What if discipleship was never really about you? That’s the question Ricky put to us on Sunday as we reached the final week of our Next Steps series. He opened with a simple challenge: check your pulse. If your heart is still beating, God isn’t finished with you yet – neither in your or through you.
Over four weeks we’ve traced a journey that began with fishermen dropping their nets on a beach. We looked at the call to move without fully understanding, the cost that’s worth counting honestly, and the invitation to abide – to stay connected to Jesus the way a branch stays in a vine. Sunday brought us to the destination: the Great Commission in Matthew 28, where the risen Jesus stands on a hillside in Galilee and sends his followers out into the world. The series that started with nets being dropped ended with them being picked back up again. Same hands. Same Jesus. Different catch.
Most of us have heard Matthew 28:16–20 many times. But by slowing right down and looking carefully at the original language, the shape of the passage, and even one easily-skipped phrase in verse 17, the text opened up in ways that were genuinely surprising – and genuinely challenging.
Bible References
- Matthew 28:16–20
- John 15 (the vine and the branches, referenced from Week 3)
Key Teaching Points
The Commission Was Given to the Present, Not the Perfect
Verse 17 contains a phrase that’s easy to gloss over: “they worshipped him; but some doubted.” This is the moment the risen Christ appears to his disciples – and Matthew tells us that some of them still had doubts. Jesus didn’t wait for a faith audit. He didn’t hold the commission back until everyone was fully confident and fully sorted. He looked at the worshippers and the doubters standing on the same hillside and commissioned them all.
The Great Commission was not given to the qualified. It was given to the present.
That includes anyone who feels they’re not ready, not mature enough, not equipped enough. He sent them anyway – not because they were ready, but because he promised to be present.
There Is Only One Command
In the original Greek of verse 19, three of the four verbs – go, baptising, teaching – are participles. They describe the method. There is only one actual command, one imperative: matheteusate – make disciples. “Go” doesn’t mean travel somewhere exotic. It means “as you go.” Wherever you already are. Your street, your office, your family, your gym. The commission finds you where you already live.
The Great Commission has your postcode attached.
This reframes everything. Disciple-making isn’t a specialist ministry for people with a particular calling. It’s the one thing Jesus asks of every follower, woven into the ordinary movement of everyday life.
You Go With His Authority and His Presence
Look at the shape of the passage. Verse 18 opens with “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Verse 20 closes with “I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Sandwiched between those two statements is the commission itself. Jesus doesn’t send his followers out to manufacture authority or manufacture courage — he hands both to them before they take a single step.
You go with His authority. You go with His company.
The nervousness doesn’t disappear. But the weight shifts. We’re not carrying this alone, and we never were.
Discipleship Is Not Addition – It’s Multiplication
We’ve often treated growth in the church as an adding exercise: one new face, one more baptism, one more person through the door. But Jesus designed something different. When disciples make disciple-makers, the growth is exponential. Eleven frightened, doubting men on a hillside in Galilee — two thousand years later, a worldwide family of billions. That’s not addition. That’s what multiplication looks like across generations.
Disciple-making is not finished when your faith is strong. It is finished when you’ve passed it on.
Evangelism and Discipleship Are Not Two Separate Things
We’ve created two categories in our heads that Jesus never separated: evangelism over here, discipleship over there. Different teams, different seasons, different emphases. But “make disciples, baptising and teaching” is one continuous story — it runs from the very first conversation someone has about Jesus all the way to the day they’re investing in someone else’s faith. Evangelism isn’t the door to discipleship. It is discipleship in its earliest form. The two are fused, and pulling them apart does damage to both.
Going Deeper
Take some time this week to reflect on these questions:
- Have you been treating discipleship mainly as a personal project – something between you and Jesus, focused on your own growth? What might change if you saw it as something designed to travel through you?
- Jesus commissioned his disciples even though some of them doubted in that very moment. How does that challenge the way you think about your own readiness to speak about your faith?
- “As you go” – the commission is embedded in ordinary life. Where are you already going each week where you might begin to live this out more intentionally?
- Ricky asked everyone to write down one name – someone not yet following Jesus, or not following him closely. Have you written that name down? What’s one small, genuine step you could take towards that person this week?
- The passage is bookended by Christ’s authority and his presence. When you think about speaking to someone about Jesus, which of those two do you find hardest to hold onto — and why?
If your heart is still beating, the commission still stands. This week: one name, one prayer, one conversation — and the confidence that you won’t be taking a single step alone.
