The Cost of Following Jesus

SCRIPTURE:

Matthew 8:18–22 ESV

Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. And a scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”

WELCOME:

Welcome New guest, in-person and online

Our axiom: Big Christians,

Mention PD’s riff on we don’t need more big christians,

Mention: on of the way we will do this in the fall is through our Evening College.

Question: a show of hands, how many people have ever been educated on a proper christian theology.

I hate that we have a church culture that views theology as something is taught in a class room. Treating theology like a distant thought that is reserved for bible college and seminaries.

People come into the church and they don’t know how they ought to think because churches abdicated their role & responsibilities to train their congregants on proper theology and how to think rightly. The church is the place where people ought to be discipled.

Our bible studies both the mens group led by Cliff and the co-ed led by Jeff have been great ways

Study theology is not so that we acquire knowledge for the sake to seem knowledgeable, but for the sake to know God and know Him rightly.

Theology is a matter of spiritual life and death. Because what We believe about God matters,

More information on this will be soon, but encourage you all to show up, book mark your calendars as it will most likely start September 30th and will run for 8 weeks.

INTRODUCTION:

Opening: Cheap grace (what we want: Christ without the cross).

I once heard a preacher say, “The good news of the gospel is that life gets better, and better, and better.”

Being charitable he was trying encourage people during the dark days of 2020.

But that phrase captures this thought of wanting the resurrection without the cross, Bonhoeffer calls Cheap Grace.

Bonhoeffer : “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

The implication is that if you come to Jesus, your life will just get easier, cooler, better. But the reality is this: you have no life apart from Christ. Yes, life does get better when you are in Christ, but not because of comfort or success. It gets better because you are a new creation, and the Spirit of God is bringing to life the very life of Christ in you.

Life in Jesus is not a comfortable life in the eyes of the world, it’s a crucified life. That doesn’t mean God won’t provide material blessings (they all belong to Him anyway), but it does mean our allegiance must be to Him above all else. Any gospel that promises a life void of suffering and pain is not the gospel of Jesus.

Title:

The cost of Discipleship

Thesis

True discipleship demands a willingness to sacrifice personal comfort and security for the sake of following Christ wholeheartedly.

Following him will cost everything and give everything.

N. T. Wright

Recap Bridge:

A few weeks ago, we touched on the theme of Jesus’ authority. Matthew 8 marks a transition: from Jesus teaching with authority in the Sermon on the Mount, to now demonstrating that authority in power. Christ has the authority. Authority over disease and sickness, over demons and spiritual forces, over nature itself and the chaotic elements.

Eric reminded us that Jesus also has authority to give true rest—because He is the Lord of the Sabbath. And if He has authority to calm storms and heal the sick, then He also has authority to call us to Himself. That’s where our passage takes us today: the authority of Jesus expressed in the radical demands of discipleship

MESSAGE:

Luke 14:25–33 ESV

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

CONFRONTED WITH THE REALITY OF JESUS’ WORDS

From the modern progressive perspective this passage doesn’t square right with the ‘He Gets US’ Jesus.

“The pot-smoking hippy Jesus, love is love, that never calls a person higher standard, but tolerates and accepts us

“This must be a conservative take on Jesus, because Jesus loves without boundaries.”

THIS IS NOT BLIND FAITH:

This is not a hasty decision, Jesus is showing that we are to recognized the great sacrifice involved in the decision.

But here’s the problem: that’s not the Jesus of the Gospels. The real Jesus calls for full allegiance, because He is God. True rest—like Eric reminded us last week—comes only when we are yoked to Him. And in Matthew 8, we see two would-be disciples confronted by that reality.” Jesus gets to the heart of both their assumptions. The Enthusiastic Scribe and the Hesitant follower.

I want us to examine both in light of what this passage reveals, and how other parts of Scripture reinforce, what it means to genuinely follow Him.

Following Jesus: Two Contrasting Case Studies

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO FOLLOW

The word FOLLOW is used through the NT primarily in the Gospels in reference to Discipleship to Jesus. Both in a literal sense of physically following someone, and a figurative sense of following as a disciple.

