Luke #38: The Cost of Discipleship

They say our life is the sum total of our choices.

Which goes to say that we would do well to choose wisely.

But that doesn’t mean that we should chose ease.

So I was talking to my football team the other day and I asked them why they came out and endured the heat, the sweat, the stress, the bumps and bruises. Why they would come out every day and run to the point of exhaustion or even getting hurt physically.

They all said… and I don’t doubt them… that they loved the game of football.

Of course that was the right answer. But then i told them about a team I was able to be a part of that went deep in the playoffs all the way to the championship game. I asked them what was the difference between that team and every other team that started the season together.

They thought it was probably luck, talent, their schedule… I told them all those things might be true, but one thing I’ve always found to be true about a team that plays late in the year is that the teammates LOVE each other. They sacrifice for one another, they serve one another. They don’t just love the game, they love their team.

A team that loves like their team like that, will go through anything in order to keep playing together. The blood, sweat, tears, late nights, early mornings, summer workouts, all of it is cheap when compared to the joy found in playing together.

The cost of being a part of a team like that is very high… but in relationship to the reward of accomplishing a goal together, the price paid is actually a bargain.

It’s funny that the things in life that are the most worthwhile often come with the highest expectations; think of your most important relationships… special moments in your life… possessions you treasure… but when we are a part of it, we don’t think of the expectations as excessive, but just part of what’s necessary in order to have had the experience.

Let me ask you. Do you feel that the Christian life has high expectations for your life?

Would you say it’s difficult to be a disciple? How you answer that depends on wheth

It’s why some of you are passionate about Jesus… because he has literally given you a new life so anything Jesus might require of you is reasonable.

In today’s text, Jesus lays out what seems to be a very challenging text. One that if it was the only message, we might struggle to get folks to be a part.

Hear Jesus’s words:

Luke 14:25–35 NIV

25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “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. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 “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? 29 For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, 30 saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’ 31 “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? 32 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. 33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples. 34 “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

The Cost of Discipleship

These are strong words. It feels like Jesus has again drawn a huge crowd, and just like he did before, he want’s to refine them, to have them consider again what they are doing. So again he lifts the bar really high for those folks who continue to follow him. He gives them 4 situations to illustrate the cost of discipleship.

The first one, Jesus puts in context of our family relationships.

He says:

Luke 14:26 NRSV

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.

That’s a ridiculous standard isn’t it?

What is Jesus saying here?

Remember whenever you come across a difficult text, the basic principal of biblical interpretation is that we let the Bible explain the Bible. We don’t go to our thoughts, to our experience. We go to the Bible. And in the Bible, we find a parallel account of this same teaching of Jesus in Matthew 10:37.

Matthew 10:37 NIV

37 “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

Another time this word hate is used is Genesis 29 where Jacob’s love for Leah is described as being hated by Leah in one verse and the next it says that Rachel was loved more.

In Matthew 5, we are told to not hate, but love our enemies.

So Hate here in Luke doesn’t mean to hate as we think of it… but actually to love less… to be less concerned with the opinions of, the influence of our families. To think less of what people say about us, even the most important people in our lives, than we do God.

This is the first cost of being a disciple that we must be willing to pay, the cost of Popularity.

Cost #1: Popularity

We all want to be popular, accepted. And so our tendency is to do things in order to be approved by others. Jesus says, don’t live for the approval of people any more. You have something better to live for.

But the reality is, we struggle with leaving this behind.

We ask people What do you think of me? What should I Do? What should I Say?

We let people influence the friends we have, the schools we attend, the subjects we study in school, our professions, the clothes we wear, the car we drive, the house we buy, even the music we listen to.

What Jesus knew and we need to learn is the Fastest way to lose a desire to live for purpose of God is to begin living for the approval of people.

Living for the approval of others keeps you from fulfilling God’s purpose for you

That people are the number one distraction for us when it comes to God’s purpose for our life.

For some reason, we Christians tend to compromise all the time. We will go places and do things we know we shouldn’t because we want to be accepted. Preachers will avoid topics ... parents will ignore behavior… all because we want to be accepted by people.

I’ve got good news for you. You have been accepted, and not by a pastor who wants to be accepted like you, but by God who has a purpose for your life. But your need to be accepted by people will be a distraction if you aren’t careful.

FOrtunately Jesus offers us the solution… Discipleship.

Discipleship diminishes my distractions

One of my favorite stories to illustrate this is from the OT. In it the prophet Nehemiah has heard that the walls of Jerusalem have been destroyed and he’s heartbroken over it, he’s weeping and praying God do something and God sends him. … this should remind you that if your heart breaks for something it just might be God’s purpose for you.... anyway, Nehemiah is on the wall building and a rival kings send messengers to him and inviting Nehemiah to come and meet with them. Nehemiah responds… Oh great the local leaders want to meet me! no he responded… I’m doing a great work and can’t come down.

