Cost Of Discipleship - Part 1

Let's read some verses from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians chapter 3 and reading from verse 1. First Corinthians chapter 3 reading from verse 1. And I brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat for hitherto you were not able to bear it neither yet now are you able for you're yet carnal for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions are ye not carnal and walk as men for while one saith I am of Paul and another I'm of Apollos are ye not carnal who then is Paul and who is Apollos but ministers by whom ye believed even as the Lord gave to every man I have planted Apollos watered but God gave the increase so then neither is he that planteth anything neither he that watereth but God that giveth the increase one of the most forgotten men in the church at least amongst the so-called great men was a man by the name of Henry Varley he was a great preacher and on one occasion he shot out a statement which has come a kind of become a kind of classic in the vocabulary of preachers he said the world is yet to see what God can do through one man who is totally committed to Jesus Christ well it was a kind of a narrow shot at a venture but in the audience there was a young man he he wasn't very learned his education was almost zero but he kind of caught that thought as it went past no no man the world has not yet seen a man who is a hundred percent committed to Jesus Christ and so he said under his breath well by the grace of God I'll be that man all he did was sell shoes in a store there in Chicago and some of you know him I'm sure his name was D.L. Moody you know when I think of that I always take issue with it because I'm quite sure that that was not a true statement the world is yet to see are you suggesting God had had to wait two thousand years that Jesus had to find a man that he could totally inhabit because all self and sin had been purged out of him and his will had been surrendered and his personality he was a love slave to God why right at the beginning of history Christian history there was a man who was so totally sold out to God that we I don't think I've ever seen his like since you remember his story begins as far as we're concerned going down the Damascus road and in the 26th of Acts where he gives his testimony before a gripper he doesn't cover the blemishes he doesn't try to minimize the the wicked zeal that he has he doesn't say I'm sorry and trembling and blushing that I have to admit that I was a murderer he says I went down that road and I was going to exterminate the whole church of Jesus Christ being exceedingly mad he says not just mad he was blazing with anger to think that some people were following a man who died on a cross to think they wouldn't go to the temple and offer sacrifices and regard the high priest and go through all the different and very wonderful things on the calendar of the church or their church but going down that Damascus road God got hold of that murderer and made him a messenger he got all of the persecutor and made him the greatest preacher ever he got he got hold of the executor and made him the greatest expounder of the gospel that the world has ever seen he says giving his own testimony that when he went down that Damascus road that the Lord appeared unto me he revealed himself to me that later he says he revealed himself in me he daringly says over and over you remember Galatians 2 20 quote it so often that I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I believe yet not I but Christ liveth in me I believe that's the most awesome thing any man can say this side of eternity not that he walked on the moon not that in me who's who the only who's who I'm insisted in God's who's who when we get up there there'll be some shocks I think the greatest thing that could ever cross your lips is to stand and say to the world the flesh the devil the in-laws and outlaws Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh not when I shuffle off this mortal coil as Shakespeare says but the life I now live in the surrounded with all the adversities and temptations and trials and all the things that can come and yet Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me Paul has an amazing pedigree he forgets it all as he ends his letter to the Galatians he says in the 14th verse of chapter 6 but God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ by which the world is crucified to me and I am crucified to the world now there's a thing you and I've never seen we have never seen the agonizing death of a man on a cross oh well of course in the days of the Romans it was a sport immediately a man was nailed to the cross he lost all his rights and if you ever get nailed to the cross you lose all yours too immediately was nailed on the cross and he was exalted the people could do as they like they could throw a bucket of filth on him they could throw their rotten eggs they could stone him he had no rights and before he died his eyes would be gouged out his ribs would be broken blood would be dripping from him and everybody got excited particularly if it was a kind of a rabbi who was there he deserves all he gets he's destroyed other people's lives he's raped people he's broken people's minds and and so they go on with a list of things and he'd done and he should die a thousand deaths but as soon as the bell tolled in the city they didn't stay there they went back into the city at six o'clock they could see that bleeding victim there was nobody there at six o'clock in the morning on the arms of the cross with the vultures they pick out the eyes they tear the body the blood would run out then the dogs came out of Jerusalem and licked up the blood as they did the blood of Jezebel nobody wanted to photograph it they didn't have photography but nobody wanted to see it a bloody spectacle a man whose innards were hanging out a man whose body is so distorted you could hardly tell it was a human frame it had been lashed with rocks it was covered with filth it had only excrements and every other offensive thing and Paul says when i said goodbye to the world i said goodbye to a filthy thing the world is crucified to me it's a filthy world it's a corrupt world but not only that he says i'm crucified to the world people would say of the apostle paul here's a man he's got acres of culture he's got a colossal intellect he'll be a greater high priest than hillel or any other high priest ever had in history and the fool of a man he's been so charmed with this christianity that he's resigned all that he could have in the world