How to make disciples “as you are going” about your work
How Kennon’s near-death experience in a plane crash changed his work, how common misapplications of the Great Commission thwart your purpose at work, and why we need to “do less” and “abide more” to effectively make disciples.
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[0:00:05] JR: Hey, friend. Welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast. I'm Jordan Raynor. How does the gospel influence the work of mere Christians? Those of us who aren't pastors, or religious professionals, but who work as farmers, special forces officers, and engravers. That's the question we explore every week. Today, I'm posing it to Dr. Kennon Vaughan, Lead Pastor at Harvest Church in Memphis, Tennessee, and Founder of Downline Ministries. Dr. Vaughan is one of the people God used a decade ago to transform my thinking on the Great Commission, and we finally had a chance to connect live for the first time here on the podcast.
We talked about this brutal and tragic accident. Dr. Vaughan was in on a plane crash in January of 2023, and how it changed his relationship to his work. We talked about how the most common misapplications of the Great Commission are thwarting your purpose at work, and we talked about why you and I need to do less and abide more if we want to be effective at making disciples in the workplace. Friend, you are not going to want to miss this terrific episode with Dr. Kennon Vaughan.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:01:24] JR: Dr. Kennon Vaughan, welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast.
[0:01:27] KV: Oh, man. Thank you so much, Jordan. So honored to be here with you.
[0:01:30] JR: I was telling you before we recorded, I don't think there's a person alive that I've quoted more that I have not actually talked to live than Dr. Kennon Vaughan. The honor is all my, man, really. It's a treat to have you here. Hey, I mentioned to you before, I define this term mere Christians as those who aren't pastors, or religious professionals. You're not a mere Christian as I define it. You're a pastor. But I love bringing people with your experience onto the show from time to time to help our listeners just better understand a specific aspect of how our faith should shape the work we do in the world.
Today, I want to start by diving deep into your excellent teaching on the Great Commission, because it's probably the best I've ever heard. I remember, man, you might not remember this, I think it was on RightNow Media 10 years ago. You had this downline discipleship video, and you just said something that totally stopped me in my tracks. You said that go is not the primary command, Matthew 28:19. Whereas, the NIV says, Jesus said, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Explain why go is not the primary command here, Dr. Vaughan. Help us understand this.
[0:02:38] KV: Sure. Well, the reason it's not the primary command is because it's not a command at all. It's a part of simple –
[0:02:44] JR: I'm teeing you up.
[0:02:45] KV: Yeah, yeah. You're teeing me up. Listen, I'm not a linguistics scholar, but I've studied under some. This is one of those passages that's been riveting for me to study. Just as you said, it's been eye-opening as you've heard me teach. I stand on the shoulders of many good and wise scholars, literary scholars, and what they've taught me and what I've seen in my own research and come to learn is that in Matthew 28:19, there is a command. The command is matheteusate, which is to turn men into disciples. It's that verb right there, make disciples. You have these other prominent verbs in the verse. You have “go” and you have “baptizing,” you have “teaching,” and all three of those are participles that really tell us how we're to carry out the command, which is to make disciples.
Specifically on that word go, if you really want to geek out on it a little bit, it's a participle of attendant circumstance, which is to say that you can't carry out the force of the primary command, which is the only command to make disciples without going. But go itself is not the command. This is not ultimately a text about how far you go, or where you go, but what you do as you go.
[0:03:53] JR: Yeah, the Literal Standard Version, which I quote frequently renders Matthew 28:19 this way, “Having gone, then disciple all the nations.” Would you argue, that's a more accurate translation of Jesus's words?
[0:04:07] KV: Well, that is the accurate. It's in the aorist tense, which we didn't mention, but if you were to transliterate this accurately from the Greek, it would be having gone. That's the idea. You picked your Jesus, huddle up on this rock outside of Galilee. This is the only post-resurrection appearance of Christ that's set by previous appointment, which just gives you an idea of how –
[0:04:27] JR: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Can you tell me more about that? What do you mean by that?
[0:04:31] KV: Yeah. We have 11 post-resurrection appearances of Christ recorded in scripture, and then others that are referred to that we don't have a specific account of. We just know that there were many more, but 11 that we have an account of. This is the only one that Jesus set by previous appointment. In other words, before he even endured the cross, he had set an appointment right here that, “Hey, you guys to the disciples meet me at the designated place in Galilee on the other side of this thing.” That's in Matthew 26, that's recorded. Then the angel actually reminds Mary when she sees the angel at the tomb, “Hey, go tell the disciples to meet Jesus where he told them to meet them.” So, there's a reminder. They go, “Oh, yeah. He told us to go to this place.”
I mean, there's an incredible significance to this particular meeting, because Jesus appointed it before he even went to the cross. It's the only such meeting. Only such. He didn't just surprise them and show up in their presence and appear to them. This one, they went and they met. The reason this meeting in Jesus's mind, I was so significant is because of the significance of the command. There was a, from the time he called them three years previous, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” Well, three years they walked with him, they learned from him. They, in so many ways became like him. As Luke 6:40 says, the student becomes like his teacher. There was this incredible discipleship process that happened.
Then we come to this great commission, as it's been called since the early days of the church, that it's not done yet. Jesus wants to task them to make disciples of others the same way he did with them. The idea of having gone as, hey, when we break this huddle, so to say, having gone from here, the only thing we have left in a way of Jesus physical presence with them is the ascension. Of course, they're going to be staring at the sky. The angel’s going to say, “Hey, he will descend in the same way you see him ascending today. So, get to work. What are you waiting on?”
