Serve the King (Praying the King’s Agenda #3)
When I was in high school Spanish class, I walked in one day and there it was: a television on a cart.
If you are under thirty you have no idea what I am talking about. We did not have fancy projectors hanging from the ceiling. We had a TV bolted to a rolling cart with a strap holding it on so it would not tumble off while you wheeled it down the hall, and a VCR on the shelf underneath. And that was a huge step up from the old reel-to-reel film projectors — the loud clanking as the film rolled through, the tinny little speaker you could barely hear. Although I will admit the film projectors had one advantage: you could run the movie backwards. That was always great.
Anyway. My Spanish teacher rolls the cart to the front and announces that since we are in Spanish class, we are going to watch an educational documentary about a Spanish man. This particular Spaniard is mourning the murder of his father and is determined to avenge his death.
As he is describing this, I am thinking, that sounds oddly familiar. Then he adds: “And by the way, the murderer has six fingers on one hand.”
Our educational documentary was The Princess Bride.
If you have seen it, you know exactly what I mean when I say “as you wish.” You know the rhyming giant. You know the clergyman with the speech impediment presiding over the wedding — I am genuinely tempted to officiate a ceremony someday and open in that voice. If you have not seen it, I am sorry, none of this is landing, and you have homework.
But here is my point. Imagine someone asks you what The Princess Bride is about. Would any of you answer, “Oh, it is about a Spanish swordsman wrestling with alcohol while mourning his murdered father and hunting the six-fingered man”?
No. Not one of you. That is in the movie. It is a fun part of it, and a somewhat twisted part of it, but it is not the main thrust. The main thrust is a love story. Or, if you want to go one layer further out, it is about a sick kid in bed whose grandfather comes over to read him a story.
Last week, in week two of this series, we looked at obeying the King, and we saw in Matthew 28 that we are called to go, to baptize, and to teach. But if we stopped right there, we would be doing the equivalent of describing that film entirely in terms of the swordsman and leaving out the love story. Those three are not the main plot. They are clarifiers attached to one command.
Today we are going to look at what that one command actually is, so that anyone who claims to follow Jesus can figure out how to serve the King.
The One Command
Open your Bible to Matthew 28. Let me read verses 18 through 20 one more time.
“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'”
Before I felt God calling me to plant this church, I was a young adult pastor at a large church a couple hours south of here. Very early in that stint I got to attend a small local conference — maybe a hundred pastors and church staff in a room. A presenter got up, read this exact passage, looked out at a room full of ministry professionals, and asked: “What is the one command in this passage?”
I knew the answer in my head. Go. Obviously. Growing up, my parents told me all the time, “Go to your room.” I know a command when I see one. But I was new and did not want to say it out loud.
Somebody else must have read my mind, because they called out, “Go.” The presenter said, “Nope.”
Someone else: “Baptize.” Nope.
“Teach.” No.
The one command is make disciples. That is the main plot point of the Great Commission. If you leave it out — if all you are thinking about is that we have to go and baptize and teach — you have missed the point entirely. Every one of those is driving toward making disciples.
Backing Up an Audacious Claim
In week one of this series I made a fairly bold statement. I said that all of the agenda items of Jesus — all the commands He gives us — either point to or are fulfilled in the Great Commission.
You can see why the Great Commission is the pinnacle. These are the last words Jesus spoke on earth before He ascended. That is a big deal. But to say that all the other commands point here? That is a bigger claim, and it deserves some proof.
So while I was working on this message, I decided to test it. I grabbed our 21 Days of Prayer devotional booklet, flipped to that day’s reading, and asked whether my claim would hold.
The topic was John 4:23–26. Let me read verses 23 and 24. Jesus says, “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
That comes out of the story where Jesus is talking with a Samaritan woman at a well — a genuinely shocking scene. A rabbi would not be found talking to a woman. A Jewish man would not be found talking to a Samaritan woman. And we learn later in the story that she has been married five times and is now living with a man who is not her husband. This conversation would have been scandalous on multiple levels. Yet there Jesus is, and in the middle of it He drops this: worship God in spirit and in truth.
The devotional author framed it as worshiping God with heart and mind — with our emotions and with our thoughts. That is why so many churches worship in song: music moves the heart, and a well-written lyric that points to the gospel engages your mind and helps you worship in truth. It is also the logic behind a daily devotional. You start with Scripture, engaging your mind, worshiping in truth. As you read, conviction comes and a desire to follow Jesus stirs. Then you end in prayer, where I hope you can be completely honest with God — and now you are worshiping in spirit.
