Costly Discipleship
Sermon 4 in the series, “Free Grace in Focus – A Biblical Answer to Lordship Salvation”
Chuck Sligh / September 4, 2010
TEXT: John 8:31 – “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed.”
INTRODUCTION
Illus. – A group of people were given an all-expenses-paid trip to a wilderness area camp. – Here are some responses from comment cards given to the staff about their experience:
--Trails need to be reconstructed. Please avoid building trails that go uphill.
--Too many bugs and leaches and spiders and spider webs. Please spray the wilderness to rid the areas of these pests.
--Please pave the trails…Chair lifts need to be in some places so that we can get to wonderful views without having to hike to them.
--The coyotes made too much noise last night and kept me awake. Please eradicate these annoying animals.
--A MacDonald’s would be nice at the trailhead.
--Too many rocks in the mountains. (Mike Neifert, Light and Life (February 1997), p. 27.)
This illustrates the two experiences of our relationship with God—salvation and discipleship. Just as these people’s trip to the wilderness area was totally free to them, so SALVATION is a free gift to every person who will simply trust in Jesus for salvation. But once these people got to the wilderness area, to experience all that was there for them required work and commitment on their part, the very same things required to experience the next level in our relationship with God—DISCIPLESHIP.
This is the last sermon on our focus on God’s free grace. In this series, I’ve tried to clarify the freeness of salvation—that the only condition to be saved is to BELIEVE in Jesus Christ, which means to TRUST in Him for salvation, to REST in His promise to save you based on His death on the cross for your sins.
Today I want to talk of God’s plan for you AFTER you believe—His plan of discipleship.
Illus. – Comedian Yakov Smirnoff said when he first came to the United States from Russia he wasn’t prepared for the incredible variety of instant products in American grocery stores. – He said, “On my first shopping trip, I saw powdered milk—you just add water, and you get milk. Then I saw powdered orange juice—you just add water, and you get orange juice. And then I saw baby powder, and I thought, WHAT A COUNTRY!”
Disciples are not made simply by adding water. That’s how you become a believer: Just add Jesus—the Water of Life—by trusting in Him to save you from your sin. No cost and no effort on your part; just reception. But following Jesus in discipleship WILL cost you.
Leadership magazine once ran a cartoon that showed a church building with a billboard in front that said: “The LITE CHURCH: 24% fewer commitments, home of the 7.5% tithe, 15 minute sermons, 45 minute worship service; we have only 8 commandments—your choice. We use just 3 spiritual laws and have an 800 year millennium. Everything you’ve wanted in a church … and less!” (Leadership, Summer, 1983, p. 81.)
Let me assure you that this mentality of the Christian life is not discipleship at all. Billy Graham said, “Salvation is free, but discipleship costs everything we have.”
In today’s sermon, I would like to answer four questions about discipleship. Let’s jump right in:
I. FIRST, WHAT IS A DISCIPLE?
The Greek word translated disciple in the New Testament simply means “a pupil, apprentice, adherent” (BAGD (A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature), s.v. “mathaetes,” 486-48.) and is found 284 times in the New Testament.
In a general sense, the New Testament speaks of disciples as followers of various people, including Moses, the Pharisees, John the Baptist, Paul or Christ. At first, the term did not necessarily imply any particular level of commitment.
But Jesus gave the word richer meaning than simply “a pupil, apprentice or adherent.” He progressively refined the ideal of a disciple as one wholly committed to Him. Though no disciples fully reach the ideal their entire Christian lives, and some fall woefully short of the ideal Christ laid down, Jesus desired that everyone who believes on Him would become a devoted disciple.
II. NEXT, LET’S CONSIDER WHO IS A DISCIPLE?
It’s very important to differentiate between being a BELIEVER and a DISCIPLE. Here’s where a lot of confusion about salvation and the Christian life comes into play. The following chart explains the differences between salvation and discipleship. (EXPAND AS LED)
NOTE: The two lists below works best side by side in a single table of two columns for easier comparison and has been formatted in this way because it does not show up properly on SermonCentral.com.)
SALVATION VS DISCIPLESHIP
Salvation: Speaks of justification
Discipleship: Speaks of sanctification
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Salvation: Invitation: Believe in me
Discipleship: Invitation: “Follow me” (or “Come after me”)
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Salvation: Passive (simply received)
Discipleship: Active (must be worked for)
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Salvation: Positional in the heavens
Discipleship: Practical here on earth
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Salvation: Obtained … By grace; Through faith; By Christ’s love for me; By Christ’s commitment to me; By Christ’s dying on the cross for me
Discipleship: Obtained … By works; Through faithfulness; By my love for Christ; By my commitment to Christ; By my taking up my cross for Christ
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Salvation: Results in eternal life
Discipleship: Results in eternal rewards
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Salvation: Is totally free to the believer
Discipleship: Is very costly to the believer
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Salvation: An unsaved person’s response
Discipleship: A saved person’s response
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Salvation: Relates to Christ as Savior
Discipleship: Relates to Christ as Ruler, Master
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Salvation: Instantaneous (a new birth)
Discipleship: Progressive (a lifetime of growth)
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Salvation: One condition (Faith)
Discipleship: Many conditions (Baptism, surrender, obedience, giving, praying, witnessing, studying God's Word, following all Christ's commands, etc.)
