How to be a Disciple!

"Everyone who acknowledges Me publicly here on earth, I will also acknowledge before My Father in heaven.

But everyone who denies Me here on earth, I will also deny before My Father in heaven.

"Don't imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword.

'I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

Your enemies will be right in your own household!'

"If you love your father or mother more than you love Me, you are not worthy of being Mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than Me, you are not worthy of being Mine.

If you refuse to take up your cross and follow Me, you are not worthy of being Mine.

If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for Me, you will find it.

INTRODUCTION

Good evening! I am so glad you guys all joined with me tonight:

We are going to have a great time study the Word of God!

We are going to study the tonight on “How to be a disciple”but before we get into that I want to define Disciple:

The Word “Disciple” in the Greek means “A learner.”

But the word we know means more than that. It implies the acceptance of the views and practices of the teacher, not only in the mind but also in the life.

Apostle Paul lays out the solid truth here:

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

Peter also tells us the cost of true discipleship. Look at:

Then Peter began to speak up. "We've given up everything to follow You," he said.

Then Luke tells us of the price that Matthew paid to be a true disciple.

Later, as Jesus left the town, He saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax collector's booth. "Follow Me and be My disciple," Jesus said to him.

So Levi got up, left everything, and followed Him.

And we would be doing it injustice if we don’t look at what Apostle Paul said concerning his understanding of discipleship:

Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ

What you will notice that the early followers, they went from salvation to discipleship and so must we.

So tonight I want share with you four conditions of discipleship:

A disciple must consider yourself to be dead.

So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.

Many times you will hear people after reading or hearing the commandments of God, they will say, Those things are too hard. I can’t do these things that you are requiring of me.

One of the scripture that many people have a hard time with is this one:

But I say, love your enemies! [Bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you.] Pray for those who persecute you!

How can we do this? It seems impossible. And I will tell you that it is impossible for that old man, that person we were before we were saved.

But the old man is dead! He or she isn’t alive anymore!

Right?

Apostle Paul wrote to the church of Rome under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.

For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.

And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with Him.

Let’s stop and have discussion

The word "crucified" is referring to the mode of Christ’s death into which we were baptized. It does not imply anything further, it merely means that in His death our old man died.

He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.

Oswald Chambers said: “Show me the godliest man or woman in the world today, and if the truth be known, there are enough evil thoughts and evil passions that pass through such a person’s heart to condemn that person to hell forever and forever, except for the Cross.

I want you to understand that the Holy Spirit intends for us to live a victorious life and that sin not have dominion over us. But the Bible does not teach sinless perfection, it most definitely does teach victory.

That victory is not what we have done, but it what Christ has done, on the Cross.

2. A disciple must live a life of self-denial.

The Bible can be read and even memorized, but until its principles have been applied to our own lives, it is of no benefits to us.

Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If any of you wants to be My follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow Me.

Man’s natural tendency is to think of himself first. What is going to profit me? How can I be helped?

But the true disciple is to give himself or herself away in service to others.

The Lord Jesus knew that selfishness was at the root of all problems.

So when the 12 apostles began to have strife among themselves over who was going to be the top dog of the group.

Jesus said this:

Jesus told them, "In this world the kings and great men lord it over their people, yet they are called 'friends of the people.'

But among you it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant

You see, a disciple must live a life of self-denial.

3. A disciple must live a life of discipline.

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him.

Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

I want you to think about an athlete who want to be a member of olympic team, They will need to live a different life than their friends.

Years of training, eating right, exercises, practicing on their events.

If they are going to win the gold.

The Apostle Paul said:

All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize.

So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing.

I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.

God is no respecter of persons, what He allowed Paul to do. He will also enable us to do. We can be disciplined and be true disciples.

4. A disciple must live a life of devotion.

One Christian scholar wrote this: “Devotion is the whole-hearted and irrevocable giving up to God that which may never be, taken back again.

Our devotion to Christ and His ministry must be without reserve and without return.

Everyone is devoted to something or someone. The Christian who would be a true disciple must be devoted to Christ.

That devotion must be lived out daily by applying the teachings and commandments of our Lord to life’s situations.

Paul said this:

"And now I am bound by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. I don't know what awaits me,

except that the Holy Spirit tells me in city after city that jail and suffering lie ahead.

But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.

Discipleship is required of us by our Lord. But He will help us attain to it. He will not require of us something that His grace will not enable us to do.