So You Want to Be a Disciple - Part 2

On denied Christian. Jesus moves through the following him would be easy. But the promised just the opposite about the benefits of being a disciple of your good.

Turning Point. Dr. David Jeremiah takes a closer look at the requirements and discipleship as he continues the series in search of the Savior to introduce the conclusion of his message want to be a disciple is dive when you know discipleship is a word that is cast about a lot among Christians, and yet it seems to have different meanings depending upon who you talk to a disciple is not necessarily a synonym for Christian. I know a lot of Christians who don't qualify as disciples there Christians there in the faith they know Jesus, their sins have been forgiven, but they're not walking closely with the Lord and following him in their walk every day and so discipleship is something we need to really define and understand were doing that in these two lessons from the book of Mark, I hope you have a copy of the Scripture close by and you are ready to follow along with us as we finish up our discussion from Mark chapter 8 verses 31 through chapter 9 verse one. Well let's get started with today study from the book of Mark as we continue in search of the Savior. Jesus moves from what it means to be a Messiah to what it means to be a follower of the Messiah versus 34 through 38. Notice that Scripture is broken down this way versus 31 to 33. Answer the question, what is it mean to be the Messiah in verses 3438 answer the question, what is it mean to be a follower of the Messiah, so he lays down these three conditions. He says you want to be a follower of this Messiah.

The first requirement is the requirement of self-denial. He said that whoever desires to come after me, let him deny himself. What is it mean to deny yourself in this world where everybody is in self-promotion. What is it mean to deny oneself. It means to surrender ourselves to Christ and he determined to obey his will, no matter what the cost. Jesus says if you want to be one of my disciples, it can't be about you from now on. It's about me is the second requirement.

The requirement of suffering.

Whoever desires to come after me, let him take up his cross.

That's really interesting thing because in our culture today what we know about the cross is that it's a piece of jewelry.

We hang around her neck but he did say that was of the cross in Jesus day the cross in Jesus day was the Roman cross was the most humiliating experience that an individual could ever go through.

In the days of Jesus. The cross was dehumanizing. It was deadly it was defeating and if you talk about the cross in his day, you knew it was the form of execution for the poorest of the poor and the most wicked of the wicked. It was saved for special occasions to make a statement and it was the most cruel of all of the punishments known to man. Jesus said, you gotta take up your cross and follow me. So often today, we think we understand what the cross is for instance, take up your cross, what is that me well I got all these aches and pains. I'm taking him across, take up your cross, although I been bearing some heavy burdens throughout this life. Pick up your cross I been married to this woman for 50 years. That's what some people think it is.

They think it's some little issue, take up your cross is not hanging in there taking up your cross is not enduring verbal or physical abuse, taking up your cross is not putting up with another debossed on on third teacher or a bossy mother-in-law taking up your cross is not suffering with an incurable disease or debilitating handicap.

None of those things we use the words, and a cloak away. We use it kind of is a slang, although she's just bearing the cross. They say, but in the Bible to take up your cross means to suffer particularly because of your relationship with Jesus Christ to bear your cross is to suffer abuse because you are a Christian, we know very little about that in our culture were learning more about it. As the years go by, would go to some of the places where they really have to stand up and be counted for their faith.

That's what it means to take up your cross.

It means not to try to get out of identifying with the person who's accusing you, but willingly say yes. He's my Savior, he's my Lord I'm one of his and then when you get the abuse that comes from that that particularly connected abuse to your connection with Jesus.

That's what it means to take up the cross. You see, Jesus doesn't offer his disciples of self-fulfillment or intoxicating spiritual experiences or intellectual stimulation, although that may come in the process he offers us across. He doesn't invite us to try the cross on for size to see if we like it. He doesn't ask volunteers to carry one for extra credit. His demand separates us from deciders or disciples disciples have to do more than survey the wondrous Cross they have to do more than glory in the closet cross of Christ and they have to do more than love the old rugged Cross they have to become like Jesus in obedience and live fearlessly not worried about what men may say because of who they are.

Notice the third requirement requirement for self-denial.

The requirement for suffering and the requirement of submission. Whoever desires to come after me, let him follow me.

The words to be my disciples. You got it do what I do know where I go. Listen to what I say follow my example I want you to get in line behind me. Discipleship is not about being in front of somebody. It's about being in behind someone follow me and Jesus tells his disciples to follow the why he was chosen not the way they want to go.

Jesus doesn't want a convoy of followers who just marveled at the good things he does but then don't follow as an example. This perception that Jesus is talking about in these words is a rare sight, disciples, following after their master. Each of them determining in their own heart how they can best serve the one and each of them carrying across in the procession again. Can you imagine these disciples what they thought they were getting that they were getting this king he was going to come and set up his kingdom in Jerusalem and he was going to roll in rain and they were going to be with them and is going to be all glory and will return to glory prominence turned to pain success turned the suffering. Maybe one of them turned to the other and said what have we gotten ourselves into. And you know that sometimes I think Christians feel that way have never heard a preacher preach of you except Jesus Christ all your problems will be solved. Most of us know that when that happens we accept Jesus Christ we get a bunch of proms. We didn't even have before. Amen the Christian life was never meant to be a life of ease and success and wealth, and prosperity in all your problems being solved.

