There is a big difference between being a believer and a disciple. Most people probably don’t stop and really think about this. Most people probably picture a bearded man in sandals when the hear the word disciple. What’s more, most people probably tend to think that the end of their faith journey culminates in their belief, in their salvation moment. A lifetime spent away from God pivots upon the events of one morning, wherein a person’s heart becomes inexplicably soft—by a pointed sermon or a moment of worship or even the power withheld in the very name of Jesus himself—they respond to that altar call, confess their sins, give their life to Christ, and then for many, they’re done. Not so for the disciple.

Getting saved by Jesus is the easiest task one could ever hope to perform. One doesn’t have to accomplish anything by their own cleverness or effort. One doesn’t need to do anything period. Except surrender their pride and accept the gift. It is, after all, the Holy Spirit who is doing the saving anyway. It’s his work to his glory; not yours. Consider it this way: if salvation were the goal for humanity, if it alone was the charge of the Great Commission, then Scripture would read, “Go into all the world and save people.” Instead it reads, “make disciples of all nations.” Disciples, unlike Christians, are not born. They are made.

Concerning the passage from Matthew above, before the charge to his disciples to go make more disciples, Jesus commands the remaining eleven to go to “the mountain” in Galilee. Scholars have debated to which Galilean mountain he directed them. Some have argued that it was perhaps Mt. Carmel, where Elijah slew the false prophets of Baal. Others have suggested Mt. Table. I personally believe that it was Mt. Hermon, a coastal mountain overlooking Caesarea Philippi, where Jesus had once taken his disciples and proclaimed “I will build my church” (Matthew 16: 13-20). It is this same mountain that Peter, James, John, and Jesus ascend in Matthew 17, where the Lord appears transfigured and meets with Moses and Elijah. Mt. Hermon is, in short, a significant site to the disciples, and thus likely the one mentioned in this week’s passage.

So here Jesus takes all eleven disciples and, overlooking the pagan colony of Caesarea Philippi and all the sinners within, he commands, “Go and make disciples of all the nations.” What, then, is the difference between the saved and the disciples? For one thing, discipleship is necessarily beyond salvation. It’s the next, big step in one’s faith walk. Again, being saved is easy; becoming a disciple, on the other hand, takes work. It takes, according to this passage, first being baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now, this naturally constitutes an actual physical water baptism by which one publicly and symbolically demonstrates their physical death and rebirth in Christ, but it also suggests that we are to be baptized in the name, or, in other words, immersed in the spirit of God. God has a hand in our salvation, to be sure, but He also guides us toward discipleship after He finally gets His hands on our lives.

We must get out of His way so that He may do so, however. One must never underestimate the power of his own will. As C.S. Lewis once suggested, the spirit of God “cannot ravish. He can only woo.” So if the God of Heaven, who merely spoke the cosmos into existence, can approach the door of your spirit but cannot (or rather, will not) force His way through, then we can conclude that a man’s will is a strangely powerful thing. So to become a disciple, finally, we must allow God to take our hand and lead us deeper into Himself. Once this happens, we’ll begin to feel convicted about our sin. We’ll begin to actually want to spend time in prayer, in worship, and in the Word. Getting saved, you see, cleanses our spirit but doesn’t change our bad habits or attitudes. Going deeper into God’s teachings and truths is what ultimately transforms our lives from believers to disciples. We begin to talk differently, act differently. We begin, in short, to live our faith as well as believe it.

A challenge facing Christianity today is that we have a great many Christians and too few disciples. We need more disciples in the kingdom, more Christians walking out, not just believing in, their faith. If the original eleven disciples multiplied and, in time, transformed the the Roman Empire from a land of unrestrained paganism to the site of the early Church, how much more of an impact will a kingdom of disciples have today? Certainly have we more than eleven disciples at the present moment. Our focus, then, as a Church should be to foster a community of discipleship, and not belief only.

