the church about a year prior, and so I finally got around to reading. It was called The Boys in the Boat.
The Boys in the Boat. Now the subtitle states this book is about 9 American boys and their quest, their epic quest, it says, using that overused word, right, for gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It's a phenomenal book. I commend it to anyone who wants to read a great book about history, a great book about sports, but really a great book about the human spirit. You know it's a great book because you know how it ends, and yet there's still drama. You're still on the edge of your seat. You know they're gonna win, and yet you're still just turning every page and anticipating all of it. Of course, great writing requires a great subject matter, and 'The Boys in the Boat' were just that. It's a story of 9 college boys who are from rural Washington, and it takes place right at the end of the Great Depression, in the midst of the Great Depression, and these are 9 guys who are rowers for the University of Washington crew team. What's unique about these guys though is they are blue-collar boys. So they're the sons of farmers and of fishermen and of loggers. And they come to fame as this team of rowers because they defeat all of the preeminent blue-chip Ivy League nose-in-the-air rowing teams throughout the country. Eventually, they go to Hitler's Germany and they win gold. So it's kind of this pure Americana story.
But to show you who these boys are, the author highlights one in particular. He's a guy named Joe Rantz. And he described as kind of the quintessential body for a rower. He's tall, he's 6'3". He's lithe, but he's powerful. He has the stamina required, the power, the speed. And just the sheer guts and determination to burn through all the calories that's required every time you get in the boat. The issue for Joe though is, like so many of the other boys on the team, he's a child of the Great Depression. Uniquely so though. When the Great Depression hits, his mother dies, his father essentially loses it, sends Joe off to live with relatives that he doesn't know on the East Coast. He gets extremely sick. Spends almost a year just in a room by himself trying to survive. He's not even 10 years old at this point. He comes back. His father remarries and his stepmother has no affection for him. And in fact, at two separate points before he's a teenager and even while he's a young teenager, she actually tells his father to abandon him, to leave him to himself and to move the family with their real children and to leave Joe. To fend for himself. And so this young guy just has all these emotional scars, and that's the part of the story is this figuring out how to unlock the potential that's in Joe as his coach is trying to figure this out. He has all these emotional limps.
6 · The pastor describes how Joe's inability to trust prevents him from rowing well with the team, then introduces George Pocock, the master craftsman who sees Joe's potential and decides to invest in him
The issue with rowing is to be a great rowing team, you all have to row together. You have to row as one. And to do that, you have to trust the other guys that are in the boat with you, but understandably, Joe isn't capable of doing this. How can you trust other college boys when you can't even trust your own father and your own stepmother to love you and to provide a roof over your head, right? Well, they still try and unlock Joe's potential and seeing that potential, but his inability to mesh with his teammates, there's another individual called George Pocock who is this master craftsman. He builds these racing shells. And this isn't back in the day of, right, you go to REI and you buy a really nice fiberglass boat. These are the days when racing shells are pieces of art. And George Pocock used to make racing shells for Oxford and Cambridge, and now he lives in Washington and he makes these pieces of art. And he sees that Joe has this potential, but that he's broken. And so he takes Joe under his wing. He hatches an idea.
7 · The pastor narrates how George discipled Joe not through formal methods but simply by inviting him into his workshop, asking questions, and building trust—which ultimately enabled Joe to trust and love his teammates, transforming the entire crew
In the same way he's a master molder of racing shells, he thinks there's an opportunity to get inside of Joe and he invites Joe just to watch him. George is no discipler of men. He's no like crack sports psychologist. This is far before the days where you would get a master's degree in sports psychology to be a coach, right? But he brings Joe along. He just has Joe come and sit in his workshop. And over hours of George using the lathe, right, and crafting the shells, Joe watches and Joe listens, and George asks questions, George presses him, and this relationship takes shape. And soon Joe realizes it's someone he can trust, and he opens up his life. Soon Joe opens his heart to this man who's invited him into his workshop and just allows him to make these beautiful racing shells. And once Joe's opened his heart, he learns he can trust his teammates. And then not just to trust them but to love them. And when this happens, something happens with the whole team. And they become this unbeatable crew. That's the story of 'The Boys in the Boat.'
