(Audio version; Music: "At The Cross" and "With All I Am" by: Hillsong)
Introduction
Have you ever started a
project that you haven’t been able to finish for whatever reason? I am
generally very focused and dogged about finishing something I start. Except for
one particular project that I started a few years ago that still remains
unfinished. One of the things I do when I finish one of my construction
projects is I take pictures of the completed project and share the pictures
with my wife and kids. I think that’s where my troubles began. After completing
a master bathroom remodel for one of my customers, I showed the pictures, as I
usually do, to my wife and kids. My wife said, “It would be great if our master
bathroom was that nice,” and my kids said, “You should really do something like
that in your bathroom.” Well, being the people pleaser that I am, I determined
to do just that and started tearing apart our master bathroom. I had the right
intention but failed to Count The Cost
in both time and money. As it turned out, if I worked more to earn the extra
money to pay for the remodeling costs, I didn’t have the time to do the work.
And if I worked less in order to have the time to do the work then I didn’t
have the money to purchase the materials necessary for the job. Consequently,
the project still remains unfinished all because I failed to Count The Cost of my commitment to do
what I set out to do. I know what you’re saying, “How in the world can you
start something that big and not consider what it will take in time and money
to complete?” Trust me, I’m reminded of that every time I walk in to the
uncompleted bathroom. It’s irritating but not exactly a life-changing failure.
There are, however, some decisions that are significantly life-changing if we
fail to Count The Cost.
I’m fairly certain that
we all know someone who has gotten married and then gotten divorced because they
failed to Count The Cost of being
married. That failure to Count The Cost
is usually painfully life-changing especially when kids are involved. But those
failures, as painful as they may be, are temporal. What about the decisions we
make that are eternal? Specifically, what about the decision we make concerning
Jesus. If you think about it, regardless of what you decide about Jesus,
whether you believe in Him or not, there is a cost. For those who reject Jesus,
I wonder, did they Count The Cost of
their unbelief as being condemned for all eternity? You have to wonder about
the person who would reject Jesus if they really did Count The Cost of their unbelief. Sometimes, though, I wonder if
the people who have accepted Jesus have taken the time to Count The Cost of following Jesus. Believers and unbelievers pay a
price for their respective decisions about whether or not to believe in Jesus.
Here’s the difference: The unbeliever pays that price in the life to come while
the believer pays the price in this life. Intuitively, we know that suffering
eternity in hell is a price that believers are just unwilling to pay. However,
in reality, for many of you who have chosen to be followers of Christ, you are
suffering through your own hell in this life. If you are a Christian in a
Communist or Muslim controlled country then you know exactly what I’m talking
about. You have chosen to follow Jesus knowing it could cost you your freedom
or your life. However, following Jesus isn’t always a matter of risking life or
limb. For some of you, being faithful means fighting tooth and nail to save
your marriage because you made a promise before God. Some of you doggedly cling
to your commitment to remain sexually pure until marriage because that’s the
way God intended it to be. Some of you refuse to act on your same-sex impulses
because you know it is a sinful behavior that God abhors. Some of you continue
to share your possessions and wealth with others who have less when few would
blame you if you spent more on yourself. In all such cases, Christians deny
themselves consistently and faithfully because they were careful to first Count The Cost of following Jesus.
Subject Text
Luke 14:25-35
25Large
crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26“If
anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and
children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my
disciple. 27And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me
cannot be my disciple. 28Suppose one of you wants to build a tower.
Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money
to complete it? 29For if he lays the foundation and is not able to
finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30saying, ‘This
fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31Or suppose a
king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and
consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming
against him with twenty thousand? 32If he is not able, he will send
a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of
peace. 33In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything
he has cannot be my disciple. 34Salt is good, but if it loses its
saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35It is fit neither for
the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear,
let him hear.”
Context
Our Subject Text occurs during a time when Jesus was traveling through
the various towns and villages performing miracles, teaching and confronting
the religious leaders. However, something occurs in the chapter immediately
preceding our Subject Text that
builds some of the framework for the teaching in our Subject Text. Jesus taught that God’s Kingdom is always growing and
expanding until one day when nothing will remain untouched by God’s Kingdom.
However in the course of Jesus’ teaching someone asks Him a very logical
question: “Are only a few people going to be saved?” Tell me you haven’t
wondered yourself who will and who won’t be saved. Unfortunately, those details
are none of our business. Nevertheless, Jesus tells everyone there that they
should all seek to enter God’s Kingdom through the narrow door because many
people will try to get into God’s Kingdom but not all will be able to get in.
The “narrow gate” that Jesus is referring to is the life of being a devoted and
faithful follower of Jesus Christ at all cost. Jesus says that lots of people
will want to be followers of Jesus but not all will be willing to pay the
price. And in the end, not all those who claim to be followers of Jesus will be
saved because they didn’t first Count
The Cost associated with being followers of Jesus.
