Discipleship

I'd like to read to you the Gospel of Luke, please. We're going to read in Luke chapter 6. Luke chapter 6. We're going to be looking tonight at discipleship. And then, as you know, there is a meeting tomorrow night.

People are really patient, a Saturday night meeting. And we'll be looking at the great subject of leadership. And then, Sunday afternoon during Sunday school, we'll take up the final subject of lordship.

But tonight it is discipleship. And we'll be reading, actually, from the writings of Luke throughout the meeting. Luke chapter 6 and verse 13.

And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples. And of them, he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles. Now, just please note, I think that that verse is very suggestive, very significant.

If we are thinking about apostles as those whom he was going to send, and if in some sense they represent full-time workers, then would you please notice that before that, they were disciples. Because it is from those who are his disciples that he chooses some to be something else, something other than just mere disciples, but to be apostles, to be sent by him as well. Now, turn please to chapter 14 and verse 25.

And there went great multitudes with him, and he turned and said unto them, If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. For which of you intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it.

Lest, happily, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth, whether he be able with ten thousand, to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand. Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.

So likewise, whosoever he be of you, that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. Our final readings will be in the book of Acts, please. First of all, Acts chapter 9. Acts chapter 9, and verse 10.

And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias. And to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord.

Verse 23. And after that many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him. But their laying awake was known of Saul.

And they watched the gate day and night to kill him. Then the disciples took him by night, and let him down by the wall in a basket. And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples.

But they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple. And then the chapter to verse 36. Now, there was at Joppa a certain disciple, named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas.

This woman was full of good works and alms deeds, which she did. Now, chapter 16, please. We're actually reading the last five times in our English Bible that this word disciple occurs.

It is all in the book of Acts. And the fourth time is verse one of chapter 16. Then came he to Derbe and Lystra.

And behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman, which was a Jew, as in believed. But his father was a Greek, which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium. Finally, chapter 21 and verse 15.

Chapter 21 and verse 15. And after those days, we took up our carriages and went up to Jerusalem. There went with us also a certain of the disciples of Caesarea and brought with them one mason of Cyprus, an old disciple.

Or an early disciple. He had roots that went back to the early days. An old disciple with whom? Now, I'd like to cluster my comments around three major topics tonight on this important subject.

I want to think about the commencement of discipleship and the characteristics and then the culmination of this great truth. I think the question would have to be answered first is what do we mean or what does God mean? What does the Bible mean by the word disciple? What does it mean to be a disciple? The simple answer is that a disciple is a learner. He is one who follows in order to learn.

And that's one of the reasons why I emphasize that passage in Luke chapter 6. Because it shows that out of his existing disciples, the Lord Jesus chose those who would be apostles. So if it ever enters into my mind that I'm saved but really I am not a disciple yet. I'm not really what you'd call a disciple.

Then there's something incongruous about that because it is intended that just as I am a saint, I will be a disciple. A follower who will learn. The Greek word, I don't know Greek so there's no point in my quoting it to you.

The word is methetes. But the Greek word, if you just follow its usage, it seems to me to have this connotation. It is not just the idea of a pupil who is learning.

But it carries along with it the idea of an adherent who is living. And it goes even further than that as you read the usage of the word by the Lord Jesus. It is a person who is a devotee.

So it involves at least these three things. He is learning. He is living out what he is learning.

And he loves both the teacher, the master, and the truth that he is being taught. Now for instance, this may not apply to those here who are in university. Because the things you are learning you perhaps are having to master in order to be competent in your chosen discipline.

But if you can think back to high school days or junior high school days. You will remember that you learned things like theorems in math. You learned things in chemistry.

You maybe memorized the table and Elizabethan history. They were quickly memorized and just as quickly erased from your memory bank. You were just learning them in order to ace the test.

Just to pass the test. And so it was a bit of information that had very little bearing on your life. And it just came and went.

