John chapter number eight this morning, John chapter eight, and we're gonna be at verse number 30. That's the next verse. Technically, and it's been a few weeks, the last time we were in John eight, we finished at verse 30, but today I want to begin at verse 30. Just look at a couple of verses here in John eight. Verse number 30, as he spake, this is Jesus speaking, as he spake these words, many believed on him. Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed. And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. I want to point out in verse number 31. where Jesus tells these Jews that have believed on it. He says, if you continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed. That word indeed means in reality, in truth, in fact. So what Jesus is saying, if you continue in my word, you will really and truly be a disciple. You'll be my disciples if you continue in my word. And I want to build this message on that thought. I want to preach on how to be a real disciple. We're going to look at what it means, what's the mindset, what's the heart of a person who is a real disciple. How do we do that? Is discipleship simply just getting saved and now that's it? That's the end of it? Well, not according to Jesus. Now, getting saved, that's one point in time you trust Jesus Christ as your Savior, you're on your way to heaven. But being a disciple is an extra step, if you will, in a Christian's life. It's a matter of following Jesus. In fact, the definition of disciple means a learner or a follower of Jesus Christ. If you're gonna be a disciple, and claim the word. You can say you're a disciple, but if you're not learning from Jesus, and if you're not following Jesus, you may be saved, but you're not actually a disciple. So what we want to learn today is how to be a real disciple. Now, let's begin where we need to begin. It's elementary. This is bottom-of-the-shelf theology. If you're going to be a disciple, first and foremost, you must be saved. You gotta be saved. Jesus in verse number, well, the Bible says in verse number 30 that Jesus speaks these words, and many believed on Him. Verse 31 says that He begins to speak to those that believed on Him. These are people who have trusted Christ. They've put their faith in Him. They are now relying upon Him. They believed His words. My friend, there is no matter of discipleship if you have not first been born again. You must be saved. You must come to the realization that you are a sinner left to yourself. You are a sinner. You have sinned against God. That's step number one. Then you need to realize that Jesus died on the cross. and he died for your sins. He paid your sin debt. He shed his blood. Brother Mike was talking about that earlier. He shed his blood for your sins and mine to make a payment for your sin. Then three days later, he arose from the dead and he's alive today. Jesus is alive today. They sang earlier, he's still on the throne. He's still on the throne. He's alive, sitting at the right hand of the throne of God. And he is ready. I say this all the time. I'm gonna say it till my last breath. He is ready and he is willing to save any sinner that'll come to him. If you realize you're a sinner, but you don't want to be a sinner anymore, you want to be saved. You don't want to go to hell. You want to spend eternity with God in heaven. If that's what you desire, you must trust Jesus Christ. You have to come to him. And these people have believed on Jesus. You must as well. There is no information of discipleship to someone who's never been saved. Discipleship, becoming a disciple is for those who have already been saved. So they're saved. Now, yesterday I was spending a lot of time in this passage and I began to look at other commentaries and and what other men of the past have said about this passage. And I was flabbergasted at some of the things I was reading. In fact, the vast majority of the commentators that I was reading were doubting whether these people had truly trusted Christ at all. And basically, and they were, I hate to say it like this, but they were spewing some nonsense. Almost saying that what Jesus is talking to them about in verse 31 is they were really close, borderline of saying that this is how you get saved. Jesus in verse 31 is not telling them how to get saved. You don't get saved by continuing in the word of God. Anybody teaches that is wrong. You get saved one time by trusting Christ. It's instantaneous. You trust Jesus Christ, you're saved at that point. This idea of you get saved and then you need to live a certain way to go to heaven, that's nonsense, that's heresy. That's a work salvation. Continuing in the word is you doing a work. A lot of these commentaries were We're borderline teaching the work salvation. I thought that's absolute nonsense. Now, one of the thing and I can see what I can at this point, I can see what they're saying. He gives them instructions about discipleship in verses 31 and 32. And the Bible says in verse 33, then they answered him. They answered him. And then they said to him, we we be Abraham's seed and we're never in bondage to any man. How says thou? Ye shall be made free. And he continues to talk about things that they need to understand as far as being saved. Now, what these commentaries were saying, I'm not trying to waste your time or bore you with this, but I want to make a point here. A lot of these commentators in their comments were saying that the same crowd that Jesus was talking to in verses 31 and 32 is the same crowd Jesus was talking to in verse number 33 and following. And I don't