In the text immediately
preceding our Subject Text Jesus
tells the parable of the King’s wedding banquet and how the people who were
invited by the King made every excuse possible not to go to the banquet. So the
King sent His servants out to invite anyone that would come. Now the parable is
intended to convey that Jesus came to invite the Jews to salvation but when
they rejected Him then Jesus opened the salvation invitation to everyone.
However, it ties to our Subject Text
because the Jews were waiting for the Messiah but they had a preconceived idea
of what the Messiah should be like and Jesus didn’t fit that idea. They wanted
a conquering warrior Messiah not a self-sacrificing Messiah that was calling
His followers to self-sacrifice as well. They were willing to follow a
conquering Messiah to a restored Israel but they weren’t willing to follow a servant-Messiah
to the cross. Allegiance to the former would cost them nothing while allegiance
to the latter would cost them everything. They wanted a Messiah but they failed
to Count The Cost of their desire
for a Messiah because they couldn’t accept Jesus as that Messiah.
Text Analysis
25Large
crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26“If
anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and
children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my
disciple.
It’s not surprising to
find in vv. 25-26 that large crowds
were following or traveling with Jesus. We see this throughout the Scriptures.
Jesus never discourages them although He often challenges their beliefs and
practices as He does here. Don’t misunderstand what Jesus is saying in v. 26 when He says that we must hate
all the things we hold dear including ourselves if we are to follow Him. I know
it sounds strange coming from someone who commands us to love one another so
let me explain what Jesus means. Jesus isn’t saying that we must hate
everything in order to love Him. He’s saying that we must be willing to put our
allegiance to Him ahead of everyone else in our life. In theory, that doesn’t
sound too awful but Jesus isn’t talking in theoretical terms, he’s talking in
real-life terms. It was particularly relevant during Jesus’ day because all of
Jesus’ followers would have been first generation followers so it would have
been very likely for families to include believers and unbelievers thereby
creating the possibility for conflicts of interest. It is precisely this
potential for conflict the Jesus wants them to consider if they want to be one
of His followers. But it isn’t just the potential for conflict with people with
competing beliefs, it is also the potential for conflict with a culture with
competing values. Jesus wants them, and us, to understand that following Him
means everyone and everything becomes a distant second in our lives regardless
of the personal sacrifice that it may require.
If you live in a
Christian family, you take for granted that you and your family approach life
as a team—all pulling the rope in the same direction. However, not all of you
have that luxury. Some of you are the only Christian in your family and you
know how painful competing values can be; you know what it’s like for your
family to think you are a kook; you know what it’s like for your family to
reject you; some of you even know what it’s like to have someone from your
family turn you in to the authorities because your faith in Jesus is against
the law where you live. For you, Jesus’ instruction is not even remotely
theoretical but very real.
“Luke accents the cost
of following Jesus on the Way. When understood within the context of their fist
century social and religious setting, these demands allow us to see that Jesus
was calling for a distinct form of discipleship. Becoming Jesus’ disciple was
not a vocational change, nor a political attachment, nor even a new stirring of
God; it was being faced with the eternal decision of whether one would follow
Jesus as the Way to eternal life. Any other attachment, whether familial or
religious or economic, was substituting another god for Jesus.”[1]
27And anyone who does
not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
Jesus continues in v. 27 where He left off in the previous
verses. His reference to carrying our cross is intended convey the extremes to
which we must be willing to go in order to be a follower of Jesus. Although
Jesus was using the reference to the cross as a metaphor, it proved to be
literal during Nero’s reign in the first century when the streets of Rome were
often lined with crucified Christians. And it has proven to be equally literal
today as Muslims use crucifixion as a means to torture and murder Christians.
As horrible as the literal expression of Jesus’ call to take up their cross is,
it is the expression of taking up the cross as a metaphor that I believe may be
the greatest stumbling block for Christians. I am convinced that it would be
easier to die for our faith than it is to live out our faith every day in a
sinful, self-prioritizing world.
“Part of the problem in
counting the cost is that often we do not know ahead of time what the real cost
will be…Sometimes a decision for Jesus means refusing to offer support to a
family member for a decision that may be immoral in God’s eyes. Taking that
stand may be painful but necessary. It may mean refusing to endorse a
relationship before God that has been conducted in a way that dishonors him. It
may mean telling a brother, sister, relative, or friend engaged in adultery, in
a painful act of confrontive love, that God is not pleased with his or her
actions. It may mean discussing destructive behavior at the risk of never
speaking to that person again. It may be perceived as loving God over family or
friends, when ironically it means loving both!...