I. The Enthusiastic Scribe: The cost of worldly comfort and security.

Matthew 8:19–20 ESV

And a scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Cultural Context:

Scribes were scholars and teachers of the Law, people with status, authority, and security. Yet Matthew usually portrays them in opposition to Jesus’ authority.

Textual Context

Crowds had already gathered around Jesus (Matt 4), drawn by His teaching and miracles. Enthusiasm was in the air. So the scribe’s eagerness—“I will follow you wherever you go”—fits the mood. But enthusiasm without understanding is shallow.

Enthusiastically says I will follow you wherever you go.

I can’t help but think of the Sister Act song,

“Sing, I will follow Him, follow you Him, wherever He may go.”

Theological Point:

Notice he calls Jesus Teacher. In Matthew’s Gospel, true disciples call Him Lord or Son of David. Judas alone calls Him Rabbi. That subtle difference matters: to call Jesus “Teacher” may see Him as a wise guide, but not as God. And like other rabbis, the scribe assumes he can choose his master. Jesus flips that: it is He who calls, and His call demands more than admiration—it demands surrender.

Jesus Response:

Jesus doesn’t scold his enthusiasm but exposes its cost:

This is the reality of living life on the road with an uncertainty of whether there will be a place to lodge or not.

Any missionary kids here? You probably can relate to this lifestyle of constantly one the move, it’s not comfortable,

The point is not that Jesus was literally homeless in our modern sense, but that discipleship with Him means relinquishing the expectation of worldly security and comfort.

He isn’t promising homelessness; He’s revealing that discipleship is a life of dependence, not worldly guarantees.

The principle:

Parable of the Sower: Rocky Ground.

Matthew 13:20–21 ESV

As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.

Quick enthusiasm (“I will follow you wherever you go”), but shallow understanding of the cost. Jesus exposes the lack of root by confronting him with the reality of discomfort and loss of security.

Application For Today:

Are you willing to follow Jesus wherever He may lead you and the expense of your comfort, your security.

To follow Jesus is not to “add Him” to our stability, but to release our grip on worldly security, trusting Him as our only true rest.

Where are you clinging to comfort or security? Following Jesus means those things cannot be ultimate.

True discipleship is daily surrender. Like marriage requires continual laying down of self, so does following Christ—higher loyalty, lower posture, cross-shaped living.

When you get married, regardless of how long you’ve been married, as a Husband my call remains the same. That I’m daily laying life down for my wife, and s

The call remains the same, daily I surrendering, daily sacrificial living.

The call of Christ demands a higher loyalty and a lower posture: higher, because it lifts us into new life with Him; lower, because the way up is the way down — humility, self-emptying, cross-bearing

II. The Hesitant Disciple: A Cost of familial ties

Transitional point: While the Scribe was too quick and shallow, we see in this next man to one who is slow and hesitant.

Matthew 8:21–22 ESV

Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”

Cultural Context:

In Jewish custom, the eldest son arranged his father’s burial. It was considered both honoring parents and an act of loving-kindness.

Textual Context:

The Potential Disciple request:

Notice the the word first is used here. which reveals the motive and intentions.

This must take priority, whether it was a delay for a few hours or years. the point remains. it was an urgent request.

Jesus Response:

Let The dead bury the dead

Seems unloving, seems pretty cruel. because it’s shockingly a scandalously remark.

Jesus’ is referring to the spiritually dead.

Follow me,

This verb is a present active imperative: meaning Jesus is saying ‘Be following me continuously”

Theological Point:

“What does Jesus’ response expose? That following Him cannot be delayed or made second to anything else.” Even good things—family, tradition, duty—become idols if they outrank Him.

Love for God must be absolute, that is to say, we are to love God more than anything else. and nothing ought to be a hinderance to our love towards Him. This is the radically shocking truth, therefore everything must be second to our love for Christ, even our love for our families.

Application for Today:

I was chatting with Pastor David yesterday evening and he was telling me about a story told to him about his friends conversation a muslim man. His friend is a christian and was talking to to this muslim man about Jesus and at some point in the conversation the man says “I believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, but I cannot follow him. The demand is to high. I just can’t do that.

What’s at stake? Becoming a Christian is a deathblow, he loses his entire family.

Western christian may not feel this effect losing Families, friend for the sake of Christ.

