Luke 14 - The Cost of Discipleship
Following the success of the 1997 Mars Pathfinder Lander, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) planned a series of scientific missions to the planet Mars. Intending to launch at least one new mission every two years, their motto was “Faster. Better. Cheaper.” Things did not go quite the way that NASA planned, however. In December of 1999 the Mars Polar Lander failed to slow on its descent and slammed into the surface of the Red Planet, smashing into thousands of pieces.
Later it was determined that a design flaw in the 165 million dollar spacecraft had caused the braking system to shut off too soon. According to the engineers, this was a flaw that could have been detected and prevented if only they had run the right simulation on their computers. Why, then, did they fail to run the right simulation? Because NASA was trying to cut costs and decided not to purchase the necessary software. They may have done it cheaper, but they did not do it better. The Mars Lander crashed because the administration failed to count the cost for completing the mission.
This is a mistake Jesus wants to be sure that all of his disciples are careful to avoid. Therefore, he tells us in advance how much it will cost us to follow him to the very end. Even before we come to faith in Christ, he calls us to count the true cost of Christian discipleship, which demands us to love him more than anything else in the world and to carry the cross of our own sacrificial love.
Never was this accounting more important than when Jesus was rising to the height of his popularity. Luke tells us that “great crowds accompanied him” (Luke 14:25). Some of these multitudes wanted to see more of his miracles or hear more of his teaching, but many of them were just following the crowd. The atmosphere was electric, and people wanted to get in on the excitement. Jesus was there to do something more than make people curious, however: he was calling them to make a commitment. So Jesus turned around and told his followers—three times—that unless they met his strict criteria, they could never be his disciples. If people wanted to follow him, they had to hate their families (Luke 14:26), carry their crosses (Luke 14:27), and count the cost (Luke 14:28–33).