Sometimes being honest
means testifying about a crime when everyone in the office will argue that you
are a slimy tattletale. The pursuit of faithfulness in the midst of a workplace
where honesty is a relative value determined by the end in view can be hard. To
choose to be in step with God and out of step with office partners can be a
painful path to walk.
The choices of
discipleship are not always easy. To follow Jesus and share his cross may mean
that neighbors and friends do not always understand why we do what we do.
Sometimes they will not support us and may even do things that hurt. Our
understanding of what counting the cost means is only theoretical until we are
put in such circumstances. But those who have contemplated counting the cost
will be ready when the moment comes. They must rely on God and turn to him for
wisdom if and when a time comes to choose God over family, self, or
possessions. Those who wish to follow Jesus should give attention to who has
priority, even when they are just considering starting the journey with him.”[2]
28Suppose one of you
wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see
if he has enough money to complete it? 29For if he lays the
foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule
him, 30saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to
finish.’ 31Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another
king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten
thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32If
he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way
off and will ask for terms of peace.
In case this lesson
wasn’t personal enough to me, Jesus uses the illustration of constructing a
house as one of the two illustration in vv.
28-32 to make His point that we must Count
The Cost associated with our commitment to be one of His followers. The
first illustration of building a house suggests that we must take into account
the financial or practical impact of our decision to follow Jesus. Choosing to
follow Jesus means we recognize that our money and possessions ultimately
belong to God and entrusted to us to accomplish His will in our lives and the
lives of those around us. When we refuse to use the resources entrusted to us
for the benefit of God’s Kingdom because what we want is of greater importance,
then we have failed to Count The Cost
of being His follower and the task of being one of His disciples remains
unfinished like a house that remains unfinished because the builder failed to Count The Cost of completing the house.
His second illustration suggests that we must take into
account the physical risks associated with following Jesus. Some of you know
this quite well, don’t you? You knew exactly what the physical risks would be
when you gave your life to Christ. You knew that you would be hated for your
new commitment. You knew your life would be in danger but you gave your life to
Christ anyway. Some people, however, failed to Count The Cost of the danger of their commitment and when the
pressure was on, they turned away from their profession of faith.
“Jesus promised his
followers a Kingdom, but he also said that they would face difficulty and
suffering because of their faith. Those on the fence needed to Count The Cost…What are those ‘costs’ to
believers? Christians may face loss of social status or wealth. The may have to
give up control over their money, time or career. They may be hated, separated
from their family, and even put to death. All people must carefully Count The Cost of becoming Christ’s
disciple so that they will know what they are getting into and won’t be tempted
to turn back when the going gets tough.”[3]
33In the same way, any
of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
If you’re familiar at
all with the gospels, then what Jesus says in v. 33 should sound familiar. This should remind you about Jesus’
encounter with the rich young ruler. In that encounter, the young ruler asked
Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. It was the perfect set up for
Jesus to teach an important lesson. He told the young ruler to keep God’s
commandments. To which the young ruler replied that he faithfully kept all the
commandments since he was a little boy. So Jesus zeroed in on the one thing
that demonstrated the young man kept the commandments not out of devotion to God
or to others but to earn his way into God’s Kingdom. When the young ruler asked
what else he must do, Jesus used one final instruction to demonstrate that God
wasn’t really his God when Jesus told him to sell all he owned and follow Him.
The young ruler revealed that his possessions were his god because the text
says he hung his head and walked away because he had many possessions. The
young ruler rejected the offer of eternal life because he was unwilling to give
up everything he had to be Jesus’ disciple.
“Life does not consist
of possessions. Hence, sell them—especially if they prevent you from following
Jesus. The necessary equipment for ministry with Jesus is, as Jesus has already
taught in the call and sending of the disciples, to have no equipment, to
depend wholly and solely on Jesus. Jesus…is not a minimalist when it comes to
commitment. ‘It is not how little one can give that is the question, but how
much God deserves.’…The threefold call of Jesus to forsake family and self,
bear the cross of discipleship, and renounce possessions is nothing less than
the summons to a new identity, not on the basis of genetics, race, or social
factors, but on the basis of costly discipleship with Jesus…Jesus gives all so
that he may reign over all; he dies for all, and thus requires all of his
followers.
This teaching is not
advanced as a mythical fiction or an unachievable ideal, but as a genuine
characteristic of knowing and loving Jesus. In some instances one must forsake
family, and in others bring family into the fellowship; in some instances bear
one’s own cross, and in others bear the burdens of others. One must forsake all
things, yet receive all things; one must give all things to others, and be put
in charge of the Master’s possessions…Discipleship consists of both giving and
receiving. Not all are called to the same form of discipleship at all times.
