And Jesus seeing great multitudes about Him, gave commandment to depart unto the other side.
And there came a scribe, and said unto Him, Teacher, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest.
And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.
And another of the disciples said unto Him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
But Jesus saith unto him, Follow Me; and leave the dead to bury their own dead.
And when He was entered into a boat, His disciples followed Him.
And another also said, I will follow Thee, Lord; but first suffer me to bid farewell to them that are at my house.
But Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.
These things said He in the synagogue, as He taught in Capernaum.
Many therefore of His disciples, when they heard this, said, This is a hard saying; who can hear it?
But Jesus knowing in Himself that His disciples murmured at this, said unto them, Doth this cause you to stumble?
What then if ye should behold the Son of Man ascending where He was before?
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life.
But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray Him.
And He said, For this cause have I said unto you, that no man can come unto Me, except it be given unto him of the Father.
Upon this many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him.
Jesus said therefore unto the twelve, Would ye also go away?
Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.
And we have believed and know that Thou art the Holy One of God.
Our Father, we do want to thank Thee for giving us another opportunity that we may gather here together unto Thy name. Lord, we treasure Thy presence more than anything else.
Thou hast promised us, and we know that Thou art faithful to what Thou hast promised. So, as we gather here this morning, we count upon Thy faithfulness.
Men can do nothing. We acknowledge that we are those impossible people, but Thou art the all-possible God. So we come before Thee and place ourselves under Thy feet.
Remove anything in us that may hinder Thy speaking. Give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation, that we may truly know Thee; for knowing Thee is eternal life.
Lord, speak to us. Speak to the depths of our hearts. Remove all the hindrances that are in us, and do freely whatever Thou wouldst do, that Thy will may be accomplished and Thy glory may be manifested.
We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
Thank God for gathering us together this morning. On the one hand, we regret because He has not come yet. But on the other hand, we are thankful, because He knows us and He wants us to be ready. So, with hearts of thankfulness, we gather together this morning.
This morning, we are still on this matter of discipleship. Recently, I have felt the importance of discipleship, for discipleship is not something that we can talk about and then forget.
Discipleship is not only a general call to all believers. All believers are called to be His disciples. None is exempted.
Furthermore, this call of discipleship is a lifelong call. It is not that when you first believe in the Lord Jesus, you are called to be His disciple, and then later you graduate from it. You are never no longer His disciple; there is no such thing. According to the Word of God, this call of discipleship is a lifelong call.
We are always disciples of Christ. We are learning and learning of Him until God’s purpose is fulfilled in us.
We have already mentioned the meaning of discipleship. When I was first saved, I thought discipleship was a call to serve God. In my youthful zeal, I offered myself to Him to serve Him. But I did not understand that discipleship is not a call to serve.
It is true that all who believe in the Lord Jesus must serve the Lord Jesus. But before we can serve Him, there is something more that we need to understand. Unless we learn of Him, we cannot serve Him.
Because He is the glorious God, unless we learn of Him first, no one can serve Him. So discipleship is first of all the Lord saying, “Come, follow Me, and learn of Me.”
After you have followed Him and learned of Him, you are able to serve Him. As we are serving Him, we are learning along the way. It does not mean that after you have finished learning, then you start to serve Him. You serve Him as much as you have learned Him, and as you are serving Him, you continue to learn of Him.
That is what discipleship is. It is not something that you consider once and then leave behind. As a matter of fact, the more you learn of Him, the more there is to learn.
To put it in an extreme way, not only today are we learning of Him; in eternity, we will continue to learn of Him, because He is the infinite God. There is no end to Him. Our learning of Him is eternal.
Now, is that not thrilling? It is really a most glorious searching.
Being such a holy, high, and heavenly calling, it is bound to be costly. This is not a cheap and small thing. We are called to be like Him. We are called to be conformed to His image. It is such a glorious calling, and it is costly.