8 · The pastor interprets the illustration theologically, naming George's mentoring of Joe as an intuitive form of discipleship and drawing the analogy to Christian discipleship—arguing that if unity is necessary in rowing, it is even more necessary in the Christian life
But at the heart of it is George and Joe. This British woodsmith and a broken boy. In a very real way, although neither of them realized it or would have called it such, George Pocock is discipling Joe in that woodshop. He's pouring into him. He's opening up to him. He's creating a context for Joe to ask questions and for Joe to see a mature man. It's that vision of discipleship, as raw and unformed as it is for the two of them, that gets inside of Joe and changes who he is. It's a similar thing we see here. Pocock intuitively knows he needs to invest in the young man, and it changes Joe's life forever. All his years around rowing showed Pocock you can't row successfully alone. And so he realizes for the crew to be good, Joe has to come to grips with who he is. And if that's true of a racing shell, it's even more true of the Christian faith.
9 · The pastor makes the direct theological claim that following Jesus in isolation is impossible—discipleship requires community
You can't follow Christ, you can't effectively be a follower of Jesus left to yourself. Discipleship is impossible alone, right?
10 · The pastor establishes the gravity of Matthew 28 by noting that final instructions from significant figures demand attention, and Jesus' final charge to the 11 is one of the most significant moments in history, given to ordinary blue-collar men
In Matthew 28, Jesus gives His final instructions to the 11. Now we implicitly understand that these are significant moments in life. When someone who's a significant figure in our lives or just a significant figure historically is speaking some of their final words and giving their final instructions, you're meant to listen. You're meant to record it. You're meant to take note. That's just about life in general, right? But what about when the Son of God comes and gathers His 11 and is speaking final instructions to them. This is one of the significant moments in history. Jesus is charging these 11 men who will found the church how to go about the business of building the church. They're men who really aren't that much different from George Pocock. They're blue-collar men. Men who work with their hands, right?
11 · The pastor identifies Matthew 28 as the Great Commission, connecting it to last week's sermon on the church as God's ordained vehicle for mission, and sets up the sermon's focus on how Jesus instructs the church to carry out that mission
We saw last week the significance and the importance of the task they're being given. What the church is about, that the church is the God-ordained means for carrying forward Jesus' mission. So here in Matthew 28, we have the Great Commission. That's what it's called. It's how we know this text, right? Jesus commands His followers and the entire church for generations to come to be on mission for the kingdom. And then He tells them how to go about that mission.
12 · The pastor corrects a common misunderstanding of the Great Commission, arguing that it is not only for vocational missionaries but for the entire church, preventing the congregation from limiting its scope
Now, in great ways in the past, this passage has been sort of a springboard for modern missions, right? For people to go to the far corners of the world with the Gospel of Jesus. And that has been a beautiful, powerful thing. But in the process, we've become distorted in how we understand this passage. This isn't just a passage, a Great Commission for 11 men and then those hardy few who will be called to be disciples and missionaries taking the Gospel to the far corners of the world. This Great Commission is being given to these 11 men and to the whole church.
13 · The pastor reiterates the impossibility of solo discipleship and clarifies Jesus' call in Matthew 28: believers are to be both disciples and disciple-makers
The mission is to make disciples. But it bears repeating, it's impossible to flourish in that mission and in your following of Jesus if you try to do it alone. What Jesus is doing in Matthew 28 is He's calling us believers to be disciples who make disciples.
14 · The pastor cites Mark Dever to distinguish two aspects of the Christian calling: the discipled life (following Jesus) and the discipling life (helping others follow Jesus)
I love how Mark Dever says this. He says, all believers are called to the discipled life. The discipled life means you're following Jesus. And believers are called to the discipling life. That is, you're helping others to follow Jesus. We're called to the discipled life to follow Jesus and to the discipling life to help others to follow Jesus better.
15 · The pastor reiterates the central claim that both aspects of discipleship require community
The bottom line in all of that though, the discipled life and the discipling life is not something we can do by ourselves.
16 · The pastor connects the earlier illustration to the biblical text, showing how Jesus discipled the 11 in the same way George discipled Joe—by inviting them into His life and sharing ordinary experiences together
Now the disciples had experienced this with Jesus for 3 years. Right? A much greater version of the relationship of Joe Rantz and George Pocock. Jesus has invested in them. He's invited them to come along in His roving workshop. He's a carpenter too, right? But He's invited the disciples to share life with them. And He's taught them. And He's asked them questions. He's allowed them to ask Him questions. He's eaten with them and traveled with them. He's discipled them. Through the normal ebbs and flows of everyday life.
