I would like to ask you to turn with me to the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 28. We will read the verses that we have been using as our theme verses for these messages on making disciples.
Beginning in Matthew 28:16:
But the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them.
And when they saw Him, they worshipped Him; but some doubted.
And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth.
Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit:
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
Then, in Matthew 13:51-53—I will read these three verses from the 1901 American Standard Version. This is at the end of the Lord’s teaching on parables:
Have ye understood all these things? They say unto Him, Yea.
And He said unto them, Therefore every scribe who hath been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.
And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these parables, He departed thence.
Matthew 10:24-25:
A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his lord.
It is enough for the disciple that he be as his teacher, and the servant as his lord.
Luke 14:26-27:
If any man cometh unto Me, and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.
Whosoever doth not bear his own cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple.
Then that call to the disciples in Matthew 4:19, which I think has been at the heart of this burden:
Come ye after Me, and I will make you fishers of men.
Lord, we thank You for Your Word. As always, we believe Your words are spirit and life. Without You breathing upon Your living Word once again, there will be no benefit to our time.
We say, as the apostle Peter said—that disciple whom You made—“Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.”
Speak, Lord; Your servants hear. We agree with that song: pierce our ear, bring us to Yourself, teach us Your ways, and make us into what You want to make us. For we ask this in the precious name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.
Well, you know, the last few times I have shared, I have shared on this matter of making disciples. This is part three. I think there will be a part four, and I believe that will be the conclusion.
In this part, Making Disciples, Part Three, I would like to deal with the making process. There is a process. It does not just happen that all of a sudden we are disciples.
That is the reason the Word of God makes such a point, when it addresses this matter of disciples, that they are made. He said in that Great Commission, those last words in the Gospel of Matthew, “Go therefore, and make disciples.” When He first called the disciples, He said to Peter and Andrew, “I will make you fishers of men.”
When He was speaking those parables, so little understood, He said, “Every scribe who hath been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven is like unto a householder who bringeth forth treasures both old and new.”
So I do not think this matter of making disciples is a phrase I have made up for you. It is the Word of God, and there is a process behind the making of disciples. Whether you will be a disciple or not depends on whether you yield to this process. That is the burden we will be dealing with today.
I said there were three initial impressions when this burden was laid upon my heart this past summer.
First of all, the call to discipleship is beyond that initial call to believe on the Lord Jesus. It is separate; it is beyond.
Our brother Jeffrey last week spoke about gift and reward. If you believe in the Lord Jesus, you have eternal life. It will never be taken away from you. You cannot lose that. It is the free gift of God.
But whenever you read about this matter of discipleship, as in Matthew 10 or Matthew 16, you read a different word. You read the concluding word: reward. Making disciples is beyond that initial call to believe. There is a difference.
Secondly, the burden on my heart is that the call to discipleship is an optional calling—not every believer responds to it. Now, let me be very careful here. I do not want to confuse anybody. I do not want you for a moment to think, “Boy, that is good. We can skip that one.”
It is not God’s heart that we ignore the call to discipleship. It was never His plan. Every believer is to be a disciple. That is what He is after. Every believer is to voluntarily respond and, in the end, become a disciple—to be made a disciple. But not every believer does.
I was encouraged by what Oswald Chambers said and how it confirmed this impression to my heart. He said that, when it comes to disciples, the Lord never said, “You must.” He said, “Remember the ifs of God.”
Luke 14:26-27 says, “If any man cometh unto Me,” and then He goes on and says that if he does not hate his father and mother—that confusing verse with which we also have difficulty—“he cannot be My disciple.” Then He said, “Whosoever doth not bear his own cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple.”
It is optional. He wants everyone to respond, but the question is if.
The third impression is this: disciples are not born; they are made. We are not like kings and royalty; we are not born into it. We have to be made.
You have heard this before: I am a football fan, and I love what Vince Lombardi said, that great coach. He took men, some of the lowest degree, and transformed them into a team. His philosophy was that leaders were not born; they were made.