But that is not discipleship. The disciple, he loves the truth that he is hearing. And he is imbibing it and he wants to live it out in his life.

Because he does love the person who is teaching him, the Lord Jesus. And he loves the truth that he is learning from the Savior. I think that the first mention of the word is extremely significant.

It is in Matthew chapter 5 and verse 1. And it is of course the Sermon on the Mount. The Lord Jesus has seated himself in order to teach. And the disciples have come and they have taken their place around him.

So just think of disciples surrounding their master. Lovingly learning from him how to live so as to please God. And you have in its incipient form what it means to be a disciple.

If you take that first mention. Those men seated at the feet of the Lord Jesus learning from him. And then you take the last mention.

Acts chapter 21. Nascent, an old disciple, an early disciple. Then you see that discipleship is a lifelong avocation.

Whether you look at it at the beginning as they gathered around him to learn at the start. Or a man in his old age, still a disciple, still following the Lord Jesus. And in fact, if you take just those five last usages of it.

I think the word occurs thirty times in the book of Acts, in the original. But these are the last five mentions in the English Bible of this word disciple. Notice please, notice the variety.

Because it will answer some questions that often come into the minds of people. Questions like this. Can a person be saved and not a disciple? Is discipleship just for commended workers? Is a disciple just a man? Is a disciple just a strong young person? Do you graduate from discipleship or retire from discipleship? Now notice the variety of its usage.

Acts chapter 9 and verse 10 you have Ananias. A mature believer. Acts chapter 9 and verse 26 you have Saul.

A new convert. Acts chapter 9 and verse 36 you have Dorcas. Havatha.

A sister. Acts chapter 16 and verse 1 you have Timothy. A young man.

Acts chapter 21 and verse 16 you have Nason. The old disciple. The elderly saint.

So you've got a young man, Timothy. You have a woman, Dorcas, Havatha. You have an old man, Nason, long saved.

You have a new convert, Saul, just recently saved. You have a mature believer, Ananias. Disciples.

So with a very, very practical application to our hearts, the great truth comes to me that when God saved me, He made me a disciple. How am I living that way? Learning from Him? Living at what I am learning? Loving the truth He has taught me? Notice the accounts of the selection and call of the disciples because I think that there are some great lessons to learn in the accounts given to us in the Gospels. In Matthew and Mark, I'll give you the way it is written, Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee sought two brethren, Simon called Peter and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea for they were fishers.

And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets and followed him. So notice please.

Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. There's a molding there, isn't there? There's a forming in the life. Whatever God intends for you, whatever He had in mind when He reached into your life and saved you, the molding of your life, the fastening of your life, making you into a useful vessel for the Lord Jesus, that is linked with your following Him, with your learning His truth.

And so you see what happened was when they left their nets and followed Him, that wasn't the end, that was the beginning. That was just the thing that would bring them into the achieving of what He had in mind. Follow me, and I will make you.

Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. There are great lessons to be learned in the Old Testament. When God takes Jeremiah down to the house of a potter, lessons that we can learn.

And I often have to ask myself, I wonder how many times I was marred in the hand of the potter. I wonder how many times stubbornness on my part, an unwillingness to listen or pay the price, a reticence to follow wholeheartedly. I wonder how many times the vessel was marred in the hand of the potter.

And there's something of tremendous grace when it says He made it again another vessel. Maybe you have been marred in His hand. Maybe years have been lost.

Maybe the purposes God had for you sometime in the past have been smashed on the rocks of disobedience and self-will. What incredible grace it is when instead of scraping the table clear, scrapping that clay and reaching for other clay, instead He patiently works to remove from the clay the offensive, the resistant thing, and He makes that clay again another vessel as seemed good to Him to make. So that's remarkable grace.

But please notice that when you move to the New Testament, there is something that is additional, something that is deeper, that is added. There is, of course, in the Old Testament, the potter. And that is outside influences at work to shape and to mold.