17 · The pastor argues that even the apostles, who had unique direct encounters with Jesus, were not called to lone-ranger discipleship but to intentional gospel-centered community—countering the common assumption that gifted or elite Christians can operate alone
And now, whether they feel fully convinced of their readiness or not, He's charging them to build the church through a very specific method: through discipleship. But there's no lone ranger discipleship. These 11 men had met Jesus personally. They've been converted by a direct encounter with the Son of God. It's incredible. When they get to give their testimonies, it's really cool stuff, right? And yet, even these men who we're going to call apostles, right? Even these apostles recognize Jesus has called them to live in intentional gospel-centered community for the sake of making disciples. That flies in the face of how we often think about it. So no, you're not going to follow Jesus, right, by being a Lone Ranger Christian. That's not how it works.
18 · The pastor uses the Lone Ranger as a cultural analogy for American individualism, surfacing the cultural assumption that shapes how many Christians wrongly approach discipleship
The Lone Ranger is known as this enduring icon of American culture. I actually looked it up on the Wikipedia page and it says, second sentence, the Lone Ranger is an enduring icon of American culture. That says a lot about who we are, right? That the Lone Ranger is this enduring image of who Americans conceive of themselves to be. We are Lone Ranger types. We go about the business of life on our own. Me, myself, and maybe Tonto, right? A lot of the young people have no idea who Tonto is.
19 · The pastor rejects the Lone Ranger mentality as incompatible with the church and reasserts that obeying Jesus' command to discipleship requires interdependence
But the mentality of this Lone Ranger kind of approach, it has no business in the church. If we want to heed Jesus' command, and we should as His people, heed that command to discipleship, to live a discipled life and to live a discipling life, we need each other. Discipleship can't happen alone.
20 · The pastor transitions from the claim that discipleship requires community to unpacking what discipleship actually is, setting up the next major section of the sermon
Discipleship also is about following Jesus. At Providence, we want to be a church of disciples. We want to be a community of disciples. A community of disciples who make and mature disciples. There's this exponential power and growth to the nature of discipleship. You need others. You need to interact with others. And Christ promises that His own power will multiply the efforts of that. And that desire for us locally, it flows out of our mission. Our mission statement is that we would be a community of disciples who treasure and proclaim and mature in the gospel of Jesus Christ. But to get to the point of mission discipleship, we have to ask the question, it begs the question really, what exactly is discipleship?
21 · The pastor acknowledges the congregation's potential anxiety about discipleship, stepping out of the exposition to address their fear directly with pastoral empathy
For some of us, that's a super daunting word. You want me to make disciples? Like, how does that happen? How does one do that? I don't have a woodshop like George where I'm crafting racing shells. Right? What does it look like to go about this business?
22 · The pastor defines discipleship in its most basic sense as following Jesus, which demonstrates trust and love for Him
Well, we've already said it's about a commitment to both being discipled and discipling. But we can break it down more than that. A disciple in its most basic sense is someone who's committed to following Jesus. A disciple follows Jesus. Discipleship is about following Jesus. And when we follow Jesus, we show that we trust Him and we show that we love Him.
23 · The pastor emphasizes that the 11 were ordinary men who followed Jesus and discipled one another, reinforcing that discipleship is not reserved for the elite but is mutual among ordinary believers
This is who the 11 are. There's nothing special about them. Right? There's nothing fantastic about them. In a lot of ways, they're like the crew from Washington. These are mostly blue-collar guys from the backwater places. But these are 11 men who have left everything to follow Jesus and be discipled. But they're also being shown and given opportunities to disciple each other. So as they follow, they're given opportunities to help each other to trust Jesus more and to love Jesus more.
24 · The pastor exposits the calling of the first disciples in Matthew 4, emphasizing their immediate and radical trust in Jesus, leaving everything to follow Him
The calling of the first disciples is really remarkable in this sense. If you go back and read earlier in Matthew's Gospel, in Matthew 4, right? Jesus comes along and He sees Peter and Andrew. Simon, he's called at that point. Simon and Andrew. Peter and Andrew. And He says, 'Follow Me and I'll make you fishers of men.' And immediately, Matthew writes, they drop their nets and follow. And then likewise, the next sentence is He sees James and John and He tells them, 'Come and follow Me.' And so they leave their own father sitting in the boat, right? Drop their nets and they follow. That's pretty impressive stuff. That they're willing, at a word from Jesus, to leave everything they know about life and to trust this man so implicitly they will follow him wherever he takes them.