Jesus' message that's ringing in their minds and in their hearts, which we see readily in the book of Acts, play out is having gone when we break the huddle. “Here's what you're to do. Here's the command. Make disciples. Turn men into followers and learners of Jesus Christ.”
[0:06:46] JR: Yeah. I love how you pointed out that Jesus himself didn't “go” to “all nations,” right? He went, I don't know, a couple of hundred miles away from his hometown. Talk more, be more explicit about what that means for our listeners right now, today, who are going to work right now at Amazon, or in their local coffee shop, or whatever.
[0:07:07] KV: Yeah. That's one of the things that I find so perspective-shifting and critically important about really diving deep into this text. Just to back up one step for this explanation, I've probably heard this passage, Matthew 28, 18 through 20, I've probably heard it taught at least half a dozen missions conferences that I've attended at local churches. I love missions conferences. I love bringing in missionaries from around the world and hearing of what God's doing in other places.
Oftentimes, this text will be taught almost every time I've heard it in that context. It's taught with a specific application to all those who attend. The application is, hey, we've got these missionaries, or here are the stories of what God's doing. They're called to be missionaries. Not all of us are called to be missionaries in cross-cultural context, which I would agree with that in terms of the cross-cultural context. They say, “Hey, there are three applications to this weekend, this conference”
[0:07:59] JR: Pray, give, go.
[0:08:01] KV: Yeah, that's exactly right. To pray, give, to go. What I hate is I really feel like, at the end, those are all great applications for Christians. Certainly, we'll be praying for the gospel advancement at the ends of the earth. We want to give towards that, what better stewardship of our financial resources can we have and should God make opportunities available, or even lay a specific calling on it. Let's go. To use this particular text with those three applications actually misses the primary application for everyone.
That's that every single attender of that conference and every single Christ follower has a command when they leave that night having gone from this missions conference, having gone from here, when you leave your house in the morning, having gone, as you get up and go, we are to be disciple-makers right where we are. You said it, Jesus liberally didn't leave more than 200 miles from his own hometown. I don't think he's commanding us to see how many places we can go to, or how far we can go. This command is for the entire army of Christ that as we go, we are making disciples. It's a lifestyle for a lifetime, just as it was for Jesus. We're following the footsteps of the one who spent 85% of his public ministry with 12 men.
Surely, and my spiritual father taught me this sitting on his porch step over 20 years ago, he said, “Jesus Christ, surely he saw the masses. He cared for the masses. He had compassion on the masses,” Matthew 9. “He bled for the masses. But he saw the masses through the man and he built the man to reach the masses.” He said, “If we're following Jesus, that's the strategy for world impact that he's given us.” We have that same opportunity to see the masses, have a heart that breaks for the lost to the ends of the earth. Right where we are, we can pour into a few, we can disciple a few right where we are, who if the command holds will disciple others, who will disciple others, there's a multiplying effect of the gospel going forth that will eventually and inevitably reach the ends of the earth, if we're faithful right where we are.
[0:09:58] JR: That's so good. I, Lord will and I'll never forget the way you articulated it in that video I watched 10 years ago. You said, “It wasn't about how far Jesus went. It’s about what he did while he was going. The same is true for you and me.” Just to make this abundantly clear to our listeners, right, Dr. Vaughan, you're saying that the listener who is currently working as an executive at Walmart can be as obedient to the great commission as the listener living in a mud hut 5,000 miles away from Bentonville, Arkansas. Yes?
[0:10:32] KV: 100%. And can be every bit as effective as I am, pastoring a church and leading a nonprofit discipleship-oriented ministry. That the idea is every Christ follower has been given the same privilege of the stewardship of the great commission. Again, I'm going to refer to my spiritual father multiple times, probably. His name is Soup Campbell.
[0:10:53] JR: What a name. What a name.
[0:10:54] KV: What a name. I know it.
[0:10:55] JR: Goodness gracious.
[0:10:56] KV: Now, Jordan, his real name is Roy, but nobody knows that, but his mom. Now me, you, and a couple hundred thousand listeners.
[0:11:01] JR: Soup Campbell.
[0:11:02] KV: Yeah, Soup Campbell. That’s what I knew him. Soup said, “If you really understand, lay hold of, live out the commission.” Whether you're the Walmart exec that you talked about, whether you're living in the mud hut on the other side of the world. Then long after you're in glory with Jesus, you're going to have a downline. That's where the name for Downline Ministries came from. A spiritual downline that's multiplying to the ends of the earth. You'll be worth more even when you're dead to the Lord than right now in your life, because of the impact of your disciple-making long after you're gone.
If I can give you one story, one example, I was in youth ministry some 25 years ago, and just by God's grace, I formed a relationship with a young man. He was a sophomore in high school. When I met him, he did not know the Lord. By God's grace, God convinced him of his sin, broke his heart, and opened his eyes to the truth of the gospel. He received Christ. This young man was – he was a basketball player at his high school. He's a large public high school. I didn't even know really how much of a leader he was at the time, or what a leadership gift God had put in him, but he was just excited with that new convert energy of sharing the good news with everybody because of his excitement towards just his new birth in Christ. It was unique. I don't see this all the time, but his friends had. God gave them ears to hear, and some of them started coming to Christ, and more and more students.
There was this revival that was happening in the high school from this young man's testimony. I was his youth pastor for a couple of years and then God moved me to Memphis where I am now. He called me one day and he said, “Hey, would you mind coming back?” We were near Kansas City. “Would you mind coming back here and just doing a retreat with some of the guys that were in our small group?” This was eight guys. I said, “Sure. I'd love to come.” Spend the weekend. I came back and I got there. We met for the weekend to just study the word and play ball together and hang out. I got there and there was about 45 guys there.
