Bringing People to Jesus: The Power of the Good News

Show Notes

Episode 410: 
In this episode, we delve into the core theme of the episode - the Great Commission. We explore the significance of Jesus' command to go and make disciples of all nations, emphasizing the need to not only lead people to Christ but also disciple them to become disciple-makers themselves. We discuss the essence of being a disciple, emphasizing the importance of hearing and obeying Jesus rather than just having knowledge or belief. 

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to The Bible Guys. We're so glad that you've tuned in for this episode. Whether it be in the morning, afternoon, evening, whenever you've tuned in, whenever, whenever you tuned in, you know what it's it's any time is a good time for the Bible guys. Every time, every time, every time is a good time. That's a buddy, that's right. So today we're going to start off with a segment that is absolutely hilarious. Jeff and I both discovered that this segment was what it was just about sixty seconds ago, so ready we hit record. I was like, oh no, okay, So here's the segment we were both read at the same time. What made Jeff mad this week? This is hilarious. Yeah. So Desiree wrote down a little qualifying paragraph and said, it's time to give Chris a break. First of all, thank you, Desiree. It's time to give Chris a break. And then she says, and this is very astute, she said the last several times that Chris was mad about something. Jeff agreed with his feelings about the situation. So this week we're going to ask what made Jeff mad and see if Chris agrees with him or not. Okay, So, usually whenever you're talking about being mad about something, you are angry for the rest of us vicariously, yes, angry or mad. I'm just on our behalf. I'm mad that it exists, that's right. So I'm going to take a different angle for this. And this is really, I think more where a lot of my frustration comes from. Not entirely dumb people make me mad too, so sure, sure, sure beyond that. So I'll tell you two stories and they both happen at the same time, and then I'll tell you what makes me mad about it. So I just was in Gabon, Africa, and we were working on meeting with a bunch of pastors, and we had three meetings with about three hundred pastors talking about starting a church planting movement with the Timothy Initiative and making disciple makers. And so these three meetings were ten hours apart driving, So we drove twenty eight hours in three daysis right. It was insane. It was just crazy. So we had a driver. I'm too dumb to know where Gabon, Africa. Gabon is south of Cameroon. The Congo have on go Okay, Okay, so yeah, yeah, So if you make the big turn on West Africa and then start going south, it's on that western coast right by the Congo Okay, about halfway down yep. So it's Central Africa, is what it means. So anyways, mountains jungle. Our driver is just going as fast as he can go on jungle roads in the mountains and in Gabon, if a car wrecks, they just leave it on the side of the road. So no less than fifty destroyed fall off the side of the cliff, burned out cars on the side of the road. And this guy, I had my translator app up and he was complaining to the other guy in French. He was complaining saying that this car maxes out at one hundred and sixty kilometers per hour, which was is ninety nine point seven miles an hour. And I'm telling you, this guy, we squealed our tires going around corners on these mountain jungle mountain roads fifty times one hundred times ten hours at a time, just white knuckling it, freaking out, and so I keep trying to say something, but I'm saying things like, wow, you know there's no checkered flag at the end of this ten hour drive. Hey, you're not getting the trophy by driving fast. And he would just laugh, and I would say, you're really going fast, and he would just laugh and stick his foot to the floor. Go faster. We come flying around the corner of jungle and all of a sudden there's a sign there. It's an elephant crossing sign. They have thirty six thousand elephant or sixty five thousand elephants something like that in Gabon. And so fifteen ton elephant, five ton car. We're going to lose that one, right if we come around the point. So I keep just gently ha ha ha. Would you please slow down? And he never did for three days, and I'm thinking this is how I'm going to die. So that's one. There's one story. There's no McDonald's or anything to stop for. There's no drive through, so we would stop, like, you know, five hours into these trips, somewhere near a river. There'd be a little like roadside shack restaurant and we would order food, and so the first time I didn't know what it was. But there was just fish, just lots of fish, and so they were grilling fish. My friend orders fish and I keep looking at it, going that looks familiar. I just can't think what fish it is. So I asked my friend and he told me in French, but I didn't know what it would translate in English. So I ate it, and man, it was bony and it was rough and it wasn't the best fish I've ever had. So finally the other guy, he finally trans he says, its carp. It's carp and I was like, oh, wow, did you like it? And I said, well, I can honestly say that's the best carp I've ever had. So the next time we stop, they didn't