[00:00] Speaker 1: Today on The King Is Coming...

[00:02] Speaker 2: To say you believe in Jesus is more than just saying it. It's more than just thinking it. It's actually a commitment of our life. We're trusting in His finished work on the Christ alone, but we are giving ourselves to Him. (instrumental music plays) What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? And what kind of disciple will thrive in the last days? That's next on The King Is Coming. (instrumental music plays) What if you could take your worship to the next level? Would you be interested? In our series The Essence of Worship, we discover the key elements that help us understand how to be a worshiper of God and how to connect with more intimacy with Jesus Christ.

[01:01] Speaker 1: For any gift of $45 or more to The King Is Coming, get your copy of this inspiring seven-part DVD set, The Essence of Worship. Call the number on your screen or go to thekingiscoming.com now. Thank you.

[01:14] Speaker 2: Have you given your tithe yet? You can do so here at The King Is Coming. God bless. (piano music plays) (instrumental music plays) We're beginning a brand new series today on The King Is Coming called the Seven Marks of a Last Days Disciple. And the reason why this series is so incredibly important for us is because we truly are living in the last days. It's important for us as believers to recognize where we are in God's grand prophetic narrative, and as a result of that, to be able to structure our lives and our hearts to be able to maximize our greatest influence for the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, as we look around us, we see that we are living in, I believe, the last of the last days. In 1 John 2:18, John says, "Little children, it is the last hour." Well, if it was the last hour when John was alive, then certainly we're living in the last moments of time. And so we look around us in the world, we see so many signs of the times that are really emerging, they're ramping up.

[02:23] Speaker 2: They're, they're like little tributaries, uh, leading into a grand river of God's, uh, prophetic narrative. Uh, you see technology ramping up, making the mark of the Beast feasible. You see globalism encroaching on all nations in the world today. You see, of course, Israel, uh, being reborn as a nation. Uh, you see wars and rumors of wars as Christ, uh, spoke of in Matthew 24. Uh, there's famine, there's, there are earthquakes. Uh, there's the Jewish temple, uh, that the Temple Institute, uh, is wanting to, to rebuild. And so there's so many things that are happening right now that have never happened in the last 2,000 years that tells us that we're living in the last days. So what kind of disciple, uh, what kind of disciples do we need to be in these last days? Well, again, we're gonna cover seven different characteristics, seven marks of a last days disciple. So let's go ahead and jump right into it with mark number one, and it's this: A last days disciple must believe in Jesus.

[03:26] Speaker 2: You say, "Wait a minute, Jeff. I- isn't that the whole idea of being a disciple, uh, that you believe in Christ? Uh, i- isn't that who we are to begin with?" Well, yes, that's true, but there are so many people today who don't understand what it means to believe in Jesus. You know, some might say, "Well, I, I believe in Abraham Lincoln. I, I believe in George Washington. I believe in, that World War II happened." But these things are just mental assent, uh, to facts, and Jesus is looking m- more, for more than just mental assent. In fact, let's go to a famous verse here, and let's dig down to what it exactly means in terms of what it means to, uh, to put our faith in Christ. John 3:16. I'm gonna read it here. It says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." So what can we learn from this passage?

[04:19] Speaker 2: Well, obviously we learned that God gave His Son, that God sent the Son to the Earth, and that Jesus Christ provided salvation for us, but just the provision of salvation is not enough to make us a disciple. Uh, the Bible says that we have a responsibility, and that responsibility is to believe in Christ. Now, once again, the English word believe has, has many different meanings, but here, biblically, it, it's the, it's the Greek word pistis, P-I-S-T-I-S, and this Greek word means to trust in something. It means to rely in s- on something. It means to cling, uh, desperately, uh, to something. Uh, it means to adhere to something. Uh, I think about when I go to the beach and I go to these, these big piers that are on the beach, and, and when you go to the piers, underneath them, they have these, these grand columns that support the piers, and all over these piers are these things called barnacles, and the barnacles have just made themselves, uh, a part of the pier.

[05:19] Speaker 2: They are clinging, uh, to the pier. And there's a sense in which we trust in Christ that way. There's a sense to which we cling to Him as our only hope. He is our only lifesaver. And what's very interesting about that is that Jesus, in His ministry, as we'll see later on, is that He called for people to repent of their sins and to trust in Him. So repenting of your sins and believing in Christ are sort of two sides to the same coin. And we read about in Romans, uh, chapter 10 in verse 13, uh, Paul really kind of digs down into this a little bit, and, uh, and he says this. He says, "For whoever will call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."Now, salvation is simple. Uh, it's not easy, but it's simple. And it's so simple that even a small child can believe on Christ. I believe that small children can understand the concept of being a sinner, and of needing a Savior and calling upon the Lord.

