THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR
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prca.orgDear Radio Friends,
Our Savior, in
Mark 3:34,
places before us
a most difficult requirement. We read
there what it is to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ. “And when he had called the people unto him
with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever
will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow
me.” This is not an ideal, that is,
something for which we must only strive but never are able to achieve. It is a requirement. In this statement of Christ we learn what it
is to be a true disciple of Him.
In Jesus’ day, as
well as in our own, there were throngs of people that followed Christ
everywhere. For a while it had gotten to
a point where every waking hour of the day Jesus had people surrounding
Him. But in Jesus’ day, as well as in
our own, we know that many of these people followed Jesus for carnal
reasons. Perhaps they were amazed at His
miracles, or they thought that He was the One who was going to be that great
deliverer from the oppression of
In the instruction
that we receive, Jesus points out that to be His true disciple is not an easy
matter. It places upon a person some
very serious requirements. And to
fulfill these requirements takes conviction of heart.
Following Jesus, to many, is merely preference. It is convenient. It might even be the popular thing to
do. But when they find out that
following Christ places them in some pretty difficult straits, they turn away
from Him and take the easy road. Following
Christ is a matter of conviction, that is, a heart that is willing to follow
Christ no matter what the consequences might be personally. That is why we say that Christ places before
us a most difficult requirement.
What is it, to be a
disciple of Christ—not just any disciple, but a true disciple? What must we do if we desire truly to follow
after Christ? That is the question that
we consider in today’s broadcast.
Christ makes it
clear: “Whosoever will come after
me.” He addresses all those who have the
desire to come after Him, all those who will to come after Him or to follow
Him. It must be remembered, however,
that though there may be many people who desire to follow Christ, it is only
those in whom God has worked by His grace that are true followers. In other words, in order for a man truly to
come after Christ, he must first of all come to Christ.
Christ Himself had already declared to the multitudes in
Matthew 11,
“Come unto me, all ye that
labor and are heavy laden.” One cannot
come after Christ, one cannot follow Christ as a true
disciple, unless, first of all, he comes to Christ. And, again, it is only those who come to
Christ that truly desire to follow after Him.
But this needs some
explanation, because we know that there are many people who come to
Christ as well, but under false pretenses.
There are those who come to Christ because they see in Him the
greatest of examples to follow. There
are others today who come to Christ because to speak His name soothes their
consciences while they continue to walk in their sin. There are those who come to Christ because it
is lucrative for them, or because to come to Him gives
them fame and power in this world. There
are many who come to Christ for the wrong reasons. They have a terrible misconception of who
Christ is and, therefore, come to Him wrongly.
There is only one
right reason to come to Christ, and that is this: the burden of sin. Those who truly and sincerely come to Christ
labor and are heavy laden with sin. They
have been convicted of their sin, and, seeing their sin, they sorrow over
it. They hate it. They fight against it. They are oftentimes overwhelmed by that sin,
so that it becomes a burden to them.
These come to Christ because they have come to believe in Him as the
only One who will save them from sin and remove the burden that is upon
them. They come to Christ seeking the
forgiveness of sin and the blessed peace that comes with justification. They recognize that the cross of Christ alone
covers their guilt and cleanses them from all iniquity. They consciously and willingly, therefore,
come to Christ.
All other reasons
for coming to Christ are wrong and will never pass the test. Yet this coming to Christ must also be
properly understood because it is so misconstrued by modern theology today. You see, modern theology today is free-willist. It
foolishly maintains that man is somehow able of his own free will, of his own
ability, to come to Christ. Christ has
died, they say, to save everyone in this world, and now it is Christ’s desire
to save everyone. So He places before
everyone who hears the preaching this desire.
But Christ is powerless to save anyone unless that person, first of all,
by his own free will, chooses to come to Him or to follow after Him. Salvation, therefore, according to modern
theology, is left up to man. If he wants
to be saved, then he will come to Christ of his own will, of his own power, to
get that salvation. And if he does not
want it, then he will go his way without Christ.
This conception of
coming to Christ is wrong. It stands
against the very teaching of Jesus Christ Himself. Christ informs us in
John 6:44,
“No man can
come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.” No man can come to Me
unless the Father draws him to Me. And then, later on, in that same discourse in
John 6,
this time in verse 65, Jesus
repeats that: “Therefore said I unto
you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.” For a man truly to come to Christ, God must
draw that man to Christ. And this is
true because no man himself is able to come to Christ. He has no spiritual ability to come. He is fallen into sin. That sin and unbelief have totally enveloped
him. He walks about in the darkness of
sin, and the blindness of unbelief has taken over his heart. When the light of salvation in Christ is
placed before him, then he, in the darkness of unbelief, deliberately turns
away from that light.
