Discipleship requires a willingness to be born again, acknowledge Christ's Lordship, forsake known sin, and obey His teachings. True discipleship involves a commitment to be like Christ, who was perfect in His earthly life, ministry, and sacrificial death, as evidenced by His Father's approval and the inability of anyone to find fault with Him. Christ-likeness is both desirable and possible through identification with His death, appropriation of His life, and meditation on His person. Ultimately, becoming Christ-like involves total reliance on the Father, humility, compassion, balance, and restoration after failure.
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Our study today is on the Master and His Disciples. Now ordinarily it may not be wise for Christians to use the title Master for the Lord Jesus for the simple reason that it has been abused. Many people have used the name Master when they really should be talking about the Savior. They talked about the Master as though he just came here to teach us how to be Christians. And nobody is ready for the Lord as Master until he has, first of all, accepted him as Savior and Lord.
You remember in the thirteenth of John that the Lord Jesus said, you call me Master and Lord. And you say, well, And then he added, if I, your Lord and Master, have done this. So we must know him as Savior and Lord, and then we can know him as teacher. Now our first section of this study, willing disciples. Number one, willing to become a disciple. A, must be born again.
on three. And B, His Lordship. We must acknowledge His Lordship. And C, God works to make you willing. Philippians two, three, you recall, says, It is God who worketh in you, both to will and to do, of his good pleasure. Someone said, I'm willing to do what the Lord wants me to do. And then he thought about it a little bit and said, well, if I'm not willing, I think I'm willing to be made willing.
So that's what we ought to be in this matter of willing disciples. Are you willing to be made willing to be the kind of disciple you ought to be? Number two, willing to forsake known sin. A. Sin is lawlessness. On First John three in verse four, the King James Version says, Sin is the transgression of the law, but the revised version, Paul rightly give it, sin is lawlessness. It's not a matter of whether you transgress a law or not.
It's a matter of your attitude toward God. And all sin is lawlessness. It is rebellion against God. B, whoso confesseth and forsakeeth. Proverbs twenty-eight thirteen. So there must be a confession of sin. any sin in your life, but there must also be a willingness to forsake it. So it's confessing and forsaking. There's no point in saying that, well, I've done wrong, I've failed miserably in the past, and then plan to go right ahead and do just as you have been doing.
If there isn't a sincere desire to turn away from these wrong things, there probably isn't any genuine confession anyway. Number three, willing to do exactly what he teaches. A, Luke eleven, twenty eight says, Blessed are they who hear and keep my word. To hear his word is just the first step. Are we willing now to keep it? That means to keep it in mind. to let it become a part of us, to let it influence our thinking.
Are we willing to trim our sails by this compass? Blessed are they who hear and keep the word. And be, another quote from James one, be doers of the word and not hearers only. Now you couldn't tell a non-Christian this. You couldn't tell an unsaved man to hear the word of God and do it. He isn't capable of it. And furthermore, he has no genuine desire to do it. But if you belong to the Lord and you want to be his disciple, you've got to be willing to do exactly what he teaches you to do.
There's a little couplet that I read in an old book. accepted, bring it light. Light rejected, bring it night. I believe this with all my heart. When the Lord shows you something, when He reveals something to you, and He wants you to do, and you're willing to take that step, even though you may not understand just how it's going to work out, you're willing to take that step. Then He gives you light for the next step. But if you say, no, I just, that's too much. Tell me something else to do. I don't think you'll get any other guidance. I don't think you'll get any other word from him.
I don't mean to this that he cuts you off. You still belong to him. But don't expect the Lord to give you an alternate if this is what he commands you to do. And number four, willing to be like the Lord Jesus. A poor. Second Corinthians eight, nine, for your sakes he became poor. Now right away this is going to eliminate, I wouldn't say how many, but a large percentage of Christians. They say, well I wouldn't mind being a disciple, but you're going too far when you say that I've got to be poor.
