May I encourage you to follow
with me in your own Bibles as I read two portions of the Word
of God. The first, the very familiar
words of our Lord at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew
chapter 28, verses 16 through 20. But the eleven disciples went
into Galilee unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped
him, but some doubted. And Jesus came to them and spoke
unto them, saying, All authority has been given unto me in heaven
and on earth. Going therefore, make disciples
of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I commanded you, and, lo, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the world." And then the second passage is
found in the Gospel of Luke, Luke chapter 14, And the connection between the
two may not be evident on the surface, but I trust to demonstrate
that there is a very vital connection between the two portions, Luke
chapter 14 and verse 25. Now there went with him, that
is, with Jesus, great multitudes, and he turned and said unto them,
If any man comes unto me, and does not hate his own father
and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea,
and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own
cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. for which of you, desiring to
build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost,
whether he have wherewith to complete it, lest, perhaps, when
he's laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all that
behold begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build and was
not able to finish. For what king, as he goes to
encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and take
counsel whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him that comes
against him with 20,000, or else, while the others yet a great
way off, he sends an ambassador and asks conditions of peace.
So therefore, whosoever he be of you that renounces not all
that he has, he cannot be my disciple. Salt, therefore, is
good, but even if the salt is lost its savor, wherewith shall
it be seasoned? It is fit neither for the land
nor for the dunghill. Men, cast it out. He that has
ears to hear, let him hear. And let us now pray that God
would give us all ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to
us in these portions of the Word of God. Our Father, we earnestly pray
that as we attempt to understand the words that have been read
in our hearing that you would send your Holy Spirit to open
the ears of our souls that we may be such as have ears to hear
truly to receive with understanding and with the response of faith
and obedience all that the Lord Jesus will say to us through
His own written words. Send Your Spirit upon preacher
and upon hearer alike, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. Now in the first passage read
in your hearing, Matthew 28 verses 16 to 20, several things are
very obvious on the very surface of the text. Our Lord Jesus meets
the eleven disciples at the appointed place after his resurrection
and before his ascension back to the right hand of the Father.
and he underscores several things that he wants them to know prior
to his ascension back to his father. First of all, he points
to his supreme authority as the risen Lord. He then gives marching
orders to his disciples, and then he promises his abiding
presence. But in the marching orders, central
to those orders is the imperative verb going, therefore, make disciples
of the nations, baptizing them, that is, not the nations, but
those who among the nations are made disciples. Now how would
the disciples to whom our Lord spoke and gave these marching
orders, how would they understand His words? What would they understand
it to mean to make disciples? Well, I think the answer is quite
clear because they had been with the Lord Jesus throughout His
earthly ministry when He Himself had been making and baptizing
disciples. We read in John 4, When therefore
the Lord knew, John 4, 1, that the Pharisees had heard that
Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, parenthesis,
although Jesus himself did not baptize but his disciples, he
left Judea and departed into Galilee. Jesus himself was the
paradigm of what it is to make disciples and then to baptize
such as were made disciples. And therefore when we come to
the gospel records and find any record of Jesus seeking to make
disciples, it is right for us to read from those passages what
the mandate of the Church is in the making of disciples now
that the Lord has returned to the right hand of the Father.
