excerpts from MacArthur's "The Starting Principle of Discipleship" . . . . . . . .
If you
want to follow Christ, you want to be a Christian, do you? Here’s the
message. Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Him.
Do you
hear that in the contemporary gospel? Do you ever hear that? Do you
ever hear that in a message given by a television preacher or an
evangelist? Do you ever hear anybody say that? Do you ever hear
anybody stand up in a crowd and say, “If you want to become a Christian, slay
yourself, deny yourself all the things that yourself longs for and wants and
hopes for, be willing to die and slavishly submit in obedience to Jesus
Christ”? That doesn’t sell. That’s not smart marketing. It
just happens to be the truth.
So what
do you want to do? Get someone artificially converted? That’s the
popular way. Give people the illusion they’re saved when they’re not so
that some day when they face Christ they’re going to say, “Lord, Lord,” and
He’s going to say, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.” The gospel has to
be the gospel. You want to follow Me then? The principle is, it’s
the end of you if you want to follow Me. It’s the end of you. You
don’t exist anymore. Paul said it this way. “For to me to live is -
” what? “ - Christ and to die is - ” I’ve learned how to be abased and
how to abound. I’ve learned how to have things and not have things.
It doesn’t matter. If I live I live to the Lord. If I die I die
unto the Lord. What’s the difference? I’m the Lord’s.” That’s the
attitude.
Men
want glory. They want health. They want wealth. They want
happiness. They want all their felt needs met, all their human little
itches scratched. They want a painless life. They want the crown
without the cross. They want the gain without the pain. That’s how
people think. That’s not God’s interest. The author of our
salvation, according to Hebrews 2:10,
was made perfect through suffering, and so are we as well taken through the
crucible of suffering. And where we suffer, first of all, is in the death
of all hopes, all ambitions, all desires, all longings, all needs that are
human. That’s the point.
So you
want to be a Christian, it’s not easy. You’d think it was easy.
Today, if you want to be a Christian, pray these little words. Pray this
little prayer, and you’ll be a Christian. It’s not easy to be a
Christian. Let me show you some things.
Matthew 7:13.
This is, again, the teaching of our Lord. Matthew 7:13,
Sermon on the Mount, familiar words, verse 13, “Enter by the narrow
gate.” First of all, become a Christian, you’re going through a narrow
gate. The idea of narrow here means “constricted.” I mean, it’s one
of those things that you have to kind of go through. It’s very, very
tight. You can’t carry anything through it. You come through with
nothing. “There is a wide gate, but it leads to destruction.”
There’s
a wide religious gate, and people are going on with all their baggage, and all
their self needs, and all their self esteem, and all their desire for
fulfillment and self satisfaction, and all of that. They’re going on
there, but it doesn’t go to heaven, it says “heaven” but ends up in hell.
And many go that way.
But
there is also, verse 14, this very small, narrow gate and it leads to eternal
life, but notice this, “Few are those who find it.” And the idea is it’s
hard to find. And I agree that it’s hard to find. It’s especially
hard to find today. You can go to church, after church, after church,
after church, after church and never find it. It’s a very narrow
gate.
It’s hard to find and it’s hard to get through. Why?
Why is it so hard to find and why is it so hard to get through Answer,
because it’s so hard to deny yourself. So hard. That’s the reigning
reality in human fallenness, that man is the master of his own soul, the captain
of his own faith, that man is the monarch of his own world, that man is king
and to say he has to slay himself, deny himself, that’s too much to
swallow. You preach a gospel that doesn’t include that and people will
flock around to get out of hell into heaven. You start preaching the true
gospel that calls for total and absolute self-denial, the recognition that you
have nothing of which you are worthy, nothing of which you can be commended,
nothing in you that needs to be salvaged. But rather you’re willing to
slay everything you are, all your hopes, dreams, ambitions for the sake of the
pearl, for the sake of Christ and you’re coming on God’s terms. That’s
not easy. It’s hard, first of all, to find that truth and it’s even
harder once you’ve heard it to submit to it because man worships himself.
He’s his own god.
What we need to be telling people is not “come to Christ and
you’ll feel better about yourself,” is not “Jesus wants to meet whatever your
needs are.” Jesus doesn’t want to meet your needs, your worldly, earthly,
human needs. He wants you to be willing to say, “I will abandon all the
things I think I need for the sake of Christ.”
And
then Jesus told those two parables in Matthew 13:44-46.
He said there was a man who found a treasure hidden in a field and he saw the
value of the treasure and he sold everything for the treasure. Then he
said there was a pearl of great price, that the man found the pearl of great
price, he sold everything to get the pearl. It’s the selling everything
that is the essence of salvation. It’s I give up everything, I deny
myself, I offer my life both in terms of death, if need be, and in terms of
obedience in life. This is the message of the gospel. So when you
go to preach the gospel, that’s what you have to say.
Now,
you say, “But people aren’t going to buy that.” Well wait a minute,
people aren’t going to buy that, of course not, unless the Spirit of God is
working in their hearts, right? Unless the Spirit of God is doing the
work of conviction, and the Spirit of God is awakening the dead heart, and the
Spirit of God is generating faith, and then that’s the only true message that
connected with the work of the Spirit will produce true salvation. Don’t
reinvent the gospel to suit you. That’s what’s being done today.
