The Established Path of Discipleship

Humans are impatient by nature. We do not like to wait for anything. This is especially true of Christians. We disciples do not like waiting. We are as impatient as the first disciples of Jesus. After Jesus announced the coming baptism of the Holy Spirit in Acts 1:5, the disciples asked Jesus a question. “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6)? Their impatience is understandable. Israel had been under the boot of Rome for years. They desired to see the promise of Isaiah 2:1-4 fulfilled where there would be true peace.

John the Baptist proclaimed the coming inauguration of this kingdom in Matthew 3:3. And when Jesus begins his public ministry, he announces the arrival of this new phase of redemption history, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17). So, the disciples wondered when this kingdom of heaven that Jesus announced would be fully consummated. Jesus answers, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority” (Acts 1:7). I do not suppose that is the answer the disciples then wanted to hear, nor is it the answer we like to hear because it implies waiting. And, we grow impatient in our waiting.

So how long do we have to wait? Paul tells us, “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Cor. 15:25). Well, Paul. How long is that? When will the last enemy be defeated? Paul answers, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:26)? Death will be destroyed when Jesus returns and raises our bodies from the dead (1 Cor. 15:50-57). Until then, we must learn patience. We must “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58).

The world is a mess, and looking at this messy world causes impatience. We want to take matters into our own hands. So, we try to take over the halls of government and bring the kingdom of heaven by worldly means. We do not see the Apostle Paul or the early church advocating setting up a Christian kingdom (Christendom), and we do not see the followers of Jesus doing that either after the death of the Apostles. R. Scott Clark gives a good summary of how the early followers of Jesus were operating in those early centuries here.

So, what are we to do if we are not to usher in the consummation of the kingdom of heaven by worldly means? What is this labor that is not in vain of which Paul speaks (1 Cor. 15:58)? Jesus said, “But you will receive power, when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the  earth.” We are to make disciples of all nations (not contiguous nation-states but people groups), teaching them to observe everything Jesus commanded (Matt. 28:19-20).

Perhaps this does not sound very exciting to some, and this does not sound very victorious to others. Don’t we need to take over stuff to win? I don’t feel like an overcomer. And yet, we are. The Apostle John writes:

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God (1 John 5:4-5)?

We are overcoming and will overcome the world because we believe that Jesus is the Son of God. He is the only one who will bring the kingdom we pray for (Matt. 6:10), and His kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). So, my dear brothers and sisters, stop trying to set up the kingdom in this world of our exile (1 Pet. 2:11, Heb. 13:14). Do the slow, patient work of making disciples, and put down the weapons of this world (2 Cor. 10:4-5).