But before we consider the cost, let us first consider the cost that the Caller has gone through.
As we think of our Lord Jesus, the more we think of Him and of what it cost Him to come to us and call us to follow Him, the more we see what a cost He has paid.
He Who was equal with God—He is God Himself—and yet He emptied Himself. We have no way to understand how much He emptied Himself.
He is the fullness of the Godhead. All that you can think of God, that is what He is. And yet He emptied Himself. True, He could not empty Himself of His deity, but He emptied Himself of everything that accompanied His deity.
He left His glory. He left His throne. He left His authority. He left everything that surrounded Him, and He came into this world—not just to be a man, but to be a man after God’s heart, with the attitude of a slave.
A slave of God is one who lives for God and serves God. He has no right of his own. The only question is, “What is God’s will?” He was obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.
This is the cost He paid. Having paid such tremendous cost, He calls us to be His disciples.
No matter what it may cost you to be His disciple, it cannot be more than what He has paid for us.
When we consider the cost of the Caller, we will be constrained by the love of Christ. We will begin to know that it really costs us nothing.
Furthermore, what costs us is for our good. In the final analysis, discipleship costs you your self-life—your fallen life. You will realize that it is a wonderful release instead of a heavy cost.
Brothers and sisters, if discipleship costs you anything, remember that it is worthwhile, because it will transform you from self to Christ. Can there be any deliverance more wonderful than this?
If we can understand this, the cost is nothing, and we will gladly pay the cost. Furthermore, it is grace that enables us to pay the cost.
From the beginning to the end of our Christian life, it is grace upon grace.
Brothers and sisters, I hope this will lay a foundation for the whole idea of discipleship. This morning, we would like to consider the practical experience of discipleship: the crisis of discipleship.
When the call of discipleship comes upon us, it is a challenge to us. Because it is a challenge, it creates a crisis in our life.
As you look back to the beginning of your Christian life, perhaps the time when you were saved was somewhat drastic. Perhaps you were deeply under the sense of sin.
When I was young, I came from a Christian family. From outward appearance, I was not a bad boy. I was friendly with everybody, and I thought that, compared with people in the world, I was much better.
Even though mentally I knew Jesus is the Savior of sinners, I made an exception for myself, because I thought I was good. Let Him save those who are needy; I did not need any Savior. That was my attitude before I was saved.
But God had a way to deal with me. Somehow the Lord permitted me to go through an event: I was sick unto death. Humanly speaking, I was almost dying.
I was young, and I did not want to die. So I prayed and asked God to save me. Of course, my family and friends prayed for me.
After a few months, I recovered. I thought, naturally, “God healed me and saved me. I want to do something to repay His kindness.” So I began to be active in Christian service.
As a matter of fact, I led prayer meetings before I was saved. I even preached before I was saved. I prayed with materials gathered from books, and I preached what I had read other preachers say. I thought I was repaying God.
But thank God, as I was trying to serve Him, a sense of sinfulness came upon me. Nobody talked to me directly. People thought I was a good Christian, but the Holy Spirit began to work in me.
I cannot explain it, but I felt that from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet, I was full of sin. The sense of sin was so heavy upon me. Sometimes I sat alone as a young person, crying, “I want to be saved. I need to be saved.”
For a whole year, I searched earnestly. At that time, great preachers came to Shanghai, and they preached in my father’s church. I heard them, and I was touched. I went forward many times, but afterward there was nothing.
For a whole year I was searching. I wanted to be saved. By the grace of God, after a whole year of searching, I was saved.
When I was saved and the preacher said, “Offer yourself to God and serve Him,” of course I was ready. I offered myself to God. I was serving God in my own way.
At that time, I did not consider any cost. I was so touched by the mercies of God. Whatever God wanted me to do, I was ready. I did not count the cost at all.
Is that not true with a number of you? That is the way you began. You never considered the cost of discipleship, because at that time your eyes were upon the Lord, not upon yourself.