25 · The pastor asserts that discipleship is rooted in trusting Jesus' trustworthiness and notes that from the beginning, Jesus called the disciples together to learn and disciple one another
At its core, being a disciple is about trusting Jesus enough that you will follow wherever he leads. It's about believing that He's trustworthy. That Jesus never leads us astray. But from the very beginning, do you notice these men are doing it together? Jesus calls Peter and Andrew together. He calls James and John together. Later, He's going to call Matthew and others of them to join an existing group. There's this sense that they're going to learn this together from Jesus and they're going to teach each other at Jesus' feet.
26 · The pastor defines Christians as disciples who have placed their lives in Jesus' hands through faith, and emphasizes that God has graciously called believers to do this together because it requires great faith
Christians are men and women who have decided to follow Jesus by placing real faith in Christ. And so disciples are those who trust him by placing our lives in his hands. This is what disciples do. And in the grace of God, he's called us to do it together. Because to place your life in Jesus' hands at times requires great faith, right?
27 · The pastor exposes Judas as a warning that external proximity to Jesus does not guarantee genuine love for Him, establishing that true discipleship requires heart surrender, not just outward conformity
Discipleship is also about loving Jesus. It's a sobering thing that Matthew here is referencing again and again the 11. For most of the gospel, he's been talking about the 12, the 12, the 12. But on this side of the cross, it's a very subtle reminder that Judas is no longer with them. There was one who looked to be following Jesus, but who was never a lover of Jesus. Judas was with them for years. He was their treasurer. They've given him a pseudo-office within the 12, right? And yet, for all those years of following Jesus, he's never fully surrendered his heart to Jesus. You see, it's possible to be close to Jesus, for all appearances to look like a follower of Jesus, but not to actually love Jesus.
28 · The pastor traces the disciples' experience after Jesus' death, showing how their scattering in fear gave way to a new recognition of their deep need for one another, which is reflected in their constant togetherness after the resurrection
The reality of their need for one another is driven home after Jesus dies. Right? In the Garden of Gethsemane, the soldiers come and what happens? They scatter. They run for it. And then Jesus dies and what happens? They gather back together. They realize how significantly and severely they need each other. The 11 band together as never before. There's a pressing sense of their need for each other. As we encounter them throughout the remainder of the Gospel, after the cross and after the resurrection, we're never encountering them alone. It's always together. They're running to the tomb together. They're gathering in rooms together. Right? Thomas is having his faith refreshed and renewed with everyone else. There's this pressing sense of their need for each other. And going forward, that's not going to diminish.
29 · The pastor defines one of the primary tasks of discipling as helping one another grow in love for Jesus within the body of Christ
One of the primary tasks of discipling is as the body of Christ to help each other grow in our love for Jesus, to follow Jesus together, but to assist each other, to assist the members of this body in loving Jesus more.
30 · The pastor explains how Sunday worship is designed to stir up love for Jesus through God's Word, then extends that vision to the scattered life during the week, where believers remain part of the same body and community
And that's something that happens throughout the week. In our gathering together on Sunday mornings, This service is chock-full of God-ordained significance. The Word of God is put at the forefront of what we do. The call to worship is God's words. The benediction is God's closing word. The songs are filled with truth formed by God's words. The Scripture readings are obviously God's words. The preaching is sitting under God's Word. The Gospel is forming us and informing what we do together. But all of that is meant as we gather to stir up a love for Jesus together. But the same is meant to happen as we scatter. When we leave the church building, we're still meant to scatter into our lives, mindful of the fact that we are a community and a body.
31 · The pastor applies the principle of ongoing discipleship to the congregation's weekly life, calling them to stir up love for Jesus through both planned gatherings and informal interactions
And so discipling goes on throughout the week as members of this body. In planned ways through community groups, in less formal ways through coffees and sit-downs in a kitchen, right? Work to stir each other up in their love for Jesus. So as a body, as a church, in our call for discipling, we're called to encourage each other and to pray together to stoke the embers of our affections for Jesus.
32 · The pastor summarizes the previous section (discipleship as following, trusting, and loving Jesus together) and transitions to the next major aspect: obedience to Jesus
So discipleship is about following Jesus, trusting Him, and loving Him, and doing that together, right? In such a way that we're stirring each other closer to Christ. Matthew also shows us discipleship is about obeying Jesus.