And in the passage read in your hearing from Luke chapter 14,
I sought to emphasize by an exaggerated verbal emphasis The fact that
three times our Lord Jesus says in this one passage, unless this
or that is true, such a one cannot be his disciple. And surely if anyone knows the
terms of true discipleship, Our Lord Jesus knows them, the one
who said, you go and make disciples, not upon terms that you think
are reasonable, but upon the terms that the Lord Jesus himself
has clearly articulated and as are recorded here in such a passage
as Luke chapter 14. Three times I say, verse 26c,
he says, He cannot be my disciple. Verse 27, C. Cannot be my disciple. And verse 33, C. He cannot be my disciple. Unless this is true, no discipleship. Unless this is true, no discipleship. Unless this is true, no discipleship. And I want us to spend a few
moments contemplating this on the occasion of the baptism of
our younger sister in order to underscore afresh in her understanding
and in the understanding of each of us who claims to be a disciple
of the Lord Jesus the non-negotiable terms of discipleship, the meaning
of discipleship according to Jesus. And the first thing we
note is that discipleship means that supreme love and loyalty
must be transferred to Christ Himself. Supreme love and loyalty
must be transferred to Christ Himself. Notice the language
of verse 26. Our Lord turns and faces the
multitudes and says to them, any man, any woman, any boy,
any girl, anyone who is interested in attaching himself or herself
to me as a disciple, if anyone comes to me with a view to being
my disciple and does not hate his own father and mother and
wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and his own
life also, he cannot be my disciple." What is our Lord saying? Our
Lord is saying that discipleship means the transferal of supreme
love and loyalty to Himself from every other person that has a
claim upon our love and upon our loyalty. And this breaks
down into two categories. First of all, every attachment
of human love and loyalty external to us, and then that attachment
of love and loyalty that is internal to us. First of all, every attachment
of human love and loyalty that is external to us. He names those deepest ties of
natural affection and loyalty. Father, mother, wife, children,
brothers and sisters. He goes into the inner circle
where natural affection binds us most securely to other human
beings. And with reference to those attachments
of love and loyalty, Jesus said we must hate them. Now does he
mean that we must conjure up an attitude of despising them
and ill will toward them? Of course not. In the parallel
passage in Matthew 10 in verse 34, our Lord makes it abundantly
clear what he is saying. Matthew 10 in verse 34. Do not
think that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to
send peace but a sword. I came to set a man at variance
against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes shall be those of
his own household. He that loves father or mother
more than me is not worthy of me. He that loves son or daughter
more than me is not worthy of me. And so what our Lord is saying
is that the attachment which he both demands and expects of
every disciple is an attachment that causes every other sphere
of love and loyalty to pale into a secondary place. And the Bible
uses this terminology of differing loves and the lesser love being
the one that is hated and the greater being the one that is
loved. And so the very Jesus who tells
us we are to love our enemies is obviously not calling upon
us to conjure up this negative, nasty attitude toward these who
have the most natural claim upon our love and loyalty. What he
is saying is he will brook no rival. Coming to him, there must
be this attachment to Christ that is utterly, unquestionably
supreme. above every other human love
and loyalty external to us. This is one of the issues that
we seek to press when relatively young men and women, such as
Andrea, apply for baptism and membership. We as elders seek
to ascertain, while not being able to read human hearts, has
this young adult come to the place where if mother and father
stand in the way of their obedience to Christ, they are prepared
for this sword that Christ says He Himself sends on earth. I am come to cast a sword upon
the earth, to set a man against his father, the daughter against
the mother, the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law. And
while we cannot, as I say, read the heart, we seek to probe this
issue. Why? because we have no warrant
to baptize any but disciples. And Jesus said if he does not
have the place of supreme love and loyalty, there is no discipleship. What could be plainer? If anyone
comes to me and hates not father, mother, brother, sister, he cannot
be my disciple. Words could not be more plain,
more explicit. He will not tolerate any rivalry
to that supreme place of love and loyalty with respect to any
love and loyalty external to us. But then notice, he addresses
that attachment of love and loyalty that is internal to us. Look at the text. If any man
comes to me, hates not his own father, mother, wife, children,
brothers, sisters, yes, and his own life also, and his own life also. That's the attachment of love
and loyalty that is internal to us. That is our natural self-love,
that disposition with which we were conceived and in which we
were born and by which the very wheels of our existence are driven. As 2 Corinthians 5.15 says, In
that He, Christ, died for all, that they who live should no
longer henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who for their sakes
died and rose again. The Apostle assumes that all
of us has, by nature, a supreme love and loyalty internal to
us called self. That's why again and again in
calling people into attachment to himself, Jesus made as the
first requisite, if any man will come after me, let him say no
to himself. Let him deny himself. And Jesus says, without this
hatred of self, that is, this attachment to Christ in love
and loyalty, from that which is native and internal to us,
that is our self-love, we cannot, we cannot, we cannot be His disciple. And so all of this talk about
being a believer in Christ and being a disciple of Christ and
yet not being surrendered to Christ and not loving Christ
is sheer nonsense. The Son of God says, if in coming
to Him, There has not been that work of the Spirit of God so
revealing the beauty and the loveliness and the desirableness
of Christ that you have embraced Him, and He now has this place
of supreme attachment, of love and loyalty beyond all attachments
external to you. and beyond that attachment of
love and loyalty that is internal to you, He says you cannot be
His disciple. To be a disciple of Christ means
that by the Word and the Spirit we've seen in Christ what He
describes as the pearl, of great price in Matthew 13, the treasure
in the field. He says the kingdom of heaven
is like unto a man who finds a treasure in the field and for
joy thereof he sells all that he has that he might purchase
that field and have the treasure. And he says, the kingdom of heaven
is like unto a pearl merchant seeking good pearls, and he finds
one great pearl, and he sells all that he has to have the pearl.
Christ is the treasure. Christ is the pearl. And in true
discipleship, he takes that place in the human heart. And without
having taken that place, he does not own us as his disciples. He cannot. He cannot. be my disciple. Therefore, none
should be baptized but those who can say, yes, by the grace
of God, Christ is now the object of my supreme love and loyalty. Every attachment of human love
external to me is expendable, but Christ is not expendable. And that attachment of love and
loyalty that is internal to me is expendable as well. And I
have said no to myself, to the regulating and the disposing
and to the living out of my own life according to my own desires
and my own thoughts and my own perspectives. And I am now prepared,
by the grace of God, to have Christ Himself as my life. So we learn, first of all, that
discipleship means that supreme love and loyalty must be transferred
to Christ. Secondly, discipleship means
that we must choose the way of rejection and suffering in fellowship
with Christ. Discipleship means that we must
choose the way of rejection and suffering in fellowship with
Christ. Verse 27, Whosoever does not
bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Christ says, I own no one as
my disciple but that person who is carrying his own cross. Now what would those words have
meant to these multitudes who were following our Lord at this
time. Well, if you with them lived
in first-century Palestine under Roman rule, the concept of carrying
your own cross meant one thing. You had seen men go out to a
place of execution who were being disposed of in shame, in humiliation,
stripped of every last vestige of human dignity. It was society's
getting rid of its awful. It was society saying, You're
worth no respect, no honor. You are worthy of shame and humiliation. And Christ says, If you would
be my disciple, you must voluntarily Consciously take up your own
cross. And what he is saying is that
we must choose the way of rejection and suffering in fellowship with
Christ. Christ who would bear his cross,
that cross on which he would die as the sin bearer, having
our sins imputed to him, and having the sluice gates of the
holy wrath of God opened up and come billowing and cascading
down upon his own soul as he hung in nakedness, in utter shame,
rejected by society, rejected by the religious crowd, forsaken
by his own disciples, and then even abandoned by his Father. Settle it. to be attached to
Christ is to be marked for the world's scorn and hatred. There is no way that someone
can be a true disciple and have the world be comfortable with
him. Listen to what Jesus said in
John chapter 15, words that are so plain, so simple, so blunt
that we've got to do I don't know what to get around their
clear teaching. Verse 18 of John 15, if the world
hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you
were of the world, the world would love its own. If the world
loves you, that is, this world system under the control of the
devil, with its perspectives of values and standards of right
and wrong, what is acceptable in dress, in entertainment, in
human intercourse and action and reaction, if this world system
loves you and feels comfortable with you, it's a sign that you're
still a part of it. If the world hates you, you know
that it hated Me. If you were of the world, the
world would love its own. But, because you are not of the
world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world
hates you. Remember the word that I said
unto you, A servant is not greater than his Lord. If they persecuted
Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they
will keep yours also. Again, The Apostle Paul, writing
to Timothy, said in 2 Timothy 3.12, Yes, and all who will live
godly in Christ Jesus, not all who simply name the name of Christ
and have a measure of what I have come to call polite, cultural,
Reformed Baptist decency. He says all who will live godly
in union with Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. It's a clear
statement. There's no way we can get around
it without seeking to be nasty, without seeking to be an irritant. If we are living godly and vital
union with Christ Jesus, we are instruments of light that expose
darkness, and when darkness is exposed, it seeks to resist that
exposure, and it directs its venom, its opposition, to the
instrument that is bringing that light. That's why Paul could
say to the Philippians, unto you it has been granted as the
gift of God, not only to believe on His name, but to suffer for
His sake. And where there is this half-baked
attachment to Christ that is so nervous, lest in some way
it upset the world, I don't understand it in the light of the words
of our Lord Jesus. If we are unwilling to take up
our cross, that measure of shame, that measure of rejection, that
measure of scorn that comes in union with Christ, He says, you
cannot be My disciple. The words are clear. No cross,
no discipleship. No discipleship, no salvation. And our Lord makes it plain in
this passage. that not only must there be a
transfer of all supreme loyalty and love to him, but there must
also be by his grace a commitment and a willingness to undergo
rejection, misunderstanding, slander, some form of suffering
for his namesake in fellowship with him. Then thirdly, We learn
from this passage that discipleship means commitment to a life of
unswerving obedience to Christ, supreme love and loyalty attached
to Christ, willingness to suffer in fellowship with Christ, but
thirdly, unswerving obedience to Christ. Verse 27b, if any
man, he says, is unwilling, to take up His cross and follow
Me. To follow Christ is to commit
ourselves to regulate all of life by the Word and the ways
of Christ. We begin our attachment to Christ
as disciples when we heed the call of John 6.37, All that the
Father gives Me, shall come to me, and him that comes unto me
I will in no wise cast out." Discipleship begins in that movement
of the soul in repentance and faith that leads us to attachment
to Christ. But then the same Christ who
said, Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out, said, Come
unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me. For I am meek
and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest to your souls. Christ said, Come! but take and
learn. And if we truly come to Him on
His terms, we come not only to have Him lift the burden of an
accusing conscience, to lift the burden of the horrible reality
that we stand exposed to the judgment and wrath of Almighty
God, but we come to Him with the disposition of willingness
to be yoked together with Him. Take my yoke upon you. The yoke
either being that instrument that binds two animals together
to plow in the same direction, to undertake the same task, or
the yoke that is laid upon the shoulders to carry a burden,
but it is Christ's yoke that is an attachment to Christ and
his purpose, his direction, his concerns for us as his people. And then he says, learn from
me. That is, you come to have your burden lifted, you come
to be yoked to Me, you come to have your mind increasingly saturated
with My Word interpreting all of reality, regulating every
facet of your life, as we saw in our reading in Ephesians 6
this morning. The constant referent point was
that it is the Lord. Children, obey your parents in
the Lord. Servants, you are rendering service
as unto the Lord. Masters, remember you have a
Lord. The whole emphasis is that the
Christian life is a life lived in the presence of and unto the
One who loved us and gave Himself for us. Jesus could describe
His sheep in those words of John 10, 27 and following. He said,
My sheep are hearing My voice, and they are following Me, and
I am giving unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Discipleship means commitment
to a life of unswerving obedience to Christ, in which no area of
life is cordoned off, and we say, no sign of the cross on
that area of my life. But the willingness that the
sign of the cross will be stamped on every single detail of our
lives, in the use of our time, in the choice of our friends,
in our romantic interests, in the way we dress, in the way
we spend our money, in the way we use our liberties, in the
way we eat, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do
all to the glory of God. I beg you, my professing Christian
friend, what area do you have a right to cordon off and say,
Jesus, I don't want your words to touch that. I don't want your
will to regulate that. No. No. He says, you must follow
Me, the commitment of your heart, no matter how stumbling we may
be, no matter how we may fail to live up to the standard, there
is no conscious desire to take one facet of life and mark it
off and say, Jesus, don't touch it. Not one. Not one. And the one you mark off and
say, don't touch it, will damn you. Because that's the point
at which the defiance of your native rebellion against God
is manifested. You cannot, cannot be my disciple
unless you take up the cross and you follow me unconditionally. Follow me. Follow me. But then fourthly, Discipleship
means the renunciation of all we possess for the sake of Christ. Discipleship means the renunciation
of all we possess for the sake of Christ. Look at verse 33 of
our passage. Again, words could not be more
plain. So therefore, whosoever he be
of you, that renounces not all that he has, he cannot be my
disciple." We said, now does that mean that the renunciation
means the liquidation of the title to and possession of all
that we have? Well, for the rich young ruler
it did. But the Lord didn't tell everyone what he told the rich
young ruler. He told him, sell that you have, give to the poor,
come follow me and you'll have eternal life. But he does mean
something when he says, renouncing all you have. That's what he
says. And surely he means, first of all, the renunciation of anything
we have in terms of what we might think is meritorious. that would
give us brownie points with God, just as the Apostle Paul said,
I had great possessions in the way of religious brownie points.
Philippians chapter 3, Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee of
the Pharisees, touching the law blameless, but he says, what
things were gained to me? I counted loss for Christ. I regard them all as scubala,
that is, dung, refuse, scourings. I count them as worthless that
I might have Christ. That's what he's talking about
at the most elementary level, renouncing all that we think
could in some way commend us to God, coming to Christ in the
nakedness of the realization nothing in our hands we bring. Simply to His cross we cling,
but it also means the renunciation of any sense that I have independent
title to anything I have in the way of gifts. in the way of capacities,
abilities, whatever I have, in the way of material possessions,
a renunciation of all that we have is an essential condition
of discipleship. And if you can read your Bible
some other way and help me to understand it, please do so.
But the words stand before us, whosoever renounces not all that
he hath cannot be my disciple. And wasn't that the point of
those two parables in Matthew 13? When that man, maybe he was
a sharecropper following his plow and it hit something in
the field and he dug down in and there was the treasure. When
for joy of finding that treasure he sold all that he had. That's the language Jesus uses,
that he might have the treasure. And the same thing with that
pearl merchant. When he found this one pearl
of rare beauty, exquisite beauty, it says he took all of his assets
and he liquidated them that he might have that wherewith to
purchase the pearl. Discipleship means that we renounce
all we possess for the sake of Christ. There is that disposition
that says if the second person of the Godhead would come to
Mary's womb, and there take to himself true humanity, true flesh
and blood, a human soul and body, and in the mystery of the two
natures in the one person live in this sin-cursed world, and
make his way through to the horrors of the cross in all of its shame
and forsakenness and abandonment, then surely When we are given
to see something of the love of God in Christ for sinners,
we say with the hymn writer, Hear, Lord. Hear, Lord. I give
myself away. It is all that I can do. So I lay before you these four
things that our Lord Jesus says are the non-negotiable terms
of discipleship. supreme love and loyalty transferred
to Christ, choosing the way of rejection and suffering in fellowship
with Christ, commitment to a life of unswerving obedience to Christ,
renunciation of all we possess for the sake of Christ. I ask
you, have I twisted the passage? Have I made it say more than
it obviously says? If so, then the question is,
am I a disciple? Do I have any right, bearing
the badge of baptism, to make disciples of the nations? That
is, by the preaching of the gospel and the setting forth of the
glory and the beauty of Christ in His salvation, by the operation
of the Holy Spirit, He says, you will see men and women, boys
and girls, brought to the place where they will see in Me My
worth. And they will say with the Apostle
Paul, I count all but loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord. As we come to the table, what
a wonderful place to renew afresh in the presence of our Savior
those commitments of heart that marked us when he drew us to
himself and we were bound to him as we came in repentance
and faith. And with the passing of time,
there has been the erosion of that single-eyed, whole-hearted,
unrivaled affection to Christ. What better place than at this
table to have those fountains of single-eyed love opened up
afresh as we remember our Lord in His dying love. What better
place to take that thing that right now you've begun to wrap
your fingers around it. For some of you young people,
an ambition, a relationship, a standing in the eyes of others. And here unclasp your hands if
you're a confessed disciple who comes to this table of remembrance
as you take the bread and take the cup. Say, O Lord, may these
hands hold all things this way. Inner renunciation. those of
us who are older, all of our possessions. How long has it
been since you've really consciously said from the heart, Lord Jesus,
everything I am and have is yours. It's stamped with the sign of
the cross. It's blood-bought property, and
I'm glad to have it so. May God grant that those of us
who are His disciples will find that attachment to Christ deepened
and renewed And our faith in the virtue of his dying love
for us is strengthened. And perhaps for some of you who've
been dallying about, may God send arrows to your heart and
may you hear Jesus say, you're not my disciple. You haven't
come on my terms. Stop this nonsense claiming you're
a Christian. You cannot, you cannot, you cannot,
three times our Lord says, cannot be my disciple. By the grace
of God coming on His terms, you can become His disciple and in
attachment to Him, know the blessedness of His cleansing, forgiving and
renewing and empowering grace, and begin to walk as one who
is indeed His disciple. Present yourself for baptism. Make disciples, baptizing them. For when Christ makes us his
disciples by his grace, it is his will that we openly declare
that attachment to him in the ordinance of his own institution. May God help you, Andrea, all
the days of your life to live out what you've declared tonight
in saying, I am a disciple of the Lord Jesus. Let's pray. Our Father, we pray that by the
Holy Spirit You would take Your Word and bring it home to each
of our hearts with power. And may many sitting in this
place tonight have deep, heart dealings with You, we ask in
Jesus' name. Amen.