Calculate the Cost
Luke 14:25-33
February 3, 2019
I’m going to start out being a little political. Most of you will recall that there was an incident in Washington DC, in which some students from a Catholic school were chastised, and that’s being gentle for how they treated a Native American who was playing a drum in front of them.
The lasting image was this picture.
I’m going to get into some of the dynamics. There’s a purpose behind this and please understand I’m NOT taking a political stance on this. After the initial videos the boys looked guilty.
If you look simply at the initial videos, you don’t catch all of the facts. The more videos you watch, the more disturbing this entire situation became. I’m going to show 5 video clips, ranging from a couple of seconds to 7 seconds long. The purpose is to show you something and use this as a springboard into today’s passage.
The first video is a few seconds of Nathan Phillips, the Native American drummer. He’s drumming in front of the high school kids.
VIDEO
As a high schooler, let alone an adult, we’re ill prepared to know what to do in those situations. Notwithstanding the fact that the boys had no clue that Nathan Phillips drumming was intended to bring peace! I don’t think any of us would know that.
Now, let’s go a little deeper, because everything is not always as it seems to be. Remember that as we talk about what Christ says to a crowd of people.
It’s been said the high school students surrounded Phillips while he was drumming, but - - it was Phillips who walked into their area. Here’s the video of that
VIDEO
Now, if you listen closely, one of the Native Americans shouts for the boys to go back to Europe, it’s not your land. Then, someone called one of the African American boys in the high school group a name, using the N word. That’s bleeped out. Then you’ll see other African American protesters who consider themselves prophets. They’re yelling at the boys and calling President Trump homosexuals; and swears at the boys (which is bleeped out).
VIDEO
Ok, the videos are done. If all you saw was the first video, you’d be talking about how rude and insensitive these high schools kids were.
Now, I’ll give you my 30 second analysis. These were high school kids who aren’t at all prepared for a situation like this. I believe the chaperones messed up. The kids were waiting for their buses, but I would have moved them and had them walk away. The buses would find them, and they would find the buses.
Nathan Phillips the drummer, was wrong. He walked into their space, he said to create peace, but we all would have been clueless about what he was trying to do.
The African Americans were wrong.
Here’s the issue - - - There was so much hate going on, and really that’s a major part of the problem in our country, if we can’t agree with one another, then we just hate one another.
It was a volatile situation . . . and sadly the focus for everyone is on . . . hatred. The media, the people involved, the public at large . . . for the most part, it was hate! We tend to hate anyone who is different than us. We don’t talk about it, but often times that’s very true. We become afraid and that fear leads to hatred.
Well, why all the talk about hate and this video! Because that’s the basis of my message this morning. Maybe I got your mind racing about that situation, but now it’s time to focus on a message from Jesus that sounds totally irrational, it’s something I would not expect my boys to follow through with, nor Debbie, nor myself. Yet, Jesus calls us to act in a very particular way.
But if we read His words on the surface, it’s totally crazy to do what Jesus is asking us to do. And it’s all predicated on the word HATE!
I want to read from Luke 14 —
25 Now great crowds accompanied Jesus, and He turned and said to the people,
26 “If anyone comes to me and does not 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.
27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. – Luke 14:25-33
There’s more to the passage, which we will look at in a bit. As harsh as Jesus may have been in the passages we looked at last week, it seems even worse this week.
Last week, Jesus seemed to get on those who wanted to follow Him, BUT, they had those BIG BUT excuses. Today, Jesus seems to be telling us to HATE . . . It’s not the Old Testament view of hating our enemies. Jesus tells us to ~
HATE mom and dad
HATE your spouse and kids
HATE your brothers and sisters . . . and
HATE even your own life!
When Joshua and Zachary were growing up, they weren’t allowed to use the H word. It was a 4 letter word. And if you used that word, they might have even said, “You’re not supposed to say that.”
Why was that not allowed?
Because, hate is a nasty word. Hate is a viscous word. It cuts to the heart and cuts the heart very quickly. Have someone tell you “I hate you” and it hurts. Have a child tell you that once and it hurts, have them say it for the 100th time and it still hurts. It can be one of the most insulting words. The word hate literally means to “passionately or intensely dislike something or someone.”
Have you ever realized how many times you use the word hate? Instead of saying ‘I don’t like something, we say ‘I hate that.’ We talk about the weather and say
“I hate rainy days.”
“I hate cold weather.”
“I hate that team.”
“I hate it when he doesn’t clean up his room.”
“I hate it when she squeezes the toothpaste from the middle.”
“I hate that class.”
And it extends to the very personal hatreds of
“I hate that person” down to
“I hate myself!”
I believe hate is an unreasonable word. It’s a word that can be very destructive.
Now as we consider what Jesus said, we may think He’s being a little unreasonable in His request, listen again to Luke 14:26-27,
“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, spouse and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear their own cross cannot be my disciple, and you must renounce all that you have, otherwise you cannot be my disciple.”
WOW!! Don’t you think this is an unreasonable request? I mean, how does He expect people to join Him and become His disciples? How can I hate those whom I am supposed to love more than anyone in the world? And - - Jesus is the same person who told us not only are we to love our neighbors, but we are also to love our enemies. So . . . we are to love our enemies and hate our families.
So, what is Jesus really getting at? Believe it or not, Jesus is talking about love. What’s at the heart of what Jesus is telling us, is not that we are to hate, but in order to become His disciples we must love Jesus more than anyone or anything in life. Jesus is reminding us in very stark ways that there is a cost to discipleship.
