Last week we spoke about the cost of discipleship, or the cost of following Jesus, or the cost of being a Christian. Whether you are the pastor or a missionary or just the guy who gives out the hymn books each meeting, the cost of following Jesus is the same for us all.
And from the Scriptures we said, first of all, that there IS a cost to following Jesus. Whatever your thinking maybe before, whatever the tracks you’ve read have said, whatever your pastors or favourite tele –evangelists may have said, there IS a price to pay to follow Christ, there is a cost.
In Luke Christ says ‘If you want to follow Me you must take up your cross daily...if you don’t you are not worthy of Me’; to the rich young ruler He said if you want to follow Me, if you want to be a Christian then ‘go, sell all that you have and give it to the poor...’ the first disciples who were called immediately left their jobs, their businesses, their families in order to follow Christ.
2ndly, we said that the cost is great. To follow Jesus, to be called a Christian we must ‘present our bodies as living sacrifices...’; ‘Deny ourselves and take up our cross daily...’; Luke 14:25 says ‘"... If anyone comes to Me and doesn't hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple."’
And the cost of following Christ we said, which is the same for us all, can be summed up as 100% commitment, 100% of the time. And anything less than a total commitment to God is NOT good enough.
Remember the words Jesus Himself said to the lukewarm Church, the uncommitted Church in Laodicea ‘I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.’
Paul warns Timothy of these uncommitted Christians – these so called Christians ‘...will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them —men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected’
And, if that’s not enough Jesus Himself tells us that many, on the Day of Judgement will say to Him ‘Lord, Lord, we did this in Your Name and we did that in Your Name and we did the other in your Name.’ But Jesus will say ‘Depart from Me for I never knew you’
And we began our service last week reading from Luke 14 where we are told, before we decide to give our lives to Jesus, to ‘sit down and count the cost’ of doing that. Because if we don’t, if we start this walk, if we begin to build this tower WITHOUT first realizing the cost then disaster awaits us!
I went to China a few years back with a friend from Uni, and in their town there were 2 huge, unfinished tower blocks. And my friend told me that one guy decided one day to build the tallest tower in that city. But then another guy heard his plan and he too decided to build the highest tower in the city.
And so they began, competing against each other, to build the tallest tower in the city. One would get to 20 stories and thought that was it, but the other would then build 21, so the first would add another 2 floors, then the other would do the same.
And this went on for a long time until eventually, they both spent all their money and went bankrupt. And these 2 towers, instead of being symbols of innovation and testaments to their builders ended up being symbols of foolishness! What should have made these men their fortune instead became their ruin. All because they didn’t sit down and count the cost.
And that is the danger for the Christian. We may start out with the best intentions, praising Jesus and singing those lovely hymns, expecting to be healthy and debt free within a year or whatever, and we find out that this walk is much harder than we thought, that the will and the ways of God are different from my will and my way and it’s US who has to change to be more in line with God and not Him to change to be like us.
And soon the praising stops and so does the singing, and that tower we started to build with the greatest intentions in the world suddenly stops and instead of being a testament and a symbol of the greatness of God, it becomes another stone in the hands of Satan used to hinder the Kingdom of God!
There is a cost to following Jesus, there is a price to pay, but the rewards are also great! The parables refer to the kingdom of heaven as a ‘pearl of great price’ and a treasure of great value which, when found, the 2 men sold all that they had, that’s the cost, yet gain something of much greater worth.
So while the cost of following Jesus is great and shouldn’t be taken lightly, the rewards are even greater!
But before we move on to our next topic there is one more thing I need to say about the cost of being a Christian. While we must give 100% commitment, 100% of the time, this word commitment is an umbrella term which incorporates a few other things. It speaks of service, of sacrifice, of obedience, of dedication, but there are different callings that demand different sacrifices, different obediences etc yet the commitment is still 100%.
In 2 Timothy Paul likens the Christian to athletes, teachers, farmers and soldiers- all are 100% committed, all have to make sacrifices etc, but each in a different way.