I believe it is true for disciples. We are born again, but we have to be made. We have to be transformed. We have to be conformed. There have to be dealings to bring us from this place of being a believer in Christ Jesus, with the free grace of God, to a disciple.
“It is enough,” it says, “that he be as his master.” That is a process.
Last time, we dealt with a few things: the necessity of discipleship. For any of you who think I am saying this is not important, or that you can simply ignore it as an option—sort of like when you buy a car and leave off one option—consider the necessity of discipleship.
He entrusts His disciples with His testimony. He calls His disciples together in His eternal purpose. His disciples become His dwelling place. His disciples are the ones made in His image. This is the necessity of discipleship.
We also spoke of the necessity of revelation. If we are going to be made disciples, we need divine revelation. That is what I believe the Word clearly teaches. That is what happened to Peter.
You remember the story in Matthew 16. Before this man could ever be made a disciple, transformed in a full way, God had to open his eyes to see the incomparable Christ. That changed everything.
Then the Lord further opened his eyes and said, “Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” He gave revelation of His deepest secrets.
I believe that, in the making of a disciple, if we yield to Him and respond to Him, He will make us disciples and show us His deepest secrets.
Then He said, “Peter, you are a living stone”—material for the building of that house. When Peter reflects on this and writes to those dispersed in 1 Peter 2:5, he says, “Ye also, as living stones.” That precious revelation He shared with us.
Another thing I shared was that the very name Simon, Greek for Simeon, means hearing. Simply put, the key to being made a disciple is responding.
None of us has what it takes. Do you think for a moment that you have the right stuff? Do you think for a moment that this is in your power? If you are constrained by the love of God, one thing is in your power: you can respond.
That is what Peter did over and over. He responded. Many of his responses may have been missteps, but every one was a true response. Because of that, God made him a disciple.
Today I want to speak about the life of a disciple. If we are going to be transformed in this process, we need to see what the life of a disciple is.
I do not think, for a moment, that we fully understand the Christian life. We somehow think the Christian life is what we are supposed to live. Now, I have said this over and over until I am blue in the face, and some of you may be tired of it already.
But long ago, as an early Christian, when I was in the process of bumping my head against the wall trying to live the Christian life, it seemed the Holy Spirit opened this to me: it is impossible for us to live the Christian life. Impossible.
That ought to cause all of us to relax a bit. God never intended for you to live the Christian life. You may say, “Brother, that is blasphemy. What on earth—or at least heresy—are you talking about?”
No, we were never intended to live the Christian life. The apostle Paul said, “For to me to live is Christ.” He said to the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me.”
If we are going to be made disciples, then we need to see the life of a disciple.
Go back to Matthew 4. There are a few things we want to look at. This is right after the calling to discipleship.
In John 1, we see the calling of these same ones as believers. Here, we see the calling to discipleship. In Matthew 4:18-22, I am not going to read all the verses, but I want you to notice what happened when they were called.
First, Peter and Andrew. It says in verse 20:
And they straightway left the nets, and followed Him.
Then He called John and James, the sons of Zebedee. In verse 22 it says:
And they straightway left the boat and their father, and followed Him.
That is the response for which the Lord is looking. How slow is our response? The Lord, when He touches the heart to make a disciple, is looking for a simple response—not one that says, “I can live the Christian life,” and not one that says, “I can do all that You have called me to,” but a simple, immediate, heartfelt response that says, “Yes, Lord.”
People often ask me what they should do as Christians. I have one piece of advice: just say, “Yes, Lord.” He will do the making. He is the Maker; you are the clay.
Then you look in Matthew 4:23-25:
And Jesus went about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness among the people.
And the report of Him went forth into all Syria: and they brought unto Him all that were sick, holden with divers diseases and torments, possessed with demons, and epileptic, and palsied; and He healed them.
And there followed Him great multitudes from Galilee and Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judaea and from beyond the Jordan.
