God? The Perfect teacher, engineer, carpenter and Savior

The cost of Salvation is nothing but discipleship costs everything

The Greek word for the word Disciple is Mathetes meaning simply “a learner”

Now I know we have some teachers in here. If you were in a classroom teaching children. You may give them a example of how to do something.

By following in this example they may then learn how to do what said teacher is trying to show them.

Now without this example or someone to show them the example they would never learn how to do it.

Now if you give them a example and they fail to follow the example out of complete laziness. I would say its safe to say the teacher may would get a bit frustrated

Jesus was the Christians perfect example. He left example after example.

miracles and bible stories we still use to this day.

However it out of pure laziness we don’t follow that example

We don’t want to have to work for anything

Then that brings us to today's scripture

Luke 14:25–33 KJV 1900

25 And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and said unto them, 26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. 27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? 29 Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, 30 Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. 31 Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? 32 Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace. 33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

so we find in the last verse the word forsaketh

So Jesus tells us we have to be prepared to leave anything and everything we have to be his disciple

we have to put our lives in a place that we would be willing to leave any place anything or anybody at any given tine to be a disciple of God

Now we may say “im saved so why should I have to be a disciple”

First off we should want to be a disciple it shouldn’t be something we want out of.

Second off if we do choose to try to take the hard way out, as saved Christians there will be consequences .

However second off if we do choose to try to take the hard way out as saved Christians there will be consequences

Im strongly reminded of the story of Jonah.

Jonah was going around doing Gods work.

They were on the same page God up there saying Jonah go tell these people about me and Jonah was doing it.

Until God told Jonah to go somewhere that Jonah wasn’t particularly fond of, Nineveh.

Until

Jonah found his own agenda. See he was still planning on speaking Gods word but he wanted to do it at Tarshish not Nineveh

So Jonah justified not listening to God by saying well ill go speak to the people at Tarshish instead they need God and ill go there and everything will be good

Jonahs problem came because when he decided he didn’t have to listen to God.

God decided to teach him a lesson.

One of the biggest aspects of a good teacher is they have to be strict sometimes

They have to give some hard love

If they don’t then everyone would be running around doing whatever they wanted

But God being the great teacher he is decided he would give a little hard love to Jonah

We all know the rest of the story with Jonah

The question is as a follower of Jesus we think we can get by like Jonah

We can have our own agendas, and live without reproach

If you’re a child of God and your’e failing to follow his example and your’e living without reproach

The same thing that happened to Jonah will happen to you

He will find a way to teach you. it will be the easy way or the hard way

So in order to become a disciple of Jesus we must be teachable and be capable of following his orders

We must also not be to concerned of our self image

So many people spend more time making themselves look good but they spend zero time making Jesus look good

Luke 9:23 KJV 1900

23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

we all have heard this familiar verse and most of us know the meaning is that we must follow Jesus at all costs and if the need be deny our own interest for Jesus

When jesus carried his cross he died on it. If we are men and women following after Jesus’s example then listen to what we should do when our old lifestyles are crucified in order to follow Jesus

1.When a man is crucified he is only facing one way (we should be facing Jesus and following plan)

2.When a man is crucified he isn’t going back (so when we die to our old self we can’t go back to our old life)

3.A man who is crucified has no future plans of his own (our lives and plans must be fully reliant on God no on what we want for our future)

In verse 28 of our opening passage jesus used a tower for a example

He said that a tower wouldn’t be built by someone who hadn’t planned it and didn’t expect to have enough money

Our lives are like a tower

when a tower is built the thoughts and plans for it are concieved

When we are conceived Jesus forms his plans for our lives

As progress on a tower continues the tower is built step by step

Our lives are built step by step one day at s time God fulfils his plans on our lives

After the construction on a tower is done if the tower is built properly it is strong and little things won’t knock it down

Our lives are being built every single day and if we so choose to follow Gods plan our lives will become strong spiritual unwavering towers

It is by our choice if we aren’t spiritually strong

we have the perfect engineer but we fail to follow the plans

If any of us were going to build a bridge and we went to the engineer to draw us some plans and we left out certain parts of the plan because we didn’t think they were needed then the stability of the bridge would fail on our behalf not the engineer

When the stability of our lives come crashing down we often blame God

However we often fail to remember we left out parts of the plan cause we thought we knew what was best

What discipleship boils down to is following direction and being prepared for whatever God calls us to

Like jonah we aren’t always going to like it

We will sometimes fail to follow in the plan God placed for us

Its only with trust and understanding in him that God works on our plan everyday

Jonah swayed from his plan , God taught him a lesson then God put his plan back on track

Our we allowing God to reproach our lives to teach us to guide us and to put our plans into effect

I think its safer for us to allow God to build our bridges and well just walk over them. If we build them ourselves no doubt well leave out what we think shouldn’t be there and put back what we want and our lives or bridges will fail as we walk across

(close)

We all have a little Jonah in us and we all make our own plans

but maybe God is trying to teach you a lesson this morning

maybe he’s trying to show you where you need to go or what you need to do but you’d rather do something else

Would you just come to this alter this morning and pray to God to put your’e plan back on track

would you just allow him this morning to rebuild you're bridge and this time follow his plans instead of you're own