It's a basic law of economics. The more valuable the commodity, the higher its price tag. So the question is, how does that law apply to your salvation, the most valuable thing that you can possess? We'll consider that with John MacArthur next on Grace To You. It's been said, to gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else. Well, think about those words with regards to your salvation. Certainly, nothing has more value, both in this life and the afterlife. Yet, Scripture calls salvation a gift, something you can't earn. So, does that mean that there can be a cost for that gift, a price that you have to pay for Christ to call you His own? Well, consider these vital questions on today's Grace to You. You'll find the answer in Jesus' own words. The Starting Principle of Discipleship is the title of John's lesson today, an appropriate follow-up to the study that he finished yesterday called The Gospel According to Jesus. And now, here's John MacArthur. Open your Bible, if you will, to Luke chapter 9. I want to read verses 23 through 26 and then you'll have it in mind and we'll begin to talk about it. Verse 23 of Luke 9, He was saying to them all, if anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it. But whoever loses his life for My sake, he's the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in His glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels." It's brief, not many verses, not even very many words. But this is at the heart of the teaching of Jesus. This is pure gold, biblical gold. Maybe better, this is a diamond of truth. clear and brilliant. The subject is following Jesus, verse 23, if anyone wishes to come after me. This is a text about how to come after Jesus, how to follow Jesus, how to become a Christian, how to be saved. How to be redeemed and born again, that's what it's about. It is critical teaching. And one thing strikes you at the very outset, and that is coming after Jesus involves self-denial. That's clearly the first thing that's said. If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself. The gospel is a call for self-denial. It is not a call for self-fulfillment. And that puts the true gospel in opposition to the contemporary evangelical gospel which is a gospel of self-fulfillment, self-help. Jesus is viewed as a utilitarian genie. You rub the lamp, He jumps out and says, you have whatever you want. And you give Him your list and He delivers. The psychological man-centered evangelicals tell you that Jesus gives you peace and Jesus gives you joy and Jesus makes you a better salesman and Jesus helps you hit more home runs. Jesus really wants to make you feel better about yourself. He wants to elevate your self-image. He wants to put an end to your negative thinking. It's not about exalting Me, it's about slaying Me. Jesus said, if you're going to follow Me, you deny yourself, you take up your cross every day and you follow Me. It's the death of self. You win by losing. You live by dying. And that is the core, the heart message of the gospel. That is the center of discipleship. This is not an obscure passage. This is not something that's sort of different than the normal teaching of Jesus. These are principles which He teaches repeatedly throughout His ministry, over and over and over again in all different contexts. Let me show you that. Go back to the tenth chapter of Matthew for a moment. Matthew chapter 10, in verse 34, Jesus has been in the prior verses talking about confessing Him, of course, confessing Him as Lord and Savior. Verse 32, everyone who confesses Me before men, I'll confess before My Father who's in heaven. So He's talking about confessing Christ as Lord. And then in verse 34 He says this, do not think that I come...came to bring peace on the earth. I didn't come to bring peace but a sword. I came to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man's enemies will be the members of his household." First thing, come to Christ, it may make your family worse, not better. It may send a rift into your family the likes of which you have never heretofore experienced. But that's the way it is. Because if you give your life to Jesus Christ, there will be an impassable gulf between you and the people in your family who don't. Verse 37 says, "'So he who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. He who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.'" If you're not willing to pay the price of a permanent rift in your family unless those people come to Christ, if you're not willing to pay the price of greater trauma in your family, greater conflict in your family, greater suffering in your family, then you're not even worthy to be My disciple. Verse 38 he says, he who doesn't take his cross. The cross was associated with one thing, one thing alone. A cross was an instrument of death. It was an instrument of execution. Jesus goes even beyond this. If you're not willing to have conflict in your family, you're not worthy to be My disciple. If you're not willing to have conflict with the world to the degree that it could cost you your life, then you're not worthy of Me. Verse 39, he who has found his life shall lose it, he who has lost his life for My sake shall find it. It's about losing your life. It's not a man-centered theology, it's a Christ-centered theology that says, I give everything to Christ no matter what it costs me. Now follow along into Luke chapter 9 again and go to the end of the chapter, verse 57. This is so critical for us to understand and so practical, as I'll point out. They were going along the road, Jesus with some of the people who followed Him, some of the disciples, would-be disciples. And somebody said to Him, I will follow You wherever You go. Really? Jesus said to him, we're not going to the Ritz-Carlton. I hope that doesn't affect you negatively. The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. If you follow Me, you will lose everything." That's the price. Just know that. Jesus didn't say, oh great, follow Me, you will be happy, you will be healthy, wealthy, prosperous, successful. He said, just know this, I don't have any place to lay my head. It's going to cost you everything. He said, oh, I need to go bury my father. And the implication is his father wasn't even dead. What does he mean, go bury his father? Go to the funeral? No, hang around till he gets the inheritance. He just heard Jesus say he wasn't going to have anything if he followed Jesus. Jesus had nothing to give him, so he wanted to hang around home until he could pack a fortune in his bag and then come after Jesus. He too disappeared. But Jesus sets the standard as total self-denial. If you turn to the fourteenth chapter of Luke, just introducing these times and places where Jesus discussed this, you find that the message is always the same. There's a great multitude in verse 25 and chapter 14 and they're coming along with Jesus and He turns and He speaks to them. If anyone comes to Me, you all want to follow Me, you want to be My followers. If you come to Me and you don't hate your own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and even your own life, you can't be My disciple. It's not about you. It's not about your self-esteem. It's about your sin and your desperation and you seeing Christ as so priceless and so valuable as your Savior from sin and death and hell that you would willingly give up everything if it cost you your family. If it costs you your marriage, and in verse 27 you carry your own cross, and if you don't carry your own cross, that is be willing to die and give your life and come after Me, then you can't be My disciple. It can't be any clearer than that. So you want to come after Jesus, do you? So you want to follow Jesus, do you? It will just cost you absolutely everything. Now let's go back to Matthew 16 for a moment because we can't understand the full picture of the Luke passage without comparing Matthew 16 because they're parallel. But Matthew has included more information. Now the scene is, it's exam time with the disciples, as you remember from our last message. It's exam time. There's only one question on the exam. The one question on the exam is verse 15 of Matthew 16, He said to them, who do you say that I am? After a couple of years of training and disclosure and revelation and miracles and signs and wonders that Jesus had done. all of His teaching, it was time to give Him the final exam in the school of discipleship. And so that there's only one question on the exam, who do you say that I am? They get it right. Simon Peter answers on behalf of all of them, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus responds, that's right, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonas, Barjona, because flesh and blood didn't reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven, you have accepted the revelation of God, you have seen what God has been revealing through Me, you understand, that's the right answer. This is the high point of all discipleship training. They have come to the right conclusion about Jesus Christ that's absolutely necessary for salvation. He is God's Christ, God's Messiah, God's Son, God's Savior. All that the Old Testament promised and all that Jesus claimed is in fact true. This is the great confession, the supreme confession. You remember that the gospels were written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. and that believing you might have life in His name. Well they believe and they have life in His name and this is their great moment of confession. They got it right in response to that Affirmation comes, you got the message from God, you saw what God was saying through me and you got it right. That's wonderful. And I have something else to say to you, Peter, verse 18. You are Peter and upon this rock I'll build My church. There's a little bit of a contrast here. You are Peter, you're a small rock, but upon this rock bed, different word, I'll build My church, a little contrast. And what is the rock bed? The confession of who He is, the reality of who He is. I'm going to build My church, He says, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. This is wonderful. You've come to the right answer and I'm telling you this, I'm going to build the church and the gates of Hades. What's that? Hades is where dead people are, the gates how you get dead and that's by dying. So the gates of Hades is simply death. Satan has the power of death. Hebrews 2 says he wields the power of death in the world, that's his greatest power. But even Satan's power of death is not going to stop the Lord from building His church. This is a triumphant note. You got the right answer to the question. You passed the exam, A plus, and I'm telling you guys, it's on that great and glorious reality that I will build my church and Satan's great power of death will not prevail against it. Furthermore, I'm not only going to build My church, but I'll give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. You're going to be able to open the door to the Kingdom and let people in. How? You're going to unlock the Kingdom with the gospel and you're going to tell sinners who repent they're loose from their sin, and sinners who don't repent, they're bound in their sin. You're going to be My representatives. You're going to be My authoritative agents in the world and you're going to bring people into the Kingdom. You can just feel the Bewailing enthusiasm. This is it, guys. This is what we've been bouncing around for the last couple of years hoping would happen. He's the Messiah. He's going to build the church. Nothing's going to stop it. We're going to have the authority to open and close the kingdom, not the established religion of Judaism, not the scribes and the chief priests and the elders. It's going to be us. We're going to be the premier ones, the preeminent ones in the kingdom. This is what we've been waiting for. And then in a shocking, shocking statement, verse 20, He warned the disciples that they should tell no one that He was the Christ. That doesn't make sense because they're just swept up in the thrill of the moment of the authority of the invincibility of the church, of the identity of Jesus, and now He says, don't tell anybody. It's not the time. And verse 21, from that time, Jesus Christ began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised up on the third day. What a downer. Jesus says, don't tell anybody because