06_11 Discipleship

➡ Paul, the voice-over for a new ministry called Your Daily Bread, discusses the importance of discipleship in Christianity. He emphasizes that being a disciple means committing to the teachings of Jesus Christ and striving to be like him. However, he warns that this commitment may lead to being treated poorly by the world, just as Jesus was. Despite this, Paul encourages believers to fear God, not men, and to trust in God’s care and protection.
➡ God cares for us more than we realize, even more than the smallest creatures or things. As His followers, we may face challenges, but we shouldn’t fear them because our value to Him is immense. If we keep our focus on God and understand our worth to Him, we can overcome our fears. Always remember to stay strong in your faith and let it guide you.

Hello, my name is Paul, and I am the voice-over for a new ministry provided to you by Jim Pugh at God Is Government Called Your Daily Bread, taken from Christ’s teaching of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6.11. This is a daily devotion ministry focused not only on uplifting the scripture, but scripture that will grow your spiritual connection with Christ. We hope that you receive these devotions to uplift you, encourage you, but most importantly, advance your knowledge base of the Holy Scriptures. Today’s focus discussion will be on the discipleship. In Matthew’s Gospel, he has one purpose, and that is to affirm to man that Christ is King.

His desire is that there be no question in the heart and the soul of a man or a woman, but that Jesus Christ is the King, and from the beginning of Matthew to the end of the Gospel of Matthew, that is his thrust. He knows that men raise up other monarchs, that they are unwilling, basically, to submit to the kingship of Christ, to the sovereignty of Christ, that they are unwilling to submit themselves to his total and sovereign lordship, and that there is always this battle. That’s his message. In Matthew chapter 10, it really takes a form that is easy to perceive.

Here you meet twelve men who had said, Christ is our King. Here you meet the twelve disciples, the twelve apostles, and they have committed themselves to being the followers of Christ. They have given everything. They have sacrificed their ideals and their careers and their families and their lifestyle and their homes and their jobs, their self-determination, their self-will, and they have said, We submit ourselves to the lordship of Jesus Christ. They then become, in a real sense, the epitome of realisation of Matthew’s goal. The Lord then takes them, trains them and sends them into the world, and pretty much directs them as to the nature of their ministry through verse 23 of this chapter.

But then, in chapter 10 of Matthew, verse 24, we find general teaching on this whole matter of discipleship, the generalised teaching of our Lord dealing with what it means to be a subject to the King. Listen. Beloved, when you became a Christian, if you said nothing else, you said this, I accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Master and King, and I submit myself to his sovereignty. That’s what you said, or you weren’t saved. That’s what you said. And when you said that, you took yourself right into Matthew chapter 10. And here, the Lord instructs those committed to his sovereignty, and he gives them, I believe, the greatest teaching on the stuff of which discipleship is made, in verses 24 to 42.

That’s where we’re looking. Now it all begins in verse 24. Let’s remind ourselves of what it says. Now just stop there for a moment. And I told you last week, that basically is the bottom line in all discipleship, that we are to be like him. We are to be like our teacher. We are to be like our master and our Lord and our King. That is our commitment. We are called to be like him. That’s what it means to have his values, to have his commitments, to have his priorities, to be given utterly over to his will and his purposes and his kingdom.

We are to be like him. In other words, if we are like him, we will be treated like him. That’s part of it. That’s the bottom line in discipleship. The whole goal of being a subject of Christ, of being a disciple, which is mathetase, it means learner. The whole objective of learning, the whole objective of following, of being a subject, is to become like the King. And the more we’re like him, the more we’ll be treated like he was treated. And the world treated him this way. They called him the devil.

Now if they were not hesitant to call him that, they won’t be hesitant to call us that. And he uses the analogy of a master of a house. Now the master of the house has dignity. He’s the guy who’s in charge. He has status. He has reputation. He’s a man of honor in the community. He’s got money. And he’s simply saying, if they will take that, the highest level guy, and call him Satan, what do you think they’ll do with his slaves? If they’re willing to speak evil against a man of dignity, honor and respect, they certainly won’t hesitate to speak evil against people who don’t have any dignity to start with.

So the bottom line then comes out like this. Discipleship is a process by which you become like Christ. The more you become like him, the more the world treats you like him. And you can expect it, because if they treated him that way, and didn’t pull any punches with the very Christ of God, what makes you think they’ll treat you any better? Now you say, well, that’s not a very inviting prospect in calling people to discipleship. But that’s the fact. The goal is to be like Christ, and there’s a price to pay for that.

So he lays that bottom foundation, as we saw last week in verses 24 and 25. Now, having assumed that as the beginning assumption, being like me means being treated like me. Don’t fear men, fear God. That’s the issue. And he’s only using the idea of killing the body, and he compares it with destroying the soul, to show that God has so much more power. He is, it’s a comparison. He’s not saying that if you don’t live the right kind of Christian life, God will send you to hell. That isn’t the point. The point here is we are to fear the one who can determine the destiny of souls, not the ones who can only determine the destinies of bodies.

You see, it is a comparison between men and God. Don’t fear men, fear God. But whenever you opt out of that, you have said, I fear men more than God. And that is silly, because the worst men could possibly do would be to your body. And God is a God who determines the destiny of souls. He’s not saying to Christian disciples, boy, if you goof up, you’re going to go to hell. No, no, no. He’s saying, get your fear right. Fear the one who is really powerful. Fear the one who determines the destiny of souls.

Don’t fear the ones who can only fool with the body. The one who faces the world comes out of a secret place. Verse 27 comes out of a quiet place, a lonely place where Christ speaks to him. And then he speaks. And beloved, if you haven’t been in that quiet place, you haven’t got a thing to say. You go to the secret place, and out of the secret place comes the fire lit in your heart by God. And then you say, what has to be said? Nothing less, nothing more. And you say, yes, but men might kill my body.

But don’t be afraid of that. Fear the one who has eternal destiny in his hand. Fear God. Fear God. The soul here, in verse 28, means the real part of the, the real immaterial part, the substance. This is the dichotomous perspective. Man is body outside. He is soul inside. This is the real person. They can’t touch that. They can’t touch it. And if going to heaven bothers you and you’re not, you don’t want to go, it’s simply because you’re too earthbound. If you really were heavenly perspective, really had a heavenly perspective, you’d be so concerned about that ultimate vindication in God’s presence that you wouldn’t have any fear.

You’d so worship God that you could care less what men might do. And I say that to myself too, because I hold to this world also. But we ought to fear God and worship God so that we don’t fear men. I must add that I think verse 28 also may have been directed at Judas. And there will always be, in the church and in the group of disciples, the phonies and the fakes. And oh, what a warning this would be. To remind him that God is the one who destroys forever soul and body in hell.

All the Judases of all time need to hear that. Do you know why you cannot be afraid? You don’t have a thing to fear. If God takes care of little birds, and God numbers the hair of people’s head to take care of that, and that’s in the framework of his care, don’t you think you fall into his care also? And you’re never going to get in a situation where God can’t sustain you in that situation. Psalm 91 says a thousand shall fall at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee.

Isn’t that great? It’ll all collapse around you, but it’ll never touch you. God cares about you. Tender loving care for his own marks are God. If God so clothed the grass of the field, if God cares for the lilies, if God cares for the birds, Matthew 6 says, shall he not also care for you? Oh ye of what? Little faith. You know we’re so afraid we might lose our reputation or our job, or we might get injured and we get fearful. And he says, look God, who takes care of little, insignificant birds and hairs on people’s heads, don’t you think you’re more value than that? Birds don’t have souls, hair doesn’t either, but you do, and you’re eternal.

Oh, of much more value. Listen, you’re my disciple, he says. You’ve crowned King, the Christ King of your life, and you’ve said, I submit. Now you’re going to face a world, and you’re going to be like him, and you’re going to be treated like him. And how are you going to react to that? Are you going to be afraid? You don’t need to, because you’ll be vindicated in the end and have an eternal reward if you have an eternal perspective. And if you really worship God, you’ll transcend the fear of men.

And if you understand how highly he values you, you won’t be afraid of what they can do to you. Where’s your commitment? Thank you for joining us in this exploration of discipleship. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].