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II. The Cross of Discipleship
INTRODUCTION: When we hear about the cross of discipleship, normally the first thing that comes to mind is the life of self-denial required by the disciple. Our minds turn to command to take up our own cross and follow Christ.
But the ability to take up our own cross flows from the fact that Christ took up His cross—thus Christ’s work for us makes real changes in us that enable us to live the life of a disciple.
Therefore we must feed our faith upon the message of Christ and Him crucified.
Paul’s own activities in disciple-making always began with we proclaim Him! The admonishing and the teaching follow. It is the proclamation of Christ in His fullness that is the foundation for all ethical action and devotion (Col 1:28-29).
Paul knew that his listeners must also build upon Christ. All of their own striving and repenting must rest upon Christ and Him crucified. The centrality of Christ must always be our proclamation in discipleship—or our efforts will be met with disappointment.
A. We proclaim Him and His cross-work—for only in the Christ-centered—cross-centered life do we find the divine power and love necessary to make a disciple. Only in His glorious Person and work upon Calvary are found the divinely powerful resources necessary to make a disciple.
When Paul was among the Corinthians, his message focused upon the heart of the Gospel—the truth with which God associates His power (Rom 1:16-17). “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2).
The cross produces real transformation—radical changes that can only be adequately described as an entirely new creation. In Christ’s atoning work there is a death applied to us; a resurrection performed upon us that implants a new life principle; there is a spiritual circumcision in which the dominance of the flesh is cut, severed, and rolled away (Col 2:11-12).
Christ’s death and resurrection affects these changes in the believing sinner. Therefore, our approach to discipleship must have the centrality of Christ at its center. For it is in the hearing and believing of this sweet message of the God-man standing in your room and stead that the poor sinner receives the power and the motives for discipleship.
That means that when we proclaim Christ, we do so with the goal in view of making disciples and bringing them to maturity. For the Word of the Cross is a message filled with divine power.
When the converted sinner hears what Christ has done to slay our old man and how we have been resurrected to an entirely new form of existence—it opens his understanding to spiritual realities that are life-changing. He discovers the source of power for personal holiness (Christ in you).
This has immense consequences and crucial application for our own methodology in making disciples. We must follow the Pauline order—We Proclaim Him—then we Admonish and Teach. Because only Christ and His cross can make a true disciple—you cannot by your own efforts.
All of our instruction, exhortation, pleading, and admonishment must be anchored in Christ and His cross.
And here is why—because the devotion, the diligence, and the sacrifices made by a true disciple constitute a series of faith responses to Christ, the Lord of Glory. The life of obedience lived out by a true disciple takes place because he has ever clearer views of his Savior. Faith-based obedience is never separated from its object; the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, as pastors and disciple-makers, we proclaim Him—for in Christ there is limitless transforming power.
Now at different times in church history these precious truths of Christ’s centrality in discipleship have been forgotten. The pietistic error has dominated at times. In that error the present power of Christ’s atoning work has been obscured and hidden from view; and all the emphasis has been placed upon the individual’s pursuit of personal piety.
The pietistic, or holiness movements, have had much to commend; but they have been characterized by foggy view of the comprehensiveness of the Savior’s work in our nature. And they have been characterized by weak views of the believer’s union with Christ.
B. Naturally a struggling Christian who is for the most part blind to the glories of his Savior’s work will fall back on self in an attempt to perfect the flesh. Dear brothers, practice without (Christ-centered) doctrine tends to produce legalism—like the Galatians of old; they made an attempt to perfect the flesh apart from the cross.
Another error is quietism—“only rest and believe” we are told—God will do the rest—He will do it all. In this error, there is a disproportionate emphasis placed upon the believer’s position in Christ without the attending truths of diligence; self-denial; mortification of sin; and zeal for good works.
In the quietistic error we see that doctrine without practice leads to carnal false security andantinomianism. This constitutes an anemic, passive form Christianity which does not overcome the world; nor does it make true disciples. Both of these errors (pietism and quietism) prove to be a departure from the Pauline model of disciple-making.
Paul gives us our pattern—for he joins the power of God in the cross with the believer’s response of diligence and consecration. The power of the message of the cross believed produces consecration and devotion to Christ which we will see shortly in our text.
Our disciple-making must be characterized by both proclamation and practice; by exhibiting the supremacy of our Savior and by exhorting believers to follow Him without limits or reservations.
Today many evangelical pastors have strayed from the Pauline formula of disciple-making. As they seek to shepherd from the pulpit; they have sincerely hoped that exhortation to holy living would gain the result of spiritual victory in the lives of their listeners.
But what they have failed to consider is that consecration to greater obedience is a function of looking unto Jesus and beholding Him. They are exhorting without exhibiting.
Bare principles and moral injunction will not produce lasting change in the listener. In the final analysis our most impassioned pleas for our listeners to be good; to try harder; to stop sinning—must be joined to the display of Christ—or the flesh will conclude that in itself are the resources necessary to crucify the flesh.
This author has found that a substantial portion of believers a stuck in cycles of lukewarm-ness; defeat, uncertainty, doubt, fear, guilt. When we call them to greater devotion and consecration and holiness—we must also exhibit Christ their Sanctifier—who is the Author and Finisher of their salvation (Heb 12:2).
If we do not; our poor listeners are apt to conclude that we have shouldered them with a heavy yoke—for where are they to find the strength; the hope; the motivation; the enablement and capacity to measure up? How will they break out of their cycles of mediocrity and compromise and move squarely into victory?
Brothers, we must preach to our hearers what we preach to ourselves—namely that Christ is the Divine Architect of the new man. The cross of Christ has redeemed and purchased us making us God’s possessions for His holy and loving purposes. Christ’s mediatorial work has poured us into a life mould—totally shaping us to live for God’s glory (Col 3:10-11).
Brethren, on this side of the cross, true discipleship is living the new life Christ has wrought for us. We do not live a life of self-denial so that Christ will accept us—no; God has accepted the believer in the Beloved. Discipleship with its life-style of self-denial is living the life Christ has wrought for us.
C. The power to live the life of a disciple comes from the fact that our Savior lives through us (Gal 2:20). Paul’s overflowing joy as a disciple of Christ emanated from his understanding that he was living anexchanged life. Paul could say with complete confidence that Christ was living His life through Paul.
The old Paul had been crucified with Christ. The new Paul was nothing less than a daily cognizance of the reality that Christ lives in me. Paul was animated by this truth—it permeated his understanding—Christ is expressing His personality through the vehicle of my fleshly body (Gal 2:20). Paul was so conversant with his divine resources in Christ that he could actually say of himself, “It is no longer I who live!”
Pastors, let us mark this down in our own disciple-making—exhortation without this Word of Christ and Him crucified can produce exasperation. I remember the formula this way: exhortation without enablement equals exasperation. When we exhort—we must never fail to imbue our listeners with their infinite resources in Christ.
These spiritual realities of identification with Christ stretch our understanding to the limit. Just to think that in the mind of God, the elect were so fully identified with Christ their Head as to gain His life. So intimate was this identification that in Christ’s crucifixion, our fallen human natures were judged so that we should no longer be slaves of sin (Rom 6:6).
This is Paul’s victory cry—those who have died are freed from sin—sin is no longer master over them. Our Adamic nature with its original sin—that bottomless vile vent of rebellion and pollution was once and for all judged in the body of Christ in His death.
The Apostle does not relegate this doctrine of co-crucifixion with Christ to the realm of theory. He immediately plows it into practical use. The believer is to reckon, count, consider himself dead to sin and alive to God. He is to present the members of his body to God as instruments of righteousness (Rom 6:11-13).
How blessed this is to know that our fruitfulness as disciple-makers is tied to the Word of the Cross. For the message of Christ and Him crucified comes with assurances that the message of the Gospel is God’s power to all who believe.
The proclamation of Christ’s indestructible life and His intercession for us in His passion and His glory cannot fail to produce a life of true discipleship in the elect. As pastors; you and I need that assurance.
In the Corinthian correspondence, Paul was dealing with a local church that was not manifesting true discipleship. The problem in Corinth was that the believers there were still too attracted to the human strength and wisdom. In their spiritual immaturity and pride, they flirted with an earthly value system that was hostile to the cross of Christ.
False apostles from Jerusalem found the Corinthians all too ready to have their ears tickled by this fleshly value system.
By contrast, Paul stressed that true disciples of Christ are radically identified with Christ. They take their marching orders from the Lord; they operate by means of an eternal value system. The strong meat of the cross-centered life is their spiritual diet.
Paul spends much of the second epistle vindicating the genuineness of his apostleship. He does so by both exposing the fleshly value system of the false apostles AND by revealing his own motivations for ministry. When Paul opens his heart, we see that he abides at the base of the cross.
Paul made it known that his motivations for ministry were the polar opposite of the false apostles who preached earthly prosperity. Paul’s radical identification with Christ meant that “[He] was always carrying about in his body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus might be manifest in him” (2 Cor 4:10).
The Corinthians were in danger of being deceived by the false apostles. These false teachers from Jerusalem had motives tied to pride, vain-glory, boasting, human wisdom, and the approval of men. The world has always been transfixed by human strength, human honor, and human resources. Christ said, “That which is esteemed by men is detestable in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15).
How different was Paul. He only was seeking to prove to the consciences of the Corinthians that Christ was in him (2 Cor 13:3), and that all of his motives in ministry issued from the Person and work of Christ.
Paul’s point is that only Christ’s cross can produce the mindset of a true disciple of Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5, the Apostle expounds his motives for serving God, and he expounds the source of those motives.
D. Paul’s motive for service and discipleship was the controlling love of Christ. This motive issues forth in an action—the believer no longer lives for himself—he lives the life of a true disciple. “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf” (2 Cor 5:14-15).
Paul says that he is constrained or controlled—he is so affected by a sense of incarnate love as to be controlled. He makes the will of Christ the rule of obedience. The true Christian is controlled by a sense of divine love so as to consecrate his life to Christ. The one who lives supremely for family, science, world, mankind, or whatever else is not a Christian.
Christ died and rose on our behalf. That is, He died in our stead. The theology of this verse is more profound than merely the response of love to love. The cross has an inner consequence only understood in terms of substitution. He died for me as Substitute. He met the demands of justice for me (the basis and reality of my justification) – I died with Him (co-crucifixion is the basis for the whole possibility of my discipleship and sanctification).
The power of Christ’s cross is life-transforming. The sacrificial work of Christ is not merely an example of ultimate obedience for the disciple of Christ to emulate. The cross of Christ exerts the power tomake new creatures.
This is a profound truth in relation to discipleship because the cross of Christ produces actual changes in the sinner—changes which make the new believer willing to pay the cost of true discipleship!
Therefore we must fix in our minds that the cross provides each of the following three necessities for true discipleship. The cross provides the motivation to live as a disciple (we are controlled by the love of Christ); the cross provides the obligation to live as a disciple (we are to no longer live for ourselves); the cross provides the enablement to live as a disciple (we have died with Christ).
E. The nature of the atonement is learned from its effect – one effect is “therefore, all were dead” (lit. Grk). His death secured their death. Its design and effect limits (qualifies) the use of the word “all” in the preceding clause. Thus, “Christ died for all who died when He died” (Hodge, Mac Arthur, et al). Christ’s people are so united with Him that His death is their death (same argument as Rom 6:1-14 & Gal 2:20).
Dying with Christ involves death to sin and self and involves the obligation to die to sin and self. All who died with Christ receive the benefits of his substitutionary death. The specific character of the atonement -- it was for those who partake of that new life of which Christ’s resurrection is the pledge and pattern.
This is how Paul defends his conduct before the Corinthians. Christ’s love claims him in such a way that in relation to others, he can no longer exist for himself (in contrast, his opponents boast to the Corinthians that they are religious, spiritual, and something in themselves).
Paul wanted his readers to know that his old self-centered life was gone (now righteous, resurrection life). Paul’s disinterested motives are a result of the cross. God’s design in the atonement was to found the relationship with the sinner (design, choice, calling, relationship – Romans 8). Divine love proceeds from Christ and streams down to the elect producing conformity to their divine Head (Rom 8:28-29).
“Having concluded this” or “We thus judge.” This clause assigns the reason why Christ’s love exerts constraining power. Christ’s death not only placed the obligation for devotion, it secured that devotion!! (they died in Him). “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24).
F. Faith in His having died for us is the source and principle of the Christian life.
Paul’s motive—the constraining love of Christ—is followed by another action—as a new creature in Christ; he no longer judges according to the flesh (vv16,17).
To judge after the flesh means judging by the external, or outward side of life. Paul is saying that since his conversion, he no longer estimates any man by the world’s standard of judgment.
Paul exposes the error of his opponents with a powerful argument: his opponents used the same criterion of evaluation on Paul that the unbelieving Jews did on Christ! Christ’s weakness (as the suffering Servant and Savior) was a stumbling block.
Now that the cross was the center of Paul’s existence (through the cross Paul had obtained a new knowledge of Christ and a new set of values, and a new orientation).
Paul had known Christ “according to the flesh.” By fleshly judgment, Saul of Tarsus viewed Jesus as a crucified messianic pretender, cursed of God. When he saw Christ according to the flesh, he viewed Him as unbelieving Israel did (Is 53:3, 4).
Paul’s new values include his theology of the cross – to know the power of Christ’s resurrection, we share in His sufferings (we are like Him in His death) (Phil 3:7-14). Paul now recognizes that Christ’s suffering was vicarious—accomplished in the room and stead of Christ’s people. (On earth, Christ’s true identity as Lord of Glory was hidden behind weakened mortal flesh – But Paul now knows Christ as both suffering Messiah and exalted Lord of Heaven).
Union with Christ has transformed Paul—as a new creation, he has a different standard of judgment—old opinions, views, plans, desires, principles, affections have “passed away.” Now he has new views of truth, new apprehensions of his destiny and purpose.
The Spirit’s work in regeneration is a “first fruits” creative work that makes each believer a representative of a coming new world order! The transformation has affected a kingdom transfer (Col 1:13). Here we are, radically identified with the cross, yet citizens of the new heavens and the new earth (Phil 3:20-21). The recreated man in Christ is part of the new cosmos coming (the theme is replacement—new world, new body, new values).
With this perception comes a new standard of judging—the pretensions of the world sink into insignificance. A new creation by union with Christ is the ground of all our hope.
A true disciple, like Paul, is animated by Christ’s love and a true disciple does all his evaluating by means of kingdom values. Friends of the cross have an eternal value system. No man who sets his mind on earthly things can be said to be a friend of the cross (Phil 3:18-19).
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The Centrality of Christ in Discipleship - Part 3
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III. The Cost of Disciple-making
A. Paul’s disciple-making was by proclamation and by admonition (Col 1:28-29).
“And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom that we may present every man complete in Christ. And for this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.
According to Colossians 1:28-29, Paul’s message is not a system, but the glorious Person of Christ – “we” refers to Paul’s colleagues and Epaphras. Christ fulfills the deepest longing and hope of mankind. Christ is the source of new life in His people. “We proclaim” is the message of the resurrection (Acts 4:2); of forgiveness of sins (Acts 13:38); of Christ (Phil 1:17-18); of His death (1 Cor 11:26); of the mystery (1 Cor 2:1).
The Apostle teaches and admonishes – these are the two attendant circumstances or tones of Paul’s verbal ministry (and ours as well). To admonish is to address especially the will and the emotions. It includes the idea of warning. (Admonish – a putting in mind, it is used of correction and training in righteousness, whether encouragement, reproof, or warning – admonish contains instruction that addresses things that are wrong and call for warning and change – whereas teaching has to do primarily with the impartation of positive truth – Vines Theol. Dict. pp. 22-23)
The Greek word for admonish (nouthesia, noutheteo) is where we get our word fornouthetic counseling. Growing believers are to be adept at admonishment (Rom 15:14). This is a superb reminder that true discipleship contains the element of counseling and admonishment.
When we admonish, we bring to the attention of believers where repentance is needed—correct a wise man, and he will love you (Prov 9:8). “Remind them,” and “remember” are frequent terms in the Word of God. Act upon what you have been taught so as to love the truth and be conformed to it.
B. The goal of Christ-centered teaching is to present every man complete in Christ. Paul will not rest from this goal. This is the heart of everyone who seeks to shepherd God’s lambs. It is the heart of a disciple-maker. We labor so that each convert moves to maturity that he may be perfect, mature, complete, irreproachable and blameless at the coming of Christ.
“Perfect” means to have one’s heart wholly devoted to God so as to walk blamelessly before Him in His ways and His will (Rom 12:1-2). It is to be assured in all the will of God (Col 4:12). The true pastor/shepherd is not satisfied with anything less than the full maturity of every believer (1 Thess 5:23; 3:13).
C. The goal is to present all complete in Christ at the return of Christ. Such maturity in Christ is possible because of union with Christ. (Union with Him is the guarantee of conformity to Him – see Romans 6).
According to Colossians 1:28-29; Paul gave himself uncompromisingly to this task. In view of full perfection in Christ on the last day, Paul extends all energies in the exercise of his ministry. Conversion of individuals is only the beginning of growth. The “day of Christ” will test the quality of everyman’s work (1 Cor 3:10-15).
“I labor” – Paul exerts himself to the point of weariness. The Greek word for work here speaks of exhaustion from physical labor. In his pastoral efforts, Paul toiled day and night in the cause of the Gospel (1 Thess 2:9; 1 Cor 4:12).
Striving – The Greek (agonizomai) word is where we get our word agonize. In the Greek culture, the word was used of striving and struggle in an athletic contest in an arena. Though the context is different in this passage, the word still retains its original color of an athlete straining as he exerts.
According to God’s power – the struggle Paul, and we, are engaged in is according to the work of God’s power. The knowledge of God’s almighty assistance will shape the way we strive and think about our work of ministry. We have a supernatural work to do – it is beyond our natural powers. Supernatural power was at work in Paul and in every true believer.
God’s power is at work in His laborers – it is power and strength from above (Eph 1:19; 3:7; 16; 20; 2 Cor 3:5). We struggle, but according to God’s working. God is invisibly, but powerfully at work where Paul toils laboriously and energetically—it is also true of us (1 Cor 15:10; Phil 4:13).
APPLICATION: Faith in Christ is our link with the source of strength that enables us to rise above natural limitations. Let us not be tempted to constantly measure the size of our task against the weakness of our limitations. God desires through us to impart grace and glory to the recipients of our Gospel proclamation.
God actually refers to us as His “co-laborers” or “fellow workers” (1 Cor 3:9). Faith puts our eyes back on Christ instead of on our limitations and the smallness of our harvest. Endurance is needed if we are to reap! See 1 Corinthians 15:58 and Galatians 6:9.
Even the smallest earthly business venture requires planning, labor, and endurance, how much more so the work of God which lasts to eternity? There is a cost to disciple-making; but it is miniscule compared to the glory to come and the harvest that will surely follow our labors.
D. In our own disciple-making we are to follow Paul’s example of instruction, exhortation, and nurture (1 Thess 2:10-12). Great care is needed when handling the subjects of the law and sin. If growth is to be equated with more life, freedom, relationship, and righteousness, then we must not communicate that growth is merely mastering a code (God’s law).
Our emphasis should not be upon keeping the creed or the law, but upon living the life in the Son. It is so easy to burden and deaden with duty. Christ said that His yoke was easy and His burden was light (Matt 11:30). The child of God by definition is not under sin and law as a dominating, controlling, condemning force. He has passed from death to life—he is free from the controlling principle of sin and death.
In order to preach for growth in the inner ma (a necessary component of discipleship), we must deal with our listeners in their being alive! We must not make the Christian life an oppressive harness. Avoid generating a sense of condemnation. We must steer clear of forever talking about duty, focusing on failure, intensifying a sense of grievous disobedience, and deepening a sense of condemnation. This doesn’t promote growth.
If we hammer duty too much it can be a symptom of imbalance in our own ministry. Are we trying to make up for our lack of preaching to unbelievers? Are we seeking to assuage our sense of evangelistic failure by projecting our own sense of inadequacy on believers and imparting our sense of failure to them?
Great transparency before the throne of God is needed in the life and ministry of the preacher. Are we piling up precepts on our people? We must guard against “be good” sermons that leave the listener with the impression, “You have so many commissions to fulfill, so many duties to accomplish, will you ever catch up or measure up?.” To preach in this manner is to make them far from grace—it is to place them back under law. It builds a wall to separate them from the fullness of Christ (Hywel Jones).
Our entire eligibility for God’s favor is Christ; we have the Savior’s blessed availability—all by gracious donation. We must avoid grieving the hearts of the righteous. Sanctification is relational; it is living the life of toward-ness to God in Christ as His beloved possession, set apart for Him.
When promoting growth in the disciple, we are to press down the “die of truth” on the understanding and the affections. There are particular truths that promote growth. Make much of the love of Christ. The truth concerning His love is a constraining truth that promotes likeness to Him and conformity to His commands (as we saw in the previous section, The Cross of Discipleship). Our obedience is achievable by virtue of His energy. When we deepen these “indentations” by means of the die of truth, growth will result.
How easy it is to lose sight of the Lord Jesus Christ. Other things become central and He is marginalized in the process. Beloved, the Church thrives only when Christ has preeminence in all things.
Christian people are right and correct when they hunger to hear how perfectly suited Christ is for their every need (Heb 7:26, 27). Our preaching must hold Him before Christian people. Set Him before them as their “Source Person” and it will cause them to hunger for Him; feed upon Him; and yearn to be like Him.
Our strength and energy for obedience is the Person of Christ. He is to be preeminent and central in all of ministry. He is to have preeminence in everything. Don’t talk more about God than Christ (1 Cor 2:1-3).
The motivation for growth is the Gospel, not the Law. Use the Gospel to keep your people aware of what they owe, who they are, what they were, and where they are headed. The Gospel is the Christian’s “I.D, map, and compass” so to speak. The Gospel tells him what he was; who he is now; and what he will become. It tells him where he has come from; where he is now; and where he is headed. The Gospel provides a constant corrective to wrong thinking in any of these areas.
E. The precepts and laws of God must be filtered through Christ and Him crucified. Are we consciously seeking to bring our listeners to delight—so that in their affections they want to receive Christ’s love and law in their hearts? Our tendency as ministers is to make biblical commands stand alone from Christ’s finished work and present power.
But, it is the experimental knowledge of Christ’s love that gives us the disposition to love one another, and to bear one another’s burdens. His love gives us the disposition to please. His precepts give us the specifics of how to please God; He directs our love by His precepts. (We need to view our living the Christian life in this way instead of merely adherence to a code.)
We must understand that our being “in Christ” is our strength. Our union with Christ is vital, living, and organic; it is not merely federal representation. The mind of Christ is available, the might of Christ is available – we don’t have to fulfill a single command by ourselves, in our own strength. We operate in the realm of grace full and free. We cannot barter for God’s infinite goodness in Christ, we cannot exchange anything for it; it is still for nothing, it is still all of grace (Rom 5:1, 2). The dictates and absolutes of discipleship do not change this ruling principle of divine grace.
F. In order to press down these truths upon the minds and hearts of our hearers, we will have to speak in “three different tones.” This ministry of pressing down the die of truth has three “tones” or “strands” that function together. The Apostle Paul used them in conjunction (1 Thess 2:11). “Just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children.”
Exhorting: is to appeal by argument. It is not the same as laying down the law. It is face to face, side by side ministry as when the Apostle Paul acted as a spiritual father and mother. Laying down the law is not as effective, though it might seem so. By contrast, the exhorting pastor asks the question, “What will make people rise up, want to be more like Christ, and want to obey?” “What will make them more like Christ in attitude, word, and deed?”
Faithful shepherds keep exhorting. They are willing to patiently reason with the sheep—helping them build a case for obedience and a case against disobedience. We are not to assume that our people have thoroughly thought through the benefits of obedience; and the consequences of disobedience.
Encouraging: is to comfort humans in their frailty. Distressed minds and hearts need to be consoled. So many are distressed within and without. They are living with turmoil of soul, with stress, fear, anxiety, and condemnation. Even under the Old Covenant, the Levitical priest exemplified compassion and empathy (Heb 5:2, 3). How much more do we, under the new covenant, need to show compassion and empathy. We must not send the message that we have arrived spiritually. We can be too hard. Our own infirmities are always with us. Let us not be too censorious, too overbearing, or too demanding.
Sheep need continual encouragement. Our encouraging of hearts is not only to lift spirits and to comfort; but also to motivate the brethren to love and good deeds (Heb 10:25).
Imploring: is to warn the indifferent; it is to withstand the rebellious face to face. It is to confront in specific areas where obedience is lacking. We implore in the context of a “spiritual family.” We are to implore our people to go to perfection. Yet, some are not of us as the Apostle John cautions (1 Jn 2:19). If individuals persevere in disobedience, that sin might bring them to a point of irrevocable apostasy.
Disobedient believers must be taught to submit to the Heavenly Father’s discipline. In some cases of protracted disobedience in a believer, that correction from God may claim the health and life of the individual that their spirit may be saved in the day of Christ Jesus.