[06:20] Speaker 2: Of course, they don't understand all the, the ramifications and the benefits and the results of that. Neither do we as adults sometimes when we come to Christ. But we do understand the basic premise of, of the fact that we are resting on the finished work of Jesus Christ that, that He provided on the cross, without any sort of, uh, trusting in works or baptism or church membership or religious duties, anything. Nothing that, that we have, uh, that we bring to Christ except our faith and our sin, which Christ obviously forgives. So, it's important that we establish this foundation of, of what it means to believe in Jesus. Now, what happens when you believe in Christ? This is also very important. Because it says here, we saw in John 3:16, it says that those who believe in Christ will not perish. And that word perish there is contextually referring to eternal, uh, torment, uh, away from God. But he says they'll have eternal life. Eternal life doesn't mean that we just live forever.

[07:20] Speaker 2: In fact, John 17:4, Jesus said, "This is eternal life, to know you." And we'll talk about that in, in the next episode there. But here's the thing, is that when we come to Christ, we receive eternal life. We receive a relationship, uh, with Christ. And in Romans 5:1, uh, Paul gives us kind of what happened behind the scenes when you became a Christian. And he says here in verse 1, "Therefore, having been justified by faith," there's the faith again, "we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." So what does that mean? Well, justified means to be declared righteous. Which, which is seriously the most amazing thing about salvation, is that we trade in our sin, and the Bible says He gifts us, as a gift, uh, His righteousness.

[08:12] Speaker 2: In Ephesians 2:8-9, it says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, that any man should boast." So salvation, as, as some, uh, have famously said, is not a reward for the righteous, but a gift for the guilty. And so when we recognize our sin, we come to Christ, we believe on Him, and God justifies us. So what does that mean? It means to be declared righteous. In fact, 2 Corinthians 5:21 says this. It says, "He, the Father, made Him, the Son, who knew no sin, sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." In other words, Jesus Christ clothes us or He cloaks us with His own righteousness. We wear the robe of the righteousness, not of our own, but of Jesus Himself. And this is why God can say to us that we are righteous in His sight. Now, by the way, keep this in mind. This righteousness is not just an experiential righteousness, but it's what we call a positional righteousness.

[09:17] Speaker 2: What does that mean to have positional righteousness? I'll tell you when we come back on The King Is Coming. Hi, this is Jeff Kinley with The King Is Coming. You know, each week we bring to you dedicated programming from the Word of God to equip you in how to live for Jesus Christ in this perilous times that we're living in. If this ministry has meant something to you, would you consider a generous gift to this ministry? Just go to the address on the bottom of the screen and give towards The King Is Coming. God bless you. So we're talking about righteousness, being declared righteous, and having what we call positional righteousness. What does that mean? Well, it means that when God declares you to be righteous, it is what we call a judicial righteousness. In other words, it's not something that goes away. It's a declaration of a judge.

[10:11] Speaker 2: He, He lays down that gavel and He says, "This is, this is the reality of your life forever." So our position as being righteous before God never, ever changes, okay? And this is so important that we understand this, because we don't experience that in our lives, 'cause we s- still fall into sin, we still get tempted, we still trip up. But the righteous standing before God never changes. Why? Because Hebrews 7:25 says that Jesus is always making intercession for us, and He's able to save us forever anyone who comes to Him by faith. And so that whole idea of having faith in Christ and being declared righteous ... An- and one more thing about it. Romans 8:1, one of my favorite verses in the Bible, it says this. "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." How, how much condemnation? No condemnation. Why? Because Jesus received all of God's condemnation while He hung on the cross. So now there's none left for you when we put our trust in Jesus Christ.

[11:15] Speaker 2: So that's a, a glorious thing, something we should really be happy about every day. I- if you wanna have, find a cure for anxiety and for sadness, listen, just dwell on that fact is that you're positionally righteous before God. So that's a very important thing. But as Christ began His ministry, now He also asks something else of His disciples, of those who would consider, uh, being His disciple. Matthew 4:19. Uh, Jesus w- is walking up. He sees these two brothers, Peter and Andrew, and they're fishermen. They're just out catching fish. And He says to them in verse 19, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." And it says in the next verse, "And they immediately left their nets and they followed Him." Now, this is what we call being a disciple of Jesus. So i- in that day, those men understood that Jesus Christ was issuing a, a call to them.... to come and be his disciple. Now, what does that mean? Well, the word disciple, mathetes, is used about 275 times in the New Testament.

