GREAT MULTITUDES OR DISCIPLESHIP?
Recently, I have thought a lot about the account of Jesus walking on the water in John 6 and Matthew 14. The story occurs right after Jesus fed more than 5,000 people with just a few loaves of bread and two small fish. I would like to explore a different aspect to this story, however, that is very easy to look past.
Matthew 14:22 reads, “And straightway Jesus constrained His disciples to get into a ship, and to go
before Him unto the other side, while He
sent the multitudes away.” We
see here two groups of people: the multitude, and Jesus’ disciples. We also see two very different ways in which
the Lord is dealing with them. He is
sending His disciples across the sea ahead of Him, but He is sending the
multitude away. The Lord seems very
deliberate in accomplishing these two tasks; and so He was, for He did nothing
in His ministry that was not deliberate.
Everything that Jesus did had both plan and purpose. We see in His actions, therefore, a clear
separating of these two groups. The word
“constrain” in this verse means “to compel.”
In other words, Jesus was not merely suggesting to the disciples
that they get in the ship and go; He was insisting
they do so.
It
must be understood that Jesus loved the multitudes that followed Him and had
great compassion for them. Scripture
says “... Jesus went forth, and
saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and He healed
their sick.” (Matthew 14:14). He
saw them as sheep without a shepherd, and He longed to lead them into the
safety of God’s fold. However, He also
understood the superficial nature of their attraction. Because He multiplied the loaves and fish and,
fed their hunger, they were ready to make Him their king; but Jesus said to
them, “Ye seek Me, not because ye saw the
miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour
not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto
everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you.”
It was not the multitudes
that Jesus spent most of His time with; it was His disciples. He opened the mysteries of the Gospel to
those whom He had chosen, and explained to them the meaning behind the parables
that He told. Of course, there were
those from among the multitude whose ears were opened to the Words of Life and became Jesus’ disciples; but, for the
most part, it was not about the crowds to our Lord. He wanted to see growth and maturity, faith
and commitment.
Jesus would often avoid the multitude in order to
accomplish His mission. “Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about
Him, He gave commandment to depart
unto the other side.” (Matthew 8:18).
“And seeing the multitudes, He
went up into a mountain: and when He was set, His disciples came unto Him.” (Matthew 5:1). I know this seems counterintuitive compared
to the strategy used by many Christian leaders today. In too many cases it is all about the
numbers. Men of God can boast about how
many people they had in attendance last Sunday, but how many of those attendees
are living lives of victory and are being transformed daily by the renewing of
their minds? Jesus said, “Fear not, little flock;
for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke
12:32).
“If ye continue in My Word, then
are ye My disciples indeed.” (St.
John 8:31). When Jesus began His earthly
ministry, He simply walked by those whom He chose and gave this simple
invitation, “Follow Me.” The result was that they dropped what
they were doing and did just that. Even
when Jesus laid down some hard truths for His disciples, they did not flinch,
but accepted their Lord’s teaching as the very Word of God. Peter expressed the reasoning behind this for
the whole group when he said to Jesus, “Lord,
to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words
of eternal life.” (John 6:68). It
is this hunger for the truth
and for the words of eternal life
that defines the true nature of discipleship.
Even more importantly, however, it is the realization that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of the Living God. There
is no other source for the Words of Life but Him. We must therefore “continue” in His
Word in order to truly be His disciples.
The Bible says that those who could not receive His Words “went back, and walked no more with Him.” (John
6:66). There are those today who may
still name the name of Christ, but they walk no more with Him.
Sadly, it is not always the
multitudes that will respond to the call of discipleship. This is why Jesus must send them away. Discipleship, by its very name, suggests
discipline; but vast numbers of people have no appetite for such a thing. They would rather claim Christ as Savior
while following their own agenda, and not Christ’s. Serving God on the basis of anything other
than the desire to follow Him and to leave our pasts and our sins behind, will not
be fruitful. It will make us religious in the same sense that the
scribes and Pharisees in Jesus’ day were religious, but will not change our
heart or our nature! It is not about an
outward form of godliness, or ritual, or even religious habits; it is about an
intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.
Christianity is about becoming like Christ. It is about growing, maturing, and
transforming into the image of the Son of God.
Jesus said, “He that hath My
commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me
shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to
him.” (John 14:21).
David said that God desires truth
in our inward parts. If we first
approach God with a willing heart, and trust His ability as a Master Potter to
mold us into the vessels that He desires for us to be, He will then indeed
transform us more and more into His likeness.
It is faith that we need! We are
told in St. Luke 8 that there was a multitude that thronged Jesus. They were all touching Him, and pressing upon
Him. One lady in the crowd believed in
her heart that if she could just touch the hem of His robe, she would be healed
of an affliction that had plagued her for 12 years. Out of all that crowd touching Jesus, it was
her touch on just His garment that stopped Him and made Him ask, “Who touched Me?” Her faith caused virtue to flow from Him
to her, and she was healed. Her faith
set her apart from the rest of the multitude who had also touched Him, but not
in faith.
