Art Not Thou Also One of His Disciples? - Part Four

Secondly, the mark of the disciple was that they loved one another. In John chapter 13:35, we read this (it's a wonderful verse, especially since selfishness so frequently marks the Christian): "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." "By this shall men know that ye are my disciples" the fact that we're willing to sacrifice for other Christians will tell the world whose disciples we are.

 

In my Monday night Bible class in New York, we had a question box period. One night this question came in, written in a rather scrawly hand as though submitted by someone who had come in from a nearby street and was not too interested in Christianity. "You announce that you're taking an offering for Korea. What about giving it to some of us who are in need right here? Why doesn't the church do something like that?"

 

I spoke immediately of the fact that the church had done just that. The church has built hospitals, and places where people can go in time of need. No member of our church has ever had to go on relief. No member has ever become sick without having a bed, free if necessary, in the Presbyterian Hospital. There's no person in our church who could die and be left without friends. The church has taken care of, I suppose, everything from a newborn babe, in fact, from an expectant mother, all the way through to burying people, in the course of the years. And this is a mark of the disciples of Christ. The world has learned it somewhat from us. But when the world gives care, it is never given in the same way that it is given by Christians.

 

Once when I was in Nigeria, in Africa, I saw a man in a leper colony. One of his legs was eaten off at the knee, the other leg at the ankle, because of leprosy. He had no feet. And yet with pads under his knees and with some sticks to push himself along the ground, he had escaped from a leper hospital run by the government and staffed by unsaved men as the wardens and keepers. This leper had crawled on the ground for thirty miles to get into a leper colony that was run by Christians, because he knew that when a government employee put his hand on you in a hospital, it wasn't the same thing as when a Christian puts his hand upon you. There is a softness and love in the hand of a believer towards the ills of the world.

 

As I was driving in India, a few years ago, I came to a village where I knew there were missionaries, and a hospital. As I came in to the hospital I happened to see an American woman, a doctor, with her arm over the shoulder of a girl, a victim of leprosy who had no nose. The doctor had her hand on her and they were laughing together. I never forgot that-the love of Christ in the hands of a doctor touching a leper. "By this shall men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."

 

You see, the Holy Spirit that lives in one disciple lives in another disciple and the Holy Spirit must get together with Himself. And if there is not that drawing of love on the part of the believer, do we have a right to call ourselves the followers of Jesus Christ?

Paul said, "I have you in my heart." (See Phil. 1:7.) I've seen missionaries who told me that, when the time came for them to leave their mission stations to come home, it broke their hearts. They had arrived in the midst of one of the spiritually dark and sordid places of the earth. The missionaries had preached and people had been saved. People had come from paganism, through baptism, through growth, through the Communion service and into the first steps of the Christian life. Then suddenly, furlough time came, and sometimes there were no replacements. The missionaries knew they would have to go, or their health would suffer. But to leave the flock was a terribly wrenching thing. A bond of love had been built between them. And so it should be with everyone of us.

 

This should help us to understand the Lord Jesus a little better. He was going to leave His disciples, and He knew that the prince of this world was on the move. In fact, the Lord said that Satan would seek to scatter the sheep. And so, in the face of this kind of opposition, Jesus said the mark of true loyalty, of true discipleship after He had gone and the Holy Spirit had come, would be that His followers love one another.

 

In John 15:8, we read this: "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples." Fruit bearing is the third mark of being a disciple. Now, the context gives you a series of steps for fruit bearing. "Without me ye can not do very much." No, no, that's not it, "without me ye can do nothing" (John 15:5). We must first recognize our own nothingness. There are those who talk and who preach and who have multitudes of meetings but there's no fruit. Activity is no substitute for fruit bearing!

A man said to me once, after he had given a certain portion of his life to Christian work, "It's all been fruitless."

I said, "How did it begin?"

 

He said, "I remember so well. I was in my room studying, and as I was looking at the Bible, the Holy Spirit started to speak to me. He was putting His finger on things in my life that shouldn't have been there. It made me restless and I closed the Bible, got up, and went out into the other room and picked up the telephone. I called another Christian and said, `You know, I am greatly moved at the need for such and such a thing; couldn't we start a Christian work for them?' Well, we got together and we started a Christian work and we gave ourselves to that great activity-work, work, work-and nothing ever came of it."

 

The reason there was no fruit bearing is because there was no true discipleship

 

There in the heart of the room when the Holy Spirit speaks, then is the moment to have the roots in, then is the moment to recognize that we are joined to Him, that the "sap should run," that we are His disciples indeed. And the key to fruit bearing is in the context-if you abide, abide, abide "If ye abide in me ... so shall ye be my disciples." (See John 15:7-8.)

 

Now, let us face each other with the words that were spoken at Christ's trial. Peter had followed afar off. The troops had marched in the big opened door into the courtyard and they had shut the door behind them. In the architecture of the building, there was a little protruding door of a gate house. Peter wandered up to this door, since the main door was closed, and intended to walk through this kitchen-like place and go out another door into the courtyard. As he walked in, a girl who was the gatekeeper looked at him and said, "Art not thou also one of this man's disciples?" (John 18:17). And that's the question I leave with you, "Art not thou also one of His disciples?" Peter said, "No, I'm not, and he went inside to warm himself at the fire with the soldiers and to deny Christ two more times. It shows that one may belong to the inner band of the twelve, yet he may deny Christ, and not act as a true disciple.

 

"Art not thou also one of His disciples?" Now, you will not deny it like Peter. Right out you gladly say, "Yes, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ." Well then, can you show your faith by your works? As James said, "Faith without works is dead." (See James 2:26.) What works am I to show? These three things: continuing in His Word; loving one another; and bearing fruit. There is the Word of God.

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STUDY QUESTIONS

• What are some ways you can express love to your family and friends in a Christ-like manner?
• What areas can you ask for God’s grace to be manifest in?
• Is loving someone just giving them the things they need? What other ways can we expand our understanding and knowledge of love?
• How is it that you know Christ loves you?