A life that isn’t challenged is the life of a person who isn’t living to the level of potential God requires. God is living. Life is dynamic and growing. We are called to be moving, growing – living our Christian life to the full. We always want to be striving and moving towards a place we have never been before. God wants to bring us into new places and into new experiences that we’ve never had. We are the ones that hold ourselves back by focusing on why things can’t happen instead of walking in faith.

It matters how we think. Paul says that we live small lives because we are thinking too small and living too small. We aren’t possessing what God has for us because we get caught up in life. The stuff of live conspires to lock us into thinking small and keep us from seeing what God wants us to see – what he has for us and where he is taking us. God wants us to trust him and follow him – taking steps toward our visions and dreams in faith – instead of getting caught up in small thinking and focusing on what we can see. We want to live our lives focusing on what is possible with God and not what our natural eyes and thoughts tell us is impossible.

The church is like the twelve tribes – different tribes with different styles for different people – different cultures, emphases and tasks. There are different kinds of churches that God is using. God is working through different peoples and different churches. People are finding their place and their tribe within the body of Christ. One body – many tribes. God is never hemmed in. God is doing different things in different places through different tribes. Anytime you get in a place that claims exclusivity with God, you are in the wrong place. The body of Christ is diverse. There is nothing better than finding where you fit. You can plant, connect and let God start flowing through you and your connections. The whole concept of not thinking small and not being fenced in works from this idea.

Acts 4 – The Jerusalem church in the book of Acts is the first church. We can learn so much from it in the book of Acts because it is the model on which we should base our churches. Everything in this church was new, powerful and exciting. They would meet in the public square of the Temple – the center of Jewish life. All of the early converts were Jews, converted to believe that Jesus was the Messiah (which made the Jewish leaders angry and aggressive towards the early church because they had just crucified Christ). Peter and John would perform miracles within the temple and the religious leaders would question on whose authority they were acting. (When you are stuck in religion, you can’t see the glory of God, even when it is right before your face.)

At this point in Acts, the church is having a prayer meeting. (By the way – there isn’t a gift of prayer. It is something that all Christians need to do. Prayer is the most powerful thing on this planet. It fills your spirit with life and growth. It is crucial for us). v29 – “Give your servants great boldness in their preaching. Send your healing power. May miraculous signs and wonders be done in the name of your servant Jesus.” They prayed for great boldness: courage, daring, audacity, bravery, bravado, valor, confidence, self assuredness, brashness. It’s easy to be bold when you are hiding behind someone who is stronger than you – but that’s not boldness.

Boldness is when you step out of encouragement and start doing – speaking and declaring. Having faith despite the outcome, not knowing what the result or the cost of your boldness will be. The boldness of the first church led to a period of persecution and murder. This led to the Roman persecution of the church, but they were unafraid. But their boldness and their sacrifice led to the spreading of the church across the world. This was the moment that God had planned – everything up until the crucifixion of Christ was to lead up to this moment in which God began to move through human beings and bring his Kingdom and his love back to earth through his church.

v32 – All the believers were of one heart and mind. And they felt that what they earned was not their own, and they shared everything. They began to sell their property and share – created charity. Charity comes from Christ dwelling inside of people. Christ wants us to live and trust that no matter what we have Christ is going to provide for us. This revelation led to the explosion of the church – there was a famine and a need, the church met the need and the people poured in. There was no poverty among them. Some people tried to cheat the system. They sold their things, but kept some of the proceeds. They dropped dead. It’s a big deal when God is doing something, and you miss it. If you position yourself with boldness, faith and obedience, you will catch the wave of what God is doing.

If you hesitate or position yourself in the wrong place, you will miss it. If you become afraid, you will fall off and be pummeled. When God is doing something, you want to position yourself right where God is and be bold. It’s a lot bigger from the top of the wave – from God’s point of view. It can be scary when you decide to step out, be bold and do something radical for God. But when you are in position when God is bringing a challenge, he will bring something incredible through you. It can be scary and challenging, which is why you need to find your tribe, stay covered and stay connected. God used the boldness of the first church to explode his church on the earth. What will he do through you?