Names for the People of God: “Disciple” (Part 1)
Series: Names for God’s People
Chuck Sligh
April 17, 2016
NOTE: A slide presentation is available for this sermon upon request at chucksligh@hotmail.com.
BIBLE READING: Luke 14:25-33
TEXT: Turn to Luke 14 (Will be read throughout the sermon.)
INTRODUCTION
For my introduction today I was searching online for odd or funny, but real names.
I found some interesting examples,
• like a law firm known as Ruff and Manly;
• two siblings whose last name of Dye named May Dye and Will Dye;
• a girl name Kris whose husband’s last name was Miss, which changed her married name to Kris Miss, and a bunch more.
But my favorite site had photos of some classics: [NOTE TO READER: Request the slide presentation to see these funny photos]:
• Here’s an expert on a TV news show. – Look at the name of the expert (Dr. Rollo Koster)
• Here’s Mr. Dyl Pickel at your service. – He’d be perfect at McDonald’s, wouldn’t he?
• Speaking of food names, how would you like to be named Filet Minyon? – Man, what was her mama thinking?
• Or what about Tyrannosaurus Rex’s mom? – SHE’S the one who ought to be arrested!
These last two take the cake:
• Here’s Mr. Perv’s 5th grade class! – Would you keep your kid in his class?!
• And how would you like to have this guy’s name? (Moe Lester)!!!!
As we have said over the last two weeks, names in the Bible are important. We’re in a study of the “Names of the People of God.”
The first name we examined in our series was the name believer. – Above all else, first and foremost, Christians are believers.
Next we looked at the term child of God. When you trust in Christ, you’re born into God’s family and become child of God. And when that happens, God wants us to grow in the Lord to spiritual maturity.
Today and next Sunday I want us to carefully consider the name DISCIPLE. As we’ll see shortly, the term is found three times in our text: in verses 26, 27, and 33.
The Greek word translated disciple is the Greek word mathētés (μαθητἠς) which in normal Greek usage simply meant “a learner, or a pupil,” which had primarily an intellectual emphasis. However, Jesus gave the word a new and richer meaning than simply “a pupil.” Rather than simply meaning A LEARNER with mostly an intellectual emphasis, to be a disciple of Jesus meant a person who seeks to be TOTAL COMMITMENT to his Master.
Note verse 25 – “And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and said unto them…”
Jesus intended to impress on the people their need to examine their resolve to follow Him. Just as today, no doubt there were many “believers” in that multitude who undoubtedly were truly saved.
But then, as now, Jesus is looking for more from believers than simply faith in Him. Once you a believe, Jesus wants you to advance to a deeper level of commitment to Him.
You see, there’s a difference between a believer and a disciple. You become a believer instantly. But there’s no such thing as an instant DISCIPLE; it takes DISCIPLINE. Discipleship is a lifelong process.
Illus. – A Russian comedian, Yakov Smirnoff, says that when he first moved to America, he was amazed at all the instant products he could buy in the store.
• There’s powdered milk: just add water and you have milk.
• There’s powdered orange juice: just add water and you have orange juice.
• Then he saw BABY POWDER and thought, “What a great country! If you want a baby, just add water!”
Some people think that’s how discipleship works. You take a believer, add a little baptism water, and “poof” you have a fully-devoted follower of Jesus—a real disciple. But it takes more than water to make a disciple. Disciples are made, not born.
To be a disciple of Jesus is a quest for nothing less than TOTAL commitment and dedication to our Teacher, Jesus Christ.
Illus. – A hog and a hen, sharing the same barnyard, heard about a church’s program to feed the hungry. The hog and the hen discussed how they could help.
The hen said, “I’ve got it! We’ll provide bacon and eggs for the church to feed the hungry.”
The hog thought about the suggestion and said, “There’s only thing wrong with your bacon and eggs idea. For you, it only requires a contribution, but from me, it will mean total commitment!”
That’s the cost of discipleship. Now in our text, notice with me three tests of discipleship Jesus give us.
I. FIRST, TO BE HIS DISCIPLE MEANS TO LOVE HIM SUPREMELY – Luke 14:26 – “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
Jesus isn’t saying here that we should LITERALLY “hate” in an emotional sense. That would violate both Old Testament Law and Jesus’s own command to love our neighbor as ourselves.
To the Hebrews, the word hate was a term of comparison. The Bible teaches us to compare scripture with scripture, so to understand what Jesus is really saying here, let’s compare how Jesus expressed these very same thoughts in Matthew 10:37 – “He that loveth father or mother MORE THAN me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter MORE THAN me is not worthy of me.”
