Obeying Jesus' Commands

Jesus says if we love Him, we will obey His commands (John 14:15)

Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 2.

Jesus said, "If you love me, obey my commands" John 14:15. (NIV)

Find in Acts 2:36-41 what 3,000 new believers did in obedience to Jesus, before being baptized and being added to the church:

Find in verses 42-47 of the same account what the new believers did in obedience to Jesus immediately after baptism:

Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 2.

The most important thing we can do to help congregations to multiply is to obey our Lord Jesus Christ in childlike faith and love. Church planters have often reported that obeying Jesus’ commands above and before all else makes their work easier and their congregations are stronger. God blesses our loving, faithful obedience more than He does anything else.

Jesus ordered his followers to do many things; we can group them under seven basic commands. In Acts 2 we see the 3,000 new believers of the first New Testament church obeying all of them in their basic form. Please memorize these basic commands, because they are the foundation upon which we build our lives, our teaching and our ministry:

Jesus commanded many things; we can summarize them as seven basic commands. In Acts chapter 2, read how the 3,000 new believers of the first New Testament church started obeying all of these commands in their basic form. Please, memorize these basic commands, because they are the foundation upon which we must build our lives, our teaching and our ministry.

We also obey Jesus when we observe His apostles’ commands, for they spoke and wrote with inspired authority from Christ. The commands in their letters, however, are not basic in the same way as Jesus’ commands are. They are for believers already baptized and under pastoral care in a church. In this sense they are not the "rock" on which we build our lives. Rather they are expansions of Jesus’ basic commands, written for leaders and believers who have already established the foundation of obedience in love to the Lord Jesus Christ.

You may discover, as many others have, that obeying Jesus first brings on painful controversy. When churches begin to multiply, more traditional leaders see it as a threat. Where the work begins growing and they cannot control it, they may criticize you vigorously. If you plan for God to use you as an instrument to multiply churches, then get ready to dodge darts!

You may feel insecure at first and be tempted to ask, "Are we doing God’s will?" Some may say no. Who is to say what is right or wrong? Christian brothers whom we love may sometimes oppose us! Others will follow whoever shout loudest, have the most money or schooling, or are higher in the organization. If you find yourself in this shaky position, tell your critics, "We are obeying Jesus’ commands and imitating his apostles--Do you prefer that we obey and imitate you instead?"

You can rest assured that you are on solid ground when you are obeying Jesus, the divine Head of the church, as in Colossians 1:15-20. Let the critics say what they may!

We obey our Lord because we love Him because of what he did and does for us. He said, "If you love me, obey my commands" (John 14:15). Consider Jesus’ claim on our obedience. During His incarnation on earth He did so many miracles and good works that many people believed that He was the promised Messiah. A few ventured to say He was the Son of God. Because of this, the supreme court of Judea arrested Him and tried Him as a criminal for blasphemy. The high priest asked Him, "Are you the Son of the Blessed?"

Everything hung on Jesus’ answer. Though he knew it meant death, he spoke the most earth-shaking truth ever uttered by a human on this planet—a clear "I AM" (the most holy NAME of the living God).

That ended the trial! The high priest tore his robes in fury. Immediately the council condemned Jesus to death. This made His resurrection doubly significant; it proved that He is who He said He is.

Shortly before His ascension to glory, on the basis of His proven deity, our risen Lord commanded His followers, "All authority is given to me…. Therefore make disciples of all nations.. teaching them to obey all that I have commanded" (Matthew 28:18-20.

Making disciples includes training new believers to obey Jesus’ basic commands.

Healthy churches develop when we practice loving obedience to the commands of Him who has "all authority in heaven and earth." The apostles started the first New Testament church in Jerusalem while the master’s great commission still rang in their ears. "Make disciples of all nations." That means all peoples. "Teaching them to obey all my commands." The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost and gave the apostles and new believers the power to obey; they did exactly what Jesus said to do (Acts 2). They started making disciples with a nation, a people group, their own Jewish countrymen, by instructing them to obey all of Jesus’ commands. The 3,000 new believers in the first New Testament church started doing all that our Lord Jesus Christ commanded without delay:

• They repented, believed and received the Holy Spirit.
• They immediately confirmed this with baptism.
• They celebrated the Lord’s Supper, in homes.
• They loved God and one another, with fervent fellowship.
• They prayed.
• They gave generously.
• They made disciples, devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and witnessed to others.

The new church—which was a cluster of house churches, or what some would call "cells"—was obeying all of Jesus’ commands in their basic form. Such obedience did not occur by chance. The apostles taught the new believers from the very beginning to obey Him. This, then, must be our model for basic discipleship training.

The activities in Acts, like the commands in the Epistles, are built on the basic commands of our risen Lord. Our obedience establishes Jesus as the Head of our church. All ministries required by the New Testament build upon these commands of Christ. For example, Paul’s command to Titus to establish elders in Crete (Titus 1:5), grew out of Jesus’ command to make disciples of all nations; the apostle delegated it to his disciple Titus who then named and trained the new elders. Paul’s letter to Titus gave him detailed instructions for these elders. No totally new commands appear in the Epistles; everything the apostles tell us to do grows out of Jesus’ original commands, applying them to new situations.

