The Cost of Discipleship

Welcome to Grace To You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. In his book of martyrs, John Fox speaks of believers who, in the face of the most barbaric executions, stood strong to the end, never wavering in their devotion to Jesus Christ. But here's a question for you. While it's possible that living the Christian life can prove to be costly—even cost you your life—are there any inherent costs involved in becoming a Christian? Should the gospel message that you and your church proclaim include a call to give up or let go of anything? Consider those questions today on Grace To You as John MacArthur continues his look at the gospel according to Jesus. And here's John with today's lesson. To speak of the cost of discipleship in our society may be not the most needful thing from the viewpoint of the listener right now.

It may become more needful in the days ahead. In our society here, we have developed this incredible theology that says you can be a Christian and not worry about being committed. In fact, you can be a Christian and not even be a disciple. Those who teach that would say, yes, there's no question in the New Testament about Jesus assigning a tremendous cost to discipleship.

But you don't need to worry about that because that's second level Christianity. There's no question about the fact that the only message Jesus ever proclaimed was a message of discipleship. The call that Jesus gave was a call to follow Him, a call to submission, a call to obedience. It was never a plea to make some kind of momentary decision to acquire forgiveness and peace and heaven and then go on living any way you wanted.

The invitations of Jesus to the lost were always direct calls to a costly commitment. Matthew says, make disciples. Mark says, preach the gospel. Luke says, proclaim repentance for forgiveness and speak of the death and resurrection of Christ. It's all one and the same. The great commission then is to preach the death and resurrection of Christ, preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins, call for faith to make disciples.

That sums it all up. The mission of the church is to make disciples, to bring people into an intimate relationship with God through faith in Christ Jesus. Disciples are people who believe the gospel, people who've turned from their sin to embrace the forgiveness of God, people who've had a transformed life so that they are motivated to obey what the Lord has commanded them. The term disciple is used synonymously for believer. Why make a distinction?

Why do people do this? Again, I point out because they're fearful that if you have conditions involved in salvation, you have negatively affected grace. In other words, they want salvation to be purely of grace. Only believe, purely grace, do nothing, just believe. And they say, if you add the fact that you have to turn from sin, confess your sin, repent of your sin, surrender to Christ, you've added all these human works to grace.

Not so. All you've said is that God, when He saves someone by grace, does all of that. It's all in that saving grace.

It's part of it. And then secondly, I believe that people hold this view because they want to develop a theology that will dispose of the hard demands of Jesus. They want to make it easy for everybody to be saved. And the third reason that people hold to this is because they would like to save some people that are lost.

What do you mean? Well, they have people that they love who made a profession of faith in Christ, never demonstrated a changed life, and they'd like to develop a theology that'll get those people in heaven. A pastor from behind the Iron Curtain said to me one time, there's no easy believism in our churches.

There's no shallow professions of faith. Nobody is taking Jesus who isn't willing to lay their life down because that's the price in many, many cases. The cost of naming Christ, he said, is so high that we don't have false conversion. That we don't have false conversion. If they aren't willing to pay the price, he said, they don't want to be associated with Jesus Christ in any way at all.

That would clear the air about a lot of things. When he called them in that hostile environment, he carefully instructed them about the cost of following him. Half-hearted people who weren't willing to make the commitment didn't respond. He turned away the reluctant to pay the price like the rich young ruler.

He told him the price, he went away. Those would-be disciples who said, let me go do this and let me go do that and let me go to the other, he said, you're not worthy to be my disciple. It is a turning. It is a repenting. It is a giving up and an embracing of Christ. John Stott wrote in his helpful little book, Basic Christianity, the Christian landscape is strewn with the wreckage of derelict, half-built towers.

The ruins of those who began to build and were unable to finish. For thousands of people still ignore Christ's warning and undertake to follow him without first pausing to reflect on the cost of doing so. The result is the great scandal of Christendom today, so-called nominal Christianity. In countries to which Christian civilization has spread, large numbers of people have covered themselves with a decent but thin veneer of Christianity. They have allowed themselves to become somewhat involved, enough to be respectable but not enough to be uncomfortable. Their religion is a great soft cushion.

It protects them from the hard unpleasantness of life while changing its place and shape to suit their convenience. No wonder the cynics speak of hypocrites in the church and dismiss religion as escapism." End quote. In Luke 14, Jesus put right on the line what Dr. Stott is referring to when he said, which one of you when he wants to build a tower doesn't first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he's laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying this man began to build and wasn't able to finish. Or what king when he sets out to meet another king in battle will not first sit down and take counsel whether he's strong enough with 10,000 men to encounter the one coming against him with 20,000? Or else while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks terms of peace. So therefore, no one of you can be my disciple who doesn't give up all his possessions.

