A Disciple Follows

So far in our study of discipleship, we’ve focused on the “Being” of discipleship. We’ve seen that a disciple is chosen and loved by God. We’ve also seen that a disciple abides in and communes with Christ. Now we move from the “being” of a disciple to the “doing” of a disciple. A disciple doesn’t just receive the call, love, power, and fellowship of God. But, he is called to do things, to act and live in a certain way. As Robert Barron has put it, “Christianity, before all else, is a form of life, a path that one walks. It is a way of seeing, a frame of mind, an attitude, but more than this, it is a manner of moving and acting, standing and relating.” Before we can move to what a disciple does, I want to emphasize that being precedes doing. There is a very real risk that, as we get into the things a disciple is called to do, you could mistakenly think that you have to do all of this on your own, or under your own power. Or, you could wrongly think that you must do these things to be accepted and loved by God. But remember Jesus’s words from John 15 – “Abide in me, for apart from me, you can do nothing.” We cannot walk the path of discipleship apart from the call, love, power, and fellowship of Christ.

With that said, let’s consider the actions of a disciple by looking at the first of those actions: a disciple is called to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, wherever they may lead. To see that, let’s read Matt. 16:24-28. From this passage I want you to see two points: the meaning of following, and the motivation for following.

First, let’s consider the meaning of following from verse 24. This statement of Jesus comes at the end of an important moment with his disciples. In verse 13 we read that Jesus brought his disciples to the region of Caesarea Philippi. This metropolitan area was a notoriously pagan area in which there were idols erected to many of the Greek gods. With those false gods in the background, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” After a few bad answers, Peter professes in verse 16 – “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Jesus confirms this confession of faith and points to Peter’s faith as the rock on which the church will be built. But, then, Jesus turns dark in his teaching by telling his disciples that he will be crucified in Jerusalem and then raise from the dead. Here, the same Peter who was an example of faith says, in verse 22, “Far be it from you, Lord!” Effectively, he rejects Jesus’s teaching and forbids this from happening. To this, Jesus responds by calling Peter Satan. Let that sink in. In the course of eight verses, Peter goes from the personification of faith to the personification of Satan!

Then, in verse 24, Jesus says these famous words, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Based on this context, I want you to notice three truths about what it means to follow Jesus. First, following Jesus is more than words. Peter was always ready with a quick word. He was quick to speak – sometimes for good and sometimes for ill. He was absolutely right to profess that Jesus was the Christ. Yet, it’s not enough just to say the right things about Jesus. Jesus says, to be a disciple, you must “come after me,” which is to say that a disciple is to walk in the way of his master. In other words, Peter was not in charge, and no disciple is greater than his master.

Second, following Jesus means giving up on what we want. As Jesus says, “Let him deny himself.” The Greek word for “deny” means to “disown or to forget oneself.” When you commit to follow Christ, your life is no longer about you. It’s not about what you want. It’s not about your preferences or identity or desires. Your life is now set on Christ. As Paul puts it in Gal. 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me: and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Third, to follow Christ is to take up one’s cross. Now, this phrase has been greatly abused in our time. We use the phrase, “Our cross to bear” to refer to our crazy sibling or our desire for cake. Additionally, Christ’s death on the cross has turned that symbol into something beauty, so that now, many people wear crosses as jewelry. But, when Jesus said this, he wasn’t referring to mundane, first-world problems, and he wasn’t talking about a thing of beauty. He was referring to one of the worst torture devices that man has ever invented. To be crucified was the greatest mark of shame that a person could take. To carry a cross was a sign of judgment and humiliation. To take up one’s cross was to die. You see, in a very real sense, the way of discipleship is a way of death. To follow Jesus, we must die to our own desires and will. To follow Jesus, we must die to the world, denying its ways and allurements. To die to Jesus, we must be willing to literally die for what we believe. As John Piper put it, “Daily Christian living is daily Christian dying. The dying I have in mind is the dying of comfort and security and reputation and health and family and friends and wealth and homeland… To die daily… is to embrace the life of loss for Christ’s sake and count it as gain.”

So, now that we understand the meaning of following, let’s consider the motivation for following from verses 25-27. Put simply, the motivation for following Jesus, even following him to death, is that we might gain eternal life. Jesus states this motivation three different ways in these three verses. First, following Jesus results in our salvation. He says, in verse 25, whoever would save his life will lose it but whoever will lose his life will find it. This is one of those great paradoxes of the Kingdom of God. If you hold on to your life, if you refuse to submit to the will of Christ and instead seek to keep control for yourself, you will ultimately lose your life. Refusal to submit to Christ results in your condemnation and judgment. But, if you lose your life for Christ, if you submit to his leadership and live for him, you will gain life in him.

Second, following Jesus results in our satisfaction. In verse 26, Jesus asks, “what does it profit (or benefit) a man that he should gain everything in this world but lose his soul?” Jesus is essentially asking, what is more valuable to you – the stuff of this world (power, fame, wealth, pleasure), or eternal life with the God who made you? Because, if you choose the things of this world, if you walk after the ways of Satan, then you will forfeit your soul, and all hopes of eternal life with God.

Third, following Jesus results in our security on the day of judgment. In verse 27, Jesus reminds us that there will be a day when he will return to judge the living and the dead. When he does, he will “repay each person according to what he has done.” Now, we have to be careful because we could get all tripped up over this word, “done.” We could think that maybe Jesus is going to get out a scale, and on one side he is going to put our good deeds, and on the other he is going to put our bad deeds, and if the good outweighs the bad, then we will be rewarded with heaven. But, the Greek word for “done” there is “praxis”, from which we get our English word for “practice.” It’s not the idea of individual deeds, or even a sum of them, but the way we ordered our lives. This points back to verse 24 and the idea of following Jesus. So, when Jesus judges humanity, he will judge us based on how we ordered our lives. Did we follow him, or did we follow the ways of this world? Did we deny ourselves and take up our cross, or did we seek to live by our own desires? On that day, if we followed Jesus, we will receive the reward of eternal life in him.

So, friend, I hope you understand that your salvation rests on who it is that you follow. If you follow your own desires, you will face judgment and hell. Won’t you turn and follow Jesus today?

Brothers and sisters, our walk with Christ is to be defined by our submission to him. We are called to deny our own desires and submit completely to the will of Christ. May we leave here ready to carry our cross and lose our lives so that we might gain life with Christ.