Choose Jesus

Scripture Lesson

“Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, 26 “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. 33 So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”

Prayer

Opportunity Cost: it’s a simple thing. The Opportunity Cost of something is what you have to give up in order to acquire or achieve something else. Business owners recognize this, because every resource they have, whether it be land, money, time, or something else, can be used in many different ways. Thus every action, choice, or decision to use a resource in a certain way means they can’t use it in any of the other ways: there is an opportunity cost.

Here is an example of opportunity cost: they say that If you want to become a master of anything, whether it be preaching, writing, playing a musical instrument, building houses, or anything else, you have to give at least 10,000 hours of your life to it. Anything less and you won’t accomplish mastery. Therefore, to become a master carpenter, you must pay the cost: 10,000 hours, of time, energy, and labor. At 10 hours of work a day, that’s roughly three years of your life, not including weekends and vacation.

Opportunity Cost is the real life result of a principle that affects all our lives: when we choose something, we are at the same time rejecting something else. We make many choices every day. We choose vanilla ice cream and not chocolate ice cream. We choose to do some tasks now, and leave some for later. Some of these choices happen because of preference. Others because of necessity. All decisions, though, come down to one thing:

Priorities.

That is, the things that are truly important to us. Things that are most important. Things we take care of first, before we do anything else.

We all have priorities that we can tell to someone else, or write down on paper. But the truth is, these are just really ideals. Better yet, they are things we say to make ourselves look good to other people. Like, I can say healthy eating is my priority, but then when no one is looking I’m scarfing down twinkies. And because our spoken or written priorities are so flimsy, we recognize that we all have another set of priorities: these are our real priorities. our real priorities are based on what we actually do. In the example above, my real priority is: no matter what I say about eating healthy, it’s more important to me to eat things I like than it is to eat things that are good for me.

We often make choices that run against our priorities. We may have made it a priority to focus on our finances, or healthy living, or being a better parent, but we find ourselves time and time again doing things that cause setbacks. This can be really frustrating and lead to a sense that we are so weak that we will never be able to accomplish our goals.

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

Sometimes, our real priorities are things which have no lasting significance. We chase after things that don’t really lead us anywhere we would want to go. We go down rabbit trails, we get distracted by some inspirational quote we saw on facebook that calls us to do this or that better. We lose our focus. We get excited about doing something, without ever stopping to consider whether we had the time, energy, and gumption to see it through to the end. I mean, folks, what is the point of setting off on a journey if we never really go anywhere?

Sometimes, we get so overwhelmed that we choose things that help us escape, just to find that when the escape is over, the stress is still there and we still have our priorities out of whack.

What’s more, the world will constantly call upon you to do this or that, to accept this, or reject that, to buy this, or not buy that. Every moment of every day we are confronted with what are presented to us as golden opportunities for a better, more successful life. It’s a wonder How in the world we ever know what is the right thing to do.

Unless, that is, we have our priorities straight.

This, I believe, is what Jesus meant by his rather harsh words to the crowds recorded in . He said: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” The word “hate,” in this passage is what throws many people off. But Christians throughout the years have tried not to overthink it. The word hate may simply be a way of saying all these other relationships should be less important, even if by only a little bit, then our relationship with Jesus. I think this, because the words are softened when we read similar teachings of Jesus recorded in the other gospels. tells of how Jesus’ mother and brothers came to a house where he was staying, and began calling for him. The crowd was sitting around Jesus, and they said to Jesus: “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” Jesus replied: “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Then Jesus looked at those who sat around him, and he said “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

In other words, we aren’t supposed to hate our families, it’s just that Jesus calls us to love Him a little bit more. Jesus wants us to choose him above all others. When we choose Jesus by making Him first, we finally are able to get our priorities straight.

Just before this passage in , Jesus had told the parable of the wedding banquet. This lead one commentator to write: “Having just spoken of the passion of God to see that everyone gets an invitation to come to His great banquet, Jesus spoke to the passion for the Kingdom that must be demonstrated by those who choose to accept a place at the Father’s table.”

There are two things, Jesus explained to the crowd, that are expected of those who want to sit at the banquet table of God: (1) Our relationship with Jesus must be our first and most important relationship; and (2) We are to “carry the cross” and follow Jesus- in other words, we are to offer the same sacrificial love that Jesus gave to us, to others. Simply put: we are supposed to do the same things that Jesus did.

And what did Jesus do that we also must do? Well, it all starts with relationships.

Jesus focused on three relationships: (a) with his father through prayer; (b) with his disciples through fellowship, teaching, and service; (c) with others who were not yet disciples through announcing the good news to the world.

These relationships were centered on the most significant, enduring priority of all time: the Kingdom of God is coming- we are to be participants in it. This is the central purpose of our lives, our sense of mission and focus. Everything else is just, as the song goes “just sinking sand.”

When we do these things, we choose Jesus- and with Jesus, we know we have something of eternal value. With Jesus, we know the best is yet to come.

Story of woman buried with her fork. “The best is yet to come.”