THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP—MARK 8:27-38
--by R. David Reynolds
Billy Graham has said, “Salvation is free, but discipleship costs everything we have” [--Edythe Draper, Drapers Book of Quotations for the Christian World (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1992)]. In our text this morning Jesus confronts us with what it will cost anyone who wants to be His disciple. It will cost such a Christian everything he has. Discipleship is the theme in Mark 8:34-38. This is evident in Jesus command, “Follow me” in verse 34. The term “Follow” in the New Testament is reserved for the subject of Discipleship, and it implies total commitment on the part of the disciple to Jesus as Lord. “General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, was asked the secret of his amazing Christian life. Booth answered, ‘I told the Lord that He could have all that there is of William Booth” [--James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1988), 98.]. To be His Disciple I must: “Deny myself, take up my cross, and follow Him. As Billy Graham says, “It costs me everything I have.”
If I am a Disciple of Jesus, He literally becomes my way of Life, my rule of conduct. Every action and every decision I make is made in the light of “WWJD,” What would Jesus do. As Jesus led a life of Self-denial; so as His disciple I must “deny myself.” Self-denial means I submit everything I am to His control: all my pleasures, all my interests, all my works, all my desires. I hold no area of my life back from Him and His control. No one else can take this step for me; it is a choice I must make on my own free will; one I feely choose to undertake.
Self-denial is not the denial of things. Warren W. Wiersbe in A Time To Be Renewed explains it so well: “To deny self does not mean to deny things. It means to give yourself wholly to Christ and share in His shame and death. To take up a cross does not mean to carry burdens or have problems. I once met a lady who told me her asthma was the cross she had to bear! To take up the cross means to identify with Christ in His rejection, shame, suffering, and death” [--Warren W. Wiersbe in A Time To Be Renewed. Christianity Today, Vol. 32, no. 5.].
Oswald Chambers in the September 13th devotional in My Utmost for His Highest explains self-denial as “Surrender for Devotion”: “The surrender here is of my self to Jesus, with His rest at the heart of my being. He says, ‘If you want to be My disciple, you must give up your right to yourself to Me.’ And once this is done, the remainder of your life will exhibit nothing but the evidence of this surrender, and you never need to be concerned again with what the future may hold for you. Whatever you circumstances may be, Jesus is totally sufficient” [--James Reimann, ed., My Utmost for His Highest: An Updated Edition in Today’s Language (Grand Rapids: Discovery House Publishers, 1992), September 13th.]
Self-denial is submission of my self to Jesus. It does not bring me bondage, it liberates me to be the best He intends for me to be. Richard J. Foster is the founder of Renovaré, which "is committed to working for the renewal of the Church of Jesus Christ in all her multifaceted expressions." He is perhaps the most famous Quaker today and has served as a Friends pastor and professor of theology at Friends University. He testifies to the freedom Jesus gives when we come to Him in true self-denial: “In submission we are free to value other people. Their dreams and plans become important to us. We have entered into a new, wonderful, glorious freedom, the freedom to give up our own rights for the good of others. For the first time we can love people unconditionally. We have given up the right for them to return our love. No longer do we feel that we have to be treated in a certain way. We can rejoice with their successes. We feel genuine sorrow at their failures. It is of little consequence that our plans are frustrated if their plans succeed. We discover that it is far better to serve our neighbor than to have our own way” [--Richard J. Foster as quoted in Edythe Draper, Draper’s Book of Quotations for the Christian World (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1992)]. To be a disciple of Jesus will cost me the price of self-denial.
To be a disciple of Jesus I must “take up my cross.” All three Synoptic Gospels give an account of these instructions of Jesus on Discipleship, but Luke elaborates a little more in Luke 9:23: “And He was saying to them all, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” A disciple of Jesus “takes up his cross” every single day; it is a daily consecration of ourselves to Him, not a once in a life time experience.
Cross-bearing is not an easy road. Crucifixion was the most horrible and painful form of execution in all of human history, and death was usually extremely slow in coming. Jesus makes His point even stronger in Luke 14:27, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be my disciple.” Being a disciple of Jesus Christ requires I live a sacrificial life following in the steps of Jesus. This does not mean that a disciple seeks to suffer; but it does mean he will not be surprised when it comes, and it furthermore means he will be victorious through the power of the blood of Jesus and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Disciples overcome in the power of the promise of Jesus in John 16:33b: “In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
Cross-bearing Christians are committed disciples, not “Christaholics.” Calvin Miller challenges us at this point of discipleship in The Taste of Joy: “Many Christians are only “Christaholics” and not disciples at all. Disciples are cross-bearers; they seek Christ. Christaholics seek happiness. Disciples dare to discipline themselves, and the demands they place on themselves leave them enjoying the happiness of their growth. Christaholics are escapists looking for a shortcut to nirvana. Like drug addicts, they are trying to “bomb out” of their depressing world.