What does this mean? I believe that after that initial calling, He wanted to show them the power of His life.
He did not go to Galilee merely to teach. Now, some of you may want to argue with me about this. He did not go merely to heal every manner of disease, those possessed of demons, and the afflicted. If He had, I believe He would have stayed with the crowds.
But when you read the next chapter, He goes away from the crowds and calls the disciples together to tell them what He really wanted them to hear.
He wanted to show them the power. Look at the power: every disease, every manner of sickness, every weakness. What He was demonstrating was the incorruptible power of that life.
This is to be the life of the disciple: that life. Not your life—your life repossessed, worked over, and changed. We often describe the Christian life as a changed life. It is not merely a changed life; it is an exchanged life. It is a different life.
That life is powerful enough to take you and make you a disciple. To me, that is the lesson following the calling.
Then we turn to Matthew 5:
And seeing the multitudes, He went up into the mountain: and when He had sat down, His disciples came unto Him:
and He opened His mouth and taught them.
Now, most of you know what this is. Our brother Jack read from it at the opening of the meeting. It is the Sermon on the Mount—Matthew 5, 6, and 7. There has never been a greater sermon preached.
But there is a point made at the very beginning which runs throughout this message. We often look at the Sermon on the Mount in the wrong way. We look at it as a New Testament Christian law: this is how we are to live. We look at it as the conduct of a Christian.
But what it really is, is the revelation of the character of the Lord’s life. That is the difference. How we need to see the Lord Jesus—it is His character.
We all know the Beatitudes, and we like to talk about the Beatitudes. We think, “Well, we just need to be more poor in spirit,” so we go around moping and looking poor in spirit. Or we think we need to be those who mourn, so we put on a sad face and say, “Woe is me.”
Or we think we should be meek, so we practice, with all our pride, our best show of meekness. Or we think we should hunger and thirst, but our hunger and thirst for righteousness is so little.
We think we need to be merciful, so we show mercy once in a while when it suits us. Or we think we are to be pure in heart. Who is pure in heart? Who has clean hands and a pure heart, and has not lifted up his soul unto vanity? Is it you?
Is He talking here about our conduct? I do not think so.
I think He pulled these disciples aside as if to say, “The secret process begins with seeing that it is not your life at all. It is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” That is the secret.
Who is the peacemaker? Are you the peacemaker? The liberals love to quote this verse—oh, the peacemakers. I will be careful here; I will not get political, I promise.
He is the One who made peace. He brought the peace of God. He broke down the middle wall of partition, and He made both one—both Jew and Gentile. He is the Peacemaker.
Who has mourned like the Lord Jesus? Think of Him in Gethsemane: great drops of sweat as blood. Can you imagine that mourning? There is a phrase which says that He was sorrowful even unto death. He is the Mourner.
Who is persecuted? We like to say, “Boy, they have really persecuted us Christians.” But was He not the most persecuted, and yet at the same time the most innocent?
Even the authority of the day, troubled that he could not set Him free, brought Him out and said, “Behold, the man. I find no fault in Him whatsoever.” He is the persecuted One. He is the One who bore the reproach. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him.
I believe the simple lesson, when He left the crowd and pulled the disciples aside, was this: there is a life that you need in order to be made a disciple. There is a character that you need to see, and it is not your character. It is not self-improvement.
It is the character of the Lord Jesus. The Beatitudes do not tell us what our conduct ought to be; they show us what His character is. That is the difference.
I hope you begin to see this. I believe the message is clear because Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount has to do with the revelation of this life, this character. Matthew 6 and 7 have to do with conduct.
There is a simple lesson there: if you have the right character, you will have the right conduct. Do not make the Sermon on the Mount too complicated.
He is saying to them in the beginning, with those nine Beatitudes—those nine glorious character traits—if you have this character in you, conduct will not be an issue. That is what He is saying.
