The Cost of Discipleship
Notes
Transcript
Has being a Christian cost you anything in life?
Would you be able to name some things that you have given up in order to follow Jesus?
Q: How would you describe the world’s impression of disciples of Jesus Christ?
1. Being Jesus’ disciple requires a clear commitment.
1. Being Jesus’ disciple requires a clear commitment.
As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Q: Observations?
Notice the setting. Jesus and the people following him are traveling along the road.
Three unnamed people come to Jesus with different things to say,
First man- “I will follow Jesus wherever he goes” If a pastor heard this what would they say?
What pastor would turn this man away? How did Jesus respond and why did Jesus respond in this way?
And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
The idea here is that Jesus was rejected. Even the animals had places for shelter.
If the man were to physically follow Jesus he would end up sleeping outside. Is the man ready to sleep outside? If he’s not ready for the physical difficulty of following Jesus how could he ever endure the emotional and spiritual
Second man - “Let me go bury my father” What good Christian would refuse a man to bury his father? What was Jesus response?
JESUS “ Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
Burial was an extremely important duty that was more important the most of the other responsibilities including studying the law, and even temple sacrifice.
Jesus here is saying to let the spiritually dead go bury the physically dead. We are not responsible for the dead but for the living.
Third man - “Let me say goodbye to my family”
We will talk about families and parents in the next section. The main idea is once you start working dont even look back. If you are working for God’s kingdom dont think about anything else, focus on the task.
To have God as the main object of your life and affection
Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
Three men wanted to follow Jesus but had hangups. They couldn’t choose
following Jesus and earthly comfort
following Jesus and earthly duty or wealth,
following Jesus and family;
it was Jesus or everything else.
This was not a casual commitment but a life-altering one, and they needed to be completely clear on the terms before signing on the dotted line.
Q: What were some of your expectations of Christian discipleship when you became a believer?
Jesus was not trying to win them over to the Kingdom of God with promises of
life
health
wealth
good times.
He was telling them to walk away unless they were ready to pay the price.
2. Being Jesus’ disciple requires a total commitment
2. Being Jesus’ disciple requires a total commitment
Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “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. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
Q: Observations?
5th Commandment - Honor your father and mother.
Is Jesus really saying to actually hate your father and mother?
He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”
Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and scribes for commanding that people give money to the temple instead of caring for their parents with those funds.
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
Jesus himself honored his mother even when he was in agonizing pain on the cross and fufilling His Fathers command.
What is Jesus Saying
And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Priority matters. The first and greater commandment is to Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. The second and lesser command is to love your neighbor (including your parents)
When we follow Christ our love for our parents, family and friends will grow but at times it may look like we are rejecting, renouncing or hating them if they do not have the same commitment to Christ as us.
Q: What is the difference between being a disciple of Jesus and being a follower of Jesus?
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
A call to being a disciple was not just to the 12 Apostles
It is not any different than being a follower of God.
Q: What are some ways a total commitment to Jesus may be displayed?
Love and grace addressing the sin in a loved one’s life;
Leaving home and even country to take the gospel to the nations
Obedience to the law
Sacrificing your preferences, desires, and even life for the sake of another
confessing your own sin and seeking forgiveness from those you have wronged
God calls us to give sacrificially of our finances for the sake of His mission and His church
Our earthly reputation may suffer as we take unpopular stands for Christ and His ideals we may have to live
A life that does not meet the standards of our worldly dreams
we may have to leave a good-paying job to follow God’s call to serve Him in some other way
3. Being Jesus’ disciple requires a costly commitment
3. Being Jesus’ disciple requires a costly commitment
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? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 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? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. “Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Q: Observations?
Counting the cost, does this mean that if there is a cost to get to heaven we can earn your salvation by paying the price?
A: No salvation is free, there is a cost to having a genuine faith in Jesus Christ. You cannot live life as if everything goes on as it did before, you have to display fruit of the spirit and your life will have to change.
The builder of the tower is free to build or not as he chooses, but the king is being invaded (the other comes against him). He must do something.
‘In the first parable Jesus says, “Sit down and figure out if you can afford to follow me”
In the second he says, “Sit down and figure out if you can afford not to follow me, because there's a price to pay either way. ’ Both ways of looking at it are important.
Q: How do we generally see people asked to come to Christ? Is anyone ever warned about the price it will take? How can this backfire if people aren't told?
Jesus warned His listeners that following Him is not just a passive decision but an active assessment of everything we’re willing to give up for Him. The cost of following Him is incalculable because following Him will cost us everything. If we are not willing to part with the things most precious to us and put Jesus in the place of preeminence, then we need not apply to become His disciples. If we come to the table trying to hedge and negotiate— trying to give just a little less than our all—then we do not belong at the table at all.
How can Jesus demand so much from us? Well a good leader does not ask his followers to do something that they are unwilling to do himself, and Jesus is a perfect leader.
Remember in Luke 9:57 Jesus was asking for everything from these people
earthly comfort
earthly duty or wealth,
family;
While he was walking to the place where he was about to willingly give everything for them., for us.
My call: Are you at the place where you are willing to give everything? I cannot say that I am, but I want to be and I hope you do too. How do we get there?
The more time you spend with God the less important other things in life will be. The closer you draw near to him the nearer He will be and He will enable you through the Holy Spirit to start living a life that astounds normal human beings and to choose actions that glorify God and lead us to the lowest place of humility and peace.