the plan is not for Me to take over My Kingdom now. The plan is not for Me to enter into My glory now. The plan is for Me to be killed by the Jewish establishment. I mean, this is just absolutely shattering. After they have been literally exalted by the realities that He is the Messiah, that He will build the church, that even the power of death won't prevail against it, that they are delegated this authority, they could taste the Kingdom. They could feel the glory coming. You could say they could feel the heat of the Shekinah. Health and wealth and prosperity was right around the corner. And surely Jesus would destroy the apostate leaders of Judaism and they would be the new leaders of Israel. And surely He would destroy the Roman oppressors and occupiers and pagans. And surely He would heal all diseases and He would provide food as He did when He fed the multitudes. This was the great glorious moment they had all been waiting for for so long. And then Jesus says, don't say anything, I have to die first. Verse 22, Peter took Him aside. Peter says, Lord, we need to have a private talk. Come over here. And he began to rebuke Him. Talk about a type A personality. The man, he rebukes the Son of God, the self-confessed Son of God, the Son of the living God just came out of his mouth and he says, come over here, I need to straighten you out. And he says, God forbid it, Lord, this shall never happen to you. That's not going to happen, you're not going to die, that isn't the plan. And Jesus turned and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan. I don't think he even liked being called Simon, let alone Satan. Then he says this, you are a stumbling block to me, and here's why. You are not setting your mind on God's interests but man's. You have a man-centered idea. You know, that could almost be the motto for contemporary evangelicalism. You are not setting your mind on God's interests but man's. It's all about you, isn't it? And it's all about what you want, and it's all about the power and the glory, and it's all about the crown, and it's all about the reward and the authority. You don't get it. The way up is down. You're not going to get a crown without a cross. And then in verse 24, Jesus introduces the principle. Said to His disciples, the Apostles and the rest of the crowd, as Mark 8.34 indicates, the crowd was listening to. If anyone wishes to come after Him, He let him deny himself and take up his cross. Luke adds, daily and follow Me. And with that, we transition back to Luke 9. Let's transition back to Luke 9 and pick it up there. Matthew filled in so much for us that was helpful. This is a shocking experience for the Apostles. having come to this glorious confession and now being told not to say anything and then being told Jesus is going to die. And not only is Jesus going to die, but He's saying to them all, back to verse 23, Luke 9, if anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow Me. And with that statement, Jesus opens up the paradox of discipleship...the paradox of discipleship. Now this section, I'll just kind of break it down into four categories, the principle, the paradox, the parousia and the preview which we'll look at as we go. I want you to look at the principle in verse 23. the principle. It isn't hard to figure the principle out. It's simply this, if you want to follow Christ, you want to be a Christian, do you? Here's the message, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Him. Do you hear that in the contemporary gospel? Do you ever hear that? Do you ever hear that in a message given by a television preacher or an evangelist? Do you ever hear anybody say that? Do you ever hear anybody stand up in a crowd and say, if you want to become a Christian, slay yourself? Deny yourself all the things that yourself longs for and wants and hopes for. Be willing to die and slavishly submit in obedience to Jesus Christ. That doesn't sell. That's not smart marketing. It just happens to be the truth. So what do you want to do? Get someone artificially converted? That's the popular way. Give people the illusion they're saved when they're not so that someday when they face Christ, they're going to say, Lord, Lord, and He's going to say, depart from Me, I never knew you. The gospel has to be the gospel. You want to follow Me then. The principle is, it's the end of you if you want to follow Me. It's the end of you. You don't exist anymore. Paul said it this way, for to me to live is...what?...Christ. And to die is...I've learned how to be abased and how to abound. I've learned how to have things and not have things. It doesn't matter. If I live, I live to the Lord. If I die, I die to the Lord. What's the difference? I'm the Lord's. That's the attitude. Men want glory. They want health. They want wealth. They want happiness. They want all their felt needs met, all their little human itches scratched. They want a painless life. They want the crown without the cross. They want the gain without the pain. That's how people think. That's not God's interest. The author of our salvation, according to Hebrews 2.10, was made perfect through suffering and so are we as well, taken through the crucible of suffering. And where we suffer, first of all, is in the death of all hopes, all ambitions, all desires, all longings, all needs that are human. That's the point. So you want to be a Christian. It's not easy. You'd think it was easy. Today, if you want to be a Christian, pray these little words. Pray this little prayer and you'll be a Christian. It's not easy to be a Christian. Let me show you some things. Matthew 7.13, this is again the teaching of our Lord. Matthew 7.13, Sermon on the Mount, familiar words, verse 13, enter by the narrow gate. First of all, become a Christian, you're going through a narrow gate. The idea of narrow here means constricted. I mean, it's one of those things that you have to kind of... go through. It's very, very tight. You can't carry anything through it. You come through with nothing. There is a wide gate, but it leads to destruction. There's a wide religious gate and people are going on there with all their baggage and all their self-needs and all their self-esteem and all their desire for