Maribelle was raised by godly parents to be a faithful Christian. During her teens, she rebelled, however, and ended up marrying Geoff, an undisciplined and ungodly young man. Life was parties and drinking and such. When they found they were going to have a baby, they ran to the pastor for a quick wedding. And that’s when Maribelle changed.

One day she announced to Geoff that she wanted their child raised in a Christian home the way hers had been, that she wanted to go to church and worship as a family. She wanted to pray before meals and to read the Bible together. Geoff, understandably, felt betrayed. This was not the woman he had married and not the lifestyle he had signed on for.

The marriage did not survive.

Lawrence sat in Bob’s living room sharing the gospel. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” he said, “and you will be saved.” Bob admitted he definitely wanted to go to Heaven, that he would like his sins forgiven, and needed peace in his heart. They prayed together and Lawrence assured Bob God had heard his prayer and his sins were forgiven and his name was written in down in heaven. Everything was fine. Almost.

Soon, folks from the church dropped in on Bob and invited him to the services. “You’ll want to be baptized and join the church,” they said. “And here are some offering envelopes.” A letter from the pastor arrived, inviting him to a new members’ class.

So far, Bob has yet to darken the doors of the church. The pastor and Lawrence, meanwhile, scratch their heads and wonder what’s wrong with the church’s discipleship program and why new converts aren’t interested in growing in their faith.

The problem may not be with the church’s discipleship or with the new convert. The problem lies with how they do evangelism. The simple fact is that Lawrence did not tell Bob the full story. He led him to join up, so to speak, without informing him of what he was joining. As with Geoff’s marriage, Bob signed on for the Christian faith and then found the expectations to be more than he had in mind.

Imagine a recruiter for the military bringing in a new recruit, getting him through the physical, and swearing him into the service without informing him of what would be expected. And then, imagine the new recruit thanking the sergeant, wishing him well, and picking up his bag and heading back home, expecting everything to go on as before.

We’ve all known of unscrupulous salesmen conning unsuspecting buyers into signing on for a set of stainless steel-ware or a used car or a set of encyclopedias, without telling them of the fine print in the contract. Later they would find their obligations to be beyond what they expected and would feel betrayed.

We who call ourselves disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ would do well to see how the Lord reached people and then imitate His methods. Luke 18:18-23 presents a case full of insights.

The story we call “the rich young ruler” is found in all three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). All tell us he was rich, Matthew says he was young, and Luke calls him a ruler, thus giving us the “rich young ruler” title.

This young man is an ideal personification of our ages. He has three assets our generation seeks after and would pay any price to get — wealth, youth, and power. The acquiring of wealth, the keeping of one’s youth, and the attaining of power and influence are driving forces in our culture. And this fellow is blessed with all three.

He also has one other thing going for him that seals the deal, making him the perfect representative of our times: he is spiritual. He is interested in heavenly things and wants to live forever. This too is a mighty force in today’s commercial world. Books and movies abound on God and Satan, heaven and hell, angels and demons. People are fascinated by the spiritual world, and most will tell you they fully expect to go to heaven.

Let’s say I’m a pastor. This morning I walk into the church office and my secretary informs me that there is a young man in my study waiting to see me, that he is a member of the city council, lives in the big house on the lake, and drives that Mercedes in the parking lot. Furthermore, he wants to be saved. I’m euphoric. This is going to be a good day.

“Hold my calls,” I tell her and stride into the study to greet my new friend. For the next half-hour, I do all in my power to introduce this man to Jesus Christ and to bring him into our church. Every pastor I know would.

That’s not bad, of course, but therein lies a major problem.

He’s not ready to enter the kingdom, much less to join the church.

So, what is his problem? It’s the very problem of the modern mindset which produces weak church members, ineffective workers, and frustrated pastors. The story of the rich young ruler illustrates the obstacles keeping him and others like him from eternal life.

1. Shallow understanding.

The rich young ruler smoothly pays Jesus a compliment, calling Him “good teacher.” The Lord calls his hand on it. “Why do you call me that?” In so few words, the Lord is asking, “What do you mean by that? Do you understand what you are saying? Do you know who I really am?”

To the man, his words were merely a compliment for the Lord and nothing to be scrutinized too closely or taken too literally.

Jesus challenged his shallow understanding.

2. Selective obedience.

“I’ve kept all the commandments since I was a youth,” the fellow told Jesus. The Lord answered, “Go and sell everything you have and give it to the poor. Then come and follow me, and you will have treasure in heaven.”

