The Gospel of Luke 14:25-27 & Acts 14:19-22 Disciples before & after the cross
Luke 14:25-27 · Vern Peterman · Aug 9, 2015
Gospel of Luke, No. 37
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926511327063

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. This morning we're going to be in the Gospel of Luke and in the Book of Acts. We're going to be in both of these places and the reason is we're on the campout Sunday here. We do something that's harmonious with the passage we're studying, but also different. in that it's not in the usual sequence of the passages.

And the surprising thing is, as we look at the word disciples, we find a very curious pattern in the Bible. And that is, the disciples are mentioned, it's a word disciple or disciples, are mentioned in the New Testament. In the Gospels, all four Gospels, and then in the book of Acts, and then never again in the rest of the New Testament. In the Gospels, the pattern that we find is that the church is not in view. and the disciples are all under a rabbi. Jesus was essentially a rabbi. It was in a legal context. In the book of Acts, however, we find from chapter 6 to chapter 21, there are disciples but no rabbis teaching them.

And after Acts, however, the word disciple or disciples is not found even once in the entire New Testament. So there's a very distinctive pattern there, and we'll be taking a look at that this morning. We see the verb form, however, of disciples all the way from the Gospels into the letters of the New Testament. And so that curious pattern is what we'll be looking at here this morning.

There were Jewish disciples and church disciples. The Jewish disciples were challenged to total commitment. It was possible to be an observant Jew without being either a rabbi or a disciple. The focal point of all those disciples and rabbis was the Law of Moses. That was the traditional pattern here. We could look at, for example, Joseph, Jesus' stepfather, if you will.

He was a righteous man, Matthew 1.19 says that, but he was, so far as we know, neither a rabbi nor a disciple.

So the curious thing about this disciples In the Gospels is that it didn't mean if you weren't a disciple That you weren't observant or righteous In the church However, we find it consists of all who believe both Jew and Gentile and all are called disciples the Apostles came to discover and to teach that the church disciples are not under law at all.

This was something the apostles learned over time. Here's on the day of Pentecost, when the church began, Peter and all the apostles were still under the perception that this new gospel under Christ was a Jewish thing, and that they were still under law. It wasn't until about roughly a decade later that Peter, actually the first one to discover that he was not under law, and then he had to introduce that idea to the rest of the apostles, and it wasn't until Acts 15, about a little over halfway through the book of Acts, when they discovered, you know, we're not going to put law on the Gentiles at all. And they began to discover, too, through the ministry of the Apostle Paul, that none of them were under any law. Now, let's talk about discipling. The Greek word for discipling is most often translated as learn, or its various forms, learned, learned, learning, et cetera.

It's used in a Jewish context in the Gospels, again under law. learning between a rabbi and his disciples. So that was the Gospels context there. Jesus, for example, in Matthew 11, 29 says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. That's that Greek word for disciple in the verb form. What's interesting is a lot of people read that and they will see, oh, take my yoke upon you and learn from me as Jesus' words exclusively.

The truth is that lots of rabbis referred to taking the yoke upon them. Lots of rabbis. This is typical rabbi language. And the difference, however, was that taking the yoke upon you for most of those rabbis, those other rabbis, had to do with the focus on the law. Take my yoke upon you and I'll teach you about the law."

That's what they were saying. The word is used for learning among and by church saints, without reference to a rabbi or the law or any principle of law, and learning may be from one or more people. Ultimately, the believer is, as we'll soon see here, a disciple of Christ, no matter how many teachers or who the teachers are. The believer is a disciple of Christ.

The other thing to recognize is lots of Jewish figures of speech. Another critical point in properly understanding Jesus' words about discipling is that Jesus used Jewish figures of speech. And many do not see that or understand it, and therefore take things literally that are actually figures of speech. And we'll see in the passage that Wayne read for us here, and we'll see as we read here, that understanding those Jewish figures of speech is important. As with any figure of speech in any language or culture, if not understood properly, the figure of speech will bring the person to the wrong conclusion, or I should say the wrong confusion.

I have this picture here. If you're joking or teasing somebody, what do we say in English? You're pulling my leg. In Spanish, it's not you're pulling my leg, it's you're pulling my hair. In German, different figure of speech, you're carrying me on your arm. That's the German figure of speech.

So we have figures of speech that are used in particular languages and cultures. And it's important to recognize those figures of speech when we read those in the Bible. The rabbis tended to use lots of figures of speech when they were talking to their disciples because a lot of those figures of speech were intense things that would be more memorable because of their intensity. And so we'll take a look at some of those.