I mean, we are not all called to do the same job. We are not all called to be Church leaders, we are not all called to be Moses’ or Peters’ or Pauls. The Church is made up of different parts with different jobs, all as important as the next for the glory of God and all demand 100% commitment.
Whether we are a pastor to the pastors or we are running big evangelistic crusades around the world or if we are called to just be hospitable to people or to be hidden away and pray for those who are out doing the work, each job is vitally important, and each job has it’s own sacrifices.
Let’s look at the athlete, and we’ll take the boxer. If you like it or hate it, there is no denying that boxing is one of the hardest sports to compete in! For being the best though, the rewards are great. With my friends, we’ve often asked the question ‘If you could be a sportsman what would you be? A footballer like David Beckham, a rugby legend like Gareth Edwards or the heavyweight boxing champ of the world?
And when everything has been weighed up the answer almost always is the boxing champ! The money, the fame, the prestige of being heavyweight champ of the world is far greater than anything else!
So the rewards are great, but the getting there is the hard part! It’s not as if you can watch rocky a few times and then jump in the ring and expect to walk away as the champ. No, there is great cost involved! And before you even start you must sit down, count the cost, and know exactly what you’re getting in to.
1st you need to know you’re going to get hit! You’re going to get bruised! You’re going to bleed! Maybe even break a few bones and get knocked out once or twice! Whatever, you are going to get hit in the face, hard! And you need to know that! If you’re not comfortable with that, then don’t even begin!
2ndly, you’re going to have to make some sacrifices, and some big ones too! You’ve got to train 6 days a week, run, swim, cycle, skip, lift weights, punch bags, spar, work on your movement etc. And it’s going to be hard! It’s not going to be 10 mins of the treadmill, 10 mins on the bike and 10 mins on the stepper then home. No! It’s serious training and you will vomit!
And you’re doing it every day! And what’s more, you’ll have to fit all this training around your work day and family time, so it means getting up at 4am and getting to sleep at 12.
Then there’s all the other restrictions like diet and meal times etc. Then you’ve got to listen and obey, at all times your trainer who of course knows this game better than you and how to get you to the top!
And you’ve got to do this for years! And anything less than 100% commitment, 100% of the time is not going to cut it! You’re not going to lift that belt!
Then you have the teacher. Now she doesn’t have to wake up at 4 am to run a marathon and swim an ocean before breakfast and then cycle 10 km before going to school. She doesn’t have to worry about what she eats nor have to lift weights or punch bags, she may choose to but she doesn’t have to.
But she still must give 100% commitment, 100% of the time! She still has to make sacrifices, but they are different from that of the athlete! The teacher needs to read, she needs to be always looking out for ways to make her teaching more effective.
She needs to prepare her lessons plans and evaluate her students so she doesn’t leave anyone behind or hinder those who are faster. She needs to make time for her students, love them and nurture them. Certainly her job is not just from 9-3 or whatever school hours are.
And the farmer is different again! He has different sacrifices to make, yet anything less than 100% commitment, 100% of the time will see his farm fail!
We’re not all called to be like Abraham and pick up our family and trek off to some far away country. We are not all called to be like Elijah to gather the towns people together and try to call fire down from heaven! Apart from Elijah, no one else did that! And we’re not all called to be like Daniel, second in the country and advisor to the king!
Some of us will be called to be like Mary and Martha, giving hospitality to those in the service of God and those in need. Some will be called to be like Theophilus, who used his money and power to finance Luke’s investigations into the claims of Jesus, without which the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts would never have been written.
Different jobs and different callings and each require different sacrifices, but all demand the same level of commitment- 100%, 100% of the time! And all for the glory of God! And that’s the challenge for us today. That is what God is seeking from us in this place, right now!
Do you believe God is alive?
Do you believe He can do something in this place?
Are you ready to make that commitment?
If you are Jesus says ‘Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.’
