Recently (and as a result of thoughts regarding the Father having qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. Colossians 1:12), I have given consideration to the rather costly aspects of the call to be light and of discipleship.
In last weeks post I left out of this email, but included in the post on basicsfellowship.com, a passage where the apostle wrote the Philippians as they were under Roman persecution to comprehend that God was working in them, even through the persecution, and to work out their salvation (not eternal salvation, but salvation from persecution) and thereby manifest light as children of God in a dark generation by enduring without complaint as lights in the world.
[Philippians2:12-15 NASB95] 12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for [His] good pleasure. 14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing; 15 so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world,
This exhortation to endure under persecution, understanding God is at work doing what he sees as necessary; what Paul calls His good pleasure, certainly points out the cost of being, or appearing, as lights in the world. And most certainly if you consider the instruction to endure without grumbling about it, or without breaking into disputes with each other or your persecutors.
Keep in mind He wrote this to them just after having told them [Philippians 2:5 NASB95] 5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, … giving them a clear outline of Jesus emptying Himself and suffering that He might then be exalted.
This is in juxtaposition to what we saw in the Romans 1:21 passage in that post
21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Please notice he says that although they KNEW GOD, they did not HONOR HIM AS GOD or GIVE THANKS. As a result they honored their own thoughts and will (speculations), and embracing foolishness found darkness.
Being light obviously requires honoring God as God from truly knowing Him, whatever our circumstances and wherever we are. Again note the KNOWLEDGE OF HIM and THANKSGIVING IN the Colossians passage.
[Colossians 1:9-12 NASB95] 9 For this reason also, since the day we heard [of it,] we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the KNOWLEDGE OF HIS WILL in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please [Him] in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and INCREASING IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD; 11 strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously 12 GIVING THANKS TO THE FATHER, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.
To Know Him and to Honor Him, Giving Thanks, and walking in a manner worthy of Him in the knowledge of His will is a wonderful thing; but also costly. It will require laying your desires and will down, and often declining the position of honor from men and the world to honor HIm. It may require the willingness to be ridiculed and rejected of men as a form or persecution, or in terms of the day “cancelling” or being “blackballed”
A few years back when considering the cost to discipleship I ran across a couple of interesting quotations
“You may never know that JESUS is all you need, until JESUS is all you have.” ― Corrie ten Boom
This profound thought was turned even more pointed and poignant for Christian songwriter/singer Steve Camp as he held his dying father in his arms and his dad said to him….
“JESUS WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH, UNTIL JESUS IS ALL YOU HAVE.”
I see in the statements of these Christ followers an example how many times I’ve heard the LORD calling out through His servants, particularly those that have suffered greatly, to me, and I believe to others, to make Jesus truly the one desire of my heart. And as He is my all in all, to consider what it is to respond in obedience when He says to each of us, as He did His disciples, the rich young ruler, and others: “Come follow me!”
Most of the time in the scriptures we don’t see Jesus evangelizing in terms of sharing the four spiritual laws or the gospel of salvation, but issuing what seems to be a very simple invitation. But, as it turns out, a costly one.
[Matthew 4:19 NASB] 19 And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
[Matthew 8:22 NASB] 22 But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and allow the dead to bury their own dead.”
[Matthew 9:9 NASB] 9 As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector’s booth; and He said to him, “Follow Me!” And he got up and followed Him.
[Mathew 16:24 NASB] 24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.
[Matthew 19:21 NASB] 21 Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be complete, go [and] sell your possessions and give to [the] poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
[Mark 1:17 NASB] 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”
[Mark 8:34 NASB] 34 And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.
[Mark 10:21 NASB] 21 Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
[Luke 5:27 NASB] 27 After that He went out and noticed a tax collector named Levi sitting in the tax booth, and He said to him, “Follow Me.”
[Luke 9:23, 59 NASB] 23 And He was saying to [them] all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. … 59 And He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.”
[Luke 18:22 NASB] 22 When Jesus heard [this,] He said to him, “One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
[John 1:43 NASB] 43 The next day He purposed to go into Galilee, and He found Philip. And Jesus said to him, “Follow Me.”
[John 10:27 NASB] 27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me;
[John 12:26 NASB] 26 “If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.