even ask me what I wanted. They just went and ordered me carp because apparently I love carp. And they said, if you liked that other carp, this carp's even better. Well, I didn't like that other carp, but that other grilled carp was horrible, and now I have to eat it again because I didn't advocate for myself. Yes, so here's what makes me mad, And this is about what makes me mad about myself. Sometimes when I have really strong feelings about a thing, I make a joke about a thing rather than advocating for myself. I didn't speak up. I didn't speak up and say, if you don't slow down, we're going to have a problem. So instead, for twenty eight hours, I just let him risk my life NonStop. And then I really did not like the carp. But I also didn't speak up and say I didn't really care. What you were trying to say is I've never had carp that was horrible, but it is the best cup I've ever had. I was right, so I was trying to deflect. So I think the thing that makes me mad about myself sometimes is that I will not speak up and advocate for myself. I'll speak up and advocate for others if I think there's an issue, but for me, I just let a thing go and it's frustrating. So I'm thinking in my head, this makes me mad about myself. Yeah. So we get to our first hotel out in the bush and it wasn't really a hotel. We walk in the room and I'm already kind of frustrated with myself that I'm not advocating for myself, and there were roaches in my bed in my bed when I got there, and I went, no, I'm not sleeping in this bed, and the hotel owner just died laughing like I was joking. I thought it was funny at that point. So apparently, even when I decide to advocate for myself, nobody takes me seriously. So that's what makes me mad today. Yeah, yeah, that's hilarious. So I did get a different room though. So Desiree is asking me whether I agree with this sentiment. Well, it's very hard because this is very specifical about I'm not not advocating enough. Yeah, but I was making a joke when I should have been serious. Yes, so I will say this. So I agree that it makes me mad as well, only when if somebody makes a joke rather than speaking up and then let's just say they say it to me, right, like, you know, instead of telling me to Let's say I'm the one driving fast, right, And if they make a joke and they don't tell me to slow down, and then I don't slow down, and then they get mad at me. They're like, well I made a joke that I would say, Well, then next time, speak up, that's right. So my response is what makes you mad? Then? When I make a joke but I wasn't clear enough, it would only make me mad if you if I get mad if you got mad at me when you didn't clearly speak up right. So in that case, I would say, I relate very much to your stories, but not for me personally. I have a tendency to speak up for all the time. Yeah, and sometimes I do it right, but oftentimes I don't. Other times I'll just I'll just be blunt. Like we were going through Egypt and remember that. And then they were going one hundred twenty miles an hour, and finally they turn they have a tendency to turn off the headlights. Yeah, and I don't know why. And then they ran through a construction and they almost killed us. Then we get back on the road and then he put the turns the lights off again, and I literally shouted to our other church representatives dismay and I said turn on the headlights, and they all literally were shocked, and they turned back around. They looked at me like, is this guy serious? And then finally he turned him back on, and then nobody said a word and they just looked straight and I was like, I just couldn't handle it anymore. So I'm a big advocate encouraging people to advocate for themselves. Yes, And a phrase I use all the time is either you fix the problem or you are the problem. And you're your own problem, and I'm my own problem. In that moment, I just was trying to be polite. I wouldn't speak up, and so instead I had, you know, twenty eight hours of full on terror, and I ate two meals that were, you know, horrifically bad because I wouldn't speak up in the moment, and I could have. I could have said it in a nice way. Hey did you like that carp Oh? You know what, I've never had it before. It's not my favorite. And then I wouldn't have had to have a second one. I could have said it a nice way. I could have taken that driver aside and said, if you don't slow down, I'm going to throw you out the car and drive myself. But I didn't. So anyways, yeah, that makes me mad about myself. Well, hey, we're jumping into Jesus giving the Great Commission, which is one of the big drivers of the church and of Christianity. Hey, this is one of the things that drives our lives, your life, of my life right here, this is it, but it should drive every Christian's life. Right the Great commandments a grea commission. So great commandments is being love God and love people. And then the great commission right here. So Matthew chapter twenty eight. And then again we'll read the same thing in Matthew chapter sixteen. So it says he you mean March sixteen. What I say, Matthew, Yeah, that makes me mad to thank you for advocating for everybody. Matthew chapter twenty eight says. Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told him to go, and when they saw him, they worshiped him. But some of the doubted Jesus came and told his disciples, I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them and the name of the Father and the Son the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I've given you, and be sure of this. I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And then in Mark chapter sixteen, it says, and then he told them go into all the world and preach the good news to everyone. Anyone who believes and his baptized will be saved, but anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned. These miraculous signs will accompany those who believe. They'll cast out demons of my name, and they'll speak in new languages, and they'll be able to handle snakes with safety. And if they drink anything poisonous, it won't hurt them. They'll be able to place their hands on the sick and they will be healed. And so Jesus sends them on this mission. Go make disciples. Yep, go make disciples. And so let's camp on the most important here. So because Mark says a bunch of weird things, but Jesus given the great commission. He did drink stuff and you'll never get sick. And people translate that literally and all these different kinds of things. He's talking about it specifically in the context of going and sharing the gospel. Yes, that's right. So anyway, let's start with Matthew. So Matthew gives the great commission, and it is the mission. So think about this. So Jesus trains the disciples. He sends them out two by two. Remember that the seventy two go out. They're all healing people. They're doing it, and Jesus name Jesus gave them the authority. And then of course he dies in the cross. They don't understand it. He rises again, he breathes on each one of them. They receive the Holy Spirit, and now he's saying, I have been given all authority. Therefore go And so this is one of the last things that Jesus says before he goes back up into heaven, and it sends, and he's giving them a mission that involves the world. Yeah, the whole world. Okay, here's your mission. Go everywhere and tell everyone. This isn't like a couple of weeks ago when he said, go into the city and find a donkey and bring it to me and then the mission's over. Right, Or go go fish and you'll find a coin in their mouth and then the mission's over. Jesus is giving these this group of people the mission to go make disciples, who are making disciples, and do it to the uttermost parts of the world. Right, go into all the nations, go as far as you can go. He doesn't say Szombie says all right, which again, I mean, how else can you take that other than they had no world map, they didn't know where everyone everywhere was, and they didn't know who everyone was. But they said, okay, right. So it turns out you don't have to know everything and have every detail in line before you go. You just need to go. That means you don't need to know everything about the gospel and everything about theology in order just to go to your neighbor. You don't need to know everything in order to go talk to your your coworker. You just have to go. He said, go and tell that's it. That's right, and and and and tell them what tell them the good news of Jesus. So you don't have to you don't have to answer theological questions or you know, debate with agnostics. Hey listen, I don't know much, but here's what I do know. I once was blind, and now I see that's right. That's it. So you know that story, you know about Jesus, you can go and tell that's right. If you If you know your story and you know God's story right, right, then then you can share the gospel. So it's interesting. There's a few things here. Jesus says, go into all the world and make disciples. He doesn't say, go plant churches. He doesn't say go have Bible studies. He doesn't say go and and and do religious things, or dig wells, or build orphanages or build hospitals. All those things are nice and necessary, right, But he says, go make disciples. And not only does he say go make disciples, I would I would argue he's saying, go make disciple makers. And the reason is he says, go make disciples, and I believe that disciple making leads to church planting, and then this making disciples leads to conversion, which then requires baptism. That's important. And then he says, and then teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I've given you. And one of the commands is to go make well. He only gave us three commands. Tell me any other command Jesus gave. He said, love God. He said, love people, Go make disciples and teach them. That's it, yeah, right. And when he says this new command I give to you to love one another. That falls under the great command love people. Yeah, yeah, right, so you can summarize everything Jesus told us in this passage, Go make disciples, bring them into the Family of God through baptism conversion. Right, they're coming to faith in Christ and then they're going to be baptized, and then teach them to obey everything I've commanded you. Love God, love people, Go make disciples and teach them to obey everything they've commanded me commanded you. What's that? Love God, love people, Go make disciples. It's over and over and again. So the idea would be making disciple makers because it's the and teach these new disciples to obey the commands I've given you. So you're teaching them to do what you do. So I