Good. But what on earth does worshiping in spirit and truth have to do with making disciples?
Start here: the word worship means to ascribe worth. When you make disciples, you are telling people that Jesus is worthy — worth following, worth dedicating your entire life to, worth giving everything to. You are inviting them to worship Him in spirit and truth.
And notice how the way we talk about Jesus tends to lean one direction or the other. Some people are more academic and thoughtful, and they have real criticisms of Christianity. Those conversations require us to show that the faith is not a fairy tale but is grounded in reality — that the Bible is genuinely reliable and unlike so many other religious texts. That becomes a cerebral exercise, and in it you end up worshiping in truth.
Other times the person in front of you does not need convincing that the Bible is real, because they are hurting too much. You hear their story — the abuse they endured, the abandonment they faced, whatever they are wrestling with — and that is not the moment to explain the days of creation. What they need is someone to listen, and then to say, “God loves you so much that He sent His one and only Son.” Now you are helping them worship in spirit.
And when you have the joy of leading someone to faith in Jesus, you will worship God in both. Watching someone cross from being separated from God to being a child of God, you will explode with joy — you will not be able to stop yourself from saying, “God, I praise You, thank You for this moment.” That is worship in spirit. And as you watch that person’s life actually change, you see the truth of the gospel confirmed in front of you.
Now you might say I picked the easy one. So let me keep going.
“Take up your cross and follow me.”
What better way to take up your cross — to die to yourself, to die to your own agenda — than to take up the agenda of making disciples? If that was His final command, that is the most direct way to follow Him.
“Do not lust.”
We touched on this last week. Part of why we are not to lust is that the person you are lusting after is an image bearer. God made humans in His image. When you lust, you are taking an image bearer’s body and using it for your own gratification — mentally and emotionally rather than physically, but using it all the same.
Making disciples is the exact inversion of that. It is not about what you can get from someone. It is caring for them, recognizing them as an image bearer in need of the gospel. The question stops being “what can I get out of this person for myself” and becomes “what can I give them, because what they need is Christ.” And when your focus goes there, lust shrinks.
“Come to me and I will give you rest.”
In the Great Commission Jesus said He would be with us always, to the end of the age. So when you make disciples, you are inviting someone to come to the Jesus who will be with them always — and when they find Him, that is where they find true rest.
Most people in this world are trying to find rest. They just look for it in money, in their job, in substances, in power, in reputation, in a hundred other places. I cannot tell you how many stories I have heard of someone who made life about chasing money, got it, and found it unsatisfying. Or who thought, if I could just get her, if I could just get him — and then the marriage did not work. Over and over people look for rest in things that cannot hold it. And Jesus says, come to me and I will give you rest. When we go to make disciples, we are inviting people into that true Sabbath rest.
This is why I am convinced that nearly any agenda item Jesus gives us about how to live finds its fulfillment in making disciples. Jesus was all about the gospel. When you seek to make disciples, you are telling the gospel story. Everything else He gives us is steeped in that same gospel, which is why they are all tied together. If you are a follower of Jesus, you are a disciple who keeps growing — and part of your continued growth is going out to invite others to become disciples too.
So How Do We Do It?
Thankfully, Jesus told us. We looked at some of this last week under the heading of obeying the King. Today we come at it from a slightly different angle, because this is how we serve the King.
The first thing He said was go.
Years ago I was taught that the word translated “go” in the Greek can also be rendered “as you are going.” I love that, because when most of us hear “go to all the nations,” we immediately think, great, God is going to send me to Africa. Maybe He will. But “as you are going” means: as you are going to Africa, or as you are going to another town to plant a church, or as you are going into a city to work alongside a ministry — or as you are going to work, as you are going to school, as you are going on a walk around your neighborhood, as you go about your ordinary life.
If you follow Jesus, your life is inside this story, and the gospel should be resonating out of you at all times. Even a conversation at work is part of your going.
There are several things we can do as we go. Today I want to point out two.
Go and Invite
In John 1, Jesus calls a young man named Philip to follow Him. Philip does, and he is so taken with what he finds that he goes and gets his friend Nathanael. Listen to their exchange, starting in verse 45:
“Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’ Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.'”
Philip has been approached by this rabbi who says “follow me.” He starts following. He hears how this man teaches, maybe sees a miracle or two, and begins to think: this is it. This is the Messiah. This is the one Moses wrote about, the one the prophets described, the one we have been praying for. He is so excited he cannot help himself. He finds Nathanael and blurts it out.
