The Badge of a True Disciple

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, September 14th. Sometimes believers in Jesus can get so caught up in eternal things that we forget the basics. Let's learn about the singular most important badge of true discipleship. Would you turn to John chapter 13, want us to read beginning in verse 31 through verse 35. John chapter 13. John chapter 13, beginning in verse 31, he says, Therefore, when it was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself and shall straightway glorify him.

Little children, yet a little while, and I am with you. Ye shall seek me, and as I said unto the Jews, Whether I go, ye cannot come. So now I say to you, A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. Now we have seen that discipleship is not optional but mandatory. And the discipleship and a believer are not synonymous.

That a believer is the person who has received the Lord Jesus Christ as personal Savior. But the discipleship demands much more than that, for a disciple is a person who has accepted Jesus Christ as Savior, yielded to Jesus Christ as Lord, and one who is available for Jesus Christ to reproduce himself through him in the life of someone else. A disciple is attempting to instruct and build up another in order that the other may do the same for someone else. Jesus has called all of us to be disciples.

Some have responded and some have not. He gave us in the fourteenth chapter of Luke a very clear picture of the price tag of discipleship. And that is that discipleship demands love and loyalty for him above love and loyalty for all others. That it demands obedience to him. That it demands the forsaking of all else. That is a sacrifice of everything else. Whatever he demands of us to surrender unto him to be his disciples, that's the price of discipleship.

When you look at the price tag, I think oftentimes this is where many of us back off. But it is a matter of backing off from life at its best. And it is a matter of stepping away from the maximum that God has provided for every single one of his believers. Now there are many things to be said about disciples. Many things the Bible says about them as to their function, as to their work, their activity, their ministry. But the primary thing that I want us to note this morning is this. That when Jesus had summed up all the activity of a disciple, then he said to those men, there is one distinguishing mark of a disciple that sets him apart from all else.

And apart from this, you'll never be able to spot one if you see them. Because you see, there are many people today who are doing many of the things that Jesus described as the activity or the attitude of a disciple. He says, a new commandment I give unto you.

And what is that? That ye love one another, because I have loved you that you also love one another. Verse 35, by this, that is by this love one toward another, all men will be able to spot you and identify you and detect you as being one of my disciples. That is, if you have love one to another. When you think of discipleship and you think of this matter of loving each other, I think there are three things that he says here that I want you to get in your mind.

The first one is this. First of all, he issues a command to us concerning this badge of discipleship that we're to wear. Jesus is saying that the true disciple is going to wear a badge that's not gonna be on his coat, not even necessarily be on his lips, but it's gonna be on his heart. It's going to be a badge that cannot be covered. You can't cover it up with a coat. You can't wear it on the outside.

It is from within and it will be a badge that you cannot hide. It will be an expression of something on the inside. He said, by this shall all men know that you're my disciples when you wear the badge of loving one another. But there is a contrast in what he's saying. Listen, he says a new commandment that I give unto you that you love one another. And the new commandment is not that you love your brother as you love yourself. He says, I want you to have a higher quality of love than that. That is the quality of love that is whereby you and I are able to love others as Jesus Christ loves us and loves others. He says, it is a new commandment that I give unto you that you love your brother as I love you.

It puts it on a whole entirely different plane. He says, it is a new commandment, a contrast to the old commandment in the Old Testament. He says, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth in the New Testament. It is love your brother. He says, pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.

So persecuted they the prophets which were before you. He says, love one another. Love each other. Always be giving yourself away to somebody else. Love one another.

A difficult responsibility, a difficult requirement, but mandatory upon the person who's going to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now you and I know that there are differences of personalities. There are differences in temperaments. There are differences in attitudes, desires, likes, and dislikes. Therefore, when you get a large group of people together, you're not ever going to find everybody who likes everybody else.

There'll be things about the way people live, what they say, their temperament, all of this will be different. Some people are not able to grasp, reach out and accept someone else as they are. And so as a result, sometime their love narrows down to a fine pinpoint.

Finally, it is not there at all. And there is a lack of love. He's simply saying to us here that the mark of a disciple is a man who has matured enough in his spiritual life that he is able to reach out and love those who are absolutely unlovely.

