“The High Cost of Discipleship”
Luke 14:25-35
I think that one of the most deceptive things we see in our world today are ads that tell us one thing but when we look closer there is a lot they are not telling us. Ads for cars are notorious for this. You’ve seen them. They advertise a car at one price only to find when you go in that was not the real price. Or you get a credit card with a low interest rate and then in the small print you learn that this rate is only good for the first 3 hours after you use the card. Then your rate will be 15% and if you’re late it will go to 30%. They call it the Discover card...you use it and when you get the bill you Discover how much you really owe. Part of the problem rests with us as the consumer. We can be very gullible..we can be naive and we can fail to ask a very simple question...how much does it really cost? It is something we don’t like to think about too often but everything comes at a cost.
Anything that we do in life that is worth doing will cost us something. I looked through our church membership file this week and i thought about each of you and the work you do, the job you hold or have held and i thought about your background. I found barbers, bankers, boat repair, construction people...carpenters, plumber, painter, dentist, nurses, accountant, funeral directors, physical therapist, grocer, sales people, real estate people, teachers, a lawyer, truck drivers and even a pastor. And I thought about each of those professions and they all have at east one thing in common...they all require training. A lot of training. A lot of hard work. A lot of sacrifice. There is a price to be paid. This morning we are looking a two parables, very simple but with a profound truth we need to get hold of: There is a price to pay to be a fully devoted follower of Christ. One of these parables is taken from the agricultural wold in that day and it deals with construction/building. The other deals with government and politics and war. Jesus told us these stories I think for two reasons: (1) He told us these stories to teach us to count what it would cost to be a fully devoted follower of Christ. (2) He told us these stories to teach us to count what it would cost if we choose a different path.
The setting for these stories was during the time of Jesus when there were large crowds following Him around from Galilee to Jerusalem. They loved following him as long as the miracles were being performed and the crowds were being fed. They were ready to make Him king. Some of his closest friends, Peter, James and John all wanted positions in His kingdom...they even argued over who would be able to sit at His right hand. But Jesus knew that things were about to get tough. Things were going to get hard. His ministry would come under attack. He knew this road was taking Him to the cross. He knew that for someone to follow Him that life could be difficult. I think that people tend to choose to serve Jesus on different levels of commitment. These are like concentric circles. You know what that is. It’s like throwing rocks in a pond and you see the circles grow and grow. I call these the 5 circles of commitment.
The first level is the Community. These are people who are not members of any church but they occasionally attend...and they are certainly always welcome.
The 2nd level is the Crowd. These are people who are not members of the church but they do attend on a regular basis.
The 3rd level is the Congregation. These are active members.
The 4th level are the Committed. These are active members who are attending and are actively growing in the faith.
The 5th level is the Core. These are not only committed followers of Christ but they are helping others to get to the same commitment. Now knowing this look at what Jesus has to say about discipleship. He gives us 5 word pictures here. Each one is like a snapshot, an image of a true disciple.
Snapshot: 1 a family. The idea here is that we love Jesus above all. Jesus speaks a startling message here. He says in verse 26...... In the parables Jesus would often use figures of speech to give His words a greater impact. It is called hyperbole. He said if your right hand offends you, cut it off. He talked about it being harder for a rich man to enter Heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. We do it too. We exaggerate in order to make a point. When Jesus used this method He had a huge point to make and we must listen very carefully. In this passage Jesus is telling us we must love Him, more than anything else-including our family. I must love Jesus more than my children, I must love Jesus more than my wife and they must do the same. Your love for Jesus should be so powerful that in comparison, it seems as if you hate everyone else. Now it is also true that sometimes your love for Jesus will alienate you from others, even your family.
I read this week of a man who was Muslim, now living here in America. Recently he came to know Christ. His family is back in Iran. They will now disown him.....they will actually consider him to be dead. If you truly follow the Lord, you won’t have to look for people to ridicule you; they will find you-and they may be your family members. Matthew 10:22 All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
Snapshot #2. A cross. The idea here is we are to live like a dead person. Look at this. A real disciple is someone who carries his cross. Now the disciples understood what this meant much better than we do. We complain about certain physical ailments we have and we say well I guess it is just my cross to bear. That is not what the Bible is referring to here. Today the cross has become benign-a piece of harmless jewelry. But in the time of Jesus it was a horrible form of execution. In that day when you saw someone carrying a cross it meant one thing-they were as good as dead. Paul understood what it meant to carry a cross. He told us in his letter to the church in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 3:24 So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Galatians 5:24 (NIV) Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. There was nothing the world had to offer that was of interest to Paul. He was saying it is as though I am dead to these things..because he had found true freedom through the cross.
