The Reward of Discipleship
Renewing Your Mind
Ligonier Ministries
4.8 • 5.3K Ratings
🗓️ 26 May 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The cost of following Christ is real. But so is the reward. Today, R.C. Sproul examines the blessing promised to Jesus' disciples who suffer for His sake, calling us to endure with steadfast confidence.
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Meet Today's Teacher:
R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew's Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine.
Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We are told by the author of Hebrews, not only to look to Jesus, but to consider Jesus, |
| 0:11.0 | to consider His endurance, enduring the hostility that people brought against him, and we are told to do that for this reason, |
| 0:27.5 | lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. |
| 0:36.6 | The cost of following Christ faithfully is real, |
| 0:38.4 | but so is the reward. |
| 0:42.8 | This is the Tuesday edition of Renewing Your Mind, and thanks for being with us. |
| 0:48.0 | It's been said that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. |
| 0:55.8 | In other words, when Christians are persecuted for righteousness sake, far from shrinking the church, history suggests it actually grows. So as R. C. Sprole continues to help us think about the persecuted church, he addresses |
| 1:02.0 | the question, what is the reward of discipleship? |
| 1:09.0 | In our last session, we talked a little bit about the experience that the church has had throughout all of history in terms of persecution. |
| 1:20.1 | And we look back to Jesus' words in the Gospel according to John, in which he warned his disciples that they should expect |
| 1:30.8 | persecution in the future. And again, in John, chapter 15, verse 18, he said, if the world |
| 1:38.5 | hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. And if you were of the world, the world would love its own. |
| 1:49.1 | Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the |
| 1:53.2 | world hates you. |
| 1:54.2 | And we looked at that passage. |
| 1:56.6 | What I didn't take you to was to the end of that passage, where in verse 23, he says, |
| 2:04.1 | He who hates me hates my father also. |
| 2:10.6 | If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin, |
| 2:16.6 | but now they have seen and also hated me and my father. |
| 2:24.3 | This happened that the word might be fulfilled, which is written in their law, they hated me without a cause. |
| 2:35.3 | Now, let's keep that in mind that Jesus is declaring that the hatred that he experienced in this world was unjust hatred. |
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