Untitled Sermon (34)

Introduction

As we come back together this morning I cannot begin to express my joy to finally be back here with you all this morning.

It is always a joy to go out and travel and most especially to go to a conference where there was much great preaching.

But being away from your home Church for even a week leaves a person feeling empty.

We didn’t stop at a Church along the way although that was the plan so we decided to livestream last weeks service on the drive.

Sadly Verizon’s claim of being everywhere really isn’t true when it comes to covering 97% of America because the cell signal kept dropping out.

Long story short I didn’t really get to listen to last weeks message but many of the congregation told me they appreciated your word brother Wesley so thank you.

As I was planning to take us back to Galatians this week and studying for that, Thursday night my heart began to burn for going a different direction for this Sunday.

So today as we come back to the study of the Word of God, I want to draw your attention to the Gospel of Luke.

The issue that we will be talking about today has brought about many different ideas within the Christian Church.

Now before you move around in your seat and get uncomfortable, the issue we’re talking about isn’t one that’s going to bring much controversy.

But it is going to require internal examination on your part and on mine.

The issue I want to look at today is the Cost of Discipleship.

What does it mean to be a Disciple?

Why will it cost you everything?

If you have your Bible’s which as you know I pray you do.

Please turn with me to .

I’m going to be reading and preaching out of my ESV this morning but it should be very easy to follow along for everyone.

Luke 9:23

Luke 9:23–26 ESV

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

Pray.

This morning my sermon will have more form than what I normally have but please do not allow that to distract you.

We have in our postmodern world of thinking an idea that has crept into the Church.

It’s an idea that you don’t have to go very far before you find it either.

For anyone who has a television, the only thing required on your part is to turn your local television to the Trinity Broadcasting Network and you’ll encounter this teaching.

You’ll find it in the midst of the speeches of Joel and Victoria Osteen.

In fact, in a speech given not that long ago by Victoria Osteen, this is what she said:

"I just want to encourage every one of us to realize when we obey God, we're not doing it for God—I mean, that's one way to look at it—we're doing it for ourselves, because God takes pleasure when we're happy. That's the thing that gives Him the greatest joy. So, I want you to know this morning: Just do good for your own self. Do good because God wants you to be happy. When you come to church, when you worship Him, you're not doing it for God really. You're doing it for yourself, because that's what makes God happy. Amen?"

You’re not obeying God for you, you’re doing it for yourselves because God takes pleasure in your being happy.

Do good because God wants you to be happy!

So what do we do when we’re not happy?

When we’ve given up everything to sacrificially follow the Lord and in the midst of that season of your life, your depressed?

What do we do when we’re not happy?

Does this mean that God is no longer taking pleasure with us?

Does this mean that God is no longer satisfied with me because of my momentary emotions?

What about Joel’s book entitled your “Your Best Life Now?”

How many of you have actually read that book?

I did years ago.

Let me give you a few quotes from that book.

“God wants to give you your own house.”

“God has big plans for your life.”

All you need to do is to follow his seven step plan.

Enlarge your vision of God! Believe God will make you successful.

Develop a healthy self-image of yourself.

Discover the power of your thoughts and words.

Let go of the past.

Find Strength through adversity.

Live to give.

Choose to be happy.

Now it is true that there may be some truth in some of those statements.

We as human beings often don’t have a large vision of who God is.

But it’s not on the basis of God making us successful.

It’s because many of us assign our own attributes to God and we lower Him to our own image.

Many of us don’t have a healthy self-image of ourselves but it has nothing to do yourself.

It has to do with seeing yourself for who you are.

Either redeemed in Christ Jesus as an heir through Him or one separated from God for all of eternity upon your death.

I could go on and on and on critiquing this book but that’s not the point I’m trying to make.

Instead what I’m trying to point out is that the whole ideology that Osteen promoted is that God wants you to be healthy, wealthy and happy.

Yet that is not what we find in Scripture.

Instead in Scripture we find a calling to walk in obedience to God.

To deny ourselves and to follow Christ, regardless of the cost.

Regardless of whether or not the Lord would give us this nice and beautiful home.

But what instead has infiltrated our Churches all across the west and even into the mission fields is this idea that God is not calling for anything like that now.

Instead, Jesus now only cares about your happiness.

Happiness with self, and not with Him.

I want to examine that idea in light of what Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke.

Lets begin with the very first portion.

If anyone would come after me.

If anyone would come after me.

This saying of Christ is a metaphor.

It’s a metaphor which in the first century most assuredly had nothing to do following Jesus to get something in this life.

Instead in His time, in the world and the culture of Christ, being a disciple truly meant something.