believe that. I don't believe that at all. I believe Jesus is talking to a large crowd. He's been talking to a large crowd and many of them believe. And Jesus takes two verses and talks to the many that believe. And then, verse 33, when it says they answered him, it's back to the whole crowd again. In particular, the unbelieving crowd. You say, what makes you say that? Well, Jesus says in verse number 37, ye seek to kill me. Now, I'm not a smart guy. I need help sometimes with understanding things. There's one thing I do understand. If you have believed on Jesus, you're not trying to kill him. That means he's talking to a different crowd. It's not the same crowd. In fact, he talks about them wanting to kill him again down to verse number 40. But now you seek to kill me. That's not to the crowd that's believing him. So here's the picture. Here's what's going on in the text. He's talking to everybody. Some of them believed. He takes a moment and talks to those who believe. Here's how you can be my disciple. Then the rest of them speak up and he goes back to talk to the rest of them and tells them you're wanting to kill me. That's what's happening here. You don't get saved by continuing in the Word. You get saved by one time trusting that Word, believing what the Word of God says. Then after you believe, now as a disciple, you continue in the Word. That's very important to understand. So, first and foremost, you have to be saved. You have to be saved. A lot of you preachers today who teach what we call lordship salvation. I'm not trying to pick a fight with anybody, but the lordship salvation grant, evidently that's what I was reading yesterday. All the bunch of the lordship salvation guys where they teach that you, you get saved, but there has to be this. this surrender to the point where you are now continuing the Word of God and if that doesn't happen, you never were saved to begin with. Some people, it takes a while for them to get to the place where they're continuing the Word of God. People grow at different levels. And what this lordship salvation does, if you hear anybody teach this, they're wrong. What they'll do is they'll take verses that teach you how to be a disciple and say that's also how you get saved. Now at the end of this message, we're gonna go to Luke 14. We're not going right now. But at the end of the message, we're gonna go to Luke 14. And in that passage where Jesus is talking about discipleship, he talks about counting the cost. You don't count the cost for salvation. The cost of salvation has been that's already been paid that was on the old rugged cross, but you do count the cost of discipleship If you're gonna follow Jesus and obey him he says you count the cost but to get saved it cost you nothing to get saved Jesus paid it all I had nothing I to the payment of salvation. When Jesus shed his blood, rose again the third day, the transaction was finished. It was complete. There's nothing for me and you to add to salvation. But when it comes to following Jesus, being a servant and discipleship, I better count the cost. That's in Luke 14. So he's not telling them how to be saved. They are saved. Now he's telling saved people, now here's how you can be my disciple. So number one, you must be saved. Let's look at number two. You must be scriptural. Notice the emphasis of verse 31. If you continue in my word, my word, the Bible discipleship, being a disciple is connected to the word of God. Remember. The definition of a disciple is a learner or a follower of Jesus Christ, a learner, a follower. If you're gonna be a learner of Christ, a follower of Christ, you must do so through the Bible. This is how you learn. This is how you follow. If you tell me you're following Jesus Christ, but what you're doing contradicts this, I'm gonna tell you you're not a follower. If you follow, follower, that's country, hallelujah. If you follow Jesus, You're going to do so through the Word of God. The Word of God. My South Carolina comes out every now and then. Scriptural. Got to be scriptural. In what way? Well, I'm going to show you right here in the text three steps that Jesus gives these saved people. Three steps to become a real disciple. And they're all connected. All of the steps are connected to the Word of God. So what are the steps? Well, number one, there must be this, this living. Let me put it that way. Living in the scriptures. That's what he says. He says, if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples. He's talking about living in the word. Staying connected to the word of God. This, my friend, is your lifeline. This is your this is your direction. This is your plan for life. This is your instructions. The word of God. I was talking to a young person of the day who needs discipleship. talking to them about their connection to the word of God. They haven't been saved too long. There's a lot of things they don't understand. And I said, the things that you don't understand is not going to be your problem. It's the things you do understand. The things you do understand. As you read the word of God and you need to read the word of God. You need to spend time in God's word if at all possible every single day. That doesn't mean that everybody can read 10 chapters a day. But you need to read something in the word of God. You need to be connected to the Bible. And don't tell me you don't have time. That's a lie. You tell me I don't have time to read the Bible. You are lying. Or you're the worst manager of time of anybody I know. We all have the same amount of time. Everybody's busy. Everybody's got stuff to do. You got time to read the Bible. Probably what it probably really is. You didn't want to get up early and read the Bible. You want to sleep in later. You want to sleep in just enough time. You hop up. Grab your shower, quick bite, head to work. What if you got up 15 minutes early? That is not a lot of time, right? You read three to four chapters a day. You talk about 15, 20 minutes. And I'm not talking about skimming through it to get it done. I've got my Bible checklist. No, I'm talking about reading the Bible and listening for the voice of God off of that page as he speaks to you. Only how many times? I'm dealing with something alive, dealing with something that weak, and I'm on my systematic schedule. Right now, I'm reading through the book of First Samuel. It says I'm going through First Samuel. As I listen to the word of God, he'll speak to me, he'll talk to me. Sometimes he tells me what I'm going to preach next through my daily Bible reading. But there's been times where I was dealing with something, facing something, needing God to talk to me. And sometimes I'm in an obscure passage of scripture. Well, I'm not gonna hear anything today because I'm in this portion of scripture. And right there in the middle of it is a verse that met me where I was that day. That day. God is so omniscient that he put his Bible together in such a way that it doesn't matter who you are, what your walk of life is, if you're saved by the grace of God and you're reading the Bible, he will have a verse, he'll have something for you. If not that day, it'll be that week, it'll be sometime during that time. God's gonna speak to you as you read the Word of God. But if you're disconnected from the Word of God, you're disconnected from discipleship. when you come to the house of God. You know what you ought to do? Anticipate God talking to you from the word of God. You don't expect it. God's gonna talk to me today from his word. He has something for me today from his word. There's a very good chance that a number of y'all won't be back tonight. And another chance you might not be back Wednesday. Now I'm gonna tell you why, because you ain't getting out of getting out of this service, anything today. If you really met with Jesus this morning, you'd want to meet with him again tonight. You don't, you don't want to meet with him again, Wednesday. It's amazing. We can come to church. do our little religious calisthenics, go through our religious motions, get nothing out of it. And it don't affect us when we don't come back Sunday night and Wednesday night. The reason why it doesn't affect you is it didn't affect you when you were here. You got nothing out of it. And by the way, by the way, that's not fundamental Baptist Church's fault. Every time we come to church, every time we meet together, Jesus has promised he'll meet with us. Where two or three have gathered in his name, he's gonna be in the midst. And when he's in the midst of his people, he talks to his people. He shepherds his people. He encourages them and feeds them. And if you're not eating today, that's on you, boo. As the young people say, that's on you. You could eat today. Now, I guarantee I know there's a thousand better preachers out there, but they ain't a better Bible. There's not a better Holy Ghost. There's not a better Jesus. And he wants to meet with you with his word today. And if you. When my wife cooks a meal, it's a great lunch. You know, I'm going to do I'm going to I'm going to eat. I'm going to anticipate a great supper because she's a good cook. Y'all can tell. Good cook. She just got better when she came down here and learned Jim Adams' techniques and other things like that. And it's just like, I don't have a chance. Good graces. You're going to eat. You're going to feed. And you're going to look forward to the next time. You know why some of y'all won't look forward to the night? You don't look forward to it. You stay home, watch TV, put your pajamas on because you think you need you need that when you haven't learned to rest in Christ. The reason why you're not going to come back and feed tonight is because you didn't come and feed this morning, you just came and sat. You didn't eat anything. You're malnourished. You need a taste of Christ. Open your heart and say, Lord, speak to me from your word. I'm ready to hear. He does that. He talks to you. Can't wait to go back tonight. He'll talk to me again. Can't wait to come back Wednesday. He'll talk to me again. That's how this works. You have to be connected to the word of God publicly when you come to church and privately in your own Bible reading time. You need your own Bible reading time. I cannot be the only Bible teacher in your life. That's not healthy. That's like only eating three meals a week. You have to feed yourself at home. Spend time in God's Word. Let me ask you this question. If the last time you read your Bible at home, on your own trying to hear from God was the last time you ate food. What kind of condition physically would you be in right now? So I probably dead or in the in the hospital. That's how you are spiritually. You hear the words of Christ, you've got a Bible is red letters. If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed? You can claim the word disciple, but only if you're living in the scriptures are you a disciple. That's number one. Number two is learning of the scriptures. Look at verse 32. Same context. Talk about the Bible. Ye shall know the truth. You shall know the truth. In this same gospel, John 17, verse 17, Jesus said, To sanctify them by thy truth, thy