There's something even greater at work in your life. Because it is not a full picture to think of a piece of clay and outside hands working to mold that clay. But what is true for you is this, that God has imparted to you His Holy Spirit and that that forming, that molding, that shaping is now, here in our age, is now from the inside as the Spirit of God within us wishes to make us more like the Lord Jesus.

So, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. The forming, the molding. But when you come to the Gospel of Luke in chapter 5 it says, After these things He went forth, and He saw a publican named Levi sitting at the receipt of custom, and He said unto him, Follow me.

And he left all, rose up, and followed Him. Catch the idea of forsaking? See the mandate there? The Lord Jesus calls and everything else must take second place. We will notice that now when we come to those difficult verses in Luke chapter 14.

It is not a matter that the Savior, who wishes me to be displaying love in all of my relationships, should contradict Himself and tell me that I ought to show hatred toward people that He tells me to love. That's not the point. But the point is that when Levi looked at his job, his receipt of customs, when James and John, when they saw their nets, the difference was that this call took precedence.

Here was a mandate from the Savior. Follow me. Follow me.

This is not arbitrary. We are not taking a poll tonight to see if you dear saved people, if all of us here, if maybe just some of us would finally decide that we want to be disciples. We are called to this.

We are called to this. Follow me is not a suggestion. It is a command.

Notice the third. It is in the Gospel of John chapter 1. The next day after John stood with two of his disciples, and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him speak and they followed Jesus.

And that's when you have that touching scene when he says, What do you seek? And they say, Rabbi, where dwellest thou? What do you seek? Rabbi, where dwellest thou? And they went and they abode with him. Notice the magnetism. The following.

The forsaking. Notice the magnetism. They were John's disciples.

But when they catch a glimpse of God's Lamb, John fades into the background like the moon when the sun comes up. And now they are following him. So I think there are great lessons to learn from that.

Those great truths of the commencement of discipleship. When God saved me, he called me to be a disciple, to be a follower of the Lord Jesus. And that, of course, commences with conversion.

What's the characteristics of discipleship? What marks and motivates a disciple of the Lord Jesus? First of all, the disciple has a pattern. He has a pattern that he follows. That pattern is the master himself, the Lord Jesus.

Now, on four occasions, the Lord Jesus used similar language. And I'm not going to be able to set this out before you as skillfully as I would like, or could if we were working with paper and pencil and I wrote the passages down, or you could actually see them visibly. But it seems to me that these four passages break up into two and two.

And here is what I mean. The Lord Jesus said things like this. The disciple is not above his master.

The servant is not above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master. Now, on two of those occasions, the topic was persecution.

And the Lord Jesus says, when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another, for verily I say unto you, ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come. And then he says these significant words. The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his Lord.

It is enough, it is sufficient for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his Lord, Matthew chapter 10. Now, similarly, in John chapter 15, the Lord Jesus says, if you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

Remember the word that I said unto you. Pointing back to Matthew 10, he says, the servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you.

If they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. Now, in those two occasions, Matthew chapter 10, John chapter 15, the Lord Jesus presents himself as the consolation and confidence of the disciple amidst persecution and difficulty. And he says to them, in effect, he says, now, if you suffer, just remember, you're following me.

I suffered. And the disciple is not above his master, so if I have suffered, you will suffer. And if they've hated me, they will hate you.

And if they've persecuted me, they will persecute you as well. So now, my dear young sister, when the in crowd at school looks at you and sneers at the way you dress and the way you look and the fact that you will not stoop to their language and their behavior, would you just keep in the back of your mind that that's exactly the attitude they had toward your master? And the reason that you are facing that is because you are his disciple. Dear young brother, and you're walking a path separate from the way those boys, your peers, live and act and behave and what they like and what they talk about and what they spend their time with.

The reason that you're outside rather than inside, the reason that sometimes you feel the icy cold indifference of that crowd rather than a warm embrace and acceptance is because you're a follower of him. The world has never changed in its attitude toward him and therefore it has no time for you. But two other occasions, the Lord Jesus used similar language.