That is what Jesus tells Nicodemus in
John 3:19-21:
“And
this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh [there is that word
‘come,’ again) to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are
wrought in God.” The only way,
therefore, that a man will come to Jesus is when God, by the work of His grace
and by His Spirit, draws a man to Jesus.
Those, therefore, who truly come to Jesus are
those who are irresistibly drawn by the working of the power of God’s
grace. When the Spirit opens the eyes
and the heart, then that man who is the object of God’s grace is able to see
Christ and is able to see salvation in Him alone. And, as a result of that salvation, he
comes—or flees—to Christ. He embraces
Christ and all His benefits in faith.
Yet, the whole
process of being a Christian or a disciple of Christ does not cease there. That is Christ’s point here in this
passage. When a person comes to
Christ, then he is also called to come after Christ. In other words, the person who desires to
come to Christ must also desire to follow after Him. Christ says in this verse that one must “deny
himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.” This becomes the true test as to whether one
has come to Christ for the right reason and is drawn to Christ by God’s grace,
or whether that person follows Christ only out of preference and for the wrong
reasons.
What we have here in
this passage, in reality, is what constitutes true discipleship. You see, to be a disciple of Christ very
simply means to be a follower of Christ.
A disciple is one who, in Jesus’ day, attached himself to a specific
leader and followed that teacher about everywhere learning from him. A disciple of Christ is one who attaches
himself to Christ, follows Him in the way that He leads, and learns and becomes
convicted of what Christ teaches. Now I
realize that today we are no longer called disciples
of Christ. But we are given another name
that means exactly the same thing. We
are called Christians. We are members of
Christ’s anointing, and therefore we become followers of Christ.
But all of that can
be translated into the concrete. That is
what Jesus does for us when He sets forth the requirements of this
passage. Fulfilling those requirements
will separate between those who are true disciples of
Christ and those who follow Christ merely for the sake of convenience. It will separate between those who follow
after Christ out of preference and those who follow Him out of the conviction
of their heart. It will separate between
those who follow after Christ for carnal reasons and those who follow after
Christ for the right spiritual reason.
Now, are you ready
to hear the requirements? The
requirements you will hear are not pleasant to the sinful flesh in us. Jesus informs us: he that will come after Me,
let him (1) deny himself and (2) take up his cross. The only way to follow Jesus is to deny
ourselves and to be willing to take up our cross.
Now, what does that
mean? The first part of the requirement
given us in this passage is that a true disciple is one who denies himself. To understand what is meant by this we must
take a hard look at ourselves. I mean,
every person who has come to Christ is called always to look deeply into what
goes on within himself.
The child of God is
within himself a battleground. We have
within us the new man in Christ and, by that new man in Christ, we will to do
the good. We want to walk in God’s
precepts. But we have the old man of sin
in us, too. We carry with us this sinful
flesh, a carnal nature. And that carnal
nature wars against the new man and seeks to satisfy its own wants and desires
rather than God’s. That old man is
characterized by pride. Pride is a
horrible thing, but also a powerful thing.
Pride is that which seeks self.
It places our own desires above those of anyone else, including
God’s. Pride puffs us up so that we
begin to replace God’s will with our own will.
And then pride is very deceiving.
We attempt to convince ourselves in pride that our will is in fact what
God wills, in spite of what His Word says.
Pride is that which does what is right in our own eyes rather than what
is right in God’s eyes. We all have that
pride in us. It is the chief
characteristic of our sinful flesh. And
it is this flesh, with its pride, that stands opposed to the new man in Christ
and its virtue of humility. These two
battle against one another.
Now, Christ says,
to be a true disciple of Mine, you must be willing to
deny yourself. A true follower of Jesus
Christ is one who is characterized by self-denial. He is ready to say “No” to himself and that
sinful flesh—his own desires within him.
And that comes to reality in all kinds of concrete ways in the life of
the child of God. Satan places before us
many temptations. They come to us in all
kinds of different ways, and through all kinds of different circumstance, and
through all kinds of different people.
These people and these circumstances test us sorely by putting us before
the question: Would I rather serve
Christ, or myself? Would I rather
satisfy my own desires, or Christ’s will for me? These circumstances are placed before us by
the wicked unbelieving world, temptations that appeal so much to our sinful
flesh. And we want to walk in those
sinful ways so badly. Well, Christ tells
us that a true disciple is one who is willing to deny those carnal lusts. Jesus says, a true disciple denies
himself—he, by the grace of God, as difficult and sometimes as painful as it
may be, says “No” to this sinful flesh, and instead follows in the ways of his
Master, Jesus Christ.