If this could go on forever, that would be fine. But unfortunately, very quickly we began to realize what we were. It was at that time that the problem of cost began in our life. When our first love grew cold, this matter of cost began to be a problem.
It is because God is faithful that He gave us the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit who dwells in us is faithful to His mission, because His mission is to transform us from ourselves to Christ.
He has to deal with us. He has to show us where we are wrong and what are the things from which we need to be delivered. There are many things we have to drop and many things we have to take up.
The Holy Spirit is so faithful, and He is so tender, because He deals with us according to His wisdom. He will not come all at once with something big; if that were the case, we would draw back right away.
He usually first deals with something small. He begins with some of our habits.
Perhaps before you believed in the Lord Jesus, you had certain habits. You may be surprised: I was a preacher’s boy, and my habit was going to the cinema.
Whenever the newspaper came, the first page I turned to was the page that listed the movies. At that time, I had a friend whose family owned a movie theater, so I could go and see movies without paying.
That was my habit. I spent a great deal of time in theaters. I always liked to be a movie star.
But after I was saved, I still went to the movies. I dared not go to see a movie on Sunday, because I was a Christian and Sunday was sacred. But I was still going to the movies.
Nobody talked to me, but somehow I felt uneasy. The Holy Spirit was working in me: “Do you think it is the right place to go? Whom are you supporting? What are you doing?”
Finally, I told myself, “I will only go to see good movies—religious movies. That should be all right.” But when I went to see religious movies, I found such bad things in them.
So finally I told myself, “I will try not to go to the theater.” But I dared not tell people because I was not sure. For several months, I did not go to any theater. That was quite an accomplishment.
Unfortunately, one day a religious movie came to Shanghai, and people sent tickets to my family. It was really a challenge to me. I wanted to go. It was a religious movie—what was wrong with that?
After a few months of absence, I was present again. Do you know what happened to me? During the two hours I was looking at the movie, I was fighting within myself. I knew that was not the place where I should be.
I hoped that the movie would stop so I could leave. But I sat there watching. For two hours there was fighting within me.
When I stepped out of the theater, that was really the end of it. God had delivered me. Thank God for that. He delivered me from a place where I should not be.
Later on, one day my aunt told me, “You are such a young man. It does not make any sense that you do not go to see movies. I will give you the money to do this.”
Do you know what my answer was? I said, “You do not know what I have. There is something that satisfies me more than movies could.” Thank God for His deliverance.
You find that in the beginning, the Holy Spirit deals with some small things—perhaps something you like. Perhaps the Lord shows you, “Give it up.” Or perhaps it is a habit of boasting or telling white lies.
Then you find that the Holy Spirit is working in you. He is dealing with these small things. That is to begin with. Then He will probe deeper and deeper.
He will begin to probe your speech. He will begin to probe your friendships. He will even begin to probe your mind.
He will deal with you concerning the matter of the world—even the way you dress yourself. Is it fitting for a Christian?
I can tell you stories about how sisters are challenged even in this matter of dress.
The Holy Spirit deals with our friendships, with the world, and from the world He goes on to the flesh: the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.
Not only does He deal with your flesh, but He deals with your self-life—yourself.
Our Lord Jesus said:
If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
You cannot be My disciple.
Brothers and sisters, the cost of discipleship is absolute. But thank God, the grace of God will lead you to pay the cost. What is impossible with men is possible with God.
After you answer the call of discipleship, the Holy Spirit begins to work in your life. As the Bible says, the anointing within you will teach you in all things.
He will teach you small things and great things. Often we think that in great things we need to inquire of God, but in small things we think we know what to do. But no: the Holy Spirit will teach you not only great things, but also small things.
If you are faithful in small things, He will give you greater things. If you are not faithful in small things, you will not be able to be faithful in greater things.
From the day you are saved until the day you see the Lord, He will continue to work in us. There will never be a moment or a day when He stops working, because the Bible says He is in you and He will never leave you.