Because Jesus' words about being a disciple are in a Jewish, Mosaic, law-based system in Israel, while we in the body of Christ are not ethnic, that is, it's neither Jew nor Gentile, with grace in the reigning principle. That's why we're not to take it personally. We don't, as many do, look at, say, the Red Letter edition. It's like those are super inspired. So those are super inspired words when in fact many of the things that Christ said was said in a law-based context in Israel to Jews at a time when the law was applicable.

So many of those things that are in our red letter editions are things that don't directly apply to us in the church. We must look carefully at Jesus' words about being a disciple considering carefully what applies to us and what does not apply to us in the church, the body of Christ. So we have to ask the question, is this just rabbi speak that Jesus is saying, or is it a special message from Jesus? When we read Jesus' invitations and challenges to his disciples, we see what other rabbis would say and discern what is different from what other rabbis would say.

For example, we looked earlier at the yoke. Rabbis commonly would talk about, take my yoke upon you. But their meaning was they were going to give the law and the principles of the law and all the added rules about the law to their disciples. They meant something different.

Jesus did and said many things that were different from other rabbis, as well as some things that were in common. And why did he do that? Because while Jesus was in fact a rabbi, Nicodemus came to Jesus at night and acknowledged Him as a rabbi. He was also the true King of Israel, which no other rabbi was, the Savior, which no other rabbi was, the Messiah, which no other rabbi was, and deity, which absolutely no other rabbi was. Jesus did, in fact, teach law, but he taught it differently. He taught his Jewish disciples the law of Moses, true and straight. That did not include all the traditions that the other rabbis had added to the law of Moses.

Example, on the Sabbath, you're not supposed to do any work, right? So the rabbis had 39 considerations of what was work. 39, you got that memorized? 39 considerations as to what was work plus a list of exceptions. And healing on the Sabbath was not in their list of exceptions. So they made it very complicated. And to study under most of those Jewish rabbis was a very complex and complicated and conflicted set of learning.

Jesus healed repeatedly on the Sabbath. As a matter of fact, he healed intentionally on the Sabbath. On the day that Jesus was at the synagogue at Capernaum. He cast a demon out of a man there at the synagogue. He went from there, just a short walk away, over to Peter's house and healed Peter's mother-in-law. He healed people and cast out demons as many as he could until sundown that Sabbath.

Why? It's because he purposely and intentionally wanted to cast off all those 39 rules, considerations as to what was allowable on the Sabbath, and the list of exceptions. He purposely, purposely defied all those extra rules. He did not instruct his disciples in all those man-made rules and considerations. And that bothered a lot of the other rabbis and Jewish leaders a great deal.

He also spoke against loopholes in the law. Some of the loopholes were things like what you swear about. I swear about this and I swear about that. And as long as you swore by certain things, and it could sound very genuine, you could actually tell people lies. as long as you took the loopholes that were allowed. He spoke against loopholes in the law.

So here we have Luke 14, 25-27, Now large crowds were going along with him, and he turned and said to them, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yet even his own life he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple."

Imagine that. Okay. So, hate your family, right? And make sure you carry this cross thing around. Is that right? Let's take a look at that. Now, wait a minute here. I thought the fifth of the Ten Commandments says, honor your father and mother, right? Well, in fact, it does. Exodus 20, 12 says exactly that. Honor your father and mother.

So what's this hate thing all about? Is a disciple really to hate his father and mother, his wife and children, brothers and sisters? Is that exactly what we're supposed to be doing? No. It is a Jewish figure of speech. Love for Jesus, for those disciples there, that he was speaking to in the Jewish context is to be so great that love for the dearest family is, comparatively speaking, hate. Here's Luke 9, 23, and he was saying to them all, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. And that is the positive statement.

What we find in Luke 14.27 is the negative statement. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Now, is that for you?

Are you supposed to go around and carry this cross thing? Now, what typically was a custom among the Romans was they had this cross piece, not the whole cross, this cross piece called the patibulum, and they would tie that onto the person's back and they would carry their cross. Jesus, when he was carrying his cross, was actually carrying the cross piece and he collapsed under it. So they made Simon of Cyrene pick up that cross piece, that patibulum. So here would be the patibulum, would be the cross piece, and the vertical piece was the stipes. And so that would be there in place, and the person would have to carry that cross piece, the patibulum, up to the place where they're being crucified. We, however, in the body of Christ, are in a very different place.

Here's Galatians 2.20, written by Paul, who had been trained under the rabbi Gamaliel. We'll talk about that in a minute. I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. So for the Christian believer, we're in a different place altogether. Rather than taking up our cross daily, we've already been crucified. It's already done.

And who did the crucifying? God is the one who had Christ crucified and us with Him. We have been identified with Christ, as scripture puts it, in five ways. Crucified, so as to be dead. Buried, raised, ascended, and seated. And the first one of those is that we've already been crucified. We do not have to take up our cross daily because we've already been crucified. We daily have to by faith consider ourselves already crucified rather than taking up our cross daily. I was crucified not on my cross but his cross. The focal point is his cross and what he accomplished.

Living each day means more than just following Jesus by my most dedicated self-effort. And it is Christ living his life in and through me that God intends, not my taking up my cross daily. If you were to follow as a Christian believer what Christ told his disciples, take up your cross daily, you would be ignoring the fact that you're already crucified with Christ. Isn't that amazing?

So the question is, is it my cross or Christ's cross? If I'm daily carrying my cross, then it's my own accomplishment, and I have to keep on doing it. The fact that I carried my cross yesterday and today is so far so good, but I have to keep on doing it day after day after day, and it's my accomplishment, and I have to look at what I am doing. In truth, this carrying one's cross daily was a figure of speech. Do we find any of the disciples going about carrying a cross like this? No. None of them. None of them. So even the disciples considered it, and Jesus meant it, as a figure of speech, not a literal, take this cross up and carry it every day. Christ's cross, however, was no figure of speech.

It was a real cross. If you had been there that day, you would have seen that it was a real, genuine cross on which he made all the accomplishments in the spiritual realm. This last Good Friday, we went through and talked about all the different things that he accomplished on the cross. There were a number of them. The one we're looking at here is we have been crucified with Him. That was also a part of His accomplishment. My call is to believe in Him and His cross accomplishments. And you can go ahead and be cross-eyed.

Here's Luke 14, 28-33, for which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, This man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with 10,000 men to encounter the one coming against him with 20,000? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.

So then, none of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his own possessions." Okay, how many of you have signed up to do this? Any volunteers? Let's take a look at it. Let's look at calculating the cost of a tower and the assessment of a king. In this first example, Jesus spoke about calculating the cost of a tower to see if there are enough funds to finish it. It's as simple as that.

This is the reconstructed watchtower at Nazareth village. It was one that we visited over there in Israel. They in fact, when they did their archaeological survey, found that there was in fact a watchtower right there, and so they reconstructed the watchtower based on the one that they had found archaeologically. And so it's right in that spot. It may well be that Jesus actually had watchtower duty at this particular watchtower, which is just right on the outskirts of Nazareth.

In the second example, a king assesses his troops versus his military opponent's troops before the battle, and then decides how am I going to conduct myself based on assessing things. One point these examples make is that Jesus favors careful assessment and thought to know the will of God. Isn't that interesting? Careful assessment and thought to know the will of God rather than feelings, mystical signals, hunches, experiences, right? And so that's one thing to consider there.

How about this giving up all your possessions? So did the twelve disciples give away or otherwise get rid of everything they owned? Is that what they did? It's in fact not what they did. One of the things that they retained ownership of was the boats that they had had initially for fishing. They retained ownership and in fact used those throughout Christ's ministry. So no, they didn't give away or otherwise get rid of everything.

Jesus' point is not that his disciples must get rid of everything, but that things can't be first. That's the difference. They must be willing to give things up, but the ultimate lesson is not get rid of everything, but things cannot be first. Things and possessions can't get in the way of being a disciple. That was his point.

So the boats that some of the disciples owned were not sold off or given away. They instead were used for ministry purposes. used for ministry purposes, and even various lessons all the way up to after the resurrection involved those boats. They didn't get rid of them. When they were going across the Sea of Galilee, and Jesus called them the storm, they were going in the boats that they owned, and still owned. After Jesus' resurrection, they went fishing. And there was the event where Jesus said, put the nets on the other side. after the sun was already coming up and then the nets were full. They had nets and they had boats still.

Here is Peter's house in Capernaum. They have on the right hand side there the synagogue and then over here on the upper left this is where Peter's house was located. He still had a house. So it wasn't get rid of everything. It wasn't sell it all off, give it away. It was a matter of these things can't be first. That was the real lesson here for the disciples. So now we're going to shift gears.

Let's talk about the disciples in Acts, because the word disciples continues to be used in the book of Acts. The church, the body of Christ, began on the day of Pentecost and that's recorded for us in Acts chapter 2. And so we have Peter presenting the gospel to the Jews that were gathered there from all over the Roman Empire and even outside the Roman Empire.

The word disciples first began to be used of the church saints in Acts 6.1, but it's used very differently in Acts.

In Acts 9.1, we read the term the disciples of the Lord. So even though they had human teachers of different kinds, and certainly the apostles, Ultimately, the believers were seen as disciples of the Lord, which is a very important point. Paul even expressed concern for the believers in Corinth, because they were following this man or that man, instead of seeing themselves as disciples of the Lord.

