The Cost of Following Jesus (Luke 14:25-35)

Introduction

Set me free intro

You see a lot of people want to be freed from their sins, bondage, and flesh.

But a lot of people that ask for those things aren’t really willing to give up the things they should in order to truly allow Christ to work in their lives.

With that in mind, we are going to be in Luke today.

Luke is probably my favorite book in the Bible because it has so much rich writing and so many details about the life of Jesus.

in Luke we can open up to basically any chapter and right away learn something powerful.

In Luke:

Jesus is on a mission.

He is headed to Jerusalem for the last time.

This is where we see a big bulk of his parables and discussion.

Throughout Luke, we can see a theme that Jesus uses time and time again

Luke 9:57–62 CSB

57 As they were traveling on the road someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 Jesus told him, “Foxes have dens, and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” 59 Then he said to another, “Follow me.” “Lord,” he said, “first let me go bury my father.” 60 But he told him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and spread the news of the kingdom of God.” 61 Another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me go and say good-bye to those at my house.” 62 But Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Example of not counting the cost, not planning well

Jesus knew what it meant to count the cost, to be really sure of what you are about to build.

Raise your hand if you have family members that don’t know Christ? How about friends?

We love these people, but desire for them to come to know Christ.

We can try to make it sound appealing to them, to try to convince them to follow..

But Jesus didn’t do this

He was clear and went straight to the point when he started noticing large crowds following him.

He would say something that would be probably too difficult to do and usually ended with the majority walking away.

Take Up Your Cross

Luke 14:25–27 CSB

25 Now great crowds were traveling with him. So he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, and even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

If I were to try to convince a nonbeliever to follow Christ by reading this verse, they would probably look at my like I was crazy. They would most likely not be interested.

Even if you are a Christian, reading a passage like this might be confusing if you don’t have the correct context.

The point here is that Jesus would say stuff that was so hard to hear.

He made it even seem almost impossible to truly follow him.

We will learn that this is not the case here.

Jesus was not trying to sell anything. He wasn’t trying to sugarcoat what it meant to follow him.

Here is my question for you:

What do you think it means to follow Jesus?

Do you really believe what he says here?

It’s important to ask that question because we honestly have a reduced version of Christianity here in America.

For us, becoming a christian means to embrace a certain creed, adopt a set of morals, and perform certain religious practices weekly.

For Jesus, however, becoming his follower was something so radical that every other commitment we may have should pale in comparison.

every other commitment we have should look like hate by how much more we love Jesus.

Example: (Hope and Selah > any of my friends)

Hughes:

“What Jesus was saying paradoxically was that our love for him must be so great and so pervasive that our natural love of self and family pales in comparison. We are to subordinate everything, even our own being, to our love and commitment to Christ. He is to be our first loyalty. All other relationships must take second place.”

What did Jesus mean by “take up your cross?

When Jesus was speaking to this audience, he hadn’t died on the cross yet.

this means that the cross was not the symbol of believing in Christ as it is today.

it was only known as an instrument for the most painful and humiliating torture and execution in the Roman era.

To take up your cross daily meant to expect painful situations because of your allegiance to Christ.

And In the first century, when this took place, that’s what many Christians experienced. Death on a cross.

The emperor of Rome, Nero, was a paranoid and ruthless leader.

He falsely blamed Christians for the Great Fire of Rome (who some say he started himself) and used that as a pretext to hunt down Christians.

He would feed them to lions, tie them to poles, and set them on fire to illuminate his gardens at night.

C.S. Lewis:

“The Christian way is different…Christ says, “give me all. i don’t want so much of your time and money and work: I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and there, i want to cut down the whole tree. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, but to rip it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked - the whole thing.”

No one who was lived the Christian life has lived a life of ease.

It ALWAYS cost something.

through the history of Christianity it has cost something.

Except now...

Now we try to make it as comfortable as possible to follow Christ.

The Examples

Luke 14:28–30 CSB

28 “For which of you, wanting to build a tower, doesn’t first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, after he has laid the foundation and cannot finish it, all the onlookers will begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This man started to build and wasn’t able to finish.’

So, if we are considering following Christ, you can only truly follow him after having carefully analyzed the changes it will bring in your life.

The problem is that in our Christianity we don’t want to do that.

Usually, we just want to get as many followers as we can without counting the cost.

The hard part about this passage is:

On one hand, we can’t just think because we said a prayer that makes us believers.

Matthew 7:21–23 CSB

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?’ 23 Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!’

Many on that day will say:

I went to church every Sunday

I went to youth group

I went to church events

And on that day he will say, “I never knew you.”

And that will be a wake up call for many...

probably even some people here today.

The most important question you can ask yourselves is about your status in eternity:

Are you a real follower of Christ?

Do you truly believe all of this?

Are you really committing your life to this?

But on the other hand:

This is not to make people doubt their salvation.

If you have already accepted Christ and surrendered to him, then you are saved.

No one can take you out of God’s hands.

This back-and-forth idea that we get from these verses is to cause tension in us.

Uncomfortable Tension that will keep us from being comfortable in our walk.

Tension that will keep us humble and accountable with how we are living our lives.

Luke 14:31–33 CSB

31 “Or what king, going to war against another king, will not first sit down and decide if he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 If not, while the other is still far off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, therefore, every one of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.

The leader of an entire nation would not gamble going to war without proper planning and analyzing.

He would ask questions like:

Can we win?

Do we have what it takes?

Is it worth the cost?

In the same way, we should also be counting the cost

Is it worth it?

Is it worth giving up everything else?

Will you pick up your cross?

Salt That is Worth It

Luke 14:34–35 CSB

34 “Now, salt is good, but if salt should lose its taste, how will it be made salty? 35 It isn’t fit for the soil or for the manure pile; they throw it out. Let anyone who has ears to hear listen.”

Salt Example:

Raise your hand if you like to cook?

Raise your hand if you like to eat?

So, probably the main ingredient you need to give your food flavor is salt.

As Brazilians, we are always eating steak.

The only ingredient we need to put on the steak is salt.

Salt has to have a purpose.

Without salt, the meat is not going to taste as good.

You might not even want to eat it without salt.

Bring out the salt packet vs sugar packet

What would be more effective?

A ton of sugar that has no good impact on the taste?

or the small packet that actually salts?

Here’s the application to this:

Don’t get lost in the numbers

Don’t get caught up on how “good you were” or “how long you’ve been going to church.”

Jesus didn’t get caught up in those things.

We saw in the passage what he did to large crowds.

He sent away many that didn’t count the cost of following him.

God may be doing that to you today...

Or he may be confronting you into a real commitment...

The point of this message is to make you feel uncomfortable...

I’d rather give you an uncomfortable message that is true, than a soft and warm message that makes you feel good now but ultimately doesn’t provide you with a real sense of what it means to be saved.

God doesn’t need numbers...

he needs authentic and real followers who will commit to him above any materialistic thing, above any earthly relationship, above anything that we can love.

My challenge for you today is to examine where you are right now.

Consider what it really means to follow God, to commit to him more than anything else.

How should that change your life?

Your relationships?

Your desires?

If this message made you upset, that’s conviction.

That’s God nudging at your heart for you to turn to him.

To surrender to him.

To give him the lead over your life.

It’s easy to say you want to follow Jesus, but still not let him lead you.

Let tonight be the night that you make that commitment.

There’s a reason why this is such a big deal.

In Jesus is where you can find true hope and salvation.

True fulfillment and love.

No one else compares to him.