You say, but my friend, notice this, watch this. The man who says, I love him, but does not love him because love knows no limitation of buts. The fellow who says, I love you, but I know immediately what he's saying is, but there are some areas that I do not love. The disciple does not put limitations upon his love because Jesus said, you are to love one another as I have loved you.

And my friend he's forgiven me for 10,000 times, 10,000. And I never remember getting on my knees and confessing first John one nine and naming my sins specifically. And Jesus responding saying now, Charles, I'm going to forgive you, but never said that he never implied in the scripture.

There is no hint of that anywhere. He says a new commandment that I given you now watch this far too often we fall into the category and the pattern of the world. And you know, if you're in business, that industry all over America today is a competition that oftentimes reaches down into the gutter for its tactics. And so often some businessmen in this fellowship says, how in the world can you be a Christian today?

Working with people like that. Listen, the Bible says that love never fails, period. He didn't say except you're in business.

He just, he didn't say except you're married to the wrong person. He said, love never fails. And you know what God is looking for. I believe that God is looking for a fellowship of people who are willing to put him to the test in every single facet of the Bible, every facet of every commandment. He's looking for some people who are willing to believe him, whatever it costs them individually or corporately as a body. That is discipleship, a new commandment that I give unto you that you love each other as I have loved you.

Now I want you to notice something else here. He says, and here's the key to the whole thing. He says a new commandment that I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you. Now he describes here the character of this badge we're to wear, not on the outside.

You can't see it on the outside, but it's something that you feel from a man's heart. When you think about wearing a badge, you think about the identification, Jesus is saying the character, the depth, the quality of love that the believers to have is wrapped up in one little key word. And you'll see that both those verses are wrapped up around one word, the smallest word. He says that we are to love one another as I have loved you. Now let's think about that for a moment. You say, but you cannot love like Jesus loved.

You've missed something. Let's first of all, see how he loved, how he's expecting a disciple to love and then see the capacity he has given to every believer to love as he's loved. How did Jesus love? Well, when you look at his life, I think the first thing you have to say about the quality of love, and we're talking about now the quality of the character of the badge you wear in your heart of love. First of all, he loved others selflessly. Listen, he did not love men asking, what are they going to do for me in return? He did not love others expecting to be loved in return. He just loved them for what they were. And you see, one of the reasons we cannot love others is we are afraid we're going to be hurt.

Now watch this. The disciple is willing to pour out his heart to his brother, whether he's hurt or not hurt. And he says in first John that fourth chapter, that perfect love casteth out all fear of being loved, receiving that love or not receiving it. When one is able to love selflessly, he loves someone else and expects nothing in return. The second quality I think is evident in his love here is that he loved sacrificially. Jesus knew no limits on his love. He was able to love men who could offer nothing in return and who at the same time would crucify him on a cross. Now listen, the disciple must be able to love when he's going to be mistreated, when he's going to be criticized, when he's going to be when someone's going to be disloyal to him, he's going to be able to love and love and love in spite of that.

Now listen, do not be deceived. My friend, if you love like a true disciple, it's going to cost you. It's going to cost you pain. It's going to cost you suffering because some people you love will never love you back. Some people you will attempt to love do not know how to love. Some people that you will try to love and reach out to will not reach back. They will turn a deaf ear.

They will turn their bitterness upon you. But I believe as I've studied these passages of scripture here and others throughout the Bible, I believe what God is attempting to say to us is this, that the evidence of a maturing disciple is that in the face of conflict, in the face of bitterness, in the face of barriers and resistance to love, that the true disciple keeps tunneling through and will lay his love on the altar to be spat upon, shattered, trampled, criticized, judged, but he keeps on loving and trusting that love eventually will conquer that which is unlovely. And Jesus loved in that way. He loved sacrificiously.

He loved understandingly. And you see, here again is a mistake we make. Once in a while, somebody will say, I hope you don't disappoint me. Now, my friend, listen, the man who says, I love you. I hope you will never disappoint me is not loving you. He's loving himself. He loves himself and is afraid.

Thereby what does he do? He is afraid you're going to disappoint him. And therefore he's afraid to pour out his total love.

