I listened to a sermon today by David Platt, the pastor of The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, AL. The sermon was essentially pointing out that all believers have been issued the command to make disciples of all nations...not just the ones who become foreign missionaries. He shared a statistic/scenario that I have heard before (and you probably have too), but for some reason it struck a cord this time.
The first scenario goes like this...
If a single church led to Christ and baptized 10 people per week, they would lead 520 people to Christ in one year. If they continued this for 30 years, they would lead 15,600 people to Christ. Most churches in America would consider that a great success, but it would only put a small dent in the lost in the United States.
The second scenario goes like this...
If a single Christian led one person to Christ and spent an entire year discipling them, there would only be two by the end of one year. The following year both of them would disciple someone...bringing the number to four. If they kept doubling for 30 years, there would be almost 1.1 billion disciples of Christ. That is almost the entire population of China.
Platt went on to say that maybe the model that Jesus gave for making disciples was a lot better than our model. Granted the results are a lot slower at first, but God desires depth of relationship not amount of numbers in the pews on Sunday mornings.
Imagine for a second each one of us took Jesus' approach to making disciples. Imagine we took the time to show someone how to pray, how to study the Bible, how to serve the poor, how to give sacrificially and live missionally. Do you think that the world would look differently? Do you think that the Church would look differently? The reason you and I are Christians today (and this implies the work of God in our lives as well) is because Jesus entrusted the task of making disciples to 12 uneducated, lowly men.
May the followers of Christ of our generation be filled with a passion for the lost and be fueled by the grace and power of God. Whether we realize it or not, we do not have much time left on the earth. People and all of creation are groaning in eager expectation for the Bridegroom to return for His Bride, the Church. Let us respond swiftly to the command to go and make disciples of all nations.
"And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."
-Matthew 24:14 (NIV)