We want to thank God for the Holy Spirit, because without Him, what can we do? How can we be transformed and conformed to the image of Christ?
This is His work. How does He do such a work? Mainly in two ways: through the revelation of the Holy Spirit and through the discipline of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit sheds His light upon us, because God is light.
If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
God reveals Himself to us. It is true that great revelations may come to us only once or a few times, but when they come, they revolutionize our lives. Small revelations, however, come all the time.
If we are not faithful to small revelations, we cannot be faithful in greater revelation.
Perhaps a word of caution should be given here: there is no revelation outside of the Bible. All the revelation that God will give to man is in this Bible. No one can say, “I have received a new revelation apart from the Bible.” If anyone claims this, it is the spirit of antichrist.
But that does not mean that we have no revelation anymore. The Bible is the revelation of God. As we study the Bible, the Holy Spirit enlightens the Bible and makes it living and operative.
When we read the Bible, we may have only the letter of the Bible and the knowledge of the Word in our minds, but it does not really affect our lives.
Not until the Holy Spirit sheds His light upon a passage does it become something personal and living to you. Then it operates and affects your life.
The Lord Jesus said, “My words are spirit, and are life.” His Word is more than letters, because the letter alone kills.
Is it not true that when you read the Bible, you sometimes find that the Word of God condemns you? It kills you. But when the Holy Spirit enlightens it to you, it becomes your experience. The Word becomes living and operative. It works. It is life.
That is the way we come to know the will of God: through revelation.
There is another way in which the Holy Spirit works, and this way is more outward. We who believe in the Lord Jesus know that nothing happens to us apart from God’s will.
With Christians, there is no such thing as chance. This does not apply to unbelievers in the same way, but we who are redeemed of the Lord know that He loves us so much and cares for us so much that He will not allow anything to happen to us without His permission.
It is either by His direct will or by His permissive will.
The Lord said that even the hairs of your head are numbered. We do not know how many hairs we have, but the Lord not only knows the number of hairs on your head; every hair is numbered.
This morning, when you were combing your hair, perhaps a few hairs fell. The Lord knows their numbers. Can anyone take care of you more than that?
Nothing happens by chance. The Holy Spirit is the One who arranges our happenings. Everything, every moment—your whole life—is under the arrangement of the Holy Spirit.
You do not arrange your own relationships. You were born into a certain family because God ordered it. You cannot choose your siblings. You cannot choose the people who are in contact with you.
Because of that, you receive many crosses. People are your crosses, not realizing that you are their cross. So try to create fewer crosses for other people.
The Holy Spirit arranges your crosses. This is what we call the discipline of the Holy Spirit.
He uses discipline to disciple us. Discipleship cannot be separated from discipline.
We do not like discipline. We can change it to another word. In Hebrews 12, it is called chastening. The Greek meaning is child training.
You train your child because the natural life is wild. If you let that wild life develop by itself, what will happen? The child will grow up like an animal.
Brothers and sisters, no father should fail to discipline his son. Unfortunately, many fathers discipline other people’s sons and not their own.
If a child is not disciplined, he will not grow up to manhood or womanhood. This is the problem today.
If our earthly fathers discipline us for our good, how much more does our heavenly Father discipline us for our holiness, that we may be partakers of His divine nature?
Brothers and sisters, we must ask one question: in your Christian life, how much dealing have you had with the Lord? How much has He dealt with you, and how much have you yielded to Him?
How many crises have you gone through and yielded to Him? This is the only way to grow. This is the way of transformation. This is according to the will of God.
If you escape the cross, you remain a babe in Christ. You fail to fulfill the purpose of God.
These two ways of the Holy Spirit—revelation and discipline—continue through our whole life. The more you receive light from God, the more you are able to surrender to His discipline. The quicker you grow in Christ.
That is the mercy of God.