[12:23] Speaker 2: By the way, the word Christian's only used three times. Uh, the word Christian was a, a derogatory term that some people at a town called Antioch used to really make fun of and to degrade the disciples. So, if you want to know what it means to be in Christ, let's find out what a disciple really means, because that's the word that, that Jesus used, that's the word the New Testament uses. So, 275 times, the word disciple. And the word disciple, in its core essence, means to be a learner. A learner. And again, in, in that context, what we're talking about here is, a disciple would literally follow their master, follow their teacher along. It ... Wherever they went, th- that's wh- where the disciple went. Uh, if the master sat down, the disciples would sit down. If the master started talking, the disciples would listen. Because primarily, it is a, it is a follower, a learner of Jesus Christ. So, as we're following Christ, we're learning from him.

[13:20] Speaker 2: We'll find out more about that in the next episode. Uh, but this idea of being a disciple of Jesus in his day was a very, very serious matter. It wasn't s- checking off a box on a card or raising your hand at a rally or, you know, "Hey, count me in," or, "I'd like to join the church," or whatever. No, it was a real serious call. It, it meant that your whole life was about to change. You stopped following other things and you started following Jesus. In fact, in his day, these, some of these men stopped working. They stopped l- doing their jobs. Obviously, we can't do that today and, and still live. But that's what many of them did in that day. They just simply followed Jesus. Now, what did Jesus say about exactly what it means to be a, his disciple? Well, to do that, let's look over to the Gospel of Luke for just a moment.

[14:10] Speaker 2: Uh, in Luke Chapter 14, and we get a, a picture of Christ of what he was talking about when he says, uh, "This is what it means to be my disciple." Now, here's the context here. Many times in Jesus' ministry, he would have great multitudes following him. I mean, thousands upon thousands of people just walking behind him, going wherever he went. And if you can imagine, in that day, Christ is doing miracles, he's healing people, he's curing sicknesses, he's casting out demons, he's performing other kinds of incredible miracles that only God could do. So, obviously he would f- he would gather a great crowd. But a, a very curious thing that Christ would do very often in his ministry is he would stop, he would turn to the crowd, and he would say, "Listen, if you're gonna be serious about me, this is what it's gonna take." And just about every time that happened, that huge crowd decided it was time for them to go home.

[15:08] Speaker 2: (laughs) And so, they decided that the cost was a little too much, uh, to follow Christ. And here in Luke Chapter 14, we have an example of that. We'll see another one in John 6 here in a minute. But it says in Verse 25, Luke 14, "Now great multitudes were going along with him, and he turned and said to them, 'If anyone comes to me.'" That's the, the belief part, right? "'If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.'" So, wait a minute. Uh, tha- that's, that's radical. Jesus, wha- what do you mean there? Well, if we go bo- over to, uh, Matthew, uh, Chapter 10, we get, we get sort of a parallel, uh, passage there. Matthew explains this. He gives us a little commentary, uh, in here, uh, using the very words of Jesus here, of course. Uh, but in Matthew Chapter 10, uh, first of all, he says this. He says, "Don't think I came to bring peace on the earth.

[16:10] Speaker 2: I, I, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." He says, "I came to set a man, uh, against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, u- and a man's enemies will be the members of his own household." Basically, he's saying, "Look, I'm gonna, I'm gonna upset, uh, your lifestyle if I come into your life." Now, what does he mean by that, when he says, "You gotta hate your father"? Th- is he really saying that? Well, the word hate here, uh, means to, uh, that in comparison to our love for Christ, that our love for anybody else on the second level would almost appear like hate, because this love is so great. Listen to what he says in Matthew 10:37. "He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.