It was a calling to make a choice.

A choice based upon what Jesus was soon to say.

A choice based upon not your own thoughts or ideas but based upon Him.

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

This doesn’t mean that you follow Jesus for personal gain.

Instead it meant that to be a disciple you truly denied yourself.

Now I’d like to address something here on this very topic.

I have heard it said and even preached that to deny oneself is merely a denial of certain things.

Issues such as personal enjoyment.

“Well I’d like to do these things but I don’t want to cause my brother to stumble so I’ll not do this at the moment.”

Yet that idea isn’t even close to what is being talked about here.

This idea of following Christ is so much more radical than simply denying oneself of certain things.

This idea of seeking after Christ mandates a rejection of a life based on self-interest and self-fulfillment.

You don’t seek after Jesus to see what you can get.

This life of being a disciple is not about what Jesus can offer you which fulfills your desires.

It’s not about having a nice house.

It’s not about being successful in your business.

It’s not about being promoted to the very top of your career field although all of those are very good things.

Yet none of them are what following Jesus is all about.

Jesus commands his followers to take up their cross and follow Him.

Yet most people in the Church minimize this idea.

Today, today this basically nothing.

People will talk about their light and momentary struggle with something and how its their cross to bear.

A wife will speak of her husbands unemployment or a spouses illness as their cross to bear.

The concept and idea of bearing ones cross has become a way of describing any form of momentary suffering.

Yet that is not what Jesus was referring to at all!

He was not talking about afflictions that both the saved and the unsaved person will go through.

He wasn’t talking about some random issue that has no actual cost.

Instead what Jesus was referring to is that His followers will share in His suffering.

Yet the modern Church has taken this idea of the cross and ran with it in ways not intended by Christ.

People hang crosses up behind their pulpits and act as if that is somehow a good thing.

Rap artist who know nothing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ walk around with a big cross hanging from their neck because they think it looks cool.

Yet in the first century that would have been vile!

But it wasn’t until the third century that the Church adopted the Cross as a symbol to represent Jesus.

The audience that Jesus was addressing would have been filled with people who had watched many times over men being picked up by Roman guards and sent to die on a cross.

They would have seen many people walking in shame and humility, carrying their own cross to the place where they would breathe their very last breath.

In the first century when Jesus spoke of one taking up their cross and following Him, it was one of the most vile things He could say.

The idea of the cross was absolutely disgusting.

The cross was the place where a person went to die leaving all that they had behind them.

They were stripped of everything that they had and lead to their death naked and ashamed to be publicly executed.

The phrase take up your cross and follow me was above all, vile and deplorable.

The cross was absolutely shameful.

The cross was a guarantee that following Jesus would cost you everything.

Shame!

Humility!

Heartache and pain!

Turmoil in this life!

A rejection of your own family if need be and ultimately.

Ultimately at the end of the day, following Jesus could cost you your life!

Taking up your cross and following Jesus meant that it was highly likely that you would see the same fate as Him.

That you better be prepared to hang upon a tree, naked, humiliated and rejected by all.

There was a time when picking up your cross and following Him actually meant something.

Jesus never called anyone to some form of easy believism.

That somehow by following Him your life status and position would improve!

The crucifixion of Christ reveals all of this to us.

Yet somehow, somehow in our society with our cultural baggage we look to following Jesus to see what we can get out of the journey.

As one pastor put it, we’ll follow Jesus if the payout is right!

But this isn’t everyone.

Many people begin this life of following Jesus and then shortly after they look at what it has cost them and they turn back.

They see that Christ doesn’t offer to them the benefits that they believe should come with being a Christian and they abandon everything.

The social gospel that they have heard, truly did nothing for them.

Yes there is coming a day when the follower of Jesus will have great joy and great glory.

A time when in the consummation of the kingdom of God, all of God’s people will share in the inheritance given through His Son Jesus Christ.

But that is not in this life.

That is not what you shall see tomorrow, next week or even in twenty years if you’re still alive.

Instead what is promised to the follower of Christ is a promise that we will participate in His humiliation.

And because of our position in Christ we will one day participate in His exaltation.

But this will come at a cost.

You are not left here on this earth to pursue after gaining the whole world.

You are not here to gain status and notoriety.

For if that is what you’re seeking after, you will forfeit yourself.

If your goal and ambition is to have the easy Christian life let me tell you a little secret.

It doesn’t exist!

The easy Christian life has never existed and will never exist until the day when we all bow before the Lord.

The weight of the Gospel and being a Disciple of Jesus Christ will cost you everything!

So the question before us this morning is this, have you counted the cost?

