Our Mission
Followers of Jesus are people who make disciples even while being made into disciples.
This weekend we will take time to hear together Jesus' great mission command for the global church, i.e., a mandate that has directed every Bible-guided local church throughout history and throughout the entire world. We will seek to respond to the words Jesus declared after he had borne the punishment for the sins of the world on a Roman cross, defeated both sin and death through his resurrection, and then met with his followers to give final encouragement, teaching, and directives. These were Jesus' last words before he ascended to the Father:
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age
Matthew 28:18–20
We will consider what will happen in our lives personally when we follow Jesus, i.e., we become disciples. A disciple was a person who would learn from a master so that he/she could become like that master. The New Testament is very clear that the destiny of anyone who follows Jesus by faith is that he or she will become like Jesus. As Paul stated in Romans 8:28–30, the destiny God has for all who trust Jesus is that we will someday be fully conformed to Christ's image. In Gen. 1, we are told that all human beings are made in God's image but we walked away from God. Our lives are not all that they should be. When we become Jesus' disciples, the sins that destroy our lives are forgiven, and we begin a process of divine remaking. God promises that he will never give up on us until we are "complete in Christ" (Col. 1:28). I can't wait until his work in me is done!
We also will see today that Jesus gives us the privilege of furthering his work in the lives of others. As we are being made into fully mature disciples, we have a mandate from Jesus to make disciples among people from all nations, people groups, and languages.
It's God's strategic plan to fulfill his mission: Disciples made become those who make disciples.
I hope that you will notice that in Matthew 18, Jesus isn't voicing merely humanistic platitudes about caring for the "least of these" in society. He provides us with underlying moral reasons for the value of all people. We will look at his teaching today. My prayer is that our eyes will becomes more like Jesus' because of our worship together.
To God's Glory,
Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor
