Because unsaved people are spiritually dead, they can never be saved by self-reformation, regardless of how hard they try. Unsaved people need a new nature, not just new outward actions. You can take a pig, wash it up nice and clean, spray some perfume on it, and tie a pink ribbon around its neck, but all you will have is a cleaned-up pig! His nature will still be the same. And it won’t be long before he smells foul and is lying in mud again.

The same is true concerning religious people who have never been born again. They may be cleaned up on the outside a little bit, but inside they are as dirty as ever. Jesus said to some very religious people of His day,

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead man’s bones and all uncleanness. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness (Matt. 23:25-28).

Jesus’ words are an apt description of all those who are religious but who have never experienced the new birth of the Holy Spirit. The new birth cleans up people on the inside and not just on the outside.

When modern evangelists and pastors invite the unsaved to “accept Jesus as Savior,” (a phrase and concept never found in Scripture), it usually reveals a fundamental flaw in their understanding of the gospel. When the Philippian jailer, for example, asked Paul what he must do to be saved, Paul did not respond, “Accept Jesus as your Savior.” Rather he said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved” (Acts 16:31; emphasis added). People are saved when they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Mind you, they are not saved just because they believe a doctrine about salvation or Jesus, but when they believe in a person—the Lord Jesus Christ. That is saving faith. Too many think because they believe that Jesus’ death was a sufficient sacrifice for their sins, or salvation is by faith, or a hundred other things about Jesus or salvation, that they have saving faith. But they don’t. The devil believes all those things about Jesus and salvation. Saving faith consists of faith in Jesus. And who is He? He is Lord.

Obviously, if I believe that Jesus is Lord, I will act like he is Lord, submitting to Him from my heart. If I don’t submit to him, I don’t believe in Him. If someone says, “I believe there is a deadly poisonous snake in my boot,” and then calmly puts his boot on, he obviously doesn’t really believe what he says he believes. People who say they believe in Jesus but haven’t repented of their sins and submitted to Him in their hearts don’t really believe in Jesus. They may believe in an imaginary Jesus, but not the Lord Jesus, the one who has all authority in heaven and on earth.

All of this is to say that when a minister’s understanding of the most fundamental message of Christianity is flawed, he is in trouble from the start. There is no way he can succeed by God’s appraisal, as he misrepresents the most foundational message God wants the world to hear. He may be a pastor of a growing church, but he is failing miserably at fulfilling God’s general vision for his ministry.

While we are on the subject, let me take a moment to mention something about our bodies. Although they will eventually die, our physical deaths will not be permanent. There is a day coming when God Himself will resurrect every dead human body. Jesus said,

Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds, to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment (John 5:28-29).

The apostle John wrote in the book of Revelation that the resurrection of the bodies of the unjust will occur at least one thousand years after the resurrection of the righteous:

And they [the saints who were martyred during the Tribulation Period] came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection.^[1] Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection…they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years (Rev. 20:4b-6).

The Bible also informs us that at the time when Jesus returns to catch away the church, all of the dead bodies of the righteous will be resurrected and joined together with their spirits as they return from heaven with Jesus to Earth’s atmosphere:

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those [as spirits] who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout…and the dead in Christ [their bodies] will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord (1 Thes. 4:14-17).

God formed the original man from the dust of the ground, and it will be no trouble for Him to take the elements of every person’s body and re-form them into new individual bodies from the same materials.^[2]

^[1] Because John says that this is “the first resurrection,” it leads us to believe there were no other mass resurrections prior to this. And because it takes place at the end of the world-wide tribulation when Jesus returns, it contradicts the idea of a pre-tribulation rapture, as we know there will be a mass resurrection when Jesus comes from heaven at the rapture of the church according to 1 Thes. 4:13-17.

^[2] For further study on the subject of the resurrection, see Dan. 12:1-2; John 11:23-26; Acts 24:14-15; 1 Cor. 15:1-57 and Phil. 3:20-21.

To be successful in God’s eyes, it is essential that a minister understands the goal that God has set before him. If he doesn’t understand his goal, he has no way of gauging if he has succeeded or failed in reaching it.^[1] He may think he has succeeded when he has actually failed. And that is a great tragedy. He is like a first-place runner who jubilantly sprints across the finish line of an 800-meter race, basking in his victory as he raises his hands before the shouting crowds, not realizing that he was actually competing in a 1600-meter race. Misunderstanding his goal has guaranteed his failure. Thinking he has won has assured his loss. In his case the saying is certainly true: “The first shall be last.”

Most ministers have some kind of specific goal that they often refer to as their “vision.” It is what they uniquely strive to accomplish, based on their specific calling and gifting. Everyone’s gifting and calling is unique, whether it be to pastor a church in a certain city, evangelize a certain region, or teach certain truths. But the God-given goal to which I’m referring is general and applies to every minister. It is the big vision. It should be the driving general vision behind every unique vision. But too often, it is not. Not only do many ministers have specific visions that do not harmonize with God’s general vision, some have specific visions that actually work against God’s general vision. I certainly did at one time, even though I was pastoring a growing church.

So what is the general goal or vision that God has given every minister? We begin to find the answer in Matthew 28:18-20, a passage so familiar to us that we often miss what it is saying. Let’s consider it verse by verse:

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matt. 28:18).

Jesus wanted His disciples to understand that His Father had granted Him supreme authority. Of course, the Father’s intention was (and is) that Jesus be obeyed, as is the case any time the Father gives someone authority. But Jesus is unique in that His Father gave Him all authority in heaven and on earth, not just a limited authority, as He at times gives to others. Jesus is Lord.

This being so, any person who doesn’t relate to Jesus as Lord is not relating to Him rightly. Jesus, more than anything else, is Lord. That is why He is referred to as “Lord” over 600 times in the New Testament. (He is only mentioned as Savior 15 times.) That is why Paul wrote, “For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Rom. 14:9, emphasis added). Jesus died and came back to life for the purpose of reigning as Lord over people.

^[1] Throughout this teaching, I refer to ministers using the masculine pronoun he, purely for the sake of consistency and because the majority of vocational ministers, such as pastors, are men. I am convinced from Scripture, however, that God calls women to vocational ministry, and I know quite a few with very effective ministries. This is the topic of the chapter entitled, Women in Ministry.

Let’s go back to Matthew 28:18-19. After declaring His supreme lordship, Jesus then gave a commandment:

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20a).

Notice that Jesus used the word “therefore.” He said, “Go therefore and make disciples…” That is to say, “Because of what I just said…because I have all authority…because I am Lord…people should of course obey Me…and so I am commanding you (and you should obey Me) to go and make disciples, teaching those disciples to obey all My commandments.”

And that, simply put, is the general goal, God’s great vision for all of our ministries: Our responsibility is to make disciples who obey all of Christ’s commandments.

That is why Paul said that the grace of God had been given to him as an apostle to “bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles” (Rom. 1:5; emphasis added). The goal was obedience; the means to obedience was faith. People who have genuine faith in the Lord Jesus obey His commandments.

That is why Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him [Jesus] both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36). Peter wanted Christ’s crucifiers to know that God had made Jesus Lord and Christ. They had killed the one whom God wanted them to obey! Under great conviction, they asked, “What shall we do?” and Peter responded first of all, “Repent”! That is, turn from disobedience to obedience. Make Jesus Lord. Next Peter told them to be baptized as Christ commanded. Peter was making disciples—obedient followers of Christ—and he was starting the right way with the right message.

This being so, every minister should be able to evaluate his success. All of us should ask ourselves, “Is my ministry leading people to become obedient to all of Christ’s commandments?” If we are, we’re succeeding. If we aren’t, we’re failing.