“There is no automatic joy. Christ is not a happiness capsule; He is the way to the Father. But the way to the Father is not a carnival ride in which we sit and do nothing while we are whisked through various spiritual sensations” [--Calvin Miller in The Taste of Joy. Christianity Today, Vol. 33, no. 17]. Are you a cross-bearing disciple or a Christaholic Christian?
Cross-bearing may cost you your physical life. Jesus explains in Mark 8:35, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” A cross-bearing disciple will lay down his life for Jesus and His Gospel if the situation demands; he will not back down. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German theologian in the first half of the twentieth century said in his The Cost of Discipleship: “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die” [Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1963), 99.] These were not ivory tower academics for Bonhoeffer, who paid the personal cost of discipleship in execution at age 39 on April 9, 1945. He had bravely resisted Hitler and the Nazi State when most of Germany’s clergy supported the Third Reich. In 1943 he was part of a group that tried twice but failed to assassinate Hitler. The word “fuehrer” in German literally means “leader or guide.” Standing up as Christ’s disciple on a radio broadcast in Berlin he had bravely rebuked the German Church for having allied with the Nazi, “‘There can only be one Fuehrer for Christians, and it isn’t Adolf Hitler.’ The radio address was brought to an abrupt halt, a foreboding prologue to things to come” [--Ron Walters, General Manger KFAX Am 1100 in “Pastor’s Letter,” August 15, 2002; http://www.kfax.com/pastorsletter.asp?ID=24]. All disciples may not have to pay Bonhoeffer’s “cost of discipleship”, but anyone unwilling to do so can not be a disciple of Jesus.
Finally, a disciple of Jesus must “Follow Him.” To follow Jesus means that by the power of the Holy Spirit living in me I “imitate and His leading,” that I “act according to His example. His life is the pattern for living my own. It means I imitate Him completely and continuously consecrate my life to Him. In the words of my favorite praise chorus, it means:
“You are my strength when I am weak;
You are the treasure that I seek;
You are my all in all.
Seeking You as a Precious Jewel,
Lord to give up, I’d be a fool
You are my all in all.”
[--Dennis L. Jernigan, “You Are My All in All,” (Nashville:
WORD, Inc., Shepherd’s Heart Music, 1990).]
Jesus’ rhetorical question in verse 37, “For what will a man give in exchange for his soul” clarifies what it means to follow Him. Worldliness has no lasting value. Only our personal, daily relationship with Him as our Saviour and Lord pays eternal dividends. As C. S. Lewis says in The Four Loves: “All human beings pass away. Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only beloved who will never pass away” [--C. S. Lewis in The Four Loves. Christianity Today, Vol. 39, no. 9.].
Ron Lee Davis in his sermon entitled “Rejoicing in Our Suffering” tells this story: “I remember Tom Landry telling me in the mountains of Colorado years ago, just after they had won the Super Bowl (the Dallas Cowboys, year after year, had been coming so close, and finally that victory had come), ‘The overwhelming emotion—in a few days, among the players on the Dallas Cowboys football team—was how empty that goal was. There must be something more’” [--Ron Lee Davis, “Rejoicing in Our Suffering,” Preaching Today, Tape 74.]. That more is a daily walk with Jesus in which He is our Lord and Master and we are His disciples:
“Only one life will soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.”
Jesus calls all of us to be His disciples: to deny ourselves; to take up our cross daily; and to follow Him. Are you His disciple, or are you only a Christaholic? The choice is up to you. “LET US PRAY . . .”
“THE SURRENDERED WILL”:
LAID ON YOUR ALTAR, O MY LORD, DIVINE,
ACCEPT MY GIFT THIS DAY, FOR JESUS’ SAKE;
I HAVE NO JEWELS TO ADORN YOUR SHRINE,
NO WORLD-FAMED SACRIFICE TO MAKE;
AND HERE I BRING WITHIN MY TREMBLING HANDS
THIS WILL OF MINE, A THING THAT SEEMS SMALL;
YET YOU ALONE CAN UNDERSTAND
THAT WHEN I YIELD YOU THIS, I YIELD YOU ALL!
--JAMES S. HEWETT, ILLUSTRATIONS UNLIMITED (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1988), 98.