And be to suffer. Matthew ten, twenty-five is a text which I felt I needed very badly for myself. My brother who was an engraver asked me what text he'd like, I would like him to cut on a copper plate. And I gave him this text. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master and the servant as his Lord. I felt I needed that text. I feel you needed too. It is enough. Is it enough? Would you be satisfied to be no more than the Lord Jesus was?
To have no more reputation? To be treated no better? To possess no more? It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master. Unless there is this willingness to be like the Lord Jesus, we're not likely to get very far in discipleship and see to give up this life. Now this doesn't mean you're going to die tomorrow. It doesn't mean you're going to be miserable from now on. It simply means that you're going to surrender into His hands this present life. Now in the sixth chapter of John you will recall when the Lord Jesus spoke about giving His life for the world, giving His flesh for food and so on.
that the disciples, recognizing the implication that if they really followed him, it might cost them something too, the most of the disciples forsook him from that time on. The sixth chapter of John ends with five thousand men besides women and children following the Lord Jesus, and it ends up with only twelve of them, and he even asked them, I say we're going to go away. And that's about the way it works out. And in the twelfth chapter of John's Gospel, he spoke about the corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying, and now he said, if you're going to be my servant, you'll be right where your master is.
Section two, Christ-likeness is desirable. I don't think there's any argument here. I think we all feel that it would be very nice to be like the Lord Jesus. One, because the Father approved him. A, in early life. Matthew three, seventeen says that at the baptism of the Lord Jesus. Now you really don't know much about the Lord Jesus prior. to his baptism and his public ministry, which began at the age of thirty.
You know about his birth. You know about the incident when he was twelve years of age, when he went up to the temple with Mary and Joseph, and went back and was subject to them. Outside of that, all you know is tradition, except for this one thing. At the baptism of the Lord Jesus, his Father opened heaven to say, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And that tells you all you need to know about the early life of the Lord Jesus. Up to thirty years of age, we know that He pleased the Father perfectly. We know that He worked as a carpenter. We know that He lived in a city that was despised.
We know a few things like this about Him, but we know that in the midst of all this, His life was perfect. Then be his ministry. After the Lord had served his father publicly for quite some time, he went up on the Mount of Transfiguration. Matthew seventeen and five says, That when he was up there on the Mount, heaven was opened again. And again, his father said, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. And he added to Peter, Hear ye him. Peter wanted to share the glory between the Lord Jesus and Moses and Elijah, build three tabernacles.
And the Lord blotted out the other two with a bright cloud, the Shekinah cloud. And he said, this is the one. This is the one. I'm perfectly pleased with my son. And see, in the twelfth chapter of John, the Lord again opened heaven. this time concerning his sacrificial death on the cross. So we have his early life, his ministry, and now his sacrificial death on the cross. In John, verse twenty-eight, the Lord Jesus said, Father, glorify thy name. And there came a voice from heaven. The people didn't understand it, but some of them said it thundered.
But the voice from heaven said, I have glorified it and will glorify it. That is, anticipation of the cross, which was to take place immediately. The Father added his stamp of approval to the Lord Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. And finally, D, the resurrection proved his worthiness. Now in Acts, that the Lord God has given approval of the Lord Jesus in raising him from the dead. He has given assurance unto all men that he raised him from the dead.
And Romans one and four says that Christ is declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. So the resurrection of the Lord Jesus is the proof positive that the Father is totally satisfied with his Son in everything that he did, including his sacrifice. Had he not been perfectly satisfied, he never would have raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. Now, number two. Another reason why Christ's likeness is desirable, because none could find fault with him.
They say that the one price that you have to pay for entering the field of politics is to have your opponent dig up some dirt out of your past. If there's anything at all from your childhood on down to the present moment, your opponent will dig it up and then multiply it and use it against you. All of the opponents of the Lord Jesus, as well as his friends, failed totally to find anything wrong with him. Let's begin A with Mary and Joseph. We're told in Luke two and verse fifty-one that the Lord Jesus went down to Nazareth and was subject unto them and that he increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
So the Lord Jesus' life In the eyes of Mary and Joseph, was perfect. And then be the devil. Matthew four describes the temptation of the Lord Jesus in the wilderness by Satan. And Satan used all the bags in his trick, not all the tricks in his bag, excuse me. He gave us all of the things that the world has to offer. the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, and he failed utterly to find any fault in the Lord Jesus. Now, some people will tell you today that the Lord could have sinned, because if he couldn't have sinned, the temptation wouldn't have any meaning.