word is truth. How do you know something? You gotta learn it. You gotta study it. You gotta spend some time with it. If you're a disciple, you're a learner of Christ. And a learner is gonna run to the Word of God that teaches us about Jesus and who he is and what direction he takes us. You have to learn the scriptures. If you continue in His Word, you're gonna know the Word. You're gonna know the truth. And, watch this, and the truth shall make you free. That's liberation by the Scriptures. Step one, living in the Scriptures. Step two, learning of the Scriptures. Step three, liberation by the Scriptures. Freedom in Christ. You know, you can be saved and still have some bondage in your life. In fact, Galatians 5.1, you don't have to turn there, but here's what Paul said to the churches of Galatia. He says, stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. He said that to believers. You know who's enjoying the liberty of Christ today? Disciples. Learners and followers of Jesus Christ. They're enjoying the freedom of Jesus Christ today. If you don't continue in His Word, if you're not learning His Word, you're not liberated by the Word, you may be saved and shackled. In fact, take your Bible. Would you go to Luke 14 with me, please? As I stated earlier, we're gonna spend some time there. In Luke 14, Jesus lays out in very clear, understandable terms and convicting terms of what discipleship is, being a disciple of Jesus Christ. Now, we're talking about here liberation by the scriptures, freedom. By continuing the Word, obeying the Word, learning it, living in it, you get to experience the freedom of Jesus Christ, the liberty of Jesus Christ. Now, thank God, when you get saved, you're free from the guilt of sin, you're free from the penalty of sin, all that has taken place. But remember in John chapter 11, when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, you remember what happened? Jesus, Jesus tells the people there, you go roll the stone away. Jesus did not roll that stone away. He told the people to do it. That's a picture of you and I Going out in this world and telling people about Christ. We're giving them the gospel. We're essentially rolling the stone away Now once that stone was rolled away, then Jesus did his part. He said Lazarus come forth and And that's a picture of the Lord calling a sinner unto himself. You're dead in your trespasses and sins. You're on your way to hell. But Jesus says, Lazarus, come forth. He calls you and brings you out. And he brought Lazarus out of that tomb. But then he looked back at the same people that rolled the stone away and said, now, you loose him and let him go. He's already alive. The picture is he's saved. He's been resurrected. He's alive, but he still got on his grave clothes And a lot of people they'll get saved They'll trust Christ and he'll save them, but they still got the grave clothes on they need they need to be discipled They need to be loosed and let go and that's our job as a church to disciple. That's what we're doing this morning This is discipleship training today Here's how you can be loosed and let go You get saved God takes the penalty away, takes the guilt away, changes you, but there's still some of that old life hanging around. And it's the disciples, the real disciples, the followers of Christ who get to see the full liberation of that old life. And Jesus talks about it in Luke 14. These are not easy verses, but this is how you can be a real disciple. You say, what kind of liberation does Jesus give us? Well, when you are a real disciple, Jesus will free you from the influence of people we love. He'll free us from the influence of people we love. Look at verse 26 of Luke 14. If any man come to me and that salvation, And hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters. Yay. And his own life. Also, he cannot be my disciple. Now, when he says, hate your father and mother. So he is not talking about pulling out a knife and an ax and go take them all out. That's not what he's saying. What he's saying is that you love me so much that their opinions and their thoughts and their influence does not keep you from doing my will for your life. I mean, everybody in the building knows my mama did not want me to move to Louisiana. We know that. But I couldn't let her desire. Keep me from doing God's will. So if you're a disciple, you're continuing the word, you're learning the word, it'll liberate you. That truth will make you free. You'll be free from the influence of people that you love. Don't let your family and friends who are carnal and backslid or even lost deter you and get you off track and cause you not to do God's will. You live for Jesus no matter what. It even says in the passage, verse 26, even your life also. His own life also. You don't get to make decisions anymore. Jesus does. He tells us what to do. So it liberates you from the people you love. Being a disciple also liberates us from the influence of pleasures that we love. Look at verse 27. And whosoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Cross-bearing. You've heard the phrase, well, that's just my cross to bear. And most people, when they talk about that, they talk about something physical or something material, something in this life they're having to deal with, such as your mother-in-law moved into your house or something like that. That's my cross to bear. Well, not really. It may be a cross, but that's not the one Jesus is talking about. Some people, they may get diagnosed with cancer. Well, that's my cross to bear. That's not what he's talking about