In all three of these tones (exhorting, encouraging and imploring), God is the One who is ultimately speaking. He is the One who calls us to call His people into His glorious kingdom. God is the one who is speaking through us His ambassadors (2 Cor 5:20). We are calling men to communion with Christ. We are setting forth the Son of God—and life in Him.
Christ is the gift of all gifts. We need to inculcate more longing and more yearning to know Christ and to be like Christ in Immanuel’s land. In order to preach to the life of God in the soul, we must preach and speak in all three tones: in speaking truth, we exhort, in communicating compassion, we comfort, in exercising firmness we warn.
The Apostle Paul spoke in all three of these tones and so must we if we are to pay the cost of disciple-making (1 Thess 2:11).
CONCLUSION: Paul was constrained by Gethsemene love—by the Savior who gave Himself for me. Paul’s motivations and values were produced by the cross. Christ’s love animated and controlled him. (Paul reckoned his sufferings to be a result of union with his Savior who suffered for him.)
In this epistles to the Corinthians, Paul takes a knife and lays open his heart. He tells us the reasons why he serves and ministers selflessly. By contrast, the Corinthians were restrained in their affections and transparency. They wouldn’t open their hearts to Paul, because they had carnal (fleshly motives).
Paul’s vindication of his Apostleship to his Corinthian readers is also an admonishment. Judgment day will be the revealing of motives (1 Cor 4:5). No wonder Paul always spoke of his motives.
This truth is directed at you and me. The question is not, “Are you motivated?” but, “What motivates you?” The motives that Paul sets forth are not merely the obligation of every believer,they are the marks of true discipleship – the evidence of union with Christ.
A true disciple dies to self in order to bear fruit says Jesus. He who places high esteem on the perishable will perish with it (he who loves his life in this world). A true disciple hates his life in this world—he does not love his life in this world (Jn 12:24-26).
Beloved it takes a death to produce self-renunciation in place of self-preservation. The first is instinctive and natural to us. The latter, including a willingness to suffer and die for Christ if need be, requires the supernatural work of the Spirit applied to a man.
A true disciple sees his Savior by faith as enthroned Conqueror—who has defeated the enemies of the saints. To be a disciple of Christ is to participate in Christ’s conquest—it is to be a fellow overcomer (Rev 2:7).
A disciple is consumed with the Person of Christ. A disciple has Kingdom values. He regards it to be his glory to bear the reproach of Christ (Heb 13:13-16).
A disciple practices Christ-centered looking and cross-centered living. He is constantly about the business of putting off the old man and putting on the new man—that’s what it means to become who you really are in Christ—a new man—a new creation.
A true disciple lives an exchanged life—he yearns to know Christ better and better. And it is by reckoning our union with Christ that we know the Savior ever better and become conformed to Him in the process of knowing Him.
A disciple is one who cherishes Christ above all else—Christ is His Pearl of infinite price—a genuine disciple will part with anything and everything to have Christ. Like the Apostle Paul; the true disciple reaffirms this decision each day to sell all that he might have Christ. He daily counts it an infinite privilege to know Christ—and therefore is willing to suffer the loss of all things and count them but dung in comparison to knowing Christ.
Can you say today; I owe my discipleship to the cross of my Savior? Can you affirm that the love and devotion you have for Christ is because His death was your death—your death to a selfish; self-centered; self-directed life? Do you live by faith in the Son of God? In your Christian walk, can you say that the preached Word of God is constantly mixed with faith and therefore it profits you unto eternal life?
Christ gave Himself to produce a certain guaranteed effect if you will. He gave Himself to this end—that His people might be redeemed from every lawless deed. He gave Himself so that His people might be purified for Himself—to be His own possession. And He gave Himself so that His people would be zealous for good deeds (Titus 2:14).
Christ’s cross cannot fail to produce the above effects in His people. This is so significant—we must let this sink in—namely that the cross-work of Christ will produce the mind-set of a disciple in His redeemed child. It cannot fail to do so.
Our exhortations to live the life of a disciple must be joined to the cross. In effect we are to exhort believers to be who they really are in Christ. “How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” (Rom 6:2). If God contemplates His children in the Son—then we must contemplate ourselves in Him. This is vital if we are to find our life direction in Christ.
In his own liberation from the world; and his consequent dedication to Christ—Paul was extremely careful to give all the glory to Christ and His cross. “But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal 6:14).
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