What was the Lord doing? He was showing the young man not only that he had not kept all the commandments the way he claimed he had, but he hadn’t even kept the first one, about “no other gods before me.” He had allowed his possessions to become the dominant force in his life.

He wanted no part of such a harsh command. “Give away everything I own? I don’t think so!”

It turns out he didn’t want to go to heaven quite as badly as he thought he did. Jesus confronted his selective obedience.

3. Split loyalty.

A shallow understanding leads to selective obedience, which in turn produces a split loyalty. Watch the struggle taking place as this man squirms, torn between the pull of God on his life and his love for riches and power. In the words of the old pop song, he is “torn between two lovers.”

James calls such people “double-minded” (James 1:8) and says they are unstable in all their ways. He adds, “Let not that man think he will receive anything from the Lord.” Unstable in all his ways, unproductive in all he prays.

I saw a cartoon once — okay, I drew it — in which a church usher says to a fellow in the pew who is holding a mug of beer and watching a tiny television in his lap, “Sooner or later, John, you’re going to have to make some tough choices in life.”

That is what the rich young ruler is going to have to do, it’s why he was not ready to be saved, and it’s the reason our Lord let him walk away.

Had the Lord brought this man into the kingdom with such divided loyalty, he would have been a worthless disciple. Tell me if that’s not an oxymoron. But it’s surely the condition of many people whose names are on our church rolls, but who never attend or give or pray or minister and who ignore all overtures from the church urging them to receive training in discipleship.

If we called up those people and could entice them to tell us the real reasons for their laxity about the Christian faith, surely some would admit, “That’s not what I signed on for. I came to get my sins forgiven, my name in heaven, and my eternal destination settled. No one said a thing about tithing, witnessing, studying, or serving. I’m not into that kind of stuff.”

Our Lord said, “No man can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24). He condemned divided loyalties.

We call the last few verses of Matthew’s gospel “the great commission.” Before returning to Heaven, Jesus gave His disciples a three-fold assignment: to make disciples from every nation, to baptize them, and to disciple them — that is, teach these baptized believers how to obey the things He commanded in their personal daily lives.

Simple enough, right? Make disciples, baptize them, and then disciple them.

All of this begs the question: “What exactly is a disciple?”

Answer: One who makes the commitment to follow Jesus and become like Him.

A disciple is making an all-out dedication of his life to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, to learn His ways and do His will. Unfortunately, there are those who claim identity as disciples who show no evidence of having made such a commitment. Doubly unfortunate, they think they are saved and are going to Heaven.

It occurs to me that some people are lost, but some are loster than others. It’s one thing to be unsaved and know it, but a more serious proposition to be lost and think you’re saved. That’s why Jesus gave us the remarkable words of Luke 14:25-35, to blow away the smoke and make the issue crystal clear. No one must miss this.

“Now great multitudes were going along with Him, and He turned to them and said, ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple…. So therefore, no one of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.”

Note the three sweeping statements from our Lord. The first speaks of PRIORITY. Jesus Christ must be Lord over our entire life, period. Of course, the command to “hate” one’s family has to be interpreted in light of the rest of Scripture calling on us to honor our parents. The statement is hyperbole, an overstatement to make a point.

The second speaks of PURPOSE. Every day of our lives we are to rise and do the will of our Lord. “What will you have me to do?” is the question which ought to be the defining principle of our lives. The Lord once said, “I do always those things which please the Father” (John 8:29).

In the third statement, Jesus speaks of POSSESSIONS. No one can be His follower who does not surrender ownership of all he calls his own. We read in Luke 5 that James and John “left everything behind and followed Him.” Later, when the Lord called a tax man named Levi, “he left everything behind and rose up and began to follow Him.”

These are three great prohibitive statements, announcing — I’m sure you noticed — who cannot be His disciples. Those unwilling to put Him first, those unable to do His will, and those refusing to make Him Lord of all they own, all are unqualified. None will be His disciples.

Are any of them saved? We’ll leave the ultimate answer with the Lord who alone knows. Personally, I’d hate to try to slip through the cracks here and get to Heaven on a technicality. “I know I wasn’t your disciple, Jesus, but I did believe.”

You will recall the Lord asked some people, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not the things I say?” (Luke 6:46)

A disciple is someone who commits himself to following the Lord Jesus Christ, period.