Our experiences are all different, but the principles are the same. Let us use the Scriptures to illustrate them.
You remember Matthew 8. There were great crowds following the Lord. Strangely, whenever great crowds followed the Lord, either the Lord sent them away or He went away, because He is not for multitudes; He is for quality.
When great crowds followed Him, He took a boat and sailed away. Then a scribe came and said, “I want to follow You. Wherever You go, I will go with You.”
What did the Lord say? “The foxes have holes, and the birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
Why did the Lord answer him in that way? Because he was a scribe. A scribe at that time was one who copied the Bible, studied the Bible, and taught the Bible.
At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, we are told that our Lord Jesus taught not as the scribes, but as One having authority. In other words, the scribes knew a great deal. They studied and they taught others.
But this scribe listened to the Lord and saw the difference: the Lord taught with authority. His words were spirit and life. This was different from the teaching of the scribes.
So he wanted to learn more from the Lord. He offered himself and said, “I want to follow You. Wherever You go, I will go.”
But the Lord knew him. The Lord knew that what he wanted was more teaching. Like Nicodemus, he wanted teaching. But the Lord said, in effect, “It is not teaching. It is life. Do you know what kind of life I live?”
“My kind of life is even lower than that of the foxes and the birds. Are you able to do that?”
Brothers and sisters, if we only seek teaching—good teaching, better teaching, new teaching—we cannot follow the Lord. If we want life, we can follow Him.
Then a disciple came. He was already a disciple; he was already following the Lord. But he said, “Lord, there is something more important than following You now. I have to go and bury my father.”
This does not mean that his father had already died. His father must have been aged, and he felt, “I have a responsibility. I have to see that this responsibility is fulfilled; then I will follow You.”
The Lord’s answer may seem severe: “Let the dead bury their dead. You come and follow Me, and preach the kingdom of God.”
In other words, he was a disciple and was already following the Lord, but he had never counted the cost. When he began to count the cost, he found something more important than following the Lord.
It was not wrong, but he did not put Christ first. He put his duty first. Let the spiritually dead bury the physically dead. You are alive; go and preach the kingdom of God.
You have to put the Lord first. You cannot put anything above Him.
Then, in Luke 9, there was one who wanted to be a disciple. “I will follow You, but let me go back and say goodbye to all my family.”
The Lord said that he who has put his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God.
In other words, if we follow the Lord, we must follow Him all the way. Let nothing deviate us. Only in this way are we able to follow to the very end.
Let me use a person to illustrate the way of discipleship. It is crisis after crisis. It is lifelong following. I think in the New Testament, the best illustration is Peter.
Peter came to the Lord very early. In John 1, Andrew, his brother, led him to Jesus.
There was something very striking. When his brother led him to the Lord, the Greek word for the Lord’s look suggests that He looked him up and down. In other words, the look of the Lord entered into the very heart of Peter.
The Lord does not look at our outward appearance. He said, “You are Simon, but you shall be called Peter.”
Then, in Matthew 4, when the Lord began to preach, He saw Peter and Andrew casting a net. The Lord said, “Come, follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
They left the boat, they left the nets, and followed the Lord. They began to be with Him. Wherever the Lord went, they went with Him. They listened to what the Lord said, and they noticed the way He lived.
While Peter was with the Lord, a crisis came. He found himself unfit. He realized, “This way of life is beyond me. I cannot do it.”
When our Lord came to Peter’s home area in Luke 5, Peter went back to fishing. But all night he could not catch any fish.
The Lord came and used Peter’s boat to preach. When the Lord finished preaching, He wanted to pay Peter for using his boat. So He told Peter, “Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.”
Peter looked at the Lord and thought, “What do You know about fishing? I have fished for a whole night and caught nothing. But because I respect You, I will follow Your word.” So he cast in the net.
When Peter saw the catch, he fell before the Lord and said, “I am a sinful man.” In the beginning, Peter thought he could do it, but he found out that it was beyond him.
