The Cost of Discipleship
Notes
Transcript
Before I begin, I want to state that as I prepared this message, I was reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s work on discipleship.
Inevitably, his work has influenced today’s sermon.
Bonhoeffer is one of my heroes. He lived during Nazi Germany, and while all the churches were supporting Nazism, Bonhoeffer formed a coalition of churches who denounced what the Nazis and churches were doing.
Bonhoeffer believed that Christians ought to live different, that Christianity is more than just believing—he believed that Christianity is discipleship.
The text that we will be reading today will demonstrate how Jesus would expect his followers to respond.
Do we just affirm a certain number of biblical truths and live like the world? Or, is there something more.
Let’s see for ourselves.
Open up your Bible to Luke 9:23-26, and then we will skip to Luke 14:25-35.
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’
“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
Let’s pray
Discipleship
It’s one of the biggest themes within the book of Luke and within the teachings of Jesus.
It’s one of the biggest tenets of Encounter Church.
In fact, we exist to make disciples.
The church at large is supposed to make disciples.
Remember the last words of Jesus in the Great Commission?
Go and make disciples.
Those were his last words.
And even though discipleship is big deal for Jesus.
Here’s an interesting quote from Dallas Willard, a professor of philosophy who taught at the University of Southern California in LA.
He said,
The word “disciple” occurs 269 times in the New Testament. “Christian” is found only three times and was first introduced to refer precisely to the disciples… The New Testament is a book about disciples, by disciples, and for disciples of Jesus Christ.
Yet, more and more, we have failed to make disciples.
Sometimes churches think that their main goal is argue about their differences among each other.
about secondary issues.
But the church is supposed to make disciples.
Unfortunately, churches have opted for cheap grace instead of costly grace.
Maybe, they have reduced the message of Christ as a religious act that we do on Sunday.
But, Jesus’ message about discipleship calls us to so much more.
something whole and it involves our entire lives.
Bonhoeffer said,
Jesus calls not a new religion but to life.
Unfortunately, in recent years,
churches of the West,
that is, churches in America and Europe have not made discipleship part of being a Christian.
Dallas Willard said,
One is not required to be, or to intent to be, a disciple in order to become a Christian, and one may remain a Christian without any signs of progress toward or in discipleship. Contemporary American churches do not require to following Christ in his example, spirit, and teachings as a condition of membership.
Discipleship clearly is optional.
Churches are filled with “undiscipled disciples.” Most problems in contemporary churches can be explained by the fact that members have not yet decided to follow Christ.
Yeah,
this is a sad reality.
And I really hope Encounter Church has this reality in mind.
We don’t want to give this false idea that you can be part of the body of the Christ and not follow Jesus.
We love you and welcome you who don’t follow Jesus, but don’t get the false reality that you are a Christian.
There is a need to follow him.
We do not want to offer cheap grace.
We need to present costly grace.
Cheap grace means grace as bargain basement goods, cut-rate forgiveness, cut-rate comfort… grace as the church’s inexhaustible pantry, from which it is doled out by careless hands without hesitation or limit. It is a grace without a price, without costs.
Bonhoeffer continued and said that
Cheap grace means grace as doctrine, as principle, as system. It means forgiveness of sins as a general truth; it means God’s love as merely a Christian idea of God.
There is this idea that Christians better not defy cheap grace by proclaiming the need of service and obedient life under the commandments of Jesus Christ.
But
Cheap grace is preaching forgiveness without repentance; it is baptism without the disciple of community; it the Lord’s Supper without confession of sin.
Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without the living, incarnate Jesus Christ.
Cheap grace is not the type of grace Jesus offered.
Yet it is the type of grace that churches present.
We need to be true to the words of Jesus,
What he would say to us today.
It’s not important what I think,
or what another church leader has said,
what matters is what Jesus said.
There are so many sounds coming from churches.
Much of it is human
some are harsh laws,
and others are false hopes, which blind the actual words that Jesus made.
We need to preach Christ alone.
There are a lot people who go to churches, wanting to hear, not a preacher,
but Christ.
And unfortunately, preachers, including myself, do make it hard to know Jesus.
I don’t want to deny you the opportunity to hear the words of Jesus.
I don’t have all the answers.
But I do have a savior who knows what you are going through.