And Nathanael takes a step back. Nazareth? Can anything good come from Nazareth?
Watch what Philip does not do. He does not get defensive. He does not launch into a justification. He does not backtrack. He says four words: “Come and see.”
That is it. Not a defense. Not a carefully reasoned argument. An invitation.
So if you follow Jesus — who do you need to invite, and where can you invite them? Maybe it is just to a Sunday gathering, in person or online. Maybe it is to your growth group, because this kind of format is not always the most effective way for someone to hear the gospel, but they might come to a smaller room. I have one friend I meet with weekly over video, because he was not comfortable meeting in person. Maybe you invite someone to serve alongside you — at the food bank, or handing out meals at a community meal.
But most of all: who can you invite to say yes to Jesus? Who can you invite to become His disciple?
Go and Serve
I am part of a local service club. When the pandemic hit we moved to video calls, met in person through the summer and into fall, and then went back online when case numbers rose again.
On one of those calls this past week, our president announced that a gentleman was joining as a new member, and we did a little interview — why did you want to join us?
This man had come to one of our in-person meetings in the fall because he works for a local nonprofit. Our club’s goal is eliminating child abuse, so we raise funds and grant them to organizations doing that work. He had come to receive a check. He showed up, ate breakfast, sat through the whole program, got his check, everyone applauded, we all felt good about ourselves, and we went about our business.
But it made a difference in him. When our president asked why he chose to join, he said two things. First, “You guys were a lot of fun — I could not believe how much laughter there was. I really enjoyed the morning.” And second, more importantly: “When I heard about all the things you are doing in the community, I could not help but want to be a part of it.”
It was the serving that got him. Not the check, not the fundraisers — the fact that we get out into the community and do things.
When you go out and serve, it makes an impact. It impacts the people you serve. It impacts the people watching. And I believe it impacts you, because Jesus said He did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life. When you start serving, when you give yourself to helping others and being a blessing, you are living the way Jesus lived — and that is worship.
But Serving Is Not Enough
Some of us like the idea that we go, we serve, and that covers our obligation to preach the gospel. But look again at the Great Commission — Jesus also said to teach. And teaching implies words.
There is a famous line usually attributed to Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary, use words.” I heard that quote years ago, loved it, memorized it, and decided that was how I wanted to live. Then a few years back I learned two things are wrong with it. First, he almost certainly never said it — there is no attribution to him anywhere. Second, and more importantly, it is not what Jesus said. Jesus tells us to use words.
We do not want to be hypocrites whose words are contradicted by our actions. But neither can we serve and never back it up with speech. When the two are in sync there is a synergy that lands with real force. So we go and serve with our bodies, our actions, our energy — and we also go and teach with words.
So: who do you need to teach? Do you need to get into a growth group, where you will not only be taught by others but will inevitably end up teaching as you share what you are learning? Do you need to invite someone into a one-on-one discipling relationship — which, by the way, will be good for you? Maybe it is one of your own kids, and you need to figure out how to get regular one-on-one time, or how to do something together as a family.
What If I Do Not Know What to Say?
I realize the “use words” part makes some of us nervous. It is one thing to go serve. It is another thing entirely to talk.
I think some of Jesus’ disciples felt exactly that. In Matthew 10 He tells them He is sending them out, and He does not exactly soften it — you are going into these communities, you are going to preach, and they are not going to like it. You will be dragged in front of courts and interrogated. Then He says this, in verses 19 and 20:
“When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”
None of us are going to be hauled before a religious high court and interrogated about our faith. But you might get asked by a coworker. A classmate might have questions. Your kids may ask you something you did not expect. An extended family member might message you.
So by all means, read. Two books on apologetics I would recommend are Tim Keller’s The Reason for God and Rebecca McLaughlin’s Confronting Christianity, which I read on my sabbatical this past summer. Both are very readable, and both take the objections our culture raises against Christianity and help you think through them philosophically and biblically.
But better than either of those is the Bible itself. Get into the Scriptures every day. Open it and read. Join a growth group and study it. Work through a book of the Bible rather than skipping around by topic. Listen to an audio Bible in the car. Because as Scripture soaks into you, then when you get squeezed by a hard question, what comes out is not your best improvised idea — it is the Word of God.
And when someone asks you something you are unsure about, it is completely fine to say, “I am not an expert, but the way I see it…” Or, “There are a lot of interpretations on this, but the way I read it…” Or even, “That is a really good question. I do not know. Can I go research that and get back to you?” Do not feel pressure to have the perfect answer in the moment.