In Acts 11.26 we read additionally, the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.

Now this Antioch is this one over here on the eastern part of the Mediterranean, Antioch on the Orontes River. And so that's to be distinguished from the one in Antioch that is over in Galatia that is also mentioned. So here's Acts 14, 19 through 22. But the Jews came from Antioch, that's the one in Galatia, and Iconium.

And having won over the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. But while the disciples stood around him, he got up and entered the city. The next day he went away with Barnabas to Derbe. After they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God."

So we have these other cities, Antioch that's in Galatia, and Iconium and Lystra and Derby mentioned in this passage. Where there's two different places that have the same name, we actually have that in this country. There's actually about six Denver's in the United States, for instance.

So that was the situation then. In verse 20, the ones who had just become believers, I mean they were brand new believers, were called disciples. And in verse 21, those who just believe the gospel that was presented were immediately called disciples.

So disciples in the book of Acts was anyone who believed as opposed to in the gospels with Jesus' earthly ministry, where the word disciples is used of a particular category of those who are dedicated to be under his teaching as a rabbi. There is no challenge put to these baby believers in order for them to be disciples. There's no challenge like, unless you so-and-so and so-and-so, you can't be my disciple. None of that. All they did was believe that Christ died for their sins, was buried and rose again, and immediately they're called disciples. A very different use of the word disciple. It's the same word in the Greek and in English. but it means something very different in a church context.

One of the things we also see is encouraging them to continue in the faith. While Jesus said that nobody could be his disciple unless they continued with him all the way, remember this is the lesson of calculating the cost of the tower, this is the lesson of the king who is counting his troops versus his opponents, In this case, these disciples are all encouraged to continue in the faith. Now, the faith in the New Testament is a specific set of teachings of the Apostles. It starts in Acts chapter 6 and continues on into the book of Revelation. Used numerous times, the faith means the set of teachings of the Apostles. and it's used repeatedly by the Apostle Paul and on into Jude and Revelation. So through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. So does this mean that we have to go through many trials to prove that we should be saved? Does this mean that entering the kingdom of God is getting saved?

Oh, you want me to answer that? Okay. The reality is, we'll step through this chart here. We've got the first coming of Christ, then the Church Age, the rapture, the taking up of the Church to be with the Lord, followed by the Tribulation period, and then the second coming when angels will come.

We will come with Him. There will be a great resurrection of Old Testament and Tribulation saints at that time. And then we'll follow what we call the millennial kingdom, the thousand-year reign of Christ, and the same term as the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. That's the statement that he's making about the kingdom of God.

We must enter that kingdom after having a number of tribulations after we've been saved, not in order to be saved. So, why are there no disciples after Acts? Very interesting. Disciples are used from Acts 6 to 21. Those chapters. And never again in the entire New Testament. Not even once. Paul, when he writes to the churches, when he writes to individuals, he does not use the word disciples ever in his letters. disciple or disciples. It never shows up again.

Isn't that interesting? The Bible doesn't say why the word disciple or disciples does not occur after acts. It doesn't say why the verb form occurs from the Gospels on into the letters. The Bible doesn't tell us the answer to those questions. But there is an important pattern in the verb form in the New Testament. Learning in the New Testament is in the active voice. We are to learn actively and not passively. So are you moving around in your pews? No. But that's a very interesting pattern here.

Here's Philippians 4.9, the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you.

These verbs, learn, received, heard, and seen, those all refer to different ways of learning, don't they? And in truth, you may have noticed that you particularly learn from things that you see or things that you hear or the combination. One of the things I've noted to Nancy, for example, is that I tend not to learn by straight audio. I tend to learn by reading it, seeing it, or the combination of audio and vision, but not straight audio. Different people will have different learning styles. But no matter how you learn, no matter how you learn, all these are in the active voice. It's an active process rather than a passive one.

No matter who, however, Or how many are your teachers and shepherds in the body of Christ? We are all ultimately to be Christ's disciples. Christ's disciples, and growing in the grace and knowledge of Him, and by means of His Word. Paul did not want his disciples, even though they looked to him for these learning points, He did not want the people that he was teaching to look to him ultimately, but to Christ. It's growing in the grace and knowledge of Him, not some particular person, even if it's an apostle. Growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ by means of His Word.

That's what God has in mind. Let's pray. Lord, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for this amazing pattern that You put in place. that you have had disciples defined differently in the Gospels and in Acts, and then even used it differently again in the rest of the New Testament. And it is apparent, because the difference is absolute, that that was your intent. That's what you had in mind. And Lord, we thank you that by your very intent, we can grow in the grace and knowledge of you. We just pray in Jesus' name. Amen.