[16:54] Speaker 2: He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." So, again, Christ is saying, "These are the requirements of being a disciple of mine, is that there will be a love for me." And, and this, this communicates, by the way, a sense of great allegiance to Christ, a great loyalty to Christ. Now, keep in mind, they don't even know what the guy's teaching yet. Uh, they, they don't know everything that he said. They've heard some things about him, but they've seen the evidence that he is the Son of God. So, it's not just so much believing a body of truth, although it's very important to believe the truth. Uh, but here's what's happening, is that Christ is saying, "I want you to commit yourself to me, uh, to be loyal, to be allegiant, uh, to me only." And he's really raising the bar on that kind of commitment. But guess what? He's gonna take it to a whole nother level when we come back on The King Is Coming. Hi, this is Jeff Kinley with The King Is Coming.

[17:57] Speaker 2: You know, each week, we bring to you dedicated programming from the Word of God to equip you in how to live for Jesus Christ in this perilous times that we're living in. If this ministry has meant something to you, would you consider a generous gift to this ministry? Just go to the address on the bottom of the screen and give towards The King Is Coming. God bless you.So, Jesus is explaining a bit of the call of discipleship, a bit of the commitment of the cost of what it means to follow him, to call ourselves a true follower of Jesus Christ. And in Luke 14, we're looking at this passage together, and Jesus now dials it up to a whole nother level here in verse 27. He's giving the requirements, the stipulations for being a disciple.

[18:46] Speaker 2: He says, "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me, uh, cannot be my disciple." He said, "What does that mean to carry your own cross?" Well, the disciples knew exactly what that meant, because in their day, there wa- these things called, uh, crosses and they were, uh, there were places where people were actually crucified, where criminals were crucified. In other words, the cross was a symbol of death. It was a d- a symbol of dying, physically. And in this generation, these men would have been old enough to remember, uh, that there was a, uh, a general by the name of Varus, and General Varus, uh, took 2,000 Jews and crucified every one of them and lined them like telephone poles on the, on the main highway, uh, in, in the Roman Empire, as an example that you don't mess with Rome, that you don't go against th- the government.

[19:41] Speaker 2: (laughs) And he says, "We're gonna punish all these Jews," because they had tried to do this little uprising, you know, by following this, uh, this particular, uh, rabbi who claimed to be somebody important. He says, "No, we don't tolerate that. We're gonna crucify every one of your followers here." Well, when Jesus said, "Are you willing to take up your cross and follow me?" And that was implying the fact that Jesus was probably headed to death at some point. And so, you know, it's kind of like, "What's this gonna cost me again? Well, it's gonna cost me my allegiance. It's gonna cost me my love. It's gonna cost me maybe even my own life. I've got to be willing, uh, to even die, uh, for Jesus Christ." And I think what Christ is doing here, specifically for these particular disciples, is he is preparing them for future persecution. Because we know from church tradition that a- and from the scripture, is that these disciples all died martyr's deaths. Uh, some were crucified upside down.

[20:40] Speaker 2: Uh, some were tortured. Some were beheaded, but they all died for this one belief in this one man called Jesus Christ. And so Christ i- is really, uh, he's raising the bar in terms of our commitment to him, and then he goes on to say, uh, that, "You need to count the cost before you follow me." He talks about, uh, someone who builds a house. He says, "Do you have enough building materials? Do you have enough money to finish the house? Figure that out ahead of time." He talks about a, uh, someone going, uh, to, to war, one king going to, to war with another king, and he says, "You've got 10,000 men. He's got 20,000 men. Hey, are you really serious? You really think you could take on this guy?" He says, "Count the cost." He says in verse 20, uh, verse 33, "So therefore, no one of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his own possessions to me," is what he's saying. In other words, he's not saying that we go sell our, our property, go sell our possessions.

[21:37] Speaker 2: He's saying that the ownership really belongs to him now, and he's kind of calling to be something greater than just a good friend or just a, you know, someone who's come along to save us. He wants to be in charge of our lives, because he deserves to be in charge of our lives. We saw that, uh, in the last series on, on worship. He goes on to say, "Therefore, if salt, salt is good, but even if the salt has become tasteless, how's it gonna be seasoned again? I mean, if you lose the flavor of salt, how can you make salt salty again? That's impossible." He says, "It's useless either for the soil or the, for the manure pile. It is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Christ is saying that the distinctiveness of salt is saltiness. The distinctiveness of a true disciple is that they have committed to follow Christ, i- is that they have given over their allegiance of their heart, uh, to follow Jesus Christ.

