Count the Cost of Discipleship

Main idea: The gift of salvation is absolutely free, and yet it will cost you everything. This is Jesus’ warning to those who’re just in it for the thrills. He wants all of your life, everything, and in return He offers eternal life and salvation.

Introduction

How many of you here today have ever been students before? Probably most, if not all of us have been students at some point in our lives and so we have some understanding of what it takes from our time in elementary, middle, and/or high school.

In Bible times, a student. Whereas a student today studies a subject (law, architecture, or whatever), a disciple in olden days learned from a teacher. Attachment to a specific teacher was the essence of discipleship. The Pharisees and John the Baptist had disciples (Mark 2:18). The Jews saw themselves as disciples of Moses (John 9:28). The term is used often in the Gospels and Acts of the followers of Jesus. They learned from him and attached themselves wholeheartedly to him. It meant putting Christ before family and possessions. It meant taking up the cross (Luke 14:26–33). Today, too, to be a disciple of Jesus means total commitment.

Luke 14:25 CSB

25 Now great crowds were traveling with him. So he turned and said to them,

The setting for our passage today is this; Jesus is on the move again, and “large crowds were traveling with Jesus…” He’s headed up to Jerusalem, where, as we now know, He would eventually give His very life for all mankind. Here’s what Gill’s Exposition of the Bible says about the scene;

“And there went great multitudes with him,.... From Galilee, as he journeyed from thence to Jerusalem; some for one thing, and some another, and all perhaps were in expectation of his setting up a temporal kingdom when he came there; and hoped they should share, more or less, the worldly advantages of it; for the whole nation was big with such carnal notions of the Messiah.[1]”

Wherever Jesus went, huge expectations of the coming Kingdom went with Him. And it’s understandable why there was so much riding on the Messiah. The Jewish people had been under the rule and reign of others for centuries. They were ready for a revolutionary change to sweep the nation… but I don’t know that any of them were ready for the kind of kingdom that Jesus would go onto describe in verse 14:26-33…As Jesus turns to address the crowd eagerly following Him He says;

Luke 14:28–32 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.’ 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.

Count the Cost

You may have heard it said before that salvation is free, but following Jesus will cost you everything, and that is probably a great way to summarize our text for the day.

You’ve got to love the practical instruction that Jesus hands out in the middle of our passage today. For as difficult as it must’ve been to hear then, and as difficult as it is to hear now, this is incredibly applicable wisdom.

Counting the costs means considering what the Lord requires of you so you don’t turn back when you are forced to pay up. We must look squarely at the costs of following Jesus and then commit ourselves with that knowledge. Do you have enough to complete the tower or go to war? Will you persevere until the end no matter what

In both these examples we hear the compassionate heart of Christ saying, “Hey, just stop for a moment and consider what this is going to cost you. Do you have the strength and fortitude to see it through?” I’m sure that there are many of us in the room who’ve gotten ourselves into situations that ended up being way more difficult than we ever would’ve imagined.

This could’ve all been avoided if I would have seriously considered what was at stake, and I believe that this is in part what Jesus is trying to do for all those who’re coming out to see Him. If they’re just there to see an amazing miracle, or hear some good teaching then they probably aren’t ready for the type of commitment that Jesus is asking for.

Think about it this way; If being a good student in school was difficult, and sometimes required that you made sacrifices that were hard, then just imagine how much more so it will be in the Kingdom of God. Remember, with Jesus the classroom is much bigger, the stakes are much higher, and the potential cost is much greater than you may have ever imagined.

Following Jesus Will Cost our Loves......

Relationships

Luke 14:26 CSB

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.

You must be willing to sacrifice everything, even your very life as you follow Him. Just as Jesus carried the cross, you must also be willing to carry yours. And this is not a commitment that should be made lightly.

For some further context on this disturbing verse, Pastor Bob Utley shares this,

“This is a Hebrew idiom of comparison. It is obvious that this cannot be taken literally because of Jesus' statement of honoring your father and mother in Matt. 15:4, which reflects the Ten Commandments. This section speaks of death to self (cf. Gal. 2:20) and earthly priorities. In the Near East commitment to family superseded every other commitment, but Jesus must become believers' first priority[2]”

With this in mind it makes sense that Jesus would warn those coming to Him that if they were going to successfully follow Him all the way to the end, they would need to be totally and completely committed. If anyone knew what was at stake, it was Jesus.

This is a stern warning to those who were so eager to get in on a piece of the kingdom that there would be great loss in doing so. Previously, in Luke 12:50-51 Jesus warns that He did not come to bring peace but division… He says, “From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

Me

Luke 14:26 (CSB)

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.

My Stuff

Luke 14:33 CSB

33 In the same way, therefore, every one of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.

John 21:15 CSB

15 When they had eaten breakfast, Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said to him, “you know that I love you.” “Feed my lambs,” he told him.

Following Jesus Means Carrying Our Cross

Luke 14:27 CSB

27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

This last point is a crucial one. In Luke 14:27 Jesus says; “And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” For Jesus, the cross was the instrument of His earthly death. Carrying your cross “refers not to problems believers face, but to death itself (cf. Luke 9:23-26; Matt. 10:34-39; 16:24; Gal. 2:20).

When the Roman Empire crucified a criminal or captive, the victim was often forced to carry his cross part of the way to the crucifixion site. Carrying his cross through the heart of the city was supposed to be a tacit admission that the Roman Empire was correct in the sentence of death imposed on him, an admission that Rome was right and he was wrong. So when Jesus enjoined His followers to carry their crosses and follow Him, He was referring to a public display before others that Jesus was right and that the disciples were following Him even to their deaths. This is exactly what the religious leaders refused to do.

Pastor and author Dietrich Bonhoeffer says it like this in his book, The Cost of Discipleship;

“The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

Hiroo Onoda was a lieutenant in the Japanese army stationed on the Philippine island of Lubang during World War II. When his commander left the island, he ordered Onoda to stay and fight. “It may take three years, it may take five, but whatever happens we’ll come back for you,” he had said. Onoda faithfully carried out those orders for the next 29 years.

After the war, the Japanese government dropped leaflets to persuade him to come out of hiding but he dismissed them as Allied propaganda. He was even declared dead in 1959. In 1974 he encountered Norio Suzuki, a Japanese student who had gone in search of Onoda. Suzuki could not convince Onoda—who insisted he was still awaiting orders—to come out of hiding. Suzuki left but soon returned with a delegation that included Onoda’s brother and his former commander, who formally relieved the emaciated soldier of duty.

That is the commitment of a Christian disciple—continuing to keep our pledge to the Lord until he comes to relieve us of duty. The difference is that we will know right away when it happens.