The greatest bond of love of humankind is love within a family—your love for your spouse, your children and your parents. So Jesus is not saying that we must literally hate our families, but that HE should never be placed on the same level as human relatives in our affections. He’s saying that our love and devotion and affection for Jesus Christ must be so strong, that our love for our family looks like hate in comparison. In other words, we must love Christ above all other people in our lives. HE must reign supreme above all others!
Jesus is not speaking primarily of our EMOTIONAL feelings toward Him or our families, but rather He’s speaking of our level of COMMITMENT. He’s saying that our commitment to obey and follow Him must be greater than any other commitment in our lives. Put another way, Jesus must be FIRST in our priorities and our loyalties.
Is this true in your life?
For instance, if following Jesus obediently results in problems or interferes with your closest relationships, will you still follow Him? This is not a mere hypothetical question. In other countries following Jesus can sometimes mean being rejected by your family or losing your children.
Illus. – In my teenage years, my parents were missionaries in Okinawa, Japan. I remember an 18-year-old half-American, half-Okinawan young man named Mike Okuma whom I went to school with in Okinawa who trusted in Christ. His mother was a Sokagakai Buddhist—a militant Buddhist sect.
When he trusted in Christ, she was furious and poured abuse on him for it. But he persevered and kept coming to church. When he expressed an interest in being baptized, she went into a rage and told him that if he did get baptized, she would interpret it as hatred for her and the family and that as far as she was concerned, he would be as dead to her. She vowed to disown him if he moved forward and was baptized.
Mike faced a terrible decision for a young man to have to make. He loved his family dearly…but he loved Christ more than his own mother or his brothers and sisters, and he was obedient to His Lord and Master and he was baptized in the Pacific Ocean on a bright sunny Sunday afternoon.
After church, he returned home, only to find his clothes and other belongings lying in a heap outside his house and the door locks changed. He rang the doorbell and his mother answered the door.
“Mother, why are my clothes out here? Why am I locked out?” he asked.
In a cold, hard voice, she replied, “Why do you call me your MOTHER. I no longer have a son.”
Mike looked at her in astonishment. “What do you mean? I am your son, Mike.”
“No. My son is DEAD!”
After a long, quiet gaze, she slowly shut the gate in his face. Mike Okuma found out personally what it meant to be a true disciple.
In our own country, many couples encounter problems because one spouse is a committed Christian and the other is not. In such cases Jesus wants us to know up front what it means to be a disciple. You must love Jesus more than your husband or wife.
We must not only love Jesus more than our loved ones, but we must also be committed to him above “even our own lives” as Jesus says at the end of verse 26. This refers to our PHYSICAL lives which we must be willing to surrender for Jesus’ sake. It also refers to our SELF lives, meaning our personal desires, goals, and interests. We must be committed to Jesus above our bank accounts, our public image, our jobs, every personal desire, EVERYTHING that is important to us. And if following Jesus means forfeiting any of these things, or letting them go, or making arrangements to make Christ first, then we MUST be willing to do that.
Oh, that each one of us would grasp what it means to be a disciple, to love God above all others and our own selves in this life—to love Him SUPREMELY.
II. SECOND, JESUS SAYS THAT TO BE HIS DISCIPLE MEANS TO BEAR THE CROSS OF REJECTION. – Luke 14:27 – “And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”
Illus. – There is a hymn sung in many churches titled, “Gladly the Cross I’d Bear.” One person went through his whole childhood wondering why the church sang about a “cross-eyed bear.” If I ever meet a bear, I sure hope it’s one of those cross-eyed ones, don’t you?!
Many Christians are just as confused today about what it means to carry a cross. A lady in my church in England once told me, “I have migraine headaches, but I guess it’s just the cross I must bear.” A friend of mine once told me about his ingrown toenail, and said, “But I guess that’s just the cross I have to bear.”
Folks, the cross is NOT a headache or an ingrown toenail!
Today, the image of the cross has lost its horror and its shame. Today it is fashionable to wear a cross as jewelry
But what if we began to sell little miniature models of A HANGMAN’S NOOSE or AN ELECTRIC CHAIR: Would you wear one? Or what if someone made a jewelry piece of with AN EXECUTIONER’S SYRINGE and started offering it as jewelry to wear? Can’t you hear someone walking up to you saying, “Oh, I just love your hangman’s noose. It’s so pretty. Where did you buy it?” Or would you say, “Have you seen my Avery lethal injection syringe ear rings? I’ve a matching set of electric chairs too. I just love them.”
You see, in our day the cross has been sanitized and romanticized. In Jesus’ time, it was a horrible, agonizing, tortuous mode of execution. It was the noose, the electric chair, the lethal injection of His day.
There were other modes of execution, but there was something unique about execution on the cross. To be executed by crucifixion was reserved for the worst of criminals. So it was shameful and a reproach in the extreme. It not only involved agony, but being stripped naked before everyone.