33 · The pastor exposits the structure of the Great Commission, showing how Jesus transfers His authority to the disciples with the command to make disciples by baptizing and teaching obedience to His commands
Jesus comes to them and says, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.' And then there's a transfer of authority. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. And we wonder, how do we do that? Baptizing them. There's a sense of it's meant to happen in the body, in the church. Teaching them to observe all that I've commanded. Discipleship is about obeying Jesus.
34 · The pastor claims that discipleship is not only about following and loving Jesus but also about conforming thoughts and actions to His words, which shape the believer's identity
Jesus tells it pretty straight up. Our mission as a church is to make disciples, followers of Jesus. But those followers who trust him and who love him are also centered around the words of Christ. The discipled life is about conforming our thoughts and our actions to Jesus. The words of Jesus guide how we understand ourselves. It shapes our identity.
35 · The pastor defines obedient discipleship as trusting that Jesus' words are true and lead to life, and emphasizes the communal nature of obedience—believers calling one another back when drifting
To be a disciple is about having obedience to Jesus in everything He said in faith that His words are true and in faith that His words lead us to life. It's about walking out that obedience together. It's about calling other disciples when we see them drifting, when we see them living as if God's words aren't true, and reminding them of the truth of the gospel, calling them back to obedience. Right? Stirring up faith. Proactively proclaiming the truth of God so we can conform our lives to it.
36 · The pastor ties the disciples' physical following of Jesus to their commission to teach others to obey Jesus and reflect His holiness
The 11 literally followed in the footsteps of Jesus. And now they're being sent out to teach others to follow in those steps. To make disciples who would obey what Jesus taught and to reflect His holiness.
37 · The pastor summarizes discipleship as being Jesus-rooted and others-oriented, with the goal of helping others become more rooted in Jesus through knowing and obeying His words
When we think of discipleship, and we're going to spend the next several weeks unpacking what does this look like in the life of our church, discipleship at its core is about being rooted in Jesus, about being Jesus-rooted and others-oriented. But that orientation to others is all about seeing them become more rooted in Jesus themselves. And to be rooted in Jesus is to be formed by His words. It's to know His words and to obey His words.
38 · The pastor transitions to an Old Testament example of discipleship, correcting the assumption that discipleship is exclusively a New Testament concept
Now, we usually think of discipleship and we think we have to look to the New Testament, right? That's where we see the signs of it. But actually, we see a model of discipleship in the Old Testament.
39 · The pastor presents Moses as an Old Testament model of discipleship, tasked with rooting Israel in God's Word so they would reflect His holiness to the nations—paralleling the New Testament disciple's calling
Moses gives a compelling image of what this looks like. Moses is a great model of how an individual seeks to root other people in God's Word and in God's promises. Right? In many ways, he's called to be the chief disciple maker of Israel. That's really kind of Moses' task. He's given God's words and then he's given the task of laboring to see that Israel obeys God's words. And there's this whole explanation for it in the Pentateuch. The reason God does this is He wants all of Israel to reflect His character. He wants Israel as a people to be holy and to be set apart and to look like Him, to reflect His holiness and His character to the watching world. That sounds a lot like what a disciple is meant to be, right? Right? To be rooted in Jesus, to reflect Jesus. To proclaim Jesus in word and deed to a watching world?
40 · The pastor reads Deuteronomy 6:6-7, presenting it as Moses' instruction for discipleship in Israel—storing God's words in the heart and passing them on in the rhythms of ordinary life
So listen to this in Deuteronomy 6:6-7. Moses, in this task of helping Israel to be formed by God's word, says this: And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise.
41 · The pastor interprets Deuteronomy 6 as a timeless model of discipleship: storing God's Word in the heart and passing it on to others in the rhythms of ordinary life
That's old school Old Testament Discipleship 101. This is what it looks like to live the discipled discipling life. Store up God's words in your heart and then pass on this love for God and His word to the people of God that He's placed around you.
42 · The pastor unpacks the comprehensive vision of Deuteronomy 6—discipleship happening in the full sphere of ordinary life, from home to commute to bedtime, as believers bring God's Word to bear in their relationships
There's this sense of the sphere of life in Deuteronomy 6 and 7, isn't there? Right? I'm commanding you to take these words and put them into your heart and then teach them diligently to your children. Right? Talk of these words when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way. Right? On your commute. As you're walking through the community. When you lie down and when you rise. There's this sense where the disciple is being discipled. He's loving God's Word and conforming to God's Word. And the discipling one is, as he goes through the normal things of life, is bringing God's Word to bear on the relationships he has with others. It's Old Testament Discipleship 101. How do you do this? How do you walk this out?