Now, this is utterly ridiculous. I used to be in the jewelry business, and if somebody brought in some twenty-four carat gold, which is pure gold, too soft to be used in jewelry. Most jewelry is not over fourteen carat, eighteen at the most. That means fourteen parts out of twenty-four, and then the other is alloy to make it harder. It's solid gold, but it isn't pure gold. But if somebody brought in a lump of pure gold and I tested it, would that have no meaning? I would have more meaning than it would for any of the rest of it, because this test proved that it is twenty-four carat gold. And this is exactly what the temptation in the wilderness proved.
It proved that the Lord Jesus was exactly what he claimed to be, God manifest in the flesh. Don't ever forget that. The Lord Jesus could not see him, and it is blasphemy to hint that he might. Then see at Nazareth. In Luke four, twenty-two, the Lord Jesus appeared for the first time publicly. to speak in the synagogue at Nazareth. And it says the people wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. Well, they didn't like him. Later on they tried to push him over the cliff down into the valley of Megiddo.
But they had to admit there was nothing about him that they could find fault with. And then D, the betrayal. Matthew twenty seven four. records that after Judas had betrayed the Lord Jesus, he came back and tried to get the high priests, the high priest and the chief priest to take the money back. He said, I have betrayed the innocent blood. They said, what's that to us? He threw the money down in the temple and went out to hang himself. Oh, the betrayer had to say, this is innocent blood.
Then E, at the trial, John, eighteen, thirty-eight, the judge, Pilate, said, I find no fault in this man. Someone has said that if a Roman judge couldn't find fault in a person, there certainly isn't any there, because they were known for their harshness and hardness. F, the thief. Luke twenty-three, forty-one. Two thieves were crucified with the Lord Jesus. Both of them reviled him to begin with. Finally one of these thieves repented, and he said to the other one, We're getting exactly what's coming to us, but this man has done nothing amiss.
And G. The centurion and his soldiers. In Matthew twenty-seven the centurion said this was a righteous man. And in Mark fifteen he said surely this was the Son of God. There's no contradiction here, he just said two different things. First of all he said he's a righteous man, then as he realized more of what was going on he said he's more than a righteous man, he's the Son of God. And he was all of this. None could find fault with him.
Number three, the third reason why it is desirable, because believers love and approve him. I've given you two references. The Song of Solomon says, He is altogether lovely. And this is prophetical, of course, of Christ himself. And Matthew, twenty-eight, nine, after his resurrection, the disciples came and held him by the feet and worshiped him. To knowing is to love him and to worship him. I'm sure that my friends all wish that some things about me were different.
And for their benefit, I might say there are a few things about them that I wish were different. I've never met anybody that I have proved of totally, have you? Except the Lord Jesus Christ. and I can't think of one thing about him that I'd want changed. So Christ-likeness is desirable. Section three, Christ-likeness is possible. Now here we might get an argument. Let me give you three things. One, we are like him, and you can put a line under the word are. We are like him positionally. First John Four, seventeen, tells us, as he is, so are we in this world.
Now, we're not like him in many ways, but as to position. He is God the Son, totally acceptable with the Father. All of this is attributed to us. Colossians two says, you are complete in him. We are like him positionally. Number two, we shall be like him physically. First John three, when we see him, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. First Corinthians, fifteen, fifty-one, as we have borne the image of the earthy, Adam, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly, the Lord Jesus.