When we lock in on following Jesus as our ultimate purpose in life, everything else is just distraction. So we can live free from the burden of popularity.

The second cost Jesus points out in the passage is… let’s look:

Luke 14:27 NIV

27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Jesus had told his followers this before in Luke 9 23 “Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

Now these folks had no reason to expect that Jesus would die on a cross at this point in the story… only Jesus did. What they did know though was that the cross was the means of death. BUt not only death. For the condemned man, it meant pain, shame, and persecution for him personally.

For the disciple of Jesus this meant a total surrender of control of their life… or what’s left of it here on earth.

As Deitrich Bonhoeffer wrote:

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” ― Deitrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

Taking up the cross refers to our paying the second cost… the cost of control.

Cost #2: Control

Do you like to be in control? I do. I tend to be a control freak.

Just the other day, I sent a message to someone I report to and they replied… man you move too fast… you don’t even give folks a chance to get there before you are moving on...

At work because there is a right way and there is everyone else’s way… that leads me to trying to do everything myself...

Outside… I go to our house on KI where I know I taught my son how to cut grass all the lines have to go a particular direction… but no he thinks he can just run the lawnmower any which way he wants

In the car… back seat drivers anyone?

In the house… The remote. I’ll just leave it there. Not just how we use it, but where it’s kept. When It’s absolutely silly to not be able to find the remote. It should always be right on the arm of my chair.

But seriously, maybe it’s a spouse, maybe it’s a coworker or employee, maybe it’s a child or grand child, but the more we try to control things and people, the more we fear losing control.

The more we try to control, the more we fear losing control.

The tighter we hold on to things the more we worry about it getting out of our grip.

We see this today in what’s called helicopter parents. Parents who don’t let their kids out of their sight. Have them bundled and packaged before every event. Today there are parents who when they take their kids off to college… they actually go to class with the kid.

So maybe that’s not you… but what is it that you really want to control? a person, a situation?

Another question?

Is it possible for you to control it?

So often we try to control things we don’t have control over. People we barely have influence on much less any control. This leads us every time to stress and anxiety…

Now let me ask you another question.

Is it worth it? Is it really worth all the anxiety, pressure that controlling that thing is bringing into your life?

It’s important to you, that’s great… then it’s important to God as well. Trust it to God… choose surrender over control.

Let it go and trust God… Choose surrender over control.

That’s what accepting the cross is all about, surrendering our life to God… accepting what he allows to come our way rather than live as though I am in charge of my life.

Following Jesus… getting close to Jesus … growing deep in my relationship with Jesus frees me to choose surrender over control.

Cost #1 Popularity - Cost #2 Control - Cost #3… Regret

That’s the point I think of the next two stories:

Luke 14:28-33

First of a man building a tower, runs out of funds to complete it; and the second a king who is tempted to go to war against an much greater army. Both examples point to the choices we make that we regret… that we wish we could do over, but we can’t.

Jesus says following me leads to discipline - not regret

Cost #3: Regret

I have bad news for you. IF you are a follower of Jesus, and even if you aren’t actually, so it really doesn’t matter about your faith… Either way, life is going to be hard. But in the difficulty of life, we have choices about what sort of difficulty we face.

We can have ongoing difficulties that are forced upon us by the world and others… or we can put upon ourselves the temporary discomfort of discipline.

Jesus says don’t follow me if you aren’t willing to pay the cost of regret… if you aren’t willing to leave the way of regret behind and take on a disciplined life.

Discipleship enables you to take on the fruit of discipline rather the pain of regret.

It amazes me how often we choose regret over discipline. We fail to discipline ourselves and leave ourselves open to pain of regret. Whether’s it’s because we “do it again”… and again… because we weren’t disciplined

Paul, the apostle, who wrote half of the books in the NT, talked about this cost of regret this way:

1 Corinthians 9:24–25 NLT

24 Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! 25 All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize.

He said, you are running already… why not run to win… focused on the kingdom?

You are married… why not have a God glorifying marriage?

You have a job… why not have a God glorifying career?

You are a neighbor… why not have a God glorifying friendship?

You are a parent or grandparent… why not a God glorifying?

Discipleship comes in when we start making daily decisions… choosing what you want now and what you want most.

Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.

Because being close to Jesus shapes our decisions, our choices.

So, let me ask you a question:

What do you want most? What is the goal of your life right now? Is it to start a new business? Is it to retire? Is it to get married? Is it to find a ministry to invest your life in? What do you want most?

Now, another question… What do you need to do now to accomplish what you want most? What’s your next step? Not what do you want to do now … But what do you need to do now in order to reach what you want most?

You see, when you consider all the things that a life following Jesus brings into our lives, the costs are very reasonable… Giving up Popularity is easy when your life gets purpose. Giving up CONTROL is easy when we get peace in return. Giving up regret is easy when your life gets discipline.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a book by this same name

“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... 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.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship