As we come to the final sermon in this series on discipleship, I want to encourage you to re-visit this series a couple of times. If you can come to grips with even a few of the truths in this series, I believe you will experience major changes in your life and your effectiveness for God.
When we claim to be disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, is that because we have made some intellectual decision at some point in history to believe some truths about a man called Jesus? Or are we disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ because we have met Him; and we know Him; and we love Him; and we have a daily relationship with Him? When Jesus said, “follow me” did we say “yes” fully? Did we go all the way? Have we left everything in our hearts to follow Him? Do we have a tight grip on all those things that appear so precious at times? Is there anything that stands above our loyalty, our allegiance and our love for the Lord Jesus Christ?
We continue to face many tests each day whether we know them as tests or not. How are you going with them? Are you passing the submission test: to God; to your spouse; to your Pastor and leaders in the Church; to your boss at work; to every brother and sister in Christ? Are you passing the obedience test? Are you ignoring the clear guidelines that are laid down for us in the Bible as you go your own way, inviting Satan to inhabit your disobedience and bring pain and turmoil into your life and the lives of those around you?
Are you passing the servant test: making choices every day to serve the needs of others above your own? How about the giving test? Where is your time and effort and energy and money being directed? Are you making deliberate choices to bless others with your own abundance? And what about the trust test? In whom do you place your trust when things go wrong; when people or even friends turn on you; when you find yourself having to submit to people you disagree with? Do you trust God in all those circumstances? It is questions like these we have been confronting in the most practical possible way throughout this series, and I pray that you will spend time with these sermons and allow the Spirit of God to bring changes where they are needed.
In this final sermon I want us to look at the ultimate test. The test that sums up all tests on the discipleship road. The test that lies at the very heart of a fruitful relationship with Jesus.
Matthew 16:24-25 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”
It is so important that we understand just how literally Jesus meant these words. When Paul says we are united with Christ, he means in His life as well as His death and resurrection. The experience of Jesus becomes our experience, and so when we study the life and ministry of Jesus, we need to understand that we are seeing a model of the life of every Christian who seriously wants to follow Him. The dates and times and people and circumstances will all be different, but we can rightly expect to travel a similar road to Jesus if we decide to take this discipleship thing seriously. Jesus calls us to deny ourselves – which means we look away from ourselves and our own interests completely and choose to walk the path He walks.
We need to realise that the gospel account of the life and ministry of Jesus is far more than a history lesson. Yes, there is no doubt that this man walked the earth many years ago and did all those things and then He suffered and died on a cross and rose from the dead in three days. All that is documented history. But the life and ministry and mission of Jesus is exactly the same today as it was then. Jesus continues to teach and heal and deliver and save. He continues to confront religious spirits and oppressive governments. He continues to suffer at the hands of godless men and women. He just does it all through His spirit dwelling in you and me. That is all that has changed.
So, if you want a genuine, no-punches-pulled job description of a disciple … just read the gospels and write down everything that Jesus did. I suggest that His final week on earth is the most important of all to study. We can learn a lot from that final week in the life of Jesus. The contrasts were incredible. From a hero on Palm Sunday to a deserted criminal a week later. It would have been very hard to deal with that shift emotionally – even for Jesus – but He was prepared. He knew Who He was. He knew where He was going. He knew the power of the One Who would get Him through it all.
If you and I understand the cost of following Jesus; if we are fully prepared for our Palm Sundays and our betrayals and denials, our Gethsemane’s and our Calvary’s – then as hard as it will still be to endure, we will make it through and see our stone rolled away and experience the power of our resurrection.
I fear that many of us are not prepared, however. I fear that when some of these things come against us, we fail to see the hand of God in them. We fail to see His refining power at work in our lives. We fail to accept that we are simply traveling the same road as the One we claim to follow. All too often in our walk with Jesus we get to Palm Sunday; we get to the fun time; we get to the point where everything is going so well – and we set up camp! We are happy for Jesus to keep going – that’s His job – that’s His calling and we don’t need to go through all that.
Nothing could be further from the truth. If we are not prepared to follow Jesus all the way to Calvary then we will never know the power of the empty tomb. We will never fully know Jesus until we have made a choice to go where He goes and to feel what He feels and do what He does.
To understand the full measure of what it means to follow Jesus, we must recognize that discipleship is not just a call to learn from Jesus but a call to walk in His footsteps – to endure what He endured, to love as He loved, and ultimately, to surrender as He surrendered. Jesus does not invite us into this comfortable existence where we get to pick and choose which parts of His life we want Him to live through us. He calls us to follow Him completely, even to the point of laying down our lives for Him.
Jesus’ journey to the cross was not an accident or a tragic end to an otherwise inspiring ministry. It was the very purpose for which He came. Throughout His time on earth, He repeatedly told His disciples that He would suffer, be rejected, and ultimately be killed before rising again (Mark 8:31). Yet, even with these warnings, they struggled to grasp the depth of His mission.
When Peter rebuked Jesus for predicting His suffering, Jesus responded sharply: “Get behind me, Satan! You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns” (Mark 8:33). This moment highlights a crucial truth: to follow Jesus is to embrace God’s plan, not our own. If we are only concerned with self-preservation, comfort, and success in this world, we will miss the very essence of discipleship. True discipleship means setting aside our human concerns and aligning ourselves with God’s eternal purposes.
Jesus’ words above in Matthew 16:24-25 are radical. In Jesus’ time, the cross was not a symbol of religious devotion but of shame, suffering, and death. When Jesus instructed His followers to take up their cross, He was calling them to be willing to suffer, to be rejected, and even to die for His sake. To take up our cross means:
> Dying to self:We no longer live for our desires, ambitions, or plans. Instead, we surrender all to Christ.
> Enduring hardship for the gospel:Whether it be persecution, loss, or suffering, we embrace it as part of our calling.
> Living with an eternal perspective:We no longer measure success by worldly standards but by faithfulness to God.
The ultimate test we face on this discipleship road involves surrendering everything. Following Jesus requires total surrender. The rich young ruler wanted to follow Jesus, but when confronted with the cost – selling all he had and giving to the poor – he walked away sorrowful (Matthew 19:16-22). Why? Because he valued his possessions more than he valued Christ. Each of us has something we must surrender to follow Jesus. It may not be wealth, but it could be our reputation, our comfort, our security, or even our relationships. Jesus made it clear that nothing should come before Him:
Matthew 10:37-38 “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”
This is the ultimate test: have we truly submitted to the Lordship of Jesus in every area of our lives? Have we placed Him above everything else? Jesus never sugar-coated the cost of following Him. He warned that His followers would be hated, persecuted, and even killed for His name’s sake. The Apostle Paul understood this well. He suffered beatings, imprisonment, shipwrecks, and countless hardships for the sake of Christ (2 Corinthians 11:23-28). Yet, he counted it all as nothing compared to knowing Jesus:
Philippians 3:8 “I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.”
Paul understood that true discipleship means nothing in this world compares to Christ. He lived and died for that truth.So what does this mean for us? Most of us may never be called to physically die for our faith, but we are called to live as though we have already died to ourselves. Here are a few practical ways we can do that:
> Daily surrender:Each day, choose to put Christ first in your decisions, actions, and relationships.
> Endure hardship with faith:When trials come, see them as opportunities to trust God and grow in Him.
> Be bold in your witness:Do not be ashamed of Christ. Share the gospel, even when it’s uncomfortable.
> Love sacrificially:Serve others selflessly, just as Christ did.
> Keep your eyes on eternity:Remember that this life is temporary, but our reward in Christ is eternal.
Even though discipleship is costly, the reward is far, far greater. Jesus promised that those who lose their lives for His sake will find true life. Our suffering is temporary. Our sacrifices are momentary. But the reward is eternal.
Mark 10:29-30 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields – along with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life.”
As we conclude this series on discipleship, I leave you with this one simple question: Will you go all the way with Jesus?
Not just part of the way; not just when it’s easy; but all the way to the cross? Too many believers stop at Palm Sunday, enjoying the praise and the excitement but refusing to walk the road to Calvary. But Jesus calls us beyond that. He calls us to follow Him through all the suffering, through the trials, through the surrender, until we experience the resurrection power of God in our lives.
If we truly want to be His disciples, we must lay everything down and follow Him with all our hearts. The road is difficult, but the destination is glorious. Jesus has gone before us, and He walks with us still. May we be found faithful until the very end. Yes, Jesus endured the cross. For the joy set before Him – He went all the way. He trusted the Father to bring good out of His death. Because of Jesus’ willingness to go all the way, salvation came to all mankind. God used His pain and His death to be a blessing to others.
God will do that same for you and me. He wants us to give our life as Jesus gave His. For some of us that will one day be literally true if we serve the Lord in an environment where our very life is threatened because of our faith. But for all of us it is true every day in spiritual terms as we die to this world and to our own desires and pleasures and submit to the way of Jesus.
During a time of great struggle in my ministry many years ago, I went to see a Pastor friend of mine and shared my heart with him. When I had said all I could say, he paused, then he said these words:
“Robert, I believe the Lord has prepared many wonderful resurrections for you in your life and ministry, but you will never experience the power of a resurrection if you have refused to die first. Death always precedes resurrection. You need to give up completely, in the flesh, and let your death lead you to the other side of this painful chapter in your life. Jesus will be with you every step – He has been there already – He knows the way – you just need to trust Him.”
That was a life-transforming visit with my brother in the Lord, and it has been my desire to help every disciple to learn what I learned that day and listen to what Jesus is saying right now:
“Follow Me … follow Me every day in every way; follow Me as I heal and deliver and raise from the dead; follow Me as I face the torment and the pain of an execution; follow Me when people praise Me and give Me glory for what I do in their lives and when I lay on My face in the dust of Gethsemane’s garden begging the Father to end My suffering; follow Me when thousands respond to the truth I bring and success surrounds Me at every point; follow Me when most of My closest friends desert Me as I breathe My last breath on the crooked cross … then, and only then, follow Me as together we walk out of that tomb into a brand new day – with all the power of this universe at our disposal – ready to meet the next challenge that comes our way.”
Will you follow Jesus – all the way – every day?