Now number three, we ought to be like him morally now. Now if you'll underline these three, The first one we are, the second one we shall be, and the third one we ought to be. We ought to be like him morally. Now, First John two six says we ought to walk even as he walks. We ought to live like the Lord Jesus lived. A. Paul tried it by law-keeping and failed. Romans seven. Now let me say two or three things about the seventh of Romans.
Romans seven is not the experience of an unsaved man. Unsafe people have no such problems. It is not the normal experience for the Christian. You don't have to go through the seventh of Romans to get into the eighth of Romans. It is the experience of a law-keeping Christian. Anybody who tries to be what he ought to be by keeping the law will end up in the miserable state that Romans chapter seven depicts. Paul tried it by law keeping and failed. B. He strongly desired it for the saints.
Galatians four, nineteen. He says, I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you. Christ formed in you means that you are becoming Christ-like. Now, if it were not possible, there would be no point at all in the Apostle Paul travailing in birth for these Galatians again. He had travailed in birth for them when they were born again. Now he was travailing in birth again that they might become like the Lord Jesus. Number four, we become like him in a day-by-day process. Second Corinthians four sixteen says, though the outward man perish, the inward man is renewed day by day.
Now you're not going to have some kind of a profound experience when lightning strikes you. And from that time on you are now perfect, the old nature eradicated, sinless, Christ-like, perfect. Nothing of this kind is taught in the Word of God. Practical sanctification is a day-by-day process. And many times you'll think that you're making retrogression instead of progression. Now how does it happen? Three ways.
A. By identification with his death. Galatians, I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Romans six takes us up. Now this is not an experience. This is not something that you try to do. You don't play dead or try to feel dead or kill yourself. Death with Christ is an historical fact which took place at the cross. Just the same as our sins being put away took place at the cross before we were born. The more we apprehend this, the more we understand what it means, the more we count upon it, the more this is true in our life.
We are identified with his death. B, by appropriation of his death and life. John chapter six. Dietitians tell us that we are what we eat. This is true spiritually. If you feed on Christ, you'll become more like Christ. If you feed on all the garbage that this world has to offer in the wrong kind of literature and most of the stuff that comes through the boob tube, don't be surprised if your life is conformed to some of these characters that you're watching. The more time you spend thinking about the Lord Jesus, the more you'll be like him.
And see by meditation on his person and glories. Second Corinthians three eighteen. Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. Now the Holy Spirit does this. He occupies you with Christ. So three things. We are identified with his death, we feed on him through the Word, and we meditate on his person and his Lord. Number four, what Christ-likeness means. One, to rely fully upon the Heavenly Father.
A, for guidance. B, for need. and see when called to go through death. If you look up these texts, you'll see this is the way the Lord Jesus lived. Total reliance upon the Heavenly Father. That's why it's so dangerous for a Christian to have an organization to lean on or to have a big bank account to lean on or anything to lean on except on the Heavenly Father. Number two, to be humble. I've given you some passages that speak of the humility of Christ.
A. Humble yourself. B. Or be humbled. Now don't pray God to humble you because he might do it. And you'll find it a very painful process. Far better for you to humble yourself. That's what he tells us to do. Number three. To be compassionate. A. To the lost. B. To believers. And C. Learn it by suffering. Compassion. What this must mean.
Number four. To be well balanced. A. Light and love. From first John. Light is righteousness. Love is kindness. B. Serve and wait. Some people are sitting in the rocket chair waiting. That isn't God's way. He's got things for you to do while they're waiting. And finally, number five, restoration after failure. I'm sure you all feel that you have not been Christ-like at times. One, specific confession. Specific means say exactly what you've done wrong.
Number two, judge self. This is the root of failure. Three, restore to injured and forsake sin. If you've done something to hurt another person, restore it. Four, fill the vacuum. Some people, you know, quit all the bad things and then they Wonder what they're going to do with a vacuum. Fill it. A. The Word of God and prayer. And B. Service. And finally, prevent a recurrence of this.
Meet your high priest every morning before the temptation comes. Study those passages. We've already gone through this, but you'll find them very helpful if you meet the high priest in the morning.