43 · The pastor applies the Deuteronomy 6 vision to modern life, calling parents to disciple their children in ordinary moments and workers to bear witness to coworkers through repentance, forgiveness, and grace
The answer is, as you go about normal life, as you're raising your kids, finding opportunities throughout the day, in the car ride, right at the dinner table, before you put them to bed at night, in the midst of sibling conflict, to bring God's word to bear, to instruct your children's heart by God's word as you walk along the way. As you're going about normal everyday life, to bring God's Word to bear in the midst of coworkers, showing them what repentance looks like, showing them what forgiveness looks like. Not being vengeful to an unbelieving boss who's treating you poorly, but being gracious. What a strange thing, right?
44 · The pastor dismantles the assumption that discipleship requires elite training or gifting, insisting that Scripture presents discipleship as accessible to all believers in the ordinary rhythms of life
Discipling is about seeing and seizing the opportunities of normal everyday life and using them to transfer the knowledge of God and His Word to others. We want to make it into this, like, you have to take a special course. There's a master's degree you should get in discipleship, right? And it's only then that you can be a disciple maker. There's only a couple people in each church. Maybe if you're a huge church, there's a dozen. Who are actually gifted and able to be disciple-makers. Only the elite of the elite are really truly disciples. But that's not the notion at all from Scripture.
45 · The pastor returns to the George and Joe illustration to reinforce that discipleship does not require perfect questions or elite skill—just ordinary life shared together with the Word of God
The notion from Scripture is that we try to make this overly complex and we imagine that success in disciple-making, in being discipled and discipling, that success is just for gifted people, people who always have the perfect question. right? Who can just unlock another person's heart. That's why I go back and start with that illustration of George Pocock in his racing shell workshop. The sense you get in the book is he really doesn't know what he's doing. He just knows there's something to unlock in this young man and so he just says, 'Hey Joe, come hang out in my workshop. You can kind of sweep up the wood shavings.' And then as they're doing it, they just start to talk. And share about life. He's discipling Joe eventually in what it means to be a champion rower.
46 · The pastor asserts that believers have an advantage over George Pocock—they are empowered by the Holy Spirit in the work of discipleship
And that's the vision for believers in Christ. Except, unlike George, we're not left to ourselves and our wood lathe. We're given the Spirit.
47 · The pastor emphasizes the simplicity of discipleship, warning against the tendency to overcomplicate it
There's this brilliant simplicity to what discipleship looks like. It's so brilliant, we often overlook it and want to make it more complex than it is.
48 · The pastor gives concrete examples of how to disciple in ordinary life—playdates, watching sports, coffee dates—by bringing God's Word and gospel questions into existing rhythms rather than creating separate programs
As you go on your playdate with other moms, you can go on the playdate, right? And just chat about Facebook and Instagram and all those other things, or you can seize opportunities to bring the Word of God to bear, to ask questions. Hey, we're trying to work on this area of obedience with little Johnny. What are you guys doing with little Susie? As you're watching the game, pull in another believer and watch together. And then don't just stand there myopically discussing football or baseball or basketball or whatever the sporting event is or whatever the thing it is that you're watching. Maybe you gather together and you're watching something from HGTV. I don't know what it is. People have strange watch parties these days, but there's all sorts of things. But what if you utilized those as opportunities to talk about life? Not to specially schedule, but to bring this into the normal rhythms of your schedule. Right? When you gather for coffee in all the different contexts. It's not to prove your Bible fluency, right? But to stir up one another to love and good deeds. To stoke the other's affection for Christ. To spur each other on in obedience to God.
49 · The pastor introduces Paul's vision in Colossians 1:28, where Paul labors to present everyone mature in Christ, which is the goal of both his ministry and the whole church
I love how the Apostle Paul says this. Paul saw his great goal, not just of his ministry, but of the entire church, in this direction. In Colossians 1:28, he says this: 'Him (Christ Jesus) we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ.' 'For this I toil,' struggling with all his energy, 'that He powerfully works within me.'
50 · The pastor rejects the notion that only Paul or elite apostles are disciple-makers, insisting that anyone with the message of Christ is called and empowered to make disciples
This is what's happening. This is what Paul is intending to do, that the church would actually do this. That we would walk this out. 'Him we proclaim.' Him I proclaim. This is my job. This is my duty. I am the disciple maker. I am the Apostle Paul. I am the one that was knocked on my tush on the Damascus Road I am the one empowered for this task. No, anyone who has this message, this word of Christ, is called and empowered to be a disciple maker. Called to be discipled and called to be making disciples.