Not so easy to be a
true disciple of Christ, is it? Many
falter and fail in this. Many, at this
point, turn away from Christ and say, “I do not care to follow a master who
places such restrictions on me.” Just as
the multitude of 5,000 forsook Christ when He told them that they followed Him
for carnal reasons, so also the masses that call themselves Christians today,
when they hear the demands of Jesus Christ, turn away. When the church preaches obedience to the commandments
of Christ, obedience to God’s Word, then many turn away because they are not
willing to deny themselves.
Do they turn away
from the church, or do they turn away from Christ? Are we disciples of
Christ? Are we truly followers of
Him? Are we ready to deny ourselves in
what we want, to follow after what Christ wants?
If you are ready,
then hear the next part of the requirement.
You must take up your cross.
Denying oneself has its consequences, because it means not following
along with the activities and the people of this world. Whether they are outside the realm of
Christendom or even within Christianity, we are not willing to follow after
them when they walk contrary to the Word of God.
And when we do
that, then we are called upon to bear a cross.
A true follower of Christ must bear a cross. We have to understand what this cross that we
must bear is.
First of all, the
cross is the cross of Christ. We must
bear the cross of Christ. No, this does
not mean that we are called to pay, in part, for our sins. When Christ went the way of the cross, He did
so as payment for sins. He suffered the
agony of hell against sin. And while He
was on the cross, the wrath of God was poured upon Him. And, therefore, the cross that Christ had to
bear, He bore alone. But those of us who
believe that we are covered in the blood that was shed for us on that cross
bear another aspect of the suffering that Christ bore there.
The cross of Christ
was a reproach. He was despised and
rejected of men, Isaiah tells us. Christ
was hated by men because, you see, Christ condemned sin. He was reviled, He was beaten, He was mocked, He
was shunned, He was castigated—all for the cause that He represented on the
cross. So when Christ speaks to us of
the need for us to bear our cross, that is what He refers
to. We also must be willing to bear the
reproach of that cross. Christ told His
disciples, “Do not be surprised that this world hates you. It hates Me. And, because a disciple is not greater than
his lord, if the world hates Me, it will hate
you. If you are a follower of Me, then you can expect to be shunned, rejected, mocked, and
persecuted.” The point is, when we make
a stand on the Word of God, and when we deny our sinful lusts and follow after
Christ, when we refuse to walk with others in their sin, then that will have
consequences in our lives. And the
consequences will be that men will be offended at us. When we do not walk with them in their sin,
men will be offended at us. They will be
indignant, and they will cut us off from their friendship.
That is the hard
part of being a disciple, because it is this reproach of men that hurts us so
much, sometimes so much that it makes us weep.
It is not pleasant to see friends turn away from us, or even family
members, because we strive to remain faithful to Jesus Christ and His Word and
not follow after them in their sin.
Sometimes we even despair when that happens. Christ tells us that if we are not willing to
take up our cross and follow Him, we are not worthy of Him.
That, then, is the
requirement of one who is a true disciple or follower of Christ. “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross.” In this
way this requirement of a disciple becomes a test for all of us. There are many who come to Christ, not because
God has worked in them by His grace, but for earthly reasons. They come because, well, it is easy to come
to a Christ for carnal reasons. But the
test is: Are these same willing to come after
Christ? Are they willing to deny
themselves the sins of this world and to bear Christ’s reproach? Are they willing to walk according to what
God commands them in His Word? That is
the question. That is the standard,
after all, of true discipleship. Are
they willing? Many, to that, will say,
“No.” Then, according to Christ Himself,
these people are not truly followers of Him.
They may fool themselves into thinking they are, because they like to
call themselves Christians, but they will have to ignore Jesus Christ Himself
to do so. And they will have to ignore
the Word of God. They have failed the
test.
Not so, of those
who have been drawn to Christ irresistibly by God’s grace and Spirit. These come to Christ in their spiritual
need. And in thankfulness they fall
behind their Savior.
Let us go forth,
therefore, unto the Christ, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we
seek one to come.
True
discipleship. It has its
consequences. It has its suffering. But all of that is worth it for the sake of
Christ and the continuing city that we seek.
Let us pray.
Gracious Father and
God in heaven, we come unto Thee one more time as Thy children because we know
that we are called upon not simply to come to Thee in faith, but to
follow after our Lord Jesus Christ.
We realize that it is a difficult thing for our sinful flesh. Give us the grace, Father, to deny ourselves
and to follow after our Savior. May we
be willing to bear His reproach in this world, all for His sake, in making a
stand in this world.
Forgive us where we stumble and fail.
For Jesus’ sake, Amen.
Last modified: July 26, 2007