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Salvation: Inclusive (Whosoever will)
Discipleship: Exclusive (Unless ye...ye cannot be my disciple)
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(Chart above adapted and expanded from Charlie Bing, “Why Lordship Faith Misses the Mark for Discipleship” at http://www.faithalone.org/journal/1999ii/J23-99a.htm. )
The confusion comes when you mix salvation with discipleship. This is the primary error of those who espouse a doctrine called “Lordship Salvation.” They take the conditions of discipleship and confuse them with the conditions for salvation.
But to equate the conditions of salvation with the conditions of discipleship would require a Christian response from nonbelievers. Without the Spirit of God to empower them or the new nature to motivate them, sinners are incapable of making the mature decisions of complete surrender, willingness to obey, or submission to God’s will for their lives. Only a regenerate heart can possibly follow the Lord in discipleship.
The Bible is crystal clear about the ONLY way to receive eternal life: “For by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
But it’s equally clear that God doesn’t want you to remain a spiritual baby. His plan is that you grow in faith by following him in obedient, committed discipleship.
III. SO HOW CAN YOU BE A DISCIPLE?
Jesus laid down several conditions for the ideal of committed discipleship.
The first three are found in His remarks to Peter and the disciples shortly before going to His death and are recorded in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke).
Jesus had just predicted His passion and resurrection and that He must suffer and be killed as part of God’s will for Him.
There was, for Christ, a price to be paid in following God’s will to completion.
Peter rebuked Jesus for saying these things, to which Jesus sharply replied, “Get thee behind me Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (ESV)
Peter’s rebuke of Christ essentially denied that God’s will requires such a price, but Jesus’ subsequent rebuke basically said that this perspective was satanic.
It’s in this context that the three conditions for discipleship are recorded.
Let’s look at them from the Luke passage, so please turn with me to Luke 9:23 – “And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”
Jesus says in verse 23 that if anyone would come after Him—a term that denotes discipleship—he must do three things:
1. First, he must DENY HIMSELF.
This is best understood by what the disciples just heard about Christ’s fate. Jesus was about to submit Himself and His own desires to the desire of the Father, which was suffering and death. So in context, Jesus’ statement that the person who comes after him must “deny himself” means to deny yourself anything that would obstruct the fulfillment of God’s will in your life while following Him. Once you believe, you start on a path of pleasing the Savior, including denying yourself of those things that will hinder your walk with the Lord.
2. Next, to follow Jesus in discipleship one must TAKE UP HIS CROSS DAILY.
Again, the context is the key to understanding this verse. Jesus expected His disciples to suffer hardships in order to do God’s will, just as HE did by submitting to the Cross. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ requires that I be willing to suffer rejection and ridicule and even persecution for Jesus if need be.
It doesn’t mean a disciple seeks to suffer; but it does mean he will not be surprised when it comes, nor will he shrink from it. Listen to Calvin Miller who talks about how cross-bearing Christians are committed disciples, not “Christaholics.”:
Many Christians are only ‘Christaholics’ and not disciples at all. Disciples are cross-bearers; they seek Christ. Christaholics seek happiness. Disciples dare to discipline themselves, and the demands they place on themselves leave them enjoying the happiness of their growth. Christaholics are escapists looking for a shortcut to nirvana. Like drug addicts, they are trying to “bomb out” of their depressing world.
There is no automatic joy. Christ is not a happiness capsule; He is the way to the Father. But the way to the Father is not a carnival ride in which we sit and do nothing while we are whisked through various spiritual sensations.” (Calvin Miller, “The Taste of Joy.” Christianity Today, Vol. 33, no. 17.)
Christian, are you a cross-bearing disciple or a Christaholic Christian? By the way, Jesus says the ideal disciple must take up his cross DAILY. To walk in discipleship is to daily die to self; to daily give up your will for the Father’s will; to daily surrender to Jesus Christ.
3. The third thing Jesus says a disciple must do IS FOLLOW HIM.
To follow Jesus means that by the power of the Holy Spirit living in you, you imitate Him and act according to His example. His life is the pattern for living our own lives. If I am His disciple, He literally becomes my rule of conduct, my pattern. Every action and every decision I make will be made in the light of “WWJD”—“What Would Jesus Do?”