I know nothing more striking than the realization that Jesus did not send us out into the world to make supporters of all the nations. Not to make church members or Baptists, not to make converts or adherents. Not voters, groupies, admirers, and definitely not friends. He’s not looking for advisers, co-partners, dependents, team members, or hirelings. He does not need our approval, our counsel, our friendship, endorsements, or referrals.

He has sent His people into the world with one thought in mind: make disciples. Lead people to turn from their former ways, to renounce those old loyalties — we call this repentance — and to commit ourselves to living exclusively for Jesus Christ from then on.

Jesus does not want to be an additive to our lives, or a raincoat to be pulled out in a storm and laid aside in the sunshine. Not an accessory, not an assistant, an aid, a counselor, or a crutch.

He wants to be our All. That’s all. To be everything to His people, so we can say with one of His disciples, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).

Clarence Jordan was a believer who took the teachings of Jesus more literally than most. That’s always dangerous. In South Georgia he built a communal ministry among the poor whites and blacks which he called “Koinonia.” He even translated parts of the Bible into the dialect of rural Georgians and called it “the cotton patch version.” In the racially heated 1950s and 1960s, his work was highly controversial and sometimes frightening to people.

On one occasion, Jordan asked his attorney brother to represent Koinonia in a legal matter. The brother turned him down, adding, “I can’t afford to be associated with your work. It would hurt my business.” Clarence Jordan responded, “You know, brother, when you and I were boys we walked the aisle of that little Baptist church the same Sunday. We were baptized together in that creek. But I think you ought to go back there and tell those good people that there was a misunderstanding. You did not mean to become Jesus’ disciple. You just wanted to be His friend.”

In my last pastorate, a woman dropped in to see me one day. “We’ve never met,” she said, “but I know some people who go to this church. One of them is my former husband. He is as mean a man as ever lived.”

She had my undivided attention. It was a large congregation, and as it turned out, I did not know her ex-husband.

She continued, “I asked him one day, ‘What are you going to do when you face God at judgment?’ He told me, ‘I’m going to Heaven when I die because I’ve accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.'”

She stared at me and said, “Pastor, is that what you teach here? That a man can live like the devil and still go to Heaven because he prayed a little prayer? If it is, I want to join this church because, pastor, I’m a Catholic, and I go to church almost every day of my life, and frankly, your way is easier.”

I was ashamed of the perception we had left with this sister.

A little boy asked his Sunday School teacher, “What about Adolf Hitler? Do you think he went to Heaven or hell?” The teacher said, “Well, dear, we can only hope that when Hitler was a little boy, he accepted Jesus as His personal Savior.”

Am I the only one who wants to scream at that?

The rich young ruler was unwilling to pay the price of discipleship, not wanting to turn over the authority of his life to Jesus. He wanted the benefits of salvation without Jesus actually intruding into his affairs. He would gladly have accepted Jesus as His adviser, but not as his Lord.

Not long after the young man walked away from Jesus, Luke tells of two men who came to the Lord with total abandon and commitment (Luke 18 and 19). One was a blind beggar who gladly and enthusiastically left behind his infirmity and his helplessness to become a whole man and follow Jesus. The other was a chief tax collector for Jericho, which means he was wealthy, corrupt, and despised.

As the Lord sat in the home of Zaccheus the tax man, suddenly the host stood to his feet and announced, “Lord, half my goods I’m giving to feed the poor! And anyone I’ve defrauded, I’ll repay four times as much.” He had a new priority in his heart, a new purpose for his life, and a new relationship with his possessions.

Our Lord knew repentance when He saw it. He said, ” Today, salvation has come to this house!”

This is a call for integrity in evangelism. Let’s tell people the truth. No one can come to Jesus and be saved who does not repent of his sin and believe in Him with heart, soul, mind, and strength. I give as much of me as I know to all of Him I understand.

This is a caution to the millions whose names are on church rolls but give no evidence that Jesus Christ has ever touched their lives in any way whatsoever. Where is their love for Christ, their desire to obey Him, and their practice of genuine prayer? They may not be saved. Scripture calls on us to “examine yourselves to see if you are in the faith” (II Corinthians 13:5).

Finally, this is the case for discipling those who are genuine followers of Christ, to teach them to observe everything the Lord has taught us. Once they have learned what following Jesus involves, they will be able to win others also, not to simply get their names on a dotted line, but to become new creations, true representatives of the Son of God in a world dying without Him.