fulfillment and self-satisfaction and all of that. They're going on there, but it doesn't go to heaven. It says heaven, but it ends up in hell and many go that way. But there is also, verse 14, this very small, narrow gate and it leads to eternal life. But notice this, few are those who find it. And the idea is it's hard to find. And I agree that it's hard to find. It's especially hard to find today. You could go to church, after church, after church, after church, after church and never find it. It's a very narrow gate. If you turn to the thirteenth chapter of Luke, you'll see some more elements of this same teaching. Luke 13.23, this is very, very important. Someone said to Jesus as He was passing from one city and village to another on His way down to Jerusalem. Someone said to Him, Lord, are there just a few who are being saved? That was the implication of Jesus' teaching, that this is a narrow gate, that this is hard to find, and so the question comes, it seems like You're saying there are just a few who are being saved, and He said to them, Agonize, agonizemi, strive to enter by the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. It's hard to find and it's hard to get through." Why? Why is it so hard to find and why is it so hard to get through? Now, you say, but people aren't going to buy that. Well, wait a minute, people aren't going to buy that, of course not, unless the Spirit of God is working in their heart, right? Unless the Spirit of God is doing the work of conviction and the Spirit of God is awakening the dead heart and the Spirit of God is generating faith, and then that's the only true message that connected with the work of the Spirit will produce true salvation. Don't reinvent the gospel to suit you. That's what's being done today. If anyone, anybody wishes to come after me, open invitation. Any of you wish to come? Anybody here want to come? Well you have to believe in Jesus. You have to confess Him as the Christ, the Son of the living God, Lord, Savior. Then you have to be willing to have a rift in your family, a rift in your marriage, a rift with the world that could cost you your life, and a rift with your own personal ambitions and submit your whole life to following Him and doing whatever He asks. It's not the one who says, Lord, Lord, Jesus said, it's the one who does the will of My Father and this is the will of My Father, that you submit to the Son. This is the gospel. It's a gospel of self-denial. It's a gospel of self-sacrifice and self-submission. Deny yourself, take up your cross every day, put your life on the line for the cause of Christ and follow in the sense that you do whatever He asks. You've been listening to John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in Southern California, and the speaker each day here on Grace To You. The goal of his lesson each day, to help you understand the blessing that comes from submitting your will, your very life, to Jesus Christ. John's message today is called, The Starting Principle of Discipleship. John, there certainly was some compelling irony in today's lesson. A Christian saves his life by sacrificing his life to Christ. Speaking of irony, John, you've been struck lately by the notion of gaining freedom by becoming a slave. Plenty of irony there. There is plenty of irony in that concept, but nonetheless it is true. Our freedom in Christ is only gained when we become His slaves. And it's along that line that I want to remind you, if you've heard me say this before, or introduce to you if you've not heard me say it, there is a brand new book that I've done entitled Slave. That's the title. The subtitle, The Hidden Truth About Your Identity in Christ. I dare say Christians have no idea that being a Christian means You are a slave to Jesus Christ. That's the truth. It's been covered up in our English translations because the word slave, doulos, is mistranslated because the translators thought it had a little too much negative connotation. And so we've lost the richness of this great reality. We are slaves of Jesus Christ. That's the original word in the New Testament that has been wrongly translated as if somehow it's a burden or an insult. Being a slave is our identity, and the richness of that is laid out all through the New Testament. I'm just telling you, I don't think you've ever read a book that even comes close to this one in unpacking your identity in Christ. The book is Slave, and you can order it today from Grace To You. Friend, to fully understand your relationship with the Rule of the Universe, how He provides for you, and what He expects from you, order this new book, simply titled, Slave. Mention the title when you contact us today. Our toll-free number here is 1-800-55-GRACE. To order online, go to gty.org. The cost for the book, Slave, is $15 and shipping is free. Order by calling 1-800-55-GRACE or online at gty.org. While you're online, take advantage of the sermon archive that is stocked with 3,000 of John's sermons, including today's The Starting Principle of Discipleship. That's free in the mp3 or transcript format online. All those sermons, many other Bible study tools and apps for iPhone and Android, it's all free at gty.org. And now, something you ought to plan for just a few months from now, John and the staff will be hosting a Bible conference designed especially for you. We're calling it simply Truth Matters. It happens September 1 through 4 in Southern California. Registration fee is reasonable and space is limited and filling up quickly, so please contact us today for details. Go online to this special website, truthmattersconference.org. Again, truthmattersconference, all one word, dot org. And to order John's new book called Slave, call 1-800-55-GRACE. And now, for John and the staff, keep in mind that you can watch Grace To You Television Sundays on Direct TV Channel 378 or watch online at gty.org. And then join us here next week as John continues unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You. In churches there may be many views on divorce as people in the pews, but what's the truth about divorce? What exactly does God's Word say? John MacArthur shows you in a new study that starts Monday here on Grace To You.