What do disciples of Jesus do with their money?
Hi.
Welcome to Little Lessons.
So great to have you with me today.
For the past few episodes, we've been talking about the very important subject of discipleship,
what it means to be a disciple.
Hopefully, you're in full agreement with me that there are no two categories of Christians,
believers and disciples, that, in fact, all true believers in Jesus are disciples because
if you believe in Jesus, you're going to follow and obey Him and be willing to pay whatever
price that you have to in order to successfully follow Him.
Although His commands are not burdensome and His yoke is easy and His burden is light,
that's primarily because He's given us the Holy Spirit to help us bear the burden, and
fitting that in with the rest of the Scripture, sometimes, there's a huge price to pay for
following Jesus.
There have been millions of people who have suffered the ultimate for following Christ.
They gave their lives, but those of us who haven't given our lives, necessarily had to
give our lives, it's cost us friendships, it's cost us family members because we love
Jesus the most, and if our family doesn't like Jesus, they're not going to like us anymore
either.
Some of us, it's cost us our job because we're unwilling to do something unethical that was
required of us in order to be employed at a certain place.
It certainly has cost every disciple money, and why do I say that?
Well, I say that because that's one of the requirements to be a disciple.
Everything comes under Christ's Lordship, including all money and all possessions.
We've been reading in Luke 14, Jesus' three requirements to become His disciple.
One is you gotta hate your loved ones, the second one is you gotta carry your cross.
Believe that's symbolic for willing to embrace suffering.
Jesus continues in Luke 14 about the whole idea of counting the cost, verse 28 of Luke
14, "For which 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,
is not able to finish, all who reserve 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 would 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 ask for terms of peace."
The whole point of those two illustrations that Jesus gave were simply don't start unless
you're willing to see it through to the end.
Don't get into the battle if you don't think that you can win.
Count the cost.
When Evangelist call people to make quick-o quickie decisions for Jesus and pray a little
sinner's prayer, they're really doing them a great disservice.
They outta be telling them consider.
If you decide to follow Christ, here are what could be the consequences because here's what
Jesus said that it takes to be His disciple.
Now, let's continue because I don't want to forget what were talking about, the whole
idea of our money.
Verse number 33, Jesus says, "So then none of you can be my disciple who does not give
up all his own possessions."
We have to love Jesus more than our loved ones, more than our own life, more than our
comfort and convenience, and now, last, we have to love Jesus more than our possessions.
As obedient disciples, everything that we thought we owned, now He owns, and we have
to listen to Him as to what to do with it.
Well, we know, of course, that Jesus has things for us to do with our money, and one of those,
of course, is to care for the least of these.
Remember in Matthew 25 where Jesus talked about the future judgment of the sheep and
the goats.
The very thing determined whether or not people were saved and were welcomed into the Kingdom
or unsaved and cast into hell was did they sacrifice their time and their resources for
the least of these whom Jesus defined as those who were suffering within His body, people
who didn't have food or clothing or water, people who were sick, people who were imprisoned,
and so forth.
There's no escaping this.
No, no escaping this.
Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ?
Well, you can answer that question by answering this question: Does my checkbook reflect that
I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ, because nobody can say to you God requires this percentage
and no more or no less.
I mean, some people try to focus in on the tithe, but Jesus said, "Don't lay up treasures
on this earth."
A true disciple is trying to lay up little on this earth and a lot in Heaven because
that's what Jesus taught.
That's what He commanded.
Don't lay up treasure.
Lay them up in Heaven.
Everybody has to wrestle with this individually.
I know that, and so I'm not going to set any rules or regulations or percentages or tell
you what kind of a car you can or cannot drive or how big of a house or that type of thing,
but if this is not a part of your Christianity, that is, stewardship, which I won't submit
to you, honesty, it's not part of a lot of people's stewardship.
Not part, I should say, not part of their Christianity.
They don't ever care.
They never talk about caring for the poor within the body of Christ, and they're not,
their checkbook doesn't reflect that they care.
Jesus said, "When you do it to the least of these, my brethren, you'll do it unto me,"
and to the goats, He said, "You didn't do it for me, and you didn't do it for the least
of these, so you didn't do it for me."
This is our opportunity to show our love for Jesus by loving the least of these in whom
He is dwelling.
Suffering brothers and sisters in Christ.
You can see, I hope, from these Little Lessons that a lot of people who think that they're
believers in Jesus aren't really believers in Jesus.
They're believers in some kind of Jesus, but not in Bible-Jesus because if they believed
in Bible-Jesus, they'd be disciples of Jesus, and it'd be reflected by their lives and what
they do with their time and their money and so forth.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Good things to think about.
Take a look yourself at Luke 14:25-35, and our next lesson, we'll finish this out.
God bless.