As you can see, following Christ’s ideal of discipleship is not an easy road! But those aren’t the only conditions for discipleship. Let me share some more with you in other places in the Gospels, though I’ll mostly just mention them in passing:
4. In Luke 14:26, Jesus said, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
Any good commentary will tell you the word hate here is a Semitic way of speaking that means “love less,” rather than the strong way it’s used in English. Jesus’ point is that to be His disciple, He must be the object of your supreme love and devotion—above family members or material things.
5. Another condition of discipleship Jesus gives is found in Luke 14:33 – “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.”
The Greek word forsake here is an interesting word which doesn’t mean “reckless abandonment of one’s belongings,” but as Greek scholar Spiros Zodhiates says, it literally means “to properly categorize.” So Jesus is saying that you can’t be His disciple unless you have Jesus and your material possessions in their proper perspective. In other words, Jesus must come FIRST before our own material well-being. No sacrifice is too much for Jesus.
6. In John 8:31, Jesus tells us another condition of discipleship – “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed.”
Here Jesus is saying, “Continue obeying my commands, not just today, but always. Stay with it. Keep on keeping on. Stay faithful” He’s exhorting us to persevere in obedience, not to start and stop, or to be up and down, but to maintain a consistency of faithfulness over time.
Those are some specific conditions of discipleship, but actually discipleship entails becoming a student of God’s Word so that you can follow ALL His commands. Salvation is free, but discipleship is costly.
IV. SO WHY SHOULD YOU BE A DISCIPLE?
1. First, because walking in discipleship leads to freedom from the power of sin in our lives.
In the last passage we read in John 8, Jesus continues and says this in verse 32, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
When you trust in Christ for salvation, all your sins are instantly forgiven, you immediately become a child of God and you instantly possess eternal life. But you have a problem: you still have a sin nature, and not all the sinful habits automatically go away, do they? And sinful habits have a way of enslaving you. The only way to be free from sin’s power is by abiding in truth from God. Though it’s a life-long journey, it’s only in discipleship that you can be truly FREE.
2. Second, it’s through discipleship that we become a special friend of God.
In John 15:14-15, Jesus said this to his disciples, “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. 15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.”
Friendship with God is not something all believers possess. Obedience, the key ingredient of discipleship, allows us to be on special terms with God as a “friend of God.”
James says that Abraham was the friend of God because he obeyed Him (2:21-24). Moses was said in Exodus 33:11 to have been “as a man speaks to his friend” because he too obeyed God. To be a friend of God means to be on a much deeper level of relationship with Him. There is great joy in being in that relationship where God shares special things with a person because he is a friend.
3. Third, you should live an obedient life of discipleship so that you can have boldness at the judgment seat of Christ.
John says something startling in 1 John 4:17 –“Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.”
In context, he was saying that the person who walks in God’s love and continues in fellowship with God—both key elements of discipleship—will have boldness in the day of judgment. The “day of judgment” refers to the judgment of believers called “the judgment seat of Christ,” where believers’ SINS will not be judged like sinner’s sins at the Great White Throne, but rather, God will judge the worth of believers’ works.
Paul tells us about this judgment in 1 Corinthians 3:12-15 – “Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; 13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. 14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. 15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”
The believer who has walked in obedience will have works that will not be burned up under God’s examination and be as gold, silver and precious stones—that is, they will withstand God’s judgment and meet His approval.
He’ll also be rewarded, which according to Matthew 25:21 and 23 includes the Lord’s commendation of “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord” which implies some kind of millennial kingdom authority or rulership.
But the believer who never advanced to discipleship in this life will suffer loss at the judgment seat of Christ, for what works he has will burn up as wood, hay and stubble, and therefore will be denied honor in the millennial kingdom.
I don’t know about you, but I want to have works that meet God’s approval in the judgment and I want be rewarded, and more than anything in the world, I want to hear my Savior say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
CONCLUSION
If you have not come to the place in your life that you are trusting in Jesus Christ alone to save you from your sin, this message has not been for you. You need to realize that Christ died, was buried and rose from the dead for your sins. If you will simply trust in Jesus to save you from your sins, He promises He’ll do it.
This message has primarily been for those of you who are already believers. And it’s meant to show you that according to Jesus’ own words and teachings, to follow Jesus as a disciple is to be TOTALLY COMMITTED. We’re all human and sometimes we will fail in our commitment, but the thing Jesus confronts us with is our willingness to follow him with our whole hearts.
This morning I challenge you to resolve to deny yourself anything that stands of the way of your obedience to God’s will; to take up your cross daily by being willing to stand with Christ and suffer for Him if need be; to imitate the Lord His actions, words and attitudes; to love Christ first and foremost above any and all other people and material possessions; and to CONTINUE in this walk of obedience to Him.
(If interested in the PowerPoint used in this sermon, you may request it from me at chucksligh@hotmail.com.)