If you study the New Testament that doesn't fit anywhere in the definition of a disciple. I can find.

Let me tell you there are rewards for disciples and that's what Jesus is going to talk about it in verse 35. First of all, he tells us there's the reward of a passionate life for whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospels will save it. That's a really interesting statement when you first read these words, it looks like Jesus talking about physical death. In other words, the idea goes something like this. If you give up your physical life. You'll get back a spiritual life and giving your physical life up you will be blessed because you get a spiritual life that will be eternal. And that's all good and it's all true, but I don't think that's what Jesus talking about if we accept this is the ultimate interpretation of Jesus words.

There's nothing that moves us to any kind of action or response.

Let's face it, most of us will not be asked to give our physical lives for Christ and the gospel, so we just read right past this and say well that's for people in other countries were there under pressure. That is a belong to us, but it does belong to us what Jesus meant something quite different than giving up our physical lives for him what he meant is that we have a choice to make and how we live our lives now in this present world.

One of these talking about dying to our own ambitions and our purposes and our plans so that we can live our lives totally for him.

GK Chesterton writes, he that will lose his life, the same shall save it is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes is a piece of everyday advice for sailors and mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. The paradox is the whole picture of courage even of quite earthly or quite brutal, courage, and then uses these illustrations a man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice, he can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by his enemies. If he's to cut his way out needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life or that he will be a coward and he will not escape the must not merely wait for death. For then there will be a suicide and he will not escape. He must seek his life in the spirit of furious indifference to what it means he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine. I don't know if you're catching this, but he is saying that when you follow Jesus without any reservation you enter in to a life that is filled with risk and adventure, and surrender and not knowing what's going to happen tomorrow and getting up the next day and say Lord I didn't sign up for this, but here we go, and the passion grows in your heart until you love what you do so much you can imagine not doing and every day is not all I have to go to work today but every days, not like work because it's who you are and what you do. You are a disciple of the Savior and you're so full of passion and the Bible says you do this for his sake and for the sake of the gospel. You do it for the sake of Jesus because you love him, but that's abstract you do it for the sake of the gospel which is sharing the message of Jesus Christ as widely as you can. That's not abstract that's concrete so the person is a disciple is in the poor guy who sits over here waiting for the next shoe to drop in go through some suffering. He's a guy who lives on the heritage of life.

Every moment of his day and he knows that he's walking with an eternal son of God, and death is frightening to him. He's not wanting to die, but is not afraid to die. Life is so filled with joy and excitement and adventure, and sometimes sorrow and suffering, but all of it in the context of a call from the son of God, did you know it's a lot easier to work for one boss than for many looking up every day and realizing Lord God, you're the one the only one I report to life. A disciple is a passionate life. It's also productive life. Notice he says for what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul, or what will a man give in exchange for his soul. Did you know that discipleship is a matter of profit and loss.

It's a question of whether we will waste our lives in our present or invest our lives. Remember, Jesus was instructing his disciples. These were men who already knew him. He was not telling them how to be saved and go to heaven primarily. He was telling them how to save their lives and make the most of their opportunities on this earth, and they did today after the day of Pentecost. These very men caught fire with this issue and they went everywhere preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Bible says they turned their world upside down.

You think that those disciples ever got up in the morning and said oh, another day of serving Jesus.

No sir.

They were like many of us to get involved in this whole process. They couldn't go to sleep at night because they were thinking of the next opportunity. They would get up early because they were so excited about what was going to happen that day and many times they didn't know what was going to happen that day.

But when you walk with Jesus you walk in a different way you walk in a world that is filled with opportunities to invest your life. When he says you can lose your soul. He is saying basically you can waste your life, you can miss your opportunity God gives you one opportunity in one of these days you're going to stand before him in Jesus is saying if you stand before me stock. I believe the Christian people here and you got all of the stuff that you've accumulated. In all these achievements that you made you want all these awards and you stand before him someday say Lord. Look what I've got what you have invested any of your life in the kingdom you've lost one if you walk through life and you don't have a lot of these major things that everybody tells you, you have to have in order to really be successful but you serve the Lord God with all of your heart and your totally into what he's asking to do and sometimes it's harder than you can imagine, when they are going to stand before him and hear him say well done, my good servant enter into the presence of your Lord, make the choice you can either waste your life on all the stuff that's going to burn up. When this earth goes up in smoke or you can invest your life and eternal things and finally there's the reward of a purposeful life for whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with his holy angels.

Is there any reward for the person who is a true disciple absolutely, he becomes more like Jesus in the here and now. But in the end, the Bible says he shares the glory of Christ, he stands with Christ in that moment of glory as one of his chosen disciples and the reward is way beyond any of the investment he could ever have made. I must tell you what I read a passage like this I want to see if I can call somebody else to come and preach it because I feel so unworthy to do it.