The decision to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, Forgiver and Leader is a one time decision. Yet the process of growing in Christ is a decision we make on a daily basis.
Will I gossip and talk about others or keep stories to myself?
Will I watch 5 hours of television or pray for 5 minutes?
Which book will I choose to read today, the Bible or something else?
Will I forgive or won’t I?
Will I condemn or encourage?
Those are some of the daily decisions we make. If we choose God first, we know some of those answers. Of course you can watch television or read a book, but where does God fit into your life?
Growing in Christ doesn’t happen overnight, that would be nice, but growing in Christ is a life long process. We are called to make a daily decision to follow Christ, even when it is costly. That’s what Jesus is talking about.
This isn’t about accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior again and again. It’s about following Him in our daily lives. It’s about giving ourselves to Christ.
There is one love relationship Jesus wants us to have, and it’s the one He had. It’s to love God more than any other relationship you have. That’s the basic meaning of this passage. In reality, Jesus is telling us to love our parents, our spouse and children, our brothers and sisters and even life, but to love them “LESS THAN” we love Jesus.
Matthew said it another way —
37 Whoever loves father or mother MORE THAN me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. – Matthew 10:37-38
God is to come first in our lives. There’s no debate on that one. Is it easy to do? Nope. And on top of that there are risks associated with this type of love.
If God is first in our lives, then all of my relationships will be based on the love relationship I have with God. On my own, I don’t know how to love. I may have ideas, but my ideas and methods will always fall short compared to God’s way. If I look to God as the source and guide of my life, then I will love better.
If I place God first in my life, then I will be a better husband, father, son, brother, friend and pastor. However, if God is not first, then each of these relationships will never reach their potential, and that is really sad. Who does not want to experience love? Deep, faithful, mutual love with another person? If I love Jesus first, then my love for Debbie should improve. If Jesus is first, and Debbie is second; I will love Debbie better because she is not first - - - Jesus is.
This is why we hear Jesus make comments to those who want to follow Him, ‘let the dead bury the dead.’ Or to the rich young ruler, ‘give away all you have and follow me.’ Jesus knows we calculate the cost of having a relationship with Him.
This should drive every decision you make, and they are not easy decisions. Your relationship with Christ will call you to do some things which are not easy. That’s the very nature of being a disciple.
I grew up Jewish, and won’t go through the story . . . but eventually in my 20's came to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. It changed my life . . . dramatically. I was pretty self centered, it was all about me, then Jesus came into my life. My nature changed. I changed and became a different person.
I was a closet Christian for 3 years, I was very active in the church and my parents had absolutely no knowledge of it. Ultimately, I was going to attend seminary and had to tell my parents about my secret life.
That was the risk I had to take, to love Christ more than my parents, to risk losing my parents so that I could have Jesus. I loved my parents, but I had to love Christ more. In the end, I never lost my relationship with my parents, it was strained, more so with my father than my mom, but we never lost it.
Ultimately, we all must calculate what a relationship with Jesus Christ means to us and for us. We may not sit and literally calculate how much of Jesus we want in our lives, but we make quick calculations in our heart, soul and mind. We are a people who calculate everything.
I remember Debbie and I standing in the diaper aisle calculating the cost of a single diaper. We do it for all types of things we are buying. We do a quick cost / benefit analysis. We want to get the biggest bang for our buck.
Anything that costs us something, we expect to get a good return on it. We don’t go into our relationship with Jesus thinking that way, yet somewhere along the way our thinking changes. We begin to consider the cost and risks involved in serving, in giving, in participating.
We calculate is it worth the risk, time and even heart-ache to get involved in church. But, if we never risk, if we never let down our walls that protect our hearts from being wounded, how will we ever know the amazing power, the love, the grace, the strength, the forgiveness Christ offers us?
Jesus then continued talking to the crowd —
28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?
29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him,
30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’
31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?
32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.
33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. – Luke 14:25-33
Jesus tells us if you’re going to build a building you are first going to calculate the cost. It’s prudent to do so! It only makes sense to do so. As Jesus said, it would be embarrassing to start to build something and not be able to finish it because you ran out of money.
Then he tells us who would go to war and not determine if you have the resources to win the war. Before sending the troops to battle, you consider whether or not this is a winnable war.
Friends, we do the same thing when we consider all of our relationships.
How much of myself do I really want to give to Debbie, to Joshua or Zachary?
How much of myself do I want to give to you?
How much do I really want to be obedient to Christ?
Is it worth my soul to make that unethical, yet legal decision?
Should I follow Christ - - - or follow what others are doing?
When you consider your relationship with Jesus, where is He on your ranking? BE HONEST!! Is Jesus 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th . . . where is Jesus in all of your relationships?
It’s one of those questions that should be an easy answer! Jesus is number 1!
But, if we’re really serious about considering it, it’s not as simple and easy as we might like it to be.
We are all sinners, not one of us is close to perfect. Yet we have this indescribable, supernatural, powerful gift given to us. The gift is a person, Jesus, the Christ.
He offers each of us a better life than we have, but we must choose Him over every other part of life. It’s not easy, but the rewards for this life and the one that is to come are so great. It is to make that declaration in your heart, to say ~
“YES!! I want what You offer me Jesus. I want you more than anyone or anything in life! Lord, dear God, be first in my life!”
