What Is the Result of Disciple Making: Fruitful Growth and Generous Love
- What Is the Result of Disciple Making is a church that grows fruitfully as God brings the increase through faithful seed sowing.
- Disciple multiplication spreads the gospel worldwide when believers invest deeply in a few who disciple others.
- Generous love becomes the hallmark of true discipleship, producing cross shaped action that benefits others.
What is the result of disciple making? Here’s the answer we’ll explore:
Disciple making results in a church that grows fruitfully and loves generously.
Let’s cast a vision for the end result and why we want to be disciples who make disciples. Revelation 7:9 gives us a picture of what we’re working toward. John describes the vision God gave him:
“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.”
It’s a picture of people from every place on planet earth before God in the new heaven and new earth, being blessed by God and worshipping him. And we cannot wait!
1. Disciple Making Produces Fruitful Results
Sometimes in the church, we act like results don’t matter. But results matter to God. If you look at the Matthew 13 parables, which we might call the “kingdom parables” or “disciple making parables,” Jesus begins by describing a farmer sowing seed. Some seed falls here, some there, and some somewhere else. But what is he most interested in? That fourth soil, the good soil that produces a fruitful harvest.
That’s a life that’s making a difference in another life.
In Mark 4, we get an idea of the mystery of what God is doing through people. Listen to what Jesus says:
“This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” (Mark 4:26–29)
I (Scott) planted my garden this week, and it’s exciting to look at it and realize that God is going to do amazing things. We’re part of this process, but God is the one who really produces the results. We do our part, but God gives the increase. And it’s exciting to think about getting to work with God to produce those results!
“Sometimes in the church, we act like results don’t matter. But results matter to God.”
2. Disciple Making Multiplies Through Investing in a Few
Think about Jesus and just how amazing he is. We’ve talked about how he’s our hero and how much we care about him. But think about this: If you were going to change the world, how would you do it? Jesus decided to change the world by investing most of his time in just a few people.
Think small.
Jesus invested himself in a few people, knowing that if they would do the same, and then teach others to do the same, the impact would multiply and change the world. 
Here’s something I love for people to think about. Imagine that in your lifetime, you led 30 people to the Lord and discipled them. Then, over the course of their lives, each of those people discipled 30 more people. And those people each discipled another 30. And then those people discipled 30 more. Are you starting to get the picture?
We did the math on these numbers, and you get to the point where, in about 80 years, if everybody does it, you could have 2.187 billion disciple makers!
Let me say that again: 2.187 billion disciple makers.
If each of those disciple makers led 30 people to the Lord, the whole world could know about Jesus.
“If each of those disciple makers led 30 people to the Lord, the whole world could know about Jesus.”
It’s like the illustration of the checkerboard, where you start with one grain, then double it to two, then four, and keep doubling. By the time you get through the whole checkerboard, the amount is astronomical.
That’s the multiplication factor of disciple making.
But it’s quality that multiplies quality. We’re talking about parents discipling their children, and then those children growing up and discipling others. Think about the impact of discipling just 30 people over the course of a lifetime. It’s amazing what God can do through that kind of investment. And those are the kinds of results that express what God wants.
3. Disciple Making Multiplies the Love of God
But there’s something important we need to emphasize: It’s not just about numbers. Disciples aren’t just numbers. It’s about quality, and it’s about multiplying the love of God. That’s why we use the expression loving generously. Disciples love generously. As the Bible describes it in John 13, love is the real hallmark of disciples.
We love the definition that Kelvin Teamer gives of Christian love in his book Kingdom Life: “Love is cross-shaped action that glorifies God and benefits someone else.”
That’s the driving motivation behind making disciples and serving people. It all ties together. Disciple making is compelled by love and grounded in the love described in the Great Commandment. And it results in genuinely blessing people in their lives.
“Disciple making is compelled by love and grounded in the love described in the Great Commandment.”
4. Think Small, Go Deep, and Let God Make It Big
As we were thinking through all of this, I (Scott) had an image come to mind. Remember how Revelation describes silence in heaven for about half an hour in connection with the prayers of God’s people? Imagine if 2.187 billion people were praying—praying like disciples, glorifying Jesus. What would that do to change the world?
The potential results of disciple making are astronomical. But it starts with us thinking small and asking how we can pour our lives into a few people. Think small, go deep, and God will make it really big. That’s the long-term impact of disciple making: a church that grows fruitfully, loves generously, and multiplies disciples who make disciples.
This is Question #4 discussed in Disciple Making: The Core Mission of the Church, by Bobby Harrington and Scott Sager.
Keep going: everything we have written on disciple making is collected in one place.