The evangelist who only persuades people to “accept Jesus,” without telling them to repent of their sins, is failing. The pastor who is trying to build a big congregation by keeping everyone happy and organizing many social activities is failing. The teacher who only teaches the latest charismatic “wind of doctrine” is failing. The apostle who plants churches that consist of people who say they believe in Jesus, but who don’t obey Him, is failing. The prophet who prophesies only to tell people what blessings will soon be coming their way is failing.

We’ve established that Jesus’ overriding goal for us is that we make disciples, that is, people who have repented of their sins and who are learning and obeying His commandments. Jesus further defined what a disciple is in John 8:32:

If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make your free.

True disciples, according to Jesus, are those who are abiding, or making their home, in His word. As they learn His truth from His Word, they are progressively “set free,” and the later context indicates that Jesus was speaking about being set free from sin (see John 8:34-36). So once again we see that by Jesus’ definition, disciples are learning and obeying His commandments.

Jesus later said,

By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples” (John 15:8; emphasis added).

Thus, by Jesus’ definition, disciples are glorifying God by bearing fruit. Those who bear no fruit are not proved to be His disciples.

Jesus more specifically defined that identifying fruit of His true disciples in Luke 14:25-33. Let’s begin by reading just verse 25:

Now great multitudes were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them…

Was Jesus satisfied because great multitudes were “going along” with Him? Had he attained His goal now that He had succeeded in gaining a large congregation?

No, Jesus was not satisfied that great multitudes were hanging around Him, listening to His sermons, watching His miracles, and sometimes eating His food. Jesus is looking for people who love God with all their heart, mind, soul and strength. He wants people who obey His commandments. He wants disciples. Thus He said to those multitudes who were going along with Him:

If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26).

There can be no mistake about it: Jesus laid down a requirement for a person to be His disciple. But must His disciples actually hate those people whom they would naturally love the most? That seems unlikely since we’re commanded in Scripture to honor our parents and love our spouses and children.

Jesus must have been speaking in hyperbole, that is, exaggeration for emphasis. At bare minimum, however, He meant nothing less than this: If we are to be His disciples, we must love Him supremely, much more than the people we naturally love the most. Jesus’ expectation is certainly reasonable since He is God whom we should love with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.

Don’t forget—the job of ministers is to make disciples, which means they are to produce the kind of people who love Jesus supremely, who love Him much, much more than they love even their spouses, children and parents. It would be good for every minister reading this to ask himself, “How am I succeeding at producing people like that?

How do we know if someone loves Jesus? Jesus told us in John 14:21: “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” So it would certainly be reasonable to conclude that people who love Jesus more than their spouses, children and parents are also people who keep His commandments. Disciples of Jesus obey His commandments.

Some years ago, when I was pastoring a growing church, the Holy Spirit asked me a question that opened my eyes to see how far short I was falling in fulfilling God’s general vision. The Holy Spirit asked me the following question as I was reading about the future judgment of the sheep and the goats described in Matthew 25:31-46: “If everyone in your church congregation died today and stood at the judgment of the sheep and the goats, how many would be sheep and how many would be goats?” Or, more specifically, “In the last year, how many of the people in your congregation have provided food for hungry brothers and sisters in Christ, water for thirsty Christians, shelter for homeless or traveling followers of Christ, clothing for naked Christians, or visited sick or imprisoned believers?” I realized that very few had done any of those things, or anything similar to those things, even though they came to church, sang songs of worship, listened to my sermons and gave money in the offerings. Thus, they were goats by Christ’s criteria, and I was at least partly to blame, because I wasn’t teaching them how important it was to God that we meet the pressing needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ. I wasn’t teaching them to obey all that Christ commanded. In fact, I realized that I was neglecting what was extremely important to God—the second greatest commandment, to love our neighbor as ourselves—not to mention the new commandment Jesus gave us to love one another as He loved us.

