Discipleship - part two
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2013 · 20 January 2013
Now there are five signs of a true disciple. Number one we said last week, a true disciple is not afraid of the world. Verse 26 to 31. Jesus taught us that we are going to be in a hostile environment, we are going to be persecuted, yes here in America too it is becoming more and more of a problem.
And Jesus gives us three reasons not to fear. He encourages his disciples and us too to show our genuineness first of all because of vindication. Someday the truth will be revealed, what is hidden will be made manifest. In other words God's going to overturn all the inequities and He is going to vindicate the righteous.
And you will be honored and exalted if you just have an eternal perspective. The true disciple’s affections are not of the world, he is a new creation, his citizenship is in heaven and he has an eternal perspective and he's not afraid of the world because he knows ultimately it will be overturned and he will be vindicated.
Secondly, Jesus taught to not fear men but fear God. And if you truly fear God you will not fear men. What can men do to you? They can only kill the body at the worst but God is the one who controls eternity and the bodies and souls of men.
Maybe it is at your job or in your classroom and you know you ought to do what is right and so the fear of God says, I must speak and witness for God, but the fear of men says, shut up, don't make a fool of yourself. And you can determine by how you reacted whether you fear men more or fear God more.
And then the third thing, Jesus says that we should not fear the world because we know that God values us very much. Look at the two sparrows, though they are worth only a penny, every time one of them hops or dies, God cares. Look at the hairs of your head, He's got each hair all labeled and numbered.
So we don't fear because of God will vindicate us, and God is much more powerful than men and God highly values us. And so the first mark of a true disciple is he doesn't fear the world, he will boldly speak when he is confronted with the evil system and He will confess Christ.
Now, let us go to the second mark of a true disciple, A true disciple acknowledges the Lord. Matthew 10: 32-33, “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.”
What do you mean, therefore? Well it's all built on the previous passage that's why I had to go over it. If you know that you have the promise of God for vindication, if you know you have the power of God, and that He is the one you truly fear, if you know you have the protection of God because He values you highly therefore you would be willing before men to confess Jesus Christ without fear, right?
In order to be a true Christian we have to believe that in the end God will gain the victory and lift up His people. And you believe that God has a greater power than men, and you believe that God is a Father who cares for His children, and if you believe all that then you are willing to confess Christ.
And so in view of God's promise and power and protection, what could be more reasonable for a disciple of Christ than to fearlessly confess Jesus before men no matter how hostile they might be. Any shame now would be overcome by eternal glory.
Paul says in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.” I'm not ashamed of the Gospel because I know its power. He knew God would protect him because he had been stoned before and they only stop after he was dead and yet God raised him from the dead.
The real heart of discipleship is to be committed to being like Jesus Christ. And being like Jesus Christ means to be being treated as He was treated and that means having to face a hostile world fearlessly. And in the midst of it to be willing to confess before men, Jesus as your Lord, and believing that He will do the same before the Father in heaven.
Now Matthew 10:32 uses the word ‘confess’. What does that mean? That means to affirm, to acknowledge and to agree. The idea is a verbal statement of faith, trust and belief in Jesus as your Lord, and a subsequent life that follows that confession. You can confess with your mouth, as in Romans 10, and you confess with your life daily as you live out that confession.
God will protect His own people and God will care for His own people, God is the ultimate judge of the earth and so we have no excuse for shrinking from our duty because of the fear of men. This goes for times of persecution as well as in good times. Whether you stand in front of a sympathetic group or whether you stand in front of a hostile group, a true Christian confesses Jesus.
Now look at verse 32, here's the key, “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men." This emphasizes the public character of the confession. If someone is not willing to do this you are not His disciple. Romans 10:9-10 says, "if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
Now this is not a work of man, this is a work of God. And so it's going to cost us something to be a Christian, it must be public, it must be genuine, and its genuineness is marked by our willingness to confess, to affirm and acknowledge that we belong to Christ no matter how enemies surround us.
In Revelation 2:l3 Jesus says to the church at Pergamus, “I know your works, and where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. And you hold fast to My name, and did not deny My faith even in the days in which Antipas, My faithful martyr, was killed among you.”
Jesus says, you have named My name and you have never denied My faith even in the midst of persecution when somebody died. And that is how you tell a true believer, the hallmark of genuineness. This is a good place for us to examine ourselves, we might think, I'm ashamed to speak of Christ in my family. What I would do in the midst of persecution?
But let me add that there are many lapses in all of our lives as Christians where we fail to live up to His standard, right? I mean that is what forgiveness is all about, if the Lord said, all right if you're a genuine disciple and you were always that way, you would be perfect and none of us are.