Pretty straight talk. You don't want to be like the guy who wanted to build the tower, got halfway in and didn't have what it took to make it all the way. You don't want to be like the general who went to war and wasn't ready for what he was to encounter. In other words, there's a sense in which you recognize the total cost of giving up your life for Christ. A Christian isn't somebody who buys fire insurance, who signs up for an escape clause to keep him out of hell. Puritan William Perkins wrote these words, the true Christian is of this disposition of mine, that if there were no conscience to accuse, no devil to terrify, no judge to arraign or condemn, no hell to torment, yet he would be humbled and brought to his knees for his sins because he has offended a loving, merciful, and long-suffering God. End quote. That's the difference. The truly repentant sinner is devastated by the way he has offended God with his sin.

He's not whimsically looking for some fire insurance. A true disciple loves, a true disciple obeys. We don't love perfectly, we don't obey perfectly. Sometimes we love very imperfectly and disobey, but the pattern of life is obedience and love for the Lord. And even when we fail to love Him, we feel the guilt, we fail to obey Him, we feel the guilt because we do belong to Him. Because we do belong to Him, we have that intimate relationship which God has in His grace given to us. Let me say it again.

I do not believe that these are human efforts. I believe that this is what God does in your heart. God gives you a love for Himself. God gives you a heart to obey. God turns you from your sin. They're not pre-salvation human works.

They're inherent in God's saving work. Let me take you back as we draw things to a final focus to the passage of Matthew 10 and point out to you the important things to note in this matter of discipleship. Remember now, Jesus says in Matthew 10, everyone who confesses Me before men, I'll confess before My Father.

Jesus says, I came to set a man against his father and against his daughter, and he that loves father and mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. Jesus said, take up your cross and follow after Me, giving all of these elements of discipleship. You say, well, now is this a call to salvation or is this a call to believers to become disciples?

Well, as I've said to you, it obviously is a call to salvation from the general sweep of the New Testament, but just one simple little thought might even make the case in this passage more clear. In chapter 10, verse 1, and I started reading at verse 32, but in verse 1, it says, in Jesus having summoned His 12 what? Disciples.

Beloved, they were already what? Disciples. This is not a call to discipleship. He already addressed the 12 as disciples. They were already called disciples. Yes, Matthew 10 is addressed to them, but they're already disciples. He's simply defining what discipleship means. And in the parallel passage of Mark, Mark says he was talking not only to the disciples, which Matthew emphasizes, but to the disciple and the crowd. And in Luke 14, which we referred to earlier, Luke eliminates the disciples and has him speaking only to the crowd. This then is simply Jesus laying out the standards of discipleship. It is a call to salvation, nothing short of that. You say, why did He give it to the disciples? So they would know how to give it to the crowd.

So they would know how to evangelize. Jesus calls for total commitment. What does it mean?

Number one, I'll give you three thoughts. Number one, it means confessing Christ before men. Verse 32, everyone therefore who confesses Me before men, I will confess before My Father who is in heaven. Whosoever shall deny Me before men, I will also deny Him before My Father who is in heaven. It is a question of public confession. Now public confession in and of itself is not enough. In Matthew 7, the people say, Lord, Lord, we prophesied in Your name, did many wonderful works and so forth.

He said, I never knew you. There are those who profess the name who aren't real, but there are none who are real who don't profess the name. Everyone, He says, therefore who shall confess Me before men. That is openly affirming relationship to Christ. If thou shalt, Romans 10, 9, and 10 says, Confess with thy mouth Jesus as what?

Lord. Confess Me before men. That's a universal generic term, open confession, public confession, wherever one is. That's where He starts this matter of discipleship. The heart of discipleship, beloved, is a commitment to Jesus Christ.

That means that you're willing to be publicly identified with Him. No matter what that costs, that means you're willing to face a hostile world boldly to acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Master. Oh, we don't always do it. Even Timothy was dangerously close to being ashamed of Christ. Peter denied Christ. We have those lapses, but a moment of failure doesn't invalidate the disciples credentials.

All of us have times of failure, but it's not our purpose. It's not our desire to keep our relationship to Christ hidden. It's our desire to pronounce it, to proclaim it. And if we willingly affirm our loyalty to Christ, then we are the ones that He will affirm His loyalty to as well. If we're willing to say, I belong to Christ, He'll be willing to say, this one belongs to me. On the other hand, those who consistently deny the Lord by silence, by ungodly living, by words, are simply masquerading. They're not God's disciples at all.

So it all starts with that public confession. If someone denies Christ, says they don't believe, they don't care to obey, they can't possibly meet this characteristic of a true disciple. And again, I say, this is not something we do in our flesh. This is something God produces in us by giving us the heart of a disciple. He gives us a heart to love Him, a heart to want to proclaim Him, a heart to want to announce that we belong to Him. Secondly, and following hard on that one, a disciple not only confesses before men, his Lord, but prefers Christ over all others. Verse 34 starts to talk about the family and how the sword comes down between father and mother and sister and brother and enemies become people in your own household. And you cannot love father or mother more than me and be worthy of me. You cannot be my disciple if you're not willing, if need be, to cut those relationships off. Very strong language. Very strong. And Luke's language is even stronger. Luke in chapter 14, verse 26, if anyone comes to me and doesn't hate his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sister, and even his own life, cannot be my disciple.

Well, what do you mean by that? Do you mean you literally have to hate your family? No. No, you have to deny your natural human relationships that would constrain you and hold you back from Christ, just like you have to deny yourself. Just as you have to consider yourself dead, Romans 6. Just as you have to lay aside the old self, Ephesians 4 22. Just as if you have to treat your flesh with human contempt, 1 Corinthians 9 27.

So if your family holds you back, you have to treat them as dead. Talk to a young lady, talk to a young lady brand new in Christ from a Jewish family, suffering the tremendous alienation that her family put upon her for her faith in the Savior. That's what Jesus is talking about. If there's any human relationship that holds you back from naming the name of Christ, from serving submissively under His Lordship, you're not worthy to be His disciple. Why is Jesus so strong about this? Because He wants to chase away the uncommitted.

Do you understand that about Jesus? He wanted to drive away the false disciples. He didn't want the tares. He didn't want the false believers. He didn't want them because He didn't want them to be deceived and He didn't want His church to be affected by them.

So He chased them away by the strength of the call to commitment. Thirdly and finally, the Lord Jesus Christ must not only be the one we prefer above all else, but the one for whom we would willingly give our lives. Verse 38, He who doesn't take up His cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life shall lose it. He who has lost his life for My sake shall find it. You know what I believe, beloved? I believe that if you and I ever got in a situation where we had to give our life for Jesus Christ, we would experience joy.

I know when you're here you say, oh man, I don't know if I ever got into that, if I could ever do it. I believe you could because I don't believe God gives you the grace to bear that until you need it. And I believe you would come and experience what Peter says is the grace, the spirit of grace and glory would rest on you. And you would be like all the rest of those martyrs who don't surpass you in spiritual strength, don't surpass you in knowledge, who in face it for that hour.

But I'll tell you something, there's no way that statements like that can be made to accommodate the kind of carnal approach to conversion that is in vogue in our generation. Jesus is saying you have to be willing to take up your cross. Somebody says, oh yes, my cross, that's my 1959 Chevy that doesn't run, that's my leaky roof, that's my mother-in-law, my cross.

I've heard all kinds of things. In the first century, a cross meant one thing and it wasn't a Chevy and it wasn't your leaky roof and it wasn't your mother-in-law, it was death. He's talking about forsaking everything, even your own life. He who has found his life will lose it. You possess your life, hold on to your life, don't let go.

Boy, you keep your physical safety, don't let anybody get near you and accuse you of anything. Deny Christ under pressure, deny Christ under persecution, hold on to your life. You don't have a transformed life because one with a transformed life that is bound by God's gracious transforming power to love Christ would never do that. You lose your soul if you do that because you're not a true disciple. But the one who's willing to lose his life for his sake gives evidence that he has a changed life because that's not natural, that's supernatural.

And only because God has transformed you, put His Spirit within you, would you do that or be willing to do that. Genuine disciples don't shrink back from death. In Hebrews, it says in chapter 11, verse 38, talks about men who were so worthy. The world wasn't worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.

And all these having gained approval through their faith did not receive what was promised because God had provided something better for us so that they apart from us should not be made perfect. Those dear people endured never really seeing the reality that we see. And they were just folks like us. They went through all kinds of things. They conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight, women received back their dead by resurrection, others were tortured, not accepting their release in order that they might obtain a better resurrection. Others experienced mocking and scourging and chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in half, they were tempted, put to death with the sword.

They went around in sheepskins, goatskins, destitute, afflicted, and ill-treated. And they never vacillated, never vacillated. Why? One chapter earlier, my righteous one shall live by faith. And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him, but we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but those who have faith to the persevering of the soul. True believers can face death victoriously. If you really know Christ, you can.

I can. We may not feel now that we can, and that's a good expression of our humility, but in the hour of our need, God will provide what we need. You see, salvation is not an experiment. Salvation is a lifelong commitment. Salvation is not try Jesus.

See if he works. Salvation is a lifelong transformation. Those who would tell us that a person can become a Christian without becoming a disciple do a great disservice to Scripture, and they do a great disservice to people who then live under the illusion that they can be saved without following Christ in obedience. They can be saved without giving up all they are and have and never hope to be unconditionally to Christ. That's tragic. And I say, as I said at the very beginning of this brief series, we had better get the gospel message straight.

We can mess up on some things, not on this, not on this. Eternal souls are at stake. John Bunyan, brought before the magistrate to be sentenced for his discipleship to Christ said, "'Sir, the law of Christ hath provided two ways of obeying, the one to do that which I in my conscience do believe I am bound to do actively. And where I cannot obey it actively, there I am willing to lie down and suffer what they shall do unto me.'" That's the spirit of a disciple.

Someone wrote, "'I could not work my soul to save. That work my Lord has done, but I would work like any slave for love of God's own Son.'" I trust that's your heart, that you're a disciple who follows Christ.

If not, then you better examine yourself to see whether you're genuinely in the faith. John is a pastor, an author, and chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary in the Los Angeles area. The message you heard today is from his series, The Gospel According to Jesus. Now, John, this series, it's anything but a quick and superficial look at the gospel.

If you would, take a moment to explain why you are so concerned, why you're so passionate, about helping people dig into the truths that you've been exploring in this series. I know it's not simply about wanting our listeners to know doctrine for doctrine's sake. No, not for doctrine's sake, but for salvation's sake. Yes, look, to be about as general as I can possibly be, I think everything in the Bible is serious. I think everything in the Bible is significant. The Bible contains everything we need, and at a depth that most people never, ever reach. We talk about Paul saying, I have to feed you with milk and not with meat. Well, when he said that, he didn't mean there are some milk truths and some meat truths. He meant that biblical truth has a milk level and a meat level.

It depends on how deep you go. So from my standpoint, the great joy and the great challenge of ministry is to go deep in a way that is understandable. So, you know, when you're the same way, you're battling for clarity. This is profound truth. This is supernatural truth. There's going to be things you can't quite grasp, but can you take them on the deep dive with such clarity that even at depth, they understood the truth? And I think God wrote the Bible for that reason. It can be done if pastors would make the effort to do it. And look, a couple of days ago, I read that letter from Joanne, who was just, you know, 40 years in a church, and all of a sudden she went deep in the Bible and she couldn't get enough of it. She just could not get enough of it. And I think that reminds us that good theology and deep understanding of Scripture is an acquired taste.

But once you get it, you're not going to settle for anything less. So we've given you a good dose of this study, the Gospel According to Jesus, and we hope that this clarifies the Gospel for you. We hope that you're a genuine Christian. We would also like to suggest that if you're not, you need to get on your knees and ask the Lord to give you new life in Christ. The Gospel According to Jesus series is a guide to your eternal glory. It's available.

You can download MP3 files off the website, gty.org. And remember, the companion book is available to the Gospel According to Jesus. Thanks, Jon, and friend. To download the series, The Gospel According to Jesus, on MP3, or to get the companion book by the same title, contact us today. The Gospel According to Jesus book is a hardcover, $15, shipping is free.

To order, call us at 855-GRACE or shop online at gty.org. And remember, you can download all six lessons from The Gospel According to Jesus free at our website in both MP3 and transcript format. And in fact, you can download any of Jon's 3,500 sermons for free. You can also take Jon's sermons with you on your mobile device by downloading the free Grace to You Sermons app. It's all available for you free of charge at gty.org.

And if it works best for you to order the CD album, you can do that as well at gty.org. The cost is reasonable, shipping is free, and thanks for remembering to pray for grace to you. We need your prayers, and in fact, that's the most important way you can partner with us in this ministry. So thank you for your prayers. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Be sure to watch Grace to You television this Sunday, direct TV channel 378, and then be here Monday when John launches a study called Our Great Salvation. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Monday's Grace to You.