think that one of the things that we've done is we've distilled Christianity down to religious services and good deeds, and we've forgotten the idea that what we're supposed to be doing is making disciple makers. Who make disciple makers. We just talked about this with our elders last night a little bit right as we're not reimagining, but we're refining our our our disciple making things. So we have to first define what is the disciple. How do you how do you define? Because if he says, go make disciples, what is the disciple? If I'm supposed to make it? What is it? Right? What is it in your mind? What is disciples? As a Uh, it's it's the person willing to learn and follow Jesus, or another way to say it as a fully devoted follower of Christ. Yeah, I think, uh, that's a good definition. We've I've used that definition before. I think I've come down to, at its simplest form, a real disciple here's Jesus and obeys Jesus. So devotion could be for the disciple who doesn't want to obey. He could be a feeling, could shift devotion over to a feeling. I'm very devoted to Jesus belief. Oh, I believe in Jesus. Faith is very important to me. They never actually do anything, so I think that to be a real disciple. But that fault that collapses on itself because if you believe everything, everything that Jesus asks us to do is do right, which means if you don't do then you don't believe it. But I think church pews are full of people who are devoted and don't do right. So they take a word and they shift it to mean what they need it to mean. But it's really hard to say I hear Jesus and make it mean anything else. Jesus gave us his words. He is the word. He gave us his words. That's it. So I do what I hear what Jesus says, and I obey what Jesus says. So there is the knowledge side. I need to know what he told me. I need to just spend time in the world. I need to have that. It's why we need Bible teachers. It's why we need small groups. That's why we need other people discipling us with regard to the information in the Bible. But discipleship is not information. Discipleship has results, and the results are the doing of what he told. So I could have all the information, you know, the information is the Great commission says to go and make disciples and baptize them and teach them. Boy, that's good information. That is what it means to make disciples. That's great. But if I'm not making disciples, then I'm not actually obeying it. So you have to obey. There's a doing of our faith, not just a believing of our faith not for salvation, but because of salvation. And so I think that if the sleeping giant of the church could just realize this latent power built into us to literally transform the world. If we would go from just believing to actually doing, I think we could transform the world. I think that there are so many more people that would come to faith, that this wild fire of the gospel that is spreading in the places where the disciples are hearing and doing and going and making new disciples, if that would happen to us, I think you could transform your workplace. I think your office could be totally different eighteen months from now than it is right now. If you would lead somebody to Jesus and teach him to lead somebody to Jesus, and teach him to lead somebody to Jesus and teach him to lead somebody to Jesus, you could transform your workplace. I think I think a high schooler in two years could transform their high school if they would decide that they're not just going to have a faith that they're fond of, but would decide, I'm going to lead into this, I'm gonna figure out what it means to make disciples. I'm going to teach them to make disciples too. I think you can transform your high school. I think you can transform your neighborhood, you can transform your family. Not only do I think it's possible, I've seen it happen over and over and over and over again. When God's people decide, I'm going to hear what he says, I'm going to go do it. And so we have to know what a disciple is and then go make that. Yeah, somebody hearsay. Yeah. So last night at the Elders meeting, when we talked a little bit about this, we were talking about how reaching people for Jesus and evangelism is the hardest of all the five purposes of the church. Oh yeah, absolutely. So, you know, fellowship with one another, which is a great word. We all like that. Yeah. Community, Yeah, pot lush, let's let's let's have some coffee and chit chat. That's great. I just love each other. Growing Bible studies, yeah, you know, worship, Right, that's the other one, and then what's the other one, teaching Bible teaching, and then there's another one serving serving? Yeah, serving, Oh, serving, it's a harder one because it's not for us, it's for other people. So there's a little bit of maturity that it requires for us to decide it's not just about me. I'm going to use my time and resources to serve somebody else, yeh. But to but to evangelize, which is a made up word that Jesus never says the word evangelism, but we use as the word e angelion, which is the good news. Oh, the good news. Okay, yeah, yeah, that's where we get evangelism from, from you angel sharing the good news. So so the so the idea of of sharing the good news and telling people about Jesus and and you know, leading them to Christ, you