“Well done, good and faithful servant!”[1] It is good and right of you to seek a return on what belongs to your Master. All authority in heaven and on earth does, after all, belong to Him.[2]

But do not despair:

The Kingdom of God is not a machine, and you are not a cog in a wheel. When the Lord said, “Go and make disciples,”[3] He wasn’t overlooking the disciples He had. He’s not urgently scrambling for new saints to fill the chair of buried ones so the Kingdom project doesn’t die out. No; as in the parable of the servants with the talents, His call to the faithful is, “Enter into the joy of your Master.”[4] This joy—union with the One who owns and masters heaven and earth—this is the reward of every disciple. This is the life He saves us for; He makes us disciples that we may gain it. It is His generous gift to call disciples out of darkness and into His marvelous light, to make them a people when they were not one before.[5]

And you, Christian, are one of them. If Christ’s command on your life is to make disciples, then you are one yourself. You are one of these servants bound for inheritance with the Master. You’re not a mere tool in an operation. You’re beloved, called, and your unfading inheritance is kept in heaven for you.[6]

Do you remember how all this can be? “Not by might shall a man prevail.”[7] Remember—how were you saved? It is by grace, through faith. It is because “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us,”[8] interceded from eternity to your time-bound existence and deigned to save you from your sin. You—who were dead in your transgressions. You—who hated God and the people He loves. It is “by grace you have been saved.”[9] Christ called His disciples from their boats and tax booths before He commissioned them on the mountain. “For from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”[10]

You’re a disciple. And you didn’t get here by your efforts, your labors, your savvy, your achievement. You got here because when you were God’s enemy and utterly dead, He had mercy on you, forgave your death-sentencing debts to Him, and made you alive. All this He did because He loved you. And if He loved you that much then, surely He loves you more than enough to keep you to the end. Surely, He will bring you into His joy. Only remain His faithful servant, the privileged name He gave you by grace.

He sends you out now to make disciples not because salvation history depends on you—you who benefit from it—but because laboring alongside Him is sharing His joy. The very call to join the Master in making disciples (multiplying His grace) is a gift He gives you from His treasury.

And remember, dear Christian, that at every moment of your servanthood, you are still His disciple. He still loves you. Surely He is with you always.[11] He sends out His word that it may bring forth return. So when you enter times of solitude or weakness or the limitation of being human in a battering world, remember that even if one sentence of His word, when it meets you, makes only a return in your own inner life, presenting you another inch of His incomprehensible love for you, pulling you a little deeper into the freedom of depending on Him, refreshing your ragged breath with the fresh wind of faith—it has still brought a return.

This is the making of a disciple.

He loves you that much, little sheep, that your own faith in Him is worth to Him the laying down of His life and the rejoicing of Him and His angels.

You are not a cog in a wheel.

You, Disciple, are a beloved guest at the table of heaven and earth’s King.

And it’s from the joy of this honored gift that you therefore go, extend His invitation, multiply His treasures, and call more disciples home.

 

[1] Mt 25:21. All Bible references are to the English Standard Version (ESV) (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001).

[2] See Mt 28:18.

[3] Mt 28:19.

[4] Mt 25:21. Emphasis added.

[5] See 1 Pt 2:9-10.

[6] See Jd 1 and 1 Pt 1:4.

[7] 1 Sam 2:9.

[8] Eph 2:4.

[9] Eph 2:5, 8. Emphasis added.

[10] Jn 1:16. Emphasis added.

[11] See Mt 28:20.