The Challenge of Discipleship. Matthew 10:1-42 & 2
Corinthians. 11:23-26
This is a tremendous passage of Scripture because it presents a
challenge to us, and it certainly presented a challenge to the twelve
disciples. Jesus is giving instruction to His twelve disciples and His
instruction is specifically targeted to those twelve in that particular
situation. How do we know that? We know that because the Lord told them that
they were the only to take the message to the Jewish people—the house of
Israel and the house of Judah. They were not to go to the Gentiles. That
changed later on. But that is important for helping us to understand the
meaning of the passage, or what is called interpretation. Interpretation has to
do with what the passage means in its original context and situation;
application is how principles there might relate to us. So this section focuses
the disciples on the fact that they are now in a battle, but not just any
battle. They are in the central battle of all history, which we often refer to
as the angelic conflict. The application for us, coming out of our study of
this section, is that like them we too are disciples. Some things here don't
directly apply to us. As Jesus originally gave them they were designed for
those who will encounter persecution during the Tribulation period. But
nevertheless there is a foreshadowing or foretaste of that intense period of
future persecution even in the church age. We don't get off scott-free.
One of the things I constantly run into, and have most of my adult
life as a Christian and a student of the Word, is that people (and theologians
who ought to know better) who do not agree with a dispensational interpretation
of Scripture, or they do not agree with a pre-Tribulation Rapture, often accuse
those of us who are dispensationalists and hold to a pre-Tribulation Rapture of
teaching people a form of escapism—that they are not going to encounter
suffering, persecution, tribulation or testing in life. And that is so far from
the truth that it is just a terrible ad hominem argument, a straw man argument
where they misrepresent what we believe. The Scripture clearly teaches, and the
early church all the way up through the modern church teaches, that we will
clearly encounter hostility in the world. We face persecution, and even though
we live in an historical bubble in this country because for the last three
hundred years we have been free from overt persecution—government
hostility or legalized persecution, torture and imprisonment of Christians—nevertheless
we do not get out of this life Scott free. As Peter points out in 1 Peter
chapter four, we should not be surprised when the fiery trial comes upon us.
And he is not talking about the Tribulation; he is talking about things that
happen in this life.
So as Jesus informed the disciples and warned them of the coming
opposition, hostility and persecution we need to recognize that the same thing
is true for us in our lives and our experience. We are in a battle; we are in a
cosmic conflict; and if you are alive and are breathing, whether you are a
Christian or not, you are in this war. It is the war of the ages that centered
on the greatest battle of conflict, which was that which occurred on Golgotha
when Christ died for our sins and won for us the victory over Satan and
delivered us from the slavery to sin. As Paul points out in Galatians 6:1 this
gives us the freedom that we have in Christ. But everyone needs to recognize
that they are in this battle—believer and unbeliever. And in this battle
there are two groups of casualty. The first group of casualties is those who
have never trusted in Jesus as Messiah. They have never believed in Him as the
fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies and promises that God would send
the seed of the woman—that first hint of the gospel in Genesis
3:15—who would crush the head of the serpent. This is God's plan of
redemption: that we would be saved through a substitute who would do
everything, and would carry our sins so that we would not have to suffer for
them.
We are reminded of passages like Genesis chapter twenty-two when
God tested Abraham, and Abraham got the point. The writer of Hebrews tells us
that even if he carried through with God's command to take the life of Isaac
God would raise him from the dead because God was faithful to His promise. But
God provided a substitute. A ram that was caught in the bushes would be the
substitute sacrifice for Isaac. This is the principle of substitutionary
payment for sin.
Then we come to the Exodus account. At the Passover the lamb that
had been evaluated and tested is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. The lamb
was to be without spot or blemish. It was a picture of the sinlessness of
Christ. That lamb was to be taken and have its throat slit, and the blood of the
lamb was to be put on the doorposts and on the crosspieces or the lintels of
the doors of the house. When death came that night it would pass over that
house. The Lord would pass over that house, and because they were covered by
that blood everyone in that house the firstborn would live and not be taken.
Then we have in the Mosaic Law, the day of Atonement (Yom Kippur).
The high priest would take two goats and would take each of his hands and place
them on the head of those two goats, and he would recite the sins of the
nation. He is transferring those sins to those innocent goats that were without
spot or blemish. One goat was taken to the altar to be sacrificed, to die as a
substitute for the sins of the people, and the other goat was then taken out
into the wilderness so that it could never ever find its way back to
civilization; a picture of the fact that God has removed our sins as far as the
east is from the west, and those sins are completely forgiven and forgotten by
God. This again is a picture of the substitutionary atonement of Christ on the
cross.
Then we go all the way up to the great prophecies of the Servant
of Yahweh
is Isaiah 53 that depicts that this Servant would be a substitute for our sins,
the prediction that this Servant would die in our place. Isaiah 53:6 NASB "All of us like sheep have
gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has
caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him."
So the first group of casualty is those who have never trusted in
Christ as savior, and they will bear the eternal condemnation and punishment in
the lake of fire. The second type of casualty is the believer who never gets
it; the believer who never understands that he is not just saved so that he can
live for eternity in heaven, but he is saved for a purpose. He is bought with a
price so that he is now to serve God as His representative upon the earth. In
the church age we have been given the privilege of being ambassadors for the
Lord Jesus Christ, to represent the throne of God before men. We are not here
to serve temporal ends and temporal needs. But we get caught up in all that
don't we? We get caught up in our jobs, in our careers, in raising our families
and we forget the purpose we are here isn't to raise our families, it isn't to
excel in our jobs and careers, and it isn't to obtain excellence in academic
achievement. That may all be part of it but the ultimate thing that organizes
and structures everything in our life is that we are here for the purpose of
serving the Lord Jesus Christ and to fulfill the great commission, which is to
make disciples.
Unfortunately there are many who never get it and the apostle Paul
tells us that they become enemies of the cross. They fall away from grace. That
doesn't mean they lose their salvation but they have forgotten all about grace.
They don't have a spiritual life anymore; they are not living for the Lord
anymore; they are in carnality, and the Scripture speaks of that as death. It
is a death-like existence. They are still born-again; they are still justified;
they still have eternal life, but they are living like the dead. They are
spiritual zombies and are not experiencing the kind of life that God has for
us. And there is a time coming at the judgment seat of Christ where we will all
be accountable to the Lord and all of our works will be evaluated. Some that we
have done when we have walked by the Spirit will have eternal value, an on that
basis we will receive rewards, but there are other works in our life that will
be burned up.
In contrast to those two categories of people we have those who
are going to be successful in the Christian life. They are a different kind of
soldier in this Christian conflict. The Scripture describes them in the Gospels
as disciples. A disciple is not someone who has accepted Jesus as Messiah but
is someone who is dedicated to following Him as their teacher, as their guide,
as the one who is their sovereign Lord over their life. Lordship salvation
misrepresents that and says you need to accept Jesus as Lord of your life to be
saved. Salvation is a free gift. We don't earn it; we don't deserve it; it is
given to us freely. But after we are saved the challenge before us is: are we
willing to step to the plate and become a disciple? In Revelation chapters two
and three there are seven letters, seven evaluation reports, written to seven
churches, and at the end of each of those reports there is a promise that is
given to a group called overcomers. The word for overcomer is the Greek is the
verb NIKAO from the noun NIKE, for
victory. That is related to this idea. These believers who are overcomers in
the church age, are victorious over the world and over the devil in terms of
their spiritual life and spiritual growth.
Jesus is addressing the twelve because they are the foundation of
the church. Ephesians 2:20 NASB "having been built on the foundation of the apostles and
prophets É" Jesus is addressing them in terms of what is expected if
they (and you) are going to be a disciple. That is the challenge before us. Are
we simply going to be a believer, or are we going to pursue excellence in the
Christian life?
The Bible talks about this as a war. Ephesians 6:10-18 depicts
that war: that we are fighting against an invisible enemy. We are not fighting
against flesh and blood; we are fighting against forces that are
unseen—the armies of Satan, which involves all of the demons. At
salvation, when you trust Christ as your savior what happens is that you are
immediately inducted into the Lord's army. We are adopted into the family of
God, but that means we are now in this intensified conflict. When you were a
failure, a casualty, it didn't really matter. But now that you are a member of
God's royal family you have a target on your back whether you like it or not.
You can run but you can't hide. The issue for us now is whether or not we are
going to accept that challenge and be disciples.
And so we have this military metaphor that runs through the
Scripture, as well as athletic metaphors, to describe this contest that we are
in. It is not a contest against each other, it is really a contest in terms of
can we do the best that we can do in terms of accepting the challenge of
discipleship from the Lord. The Scripture says that at that instant of faith we
are adopted into God's royal family and we have changed sides in the conflict.
We have been transferred from the power of darkness, the Scripture says, to the
kingdom of His beloved Son (Colossians 1:13; Acts 26:18). From that point on,
once we enter into that position, the challenge is before us. It is a daily
challenge. Each day when we wake up we have to decide: Am I going to live for
my agenda, or am I going to live today for the Lord's agenda? Many times during
the day we may have to review that decision to see how things are going.
We enter into this conflict and so we become members of what we
refer to metaphorically as the Lord's army. In most military organizations
there are basically two types of people. There are those who are just punching the
clock, as it were, and marking time until their enlistment is up. They get
their veteran's benefits, much like the fact that every believer gets eternal
life, every believer is going to have a resurrection body, every believer is
going to be glorified, and every believer is going to spend eternity with the
Lord Jesus Christ; but on the other hand there is another option, and that
option takes us above and beyond the basics that everybody gets at salvation.
These are referred to in the Scripture as rewards, and if we look at the last
couple of verses in Matthew chapter ten we see that in fact this is what Jesus
has been talking about as he has been challenging His disciples in these
verses.
Matthew 10:41 NASB "He
who receives a prophet in {the} name of a prophet shall receive a prophetÕs
reward; and he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man
shall receive a righteous manÕs reward. [42] And whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of
these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you, he
shall not lose his reward." This passage is not talking about salvation,
it is talking about rewards; and rewards for excellent service and rewards for
taking on the challenge of being a disciple and pursuing the goal of being an
overcomer, a victor.
In human terms we might compare this to
special units within the military. This is comparable to those who are
disciples, those who are going to be victors. We don't just want to take on a
regular role in the Lord's army, we want to pursue excellence in everything
that we have, and that demands a special training above and beyond. It involves
discipleship. From this point on we are going to see Jesus emphasizing
discipleship more and more as He challenges the individual disciples.
We hear about discipleship in modern
evangelical churches, and this has been a buzzword. A lot of churches have
converted this into smaller group ministries. I don't have anything against
smaller group ministries but that is not the pattern. In fact, Jesus
establishes this with His twelve but we don't see that kind of a pattern going
on into Acts. You don't even find the verb disciple, to make a disciple,
anywhere in the book of Acts. It simply means to train people and to teach people,
and it doesn't mean it has to be done in a small group. This really came out of
some campus ministries about the time of World War 2 and after that it became a
pattern. I think that was a great mistake because it fitted everything into a
cultural box. It denies the fact that a lot of the discipleship we saw taking
place in Acts was one apostle teaching several thousand, especially in
Jerusalem in the early days of the church. What it means to be a disciple is
someone who takes on the discipline of his teacher. It strictly relates to
study, but it is not just taking it and going through academic study; it is
absorbing the philosophy, the mentality, everything on the part of the teacher
and making it our own so that we imitate the teacher in our life. This is what
the Lord is talking about in terms of discipleship; later on He will talk about
the importance of counting the cost.
It is not like salvation, which is a
free gift. In Revelation it says, "Take from the living water
freely". But discipleship has a cost; it is a challenge. It may cost a
lot. It may cost us our personal agendas, our ambition, even a career we have
always wanted. Discipleship takes dedication. That's another word for volition.
We have to make that decision daily and it takes perseverance. It takes a
willingness to set aside everything that we hold dear in life if it comes
between us and our service for the Lord and serving His agenda for us. So the
Bible calls those who are really serious about their spiritual life disciples,
overcomers, victors; and to them are promised special rewards, special
privileges and benefits in eternity that go with their excellent service.
Revelation 3:5 NASB "He
who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his
name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and
before His angels." As all believers are lined up before the judgment seat
of Christ those who are overcomers are singled out and praised for their
excellent service, and they are identified as overcomers. When Jesus says,
"I will confess them" it means "I will praise them". This
is what Jesus is holding out to the twelve, but He promises that if you want to
be a disciple and are going to carry out the ministry that I have given you,
you are going to face opposition and challenges; and that will be true of all
those who follow you.
These warnings that we see from verse
16 onwards also portend certain trends that will take place during the church
age, even though their ultimate fulfillment will not come until the Tribulation
period. We see that in verse 22 NASB "You will be hated by all
because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be
saved." This is also repeated in chapter 24:13 where it is a reference to
the end of the Tribulation.
We see a warning here that they would
be betrayed by their own family members. Matthew 10:21 NASB
"Brother will betray brother to death, and a father {his} child; and
children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death."
We don't see examples of that in the book of Acts. It could have happened, it
is possible; but that will take place in the future. It has happened in the
past, e.g. Soviet Russia and China. It could happen to us. That is why the Lord
says that we have to put Him before the love of our parents and the love of our
children. He is the priority.
Some other things that Jesus says here:
He said that they would be hated for Jesus' sake, v. 22 NASB
"You will be hated by all because of My name É" When you are following
Jesus people are not going to welcome you with open arms. They are going to
reject you, and this may happen with people you care very much about, even with
your family members. Jesus is saying that we are not to expect any different
treatment than our master, v. 24 NASB "A disciple is not above
his teacher, nor a slave above his master." They hated Jesus; we should
not expect any less than to be hated of we are going to line up with Him.
Furthermore, they not only hated Him but they called Him the agent of the
devil; that He did what He did under the power of Beelzebub. They are basically
saying of Jesus that He is not good, that He claimed to be righteous but is
evil, and that He was actually the devil's mouthpiece, and that those who
followed Him were followers of the devil also. It is a complete reversal of
polarities. Good is called evil; evil is called good. We have not seen that in
our lifetime in this country. It happens in other places. If you are in an
Islamic country and are a Christian you are identified with Satan. Who knows?
That may come to a theatre near you very soon with the way things are going in
this world. I suspect that before some of us die we may see overt opposition
and persecution in this life.
Why is it that people hate us? It is
because we remind them of their rebellion against God. Even if you don't ever
witness to them, if they know you are a Christian it rankles them, irritates
them, and makes them angry, because they know you believe in absolutes. I
believe that one of the reasons that George W. Bush was so vilified by the Left
is because after 9/11 he said: "These are the forces of evil". The
Left has rejected absolutes. In Leftist philosophy, in postmodernism and
modernism, you can't talk in terms of absolute categories of good and evil.
Because you have rejected God you have no basis for talking about good or evil.
And as soon as Bush came out with this absolute view of right and wrong, black
and white, this immediately angered the Left. They hated him because that reminded
them of something of something they were desperately trying to "suppress
in unrighteousness", as Paul puts it in Romans chapter one. Paul says in 2
Corinthians 2:16 that we are to those who are not saved an aroma of death. So
when you go around your family they smell death—not your death, their
death. They don't want to think about it. When you are at work and it is known
that you are a Christian there are some who are going to be hostile to you. To
them you smell like death. They don't want to be reminded about that. We live
in a nation where we are more and more painted as the enemy. We are
"judgmental", we are "hateful" toward homosexuals, towards
people who believe there are other ways to heaven; we are accused of "hate
speech" because we believe that there is only one way to heaven. We remind
people that their way is not the way, their truth is not the truth, and their
life is a sham; and because of that they are hostile to us. This is only going
to increase.
We learn that as we live as believers
we are going to have two kinds of opposition. Mostly in this country we have
only faced one kind of opposition and that is a covert persecution. Overt
persecution is when family members reject us, turn us over to government
authorities for torture and for arrest, when we are rejected by schools, by
employers, when we are open to anything from mild rejection to ridicule, to
opposition, to open hostility, even the most extreme forms of physical
imprisonment and death. Most of us face the quieter covert form of persecution.
We are silently ridiculed; somebody doesn't give us a promotion because they
know we are Christian; we are not accepted into certain schools. Several years
ago Dr Steve Austin told me about his graduate career as a doctoral student at
the University of Pennsylvania. During that time he could not let it be known
that he was a creationist. He wrote a number of creationist articles for the
Institute of Creation Research under a pseudonym. If it had become known at the
University of Pennsylvania that he believed in a literal, biblical creation,
then his funding would have dried up and he would have been immediately kicked
out of the program.
Being a Christian and pursuing ministry
for the Lord is not easy. In the 1840s the first Presbyterian minister to go
west of the Mississippi was a man by the name of Asa Turner. He was the first
to go into the modern state of Iowa. In 1843 he wrote to the American Home
Mission Society that he needed help with the gospel ministry and teaching
Scripture. The response from twelve Andover Seminary students who were later
known as the Iowa Seven drew his response to them when he heard that they were
forming this Iowa band. In his letter to them he said:
I am glad that there is a reinforcement
in ministry that is talked of, but I hope that it will not end in just talk.
But I fear. Don't come here expecting paradise; come to expect small things,
rough things. Lay aside all your dandy whims boys learn in college. Take a few
lessons from your grandmother before you come. Get clothes that are firm,
durable, something that will go through the hazel brush without tearing, and
get wives of the old puritan stamp, those who can pail a cow and churn the
butter, and be proud of a jean dress or a checkered apron. But it is no use to
answer any more of your questions, I expect to see none of you west of the
Mississippi River as long as I live.
The ministry is not easy, whether it is
professional or whether it is just a non-professional, involving teaching
Sunday School or being involved in a local church ministry.
2 Corinthians 11:23 NASB
"Are they servants of Christ?—I speak as if insane—I more so;
in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number,
often in danger of death. [24] Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine
{lashes.} [25] Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three
times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. [26] {I have
been} on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers,
dangers from {my} countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city,
dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; [27] {I have been} in labor and
hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without
food, in cold and exposure. [28] Apart from {such} external things [Dealing
with Christians!], there is the daily pressure on me {of} concern for all the
churches."
Jesus is warning the twelve that being
aligned with Him means opposition. But then Jesus says, "Don't be
afraid". Why? Because the Lord is going to take care of us. He is going to
supply our needs because we are the ones who are carrying out His will. He is
going to take care of that which we need to accomplish the task. He may not be
providing us with what we would like, but when our agenda is God's agenda and
we are completely sold out to that, then He is going to supply our need.
Jesus reminded them, Matthew 10:28 NASB
"Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but
rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell
[Gehenna]." Gehenna is a picture not of eternal punishment but of God's
discipline upon His people for their disobedience. So what Jesus is saying
there is, don't fear the punishment that will come when they are taking your
life. But if you have dedicated your life to serving the Lord and you go back
on that, fear the Lord who will bring judgment and discipline against you just
as He did the ancient Judahites.
When I think of this I think of the
situation under "Bloody Mary", the Queen of England during the time
of the Tudors. She reigned for two short years and during that time she burned
alive over three hundred Protestants in the fields of Smithfield. Two of those
who were notable were Thomas Cramner and Ridley. When Ridley was burning and
his body was lighting up like a torch he turned to Cramner and said:
"Courage my brother, because the fire that is lit by us today will burn
throughout England." And Cramner who had been the archbishop under Henry
VIII had been forced under torture to recant his Protestant convictions, and to
sign that recantation, when he was being burned at the stake he held out his right
hand that had signed that recantation and called it a traitor. He watched it
catch on fire and burn as he sang to the glory of God, recognizing that he
wanted to stand as a faithful servant of the Lord at the judgment seat of
Christ.
This is what the Lord is providing
here, and the challenge to us is whether or not we are going to accept the
challenge to be disciples. There is great reward.