know, and converting them and all these kind of things. And by the way, Jesus doesn't tell us to stop there. He doesn't just say lead them to Christ. He says make them disciples, which means to lead them to Christ or tell them about Christ and then to help them grow in Christ. Right. But anyway, the point is is that even the evangelism part, or the going and telling a part, that's the thing that people shy away from the most. And that's the thing that people and I'm not sure if it's just our generation more than any other generation. Like I try to rewind like fifteen hundred years ago, or I try to rewind even heck, even fifty years ago in the seventies when the Great you know, when the Great Evangelism movement was happening. You know, it's just it's just it's just different in different generations. And I think that we've we're living in a time now to where people don't want to hear it. You don't want to what do they say, don't talk religion or politics. That's what it is. And so the idea of bringing up Jesus ory, Hey, let me ask you, what is your position about God or Jesus Christ. It's the thing that people want to avoid, and it just happens to be we live in a generation where people are most uncomfortable just bringing up It's hysterical to me how often I've had people go, hey, oh, I don't talk religion. We don't talk religion or politics. But they can't shut up about the benefits of bidnomics, or they can't shut up about the benefits of MAGA, right, so they talk politics all the time. They never turn politics off the TV. They're constantly scrolling on politics it's politics. But they just don't want to talk about religion, right, right, But I would just say that that's a false argument, right that Jesus said, hey, there will be a struggle. People will reject you if you're going to share the gospel. But what we forget is he also said there will be much fruit. The fields are ripe under harvest. He said. The issue is not whether there's ripe fruit out there to pick. The issue was, he said, so then pray the Lord of the harvest that he send workers into the field. The shortage was not the harvest. The shortage is workers willing to do it. So we get convinced, oh, I might get set. Somebody might tell me. No, sure somebody might. But what if you harvest some he said, There's plenty of harvests. And all I can tell you is the pure joy and elation of leading a person to Christ, having an eternal impact in a person's life, and then having the privilege of helping disciple them to go do the same thing. There's nothing more satisfying. But the devil has gotten you distracted by the negative, and you don't see any of the positive. Right. The positive is so far beyond the negative that if you can just fall in love with leading people to Jesus. And so I was at the Pyramids just a couple of days ago, and we were showing some friends because you've never been there in Cairo before, and my guide was a Muslim man, and so he was having fun. We started laughing. We're all cutting up, we're telling jokes, we're playing with each other, all this kind of stuff. And then my guy said, you guys are a lot of fun. And I said, well to That day was the first day of Ramadan. So I said, are you a committed Muslim? Is your family participating in Rambina? He said, oh yes. I said, so tonight would be the first if Tar meal, the celebration after Ramadan. He said yes. And I said that's a big deal for families. And he said, oh, they view if Tar like we would think of Thanksgiving. Everybody gathers around, it's your favorite meal, all that kind of stuff. And I said, I'm going to be praying that God gives you a great time with your family. He goes, you pray, I said, yeah, I'm a committee Christian. He said, I don't know many Christians that pray. I said, we'll be honest with you, I don't either. But I said, yeah, I pray, and he goes, oh, well, then we're really different. I'm surprised you pray for a Muslim man. And I said, listen, my goal is not to get you to stop going to a mosque and start coming to a church. My goal is what I wish is that you could know Jesus like I know Jesus. I wish you could know the peace in your family and in your own heart. I wish you could know the joy and the love that only Jesus can brings. I wish you knew Jesus like I could know Jesus. And he goes, you know, I think the world needs more Jesus. So most people don't reject Jesus and the love and the joy and the peace and his message. Most people reject the packaging that we package it in inside of the religious systems that we bring. So our goal when we take the Gospel everywhere to everybody is not to get them to start going to some steepled building and listen to some guy in a suit and tie or in a robe with a backwards collar. Our goal is to get them to Jesus and that's the good news that's in Mark. Go into all the world and preach the good news. The good news is that Jesus came and he solved our sin problem makes it possible for us to have relationship with God. So if we could stop trying to get people to convert to our churches and our religion and instead bring people to Jesus, I think it changes the world. Yeah, that's great. Well, hey, that is our time and that's a great that's a great message. So hey, we will see you hopefully money day. If you're following day by day on the bubble, guys, mhm hm