He said in John chapter 13, If I, then your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord, neither is he that is sent greater than he that sent him.

If ye know these things, happier are ye if ye do them. Notice that word, as I have done to you, because that's the same small word he uses in Luke chapter 6 when he says the disciple is not above his master, but everyone that is perfect shall be as his master. So now it's not persecution.

Now it's the model and motive of the disciple. Now the disciple is modeling himself. He's following somebody.

He has a role model. Do you want a role model? Do you want a role model? Seek to be like the Lord Jesus. You'll never go wrong.

Ask God to make you more like Christ. You'll never go wrong. You can follow a mere man, but the best of men, Paul, would have to say, even as I also am of Christ.

But there's one person you can follow, and he will never lead you wrong, and that's the Lord Jesus. I remember years ago, I think it was Time Magazine, and it's kind of funny to me now because back then I never heard of the man. I remember reading his name was Bill Gates.

He was starting a fledgling company out on the West Coast. He was a wonder kid. You see, they were talking about this brain, and the smart fellows, the brains he was gathering around him.

But Windows, Microsoft, it was starting, but it was certainly not the name it is today. So the reporter was describing what it was like to be in that company. And he said he had been allowed to be in on a meeting because he was watching the influence of this young, comparatively young CEO on these adoring computer wizards who just thought this man knew everything.

So he said, I noticed that in the meeting, as he began to read his notes, he said Mr. Gates, I think he called him that, Mr. Gates, he said he began to sort of like rock back and forth in his chair just as he was reading. But he said what I noticed was that all the other men began to rock back and forth in their chair. And then he said, he said Mr. Gates wears glasses, he said he pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose.

And he said don't you know that the people around him began to push up on the bridge, even if they didn't have glasses, they began to push up on the bridge of their nose. What was happening? They were studying him. They were so intent on studying him that they did not even realize that they were picking up, now in that case, mannerisms.

I wish I could so study Christ that I'm not even aware of it. I wish I so knew the Lord Jesus and could translate his life into mine by the grace of God that I wouldn't even be aware that I'm living Christ-like. That's what you have with Moses, isn't it? You have those, I don't know if we mentioned this yet, you have those two instances that are so, such polar experiences where it says about Samson, for instance, he wished not that the Lord had departed from him.

He wished not that the Lord had departed from him. Much like Ephraim, gray hairs are here and there upon him and he knows it not. That's at the awful bottom end, the nadir, a spiritual experience.

You've lost your strength, you've lost your youth and vitality, you don't have the presence of the Lord with you and you don't even know it. Way at the other end, there's a man coming down from the mountain. He's been in the presence of the Lord and his face is beaming with reflected glory and he doesn't even know it.

He's reflecting the glory of the Lord in whose presence he has been and he's not even aware of it. It would be a wonderful thing to have as my role model the Lord Jesus in such a way that I am imbibing his truth, living it out, and thus becoming more Christ-like. The disciple has a pattern, but the disciple has a passion.

He has a passion. He is so obviously devoted that the warmth of other loves, in comparison, is described as hate. I think we need to look at this to the best of my ability.

Other masters could command respect and veneration of their disciples because of their ability to instruct them. You think of Plato following around Socrates and then other men, great men, having disciples that followed them around and drank of their wisdom. But this master requires and receives the love of his disciples because he doesn't just give us instruction and truth, but he has won our hearts.

And that a love for him should make anything else seem insignificant. Now we sing in that marvelous hymn, Love so amazing, so divine, demands my heart, my life, my all. I would like to suggest to you that we have my heart, my life, my all in Luke chapter 14.

For instance, my heart, verse 26. The Lord Jesus spoke about the kingdom of God first. My heart.

Verse 27. The Lord Jesus speaking about, verse 26 is hate and love, verse 27 is death and life. Verse 33.