Another way we like to look at the Sermon on the Mount is as the standard of life, that new law by which we live. We think of the New Testament as though the Lord Jesus simply came and lowered the standard.
It is like what we did in high school. We used to have to do the high jump—boys and girls, by the way. I am so old that we had to jump into a sawdust pit. I think you all have some new-age material called foam now that you can jump into.
We would come out sweaty, dirty, and covered with sawdust. If you could not jump the high jump, we would keep lowering the bar. There were people in our class—not to mention any names—who would get to the point where they could just step over the bar.
The standard was lowered to such a point that all you had to do was step over the bar. Somehow we think that is what the Lord did in Christianity. He just lowered the bar.
That is not what He did. When you read the Sermon on the Mount, He actually raised the bar. It is incredible. He said:
Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.
He did not lower the standard at all. Then He ends Matthew 5 with:
Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
If you think He lowered the standard—“Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” Matthew 5:48.
Throughout the rest of Matthew 5, there are five places where He says, “Ye have heard.” He is speaking of the Old Testament law. Then He says repeatedly, “But I say unto you.”
In Matthew 5:21-22:
Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment.
Did He lower the standard? No. He showed us a higher life that could meet the standard. He raised the standard and said that the standard of the disciple is the life of Christ. That is the secret.
In Matthew 5:27-28:
Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
Oh, I wish He had not said that. Every man is slouching in his chair. You know He did not lower the standard.
Then in Matthew 5:33-34:
Again, ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:
but I say unto you, Swear not at all.
Did He lower the standard? No. He shows a life. That is what He does.
In Matthew 5:38-39:
Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
but I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil: but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
I do not know if you have ever practiced that personally, but that is a hard thing to do. “Wait a minute. Just give me a moment. I am ready to turn.” Impossible. It is impossible.
Then Matthew 5:43-44:
Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy:
but I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you.
I wish He had not said that. I have people I do not love, and I know there are a bunch of people who do not love me.
What He is trying to show us is that, in the process of making a disciple, there is a life beyond your life. It is not your conduct; it is His character. It is not your conformance to a law, or even the lowering of a standard. It is simply the life of Christ in us that makes us disciples.
This is the process. If you want to take these messages seriously and yield to the Lord immediately, as those four did, then say, “Lord, show me. Teach me how to live by Your life.” That is the only way to be made a disciple.
The next thing we want to look at is the law of the disciple. There is a law. The law of the disciple is the law of the cross.
This is not a very favorable message in Christianity. We love the cross where we found our salvation, where He suffered and died alone on the cross, where He suffered outside the camp. We love that cross.
We even love the cross that frees us, in that we are crucified with Christ and identified with Him. But when the Lord said to those He was about to make disciples, “Unless you take up your cross and follow Me, you cannot be My disciple,” this is the one law of discipleship.
Let me put it in plainer words: you will never be a disciple unless you bear the cross. You will never be made a disciple unless you bear the cross.
The Lord spoke about this subjective cross on three occasions. The first occasion is Matthew 10, which is the same teaching found in Luke 14 and in Mark.
Luke 14:25-27 says, as we have already read:
Whosoever doth not bear his own cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple.
That is the law of discipleship. If you look at Matthew 10 and Luke 14, the end of those presentations is the word reward. This does not have to do with your eternal salvation. It does not.
If you take up your cross, in the end there is reward. That is the law of discipleship.
The second occasion is Matthew 16. We dealt with that some last time. The Lord Jesus gave that great revelation, but He changed His tone and subject in Matthew 16:21:
From that time began Jesus to show unto His disciples, that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up.
He began to speak plainly of His suffering for the first time. Then it says in verse 22:
And Peter took Him, and began to rebuke Him, saying, Be it far from Thee, Lord: this shall never be unto Thee.
Can you imagine the presumption of Peter—to grab hold of the Lord Jesus? I have the impression that he was shaking Him and saying, “Be favorable to Thyself.”