Beyond that, I eventually realized that I was actually teaching what worked against God’s general goal of making disciples as I taught a modest version of the very popular “prosperity gospel” to my congregation. Although it is Jesus’ will that His people not lay up treasures on earth (see Matt. 6:19-24), and that they be content with what they have even if it is only food and covering (see Heb. 13:5; 1 Tim. 6:7-8), I was teaching my wealthy American congregation that God wanted them to have even more possessions. I was teaching people not to obey Jesus in one respect (just like hundreds of thousands of other pastors around the world).^[1]

Once I realized what I was doing, I repented and asked my congregation to forgive me. I started to try to make disciples, teaching them to obey all that Christ commanded. I did so with fear and trepidation, suspecting that some in my congregation really didn’t want to obey all of Christ’s commandments, preferring a Christianity of convenience that required no sacrifice on their part. And I was right. By all indications, quite a few didn’t care about suffering believers around the world. They didn’t care about spreading the gospel to those who had never heard it. Rather, they primarily cared about getting more for themselves. When it came to holiness, they avoided only the most scandalous sins, sins that were condemned even by unregenerate people, and they lived lives comparable to average conservative Americans. But they really didn’t love the Lord, because they didn’t want to keep Jesus’ commandments, the very thing He said would prove our love for Him (see John 14:21).

What I feared proved to be true—some professing Christians were really goats in sheep’s clothing. When I called them to deny themselves and take up their crosses, some became angry. To them, church was primarily a social experience along with some good music, just what the world enjoys in clubs and bars. They would tolerate some preaching as long as it affirmed their salvation and God’s love for them. But they didn’t want to hear about what God required of them. They didn’t want anyone questioning their salvation. They were unwilling to adjust their lives to conform to God’s will if it cost them anything. Sure, they were willing to part with some of their money, as long as they could be convinced that God would give them more in return, and as long as they directly benefited from what they gave, such as when their money improved their church facilities.

^[1] In a later chapter I will take a closer look at what Scripture teaches on wealth and stewardship.

This would be a good time for every minister reading this book to ask himself or herself the same question the Holy Spirit asked of me: “If the people I minister to died right now and stood at the judgment of the sheep and the goats, how many would be sheep and how many would be goats?” When ministers assure people of their congregations who act like goats that they are saved, they are telling them the exact opposite of what God wants them to be told. That minister is working against Christ. He is taking sides against what Jesus wants such people to be told according to what He said in Matthew 25:31-46. The entire point of what Jesus said there was to warn the goats. He doesn’t want them to think they are going to heaven.

Jesus said that all men would know we are His disciples by our love for one another (see John 13:35). Surely He must have been speaking of a love that exceeds the love that non-Christians show each other, otherwise His disciples could not be distinguished from nonbelievers. The kind of love of which Jesus spoke is a self-sacrificing love, when we love each other as He loved us, laying down our lives for each other (see John 13:34; 1 John 3:16-20). John also wrote that we know we have passed out of death to life, that is, been born again, when we love each other (1 John 3:14). Do people who grumble, speak against, and hate ministers who teach Christ’s commandments display the love that marks them as being born again? No, they are goats, on the road to hell.

Before we move on, let’s look once more at Matthew 28:19-20, the Great and General Commission that Jesus gave to His disciples, to see if we can glean any other truths from it.

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20a).

Note that Jesus wants disciples made in all the nations, or more correctly stated according to the original Greek, all the ethnic groups of the world. If Jesus commanded it, I am led to believe that it must be possible to do so. We can make disciples of Jesus in every ethnic group of the world. The task was not given just to the original eleven disciples, but to every single disciple after them, because Jesus told the eleven to teach their disciples to observe all He had commanded them. Thus, the original eleven taught their disciples to obey Christ’s commandment to make disciples of all the nations, and this would then be a self-perpetuating commandment for every subsequent disciple. Every disciple of Jesus is supposed to be involved in some way in the discipling of the nations.

