Will you please turn to 2 Timothy, chapter 2? We will read from verses 11 through 13.
Faithful is the saying:
For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him;
If we endure, we shall also reign with Him;
If we shall deny Him, He also will deny us;
If we are faithless, He abideth faithful; for He cannot deny Himself.—2 Timothy 2:11-13
Now turn to the same book, chapter 4. We will read from verses 6 through 8.
For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure is come.
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith:
Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give to me at that day; and not to me only, but also to all them that have loved His appearing.—2 Timothy 4:6-8
Dear Lord, we want to thank Thee for bringing us to this time. Thou hast been good and gracious and merciful to us. We appreciate that Thou art always dealing faithfully with us, and we do want to be real to Thee.
As we gather here this morning, first of all, we will give ourselves over to Thee. We invite Thee to speak to us—speak to the very depths of our being. Lord, open our ears. Open our hearts, that we may really hear Thy speaking.
For Thy word is life and spirit to us. Lord, whatever Thou hast in Thy heart, we pray that Thou wilt speak directly to us. So Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
We look forward to Thy glorious coming. We hope that we may be the welcoming party to Thy return. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. In Thy precious name, amen.
Brothers and sisters, we do thank the Lord for giving us another opportunity. Every time we are able to meet on earth, it is the extra grace of God.
But our Lord Jesus could have returned long ago. When He was living, He already told His disciples that He was coming. In the book of Revelation, He says, “I come quickly.”
Now, why is it that He has not returned? There is no problem with Him. We believe that He is more anxious than every one of us to come back. But He knows that He does not want to come and find that we are not ready for Him.
So, brothers and sisters, it is the grace—the longsuffering—of Christ that we are still here and still have an opportunity to be ready for Him.
This time we are fellowshipping on this matter of discipleship. I do hope, brothers and sisters, that this matter of discipleship is not something insignificant in your heart. This matter of discipleship should always be in your heart.
There is nothing more important than being disciples of Christ. This is the only reason why we are still left on this earth. He is giving us time and opportunity that we may truly be His disciples.
This discipleship is a calling to all believers. We need to remember that even though each and every one of us may have special callings—we may be called to be a medical doctor, a teacher, or a housewife—we are all having our special callings.
But, brothers and sisters, behind all these various callings there is one basic, fundamental calling. It is a calling to each and every one of us, and that is the calling to be His disciples.
Unless we answer that call first, unless we are faithful to that calling, we will not be able to fulfil our special calling. First and foremost, as long as we are here on earth, we need to be disciples of Christ.
We are learning Him all our days. He is so rich and so infinite; there is no end to learning Him. The more you learn of Him, the more you realize how precious He is to you. And, by the grace of God, the more you will be like Him.
We have already shared concerning the cost of discipleship. Our calling is so high, so holy, and so heavenly; therefore, its cost is also absolute. The calling of discipleship is an absolute calling.
It is a calling in which we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. We have to leave everything behind to answer His call. But, brothers and sisters, let us not consider our cost first.
As a matter of fact, when we are saved, we are so moved by the love of Christ that, when we hear the call of discipleship, we respond without thinking of counting our cost. Thank God for that.
If, at that time, we were to sit down and count the cost, probably we would not start to follow Him. But as we follow Him, we begin to realize how unfit we are, how different we are from Him, and how difficult it is to learn of Him.
We begin to realize that it is very costly. But thank God, as we think of what it cost Him, our cost is nothing. By the grace of God, we are able to respond to Him.
As you look back on your life of discipleship, you will find that it is a continuous crisis in your life. Whenever the Holy Spirit begins to speak to you, He reveals to you what you are. At the same time, He reveals Christ to you.
He wants you to leave off something and take up Christ. It will constitute a crisis. Yet when these crises come, actually they are opportunities.
In these crises, we begin to realize how lovely our Master is, how He attracts us, and how He enables us to pay whatever cost is necessary so that, by His grace, we can continue on in following Him.
Just as we find in Peter, when he responded to the Lord, he did not count the cost at all. He simply followed the Lord. But as he followed the Lord, listened to Him, and watched Him, he began to realize that he was unfit.
He was not able to be a disciple of Christ, and you remember how he tried to slip away. In Luke, we find that he went back to fishing because he thought that it was something beyond him.
But our Lord was so gracious to him. The Lord showed him who he was, and Peter fell before the Lord. He said, “I am a sinner. Leave me alone.”
But the Lord said, “Fear not. From henceforth thou shalt catch men.”