Young’s Literal Translation puts it, “Be good to Thyself.” It literally means, “Pity Thyself.” I think a whole lot of us understand that philosophy. Much of the time, we live in a pity party.
But Peter is saying, “Look, do not let this happen to You.” The Lord gave the strongest rebuke He ever gave to anybody:
Get thee behind Me, Satan: thou art a stumbling-block unto Me: for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men.
Here is the difference between the law of the disciple and the law of this world. The law of this world says, “Be good to yourself. Pity yourself. Be favorable to yourself.”
That is the law of this world. It reminds me of Shakespeare’s famous line, “To thine own self be true.” If I hear that in another graduation speech, I will scream. That is the law of this world.
But that is not the law to which we are called. It is so different. Matthew 16 says:
If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
You may think this is extraordinarily hard, but it is actually our release. We are bound by the law of this world.
Do not think it is because we love ourselves too little. I happen to think miserable people love themselves. I often think that is the reason they are so miserable. It is just a funny way of showing it.
The law of this world says, “Be good to yourself.” The law of the disciple—the indispensable law of the disciple, the law without which you cannot be made a disciple—is: take up your cross; follow Me.
At the end of Matthew 16, there are three “fors”—F-O-Rs, not the number four—that explain taking up the cross.
Jesus said to His disciples:
If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
Here is the first “for”:
For whosoever would save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake shall find it.
Is that not a twisted bunch of words? What do You mean: whoever would save his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it? What on earth does that paradox mean? This law seems so squirrely to me.
Well, it is pretty simple. The life there is your soul-life. It is what you are. It is your personality. God never wants to take it away. It is your mind, your will, and your emotions.
But the word save in the first instance means preserve or protect. That is what it means. The police are supposed to preserve and protect.
As a Christian, the law is that you are to put your soul under new management. That is what the cross means. The problem with the soul is that it is under that old philosophy: “Be good to yourself. To thine own self be true.”
The law of the disciple is to put that soul under new management—the management of the Holy Spirit. That is the way you are made a disciple.
I cannot think of any messages more important that we have heard in the last year or so than these messages on spiritual exercise. That is what it is all about: putting our soul under new management.
No longer under the old law, but under this new law. If you do that, you will find yourself. This is not negative at all. If you do not do that, you will lose your soul; but if you do, you will find your soul.
The second “for” is in Matthew 16:26:
For what shall a man be profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and forfeit his life? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his life?
This is profit and loss. This is like a business. What profit is there if you lose your soul, even if you gain the whole world?
I think many of us live by the philosophy of gaining the whole world. You have seen the bumper sticker: “He who dies with the most toys wins.” How sad. You will never have enough toys.
You can gain the whole world, but if you do not put your soul under new management—under the control of the Holy Spirit—and allow Him to begin to make you in His image, you will lose. You will lose your whole soul.
How precious is the soul? Can you imagine on that day, when nothing has been done in you and you have lived all your life by the law of this age? What will you say to the Lord? “I kept my soul.” Wood, hay, and stubble. So great is the loss.
Finally, the third “for” is Matthew 16:27:
For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and then shall He render unto every man according to his deeds.
This is the end. This is the end of bearing the cross. Brothers and sisters, it is not a negative message at all.
If you give your soul under new management and say, “Lord, not my will, but Yours be done,” the end of it will be incalculable reward. You cannot imagine it. “Enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” He comes, and His reward is with Him.
No one will be sad on that day for having given themselves completely to Christ and borne their cross. It is not a sorrowful message. The end of it is a message of release and glory, where you shall find your soul.
You will gain your soul if you do business with God, and in the end you will have incalculable reward forever. That is the law of the disciple.
The third thing, just for a few moments, that we want to consider in this process of being made a disciple is the lessons of the disciple.
To be a disciple is hard business. There are many lessons that you need to go through. There are many dealings that the Lord needs to do. But let me comfort you with this: every dealing is in love and for your good.
Just remember that. Every dealing through which God takes you is in love and for your good.