This explains in part why the “Great Commission” has not yet been fulfilled. Even though there are millions of professing Christians, the number of actual disciples who are committed to obey Jesus is much less. The large majority of professing Christians do not care about disciples being made in every ethnic group because they simply aren’t committed to obeying Christ’s commandments. When the subject is brought up, they will often use excuses such as, “That’s not my ministry,” and, “I just don’t feel led in that direction.” Many pastors make such statements, as do all goats who pick and choose which commandments of Christ are worthy to fit their agenda.

If every professing Christian truly believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, before long everyone in the world would hear the gospel. The collective commitment of Christ’s disciples would make it happen. They would stop wasting all their time and money on temporal and worldly things, and use them to accomplish what their Lord commanded them to do. Yet when godly pastors announce that a missionary is going to be speaking at an upcoming church service, he can often expect that attendance will drop. Many of the goats will stay home or go elsewhere. They aren’t interested in obeying the last commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sheep, on the other hand, always become excited at the prospect of being involved in making disciples of all the nations.

One last point in regard to Matthew 28:18-20: Jesus also told His disciples to baptize their disciples, and the apostles faithfully obeyed this commandment. They immediately baptized those who repented and believed in the Lord Jesus. Baptism, of course, represents a believers’ identification with Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. New believers have died and been raised as new creations in Christ. This truth Jesus wanted dramatized in the baptism of every new believer, imprinting upon his mind that he is now a new person with a new nature. He is one spirit with Christ, and is now empowered to obey God by Christ who lives within him. He was dead in his sins, but now has been washed clean and made alive by the Holy Spirit. He is more than “just forgiven.” Rather, he has been radically transformed. Thus, God is indicating once again that true believers are different people who act much differently than they did when they were spiritually dead. This is certainly also implied by Jesus’ closing words, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:29). Would it not be reasonable to think that Christ’s continual presence with people would affect their behavior?

Jesus continued speaking to the multitudes that day who were going along with Him by saying,

Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple (Luke 14:27).

This is the second requirement Jesus laid down to be His disciple. What did He mean? Are disciples required to literally carry large beams of wood with them? No, Jesus was again using hyperbole.

Most, if not all, of the people in Jesus’ Jewish audience would have witnessed condemned criminals dying on crosses. The Romans crucified criminals along major thoroughfares outside the city gates to maximize crucifixion’s effect as a deterrent to crime.

For this reason, I suspect that the phrase, “Carry your cross” was a common expression back in Jesus’ day. Every person who was crucified had heard a Roman soldier say, “Take up your cross and follow me.” Those were words the condemned dreaded, as they knew it marked the beginning of hours and days of gruesome agony. So such a phrase could have easily become a common expression that meant, “Accept the inevitable hardship that is coming your way.”

I imagine fathers saying to their sons, “Son, I know you hate to dig out the latrine. It’s a smelly, dirty job. But it’s your responsibility once a month, so take up your cross. Go dig out the latrine.” I imagine wives saying to their husbands, “My dear, I know how you hate to pay taxes to the Romans. But today our taxes are due, and the Tax Collector is coming up our road right now. So take up your cross. Go pay the man.”

Taking up one’s cross is synonymous with self-denial, and Jesus used it in that sense in Matthew 16:24: “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” It could be paraphrased, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him put aside his own agenda, embrace the inevitable hardship that is coming as a consequence of his decision, and follow Me.”

So, true disciples are willing to suffer for the sake of following Jesus. They’ve already counted the cost before they began, and knowing that hardship is inevitable, launched out with determination to finish the race. This interpretation is supported by what Jesus said next about counting the cost of following Him. Two illustrations made His point:

For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, “This man began to build and was not able to finish.” Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and take counsel whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks terms of peace.

Jesus’ point could not be clearer: “If you want to be My disciple, count the cost in advance, lest you quit when the going gets rough. True disciples accept the hardship that comes as a result of following Me.”