Snapshot #3 A tower. The Big idea: Finish well. Jesus gives us a picture here of a man who plans on building a tower. Before he starts he must count the cost to see if he has enough materials to finish the job. Now when you get started in the Christian life, if you were to stop and ask do I have what it takes to finish..the answer is always no. But it’s not our resources that are necessary. God provides what we need. Jesus is speaking here about the cost of total commitment. He is talking about finishing strong. In verse 29 Jesus spoke about the man who was not able to finish the job. He says everyone will look at this tower and see that it wasn’t finished and they will ridicule him. House on my street growing up...bricked about halfway. For at least tn years it stayed that way. Always looked odd. One pastor tells the story that back years ago he drove through a small town and saw a concrete block/shell someone had started years earlier. But te project had been stopped. There was no roof on the building and trees and shrubs had grown inside the building. One of the pine trees growing inside the uncompleted church was at least 15 feet tall. I don’t know the full story about what happened in that church but to everyone who passed by-for years-that building preached a sermon. Someone started this church that didn’t count the cost and they weren’t able to finish it. Jesus says when you start something finish well. The older I get the more I realize we cannot coast in the Christian life. There is no such thing as spiritual retirement. Let me ask you: how will you finish? I’ve watched people who were committed through the years walk away from the church..walk away from the Lord. Don’t be one of those people!
Snapshot #4. A war. The idea here is that we surrender to the king. In this picture Jesus describes two kings. One of them is clearly outnumbered so in his wisdom he approaches the stronger king and makes peace before the battle ever begins. In that day when he surrendered he could have been made into a slave to the opposite king...so it required great humility on his part to bow down and ask for peace. Here is the message. You cannot be a disciple unless you are willing to give up control. And that’s hard to do. None of us wants to give up.
I read this week of a lifeguard on a beach who saw a drowning man. He walke into the water but he didn’t go out to rescue the man. People gathered on the beach and yelled at the lifeguard to do his job and rescue the man. The lifeguard stepped out a bit deeper but still did not respond. Just when it seemed that the man was going under for the last time, the lifeguard swam out and grabbed the man and pulled him back to shore. After some CPR the man was fine but instead of being a hero the crowd was angry; they couldn’t understand why the lifeguard didn’t respond quicker. The lifeguard explained “you can see that he is much bigger and stronger than I am. If I had gone out sooner, the way he was thrashing and kicking so violently he would have probably drowned us both. As long as he was trying to save himself, I couldn’t help him. But when he got tired and he gave up, then I knew I could save him.
Snapshot #5. Salt. The Big idea: stay pure. Salt was very valuable in the day of Jesus. Roman soldiers were actually paid, at least in part with salt rations. We hear people often say when someone has not done a good job or they have dome inferior work, “he’s not worth his salt!” Since there was no way to refrigerate meat they would apply salt to the meat to keep it from going bad. It preserved the meat. That’s why Jesus said in the sermon on the mount “you are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses it’s saltiness, how can it be made salty again?.
Lanny Bridges works as a chemist for Morton salt. He works in the salt mines every day. He says that pure salt actually never loses it’s saltiness. According to him you could take a pure salt crystal and 10,000 years later it would still be just as salty. Pure salt never loses it’s flavor. The salt used in the time of Jesus wasn’t mined; it came from the Dead sea. When the water evaporated it left salt. But the salt was so mixed with other minerals that even though it looked like salt...it didn’t taste like salt. When it was placed on food, there was no flavor. When it was used to keep meat fresh the meat went bad. So the only thing to do was to put it on the road and use it for gravel or to walk on it. (Verse 35). Basically it was useless.
Unfortunately many times we are the same way. We’re useless. We have no commitment. Too many Christians are like a dog i read about this week. One day a man walked into an old country store and he saw a sign just inside that read: Danger! Beware of Dog!” The man looked around carefully but all he saw was an old hound dog on the floor, sound asleep. He said t the owner, that dog doesn’t look dangerous to me.” The owner said, well, folks keep tripping over him, so that’s why I put up the sign.
How will you finish as a disciple? Will you help others or will you just become a stumbling block that people trip over? We are talking about real, radical, life-changing discipleship.