Instead, pause. Pray silently: God, You said You would give the words in the moment. Give me the right words now. Then trust Him. I have heard story after story of someone who answered a question, walked away certain they had botched it, and found out later that was the exact conversation God used to bring someone to Jesus.
So do not fret about what you will say. And do not back away from saying it. Serve with your energy, yes — but when God gives you the opening, take it. Use words, trusting Him to supply them. It is part of making disciples.
The Third Clarifier: Baptize
We are told to go. We are told to teach. And right in the middle: baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Last week I said that if you claim to follow Jesus but have not been baptized, you are not fully following the King’s agenda — because right here at the pinnacle He says to baptize. If you have not done that yourself, there is a piece of obedience still outstanding.
Years ago at my previous church, almost every summer we went out to a lake for a big picnic followed by a baptism service. It was a highlight every single year. But I remember one year in particular, partly because my daughter was being baptized. Groups would come up, share their stories, wade out into the lake, be baptized, and then the next group would come forward.
One woman got up who had been a member of that church for decades. She was in her early eighties. People in line were quietly wondering what was going on. Then the microphone reached her and she said: “I have been following Jesus almost my entire life, and I was too embarrassed to admit I had never been baptized. The older I got, the more embarrassed I became. But now I realize I am in my eighties. Any day I could go meet my Maker. And I realized I have not been obedient in this, because I made it about me instead of about Him.”
She was baptized at eighty-two.
Your age does not matter. Whether you have followed Jesus for forty years or forty seconds does not matter. The expectation in Scripture is that if you say you follow Jesus, you are to be baptized.
But here is the angle I want to add this week. There will be times when you go out to serve and it feels like it accomplished nothing. You will invite someone and get turned down. You will try to answer a question and walk away certain you fumbled it.
When you are baptized, you are preaching the gospel — not with words, but with your body.
Think about it. When you announce you are being baptized on a certain day at a certain place, suddenly you have something concrete to invite people to. When the day comes, you will probably read a short written statement and share part of your story — so you are teaching with words. And then you step into the water and go under, showing that you identify with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. In that moment the spotlight is entirely on Jesus. There is no better way to proclaim the gospel.
So let us do it. A sister church has already offered us the use of their portable baptistry — we can bring it right in here. We could rent a facility with a pool. Or we could set something up this summer and head to the river, which seems fitting given our name. Let us not delay.
Because Jesus came for you. He died on the cross for the guilt of your sins. He gave it all for you, and now He asks you to give it all to Him. He wants you to serve the King — and one way you serve Him is to be baptized.
So Let Us Go
Let us go and serve. Let us go and invite. Let us teach with words. And let us be baptized ourselves, as we go and make disciples and seek to baptize them.
Take a minute with God right now. Maybe the question is, do I get baptized? Is that my next step? Maybe it is, who do You want me to teach? Who do I need to share this gospel with? Maybe it is simply, who do I invite, and where do I invite them?
King Jesus, I confess that this command — this Great Commission to make disciples — can feel daunting. Overwhelming. Some of us feel like it is simply not something we were made to do. And yet You gave this command to all of Your disciples.
So I pray for the person who has committed themselves to You and feels like they are failing at this. Let them take it up again, and let them hear from You who to go to. Whether that is a specific individual at work or at school, a neighbor, a family member to reach out to — or a whole people group in another country, another state, a region very different from ours. Make it clear who we are called to. And give us the words: words to invite, words to teach, words to proclaim this beautiful gospel clearly.
I pray for anyone reading this who does not know You. Open their eyes to see that Jesus went to a cross to die for their sins. We water our sin down. We are so used to it that we cannot see it for what it is. But our sin keeps us separated from a holy, perfect God who created us out of love and whom we walked away from. Lead this person to a simple prayer — confessing they are a sinner who falls short of Your glorious standard, and that because of Jesus they now give their life to You. And in that moment let them feel the joy of sin forgiven and life beginning anew.
And for us as a church: use us to carry this message into a broken and dying world. Put the words on our lips. Let Your gospel be reflected in our actions, sensed in our presence, seen in our eyes. We confess where we fall short. We lay ourselves on Your altar as a living sacrifice, so You can use all of us for Your glory. We are seeking joy and peace, and we look for them so often in the things of this world. Help us to surrender those and find our rest in You alone. And as we find our rest in You, help us then to go with joy — and as we go, to teach; and as we teach, to see lives changed by the gospel. Amen.
Go and follow Jesus. Go and follow His agenda.