Who of us if were honest, would say. I measure up all those things on the walking, living, breathing disciple course we don't. I can say that but I can tell you when I read these things when I study them.

I know this is the direction my life needs to be going. Is your life going in that direction chosen not just you know, sometimes one of things we learn as we get older is how quickly life passes by clock seems to going to overdrive.

This goes like that you look back and that's what happens in life. Life speeds up as you start to get older and the opportunities that you don't take advantage of in your life.

Don't wait for you. Some of them you could go back and recover, but many.

They come in a moment of time and then they're gone and you let your life get cluttered up with all the stuff that doesn't matter.

That's what I think Jesus is wanting to save us all today.

Not that we have to be perfectionists in terms of all these things. None of us will be I don't know anybody. Truly, that is, just maybe a couple of people I've met along the way but in the process of life.

The question we have to ask is this I we headed there is not our goal is that our purpose do we want to be able to learn how to deny the things that we want so that we can invest our lives and something more important. Are we allowing our lives to be chewed out piece by piece. Every day while things that will make a difference for eternity are left undone, which is so busy with everything and what is it me, what is account that's what I think he's talking about. That's what challenge me this week.

I'm sure you guys all know I love what I do.

I don't have to force myself to get up and get the work in the morning. Doesn't seem like work to me, but there's so much the crowds in your life. Even as a pastor stuff is so incidental I mean I used to be so tied up in how the charges do you say while you badmouth and more to know you. I love sports. I'm just saying you've gotta keep it in perspective. You gotta keep it in the right order. It cannot become everything because when it becomes everything. What should be. Everything gets pushed to the side in the things of God, which mean everything. The souls of lost men and women. The people that come to Christ, the neighbors who need our help.

The calling of God upon their lives get pushed into second place. And that's not a good exchange. I'm glad for passages like this there good checkpoints for us along the way.

Our make a stop and when my doing with my life.

What is there in my life is really of no value but is just taking up time, only one life you have and it'll be gone. I read a story about a pastor in Texas who on occasion would go to the mission field in one year.

He went to Malaysia to visit some friends down there he went to a church in Malaysia which is one of the countries in the world were hostility toward Christianity's its highest really cost to be a Christian in Malaysia and during the service. The young lady was baptized and she gave testimony of her faith in Christ as he was watching the baptism he noticed there was some old beat up luggage leaning against the wall on the inside of the church auditorium so we said to the pastor afterward. What is that he said well he said additionally he was told by her father to go to that church today and you get baptized you can't come home so she brought her luggage with her.

I guess it's a good place for me to say there's a lot of baggage that we carry around that we don't need we need to be ready to follow the Lord in the simplicity of the Christian life no matter what it costs. We willing to do that you say will pastor you don't have to pay a price in our culture today. That's true, but I want to take something where going there going there. We feel it. Don't wait. We see it we see the encroachment into our Christian experience and we know there were headed toward a day when if you're not willing to stand up and say yes I follow him, you can't be a disciple as I talked with I know that some of you are Christians and once a long time ago that was the fire in your belly. That's what you wanted to do you want to serve the Lord of life just sort of got complicated. You got confused on this when you look up in the years of gone, Jesus is been put on hold. In today's you listen to this message, you realize you still have some time left you want to put them back where he belongs in the center of your life is the only way you'll ever find true fulfillment and joy can only will you ever be passionate and productive and purposeful in this life is to get with it. Here's what I'm asking you to do get all in all, in how much you holding back. How much do you have that you haven't put on the table: I want to serve you, but you can have the children and youth.

No, to be a disciple is all in all, everything when you get all in and the passion in the joint begins to flow in your heart recently was teaching here at the shut among church and the life of Elisha toward the very end of his life. He met with the king of Israel. Joash and that he had of prophecy form. He said strike the ground with your arrows and Joash pulled out three arrows from his quiver and struck the ground with them in. Elisha was furious. He said Joash why would you strike the ground only three times because instructing the ground you're fulfilling the prophecy of the defeat of your enemy. If you had struck the ground many times the enemy would be totally defeated and read the rest of the story and Joash and the Israelites beat the Syrians three times but were still plagued by them because Joash refused to go all out. Is it not interesting that that often plagues us to be a disciple means you do everything you leave nothing on the table. You sell yourself. God ever thought of that, you ever wondered what that would feel like to be totally committed to the Lord Jesus Christ literally be his son tomorrow morning to talk about the Transfiguration of Jesus. One of the signal events of his life and I want you to assure and join me as we look at the ninth chapter of Mark tomorrow. The message you just heard originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church with Dr. David Jeremiah as senior pastor does not have tending point keeps you spiritually strong to any .3838 San Diego, CA 92163 or visit our website at Jeremiah.old/writing your copy of the Bible finding Jesus in every life of any amount you can also download the Turning Point in my Valencia private smart device app. Still, the keywords Turning Point ministry programs visit Jeremiah.old/writing on Gary who join us tomorrow as we continue to save you here on tending point.

Jeremiah taking time to listen to all