You remember John chapter 6. When many of His disciples said that what our Lord said was too hard, they left Him and did not walk with Him anymore. Our Lord turned to the twelve and said, “What about you? Do you also want to leave?”
Peter was able to say, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. We have believed and know that Thou art the Holy One of God.”
Where can we go? We are caught. We have to stay with You to the very end. Once caught, forever caught.
This is the story of Peter. You find our Lord Jesus training him in a very severe way because he was an outgoing person. He talked too much, and he talked fast.
Among the disciples, Peter was the one whom our Lord dealt with again and again and again. But thank God, because he was willing to be dealt with by God, you find the final product: how the Lord used him afterwards.
He was humbled to the very end, and he was faithful to the very end.
These are the few things that we have covered in the past. This morning we would like to talk about the crown of discipleship. We have talked about the call, the cost, and the crisis. Now we come to the crown of discipleship.
But before we do that, we would like to mention another thing. When you read the Gospels and the book of Acts, you find that the call to discipleship is the most important call.
The Lord Jesus came into this world to save the lost. But more than that, He came into this world not only to save the lost but to disciple those who are saved.
Towards the end of His ministry, you find that He spent more time with the disciples than with the crowds. Only with discipleship will God’s purpose be realized. God’s purpose cannot be realized with babies. A baby in Christ cannot fulfil God’s purpose.
God’s purpose, to be fulfilled, requires mature, grown-up Christians. In order to grow up and mature, you have to go through discipleship. This is the only way to grow.
Discipleship is found throughout the four Gospels and the book of Acts. But strangely, when you come to the Epistles, you hardly hear the word disciple or disciples.
Why is it so? Is it that you have outgrown discipleship and therefore have to leave it behind? This matter of discipleship is not mentioned in the Epistles. Have you pondered over this matter?
If discipleship is a lifelong matter, why is the word not even mentioned in the Epistles? It seems suddenly to have disappeared. What is the real mind of God concerning this?
But as you read the Epistles, you find another word that seems to rise up. What is that word? Sonship.
In the Gospels and Acts, the word is discipleship. But in the Epistles, the word is sonship.
What is discipleship? Discipleship is the process. What is the end of that process? Sonship. That is the reason why, when you come to the Epistles, the word is sonship instead of discipleship.
After you have been discipled to Christ, you should arrive at sonship. That is the purpose of God.
What do we mean by sonship? When you read Romans chapter 8, you find that we are told that we have the Spirit of sonship.
When we believe in the Lord Jesus, we become children of God. As children, we have the Spirit of adoption, or sonship, in us. That is the reason why we can cry out to God, “Abba, Father.”
The Holy Spirit and our spirit bear witness together that we are children of God. As the children of God, we are heirs with Christ.
For ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God:
And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him.—Romans 8:15-17
The word does not stop there. It follows with this: “If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him.”
When we are saved, we become children of God. As children, we become heirs. We will inherit God’s possession, and we are co-heirs with Christ. This is our position.
But even though we are in that position, we are still little children. We are still babes. As babes, even though we have the right position, we are unable to inherit because we are just babes.
There is a qualification in verse 17: “If so be.” How are you going to truly possess your inheritance? If indeed we suffer with Him, then we may also be glorified with Him.
So, brothers and sisters, we need to share first about sonship, because discipleship leads to sonship. When we believe in the Lord Jesus, we become God’s children. As children, we have the promise of inheritance, because this is our position.
But in order to really inherit our heavenly inheritance, we have to grow up into maturity. It is only by going through discipleship that we are able to inherit our heavenly inheritance.
In order to understand this whole matter, we have to go back to Galatians chapter 4. We begin with verse 1.
But I say that so long as the heir is a child, he differeth nothing from a bondservant though he is lord of all;
But is under guardians and stewards until the day appointed of the father.
So we also, when we were children, were held in bondage under the rudiments of the world:
But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
That He might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.—Galatians 4:1-5
When the apostle Paul wrote this letter to the Galatians, he used an illustration of how a child grows into sonship.
By the way, sonship means the placing of a son. According to Jewish custom at the time of Christ, when a boy reached the age of twelve, he went through a process and became a son of the law.
Today the age is thirteen. When a Jewish boy reaches thirteen, he is made a son of the law. He becomes a member of the commonwealth of Israel, with the right to ask questions and the right to answer questions.
That is what you find when our Lord was twelve years old. He was in the temple, asking questions and answering questions, because He was engaged in His Father’s business.
But Paul was writing to the Galatians, who were Gentiles, so he used a Roman custom. Rome, at that time, was the greatest power in the world. It had conquered many countries and races, and there were more slaves in the Roman Empire than citizens.
In a Roman family, they usually had many slaves, and some of the slaves were Greeks. A Roman boy would be put under the guardianship and stewardship of slaves.
These guardians looked after the boys, and the stewards had oversight of them. Yet they were actually slaves. These slaves became the child’s guardians and stewards.
Even though the child was an heir, he was no different from a bondservant—or, put another way, he was lower than a slave because he had to listen to the stewards and guardians. They would take care of the boy so that he would grow up and become a man.
A bondservant has no rights of his own, and a child under stewards is lower than a bondservant. He has no rights at that time. He has to listen to the guardian and the steward. They take care of him, look after him, and educate him.
In Roman custom, there was no set time. The boy would continue under the guardianship and stewardship until the father, who was watching and deciding, saw that the boy had grown.
Then the father set the date—the date when the boy became a man. There would be a ceremony, and the boy would take off his short garment and begin to wear the long gown. He became a man.
As a man, he was equally responsible with his father in wealth and in debt. That is the background from which Paul wrote Galatians 4.
We need to see the spiritual principle. When we are saved, we are heirs of God. But that does not mean that, because we are heirs of God, we can immediately enjoy everything.
I remember that during the charismatic movement there was a group of people who called themselves the Children of God. Because they were children of God and everything belonged to God, they reasoned that everything belonged to them.
They would go into stores and take things without paying, saying, “This is my Father’s; we are children of God.” Such things happened in this country.
When we are newly saved, we are only babes. Positionally, we are heirs and co-heirs with Christ, but we are not qualified to inherit.
Therefore, we have to be put under guardians and stewards. That is the reason why the law was given to Israel. We are under the stewardship of the law, and by that we begin to learn what the law really is, what sin really is, what the world really is, and what we ourselves really are.
Who is our guardian and steward? So far as we are concerned, the Holy Spirit is the chief Steward and Guardian. He is continually teaching us and continually revealing God’s mind to us.
He is continually showing us what sin really is, what the world really is, what our flesh is, and what our self really is. As He enlightens us, we need to submit and learn from Him.
He is such a faithful Steward. He will no doubt lead us into Christ, into the fullness of Christ, that we may grow up, be transformed, and be conformed to the image of God’s Son.
But when you are learning, you suffer. Self-life is the most difficult thing to lose. You may lose the world and gain Christ, but the most difficult thing to lose is yourself.
That is why the Lord said, “Deny yourself.” Without denying yourself, you will never reach sonship. Christ has to substitute for you and be your life. Then you mature.
As you mature, then you see the crown of discipleship. The apostle Paul, in his later writings—for 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy are among his latest writings—said in 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 11, “Faithful is the saying.”
Strangely, you find that in his later writings he uses the words “Faithful is the saying” a number of times. Why? Because as we are toward the end, the Bible asks, “When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?”
Our environment and circumstances today make it difficult to have faith. Faith is very important. So the apostle Paul emphatically said, “Faithful is the saying.” Do not doubt it. It is worthy to be received. It is important.
What is the saying? “For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him.”
This is the first crown of discipleship. The condition is that we have died with Him—not only died to the world, not only died to our flesh, but died to ourselves.
In the matter of discipleship, the worst enemy is not Satan. It is not the world. It is not sin. The worst enemy to discipleship is you yourself. Have you realized that?
Unless you have died with Christ, you will not be able to live together with Christ. In other words, when you die to yourself, then Christ lives in you. The apostle said, “For to me to live is Christ.”
What is the first benefit of discipleship? The first benefit is that today you can live together with Christ. Formerly, you lived with yourself.
When you are living with yourself, you are under the bondage of sin and death. When you are living with your own life, you are under the bondage of the world. When you are living in yourself, you are under the dominion of Satan.
Behind all these enemies, the worst enemy is yourself.
Perhaps you have read about Martin Luther, the Reformer. He said, “I am not afraid of the pope. I am not afraid of all these cardinals. I am not afraid of these dukes and knights.”
“But,” he said, “I am afraid of one: the old Adam in me.” Philip Melanchthon, the theologian of the Reformation, said, “Young man, you are no match for old Adam.”
Sooner or later, you will realize that your greatest enemy is yourself. That is the reason why our Lord said, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.”
Only when you deny yourself will the cross work in your life. It will deliver you from yourself, and Christ will live in you and live out from you.
What is the result of discipleship? What benefit do you get from discipleship? First of all, today, for me to live is Christ. There is nothing better than that.
You have been crucified with Christ, and when you are living, it is no longer you; it is Christ who lives in you.
