The cost of discipleship

Have you counted the cost?

It is always funny to me when reading through the stories of Jesus in the Bible because it is pretty evident Jesus wants real followers of him. Anytime there was a large crowd following him he would preach one of the difficult to hear sermons.

Jesus wants Quality not quantity.

This is one of those times in which Jesus preaches a messages to the crowd and you either walk away thinking this man is a lunatic or he is speaking truth. Obviously Jesus speaks only truth but what does it even mean.

Jesus wants us to be completely devoted to him and so in love with him that the rest of our “loves” look like hate.

Luke 14:25–35 NLT

25 A large crowd was following Jesus. He turned around and said to them, 26 “If you want to be my disciple, you must, by comparison, hate everyone else—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple. 27 And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple. 28 “But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? 29 Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. 30 They would say, ‘There’s the person who started that building and couldn’t afford to finish it!’ 31 “Or what king would go to war against another king without first sitting down with his counselors to discuss whether his army of 10,000 could defeat the 20,000 soldiers marching against him? 32 And if he can’t, he will send a delegation to discuss terms of peace while the enemy is still far away. 33 So you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own. 34 “Salt is good for seasoning. But if it loses its flavor, how do you make it salty again? 35 Flavorless salt is good neither for the soil nor for the manure pile. It is thrown away. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand!”

This is a harsh sermon that was preached when a large crowd followed Jesus. If Jesus only cared about a large following then this message would be completely different. It would be a message of encouragement. But rather we have a sermon on the difficulty of being a disciple of Christ.

A disciple of Christ is any follower of him.

Jesus was calling his followers to grow in their love for God and to not be dependent on the worldly things.

We begin this passage by looking at the severity of following Christ.

1. The severity

Luke 14:25–27 NLT

25 A large crowd was following Jesus. He turned around and said to them, 26 “If you want to be my disciple, you must, by comparison, hate everyone else—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple. 27 And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.

Jesus plainly states that his own disciples must hate everybody right?

That not correct at all but that our love for others should look like hate when comparing it to our love for Christ. Lets go through the list of people we should love less than Christ.

Our parents:

Our spouse:

Our children:

Our siblings:

Jesus is not saying that we must hate our family. That would be absurd but what he is saying that we should look at our lives and see if our love for our family is comparable to our love for Christ.

Jesus wants us to be completely devoted to him and through us loving Christ we will then love others.

Jesus never wanted his disciples to follow him blindly but for them to know that the life of a Christian is a life full of difficulty in which the only thing we must rely on is Christ.

Our life should revolve around our love for Christ. Our lives should revolve around not what our family wants for us but what God wants for our lives and whenever we begin following after HIM then our family relations will fall into place.

As Christians Christ should be our top priority and we are loving him and following him then our relationship with other Christians is going to be much stronger.

Our life: What in the world We are called to hate our own lives????

That is outrageous!

We are called to die to our own passions and live for Christ daily.

This is a conscious decision that we must make every single day. This is the part of discipleship that will literally cost you your life. Because we must sacrifice our wants for what God wants for us.

2. The Sacrifice

Luke 14:28–33 NLT

28 “But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? 29 Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. 30 They would say, ‘There’s the person who started that building and couldn’t afford to finish it!’ 31 “Or what king would go to war against another king without first sitting down with his counselors to discuss whether his army of 10,000 could defeat the 20,000 soldiers marching against him? 32 And if he can’t, he will send a delegation to discuss terms of peace while the enemy is still far away. 33 So you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own.

Jesus wanted people to come to him in faith but wanted them to come to him knowing that it would ultimately cost them their lives.

Salvation is simple and easy but the discipleship process is the most difficult thing we could possibly ever do!

Whenever we give our lives to Christ we are saying that Jesus is the lord of our lives but that is just the start of a lifelong process in which we are continually saying that Jesus is the lord of our life.

Jesus almost seems as if he wanted people to not come to him because of the difficulty of being a disciple. He wanted people to know the difficulties in order to follow him fully.

We so often know that when we come to him in salvation that we give Christ our lives. We know that means our allegiance is now given to him rather than anything else.

We also know that we cannot lose our salvation so what does it mean when Jesus said someone not finishing the house?

Once we are saved we are disciples of Christ and you can either be a good disciple or a bad disciple depending on how you live your life.

We are called to live as Christ. That is a conscious decision we make daily.

Jesus concludes this thought with the statement that anyone who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

To be a Christian we have to give away absolutely everything we own right?

No but we do live our lives with open hands meaning that if God wants us to move across the country we cannot be so attached to our things that we are disobedient to him.

Disciples of Christ understand that God is greater than every person, place or thing that we can get so attached too. Christ calls us to himself and if we make possessions our god then it will be much harder almost impossible to follow after God whole heartedly.

The Christian life is life that is completely surrounded by Christ. When we are connected with Christ in our daily lives we it is evident in the way we live. Our lives will have purpose for eternity when we are living our lives as disciples.

3. The Significance

Luke 14:34–35 ESV

34 “Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? 35 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.”

How can salt lose its saltiness? That is a legitimate question.

It can’t unless it is diluted in something other than salt. Salt that is around salt is going to remain salty but salt that is surrounded by sand is not going to be salty.

As Christians we can easily allow for our life to be so enthralled with the sand in our lives to the point where we completely dilute the salt in our own lives.

We must be a people who are surrounded by Christ and things of Christ in our everyday lives so that we are disciples who are making a significant impact on eternity.

Discipleship is when we allow for Christ to mold our lives and through him molding us we are able to mold others.

Discipleship is when we begin to take our faith seriously enough for us to share it with others.

Being a disciple of Christ allows for us to make other disciples who are making disciples.

Like Pastor Tim has said we want to be a warm center who is warming up others and then they go out and warm others.