It is only when we discover that we are not able that we can become lifelong disciples. It is only He and His grace that enable us to pay the cost.
From that time onward, Peter followed the Lord.
You remember John 6. After the Lord multiplied the loaves and fishes to feed the five thousand, the people followed Him because they wanted physical food.
The Lord said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever eats of Me and drinks of Me has eternal life, and in the last day I will raise him up. My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.”
When people heard these things, not only the multitude but many of His disciples said, “This is too hard. Who can hear it?” Many of His disciples left.
So the Lord turned to the twelve and said, “Do you also want to go away?” If you want to go, go.
But listen to Peter. Peter said, “You have the words of eternal life. We have followed You. Where can we go? You are the Son of God.”
In other words, Peter began to know the Lord. Here he was settled, as it were, as a disciple.
Brothers and sisters, as we respond to the call of discipleship, it does not mean that once we respond, it is done. We have to learn that this is beyond us.
How can a sinner like me be transformed to be like Christ? This is beyond me. It is impossible.
Only when you come to that point are you no longer looking for teaching, but looking to the Lord. “You have the words of life. You are the Son of God. You have called me, and You will be responsible for me.”
It is only then that you are able to remain with the Lord.
Was it an easy life for Peter from then on? No, it was very difficult. Our Lord trained Peter more than any other disciple.
In Matthew 16, Peter confessed the Lord Jesus, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” But when the Lord said, “I am going to Jerusalem. I will be killed, but on the third day I will rise again,” Peter took hold of the Lord and said, “Never! This shall not happen unto Thee.”
Was Peter mindful of the Lord, or was he mindful of himself? If the Lord went to the cross, where would Peter go? He did not want the Lord to go because he did not want to go.
The Lord turned and said, “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.”
The Lord dealt with Peter very severely, but Peter could take it.
Again and again Peter had lessons to learn. On the Mount of Transfiguration, he offered his opinion, and God interrupted him.
When those who collected the temple tax asked Peter, “Doth not your Master pay the temple tax?” Peter immediately said, “Yes.” Then he went in to tell the Lord to pay the tax.
The Lord asked him, “From whom do the kings of the earth receive toll or tribute? From their sons, or from strangers?” Peter said, “From strangers.” The Lord said, “Therefore the sons are free.”
But to help Peter, the Lord said, “Go to the sea, cast a hook, and take the first fish that cometh up. When thou hast opened its mouth, thou shalt find a shekel. Take that, and give it unto them for Me and thee.”
Peter was a fisherman accustomed to casting nets. He was not patient enough to fish with a hook. But he learned a lesson, and there were many more lessons that he had to learn.
When you come to Matthew 26, you find the Lord saying, “Ye shall all be offended because of Me this night.” Peter said, “Not me. I will stick with You. I will go with You to death.”
The Lord said, “Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny Me thrice.” Peter said, “No, never.” But he did.
What dealings the Lord had with Peter! After he denied the Lord, he went out weeping. He thought it was the end.
Thank God, when our Lord was resurrected from the dead, He sent a message: “Go, tell My disciples—and Peter.”
Peter was fully restored. Look at Pentecost. Look at how the Lord used him to open the gospel to the Gentiles.
But was Peter perfect? No. In Galatians 2, Paul had to withstand him openly. Yet before Peter’s death, he could refer to “our beloved brother Paul,” who wrote things difficult to understand, but which were the Word of God.
Brothers and sisters, do not be discouraged. We need time. Even in our failures, we may be restored and strengthened, so that the Lord is able to do whatever He desires with us.
Even to the very end, we are learning. May the Lord help us.
Dear Lord, we do pray that Thy grace would take such hold upon us that we may see that we cannot follow Thee to the very end in ourselves. It is all Thy mercy and grace.
There is nothing we can boast of. We can only boast in the Lord Jesus. Amen.