My all, commitment and carelessness are the subjects there. Now, tell me if this is of some help and understanding. Suppose instead of sitting in the comfort of this gospel hall, suppose we were standing on the brow of a cliff and we watched soldiers hauling some man to the edge of the cliff.

And we were told that this man is a follower of the Lord Jesus. Now, we're back in the first century. This man is a follower of the way.

He's a disciple of Jesus. And they brought this man here to throw him over the edge. And we're watching.

Neutral observers. And they bring this man and they hold him over that dizzy precipice and they say to him, now you make your choice. If you insist that Jesus is Lord, we let go.

But if you will simply renounce him, you will live. Now please tell me what would your opinion be if you were just watching this scene unfold. What would you think if when the man was faced with a choice between living and dying, he chose death, you would say to yourself, and you'd make the mistake, but you'd say to yourself, he must hate life.

He doesn't want to live. No, you'd be completely wrong. It's not hatred that's sending him over the cliff.

It's love. It's not that he hates life so much that he wants to die. It's that he loves Christ so much that he loves him more than life.

I love life. I love what I'm doing. I have friends all over.

I love my family. I can't wait to get home. I almost said stupidly, but I won't say stupidly.

Somebody asked me if I miss my children when I'm away. I love life. I'm sure you do as well.

But what the Lord Jesus is pointing out here is that a follower of the Savior will seek the kingdom of God first and will be such a devoted follower of the Lord Jesus that even an outsider looking on, unable to see the heart, would make the mistake of thinking that he must hate life the way he's living. You say, does that really happen to that? I think of elders. I think of one man.

Let me just give you one example instead of speaking in the general plural. I know one man. He had barely gotten home from a trip and the phone rang.

He was dead tired. He hadn't even unpacked his bags and somebody was calling because he was a shepherd and they needed help. And what's he doing? He said to them, look, I just got in.

Could this wait till tomorrow? I haven't even unpacked. Do you mind? No, no. I'll be right there.

I'll be right there. What about his comfort? What about his weariness? What about some downtime? You know, kick the shoes off and catch up on the mail that came in while he was away and read the newspaper and get the fire going and kind of warm up with your feet up on the recliner. Why is he going out? Doesn't he enjoy living? Doesn't he enjoy his home and his family? What's happening? When the test came between certain things, something took precedence.

The interests of the kingdom of God. Devotion to the Master. If you were looking on like a neighbor, you'd say, I must hate his family.

He's hardly home three minutes and he's out in the car heading away. You'd misunderstand. It wasn't that he doesn't care for them or that he hates them.

But his devotion is to someone else supremely. How can I be a follower, a learner of one who taught that losing my life for his sake was really finding it, that my comfort and ease are more important to me? How can I be a follower and a learner of one who taught that I should live life like a person waiting for his Lord to return, devoting all that he has to his absent Master's honor, if instead I'm careless and half-hearted in my commitment? Now, I wanted to say to you young men and women, thank you for coming. It'll feel like you'll blink twice and before you know it you'll be middle-aged.

Now, it won't feel like it while you're on the way there. It'll just feel like it once you're there. And you'll look back and you'll say, if the Lord hasn't come, has it really been that long since I sat in the Sunnyscope Gospel Hall that Friday night and we considered discipleship? Where have the years gone? Before you know it, your life will fly by.

Now, what you want to do is you want to imbue those flying moments with something of eternal value and significance. You want to buy up the time. You don't have a lot of it.

None of us has a lot of it. You want to take the moments of earth and mint them into the currency of heaven. You want to take what the Bible says redeeming the time because the days are evil.

You want to live like a Timothy as an exemplary believer so that when you become, if God permits it, an old brother or sister like Nathan, you'll look back not with regrets, but with joy that there was something from your life that counted. Discipleship is not a weekend avocation or a hobby, but a full-time, lifelong calling to follow and obey the Lord Jesus. Let me quickly move to the close by telling you just a few things in closing.