But whatever form the call takes, all are call to Jesus absolutely and without
reserve. Discipleship cannot be an expression of mere civil religion. It does
not confuse the gospel with ideologies or cultural norms, nor does it tailor
the gospel to our preferences and causes, even the most noble. It is the
forsaking of all for Jesus, or retaining all and forsaking Jesus.”[4]
34Salt is good, but if
it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35It is fit
neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears
to hear, let him hear.”
Salt was a pretty big
deal during Jesus’ time as a sterilizer, seasoning and as a preservative so vv. 34-35 would have made perfect sense
to Jesus’ audience. Salt was a valuable mineral and commodity but if it were to
lose its effectiveness as a preservative or seasoning or a sterilizer then it
would be good for nothing. Why is that important? Because Jesus describes His
followers as the “salt of the earth (Mt 5:13).” Meaning that if we fail to
fulfill our intended purpose then we are as useless as salt that has lost its
saltiness. And part of what makes us “salt” to a tasteless world in the context
of our Subject Text is our
willingness to forsake all and take up our cross to follow Jesus. If we are
unwilling to forsake all for Jesus then we are like salt that has lost its
saltiness.
“Just as salt can lose
it savor, so can an initial commitment, however sincere, fade in the course of
time. Even with attention and with the nourishment of prayer, reflection,
fellowship, and activity, commitments will be severely tested once Jerusalem is
no longer a distant goal but a very present and painful reality. Enthusiasm
that placed Jesus before all other commitments cools before the question, ‘Are
you one of his disciples?’ and suddenly those other commitments to job and
station and family beg again to come first. Under pressure both open and
subtle, pressures all of us know, salt does not decide to become pepper; it
just gradually loses its savor. The process can be so gradual, in fact, that no
one really notices. Well, almost no one.”[5]
Application
I was thinking the other
day about Rachel Scott. Maybe you know her. Back in 1999 she was a beautiful 17
year-old girl attending high school, growing up in a Christian home. I don’t
know her personally but both of my girls were once young high school girls and
I suppose she wasn’t much different. She had hopes and dreams for her future
just like my girls and she loved Jesus just like my girls. She wanted her life
and her faith to make a difference. She had a journal much like my girls. She
once wrote in her journal, “I dare to believe that I can start a chain reaction
through acts of kindness and compassion.” She lived and grew up in a relatively
affluent community much like my girls. It was the perfect environment for her
to have big dreams and grand ideals. For Rachel, it must have been relatively
easy being a faithful follower of Jesus within the safe confines of a Christian
nation. At least it was until the spring of 1999, that’s when everything
changed for Rachel. On April 20, 1999, while she was sitting on the grass
eating her lunch at Columbine High School, Rachel was confronted by a deranged
young man who stood in front of her and put a gun to her head. He asked her a
short question: “Do you believe in God?” And in an instant, Rachel had to Count The Cost of her belief. “Yes, I
believe in God” was her answer. He asked her, “Why?” but he never gave her the
chance to answer. He pulled the trigger and she was dead.
Every day Christians are
faced with various situations that test what they say they believe. None of us
can know how we will respond if we had to answer the same question posed to
Rachel Scott. But we have an opportunity to respond to equally difficult
situations as we face a constant barrage of sin from the sinful culture around
us. Daily, we are faced with a choice of how we will respond to a culture that
celebrates homosexuality, a culture that embraces sex outside of marriage, a
culture that values personal fulfillment and the relentless pursuit of
acquiring more and more “things,” a culture that perverts the rule of law, and
a culture that is openly hostile to Jesus Christ and His followers. Daily, we
have to decide, will we confront immoral behavior or ignore it, will we forgive
or will we seek revenge, will we love or will we hate, will we serve or will we
be served, will we give or will we take. How we respond in these cases says
just as much about what we believe about Jesus as Rachel Scott did when she
answered the question about her faith with a gun pointed at her head. Being a
follower of Jesus was never intended to be easy which is why Jesus equates it
with bearing a cross. Being a follower of Jesus is somewhat of a paradox—It
costs us nothing to receive life and at the same time costs us everything to
live life. If you consider yourself to be a follower of Jesus then you will
have to face some very difficult choices in your life every day. How will you
choose to respond to those difficult choices? Will your response be an accurate
reflection of what you say you believe? Before you answer too quickly, be sure
to Count The Cost of your answer.
Will your actions reflect your devotion to Jesus or your rejection of Jesus?
[1]
Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, and I. Howard Marshall, Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 1992), p. 185.
[2]
Darrell L. Bock, Luke—The NIV
Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996),
pp. 404-405.
[3]
Bruce Barton, Philip Comfort, Grant Osborne, Linda K. Taylor, and Dave Veerman,
Life Application New Testament Commentary,
(Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), p. 318.
[4]
James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to
Luke—The Pillar New Testament Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2015), pp. 428-429.
[5]
Fred B. Craddock, Luke—Interpretation:
A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Louisville, KY: John Knox
Press, 1990), p. 183.
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