A few weeks ago I was asked what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus. I answered that a disciple of Jesus is one who comes and dies. I was then told that answer was not a popular one. That people particularly the younger generation do not want to hear about dying. They want to hear about life. They want to hear about living.
This response was not from someone who was just a Christian. This response was from a Christian leader.
I had four reactions.
First, I was giving what I believe is a Biblical answer.
Second, I know it is not popular, but it is truth.
Third, in Jesus’ kingdom life follows death as opposed to earthly kingdoms where death follows life.
Fourth, is that where we are in the church, to give popular answers?
So I want to look at each of these reactions.
First, I was giving what I believed to be a Biblical answer.
In Luke 9:23 Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”
This same statement of Jesus is found in Matthew 16:24 and Mark 8:34.
A cross is an instrument of execution. It is a thing upon which people die. So to take up my cross means I am to die. I am to take it up daily so that means I am to die daily. If Jesus were speaking in the culture of America in 2014 He would say, “Take up your electric chair every day.” He might say, “Take up your lethal injection every day.”
Jesus is not interested in us becoming better people. Jesus wants us to become NEW people.
Jesus makes two other statements that talk about the fact that we have to die to be His disciples.
Matthew 10:38
And whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me.
If I am not willing to die (take up my cross), I am not worthy of being a disciple of Jesus.
Luke 14:27
Whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
Jesus says plainly here that if a person does come and die (bear his cross) he cannot be His disciple.
What does it mean to come and die?
We are to die to:
Selfish Desires
Selfish Dreams
Human-Based Solutions
Human-Based Priorities
We are to do what Jesus says to do in Matthew 6:33: seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.
Second, we are to operate on truth, not popularity.
In John 14:6 Jesus says that He is the way and the TRUTH and the life.
Jesus is truth.
If an answer or concept or principle is popular, that does not necessarily make it right.
If an answer is truth, it may not be popular.
Jesus never did anything because it was popular. He never spoke or acted to get the people to like Him and be on His side. Jesus always spoke the truth in love.
Everything Jesus taught His disciples was the truth and He taught and encouraged them to accept and follow the truth.
In John 8:31-32 Jesus tells those who believed in Him what would happen if they believed Him and His teachings. Jesus said, “If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Truth sets us free.
If we seek to always give the popular answer so that people will like us, we will be bound by other’s opinions.
Jesus would never have been crucified if He had said what the Jewish religious leaders and the crowd wanted to hear.
So if we live by and share what Jesus taught, we will not always be popular.
Jesus’ kingdom is different and many times in direct conflict with earthly human-based kingdoms.
Our culture teaches us that before we die we are to live life with the focus on number one, ourselves. We are to live to fully satisfy ourselves. We are to get all the things we want. We are to make our number one goal making ourselves happy.
I even heard a statement by Victoria Osteen saying that when we worship we are not really doing it for God we are doing it for ourselves. She said God wants us to be happy and so that in worshiping God we were making ourselves happy so we were really worshiping ourselves.
Wow!
Jesus’ word in John 12:24 tells a different story. He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
Jesus’ kingdom is not based on satisfying ourselves.
Jesus’ kingdom is not based on making ourselves happy.
Jesus’ kingdom is based on pleasing Jesus.
Jesus’ kingdom is based on making Jesus smile.
The kingdom that Jesus came and established is a kingdom where life follows death. I have to die to sin and my selfish ideas so I can come really come alive.
Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
Jesus died for you and me. We die so we can experience His life in us.
Jesus’ kingdom is based on life after death, not death after life.
Is the church simply after numbers? Is the church simply about having more people? Or is the church about making disciples?
In Matthew 28:19 Jesus tells us to “Go make disciples.”
He does not say go get people to like you.
He does not say go get people to agree with you.
He does not say go be popular.
He says, “Go make disciples.”
I was a child in the church in the 1950’s.
I was a teenager in the church in the 1960’s.
I was a young adult in the church in the 1970’s.
I never was challenged in those years to come and die.
I never was challenged in those years to come and submit all my life completely to Jesus as my sole authority.
I never was challenged in those years to surrender everything I am and everything I have to Jesus.
I was told to be good.
I was told to be nice.
I was told to go to church.
I was told to give.
I was told to do a lot of good things.
But I was never told to do what Jesus told Peter, Andrew, James, and John to do - give up everything and follow Him.
I was never told to do what Jesus told the Rich Young Ruler to do: sell all his material possessions and give the money to the poor.
I was never told that Jesus was to be my all, my everything and not just one of my many things.
When Jesus addresses Martha at the grave side of her brother Lazarus, He tells her in John 11:25-26a, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believe in Me shall never die.” Then in the second part of verse 26 Jesus asks her a question, “Do you believe this?”
So I ask myself that question: do I believe that if I truly die by surrendering my life to Jesus as Lord, will I really then live?
The answer to that question is very important because being a disciple of Jesus means that I come and die.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is lived based on Jesus’ kingdom principle that life follows death.
Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls by Dying So I Can Live
Joe
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