The Glory of the Church Series

#14 “Discipleship and Obedience”

 Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.".

My father taught me: "There are no free lunches." I wonder if we should hang that sign over the communion table? The redemption we commemorate in the Lord’s Supper certainly wasn't free to Him.

Discipleship is a costly thing. If it isn't to be taken seriously in my life, I would give God more honor by not paying lip-service to it. A theology that minimizes the commitment involved in following Jesus belies the significance of both Jesus' cross and our own.

Before the Lord God made man upon the earth He first prepared for him a world of useful and pleasant things for his sustenance and delight. In the Genesis account of the creation these are called simply “things.”

They were made for man’s use, but they were meant always to be external to the man and subservient to him. But sin introduced complications and has made those very gifts of God a potential source of ruin to the soul.

“Things” have become necessary for us to the extent that these gifts now take the place of God. Our Lord referred to this tyranny of things when He said to His disciples: Matthew 16:24-25: "Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. {25} For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it."

The Gospel of Grace

"But what are you saying about the gospel?" "Aren't we saved by the grace of God? Doesn't that mean that salvation is a ‘free gift' to us?"

1.   In terms of its provision, salvation from sin is indeed free to us. Heaven paid the price for our redemption at the cross of Jesus.

2.   In terms of accepting and living out its implications, however, the gospel is hardly free at all. It demands everything one can give in return.

Across the ages of Christian history, we may have produced far more consumers of religion than true disciples. We buy gold-edged Bibles, listen to Christian music, and attend user-friendly churches. Yet our lives are not particularly upright or civil — much less Christ-like.

Every bonus or raise signals the possibility of a bigger house or luxury car instead of greater generosity. We think we’ve achieved a great moral victory simply in not cheating on our income taxes or our wives. If we are generally pleasant and polite, we judge ourselves to be Christians.

"When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.".

When Jesus called us to follow him, he didn't call us to pleasantries and politeness. He called us to join him in battling against the spiritual forces of darkness that war against the human soul. He called us to battle for what is holy, pure, and just.

To do that, I have to die to sin and self-will. I have to be willing to suffer for what I believe. Christ's call could even means physical death.

In our text for today, Luke notes that "large crowds were traveling with Jesus" (v.25). The carpenter from the backwater town of Nazareth was a howling success. The crowds were big and getting bigger.

So Jesus turned around to the huge crowd and said, "You'd better think seriously about this! If you go with me into Jerusalem, it will be dangerous. If you follow me to the end, it could cost you your life. In fact, if you take what I've been saying seriously, it will cost you your life — if not at Jerusalem, in your home or classroom or workplace."

(Luke 14:26-27)  ""If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple. {27} And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." (33)  "In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple." (35)   "It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear.""

  Jesus illustrates his meaning as he moves along in these verses. Would you start building a house without sitting down first and figuring the cost? How embarrassing to start such a project and not be able to finish it (vs. 28-30). Can you imagine a king going into battle against an enemy army without calculating his manpower and weaponry? He'd be foolish to do it (vs. 31-33).

You and I are supposed to count the cost of being Jesus' disciples, but some of us have been misled into thinking there's no cost involved, that this is a "free lunch."

Discipleship and Discipline

We must rise above the temptation to trivialize both Jesus' cross and our own. We must learn to make disciples instead of what one writer dubbed "inspiration junkies" out of Christians. People who are serious about following Jesus understand that there is a relationship between discipleship and discipline.

Warning bells go off in some of us when we hear such language, for it is has been used to mask and convey Pharisaism, legalism, and self-righteousness. On the other hand, some have recoiled from it into a defense of moral indulgence.

The Christian alternative to Pharisaism is not Publicanism but costly discipleship. The laxity of the Publican is just as repugnant to God as the self- righteousness of the Pharisee. In the parable it is not the Publican as such but the repentant Publican who is praised.

Jesus hasn't issued a call for "consumers of religion" or "inspiration junkies." Discipleship isn't something to be "talked into"; it’s the divine challenge that makes everything about life on Planet Earth meaningful.

Jesus has called for a few devoted men and women who will join him in the difficult task of building his church. They must be willing to be misunderstood by unbelievers always and by fellow-believers at times. They will always be under attack from an invisible-yet-powerful enemy. They may see little or no fruit from their labors, and their full reward will never come in this life. It may cost them everything and everybody they once held dear.

Crosses aren't "user friendly." They kill people! And until we are ready to die with Him, it is sacrilege to claim we are following the Christ of the cross. My Father in Heaven has taught me that there are no free lunches in his kingdom.

Obedience

"The man who says, ‘I know him,' but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. . . . This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome . . ."

Strange as it may sound to those who are offended by this term “obedience,” Jesus used both the concept and the very word throughout his teaching career.

First, the concept from his lips: "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work" (John 4:34).

To do the will of someone else is obedience by anyone's definition. It is surrendering oneself to another as a slave in Jesus' culture would have been required to do to his master.

Second, not merely the ideology of obedience but the very four-letter word in question came from his lips in statements like this one: "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching" (John 14:23). As if it were not enough that Jesus practiced obedience in his own life, he enjoined it on all who would claim to love and follow him.

Because he was able to surrender his will to God, he did not think it unfair to ask those who were going to call themselves his disciples to adopt the same manner of life.

What radical thinking, both for his own time and for ours! But it is particularly offensive to our time, I suspect, in view of the fact that we have created a sort of pick-and-choose Christianity that permits would-be disciples alternately to select or to opt out of the demands of discipleship.

The word definitely belongs in the vocabulary of someone who has committed himself to be Jesus' disciple on his terms.

Obedience: A Disciple's "One Thing"

One does not have the right to call himself a "disciple" so long as he is still charting his own course. A disciple is a pupil, a novice in spiritual things who looks constantly to a tutor and coach.

Thus Christ's disciples come to him and ask to learn the lost art of obeying God as he did. And the only way of learning faithfulness from him is to give up your will to him and to make the doing of his will the one passion and delight of your heart.

There is only one thing worthy of being the single defining commitment for your life. And it isn't career, fame, or money. It isn't even being a good citizen and having a family to love and by whom to be loved.

It is the duplication of Jesus' life of single- minded devotion to God, pouring out our life in obedience to him.

The Barrier to Obedience

The single greatest barrier to such a life is not the frustrating impossibility of pleasing God but the rebellion of our flesh.

It is human ego that resists the divine will. God is easy to please, in fact, for he counts the genuine intent of a disciple's heart as full obedience. Honest! It doesn't take a lot to please God, but it does take more than most of us can give. It takes whole-hearted surrender, whole-hearted denial of self for his sake.

I can't obey God in every detail of my life, for I am flawed and fallen in my humanity. And when I speak of being Christ's disciple and obeying God, I am not talking about my performance but my commitment. I do not think for one moment that I am saved because of what I have done but solely on account of God's grace to me through the blood of Jesus.