51 · The pastor transitions to the final major aspect of discipleship: being on mission with Jesus
And finally, discipleship is about being on mission. Mission with Jesus. It's about being on mission with Jesus.
52 · The pastor exposits the Great Commission again, emphasizing that the command to make disciples is 'as you go'—not reserved for sent missionaries but given to all believers as they go about their lives
Read the passage again. Jesus said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Transfer of authority. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Go therefore and make disciples. There's commands in this text and there's promises. In the Greek, though, the 'go therefore' has this sense of 'as you go, make disciples.' It's not certain people are sent and they go make disciples. It's you, disciples, as you go, make disciples of all the nations. So it's not just being given to the 11. It's being given to the 11 and the church in all the context of the local church throughout the face of the earth.
53 · The pastor applies the 'as you go' interpretation to the congregation directly, closing the escape hatch that only those sent to foreign fields are obligated to make disciples
So God has commissioned us—providence—to be about the work of making disciples as we go. Sometimes we want to get off the hook by saying, 'Well, I don't know that God sent me anywhere. I'm just supposed to stay here in Kansas City.' That's not the calling of Matthew 28. It's not if you go to Bolivia, Or if you go to Africa, then you have to make disciples. It's as you go, make disciples.
54 · The pastor highlights Jesus' promise to be with the disciples to the end of the age, framing it as the empowerment for the Great Commission
And then this immense and enormous promise: as you go, you will make disciples, you will baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit, you will teach them all that I've commanded you, and I am with you even to the end of the age. Jesus promises us in our mission of discipleship to be with us and to empower the work.
55 · The pastor contrasts the Great Commission's promise of empowerment with trendy church activities that lack such a promise, urging the congregation to focus on what Jesus has promised to bless
There's all sorts of things that he doesn't promise to empower. There's all sorts of things we could do as a church, right, that might seem like the in-vogue things to do as a church, but there's no promise from Jesus in doing those things that He's going to empower the work. But in the making of disciples to the ends of the earth as we send people like Caleb out, as we partner with Ferris in his work, as we partner with Sovereign Grace in the planting of churches and training of pastors, in that work, He promises to empower it. He promises to empower the work of disciple-making here as we gather in community groups, as we go about our lives bearing witness to Jesus. He promises to empower this work.
56 · The pastor commits the elders and the church to staying anchored to the Great Commission regardless of shifting ministry trends, because it is the work Jesus has promised to empower
And so as elders, we've labored to make sure that this, the empowered work of disciple-making, is at the core of who we are. In 10 years, there might be another really cool thing that's supposed to be what every church is about, but we're still going to be here at the work, about the work of making disciples. What Jesus has promised to empower. We're going to stay here and we're going to stand here.
57 · The pastor introduces the concept of 'the swing' in rowing—a state of perfect unity where the team functions as one organism, which depends not on individual talent but on synchronized teamwork
Now there's this incredible thing that happens in rowing. It's called the swing. You would think sort of intuitively, like, right, when you pull together a team for some sort of athletic event, you want to just grab the best and the strongest and the most powerful, right? The most athletic. Pull them all together, put them on a team, and now just watch them succeed and conquer. Right? But that's not always the case. Oftentimes it's not the case. You want to pull together the people who can work together the best, who can work in unison the best.
58 · The pastor uses a college football example to illustrate how a less talented team beat a more talented team because of unity and buy-in—the 'swing' in action
I saw this just yesterday. I was watching. I was rejoicing in Iowa football falling flat on its face, right? It was a beautiful day of college football. Iowa lost to NDSU. So Iowa lost to a team from a lower division with 20 fewer scholarship athletes. By definition, they lost to a team of players who had been passed over by people at Iowa's level. And then Nebraska beat Oregon. So it was just a beautiful, glorious day. God was preparing my heart for worship. But it was this reminder. Here's NDSU. These guys are slower. They are not as athletic. They are late bloomers, right? How did they beat Iowa? They're bigger. They're faster. They're stronger. It's at Iowa. It's 70,000 crazy Iowans screaming at them. Because NDSU had the swing. They are a team. And you just had this sense they worked as one. They played as one. They did everything together as one, coaching staff on down. Everyone had bought in. Everyone believed.