[John 21:19, 22 NASB] 19 Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, “Follow Me!” …
22 Jesus said to him, “If I want him to remain until I come, what [is that] to you? You follow Me!”
It seems to me that in our modern Western culture approach to evangelism and discipleship we may have missed the simplicity of just giving the invitation to Come follow Jesus… perhaps with, or as a part of, a community that is making that effort to follow Him.
As I look at Jesus’ directive to “Come Follow Me”, it comes back to me, that He never made following Him easy. Those that followed Him laid down what they were doing/their plans and all that they had and followed after Him at His invitation or command. This implies the denial of self and a trust in Him.
Today in the West the Gospel of Salvation has often turned to a “Come and get” focus. Come and get saved, healed, prosperity, your family fixed, and so on. However, the Gospel of the Kingdom Jesus preached was a “Come follow”, or has it has been said it was “Come and give all that you are and all that you have, for all that I am.”
However, as you seek first the King and the Kingdom you will find that He is enough, and you will probably find He is all you have.
In Luke 14:26-33 Jesus makes the cost of this Kingdom paradigm, this come and give gospel, abundantly clear. He outlines the cost of discipleship in terms of relationships, possessions, and taking up the cross. And He delivers a succinct exhortation (warning) to consider the cost it may take to finish the course. He again makes it abundantly clear that true discipleship will leave you with nothing but Him.
[Luke 14:26-33 NASB] 26 “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. 27 “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. 28 “For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? 29 “Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 “Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 “Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.
BUT IS IT WORTH IT? You must decide “is He worth it?”. I think the parables regarding the Kingdom as treasure in a field and a pearl in Matthew 13 are focused on this same question. Is the King and the Kingdom worth this much; everything?
As the quotations I mentioned above indicate. You probably won’t know until Jesus is all you have.
Paul who, as I mentioned, gave the example of Jesus’ attitudes and sacrifice to the church at Philippi before asking them to prove themselves to be lights in the world, and in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, also told them this regarding the costs.
[Philippians 3:8-10 NASB] 8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish (KJV says dung) so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from [the] Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which [comes] from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Before Paul’s exhortation the the Phillipians to comprehend God working in them to will to do of His good pleasure He said:
[Philippians 2:3-8 NASB] 3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; 4 do not [merely] look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. 5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, [and] being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross
[Philippians 2:9-11 NASB] 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Just as loving and obedient humility resulted in exaltation, and loving and obedient suffering resulted in glory, for Jesus, so will loving service from humility and, often suffering, result in the full purpose and glory of God being worked into you, and then out in you at His will and good pleasure.
Earlier I referenced the call to Come follow Jesus in reference to being perhaps with, or as a part of ,a community that is making that effort to follow Him. Why? you may ask.
Although Jesus certainly made an individual call to Come Follow, it is apparent in the gospels and, in Acts and the epistles that discipleship is intended to be walked out in a community of followers/servants. There were the twelve and more following Jesus. Paul established communities, beachheads of believers in pagan cultures, and wrote of Body of Christ and in plural often in addressing the ekklesia.
Even here in these Philippian examples his instruction is to avoid “selfishness, conceit, to regard one another as more important than yourself”.
I think it is because discipleship is costly, and to be His body, the church, the fullness of Him that fills all in all is very requiring of us. You see, nowhere are we told, or commanded, to go evangelize individuals, or to make or plant churches. We are commanded to go make disciples. And the natural outworking of fellowship as ekklesia is and co-laboring in, and with, Him is to invite others to come follow Him… or to make disciples (followers/learners). That is clear from Paul’s work with the Gentiles in the epistles.
There is much more to be explored regarding the relationship of disciple making and seeing the church built by Him and through us. But, make no mistake, to function as His disciples and consistently be lights in the world is costly. And, to call others to be disciples and lights is costly for them as well. It is costly because the call is to pick up your cross by laying down your life, your will, your desires. Then comprehending He is all you have, and more than enough, to do what Jesus says and is doing and working at as King in the Kingdom.
Consider the cost of building a tower
It’s a narrow way that you must come
For to do the will of the Father
Is to follow the Son
To love Him more than father or mother
You will love Him more than even your own flesh
To give all that you are, for all that He is
This is the gospel according to Jesus
– chorus from Consider The Costs by Steve Camp.