Christians get into debates about rules and certain formulations.
We get in arguments about our own opinions and convictions, but yet we don’t preach Christ enough.
Jesus preached costly grace.
Costly grace is the hidden treasure in the field, for the sake of which people go and sell joy everything they have.
Costly grace is the call of Jesus Christ which causes a disciple to leave his nets and follow him.
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which has to be asked for, the door at which one has to knock.
Jesus taught a type of grace that is costly.
This is what Jesus said
In the first reading that we read
that Jesus told his disciples,
that whoever want to be his disciples must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow him.
This is crazy for anyone to ask.
But this is the type of loyalty Jesus expects from his disciples.
Disciples are students, or followers, or apprentices,
as John Mark Comer puts it.
According to Dallas Willard,
The disciple of Jesus is not the deluxe or heavy-duty model of the Christian—especially padded, textured, streamlined, and empowered for the fast lane on the straight and narrow way. He stands on the pages of the New Testament as the first level of basic transportation in the Kingdom of God.
We might have distinctions between Christians and disciples,
but Jesus believed that anyone who really followed him and his teachings were his disciples.
And for anyone to be an apprentice of Jesus, a disciple of Jesus, he or she must deny him or herself.
This means we don’t put our desires first.
We don’t put us first.
Kinda crazy to hear this in Modern America—the selfie generation.
But yet, we are to deny ourselves.
We might think of someone who denies him or herself as someone who doesn’t have any fun.
But that’s not what Jesus is saying here.
According to some scholars,
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 8: Matthew, Mark, Luke 2. The Suffering and Glory of the Son of Man (9:22–27)
This means that as Christians we will not set our desires and our will against the right Christ has to our lives. It does not mean cultivating a weak, nonassertive personality or merely denying ourselves certain pleasures.
We deny putting ourselves first.
We recognize that we don’t live for ourselves.
We live for Christ.
For Christ’s sake, not for own sake.
Instead we are to take up our cross daily and follow him.
2,000 years after Jesus, the cross seems to be a fashion statement.
Maybe it communicates that you are a Christian,
or you like the teachings of Jesus.
Maybe, you just like the design.
But during the Roman era, the crucifix was a sign of shame
The cross was form of capital punishment that the Romans reserved for the worst of criminals.
Criminals would pick up their cross from the cite of sentencing to the place of Crucifixion.
It was one-way journey.
On the way to the place of crucifixion, they would be shamed.
And yet, Jesus is telling us,
that if we want to his disciples,
we must be willing to pick our cross daily.
We must be bear the shame that would come with the cross.
We must be willing to suffer at the expense of dying.
This is no joke.
He is probably using the metaphor of the cross—not literal martyrdom, although some did die for the faith.
Nevertheless, this is not supposed to be taken lightly.
I remember one time attending this one church.
The pastor preaching about wholeheartedly following Jesus,
being willing to live in shame and die for Jesus.
And while the pastor was preaching,
somebody sitting in the row in front of me,
this person said, “You’re being extreme.”
---
Oh, only if this person knew what Jesus actually taught.
Jesus taught some extreme stuff.
He taught, that following him meant to pick our cross daily.
Being willing to be shamed daily.
Being willing to die daily.
Literally and spiritually.
Mortifying the flesh—saying no to sin,
and being willing to stand for Jesus even when people may be against us.
Bonhoeffer said,
Whenever Christ calls us, he calls us to death.
This “death” could mean the daily struggle against sin, and being willing to face the possibility of persecution.
These are prerequisites to following Jesus.
And we need to do this daily.
It’s not one day, after a great church service, we decide to follow Jesus.
Then the next day, we forget about following Jesus.
No, we must follow Jesus daily.
And I get it.
We do forget some days.
But when we do,
disciples will pray,
Forgive us our trespasses.
Then, disciples get back up and try to follow Jesus daily.
---
One modern scholar of Luke, Joel B. Green, said,
[T]hose who choose to follow [Jesus] may expect nothing other than the opposition that will become his trademark by the end of the narrative.
In the end, what happened to Jesus?
We should all know the story.
He died on the crucifix.
If we’re going to follow this man, we should expect the possibility of also dying for his sake.
Or suffering for his sake.
We suffer as followers of Christ.