There is no other foundation for Christ’s church than obeying Him in faith and love, by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is what the Word of God requires. Jesus is the Rock. Only our loving, faithful obedience to the divine Head of our church lays the true groundwork for normal growth and reproduction of congregations of true believers.

Baptism has two dimensions; new believers enter into a new relationship with God and into a new relationship with other believers (Acts 2:41-47).

Baptizing adults initiates them into the body-life of the church; they become part of a loving body. An isolated hermit, although devoutly religious, cannot carry out the basic commands of Christ.

A heavy emphasis on doctrinal teaching as the initial foundation, without a corresponding application of loving obedience, reflects not Kingdom truth but the crippling rationalism of Western cultures of the 20th century. Nothing must take precedence for a new believer over loving, faithful, childlike obedience to our loving Lord.

Without such obedience to Jesus Christ, Christian workers only follow church traditions, rules, and human scruples that stifle church growth and reproduction. Especially in new fields that lack a model for a well-organized church and mature pastors, inexperienced leaders often emphasize non-essentials. They seek subsidies and control God’s people with non-biblical rules for ordination, baptism, marriage, evangelism, church planting and even pastoral training.

A church planter who emphasizes knowledge over obedience rarely cultivates church body-life, in which disciples serve one another in love. He looks for understanding rather than obedience. Seeing potential leaders’ limited comprehension of the Word, he distrusts their ability to lead and over-controls the new church, stifling the local workers’ initiative thereby creating a crippling legalism. Instead, he must have patience with new churches and new leaders, and let them take their "baby steps."

This means that you must make disciples in a New Testament way. If you teach new believers to obey Jesus, they will give major importance to love as Jesus and His apostles did. This enables their church right away to be healthy and to reproduce. It might not be easy; you may first have to overcome barriers to love in your own life. But if you trust the Lord, then He will empower you and your coworkers to reproduce churches and invade their area of world for the Lord Jesus!

Church reproduction in the power of the Spirit of God means that our churches’ activities rest fully on the commands of Jesus. New churches simply and purposefully do what He said to do. They follow the example of His apostles, who taught their disciples obedience.

We endanger the spiritual life of a newborn babe in Christ, if we force upon him the "heavy meat" of detailed Bible doctrines before he learns basic obedience in love. Such doctrinal learning invites pride. It is like building a new house before laying its foundation! The Holy Spirit’s power to transform the new believers in Acts 2 was evident in their immediate, loving obedience. To make loving and active disciples in a truly biblical way, you must teach obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ before all else. True disciples obey Him at once without argument or discussion. For example, baptism, as practiced by the apostles, came immediately after conversion. It was not a graduation ceremony following a long time of indoctrination and probation. Healthy, normal church reproduction results from disciples who, before all else, obey in love the commands of Him who has all authority in heaven and earth.

A church does not vote to see if it will obey one of Jesus’ commands:

• To vote would put the authority of the majority in our church above that of Almighty God!
• His church is not a democracy; it is a monarchy—a kingdom.
• We obey Jesus’ commands simply and directly, like a child would, in love. To obey for other motives is legalism, which God condemns in Romans 13:8-10 and 1 Corinthians 13:1-3.
• Jesus summarized the Old Testament law, including the Ten Commandments, in the dual command to love God and our neighbor (Matthew 22:34-40).

As disciples begin to obey the basic commands of our Lord, barriers to obedience appear in their attitudes and feelings. As they honestly face these, confess and repent, their obedience leads to deeper love for God and their neighbors. As we practice loving church body life, any lack of love becomes apparent, more evident toward our visible brothers than toward our invisible God, although our love for both grows together.

Please ask God now to give you the strength to overcome the devil's temptations to delay obedience to all that our Lord and Savior commands.

Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 2.

You can evaluate the spiritual growth of a new church in two ways:

The amount of Bible knowledge a believer has accumulated is not a valid measure of growth. Members of false cults sometimes know much of the Scriptures. True believers can also attend good churches and know the Word, but fail to live it as they should. Obedient new believers sometimes, after a few weeks, show more maturity in their understanding and conduct than others do who have heard the Word for years.

A healthy church body harnesses its different spiritual gifts to multiply daughter churches within a responsive people group. Trust God to give to your church people whom He has gifted to be apostles who will reproduce it. Others will have other gifts; an effective church planting effort will sooner or later need workers gifted for leadership, evangelism, training pastors, mercy ministry and healing.

Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 2.

We must recognize which of the rules for our churches are of God and which ones are from men. Men need to make rules in order to work together, but these rules must not be confused with those that come from God’s Word. If we confuse them, the resulting failure to obey God will keep a church or cell from reaching its maximum potential for shepherding and reproducing.