Have you truly counted the cost of following Jesus?

To be a disciple of Christ you must be willing to be the only one standing for Him when the whole world is against Him.

You have to be willing to suffer persecution.

You will have to be willing to give up everything at the drop of a hat if that is what He commands of you.

Being a disciple of Jesus Christ will mean that the world will ostracize you.

It means that you will often be going against the grain of society.

You will become the outcast and many times you may be the lone outcast.

When the day comes that it is no longer legal to be a Christian, you must be willing to stand firm for Christ when they knock on your door and take your children away.

You must be willing when the time comes that the people you love the most would turn against you because of Christ to stand for Him.

You must be willing to endure the very same torture and punishment that Jesus Himself endured.

And before you would try to argue that it could never happen here, I promise you that history repeats itself and one day it will happen here.

There will come a time that the waiter who is bringing your food won’t stop while you’re praying but instead will mock you.

Listen to me, these are not minor matters.

Everything I’m saying today carries with it an eternal weight.

It could very well be that the greatest among you would reject Jesus at the moment of persecution.

At the very moment when your faith is truly tested, you would reveal where your heart truly is.

And what I’m asking you today is whether or not you’ve truly counted the cost?

Many of you in this Church this morning are living your life with your hand upon the plow and you’re beginning to look back.

You’re beginning to look back at what the Gospel has cost you so far wishing that things could have been different.

Yes mistakes have been made!

That is every Christian.

But you’re beginning to look back to see if this Christian life was truly worth it.

But Jesus said that anyone who would desire to save his life will lose it.

Listen to me very clearly this morning.

The cost of discipleship is not the road to travel for the faint of heart.

It is not there for those who would live their live’s wishing they could have gained more.

It is a call to lose your life so that you may truly have life.

So if this is you today I want to challenge you on this.

Are you regretting the past 10-20-30-40 years?

Are you regretting giving up your life to follow Christ?

Are you longing for and wishing you would have saved your life?

Maybe things could have been different.

Maybe you could have had a different career choice or maybe this or that.

But maybe God moved you and guided you in such a way that you would truly have to decide.

You would truly have to decide if this was worth it!

Maybe in the life you wished you would have had you would have gained the whole world?

But what good would that have been if you would have lost your soul?

What good would it be to have all the pleasure of this world if you found yourself separated from God for all of eternity.

I want you to listen to me because I can’t say this enough.

Picking up your cross and following Jesus will cost you everything!

It very well may have already cost you.

But you need to remember that it isn’t over until the end.

You cannot finish out the rest of your Christian life with your hand on the plow and a desire to look backwards.

You need to see that just as Christ took up His Cross and walked to the place where He drew His last breath.

So must you finish out your life in the very same way.

You cannot go only half way but you must finish the course.

Christ did not only go to the walk to Mt. Golgotha.

When He got there He accomplished His purpose of purchasing a bride for Himself.

You must be prepared to give up everything with no desire to look back.

You are not here on accident.

You did not move here by accident and you have not given up what you’ve given up by accident.

God has sovereignly worked through your life and because of that you are sitting here today.

It is not by accident.

The Lord has brought you here to this place this morning to remind and encourage your heart.

That you would be reminded that coming to Him is not a game.

It is not something you do for only a little while.

Christ is not someone you follow for a moment but for all of your life.

And you need to weigh out the cost.

Following Christ requires absolute surrender.

Many of you made this choice years ago and I implore you to finish strong!

Many of you have remained on the fence.

Trying to keep a foot on both sides.

One foot seeking after the world and the other seeking after Jesus.

But I tell you today that you cannot have both!

You cannot have both the world and Jesus!

You cannot pursue ungodliness and godliness at the same time.

You cannot cling to this kingdom that you’re trying to build here on earth and also live for the kingdom of God.

You must be willing to rid yourself of all of that!

Saving faith does not allow you to stay in both sides.

Saving faith requires you to give up all that you are to follow Jesus.

The cost of discipleship is that your life no longer belongs to you.

All that you are and have now belongs to Christ.

Your life is no longer yours but it is His.

Your future is no longer yours but it belongs to Christ.

Everything that you are and all that you have if you belong to Christ is now His!

And you only one get one shot.

There will be no redo’s.

There’ll be no second chances at life.

This today is the life that you have been given and Jesus calls you to make a choice.

Choose this day whom you shall serve.

Get your feet out of both sides.

Be either cold towards God or be on fire for Him.

But before you decide which side you choose.

Know that being Christ’ disciple will cost you everything but it’s worth it!

To give up this life a thousand times over for the sake of Christ would be worth it.