I said to the young man whose name was Danny, I said, “Danny, I thought this was our small group. Who are these other guys?” He said, “Well, we're trying to be faithful to the commission. Each of the guys, we're all trying to just share the gospel to somebody else in our sphere of influence. Some of us have a little small group where we're teaching those things that you've taught us. We just said, hey, if you've got any guys you're pouring into, got any guys you're doing life with, whether believers or not, just invite them. That's who's here.” I said, “Well, that's pretty cool.”
Well, six months passed and he called me and he said, “Hey, can we do that again, the next year, President's Day weekend when it rolls around?” I said, “Sure.” I showed up again, and there was about 75 guys. I said, “Danny, who are these guys?” Danny was a senior now in high school. He said, “Well, our groups have grown and some of the guys we've been pouring into, they're reaching out and trying to invest their lives in the gospel and others. Almost grown a little bit.” I said, “Wow.” Well, well, six months passed, he said, “Can you come do it again?” He's a freshman in college now. I gather there at the place with them in Kansas City and there's 150 guys there.
I said, “Danny, who are all these guys?” He said, “Well, it's the original small group. Now, they're spread out. They’re in colleges, they're working, two of them are in the army. I don't know. These guys are from all over.” I literally said, I stood up and I said, “Do we have anybody here from the West Coast?” We had a guy from California. We had a guy from North Carolina on the East Coast. We had multiple guys in the military who had been deployed overseas. I stopped and just said, “You know what's so interesting? I was only in that place for two years with a small group of eight guys. But we all got to see just from that gospel investment and then what the Holy Spirit did, turning on the lights and men's hearts is only he can do. There's a growing gospel witness from that little investment in that little place and time that's from California to North Carolina and going overseas as we speak.”
I think every one of us was marked by that. We realized that every single person in that room, though we may never see it housed in four walls, if we just are faithful to follow Jesus' model and his mandate here in the Great Commission, that'll be the testimony of every single believer.
[0:14:57] JR: That's so good, man. It's so good. What a great story. Let's not miss this. You didn't mention any of those guys as “doing and supporting missionaries.” They were college students. You talked about two of them in the army. Listen, the Great Commission to make disciples is indeed great. It's a non-optional command for every follower of Jesus. Man, I do think there's danger in emphasizing the Great Commission so much that we imply that it is somehow replaced the first commission God gave us in Genesis 1, just to make culture and rightly represent him in the world, to take the raw materials of this earth and make it more beautiful for other human beings, benefit and enjoyment, right?
I think it's dangerous for a lot of reasons, but one of which is that scholars tell us that it has always been when Christians are most engaged in the first commission, building businesses, building hospitals, serving the poor, etc., etc., that we've been most effective at the Great Commission. I would argue that's probably going to be true in this increasingly post-Christian context, when entire countries are shutting their doors to donor-supported missionaries, when here in the West, unfortunately, it's pretty unlikely that somebody's going to darken the door of a church to learn about Jesus for the first time. Where are they going to hear the good news? Through those kids in the army. Through those kids going to college campuses. But push back on me. Am I wrong here? Am I right here? Give me your perspective on this.
[0:16:28] KV: No, I think it's an important point to make is that Jesus said of his followers that we're meant to be salt and light. We're meant to preserve. We're not merely to create and cultivate, as you're referring to the first commission in Genesis, but we're meant to preserve truth and a culture, even a culture that is careening away from any semblance of gospel centrality. We're meant to be light that pierces darkness.
You're right. I pastor a church. I love the local church with all my heart. I love the Jesus ministry of shepherding a people underneath, of course, the presence of the good shepherd who is none other than the Lord. Most people in this culture aren't just going to show up at church, especially as their introduction to the gospel. Some do, but more often than not, it's through a person. It's through somebody that is light and salt in a workplace that's light and salt in a school, at a parent's meeting, in their battalion in the army. We were just talking about like, it's somebody. There's something about them that's so different. There's something about them that's unique.
If you ask them, they'd say, gosh, I don't know. It's just they just have a joy that is contagious, even in the midst of difficult circumstances. They have a peace that doesn't even make any sense to me, even when things are going wrong. They have a willingness to love others even when it costs them something. They're going to start noticing the fruits of the Spirit. They're going to notice the Christ in you, probably before they ever know the gospel you believe. It's critical that we have a witness, because of who we are that allows somebody to hear what we believe.
If I can tether that back just explicitly to disciple-making, if somebody asked me, “Hey, what does it even mean to make disciples?” I would go to 1 Thess 2:8, is the most succinct definition in the Bible of what it means to make disciples. In that verse, Paul says, speaking of himself and Silas and Timothy, to the Thessalonians, he said, “We loved you so much that we gave you the gospel of God in our lives as well. Because you became so dear to us.” In that whole chapter, he's talking about, we just lived among you. We worked among you. We were not a burden to you. We didn't ask you to pay us for our ministry. We just wanted to be with you at your dinner tables, at your workplaces. We want to be in your life. The book ends of that, “We loved you so much, because you became so dear to us.”
What gives you the right to speak truth into somebody's life is love. Paul says, “We're going to love you so much that there's an opportunity to speak truth and there's weight to our words. We're going to give you the gospel of God and our very lives.” That's disciple-making. It starts with that relational connectivity that comes from loving somebody and being who Christ has called us to be.
[0:19:11] JR: It's so good, man. All right, so talk to the Walmart executive, or the public-school teacher in your congregation, or the mechanic, or barista. What does it look like – maybe even stories you've heard from your own body, for them to show up and embody love in that way and show love in that way to the co-workers that does raise the question to which the gospel's the only answer.
[0:19:35] KV: Yeah. Well, the first thing that we all recognize is there's only one who really embodies love, that's Christ. The great command we have in John chapter 15 is that we would abide in him and the promise is that when we do that, he'll abide in us. Then there's a further promise. If he's abiding in us, it goes on to say in verse 12, that his joy will become our joy and our joy will be complete. Now, we're in a fallen world. We're going to suffer. There's going to be just suffering, just because life in a post-curse world. There's also going to be trials that will endure. There's going to be spiritual attacks from a very real enemy. There's going to be some tests that God brings into our lives. But amidst all those circumstances that we cannot control and that we don't understand, there's an opportunity for us to abide in Christ.
When we do that, amidst the weight of this world, because every barista out there, you and those you're serving coffee with, you're all feeling the weight of the world. You're all going through stuff. There's only brief glimpses when you go, “Man, everything's just great in my life.” The longer you live, there's a lot more time in the valleys than on the mountain tops. It's when you're in that, you're enduring a trial, or you're enduring suffering, you're walking through something hard. We have this incredible invitation. It's a command, but it's an invitation to just crawl into the lap of our Lord. To be close, to draw near to the Lord as he draws near to the broken heart of the psalmist says.
As we do that, the presence of Christ in us, and boy, Jordan, if I could say one thing about the valleys. I don't ever pray for a valley. I'm probably just not mature enough to do that, but it's in the valleys where I draw nearest to the Lord. I know my need. I know my dependence. When I draw near to him, that's when I find a greater intimacy with him. Here we are, Christians in the workplace, we’re Christians in this world experiencing the same difficulties as every other human. We're having the same human experience in a post-fall world. Yet, there's something so radically different.
There is an intimacy with the Lord. It’s like this little light bulb, and it just keeps getting brighter the harder we're squeezed when we're drawing near to the Lord. The first thing that a Christian's got to do is remember that our privilege is abiding. Everything comes out of that metaphor. When we abide, we’re the branch, he's the vine. If the branch stays connected to the vine, the sap will course through the branch and it will produce fruit. Sometimes if we focus on producing fruit without abiding, we're not going to be able to produce any fruit, or it won't be a good fruit because it's a fruit of our own efforts.
[0:22:20] JR: It’s so good.
[0:22:22] KV: That just the first thing I just would back up and say to your question, hey, what's the first thing we do? Have a true abiding relationship with Jesus. I mean, literally, if we keep that contact intact, then good fruit will come, because of the faithfulness of Jesus. That's what I would say, abide. What does your abiding with the Lord look like from a time of meditation on God's word, a time of prayerfulness, a daily time, to a conversation that doesn't quit, to especially when you're squeezed in trials and suffering. Here's your opportunity. The Lord will not waste one ounce of our suffering. It's an invitation to draw near to him. When we do that, get ready for a harvest of fruitfulness.
[0:23:03] JR: Man, I love this answer so much for a bunch of different reasons. One, I asked you very much a how-to question, a doing question. What is that Walmart executive? What is that public school teacher? What does that mechanic do to show love? Your answer was a bean answer. It’s hey, we can overcomplicate this. Let's make sure first principles, first things first, we're abiding in the Lord, because that's the only way that we are going to be transformed in His image. Then it's almost inevitable. As we abide, we can't help but ooze, grace, and mercy, and love to those that we work with. Is that what you're saying?
[0:23:42] KV: That's exactly right. Because now you're getting into the promises of the Lord. He's saying, “Here's what's going to happen as you abide in me.” Now, we struggle with faithfulness. God does not. Second Tim 2 says, even in our faithlessness, He is faithful. I do think the answer to that, the how-to question is ultimately, a question in identity. It's that we be still in the Lord. That we learn what it means to have His Holy Spirit alive. It's Galatians 2:20. It's no longer me, I've died that Christ is alive in me. He's the only one that can live the Christian life. I can't do it. The Christian life is not hard to live. It's impossible to live. Only Jesus can live it. Only He has lived it. I've got to figure out how the – here's my privilege. I get to be in Christ and Christ in me. Abiding is the answer to how we live in this fallen world, how we love the way that we've been first loved. It's, again, it's the integrity of the gospel seen in our very lives. It's the transforming power that somebody else sees that's at work in us that they sure would love to know could be at work in them, that gives us the starting line, that gives us the relational capital to begin making disciples.
[0:24:56] JR: Yeah. It's really good. That's seen even more clearly in trials, which you're no stranger to. I mentioned before, I've been quoting you for years. Back in January 2023, I'm not sure if you know this, by the way. Back in January 2023, one of your elders emailed me and was like, “Hey, you really need – gosh, I love your work, Jordan. I knew you quote Kennon. Have you ever met Kennon?” I was like, “No.” He's like, “Oh, my gosh. You got to meet Kennon.” He connected us via email. Then eight days later, you were in this horrific accident. Would you mind telling our listeners what happened?
[0:25:28] KV: Yeah. January 17th, 2023, as you mentioned, I was in a plane crash. It was a tragic crash. It was a small plane, a private plane. It was being piloted by an elder in our church, who was actually a spiritual hero of mine, one of the godliest men you'd ever meet, a man that embodied everything we're talking about. His name was Steve Tucker. My best friend, Bill Garner was on the plane. Bill had the unique role in our life, in my life. He was the executive pastor of church, but he was my best buddy. He was my accountability partner. He's in the trenches with me. He was also a little older than me, seasoned life ahead. He was a mentor of mine. Just meant everything to me. Then we had two young guys. In fact, in the nature of this conversation, Jordan, there was two young guys, one of whom I'd been investing my life into.