Discipleship is being bound the suffering Christ.
Not because we’re mean.
We suffer because we try to live according God’s purpose,
in a world that resists God.
We try to live like Jesus.
And we will encounter hostility and experience great suffering.
We live in peaceful times,
but we still live in a godless world.
So don’t be surprised about suffering for the sake of Christ.
As disciples, we must embrace the way of the cross.
---
I mentioned earlier, that Jesus’ grace is costly.
I think we’re seeing why it’s costly.
Bonhoeffer said,
Costly grace is costly because it calls to disciple; it is grace, because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly, because it costs people their lives; it is grace because it thereby make them live.
We are to preach costly grace.
Jesus taught that whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for him, their will be saved.
There are people who want to keep a part of themselves.
They want to, so to speak, save their lives.
Their like, Jesus, you’re cool, but I want to keep things my way.
Sadly, that leads to destruction.
But if you give your whole self away.
If you give yourself to Jesus.
You are wiling to die for him.
You deny yourself but you follow Jesus.
You die to self.
That’s when you will be saved.
That’s when you will truly live.
Following your own desires will lead to trying to gain the whole world—experiencing everything the world has to offer.
Getting all the possessions you can get.
But while you’re at it, you will lose your true self.
What’s the point of gaining the world, if you lose yourself.
Thus, don’t try to save yourself.
I know this sounds paradoxically.
But that’s what it is.
It’s paradox.
If you lose your life for Jesus.
If you give your life for Jesus.
He will save your life.
Here’s what Green, the scholar I referenced before, said on losing one’s life for Jesus:
What Jesus is asking is that people give up their lives— their relationships, their conceptions of the world, and the practices that flow from these— in order to follow him in his unreserved commitment to the salvific purpose of God. One cannot cling to this life and also serve the redemptive plan of God.
It’s not about just dying and becoming a martyr.
It’s about giving up our relationships.
Giving up our conceptions of this world, and practice that follow
so that we can wholeheartedly follow Jesus.
One cannot cling to this life and also follow Jesus.
Then Jesus said,
If you’re ashamed of him and what he is saying
If you’re embarrassed about these words,
he, the Son of Man, will be ashamed of them, when it matters.
He will not recognize you as his son or daughter before the glory of the Father and the holy angels.
So don’t take this lightly.
Of course this is a process.
But we do need to be a people who are unashamed of their leader Jesus Christ.
We can’t be like,
“Uh I like some things and I don’t like other things.”
Jesus calls us to full devotion.
And if your new here, we’re here to help you on this journey.
We welcome you.
We love you.
But we’re also honest.
Following Jesus is a serious thing.
Jesus believed that people who would follow him should expect
ostracism, conflict and social dishonor—we probably don’t expect that as American Christians,
but we should
we should expect being ostracized and being dishonored.
But you don’t have to follow to Jesus.
You could reject him and his message so that you don’t have to suffer shame before the world.
But know, that according to Jesus,
how you respond to his message will determine how Jesus will respond to you before his Father.
One scholar said,
Luke The Demands of Discipleship (9:23–27; Matthew 16:24–28; Mark 8:34–9:1)
Verse 26 reminds us of what we all know very well: the one of whom you are ashamed today may be your judge tomorrow. This is but a variation on the ancient proverb: Whatever you sow you will reap.
If you reject Jesus, he will reject you when it matters.
You reap what you sow.
Right now, accepts you.
But there will be a time, when it’s too late.
And honestly, if you were not going to follow him now, you probably wouldn’t have followed him then,
Or you would follow him for a wrong reason.
Just be aware...
Following or rejecting Jesus is a weighty choice.
Loyalty to Jesus has its reward,
and disloyalty its punishment.
If we are true to him in time, he will be true too us in eternity.
If we seek to follow him in this world, in the next he will point to us as one of his people.
But if by our lives we disown him, even though with our lips we confess him, the day must come when he cannot do other than disown us.
We lived a life without him, and we will live an afterlife without him.
---
In the other passage that we read,
we also saw some crazy things.
He’s talking to the crowds, who were with him while he was traveling to Jerusalem.
He was super popular.
And if I was trying to keep a crowd, I wouldn’t say what he said.
Jesus basically said, that you need to hate your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters
even your own life.