The reason for the church’s existence, according to Jesus’ mandate, is to make, in and be obedient disciples. This takes precedence over all other policies and plans. We need human rules, of course, to maintain order. We agree on temporary policies for orderly organization and operation. A congregation needs to know where to meet and at what time, who will do this or that, and dozens of other routine decisions. We erase these human regulations, however, when conditions change or a need is dealt with. Otherwise they become permanent traditions—sacred cows that stand with their horns lowered, threatening simple obedience to Christ and the freedom that grows from it.

Three common but erroneous assumptions produce three paralyzing policies:

This fear of corruption is normal. We want our children to be healthy; we want our new churches to be doctrinally sound. But the real source of sound doctrine is not human control but loyalty to Christ. Failing to see this, we organize so that any multiplication to extend from our own church reaches out like spokes from one hub—no granddaughter churches. We try to control it all. We assume that the church where we are in control is somehow superior to all later churches in the chain. We assume that God gives the Holy Spirit to other churches in a lesser amount! But Jesus reminds us that a grain of wheat produces a new plant with the same potential as its parent. The same principle of reproducing after its own kind applies to churches in His kingdom, as illustrated in Mark 4. New churches have the same potential, the same love for Christ and the Word. History shows that normal church multiplication in itself does not lead to doctrinal error, and that sterile churches and old seminaries far more often fall prey to it. Doctrinal error comes when churches put man's customs ahead of God's rules:

Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 2.

• commands of Jesus and His apostles, which have highest authority,
• New Testament practices that were not commanded but are biblical examples, which we are free to follow,
• human customs, which have only the authority that a local congregation gives them.

Wise trainers discern these three levels of authority for church activities. They establish the authority for what we do. We help our people to discern these three levels of authority:

1. New Testament commands form the basis of discipleship training and ministry. We obey them above and before all else.
2. New Testament practices, though not commanded, serve as examples, which we might or might not follow, depending on circumstances. For example, Paul had Timothy circumcised in Lystra in (Acts 16) out of respect for Jewish culture, but spoke harshly to the Galatians against doing it, because in that Gentile culture it led to legalism.
3. Human traditions not mentioned in the New Testament should be followed with even more caution, because they can hinder obedience to real commands. Most traditions are sometimes good. A church cannot function without established customs. For example, a congregation agrees on when and where to meet; that is a necessary human regulation and therefore a good tradition. A problem arises when a church fails to see such traditions as man-made and temporary, or forces their own customs on other churches.

Most church divisions stem from power-hungry people who emphatically require a human tradition or an apostolic practice that was not commanded, in order to gain a following. They place it on the level of a command by emphasizing it more than God’s commands, or over-emphasizing the organization’s rules or bylaws. Painful divisions and discouragement grow out of dogmatic attitudes toward non-biblical requirements for worship, church procedures, membership, baptism, dress, ordination, pastoral training, and other things. A church or mission can cancel spontaneous, loving obedience to Jesus by confusing His authority with man-made rules.

Examples of ‘second level’ New Testament practices that were not specifically commanded for everybody include these:

• Laying on of hands to confer the Holy Spirit,
• Speaking in tongues and the exercise of other sign gifts,
• Sharing material goods in common,
• Using one common cup at the Lord’s Supper,
• Celebrating the Lord’s Supper in homes each Sunday,
• Baptizing immediately.

Do not demand that everybody follow these apostolic practices; only Christ has the authority to make such universal laws for His church. However, since the apostles practiced them we cannot prohibit them to everybody. People are free to do as the apostles did, when it is practical.

Following are some common human customs or traditions, not found in the New Testament. These can help make disciples in some cultures but hinder doing so in others:

• Christian education programs that segregate young people by age,
• Pulpits, loudspeakers, pianos, organs, televised worship,
• A public invitation to raise hands or come forward to accept Christ,
• Discipline of correction by exclusion from communion for a period of time,
• Specific styles of pulpit lectures, sermons,
• Preparing leaders in an academic institution outside of the church,
• Professional, paid church staff members,
• Highly-promoted, institutional mission agencies,
• Ordination prerequisites that go beyond what Scripture requires,
• Defining with a constitution and bylaws how many persons are to serve in certain offices and for how long.

Human customs should receive lowest priority. One must not demand them as a pagan king would by lording it over his subjects. We agree upon them in love. We follow them if they edify and discard them when they hinder obedience to Jesus. They become dangerous when they become institutionalized, achieve much popular attention, attract a financial contributions or are supported by civil law or the power of a large organization that seeks its own advancement.

Some Christian workers stifle spontaneous reproduction of churches in new fields when they embrace non-biblical policies for:

• confirming conversion,
• naming and training new pastors or elders,
• the Lord’s Supper, baptism, and marriage,
• organizing new churches,
• control from the outside, especially with foreign funds.

Please take a moment now to pray and plan how you will arrange with your coworkers to help your people to discern and obey the New Testament commands.