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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.
How To Be A Real Disciple
Series Behold the Lamb - Gospel of Jn
| Sermon ID | 32425177514888 |
| Duration | 37:42 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | John 8:30-32 |
| Language | English |
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