If you don’t, then you cannot be a disciple of Jesus.
But wait,
aren’t we supposed to all,
especially those closest to us.
Yes, God calls us to love everyone.
In
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
God told husbands to love their wives.
But yet, in this passage,
Jesus says to hate wife and children and even their own life.
...
One scholar correctly noted,
Luke: An Introduction and Commentary 1. The Cost of Discipleship (14:25–33)
There is no place in Jesus’ teaching for literal hatred. He commanded his followers to love even their enemies (6:27), so it is impossible to hold that he is here telling them literally to hate their earthly nearest (cf. 8:20f.).
This is a figure of speech.
According to Greek scholars,
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 8: Matthew, Mark, Luke 3. The Cost of Being a Disciple (14:25–35)
“Hate” (v. 26) is not an absolute but a relative term
We’re not active in hating our wives.
But Jesus is telling us,
that our devotion to Christ,
our love for God needs to be first.
We need to love our spouse.
We need to love our parents.
But that love does not compare to the love that we should have for God.
Relative to our love for God, people say we don’t have the same level of love for our families.
Another scholar defined the
The Gospel of Luke viii. The Conditions of Discipleship 14:25–35
μισέω, ‘to hate’, is usually said to have its Semitic sense, ‘to love less’
And that’s true.
Compared to our love for God, our love for family is less.
Joel Green said that
Disciples are characterized, first, by their distancing themselves from the high cultural value placed on their family network, otherwise paramount in the world of Luke. That is, in this context, “hate” is not primarily an affective quality but a disavowal of primary allegiance to one’s kin.
We’re still part of our family network.
But that is not the primary allegiance for a disciple of Christ.
Jesus is the one whom we give our full allegiance.
Luke: An Introduction and Commentary 1. The Cost of Discipleship (14:25–33)
Discipleship means giving one’s first loyalty.
And fortunately, in a lot of our families,
we can wholeheartedly serve Jesus as we serve our families.
This wasn’t the case back then, when following Jesus meant that you were not part of the family anymore.
---
I do think that one of the best ways to love our families is to love God.
Because if we love him, we will follow what he said in regards to caring for our families.
But note what Cyril of Alexandria rightly said on this:
New Testament III: Luke Jesus Permits Us to Love Family but Not More than God
it is plain that he permits us to love, but not more than we love him. He demands our highest affection for himself and that very correctly. The love of God in those who are perfect in mind has something in it superior both to the honor due to parents and to the natural affection felt for children.
Our love for God needs to be higher than the love for people.
And then again, Jesus gave his little recruitment pitch about following him:
If you are going to follow him, you need to pick up your cross.
Recognize that you will have to sacrifice some stuff.
Then Jesus gave two parables, two stories.
The first is about building a tower.
When you build something,
don’t you first consider the expenses and resources necessary to build the building.
If you don’t, if you just start,
people may mock you.
“Oh look, this person started a building tower that he really didn’t think through.”
The other parable is similar.
Before going to battle, a king first considers who’s with him.
He considers how many soldiers he has,
and how many soldiers his enemies have.
If the king does not consider what he had before going to war,
he’s going to lose quickly and try to negotiate some sort of truce right away.
In the same way, people who are considering to follow Jesus,
need to assess the cost.
Don’t just follow Jesus mindlessly.
No, so many have done that.
And the end up like builder or the king who had not properly assessed their situation.
So many had begun to follow Jesus without really thinking about what it cost.
It costs everything to follow Jesus.
It costs everything to identify with his message.
Jesus is asking you,
Are you sure you wish to follow me?
Is the price more than you are willing to pay?
There may be enthusiasm in the beginning.
Woah, my life could be get better if I follow Jesus.
And that might be true.
But following Jesus, also involves carrying the cross.
You might the excitement in the beginning,
but do you possess the resources to carry through to completion.
I’m asking you,
Do you know what you are doing?
Do you realize what it means to follow Jesus?
Have you counted the cost?
I’m not trying to discourage you to follow Jesus.
I know that in America, churches have felt that the need to stop talking about the cost or anything possibly discouraging.
But I want to be honest with you,
as Jesus was.
Following Jesus costs everything.
Are you willing to give it all for him?
Following Jesus isn’t some mental exercise that you just decide to do in your head.