Then, as you read on, you find: “If we endure, we shall also reign with Him.” The word endure here simply means to go through suffering.
As you follow the Lord, you have to give up yourself. Your emotions have to be purified. Your thinking, your thoughts, have to be purified. Your will, your volition, has to be purified: “Not My will, but Thine, be done.”
As you go through this purification, of course you suffer. But if you are able to go through patiently, what will be the result? The Bible says that you shall reign together with Christ.
This is the way our Lord Jesus went through. He humbled Himself, emptied Himself, and was obedient to the Father even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.
Therefore God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name which is above every name. At that name every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
So, brothers and sisters, if we endure, if we are patient, if we are able to continue following the Lord patiently, we shall reign with Christ.
This is during the millennial kingdom. Today is this age—the age of grace—but this age is coming to a close. After the closing of this age, and before eternity comes, there will be the age to come.
The age to come in the Bible is one thousand years: the millennium, when Christ will establish His kingdom upon this earth. Those who faithfully follow the Lord today shall reign with Christ for one thousand years.
Then, as you read on, it says, “If we shall deny Him, He also will deny us.” Brothers and sisters, if we are like Peter, who denied Christ three times, we deny the wrong Person. We should deny ourselves.
But thank God, Peter repented, and the Lord restored him. When we are faced with crises in our lives, we may seek to protect ourselves and deny the Lord.
If we continue to do that, at the coming of the Lord, the Lord will say, “I know you not.” You remember that people will come to Him and say, “Lord, did we not prophesy by Thy name, and by Thy name cast out demons, and by Thy name do many mighty works?”
That is in Matthew chapter 7. He will say, “I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.” It is like the foolish virgins: the Lord came, the door was closed, and they came too late.
They were cast into outer darkness. It does not mean that they are not saved. It does not mean that they are not saved. They lose the chance of reward.
Without going into details, please understand this: eternal salvation is the gift of God, and the gifts of God are without repentance. When eternity comes, you will be there. But during the kingdom age, you may miss it.
The Bible does not give us very clear details because God does not want us to be negative. He does not want us to think, “I may lose the thousand years, but eternity is guaranteed.”
The Lord does not want us to think that way. We should be positive. I want not only to be with the Lord in eternity; I want to be with the Lord in the kingdom age. I want to be with the Lord today.
That is the way we should think. The Bible does not tell us all the details, but the principle is clear: if you refuse to be disciplined today, you may be unfaithful, but God is faithful, because He cannot deny Himself.
When He saves you, He will save you to the uttermost. He wants you to be conformed to the image of Christ. This is the time for it. If you miss the time, then in the kingdom age you will be disciplined.
For a few years of refusing His discipline, would you lose one thousand years? Is it worth it?
So, brothers and sisters, thank God. We may be unfaithful, but He remains faithful. Thank God for that consolation.
Finally, consider the apostle Paul. He was a good man—not only a good man, but a religious man. Other young people loved the world, but he loved God.
He was brought up as a Pharisee. Today, when we think of a Pharisee, we have a very negative connotation because they were hypocrites. But Saul was a true Pharisee. He kept the letter of the law as much as he could.
He was zealous for the tradition of the fathers, and he was serving God. He thought that when he persecuted Christians, he was serving God. It was real to him. He was very zealous.
But God knew his heart. The Lord met him on the road to Damascus. He heard the voice of Christ, saw the Son of God, completely capitulated to Christ, and began to be a disciple of Christ.
Throughout his life, he was faithful. He was pressing on toward the goal. When he wrote the letter to the Philippians, he was in a Roman prison.
For the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, he counted all things as loss. Yet he said, “I am still pressing on. I do not consider that I have obtained. I want to be apprehended by God, and I want to apprehend Him.”
He forgot the past—past glory and past failure. He forgot everything and stretched himself out toward Christ. His one goal was to win Christ.
Brothers and sisters, not until immediately before his martyrdom could he say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.”
Life is a battle. Life is a race. Life is keeping the faith. If you are faithful by the grace of God to the end, then the crown of righteousness is waiting for you.
Paul said, “Not only for me, but for all who love the appearing of the Lord.” Christ is all that we seek. Everything is passing away, but Christ is eternal.
Let us trust that His grace is sufficient for us. He who calls us will preserve us. Thank God. Amen.
Dear Lord, as we conclude our present time, we commit one another into Thy loving hands. Thou art the One who calls and the One who preserves.
We trust ourselves to Thee until we gather together before Thee. Glory and honour, power and authority, be unto Thee. In Thy precious name, amen.