Eastern cultures: Muslims, Jews,

It’s death to your familial ties, death to your family identity, The same sentiment for 1st and 2nd century Jews, becoming a christian cost the respect of their parents

Western believers may not face this with family, but we all face “let me first” moments: “First let me succeed… first let me secure my finances… first let me…” What’s your “let me first”?

Bonhoeffer put it plainly:

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”… “The call to discipleship is a commitment to the person of Jesus Christ himself, an exclusive attachment to his person.”

- Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship.

Piper reminds us:

If something gets in the way of following Jesus, we must get rid of it.

John Piper

PERSONAL STORY

Show picture

around 2013-2014, i was part of a metal band. I know i don’t fit the sterotypical look. frohawk and everything. two month before my encounter with Jesus, my band was in the process of recording our first EP, we had big plans to tour, to take our garabage band across the states. August, now that i think about it, around this time in august went to church for first time, get radically saved from death to life in Christ. jsut a few weeks into new life in Christ. Felt the Lord tell me, i need to leave the group. but not just leave,

Something that I used to do for the glory of myself, I began to do for the glory of God

Let go of the things that may cause a hinderance in your walk with Christ. Let go of the things that is divided your devotion.

Good things are not the problem, the problem is self-control in moderation. that is the idea of temperance.

Matthew 6:33 ESV

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

The Scribe and the Hesitant Disciple wanted Jesus, but on their terms. One wanted comfort, the other wanted delay. But discipleship is never on our terms—it is always on His.

III. The Call to True Discipleship (What God Desires):

Exemplified in the Twelve (11)

The 12 disciples did not seek out Jesus, they responded to His call. A Motely Crew, not in the sense that they were 12 men who all come from different background with different personalities, unconventional, yet He transformed them by His Spirit to extent His one mission, to see his kingdom here on earth extended to every people and nation.

They responded to Jesus call in immediate obedience

Jesus commanded they follow him and the

a surrender to their current life and status

Matthew a tax collector,

The fishermen, left their trade.

relinquish everything

Yes, they were not told to sell everything like the rich young ruler, who Jesus exposes the idol was his possessions, but they held all they had with loose hands, in the sense that it was not their first. Peter was married.

What is God calling your to forsake to follow Him?

Called to Self-Denial and Joy

Matthew 10:38 ESV

And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

Sounds like a loss, right? Listen to what Oswald Chamber wrote

2823 It never cost a disciple anything to follow Jesus: to talk about cost when you are in love with someone is an insult.

Oswald Chambers (Lecturer and Missionary)

It seems like a contradictions, but Chamber’s is getting to the heart of what is truly means to be a disciple, that you don’t count all the things that you are giving up, all that pales in comparison to a love for Christ.

When God grabs a hold of your heart sacrifice doesn’t seem like a lost but a joy.

This is the point Paul makes.

Philippians 3:4–8 ESV

though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

Paul says he count all of his worldly achievement, accolades and lost, he goes as far as to call it crap: For our modern ears we translate it as rubbish, in comparison to knowing Christ.

Final Word:

The muslim guy who thought through knowing that Jesus is Lord, but knowing that it will mean a lose of all he knows. I give him credit to a degree, for weighting the decision. to counting the cost.

the sad reality is that He willfully is chosen a like yoke to the ways of the world rather to the one who truly brings Freedom

CLOSE:

Band comes up

Altar Call

Application True discipleship is not about what you lose, but about what you gain. Yes, it means denying yourself — but in order to find your true self in Christ. Yes, it means surrendering idols, comforts, and divided loyalties — but in exchange for joy, freedom, and eternal life.

So ask yourself:

What is Christ calling you to hold with open hands?

What “first” needs to be dethroned in order to seek Him first?

What are you clinging to that, compared to Christ, is just rubbish?

Discipleship costs everything — but it gives infinitely more.

The same still stand today

Jesus is calling you to count the cost and follow Him.

If you’ve been waiting with Christ for years or months, do not forget the continuous call to follow where He leads you.

If you never surrender to Christ. The opportunity is available today. That true life starts when your lose your life. when you surrender to Him. The God who loved you and created you for a purpose to be in relationship with Him.

Bonhoeffer stated:

"Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner."

Prayer:

Spirt-led salvation prayer.