It’s a hard reality with consequence and benefits.
Don’t rush into discipleship without of what is involved.
Jesus was clear to the crowds who with him.
And he clear to us about the price.
Leon Morris, a NT scholar said,
Luke: An Introduction and Commentary 1. The Cost of Discipleship (14:25–33)
Anyone who comes to him must renounce all that he has.
These words condemn all half-heartedness.
Jesus is not trying to discourage discipleship.
No, instead, he is warning against ill considered, fainthearted attachment.
You need to be serious about this.
And look, if you’re still unsure.
That’s okay.
You’re welcomed here and loved.
But we’re going to be honest about following Jesus.
And we’re here to help, without any judgment.
But let me confess,
following Jesus is fulfilling.
Bonhoeffer said,
In following Jesus, people are released from the hard yoke of their own laws to be under the gentle yoke of Jesus Christ. In the gentle pressure of this yoke they will receive the strength to walk the right path without becoming weary… Jesus demand nothing from us without giving us the strength to comply. Jesus’ commandment never wishes to destroy life, but rather to preserve, strengthen, and heal life.
I know.
It seems contradictory.
But it’s more like a paradox.
Yes, following Jesus includes suffering.
But at the same time, you experience the greatest peace.
Bonhoeffer said,
When holy scripture speaks of following Jesus, it proclaims that people are free from all human rules, from everything which pressures, burdens, or causes worry and torment of conscience.
You are released from the weight of life, thinking that you have to do everything by yourself.
Jesus called us for greatness.
And it might seem scary.
But God knows what he asking for.
He knows that you can follow him.
He gives you the strength.
And as you follow Jesus, as you carry the cross,
you will encounter Jesus’ healing life.
C. S. Lewis, the author of the Chronicles of Narnia wrote on discipleship.
He asked the question,
how much of myself must I give to Jesus.
C. S. Lewis said,
Christ says, “Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work. I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.”
Wow.
I think C. S. Lewis is right.
Christ wants it all.
He will destroy the natural self,
but he will make you new.
And this is hard.
This is part of taking up your cross and following Jesus.
But this also part of encountering peace.
It was pretty straightforward to follow Jesus back then when Jesus walked among humans.
Now, it may not be so clear.
But we know from our study within Luke that discipleship includes,
loving our enemies, blessing those who curse us, walking the second mile with an oppressor—in general, living out the gracious inward transformations of faith, hope, and love.
This is part of giving your entire self to Christ.
It seems impossible.
But it’s easier than the alternative.
We have alternatives.
We can either give a little bit of ourselves to Christ, instead of handing over the whole thing.
Maybe with our friends or on Fridays, those are our days, not Christ days.
But that just makes things harder.
You’re living a double life.
Just give it all to Jesus.
We could… face nondiscipleship.
Reject discipleship.
But there is a cost to nondiscipleship.
If you don’t follow Christ,
if you don’t forfeit your life for Christ,
there’s a greater cost.
Dallas Willard noted,
Nondiscipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith, that sees everything in the light of God’s overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short it costs exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring (John 10:10).
Yes, following Jesus costs everything, but it brings peace.
— Discipleship is joy, and it’s full of merccy.
But nondiscipleship costs the ability of living in abundance.
It costs the possibility of experience peace and liberation with Christ.
Nondiscipleship will give us a restless heart.
Nondiscipleship makes costly grace cheap grace.
Without discipleship, costly grace would become cheap grace.
But true discipleship brings costly grace.
Consider the cost.
Decide whether you will follow Jesus or not.
Jesus has extended costly grace, by the gracious call that he has made to you—he has graciously called to follow him.
Grace is costly, because it forces people under the yoke of following Jesus Christ; it is grace when Jesus says, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
After Jesus, the church taught that baptism was an expression whereby one would declare that he or she had decided to follow Jesus.
One early Christian bishop said,
New Testament III: Luke To Be a Disciple of Jesus
“Whoever,” says the Lord, “does not carry his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” Receiving the baptism of water, we make this same agreement when we promise to be crucified and to die and to be buried with him. CONCERNING BAPTISM 1.1.
You want to join Jesus after you have considered the cost,
then be baptized in water.
Let me know if you are interested and we will do what we can.
If you truly want to be a disciple, then be baptized.