He was like a spiritual son in the faith. I would say that with full integrity. He was a young man I've been discipling for over a decade. Tyler Springer just loved him. Then another young man, Tyler Patterson, who had recently just found me one day after church and said, “I'd love to spend some time with you.” Then I invited those two young guys to be on this trip. It was two of my mentors, two young guys. We went off what was meant to be a day trip in our plans, a day trip to Texas because Steve had a saddle business there that we were going to go visit, but just really to get time with one another. Just for the fellowship of it.
On that day, the Lord had other plans. We crashed in Yokem, Texas. In the immediate impact of the crash, those four men went to be with the Lord. I was the only survivor of that crash. In the moments after we impacted the ground and my world was spinning. When I came to, there was a stillness. Really like nothing I've ever experienced. I could see that those four men were with the Lord. It was a sacred moment right there. The Bible speaks to the Lord's faithfulness in our lives that when we take our last breath here, our next breath here in his presence to be apart from the body, it says in 2nd Corinthians 10, “To depart from the body is to be at home with Christ.”
It was a moment when those men's faith became sight, Paul says in Philippians 1, “To depart and be with Christ is far better. But to remain with you all for your joy and progress in the faith.” Jordan, I don’t know the Lord's purposes, of course, and the tragedy of the crash that day, nor his purposes in keeping me here. My survival rate of that kind of a crash with that kind of impact was zero. 0.00. It was a complete miracle of God that he kept me here. I believe I find my purpose in that Philippians 1 text, is for the joy and progress of others in the faith. For whatever reason, the Lord has me here a little longer for that purpose, and so I want to be faithful to that.
That was just about 18, 20 months ago, and began a chapter of suffering in my life that's been unequaled in any other chapter. Even I was saying a minute ago to you, the Lord's been so faithful in the suffering to teach me so much, and more than anything, to draw me into a deeper knowledge of him and intimacy with him than I've ever experienced before.
[0:28:31] JR: I've been praying for you off and on and your local body believers for the last 18 months. I remember praying specifically when I first heard about the crash that one of the good things that God would bring about in this horrific trauma is that you would know God in a deeper, more experiential way. I'm curious, what did you know about God cognitively prior to the crash that you now know deeper and more experientially post the crash?
[0:28:59] KV: Man, it's such a great question. It's a question you can spend your whole life thinking about. That's one thing suffering will do. It'll allow you to experience your theology. My theology is, has been, as best I can understand, what God's word says is true about God and his sovereignty and his greatness that he is El Shaddai, God Almighty, and his goodness that he is Yahweh, a covenant-keeping God that we can know and love and Abba Father, and a strong tower and a refuge in time of need. There are verses throughout the Psalms. I've done studies on the names of God. We know God's revealed in his word who he is at a cognitive level.
Then you go through something like that. I hope listeners don't go through something exactly like that, but if you live long enough, you're going to go through some suffering and you're going to lose loved ones. You may get a diagnosis of your own life that reminds you of how fragile life is and how fleeting it is. Whatever it is, it's really when life hits you in the way of suffering that now, God is not just – it's not just the names of God. It's the person of God that we experience what those names communicate in terms of who he is. For 21 days, I was completely immobile in an ICU bed and then a step-down unit, where they were just doing surgeries and trying to keep me alive. I was cognitive through much of that, but I knew I was, day to day.
Jordan, I don't know how else to get somebody there, except to be there. None of us are guaranteed our next breath, or our next day. When you're in that, you really feel the weight of that. Like, wow, this could be my going home day. This could be my going home hour. I mean, your hour-to-hour, your day-to-day. I'm telling you, you cling to Jesus, just the gift of knowing Jesus in those moments and knowing that you have an assurance of what we hope for in Christ. And that every time they take me back and do another surgery and every time I close my eyes realizing, I'm either going to wake up and still be here and hopefully healing, or I'm going to see the Lord. There was an incredible assurance. There truly was a Philippians 4 piece that passes understanding.
There was a sense of not merely God's sovereignty, but God's sovereign goodness, even in the midst of suffering, even amidst all the whys of God, why did this happen? I don't know the will and way of God in the details of my life, but I do know that Romans 8 says, there's not a single detail that is forgotten by God, or not understood by him. We don't understand. He does. It says, he'll use every single experience. He even gives this to us in the context of suffering. He says, for his glory and for our own good. Even those four men, I would never trivialize for a moment the significance of their loss, especially because I'm still very close to all of their families, the three widows, and the children. This is a grief that I bear and walk with each day. God was faithful to those men. Even on that day, he did not forget them. He did not forsake them. He remembered and he finished the work he began in them as he brought them into his presence. He won't forsake their loved ones.
I'm only here for a little bit longer, Jordan. I don't know if it's measured in days, months, or years, but soon enough, we’ll all be where they are. The idea of having a faith that is experienced in the presence of God's faithfulness, when you don't understand and you can't control and you're hurting, that's where these names of God become real. Boy, Jordan, we'd have to have a considerably more lengthy conversation for me to give you all of the things that God's already done. Here's what we know. He purposes even our suffering for good. It's like at the end of Joseph's life. He said to his brothers, “Even though you guys men are for evil, God used it for good.” We know that God's going to use the tragedy of that crash on January 17th for good.
I don't know if this is a bad metaphor, but every day is this gift. Part of the gift of each day is, that I'm still alive, knowing that's a miracle of God, purposed for good that I can't wait to see what it is. Let me just give you one, just one snippet. I know that Dr. Giese wouldn't mind me doing this, but preface this brief story by saying, I think I've got about 20 stories just like this one. That's why I said, we'd have to have a longer call. It was maybe day six or seven after the crash. I'm laying in the hospital bed. Dr. Jordan Giese has been my surgeon. He's a lieutenant colonel in the army. I was at a Brooks Army Medical Center, a trauma one military hospital in San Antonio. Best place in the world I could have been to get treatment.
