What Are You Willing to Pay?
2 Samuel 24:24
It has always amazed me the contrast between people at an auction and those at a garage sale. You can have the same identical item that sells in an auction for a hundred dollars while in a garage sale people are not willing not to spend even one dollar for it. The difference? The difference between the two is in the value of the item perceived or realized by the individuals, how badly they want the item and how much they are willing to pay to possess it. As believers we are called to discipleship that is to be an ever growing closer walk and relationship with Christ. But following Christ, being a disciple, comes at a cost. The question is “What are you willing to pay to follow Christ?” How much do you value your relationship with Christ? How badly do you want to know and serve Him? In Philippians 3, Paul says that there is no price too high to pay for the surpassing knowledge of Christ.
I. There is a cost to following Christ.
A. There's is an old fable about an Emperor who many years ago gathered together the wisest people in his kingdom and said, "I want you to assemble all of the great knowledge of our civilizations so that it will be available for future generations." They worked many years before returning with ten bound volumes. The Emperor glanced at the stack of books frowned and said, "Too long." The sages scurried back to work and did not return until they had edited the ten volumes down to one. However, when they handed it to the Emperor he refused to open it. He said, "It is still too lengthy." Over the next two years, the sages condensed the book into one paragraph. The emperor still wasn't satisfied. Finally, these wise people came back with a single sentence inscribed on an index card. The Emperor read it, smiled, and said, "This is perfect. Now future generations will understand why we have been so successful. All the genius we possess is contained in this brilliant solitary phrase." The sentence read: "There is no free lunch." - The Cost of Following Christ, Brad Whitt
B. Luke 14:25-33 “Now great multitudes went with Him. And He turned and said to them, If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it -- lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.”
C. We live in a day of easy believism where a majority of people have been led to believe that becoming a Christian is as easy as praying a simple prayer and requires very little cost or no cost at all.
D. Understand that salvation is offered a a free gift to those who are willing to receive it. You could never live a life that would merit salvation, neither could you ever have sufficient wherewith to purchase i. It is the free gift of a gracious God who provides it to whoever turns from their sin to Jesus Christ by faith receiving Him as Savior and Lord.
E. Jesus declared that unless you repent, you will perish in Hell. We are called by God to repent of our sins and turn to Him.
F. You don’t have to clean up your life before you come to Christ; you come to Him as you are. But you must be willing to follow Him and allow Him to change your life.
G. While salvation is free, the Lord Jesus Christ has made it very clearly in the Bible that being a disciple that lives an abundant, fulfilled Christian life will cost you—it will cost you everything.
H. It will cost you popularity and acceptance - 2 Timothy 3:12; Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
I. Following Christ may cost you your possessions – Mark 1:17-18 “Then Jesus said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men." They immediately left their nets and followed Him.” Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters”.
J. Following Christ may cost you your wants and desires. – Mark 8:34 “When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, ‘Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me’."
• Discipleship involves a constant desire. The word used here for desire or will is in a present active tense —keeps on desiring - not just a passing interest only.
K. Following Christ will cost you your all – Luke 14:33 “...whoever of you does not forsake (say good-by to, give up, renounce) all (everything) that he has (possessions, goods, wealth, property, even himself) cannot be My disciple.”
L. Being a Christian is not a part time thing. It’s not a hobby that you can pick up and put down whenever you want to, it is a full time 24/7 commitment to do the will of God. It is priority number one and nothing, nothing at all should get in the way of your walk with Christ. - copied
M. David offered to buy a threshing floor, wood, and oxen to make sacrifice to God – the owner offered to give it to him for free – but David insisted on paying fifty shekels of silver. David realized that for his worship and discipleship to be meaningful there had to be a cost that he would pay.
N. 2 Samuel 24:24 “I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing.”
II. There is great reward for paying the cost to follow Christ
A. Mark 10:28-31 “Then Peter began to say to Him, ‘See, we have left all and followed You.’ So Jesus answered and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel's, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time – houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions – and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.’”
B. Jesus is not promising to give 100 fields to everyone who gave up a farm to follow him. He is not promising to make everyone wealthy. He is not promising to give 100 houses and brothers and sisters and mothers. He is not talking in strictly material terms. What Christ is saying is that the things we receive in this life will be 100 times as valuable as the things we give up when measured by real eternal value, not by temporal material things that fade.
C. Peter refers to this in 1 Peter 1:4 when he speaks of “an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven.”
D. Christians do not practically remember that while we are saved by grace, altogether by grace, so that in the matter of salvation works are altogether excluded; yet that so far as the rewards of grace are concerned, in the world to come, there is an intimate connection between the life of the Christian here and the enjoyment and the glory in the day of Christ’s appearing. - From George Muller of Bristol and His Witness to a Prayer Hearing God, by Arthur T. Pierson, p. 460
III. Many are not willing to pay the cost to follow Christ
A. In Mark 10, we are told that a man ran and knelt before Jesus asking "What must I do to inherit eternal life ? Jesus then told him about the commandments. The man said to him "Teacher all these I have observed since my youth. and Jesus looked to him and said “You lack one thing, go sell what you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in Heaven” At that saying the man went away sorrowful. He wasn’t willing to pay the price.
B. During Christ’s earthly ministry many wanted to follow but were rejected. They were rejected because they were not willing to meet the conditions and pay the cost of discipleship.
C. John 6:66 “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. Far too many are not willing to pay the price because it demands too much.
D. Today many are NOT willing to pay the price to become the disciples of the Lord Jesus.
E. 2 Timothy 4:10 “…Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed for Thessalonica – Crescens for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia.”
F. Literally the Greek says the "now world" -- what a contrast with the "then world" The world here being as one commentator says the that floating mass of thoughts, opinions, maxims, speculations, hopes, impulses, aims, aspirations, that are current in the world. Thus Demas chose to live for the present not the future.
G. William Barclay says: “Sometimes we are amazed that the disciples did not grasp that which was so plainly spoken. The human mind has an amazing faculty for rejecting that which it does not wish to see. Are we so very different? Over and over again we have heard the Christian message. We know the glory of accepting it, and we know the tragedy of rejecting it, but there are many of us just as far off as ever we were from giving it our full allegiance and molding our lives to fit it. Men still accept the parts of the Christian message which they like and which suit them, and refuse to understand the rest.” - copied
H. Matthew 7:14 “Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
IV. There is a cost for not following Christ
A. If you’re not willing to pay the price, if you’re not willing to take up your cross and follow Him, then what does your faith in Christ mean? It’s an empty faith, a belief in certain facts. But it won’t get you anywhere.
B. The famous theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said “Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.”
C. Every truly saved person is a follower of Christ because Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice...and they follow Me" (John 10:27). In this sense every saved person is a disciple or follower of Christ, and yet some sheep follow the Shepherd more closely than others. -
D. If we are not willing to pay the cost of discipleship, we will fail to reap its benefits as well.
E. The truth is whether you eat dog food or filet mignon depends on how high of a price you're willing to pay for the meal.
F. Matthew 16:26 "For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”
