Untitled Sermon

The Cost of Discipleship

Titled: Jesus Teaches About the Cost of Discipleship: Discipleship involves a total and costly commitment to following Jesus.

Scripture

Luke 14:25-33

25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “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. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28 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? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 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? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Illustration: Anxious Celebrities

Have you ever been to a huge gathering of thousands of people where everyone was there to see just one person or group on the stage? Maybe it’s a music concert of your favorite musician or a celebrity.

Usually, they’re very grateful for you for being there to support them, and therefore say nice things that everyone wants to hear. Many celebrities confess that they have incredibly high anxiety based on what people think of them, they are desperate to keep their fans liking them,

and this leads many of them into depression. A charity called Anxiety UK says that anxiety for performers and pop stars are incredibly common because they feel pressured to please the audience with a perfect performance.

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Great crowds were always following Jesus, he was the show of the town, perhaps the show of the entire nation of Israel and beyond. Thousands upon thousands were coming to see him, the religious leaders and even the political leaders of the time watched him carefully from a distance.

Many people in power were jealous of him, even Pilate knew that the religious leaders wanted to kill Jesus out of envy (Matthew 27:18). Before Jesus came about, they were the celebrities, but now Jesus took away all of their fans and were even criticizing them for their self-righteousness.

However, Jesus did not gloat over his massive popularity. He did not try to use his fame for power or wealth, but he continued to live a life of a humble servant on a mission.

He never got himself a penthouse, Jesus himself said, “Foxes have dens, and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head,” (Luke 9:58). He did not go on insta-worthy vacations, and he worked over-time as the crowds searched for him day and night for healing.

Not a Fan

In front of the thousands of fans, Jesus said something that no other pop star would say in their right minds. “If you come to me and don’t hate the people you love most, and on top of that, give up your whole life to follow me, you cannot be my disciple,”

Through this statement, Jesus made it clear that he doesn’t want or need any fans. He wants disciples.

We have to frequently reflect upon ourselves to see if we’ve just been a fan: if we go to church to hear the things we want to hear, the way we want to hear it, and the moment there is a hard saying like what Jesus said, we try to ignore it or erase it from our memory.

Have we been coming to church like a fan and not a disciple? Have we been treating church like a Burger King, trying to “have it our way”? Getting frustrated if we don’t receive good customer service from other church members or leaders?

Jesus shows us that there is a high cost of being His disciple, and the cost is giving up our loved ones and our very lives. Jesus says, “count the cost” just like a builder would estimate how much it would cost to build a tower before he begins, we should consider what cost we will be willing to pay as a disciple. Like: “am I willing to put off my desires to do what God desires? am I willing to lay down my idols? Am I willing to love my enemies? and so on. Or else we will end up being a fake Christian and the world will ridicule us.

However, we will never reach this costly commitment if we do it without a good enough reason to do it. This commitment will be understandably difficult if the gospel doesn’t give us a reason to celebrate every morning. Of course, we may agree that the gospel should, “should” be enough reason and that we “should” be celebrating it every day, but we just don’t “feel” it. (Should and Feel) as subtitles

We are not touched by the gospel because grace has become cheap rather than costly.

Illustration: Cheap and Costly

Whenever I got my phones for free, I would always end up breaking them or cracking the screen sooner than later. I didn’t really care for it because I didn’t have to pay for it and I wasn’t interested in fancy phones. But once I started paying for my own phones by working on my own, I realized the cost of these things and treated them more carefully.

A lady from my former church used to tell the girls never to say “yes” the first time a boy asks you out on a date. The lady made the point that, if boys don’t have to make an effort to get the girl out on a date, he won’t value her like he would if he had to make a costly effort.

This is the same for the gospel. We’ve been wrongly taught our whole lives that grace is free for all in a way that it’s become cheap. Cheap like the phones I got for free (iGrace). Therefore, we don’t value the grace that God has shown to us by sending Jesus to die for our sins. It doesn’t make us any more joyful, it does not make us want to obey him any more than we already do, because we can get grace down the street on Dollar Tree.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor in Germany during the time of Hilter and the Nazi regime. Dietrich did not choose to stay idle when the Nazis were committing atrocities in his homeland. He strongly opposed the Nazis and joined a secret group of men and former german intelligence agents who sought to assassinate Hilter. In 1943 the plot was discovered and Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Gestapo and thrown into a concentration camp

Pastor Bonhoeffer continued to show his Christian conviction even in imprisonment, sharing the word of God with fellow prisoners and guards. He was so respected that even the guards secretly smuggled his letters to his family and friends.

Unfortunately, pastor Bonhoeffer was executed by hanging just two years later, he was a Christian who had counted the cost and came to the conclusion that he was willing to share the word of God wherever he was placed.

Pastor Bonhoeffer wrote a famous book called, “The Cost of Discipleship” which is a book that all Christians should read, and he talks about the difference between cheap and costly grace:

Quote

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ...

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. 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. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'Ye were bought at a price', and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”

Conclusion

Let’s no longer look at grace like a cosmic formula where our sin minus Jesus equals heaven, but let’s look at grace in a relational sense, where Jesus actually had to hurt, and his skin was actually pierced, and he actually died for us. When we understand grace relationally, and not just conceptually in our minds, it’s doesn’t just end with knowing, “oh I understanding this concept now, I am forgiven of my sins”, but responding to it with gratitude, “Jesus thank you for forgiving me of my sins.”

Just like pastor Bonhoeffer said, cheap grace is grace without discipleship, the cross, and Jesus Christ. But costly grace is something we must seek daily, it is costly because we must follow, it is grace because we must follow Jesus Christ, who says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. “

In order to remind ourselves every day, my wife and I started to begin every morning by literally sharing how precious the gospel is to us as we wake up, “Do you know Jesus is my source of unquenchable joy? Did you know I was lost and hopeless in sin, but now I am found and I have hope for the future because of Jesus? Do you know that Jesus is the only one I need, he is sufficient to provide for all my needs. I cannot live without Jesus because he gives me a purpose to live”

Preach the gospel to yourself and your family daily, so that you may not revert to treating grace as cheap but as a priceless, costly, treasure that you can’t live without. When the gospel becomes your treasure, you will no longer be like the young rich ruler who walked away sad because he couldn’t give up his money to follow Jesus. You will no longer need to walk away sad because your idols are more costly than God’s grace! You can now be freed from your bondage to sin and rejoice in the only hope of this world, Jesus Christ.

This is what separates a fan from a disciple, cheap grace with costly grace, realizing that it was not just a formula in the bible that saves you, but an actual living person who is right next to you, who saved you by paying the cost of his life so that if you who had no hope can hope! and taking up your own cross to follow him like he followed the will of the Father.

Let’s each take up our crosses and follow Jesus, Let’s help one another up whenever one of us stumbles by praying for one another daily, Let’s count the cost and commit to the costly path of laying down the idols which does not fit in the narrow road.