The very name disciple has in it discipline. Now, we do not like the word discipline. We have gotten into this new age where discipline is just time-out.
I am sorry, I am treading on thin ice. You can tell that I am an old-timer. I grew up in an age where discipline was, “I brought you into this world; I can take you out.” That was a wrong-ended form of discipline. It was not in love at all, though, boy, it could be effective sometimes.
I remember one time, being so smart, I would skip school. This is not advice to any young people. I would leave for school with the other kids, go to the bus stop, and then my brilliant buddies and I would peel off and go to a fort we had built in the woods. We would spend the day there.
We were so clever that, at the end of the day, knowing the time, we would go to the bus stop with our books, meet the other students, and walk down the road just as if we had been there all day long.
Then I did not realize they had started a new policy of calling home and checking on absences. This was when I was at the old Hermitage High School. My father was a shift worker. He worked the midnight shift and slept during the day, and you had better not wake that bear during the day.
This good news—that his sweet little Kenny was off playing hooky—did not settle well. I compounded my error when I came to the door and he said, “Boy, where were you?” I said, “Dad, I was at school.”
He said, “Come here, boy.” What discipline! I had a philosophy: if I yelled like I was dying, they would quit. It did not always work. I would yell as loudly as I could, with blood-curdling screams, hoping a neighbor would call. Today, you would get thrown in jail; I would have had to go visit my dad.
But back then, discipline was serious business—not done in love. Hebrews 12 says that our earthly fathers disciplined us, but God disciplines everyone whom He loves.
That discipline work is to conform us and transform us into the image of His Son. That is what He is doing. That is why there have to be so many lessons.
I think of Peter. There is lesson after lesson after lesson in Peter’s life. Have you ever thought about Peter? It was a curiosity to me years ago, when I was a young believer: why is Peter always stepping in it? Why is Peter always being exposed? Why is Peter always saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, getting corrected, getting disciplined?
Which one of you has been called Satan by the Lord? I think it is because He loved Peter so much. He wanted to make him a disciple.
With all of Peter’s faults and all of his flaws, the Lord was dedicated to that promise: “I will make you.” This is the story of Peter’s life—many lessons, many dealings.
Think of the time when he walked on water. The Lord dealt thoroughly with him. Peter saw the Lord walking on the water and said, “Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee.” And he did; he walked on water.
But then he looked around, saw the wind and the waves, and began to sink. He said, “Lord, save me.” The Lord had to deal with his faith. Peter’s faith was not enough. The apostle Paul said, “I live by the faith of the Son of God.”
Or think of Matthew 16, when Peter rebuked the Lord and the Lord called him Satan. He had to deal with Peter’s self-love: “Be good to thyself.”
Or think of Matthew 17, the Mount of Transfiguration. Moses and Elijah appeared with the Lord in all His glory, and Peter had this bright idea. He said, “Lord, let us make three tabernacles: one for Thee, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
Then the Father Himself opened the heavens and rebuked him. What a lesson. The Lord had to deal with Peter’s vision. His vision was all wrong.
You could go on and on, just in Matthew, let alone the other Gospels. In Matthew 26, Peter was so convinced that he would never deny the Lord Jesus. He said, “If all shall be offended in Thee, I will never be offended.”
You can hear Peter saying it. You can envision Peter saying it. “Peter, do not say it. Peter, do not say it.” But he was going to say it, and he did.
He even compounded it. He said, “Even if I must die with Thee, yet will I not deny Thee.” Oh, the Lord had to deal with his commitment. How shallow is our commitment?
Somehow, we think we hold on to the Lord. The Lord has a lesson for you: He holds on to us. What a difference. He is committed to His promise.
Then, of course, when Peter drew the sword and cut off the servant’s ear in the garden, once again the Lord rebuked him and said, “All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” I think the Lord had to deal with his zeal.