There are true disciples who also failed and denied the Lord. Think of Peter. He denied his Lord, but you know how he reacted? He went out and "wept bitterly." His heart was broken, because he knew the standard and he was broken when he failed to live up to it.
Then there was Timothy, the best student of Paul he ever discipled, the man who was to take over, this great young man with all the talents and the gifts from God and yet Paul writes in 2 Timothy 1:8, Timothy, “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord.” Even Timothy had a lapse.
We all will fail but a true disciple always confesses. So you need to do what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves." Are you willing to stand up and confess Jesus Christ? If you will, look at the end of verse 32, "He will confess you before the Father, who is in heaven."
What does that mean? That means Jesus will say to God on the Day of Judgment, this one belongs to Me. He will affirm His loyalty to you as you have affirmed your loyalty to Him. True Christians will confess Christ, oh there will be lapses, they will fail but the pattern of their life will show a willingness to be more like Christ and to be treated as He was treated.
Archaeologists found information on a governor named Pliny in the province of Bithynia who wrote a letter to Trajan explaining the problems he had with Christians. Informers told him there were Christians among his people and so he decided to forbid all Christians to worship Christ. And he ordered them to worship the gods of Rome and the emperor himself.
He had tried all of these things in confronting these Christians but in the end he said this, "None of these acts, those who are really Christians can be compelled to do." If they are real Christians, he said, they won't do this even having to endure all kinds of torture.
Now let's look at the other side of it, verse 33, "But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” Now this could speak of people who deny Christ flagrantly, who openly hate Him. But this verse could also relate to someone close to Christianity.
Some people follow Christ only outwardly, they go along as long as things go easily. But when there is a test, when things become a little bit difficult, they deny the Lord. You could deny the Lord by just not saying anything. You could also deny Him by your actions, by living the way everybody else lives.
You can also deny Him by your words, you can just say the things they say, and talk the way they talk. You can deny Christ in a lot of ways. But that kind of a denial it says in verse 38 will be repaid by a denial on an eternal level when the Lord denies you before the Father in heaven.
Notice in verse 32, "I will confess," and in verse 33, "I will deny," and the future tense verb points to the final judgment. Remember Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” Why? Because their life was a denial of Him!
This is very important. There is an anxiety in the heart of every pastor as the shepherd of the flock, that there is someone in the midst of the sheep who is not real and will wake up someday in eternal damnation. Jesus felt that in His heart all the time.
Judas is the classic example of this, he was going along pretending to belong but when it got tough he got out. And his actions in effect said, Jesus is not the Messiah, I have to find my way out of this deal. He didn't just leave; he tried to make a profit in some way. But on Judgment Day, what fearful thing would happen to him.
Look with me and examine what will happen in Matthew 25:34. Here is a picture of the judgment and this is the judgment of the sheep and goats at the end of the tribulation, the judgment of the nations. The Lord comes and sets the sheep on His right hand, those are the ones who love Him and know Him and the goats on the left, those are the ones who don't know Him.
Matthew 25: 34, "Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” In other words He says, these are the ones that confessed the Lordship of Christ. How did they do that? Oh they did it by their mouth in Romans 10 and they did it before men in Matthew 10.
But look else how they did it, “35 for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? 38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.”
What is this saying? It is saying this, listen careful brothers and sisters, you must confess Christ with your mouth, which is the public affirmation of your faith before men no matter how hostile they might be. And here you confess Christ by your actions, by living like Christ in the world so that you manifest to all people His own heart of affection.
And you confess Christ by showing love. And if you have no love how can you say God dwells in you, says John. In other words you will confess Christ by feeding someone who is hungry and quenching the thirst of one who is thirsty, by giving a home to a stranger, clothes to someone naked, by visiting the sick and the prisoners. Why? This is a manifestation that you are like Christ.
The credentials of a true disciple are not only the power of God but also the compassion of God. And to be like Christ is to manifest Christ likeness in your relationships. It is your attitudes and actions and words that radiate Christ.
Christ could see a crowd and at times He would weep over them, Christ could see an injustice and He wanted to make it right, Christ saw somebody hungry He wanted to feed him, He saw somebody thirsty He wanted to give him water, saw somebody who was sick and He wanted to make that individual well again.
I am the first one to admit that I am not all I ought to be but I can see a progression in my life for which I thank God. So I ask you to look at your life. There is a cost and that is an open confession, and if you're willing to do it then He'll confess you before the Father.
So when you look at your life and you fall short, you see those lapses, what is your response to those lapses? Is there a brokenness, do you ask His forgiveness and do you mean it from your heart and do you try to do better? That is the attitude of a believer.
Well there are more marks of a Christian than we will look at the next one next week, and you know what it is? A true disciple also not only fears not the world and favors the Lord but forsakes his own family. We will get into that next time. Let us pray.