[22:32] Speaker 2: And so, that's one of the reasons why we have to really think about this thing, coming to Christ. Yeah, it's, it's a simple proposition, but it's not easy, because it will cost us everything in our lives. And one reason, again, beloved, while this is so important to you and I, is because we are living in the last days where we are seeing a ramping up of opposition and persecution to believers, and obviously around the world, they're experiencing that on much greater levels than we are. But here in America, we're beginning to experience that pushback as well, and it's getting to be a lot harder to be a Christian than it used to. Used to be where culture and society kind of had our backs, if you will In other words, the, there, the morals, the values th- that the world had in terms of our culture, our American culture, was kind of similar to what the church had.

[23:24] Speaker 2: But those, those days are long gone now, and culture and, and society and values and, and what people believe, uh, could not be any more diametrically opposed to what the Bible says about who we are and what we believe. Let's go to one more passage real quickly as we, uh, wrap this, uh, this first message up here. In John chapter 6, again, this is another amazing, uh, story of Jesus and, and being with the multitudes, but notice it says, it says, uh, "After these things, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee." It says, "And great multitudes were following him." There we have it. Once again, they're all thousands coming after Jesus. But it says, "Because..." Here's why they were following him, "Because they were seeing the signs which he was performing on those who were sick." So, in other words, they were coming along because they were consuming. I mean, they were just being entertained.

[24:16] Speaker 2: Uh, they thought, "Man, wow, this is amazing." Uh, and Christ, uh, goes o- on to say, he says that, uh, "You follow me, uh, because of the miracles, uh, that I, that I'm performing for you, and because of what I'm doing here. You're just here to consume. You're just here to, you know, you may be a little bit curious." And then he, he does the great miracle of, of the loaves and the fish, and he feeds, it says, 5,000 menWell, guess what? If there were 5,000 men, there are at least two or three times that, uh, with women and children. So perhaps 15, maybe even 20,000 people Jesus feeds in one meal. He does this great miracle. And after that, uh, Jesus begins to talk about who he is. He, he goes on to say them, "Look, i- it's not about the fish and the loaves." Verse 26, he says, uh, "You seek me not because, uh, you saw signs, b- but because you ate of the loaves and were filled." And so he goes on. He says, "Look, it's, it's not about the miracles.

[25:12] Speaker 2: You know, it's not about just getting your belly full." He says, "There's something else." He says, "I am the bread of life," in verse 35. "He who comes to me will not hunger. He who believes in me, uh, will never thirst." And then he goes on to explain more about who he is and the, the, the Pharisees begin to grumble against him. And Jesus says, "All right, here we go. W- We're going for the jugular here, the spiritual jugular." He says, "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, uh, you cannot have eternal life. You cannot follow me and be my disciple." And Jesus wasn't promoting cannibalism there. What Christ was promoting there was the fact that we have to completely assimilate who Christ is into our lives. Uh, he was talking about making a, a full commitment, that that trust, that belief, uh, that reliance upon Christ i- is a 100% faith act. And when we do that, uh, then we are, we become one with Christ. We understand what it means to be his disciple.

[26:08] Speaker 2: And it finishes the chapter here. It just says, "Many of his disciples, when they heard these things," these big statements that Christ made about the cost of discipleship, it says, "This is a difficult statement. Uh, who could understand it?" And then later on, it says that as a result of these things, it says, "His disciples withdrew and were not walking with him anymore." All of those thousands that followed Jesus Christ walked away. And, and one of the most tender, touching scenes, I think, in all of the New Testament, Jesus said therefore to the 12, verse 67, "'You do not want to go away also, do you?' And Simon Peter answered, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? Uh, you alone have the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.'" Peter got it. The disciples, the 12, they got it. They understood that to say you believe in Jesus is more than just saying it. It's more than just thinking it. It's actually a commitment of our life.

[27:10] Speaker 2: We're trusting in his finished work on the Christ alone, but we are giving ourselves to him so that we might follow him. And you know what? That kind of disciple is the one that's going to survive the coming days and the coming years. That kind of disciple is a last day's disciple, one that will survive and will thrive. We'll talk more about what it means to be a disciple in the last days on the next King Is Coming. God bless. (instrumental music plays) My latest book, The End of the World According to Jesus of Nazareth, is a book that takes you to the end times through the eyes of Jesus Himself. If you'd like a copy of this book, make a donation to The King Is Coming. God bless.

[27:56] Speaker 1: You don't wanna miss this opportunity to get Jeff Kinley's newest book. For any gift of $20 or more to The King Is Coming, get your copy of The End of the World According to Jesus of Nazareth. Call now or go to thekingiscoming.com today. Thank you. (instrumental music plays)