It’s Worth The Cost

Please turn with me to Luke 14. Sometimes when I say the word “Luke” I want to go all Star Wars! L-U-K-E. (Laughter)

The more I spend time in the gospels, the more I see that what Jesus asks of us, He has already had to do Himself. When Jesus taught what He taught, He not only spoke from a kingdom of Heaven perspective, but it was also very personal for Him.

We know that he came here to live a life, to model a life, so that we could also live just like he lived when he was here on earth. When He taught us something, that means it was a lesson that He also had to learn.

And I thought about that as we talk about the issue of discipleship. We’re going to look at a passage that we have looked at before and I hope that, as we look at it, it would jump out in a different way tonight.

For the last three years or four years, we have been gearing up, we have been preparing, we have been getting ourselves ready for our part in the revival – for what we have to do.

And I thought about this in the context of professional football. In the past, they had four weeks of training camp. Many years ago, training camp last six weeks. So now there is four weeks of training camp where the players go through process of getting themselves conditioned properly, going over the playbook, understanding their individual assignment as well as understanding the assignment of the person next to them. They do this to prepare themselves for the first game of the regular season.

One of the things that I have noticed about professional football is that most of the starters don’t play much during the four preseason games. They may play one half of the final preseason game. In the past, when there was six games, the starters would play the entire last game. Last year they only had three preseason games and last year they had the most injuries in NFL history because the players were not truly ready to play.

Here's my point: until we are ready to play, we are not ready to pick up our assignment in the revival. And the only way we are going to be ready to play: we have to understand what’s at stake and we have to understand what our role is to be. That’s the only way we’re going to get ourselves ready.

In Luke 14, we’re going to look at the passage about discipleship. It begins in verse 25, but leading up to verse 25, let’s pick it up in verse 15.

(15) And when one of them that sat at meat with Him (Jesus) heard these things, He said unto him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. (One way of eating bread in the kingdom of God ladies and gentlemen is to devour this book [held up the Bible]).

(16) Then said He unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many:

(17) and sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready.

(18) And they all with one consent began to make excuse.

This is important ladies and gentlemen to where we are going tonight. Let’s continue verse 18.

The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused.

(19) And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused.

(20) And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.

(21) So that servant came, and shewed his Lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.

The obvious question is why was the master angry? We understand the reason clearly from verse 18: “And they all with one consent began to make excuse.” The master is upset because he says “The dinner I have prepared for you, you have no excuse for missing it.”

Ladies and gentlemen, the revival that’s coming, the revival that God needs each of us to be a participant in, we have no excuse for not being in it. We have no excuse for not being part of that revival.

(22) And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room.

(23) And the Lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.