He's holding something back. Understanding love like Jesus had reached up and did not say to Simon Peter, now Simon Peter, I love you. I hope you'll never disappoint me because listen, and if you're a husband or a wife or even a teenager, you've lived in a family. You know that when you live with people long enough, you begin to discover the things that irritate them. You discover the things they like and don't like.

You discover their weaknesses and their strengths and their moods. All of us have all of that. Now, if we'd all be honest, we just have to realize that all of us are imperfect. We'll never be able to please everybody. That's not what Jesus said. He didn't say, please one another. Aren't you glad he didn't say that?

We just had to give up and quit right there. He didn't say, please one another. He said, love one another. Listen, the quality of discipleship love is the quality of love that reaches out and says, yes, their weaknesses, their sins, there are all kinds of things that are wrong, but I'm going to love him anyway. Discipleship love is the kind that bases its love not upon the expectation of the other person living up to what you expect, but it is the kind of love that seeks to understand the faults and the failures and the weaknesses of the other, realizing that the one who's doing the loving has the same problem, maybe in some other area to some degree. It is an understanding love. Then I think it's clear here when he said, we're to love one another as I have loved you. What kind of love did Jesus have? A forgiving love, always forgiving. At no time did he ever say at this point, forgiveness is cut off, no more forgiveness, but he was a constantly forgiving love. I think Paul wrote it beautifully and the man who paraphrased the living Bible put it this way, that a disciple's quality of love is like this, love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable nor is it touchy.

It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when someone else does it wrong. Never glad about injustice rejoices whenever truth wins out. Now watch this. If you love someone, you'll be loyal to him no matter what the cost. You'll always believe in him, always expect the best of him and always stand your ground to defend him. Now my friend, that's Paul's way of describing New Testament discipleship love.

Now we've made a common mistake and this is it. A common mistake is we have said by action and probably in ignorance down through the years, a disciple is known by his membership in the church. But that's not what Jesus said. He is known by the fact that he's been baptized by some denomination to a fellowship.

That's not what he said. Discipleship is known by the badge of doctrine. If a man believes certain things in the word of God, you know he's a disciple. He didn't say that. A man is a disciple by the knowledge he has of the book and of the ways of God.

But he didn't say that. A disciple is known by the fact that he shares his faith and he didn't say that either. And my friend, you could run the gamut of all the things that we have listed today as signs, identifications of a disciple and you come up in a dead end until you come to John chapter 13.

That the crowning one of all is that we love one another. Well, I think Agmandino in his book has beautifully described the quality of love that I think every disciple ought to have. He says in describing the attitude and this man, I don't even know whether he's a Christian or not, but he has beautifully summed up, beautifully summed up the quality of love that I think God would have us to have for each other as a mark of discipleship. The life of a disciple is a life of love.

If it is not a life of love, it is not a life of disciple. Then he says on the next page of that book, something that is so beautiful. He says, when I approach a man, I will say to myself in silence, I love you. That is every person I meet, I will say to myself, but in silence, quietly, I love you. Now, my friend, should that not be true of every disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, that every person we approach to ourselves silently, we simply reach out to them in our heart and say, I love you.

And then he describes it. He says, when I approach a man and I say to him silently to myself, but in my heart to him, I love you. He says, those words will be evident by the sparkle in my eye.

Those words will unruffle my brow. They'll put a smile upon my lips and an echo in my voice that the one I meet will know that deep in my heart, I care and that I love him. And when I read that 13th chapter of John, and he says, every disciple will wear this badge, that you love one another as I have loved you selflessly, sacrificially, understandingly, forgivingly, we are to love one another.

And I wonder what would happen. And I believe God wants to demonstrate what will happen in a fellowship of people who will commit themselves to the badge of discipleship, that in their heart, not on their clothes, in their heart, every person we meet, we will meet him to say, I love you. And when you say that, as Mendino says so beautifully, he'll see a sparkle in your eye, your brow will become unruffled, a smile upon your lips, and an echo in your voice that will say to him deep down inside, there is something within him that I need within my heart. The badge of discipleship is that you and I love one another. Are you wearing that today in such a way that nobody will have to ask you, watch you or question you, but it flows from a heart of pure love. Thank you for listening to the badge of true discipleship. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.