Sermon Tone Analysis

The Cost of Being a Disciple

Luke 14:34-2

Pollster George Gallup contends that fewer than ten percent of evangelical Christians could be called deeply committed.

Most of those who profess Christianity don’t know basic teachings and don’t act differently because of their Christian experience.

The Cost of Being a Disciple

George Barna found that almost half (46%) of evangelicals read their Bible only once a week or not at all.

Pollster George Gallup contends that fewer than ten percent of evangelical Christians could be called deeply committed.

Most of those who profess Christianity don’t know basic teachings and don’t act differently because of their Christian experience.

George Barna found that almost half (46%) of evangelicals read their Bible only once a week or not at all.

Our text last week presented God’s free invitation of the gospel.

He has provided everything at His expense and He invites sinners to come to His great dinner.

You cannot bring anything nor do anything to deserve an invitation.

God provides it all by His free grace.

Our text this week makes what seems like an abrupt shift and shows us the cost of following Christ.

It teaches us that:

To truly follow Jesus Christ, we must consider the cost and put Him above everything else.

Salvation is both absolutely free and yet it costs you your very life.

You receive it freely at no expense to you, but once you receive it, you have just committed everything you are and have to Jesus Christ.

You may protest, “That’s a contradiction!

How can something be both free and costly at the same time?”

Let me illustrate.

Consider a friend who offers me a free ride in his airplane.

He invites me to come along at his expense.

In accepting his free offer, I’ve just committed my very life to him.

If he flies safely, I am safe.

If he crashes, I die.

The instant I say yes to his free offer, I am totally committed to him.

I have entrusted my very life into his hands.

Jesus Christ freely offers the water of life to everyone who thirsts.

But, we need to understand that when we receive His free offer, we are no longer our own; we have been bought with a price.

Thus, to truly follow Christ, we must consider the cost and not begin to follow Him superficially, only to turn back later when things get tough.

That is what Jesus warns against in our text.

I Consider Carefully Who You Follow

Verse 25 is crucial for interpreting what follows.

“Great multitudes were going along with Him.”

Every pastor would love to have that kind of congregation.

Every ministry desires more followers.

Pastors with large congregations get their books published and are invited to speak all over the world because they are successful.

We measure success by numbers.

But Jesus was different.

Large crowds did not fool Him.

He knew that many were following Him for selfish or superficial reasons.

It was the exciting thing to do.

Maybe you or someone you knew would be healed.

But Jesus was not a false recruiter.

He wanted to weed out those who followed Him for superficial reasons, because when the battle heated up, He knew that they would fall away and cause damage for His cause.

So He turned to the great multitude and laid out these demands of discipleship.

At the outset I need to point out that there are many in evangelical circles who draw a sharp distinction between salvation and discipleship.

Salvation, they say, is God’s free gift, but discipleship is costly.

They would also say that while every believer ought to pursue discipleship, it is not linked to saving faith.

In other words, there are some who are truly saved, but who never commit themselves to being disciples.

They say that it is possible to receive Jesus as Savior, but not to follow Him as Lord.

I cannot find any basis for such teaching in the New Testament, and I can find many Scriptures to refute such teaching.

To believe in Jesus Christ as Savior necessarily entails following Him as Lord.

Salvation is not just a decision that a man makes, but it is the mighty power of God in raising a dead soul to eternal life.

God, who began that good work in you, will perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus ().

The new life God imparts inevitably results in a new way of life in accord with its nature, namely growth in holiness.

The seed of the Word will bear fruit unto eternal life.

The new life God imparts inevitably results in a new way of life in accord with its nature, namely growth in holiness.

The seed of the Word will bear fruit unto eternal life.

God through t he holy spirit will through groaning convince you of the need to follow him.

Thus it is possible to follow Christ superficially and it is to such followers that Jesus lays out the cost of discipleship.

He knows that the battle will be intense and He doesn’t want to recruit anyone under false pretenses.

Thus,

II Consider the Cost to Follow

Jesus first lays out two of the costs of discipleship (14:26-27); then, He gives two parables (14:28-32) that make the same overall point, namely, that a person must give careful consideration to the cost before he rashly jumps into it.

Then He states a third cost of discipleship (14:33).

He then (14:34-35) gives an illustration about salt to illustrate the cost of not truly following Him.

He concludes by warning, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

WE MUST CONSIDER THE COST OF FOLLOWING CHRIST.

Our evangelistic methods today are big on emotion and little on reason.

We get people into a stadium to hear testimonies from famous athletes or movie stars about how Christ changed their lives.

Then they hear a rousing speaker promise how Christ can meet the person’s every need.

Then the invitation is given and counselors are primed to get out of their seats and walk forward so that people on the verge of a decision think that others are going forward.

The choir or band is playing a song of invitation.

Going forward feels like the right thing to do.

In a swell of emotion, the person gets out of his seat and “decides for Christ.”

But did the person get saved?

By God’s grace, some do.

But even the well-known evangelists admit that the long-term “stick with it” rate for those who make a decision is only about 10-15 percent.

All too often, their decision was based more on emotion than on careful thought about what it means to follow Christ.

Here, Jesus says to the crowds who were interested enough to be going along with Him, “Consider the cost of following Me.”

A. WE MUST CONSIDER THE COST OF FOLLOWING CHRIST.

Jesus spells out three costs:

WE MUST HATE OUR FAMILIES AND OURSELVES (14:26).

Whoa! Doesn’t the Bible say that we are to love our families?

Doesn’t it say that no man ever hated his own flesh?

Is Jesus contradicting the Bible?

Of course not!

But He puts it in these terms for shock value, to get us to stop and think about the stringent demand that He is making.

He means that our allegiance and love for Him must be so great that by comparison our love for our families and even for our own lives looks like hatred.

Then, in an act of desperate and simple faith, he did something that he would never advise anyone else to do, but what he felt was right for him at the time: he prayed, “Oh, God, pleaseshow me.”

Then he took out a coin and said, “Heads, I’ll go in spite of dad’s desires.”

It was heads.

Still weeping, he cried out, “God, be patient with me.

If it’s tails this time, I’ll go.”

Tails.

The third time he pleaded, “Once, more, God.

I don’t want to make a mistake with Dad upstairs.

Please now, let it be heads again.”