So what was Jesus saying to us when He said, “…whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”? In his commentary on the Bible, Albert Barnes explains it this way:
When persons were condemned to be crucified, a part of the sentence was that they should carry the cross on which they were to die to the place of execution. Thus Christ carried his, till he fainted from fatigue and exhaustion.… The cross was usually composed of two rough beams of wood, united in the form of this figure. It was an instrument of death.… To carry it was burdensome, was disgraceful, was trying to the feelings, was an addition to the punishment. So, to carry the cross is a figurative expression denoting that we must endure whatever is burdensome, or trying, or considered as disgraceful, in following Christ. It consists simply in doing our duty, let the world think of it or speak of it as they may. It does not consist in making trouble for ourselves, or doing things merely to be opposed; [but] it is doing just what is required of us in the Scriptures, let it produce whatever shame, disgrace, or pain it may. This, every follower of Jesus is required to do.
Folks, to follow Christ, to stand for Him, to obey His commands while the world flaunts them, will never be the popular thing to do. No matter what we do as a positive testimony in our lives, or how much we season our lives with grace and love, to many, following Jesus will be a reproach.
In 2 Timothy 3:12 Paul reminds us of something that is true still today: “Yea, and all who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”
Are you willing to bear the cross of scorn and mockery and rejection of the world?
You should love people, and show them the blessings of the Christian faith. And yes, you should convey to the world the best view of Christianity you can.
But the time may come—when, as Jesus said in Luke 6:22 – “…men shall hate you, and…separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.”
If that happens, are you ready to bear your cross? — Not with SORROW, but as Jesus said in the very next verse, Luke 6:23 – “Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven….”
Jesus is saying, “You cannot have the world’s approval—AND ME TOO.” You must decide which one you will follow.
What about you, Christian?—Are you a disciple in respect to bearing the cross of Christ?
• Do you live to please THE WORLD, or to please THE LORD?
• Are you willing to stand with the Lord and His people, or are you ashamed of your faith in Christ, and hide your Christianity from those who know you?
• When pressured to do sinful things by your peers, do you fold like a house of cards, or are you willing to stand for Christ and righteousness regardless of the cost?
• If your friends make fun of you, does that bother you? or do you rejoice that you were counted worthy to suffer for His sake?
III. THIRD, JESUS SAYS THAT TO BE HIS DISCIPLE MEANS MAKING HIM THE LORD OF YOUR POSSESSIONS – Luke 14:33 – “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.”
The word “forsake” in verse 33 is an interesting word. It doesn’t mean “reckless abandonment of one’s belongings.” Greek scholar Spiros Zodhiates says the Greek word translated forsake here means “to properly categorize.”
So let’s read the verse that way – “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that does not PROPERLY CATEGORIZE all that he has, he cannot be my disciple.”
Here Jesus is saying that to be His disciple you must have Jesus and your material possessions in their proper perspective. In other words, Jesus and the cause of Christ must come FIRST before our own material well-being.
This is what Jesus was driving at in Matthew 6:24-33 where He says not to worry about money and the material, physical things in this life. He ends that passage by saying, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33)
In the whole passage, Jesus teaches, “Don’t be materialistic. Properly prioritize money and things. Put them in their proper place. Don’t live for these things. I’ll supply all your needs. Seek first MY Kingdom, and MY righteousness. THAT’S what really counts. THAT’S what leads to eternal riches.”
That’s what you are doing when you lay up treasures in Heaven.
POEM: There’s a poem that goes like this:
I counted dollars while God counted crosses.
I counted gains while He counted losses!
I counted my worth by the things gained in store.
But He sized me up by the scars that I bore.
I coveted honors and sought for degrees;
He wept as He counted the hours on my knees.
And I never knew ’til one day at a grave,
How vain are these things that we spend life to save.
“So likewise, whosoever he be of you who does not forsake (who does not properly categorize and prioritize) all that he has, he cannot be my disciple.”
CONCLUSION
“Disciple”—are you living up that name? To be disciple is to strive to follow Christ with TOTAL COMMITMENT. To do that will cost you a lot.
Vance Havner said this: “Salvation is free. The gift of God is eternal life. It is not cheap, for it cost God His Son and the Son His life—but it is free. However, when we become believers we become disciples and that will cost everything we have.”
How about you Christian?:
• Do you love Christ above all others—so much so that your love for your family is like HATE in comparison to your love to Christ?
• Are you willing to bear the shame of following Christ—to stand with Christ, even if it means rejection or ridicule?
• Do you have Christ and money and things in their proper perspective—with Christ first and these other material things in submission to Christ and His cause?
A. That is the how a person becomes a disciple of Jesus Christ.