here. That cross is a symbol of death. What he's talking about is denying yourself, dying to yourself. Just because you like that and want that and desire to do that doesn't mean God's gonna let you. And a disciple finds that out. I don't know how many Christians down through the years I've heard, you know, God maybe give up hunting or fishing or golfing or whatever, God maybe give it up. There's no sin in any of those things. But those things could be a distraction in your life and keep you from doing what God wants you to do. And sometimes God will tell us to walk away from something. Die to it. That's you bearing that cross. In other words, I've died to myself. I'm carrying my cross. I've died to myself. It's not my pleasure. It's not my will. It's not my desires anymore. It's the will of God. That's what I follow. It's the will of God. How else can somebody like a Josh Adams, how can they go to the Philippines? Lock that in. How can they do such a thing? How can Brother Drew leave everything behind and go to Oregon? How do you do that? You gotta pick up your cross. But by the way, that's not just for missionaries and evangelists and preachers. It's for Christians every single day of our life. Lord, if you don't want me to be involved in that, I've died to myself. I'm living for you. I'm living for you. He will free you from the pleasures that we love. See, our desires, our pleasures can trap us and entangle us and keep us from doing his will. The last one is down in verse 33. He can liberate us and we'll deliver his disciples from the influence of possessions we love. He says in verse 33, so likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. Now, does that verse mean that every one of us, except for me, because I live in a parsonage, I don't own my home, All y'all. Does that mean all y'all supposed to go out this week and sell your house? Sell all your cars. Is that what I mean? No, that's not what that means. What that means is if God ever tells you to, you will. Some of you, he may tell you to do that. Some of you, he will tell you. You're going to sell that house, you're going to sell that car and you're going to do this, whatever. Some of you he will say that to most of you he won't. But every one of us should be willing to walk away from everything in this life to serve him. Let me ask you what what in your life do you possess that you just don't think you can part with and serve Jesus. He's not going to tell you to walk away from your wife. Divorce is not going to be a part of that. Wherever you go, your wife is going. Now, if you have older children and they got your grandbabies, he may tell you to take a step, leave that behind. He may tell you to take your children, the grandbabies, away from your mom and dad and go someplace else. That's not an easy thing to do, but the Lord may require that a disciple has been liberated from those possessions and willingly does it. It doesn't mean there's no pain, no tears. It doesn't mean, well, happy, happy, joy, joy. We're going to leave everything we ever loved. That's not, that's not what happens, but it's a willingness to do whatever Jesus says to do, regardless of what you love, what you love. So let me ask you, are you not doing what God said to do because there's some people in your life that are telling you not to do this? Are you not doing what God says to do because there's activities and hobbies and things you do? And maybe some of it may be sinful. Maybe it's not, but God's telling you to walk away and you have refused to. And that's keeping you from being a disciple. Maybe there's things that you own in this life, relationships that you have, and you just, I've worked so hard to get to this point. I don't want to walk away from that. Then you will not be his disciple. He may not tell you to walk away from it. You just need to be very willing to do so if he commands it. It costs you nothing to get saved. It costs you everything to serve. It costs everything to be a disciple. So you've been bought with a price. You're not your own. You're not your own. When you got saved, you forfeited all of your rights. We're living in a day where everybody wants to talk about rights. Technically, for a Christian, You forfeited all of it on a spiritual level anyway. Jesus is your sovereign Lord. He gets to call all the shots. He says, do this. We're supposed to do it. He says, don't do this. We're not supposed to do it. No matter how we feel about it, how we see it, whether we want to or not, he said to obey. A lot of people have the idea, well, I'll just, I'm not gonna do all that, but I'll give big, fat love offerings. I'll give a lot to the church, and I'll give a lot to causes. The Lord says it's better to obey than to sacrifice. God would rather you be poor and obedient than to be wealthy and just give gazillions of dollars to the cause of Christ. It's better to obey than to sacrifice. So let me ask you today. Are you disciple? Are you disciple? Are you continuing in the word, living in it, learning from it, and are you liberated from it? Well, how can I know if I'm liberated? If God told you today, you're going to Africa, you're going to Asia, you're going to South America, told you today, that's where you're going. Would you would you say, yes, Lord, I'll go. Or would you say, no, no, I'm not doing that. If you said, no, I'm not doing that, you're not a disciple. You say, yes. You are. God's not going to send most of us to those places. He will send a few. But everybody should be willing to do anything he ever tells us to do. That's a disciple. That's a sign.