Everything the Lord touched—there was nothing in Peter that He did not deal with. How often we keep the Lord from dealing with us. We say, “No, Lord. No lessons. No discipline. Do not touch me. Leave me intact.”
If you do, you will never be a disciple.
In that story in Matthew 26, there is so much in that chapter. You remember when Peter actually denied the Lord. I like the way it is put in John 18. The accusation made by the fire was simply, “Art thou also one of His disciples?”
That was the accusation. “No, I am not. I know not this man,” he said. He was asked, and that was his confession.
Then another one asked, in John 18:25, “Art thou also one of His disciples?” It says that he denied and said, “I am not.” I believe that was the ultimate failure.
We have a phrase in our new economy: “Too big to fail.” Peter was not too big to fail. He failed, and it almost destroyed him. He went out weeping. He had done the very thing he said he would never do.
Yet the Lord, in His merciful dealings, came and rescued him to fulfill His promise that He would make him a disciple.
I think Peter is like the Jacob of the New Testament. We have been dealing with Jacob. Jacob was such a character, just like Peter.
When the twins, Esau and Jacob, were born, Jacob had hold of Esau’s heel. He grabbed hold. He was going to get all he could out of things. His very name meant supplanter, deceiver.
When we were reading those chapters in Genesis, we thought, “What a sordid affair.” No afternoon soap opera was as bad as this. What a family affair.
But the Lord said, “Jacob have I loved.” He laid hold of Jacob. In spite of all of Jacob’s multitude of flaws and all his shortcomings, they did not keep him from being transformed from Jacob to Israel.
This is the story of Peter. Simon is called, a promise is made, and the Lord spends those years dealing—living lessons—to transform him into what he should be.
I will end with this story. What does it mean for us?
I think of General Pershing. He was the only officer of his time who had the title General of the Armies, the only living person ever to have that title. He was about to give up control of everything to General Foch—World War I period, for you young ones.
When that power was being handed over, he said something dramatic:
Infantry, artillery, aviation—all that we have are yours. Dispose of them as you will.
This is the life of the disciple. All the Lord wants to hear is, “All we have is Yours.” We have been bought with a price. “Dispose of it as You will.”
Then He will do it. He will do it.
It is like a sieve. Some of you know what a sieve is. Apparently, some of you do not. In engineering, we call it a screen—a sieve. You put material into it and shake it.
You shake it, and shake it, and keep shaking it. All the stuff that should not be there falls out of the bottom of that sieve—screen, whatever you call it.
Everything falls out, and what remains is what is supposed to be there. It goes into the building. It makes it through. It meets the standard.
That is what the Lord is doing in the disciple’s life. He has put you in a sieve, and He is saying once again, “I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.”
He said to Peter in Luke 22, “Peter, Satan has demanded to sift you.” I wonder why the Lord did not say no. That would have been my answer: “Lord, no. Just say no.” That was the great phrase we used in the Reagan era: “Just say no.”
But He did not. In one of those lessons, He let Satan himself sift Peter. Then He said:
But I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not: and do thou, when once thou hast turned again, establish thy brethren.
These are the dealings, the lessons, of the disciple.
Well, I hope this helps. This has been very much on my heart.
I do not know about you, but I do not want to spend this life not being made a disciple. I do not want to keep control of my life. I want to hand it over to new management.
I want Him to put His love upon me the same way He put it upon Peter, with all of his faults—and mine are legion. Yet His promise is to be fulfilled: “I will make you.”
That is the process of discipleship. May the Lord help us.
Lord, what we cannot say, we take comfort in the fact that the Holy Spirit can say. We want to be Your disciples.
Lord, we realize that if we do nothing else, we have eternal life, and we are so grateful for the free gift of God.
But even in our wavering and drawing back, we want to put our mistake and say, “Lord, we want to be one of Your disciples.” We realize we will never regret it. Our only regret will be if we withhold from You.
But we want to say, “All that we have and all that we are is Yours.”
Make us disciples. We ask this in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.