59 · The pastor describes in detail how the swing happens in rowing when all rowers trust the coxswain and each other, resulting in unbeatable unity—setting up the application to the church
That's what happens in a boat. The notion in rowing is you just get the 8 most powerful guys and the tiniest coxswain possible in the front so he's not weighing things down, and then you just go. But to be successful, you have to find 8 guys who can mix together in the different roles in the boat and who can pull as one. There has to be a unity. And when that happens, they call it the swing. It's a rare thing in rowing. But when the swing happens, when all 8 rowers have completely bought in, when the coxswain is calling out the rhythm perfectly, when he's giving them the right plan and the right vision for how to race the boat, And every single rower is trusting. And the unique thing about rowing is you can't see the guys around you. All you can see is the back and the neck and the head and the shoulders of the guy in front of you. Right? And all you can do is pull. All you can do is pull and see that guy and trust that the guy in front of him is doing it right, that the guy behind you and behind him is doing it right. So there has to be this total buy-in. But when it happens, the swing happens. And when the swing happens, the boat just flies. It just floats. And the boys in the boat, when Joe learns to trust and realizes he has to be a part of a team, they get this swing and they're just unbeatable. They go out to the rowing championships as freshmen and they beat all the Ivy League schools. They go out as the JV and they beat all the JV schools. They go out as upperclassmen and they win the national title. They go to the Olympic trials and they win. They go to Germany and they win and they swing because they're all in unison, they're all unified, they're all trusting, they're all buying in.
60 · The pastor applies the rowing illustration to the church, casting the elders as coxswains calling the gospel rhythm and the congregation as rowers who must buy in and trust, with Jesus as the empowering motor beneath the boat
That's what it's meant to be like here at Providence. As elders, as the coxswains, as the little guys in the front of the boat just yelling. We're going to give you a message. This mission. We're going to call out the Gospel of Jesus Christ to you. And we're going to call you to row. And Jesus has promised that that message, that rhythm, that beat that we call, He's going to empower it. The other boats are just rowing. We've got Jesus and the Spirit like a massive inboard motor underneath our boat. But he's also calling us to buy in that as a body, as a unit, we would row. When it happens in rowing, the swing is like one organism pushing and pulling and flying over the water toward this goal. And that's the vision for the church. That here on this message of making disciples connected to the gospel, we would row.
61 · The pastor exposits 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, showing that the love of Christ controls believers because Christ's death means believers no longer live for themselves but for Him
And there's this incredible thing that happens. Paul says, 'The love of Christ controls us.' The love of Christ literally controls us. Because we've concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died. And He died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.
62 · The pastor applies 2 Corinthians 5 to the rowing metaphor, calling the elders to preach the gospel of Christ's death and resurrection so the church can row together, no longer living for self but for Christ
Our job as coxswains, as elders, is to take that message, right? That one has died for all and therefore all have died, and to yell it repeatedly and repeatedly and repeatedly so that we as a boat can take up the rhythm and recognize that we no longer live for ourselves. We're no longer pulling for our own agenda. It's not my ministry that I hold so dear. It's not my idea. No, all of us pulling together because Christ, the Son of God, has died and has purchased us and made us bond servants. He's given us this incredible commission and this incredible future and promises incredible power in all that we do, so that we would no longer live for ourselves, but for him who for our sake died and was raised. And in that, we find our swing.
63 · The pastor brings the sermon to its climax, asserting that as the church makes disciples, Jesus promises to grow the kingdom and build His church
And so we make disciples. We seek to make and mature disciples. We seek to be discipled and to live the discipling life. And Jesus promises that over time the mustard seed that is the kingdom of God will grow, that he will build his church.
64 · The pastor closes with a prayer for the elders to remain committed to the Word and gospel, and for the church to trust in God's mechanism for making disciples and building the church
Would you bow your heads? Lord, we want to row together. Lord, we want to recognize the calling You have given to Your body, Lord, to make disciples. And Lord, we want to do this in the power You have provided and the means that You have provided. And so Lord, we ask, I ask that You would keep the elders of this body convinced and committed to Your Word and to the gospel. And Lord, I pray that as a body, as a local expression of the body of Christ at Providence, you would increase our trust in your word, in your designed mechanism for growing the church, Lord, both in maturity and in numbers, Lord, that we would trust in your divine mechanism for saving the lost. And Lord, that we would trust in you to bring about the fruit that you've promised. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.