He was off duty. He wasn't even on call. He was riding a bike in a rainstorm when they were bringing me in. The on-call guy and the on-duty guy were both tied up. He got a buzz on his phone that said, “Hey, can you come in? There's a guy that's stable, but critical condition that was just in a plane crash.” He's riding his bike through the rain to get to the hospital. He scrubs in. It's me. He opens me up and he gets in there. There are so many things going on. I won't bore you with the details. One thing that was weird was there was a green substance that was leaked everywhere. He knew that my bile duct was leaking and he couldn't even find it with all the mix-up of internals going on.
Well, it did about five hours of other surgeries before he ultimately was able to find that my bile duct was completely severed. There was no real template for how to move forward with a severed bile duct. He makes some calls. He goes into MacGyver mode, for the older listeners in our audience. He just rigs up a system that he hopes will drain the bile from my stomach into my lower intestine and allow me to survive. He's in there doing that. Of course, I don't know this. He's in there going, “Golly, there's no playbook here. There's no proven procedure. We're just going on.” He didn't have a ton of confidence in what was happening, but it was the best he could do. He said, “This is the best.”
A few days later, he's watching me like a hawk. A few days later, every day he's just – as he would tell me later, he didn't tell me the time. As he would tell me later, I was waiting for something to go horribly wrong and to reveal itself. We were just going to triage the situation as we went. Day by day went by, nothing was going wrong. One day he came in, he sat down, he took off his surgical mask. He goes, “Hey, tell me your story.” I said, “I'm sorry?” He said, and we had talked about nothing but medical emergency stuff. “Tell me your story.”
I thought, well, I think he wants to hear my story, my testimony. I shared. When I finished, his eyes were teary, and he just was nodding his head in silence. I'd shared about the Lord's – my salvation and my grace through faith in Christ reaching me as a kid, growing me over the decades through his faithfulness, teaching me what he's been teaching me. He sat there in silence. I said, “Hey, why do you ask that question?” I said, “Do you have a relationship with Christ?” He just shook his head, “No.” He said, “You know, as a kid, I did. But I've long since left that.” I said, well, his name is Jordan. I said, “Jordan,” I would never theologically say it like this. I hesitate to do so on this podcast as well. Theologically I wouldn't say like this, “But you know, maybe God wanted to use you to save my life. Maybe he wants to use me to save your life.”
He just leaned forward and he said, “I think he does.” He said, he was so moved. He didn't understand how God was sustaining my life. He said, there's something that was God in this, the miracles were such that even from his brain, which works from more of a scientific bent, more of a medical nature that over the last 15 years, he said, there's something unexplainable. It reignited this faith of a child that he once had and has brought him back to the faith. He and I have become really good friends. My family would travel to San Antonio this summer. We stayed for two days with him and his wife and their kids.
Now he's in Abu Dhabi as the head of a United States hospital there. There's just this man who God has brought back to the faith and the dynamic at working his family. It's just one small story with eternal consequence of how God redeems every ounce of our suffering for good if we'll just trust him with it. It hurts. It's heavy, but God is great and God is good. You watch him begin to redeem. Man, it increases your faith every single day.
[0:37:25] JR: That's so good, man. I love it. As I was dwelling on – I've been thinking a lot about Psalm 90:12 and Ecclesiastes 7, just the wisdom all throughout scripture of thinking about death. Death is the most taboo subject in our culture today. We don't talk about it. We don't think about it. The scripture says, it's wise, and you've been forced to dwell on death over these last couple of years and I'm sure even before that. I'm curious, what's changed in your work. Maybe in how you do the work, how you approach it, how you think about it as a result of spending so much time in this valley over the last 18 months.
[0:38:00] KV: Well, a gift that God's given me through this as one gift. There's been so many, Jordan. One of them is to hold more loosely the things of this world, so that I can hold more tightly to him. That may sound simple, but in the, just the rat race, even though I was previous to the crash and still am in full-time ministry, there's a rat race of life. My beautiful bride now, we've got five children. They're all boys. I've got three teenage boys and then two younger ones. It's just easy to get going so fast, just trying to get kids where they need to be. Your days start feeling more like survival mode than anything else. Just like everybody else out there, I'm trying to live out my faith in the midst of this whirlwind of exhaustion.
I would say, and my wife would say, I didn't realize how tired I was and how burned out I was at the time of the crash until God pushed pause on everything in my life in a real radical way. I mean, for six months, I just laid there. Couldn't even lay in a bed. Just had to sit in a chair. When you have that time to think and to process life and then to rebuild your life. I wish everybody, Jordan, had an opportunity for a gospel reset in their lives, like God's given me. Because it's really hard when you're in the midst of it all to take anything off your plate or to just slow things down or find any margin once it's not there. When your slate is clean and all of a sudden, it's like, you know what? I’ve got nothing on my plate. What do we want to put back?
[0:39:39] JR: It's like, zero-base budget. Starting from zero.
[0:39:41] KV: Yes. Start from zero. We did not put a lot of things back on my plate that were on to make sure –
[0:39:48] JR: Like what?
[0:39:49] KV: Well, I don't know how many people relate to this, but athletics is a big part of my past and growing up, and all my boys love to play various sports, and from the time they were little. I tried to get out there, whether it was coaching them with stuff, or being in all their games. In our home, a big part of the rat race was they're all involved in so many sports and I'm trying to be a part of all of their sporting lives because I want to be a part of their life and there's nothing wrong with that. That was a –
[0:40:13] JR: By the way, the majority of our audience is nodding their heads right now, okay?