At
one point Jesus said of the multitudes, “In
them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall
hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not
perceive: for this people’s heart is waxed
gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed;
lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and
should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal
them. But blessed are your [His disciples] eyes, for they see: and your
ears, for they hear.”
(Matthew 13:14-16). We don’t realize
sometimes what a great gift we have been given by God to be able to see and
hear spiritual truth! It is essential,
therefore, that we learn to be sensitive to the still, small voice of the Holy
Spirit in our lives.
In
Luke 14:25, there was a multitude with Jesus, and He turned to them and laid
out some requirements for discipleship. “If any man come to Me, and hate not his
father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and
his own life also, he cannot be My
disciple. And whosoever doth not
bear his cross, and come after Me, cannot
be My disciple.” (Luke 14:26, 27).
Unlike some preachers today, Jesus did not hesitate to define the cost
of discipleship to those who would follow.
If we are not willing to lose our life (that is, our own will), then we
cannot follow Him because He gave all.
There are crosses that we will be called to bear if we would follow our
Lord. Also, we may be opposed by our
fathers, mothers, children, brothers, and sisters; and they may try to dissuade
us from following where our Lord would lead us.
It is then that we must hate the influence that would turn us aside,
even if it is from a loved one! The
Apostle Peter learned this very hard lesson when he tried to convince the Lord
that He didn’t have to die on the cross.
Jesus looked at Peter, but addressed the evil spirit, when He said, “Get thee behind Me, Satan: for thou
savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.” (Mark
8:31-33). It was Peter’s affection for
Jesus that the enemy used to try to derail the Lord’s resolve. Though Jesus loved Peter very much, He
recognized the enemy’s scheme and had to call him out.
After
challenging the multitude with the cost of discipleship, He then illustrated
the need to be completely surrendered by telling two parables. In the first one, Jesus asked who among them,
if they were building a tower, wouldn’t first sit down and calculate the cost
to complete it to see if they had what it would take. Otherwise, when they got into the project and
found that they didn’t have what it took to finish, they would find themselves
mocked by those watching them. In the
second parable, Jesus asked what king who was going to war against a superior
force, wouldn’t first sit down and consider whether his smaller force could
defeat the stronger. Jesus then defines
the cost of discipleship for them by saying, “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple.” (Luke
14:25-35). It is going to take all that
we are. We have been bought with a
price: the precious blood of Jesus!
The
Lord finally told the crowd, “Salt is
good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for
the dunghill; but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” We are the salt of the earth, and the thing
that gives us our saltiness is our relationship with Jesus Christ. He is the Life that courses through us as we
walk in fellowship with Him. When that
fellowship is broken because of sin, we lose the essence of Jesus – our saltiness
– and our witness to the world then becomes ineffectual. This is why we must always be pressing toward
the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. This race that we are running is not a
sprint, but a marathon!
What about the other group in
Matthew 14? Remember that Jesus
compelled His disciples to get into the ship and head for the other side. This is something else that is significant
about discipleship: the Lord compels
us into situations that we would not choose for ourselves so that He can
increase our faith and show forth His glory in our lives. Truth is, Jesus knew that there was a bad
storm awaiting the disciples out on the sea that night. He wanted them to experience it so that they
would learn to trust in Him through the good and through the bad. If it had not been for the storm that night,
Peter would not have known that he could walk on water and overcome the storms
that life would bring him. Neither would
the other disciples know and understand that it is Jesus Who speaks to the
storms of life and says, “Peace, be
still.”
Jesus defined discipleship in one
other way in John 15:8. He said, “Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be
My disciples.” Fruit is very
important. It is how we can tell a
healthy tree from an unhealthy one (Matthew 7:17-20). Lest we be confused about what fruit is and
what it is not, the Apostle Paul lists many of the fruits of the Spirit life
for us in Galatians 5:22, 23. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance:
against such there is no law.” Some
things that are not fruit and so are
absent from this list are tradition, ritual, position in the church, titles,
and knowledge (for knowledge puffs up, but real love nurtures). “Things”
can be copied and mimicked, but true fruit can only be produced by the
working of the life of Jesus in the heart of the believer. Oh, we may falter from time to time, but the
idea is that we continue in His Word day by day so that we may “grow
up into Him in all things.”
We once hosted some young brothers
from another city at our fellowship meeting.
At one point, one of the brothers got up and said that he wanted to
demonstrate what the Christian life was like.
He then proceeded to take a couple of steps across the room, but acted
as if he tripped, and fell down on the floor.
Without hesitation, he jumped up and yelled, “I want to be like
Jesus!” After marching another few
steps, he fell again, but jumped back up and yelled, “I want to be like
Jesus!” He continued this way all across
the room, advancing a little further each time.
Needless to say, we all got the message, and it has stuck in my mind
ever since!
I guess all that remains is to ask
this question: will we be a disciple, or just one of a multitude who confess
His name but do not follow Him? Will we
let the Lord constrain us, instruct us, guide us, and show His glory in us; or
will He be forced to send us away? Let
us be among those who, with confidence and conviction say, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that Thou art
that Christ, the Son of the living God.”
It is He, and He alone, Who has the Words of Eternal Life.
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