Discipleship is the badge of our Christianity. It is the badge of our Christianity. Disciples are manifest by their love because it mirrors the profound love of the Master for his own.

Therefore, there should be a love not only for the Lord Jesus, but a love for other believers. For this shall all men know that ye are my disciples. How? If you have love, one of the principles of charity, 1 Corinthians ends this way.

If any man loved not the Lord Jesus, let him be anathema, maranatha. Love is a very strong thing, isn't it? And if we love him that begat, we should love those who are begun. There is a love.

Not only that, but it is the basis of our consecration. Love for him turns duty into delight. We noticed that, was it last evening about the Hebrew servant? That when that man says, I love my master, my wife and my children, I will not go out free.

The statement is made he shall serve him forever. Now, it is only love that turned a dark penal sentence into a bright prospect. He wanted to stay.

Now, he must stay. But yet, those words were said to you. He will serve me forever.

They would sound like an awful slavery sentence descending on you in darkness and change. What is the difference? He wanted to stay because of his love. Look at Jonathan watching David go down into the valley of the tree, the valley of Elah.

And the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David. And he loved him as his own. As D.L. Moody who so tersely said, Saul took David into his house, but Jonathan took him into his heart.

And when you see him taking off his sword and laying loose things at the feet of David, you are looking at the picture of consecration. Why is he giving all that he has to this young man? Why is he saying in effect, you are my prince. Clasp these surrendered hands in mine.

In the words of Hanley Mole. Why? Because the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David. Paul told of the amazing condescension of the Savior in Philippians chapter 2. Is it any wonder then that what we were speaking on the way here tonight about a very, very beloved friend of mine.

I am not sure if he ever got to Arizona. His name was Mr. Cesar Petrizio. I was so glad that God saved me with a number of years left before Mr. Petrizio died so that I could just learn from that man's love for Saul.

He came out of a gospel meeting at the old Hartford, Connecticut Gospel Hall some years ago. Came down the steps and was standing out on the sidewalk. And there was an old man who was the son of Christians who had years ago scorning the gospel.

Turned away from the whole thing. He had come out to this one meeting at the request of his mother. But he sat with a sneer on his face listening to the gospel.

He thought the whole thing was ludicrous. And he wanted to express that before he left. So he stepped over to Mr. Petrizio.

With a sneer on his face he said, you are wasting your life. Yes. Yes.

I am. I'm wasting it for the Lord Jesus. And if I had it to live over again I'd want to waste it even more for him.

I'd want to waste it even more for him. That is the basis of our consecration. It's not that I have rules that I must live by.

It's not that when I get to heaven I really appreciate it. mean I'm interested in rewards but she said, is it something that the Lord will appreciate when I get to heaven? I began to think over what she said when she said what sounded so humble. Somebody gave me an article on humility.

Maybe they felt that I needed it but it sounded so humble to say I'm interested in rewards but are you peacock feathers with which we will strut around heaven while people admire us for how spiritual we must have been because look at our rewards. What you find is that crowns now are being laid at the feet of the Lord Jesus so that now we understand that the reward indicates the capacity that I will have to honor him, to glorify him. How much do you want to lay at his feet in heaven? How much would you like to be able to glorify him? That's all inextricably linked with our seeking to please him here because of course you remember his words and they are remarkable words aren't they? What does he say when the master and the Lord calls his servants before him and he says, well done good and faithful servant enter thou into your joy.

I know you will be happy now come into my kingdom. What's that mean? All right now dear sister you've paid the price to look and act like a Christian for decades. Dear brother you've watched dishonesty and immorality all around you in the office and you have struck a clear path of pure living and righteous integrity and sometimes like ASAP you'll find yourself thinking is it all worth it? Have I washed my hands in vain? Am I not worth it? One day you'll stand before the Lord Jesus and he will tell you in effect.

