PRECEPTS OF DISCIPLESHIP
MT 16:24-27
Dietrich Bonhoeffer- From childhood, I only have 2 modern day heroes. One is Br. Andrew that smuggled Bibles behind the Iron Curtain and the other is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a great German theologian during the time of Hitler. He preached against Hitler and Naziism and was put in prison. Just before the war was over, Bonhoeffer was hanged. A great book/movie “Hanged on a Twisted Cross” tells his courageous story. My favorite book that Bonhoeffer wrote is “The Costs of Discipleship”. It reveals that there is much more to following Christ than walking down the aisle and repeating a prayer. I’ll share a few of Bonhoeffer’s quotes in this sermon.
A. THE COSTS OF DISCIPLESHIP.
Mt 16:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.
“If you wish to come after Me”
* To Unbelievers there, He is calling them to repentance and rebirth. He is calling them to leave their old life of sin behind for new life.
* To believers, He is inviting them to a deeper relationship with Him.
* To all, He is saying “I am not camping out in this one place. I am heading in a direction. If you want to know Me, to really know Me, then you must come after Me.”
* It is sad to see believers, after some time, live with a diminished love for Jesus Christ. To religiously go thru the motions, but never experience the awesome presence and power of our Lord.
* Many asked Jesus “What must I do to be saved?”
* This morning, the question is “How do I experience a deep relationship with Jesus Christ?”
Jesus said “If you wish to come after Me you must.....”
1. You Must Deny Yourself.
Deny- aparneomai- to disown and completely separate yourself.
In this case, it is to separate yourself from yourself.
a) To Separate yourself from your past life of sin. You will never have a close relationship with Jesus if you continue to live in sin.
b) To surrender your own will and earthly desires and embrace God’s will as your own will. Seek to accomplish the will of God at all costs.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer- “We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.”
2. You Must Take up Your Cross.
* When the Crowd heard Jesus say this, it brought up the horrible imagery of the Crucifixions they had witnessed. There was nothing mystical to them about taking up your cross. A man who took up his cross began a death march bearing the cross on which he would die.
* This is why many followers left Jesus. They could not bear what He was teaching them to do.
What taking up your cross is not...
a) Some mystical level of spiritual enlightenment that comes from self-flagellation or that which only the religious elite can achieve.
b) It is not putting up with a no-good drunk of a husband.
c) It is not suffering thru living with a nagging wife.
d) It is not even suffering thru illnesses, handicaps, incurable disease.
What is taking up your cross?
Taking up your Cross is the willingness to pay any price and to suffer any hardship for the cause of Christ.
“Taking up your cross” does not mean “to seek to be tortured to death”, although for some believers martyrdom is a stark reality.
* It means accepting the work that God has for you and all that comes with it. It means paying the price. That price might be financial, it might be relational, and it might be persecution.
* Your cross involves voluntarily participating in Christ’s suffering. And, it also involves a willingness to die for the Lord Jesus Christ, if necessary.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer- “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
3. You Must Follow Me.
Only after a person denies himself and takes up his cross is he prepared to follow Jesus. True discipleship only comes with absolute surrender and submission to the Lord Jesus Christ.
The main mistake that many make is inviting Jesus to follow them instead of them following Jesus. That is not how it works, though.
* When Jesus chose His disciples, they had their own lofty agendas. But Jesus destroyed those. He had not called them out to fulfill their own agendas, but for them to help fulfill HIS!
Jn 15:16 “You did not choose Me, but I chose you.”
If you really want to dive into the deep spiritual waters, then you will do so on His terms, not your own.
One of the hardest things in this area, is to plainly see with your own eyes what seems to be the best course of action, yet hearing the Spirit tell us to do something that seems totally illogical.
We must then choose to either follow our own wisdom or the wisdom of the Omniscient Lord God Almighty..
* Lana (my wife) once told me that one of the great blessing of being a submissive wife it that she doesn’t have to have all the answers because she has a husband that she trusts to make the right decisions.
* One of the most liberating things in life for me is that I don’t have to have all the answers. Jesus does. I don’t have to put pressure on myself to fix or control everything. I just have to simply “follow Him.”
* Following Jesus is a daily walk in obedience to Him.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer- “Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient {truly} believes.”
B. THE BLESSINGS OF DISCIPLESHIP.
Mt 16:25-26 25 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
You have a choice to make and it’s really black and white.
You can follow your own passions in life or you can follow Christ.
If you live a worldly life, it’s gonna eventually come to an end and everything you’ve lived for will vanish.
But if you truly follow Christ, He will give you life eternal and blessings that you cannot possibly comprehend.
A word of advice...
Don’t let the pursuit of temporal pleasures cause you to miss out on the eternal treasures!
C. THE ETERNAL REWARDS OF DISCIPLESHIP.
Mt 16:27 For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds.
There is a day coming when Jesus will step out on the clouds and He will call His children home to Heaven.
2 Cor 5:10 We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
As we stand before Jesus, He will exam each person’s life. And, He will give rewards for the way in which we served Him.
* Many will have great heavenly treasures, while others will not received any rewards at all.
CONCLUSION
* People have always wanted to have a “cheap grace” that only requires a profession of faith without a life changing commitment.
* From Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I learned great truths about salvation, discipleship, and a real commitment to Jesus Christ. I want to close this morning with 1 more quote from him.
Cheap Grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field, for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all of his goods. It is the Kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble. It is the Call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows Him.
* The reason the church in America is so pathetically anemic today is that for the past 60 years cheap grace has been the message preached from most pulpits. Yet, Jesus Christ preached a costly grace.
As you examine your life this morning, I want you to ask yourself a question....
Am I truly a Disciple of Jesus Christ, or do I merely profess to believe in Him?