[0:40:18] KV: Well, the youth sports culture is like kudzu that had grown all over our lives. It was strangling out A, any margin, but B, even our emotional energy to engage well with each other, just to have a restful rhythm, kind of a Sabbath rhythm, not just on Sunday, but throughout our week. We realized, hey, gosh, all the things that we are most serious about, we're not able to really do because of some things that aren't necessarily sinful or bad, but they've taken over our lives. We made some real significant changes, just for instance, in youth sports. From our boys cutting down what their extracurriculars they're going to be involved in, from me not going to coach them anymore and even more support them in ways that don't hinder me from leading our family in a rhythm of rest and worship.
We just did an about-face in what we prioritized as a family. This sounds funny. It's totally against me, if you know me, if you knew me before the crash, everybody would describe me as a hard charger with endless energy, a go-getter. That was probably true, but not totally nobly. There was a lot of idolatry in there, a lot of insecurity in that, and a lot of just immaturity in that. What we've pursued first and foremost as a family now is rest. Coming out of this period of God confounding me to rest, how do we choose to enter his rest each day as a family? Then, let's live out of that rest as we encounter the world we live in, whether it's a sport we're playing, whether it's our friendships, whether it's the margin that we do now have that we didn't have that we can enjoy him, one another.
There's nothing better just days with no – It's hard to do with seven people in a family, but days when there's nothing on the calendar, I mean, we break out and charismatic worship over there at my house, because we love just being present with one another. We're realizing now how much we were starved from not having that before the crash. That's one gift that God's really given us in this reset.
[0:42:16] JR: That's good. What's the biggest change to your calendar Monday through Friday?
[0:42:20] KV: Well, that's an easy one, because I'm embarrassed about this, and maybe it'll help somebody out there, the Lord's real serious physically about our rest. As again, full-time pastoral ministry Sundays are really busy for me. They say, preaching for an hour is, well, I can't remember it. It's the equivalent of running 10 miles in terms of your physical.
[0:42:37] JR: Yeah, I’ve heard this. Yeah.
[0:42:39] KV: Yeah, we have multiple services. I'm preaching for half a day. Then I've always got luncheons and things. Anyway, I would work Monday through Friday. I think about my sermon on Saturday and I'm preaching and ministering on Sunday. That's part of the rat race I was running. For me, the biggest change was actually having a day of rest. I take Mondays off. That's something I had in theory, Jordan, my whole ministry career. Like, if you'd said, you have an off day, I probably would have said, kind of, yeah. But if you don't guard that ferociously, it's not actually going to be a tangible thing. Now, we do. If you're going to schedule something with me on Monday, you're going to have to do it through my wife and I'll just tell you, good luck.
For everybody, though, again, the barista, the Walmart exec, just your rhythm is not my rhythm, but you'd better have physical and emotional rest built into your rhythm. God said to rest. He rested the seventh day and said it was good. For us that feel like we can keep going, keep burning the candle both ends and not carve that time out. I know you've had Dr. Tim Keller on here, who's with the Lord now and he's done a lot on how do you Sabbath well that we've gleaned from. There's recreational rest, there's meditative rest, where you're actually praying. Then the recreational can be, I have something athletic, something outdoors. Then there's you're pursuing some growth. You're reading books that you want to read, or listening to podcasts that are educational, or stirring your affections for Christ, so that you're still doing things, but it's a purposeful engagement in life that from a place of rest that produces a greater sense of rest in the Lord.
[0:44:08] JR: Yeah, it's so good. It makes you, I would argue, more productive in the things of the Lord those other six days.
[0:44:14] KV: Oh, without a doubt. It's an absolute life changer.
[0:44:18] JR: Yeah, nobody's going to argue – I'm not going to argue that Sabbath was commanded under the new covenant, but it still stands as wisdom. God works six days, rest of one. Jesus works six days, really hard rest of one, in a life-giving way, not in a life-sucking way, like the Pharisees, right? We would be arrogant, I think, to ignore that rhythm. I think that's really the heart of that. All right, Kennon, four questions we wrap up every episode with. Look ahead to the bodily resurrection of your friends on this new earth. You're with them, with Jesus face to face. Revelation 22:5 says, we're going to reign with Christ. Isaiah 65 says, we're going to long enjoy the work of our hands on the new earth.
You're going to be out of a job on the new earth. What do you want God to give you by way of vocational responsibility on the new earth? Is there something you've always wanted to do for his glory, you've chosen not to do in this age?
[0:45:09] KV: Yeah. Yeah, there is Jordan. I spent my childhood growing up on a Texas ranch, a ranch that was in our family. It's actually 45 minutes away from where the crash happened, and we were going to visit the ranch that day. Still in my family. I am the biggest cattle ranch wannabe that you've ever met. Every day, my heart has this longing to go and cultivate the ranch and raise cattle. I just have so much cowboy in me that was never allowed to be developed. I long for it. But I do feel God's calling on my life in this brief time I have on earth in pastoral ministry. Yeah, if you're saying I can do whatever I want in that day, in the new Jerusalem, then yeah, for me, put me on a cattle ranch, please.
[0:45:52] JR: Hey, Isaiah 25 verse six tells us, we got the best of meats and the finest of wines on the new earth.
[0:45:58] KV: Got to come from somewhere.
[0:46:00] JR: It’s got to come from somewhere.
[0:46:01] KV: That's right.
[0:46:02] KV: Kennon Vaughan's cattle ranch in the new Texas. Can't wait to see what the new Texas is like.
[0:46:06] KV: Oh, man.
[0:46:07] JR: Hey, if we open up your Amazon order history, which books would we see you buying over and over and over again to give away to friends?
[0:46:14] KV: Yeah, that's a great question. The ones I find myself giving away the most, I give away, mentioned Dr. Tim Keller, his book on marriage and his book on Counterfeit Gods. Those are two that I give away continually. Counterfeit Gods to folks like me, who could be tempted to get going really fast, pursuing things of this world and our heart susceptible to making idols out of things that are good, but not meant to be God. Marriage if you're married, or entering a premarital counseling, or a season to really understand what marriage is and what it's not, so good.
I also love Thoughts for Young Men. It's actually just a little pamphlet by a Puritan named JC Ryle. It's probably my favorite discipleship resource. I've led 20 discipleship groups over the last 25 years and every young man that I've ever had in a discipleship group, we start our groups with Thoughts for Young Men by JC Ryle. Then Valley of Vision is a really good Puritan prayers for your daily devotionals. I'm going to put one more in there Jordan. Probably too many here, but we've got a guy on our staff named Ronnie Collier Stevens, who is a modern-day Spurgeon, and I don't say that frivolously at all, but he has written some unbelievable books on Genesis, on John, and on Acts that are meant to be devotional.
Again, if you're a Charles Spurgeon fan, or you like the insights that God gives this particular man, he's a 74-year-old, just giant in the faith. I can't believe I get to work around him each day. An absolute hero. But you would be served really well if you picked up one of Ronnie Collier Stevens books.
[0:47:42] JR: All right, Kennon, who would you most like to hear on this podcast, talking about how the gospel influences the work they do in the world? Maybe somebody from your congregation?
[0:47:51] KV: Yes. Well, okay, if I've got to give one, I will pick someone from the congregation. We have a mid-40s. He's a pediatric dentist. His name is James Selecman. We all call him JB, James Benton Selecman. Boy, Jordan, I really hope that you will have the chance to have him on. I don't know. Oh, my goodness, where to begin? I don't know a more authentic, passionate, influential, non-vocationally, just a guy that's out there living out his faith impacting the world so incredibly and with such a full heart is JB. Another reason I'd have him on, he is, I'm going to say this now and that way, it'll break the ice for later, but he’s from the hills of East Tennessee, okay? There's some hillbilly in JB, just so you know. He is absolutely hilarious. If you have him, it'll be your most entertaining podcast of the year. Man, there is nobody living out the great commission in the workplace that I know more than JB.
[0:48:52] JR: That's a great answer. I'd love an introduction to JB.
[0:48:55] KV: You got it.
[0:48:56] JR: That's a terrific answer. All right, Dr. Vaughan, you're talking this global audience of mere Christians doing a bunch of different things vocationally. What they share is this desire to glorify God in their work. What's one thing you want to say, or reiterate to them before we sign off?
[0:49:12] KV: My father passed when I was 16 years old, brain cancer. I was at his bedside when he died. The first time I had ever been at anyone's bedside when they died, much less, a loved one. Something he said to me is that, I just had a privilege of a few moments with him, just one on one. Had two sisters. I was the only son. Dad was my hero. He told me he loved me, which was precious to me. I already knew that, but to have him say it then. Then he asked me if I would take care of my mother, his wife. Man, Jordan, the way that hit me then, I was overwhelmed with emotion. I just immediately, immediately blurted out, “Dad, I'll do that. Don't you worry about that.” He died about two minutes later.
I had this chance for my best friend and leader to give me this commission, if you will. It meant so much to him. I felt this just burst of joy in my heart when he did it, because I was like, “Oh, my goodness. He just gave me what's most precious to him. He just gave it as a stewardship to me to do until I meet him again. There's a way I can honor him with my life until I see him again face to face.” I just want to encourage everyone listening to know the great commission and the way I know my father's commission to take care of my mother.
That Jesus gave us something most precious to him, and he gave it as this glorious stewardship. That every time you are engaged in making disciples, you are doing what honors Jesus the most until you meet him again, face to face.
[0:50:45] JR: That's good. Kennon, man, I want to commend you for the extraordinary work you're doing for the glory of God and the good of others, for who helping our listeners feel that weight and understand that they can be obedient, just this freeing truth that we can be obedient to the great commission in our current vocation and location. Man, thank you for the reminder to redeem the time, to the end of the great commission of making disciples and the first commission and partner with God to make an entire world that oozes his glory.
Hey guys, you can learn more about Kennon's terrific work at downlineministries.com. Kennon, are you active anywhere on social media, or did that also fall by the wayside?
[0:51:24] KV: Yeah, truthfully, I'm not. I know it's such a powerful tool that is redeemed for good in so many ways.
[0:51:29] JR: I don't use it either, so you know.
[0:51:31] KV: I'm not a social media guy. Hey, to the listeners you mentioned Downline, we have a nine-month institute where we take folks Genesis through Revelation. We teach all the how-to’s of making disciples pulled out of the New Testament of Christ. Check out the Downline Institute online, if you would love to know God's word, to know Jesus more and really know how to make disciples, we’d love to have you.
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[0:51:52] JR: Man, I hope you guys enjoyed that episode as much as I did. Hey, if you've been listening to the show for a long time, you know how passionate I am about not sacrificing the first commission in our discussions about the great commission. Man, great commission is indeed great. So are all of other of Jesus's commissions and demands. It is great. All of us are called to make disciples, not just the missionary’s picture on your refrigerator, not just the pastor of your local body. Every follower of Jesus is called to make disciples, as we go about the work God gave us to do in the first commission. I pray that this episode has challenged you to do that and equipped you with a new way of thinking about how to do that. I loved Kennon's emphasis on abiding in Christ. Less about doing more, but abiding so that we can ooze Jesus to others. Guys, thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next week.
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