Do you know how you lived? Do you know what you did for my name? Do you know the price you paid? Do you want to know what that did? That gave me joy and I want you to step into heaven with this thought in your mind that you gave joy to the infinite heart of God. Go and enjoy that now. It is the promise for our consecration that we want to please the person we love.

I would suggest to you that it is the barometer of our condition. The barometer of our condition and it may be said that it is the only reliable barometer of my condition, my devotion to the Lord Jesus. See other things like strength can become feebleness.

Witness Samson. Things like wisdom can become following. Have a look at Solomon.

Wisdom failure. Look at Saul the king. His brightest day was his first and after that it just seemed to be a solemn trip down to the bottom and even courage can become fear.

I think the devil knew exactly what he was doing when he used a little name on the conscience of Simon Peter. Don't you think with a wincing thought he was a big brawny Roman soldier with his hand on his sword. Peter would never forget that he trembled before a little maid carrying a tray with dirty dishes.

Courage can become fierce. There is no point in my saying I must be a good follower of the Lord Jesus. I am fearless in my witness.

I am successful. God has blessed me. I am Intolerant as to error.

I can be intrepid in my witness. I can be intransigent in my convictions. But if I am not intense in my devotion, then all you are left with is this Phariseeism.

As a person follows rules and laws and fails to have a heart that is devoted to the Savior. More important than making money. Now, however attractive or native to our personalities, this takes precedence.

Andrew, Peter, James, and John, the inferences that they were good fishermen, that they had dumped for years, that Galileans that they were right by the sea there, this must have been their livelihood from when they were young. Follow me! That takes precedence over a profitable career. More important than your making money is following the Lord Jesus.

If you can follow him and earn money to be used for his glory, all the better. Fine. Great.

Wonderful. My brother has been here for meetings. Sandy? Good.

Let me tell you a story that he wouldn't tell you. He met when he was in medical school sharing in meetings. In fact, he and David Oliver and I had two or three places where we had rented buildings.

Growing increasingly difficult for my brother because of his schedule at school to share in that type of thing, but he was doing all that he could. Somebody commented about that to another person who was in the building. when he gets his own practice and the money starts rolling in, just wait until then and we'll see what he does.

I'm just thankful, I'm not bragging because I had nothing to do with it, I'm just thankful to God that the brother I have is a brother who has devoted himself to learning the Word of God and helping others because there was something more important than personal comfort. John 21, the Lord Jesus said to Peter, follow me, and at the end of that following me path was a cross and secular history tells us crucified upside down. Peter, when you're old, you'll be taken where you wouldn't want to go, but nonetheless that rocky course he's following along that seashore, he's following the Lord Jesus.

I said to myself, what's more important than being happy? Is that the most important thing in life? My happiness? Or is the most important thing in life? Honoring the Lord Jesus. Well, when the Lord Jesus says to Peter, follow me, even though there's a cross at the end, I understand it is more important than personal comfort. It is even more important than prior commitments and considerations.

We are called upon to follow him. So then what is the culmination of discipleship? Discipleship has in view a coming day when the Lord Jesus will be supreme and his truth will be universally loved and practiced. That is, the one that we love and the word that we love will be loved by all.

Let me just bring two verses together for you. it says, they left their nets and followed him. And if you like first and last usage, that's the first usage.

Follow. They followed him. Where is the last usage? Revelation chapter 19.

Now this is you. This is you that's being described. He's his victory.

John catches that imagery when he sees heaven opened on a white horse and he that sat upon him whose name is faithful and true and the armies which are in heaven followed him upon white horses. We follow him now. We follow him now in the day of Israel.

We follow him now in a world that has come. One day we will follow him back to this world and we will see him coronated and crowned and we will be with him in the day of his glory. Just as David's men shared the cave, cave of Adullam and then shared the throne, his mighty men.

So the day is coming when those who have followed him here we ask this and ask for safety as we travel to our homes in the worthy name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. 398.

398. Jesus calls us to the tumult of our life's wild, safe.