Counting the Cost
Having Words with Jesus
THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST, YEAR C
Luke 14:25-33 The Message Figure the Cost
25-27 One day, when large groups of people were walking along with him, Jesus turned and told them, “Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters—yes, even one’s own self!—can’t be my disciple. Anyone who won’t shoulder his own cross and follow behind me can’t be my disciple.
28-30 “Is there anyone here who, planning to build a new house, doesn’t first sit down and figure the cost so you’ll know if you can complete it? If you only get the foundation laid and then run out of money, you’re going to look pretty foolish. Everyone passing by will poke fun at you: ‘He started something he couldn’t finish.’
31-32 “Or can you imagine a king going into battle against another king without first deciding whether it is possible with his ten thousand troops to face the twenty thousand troops of the other? And if he decides he can’t, won’t he send an emissary and work out a truce?
33 “Simply put, if you’re not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people and kiss it goodbye, you can’t be my disciple.
Our September series is called “Having Words with Jesus” to reflect a variety of moods and meanings we experience when we talk to Jesus. Maybe we want to argue, turn away, or give up when we talk to Jesus. Or maybe we really want to know, to spend some time in his presence to understand and to explore, and finally, we hope to hear a word to get us through the struggles of life and faith.
It is not the goal of this series to explain away the difficult sayings of Jesus; neither is the aim to make things more difficult than they are.
My hope is that we can sit at Jesus’ feet and wrestle with these words, much like the first hearers did.
Like them, we can grab hold of the things that seem clear and contemplate what doesn’t make sense on our first hearing.
We need to give the word time to work on us.
We also remember that Jesus is the Word made flesh, the very embodiment of the words we read.
The Word defines us, and transforms us into the followers of Jesus that we are longing to be.
This first week of this “Having Words” series is a great time to remind ourselves of the commitment that we made to make and to be made into disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
Being a Christian in today’s culture simply means believing Jesus is the Messiah, but we have no way of discerning what someone actually believes is true because the enemy has convinced the church we can have faith in Jesus and not completely believe God’s Word.
Luke 14:25-33 is entitled “The Cost of Discipleship,” and for a good reason, because Jesus took faith and commitment to another level. He requires complete devotion from us, which means we cannot elevate ourselves or our immediate family above Him. Rather, we must prioritize our relationship with Him first and foremost, 24/7/365.
We have to learn what it means to look at the full price we pay for our relationships of love and of hate. Author Heather McGhee draws on a wealth of economic data to make the case that discriminatory laws and practices that target African Americans also negatively impact society at large. The heart of McGhee's case is that racism is harmful to everyone, and thus we all have an interest in fighting it. Drawing on a wealth of economic data, she argues that when laws and practices have discriminated against African Americans, whites have also been harmed. When people unite across racial and ethnic lines, she argues, there's a solidarity dividend that helps everyone. t was. I mean, it was - it's a really astonishing set of data. The majority of people making under $15 an hour are white. The majority of people without health care are white. We all live under the same sky and are all going to be vulnerable to climate change. And yet making race salient, as, of course, Donald Trump did and Trumpism does, makes people more - white people more conservative. It's this zero-sum idea that progress for people of color has to come at white people's expense. This idea of Zero-Sum is powerful. How many of us have thought in our mind the only way for Black People to come of Age is to take it from Whites and how many whites have pondered fear of a black and brown planet because of changing population numbers that we see in the Luke text and the research by McGee is that no one has to lose if we follow the word of Jesus.
I want to make this clear, so I want to Borrow from McGee’s books. She said she read a book by a white Southerner who was an avowed racist. And he wrote a book that basically said that slavery was benefiting the plantation class, but it wasn't benefiting the white majority in the South. And he saw that it was shortchanging the public development of the infrastructure in Southern states. He compared the number of schools, libraries, and other public institutions that had been set up in free states versus slave states. In Pennsylvania, he counted 393 public libraries - in South Carolina, just 26. In Maine, not a very populous state, 236 libraries - in Georgia, just 38. And the tally was similar everywhere he looked.
That’s how evil works it tries to convince you that right is wrong and wrong is right, and it doesn’t care who it uses. When I was studying my text this week, I realized that the passage right before Jesus talks about hating mother and father is about possession and that demons, when they find that you have cleaned up your spirit, will come back seven fold to take it over again. So, I’m suggesting that maybe Jesus wasn’t angered with his family, but maybe he was stating that sometimes you have to see family for who they are possessed by.
“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes and even life itself, cannot be my disciple” (14:26).
Then Jesus comes along and tells us to hate our mothers and fathers in order to follow him. Um.
Can I go back to cleaning out the house?
Why did he say this?
Was it because there was a large crowd following him? Did he turn around and get scared by all of them and then think, “What can I do to thin the herd?”
Why does Jesus have to make it so hard to follow him? He says, “Follow me,” but we’ve got to leave everything behind to do so. Why?
Why can’t we add it to our long list of other interests? Our overfull schedule of appointments and good deeds? Why can’t Jesus be satisfied with giving him what time we have to give? At least that’s something, right?
At least we’re giving it a try. When we can. When nothing else is going on. When the kids aren’t in town. When we haven’t been out too late the night before.
The text is saying NO, to be a disciple, you must follow a different path. I want to share 3 points on the Cost of Discipleship.
#1 FULL DEVOTION:
Jesus demands our heart’s full devotion as His only requirement for paying our eternal debt. Not 50%, 75%, or even 99.99%, but 100% of our heart, which is difficult for us to relinquish because it means we must reprioritize our lives to align with Scripture’s teachings, and we struggle with surrender and submission because we want to be in ultimate control of our lives.
Jesus provides us with many examples of discipleship throughout his life on earth. He calls his twelve disciples, tells many parables about discipleship, and in the end, lays down his life for us. We can learn the cost of discipleship through these stories. Salvation is free, but discipleship will cost you your life.
The disciples were going to tell people that The Kingdom of God was near! Even if a town rejected the message of Jesus, the Kingdom is still near.
He goes on to say, “Anyone who accepts your message is also accepting me. And anyone who rejects you is rejecting me. And anyone who rejects me is rejecting God, who sent me.”
The disciples knew that if they were rejected, they were ultimately rejecting God. The cost of discipleship can be rejected by people, but that should not stop us from sharing the gospel with those who are lost.
#2 COUNTING THE COST:
In addition to our heart’s full devotion, Jesus recommends we stop and count the cost before accepting His free gift of salvation. Why? Wouldn’t He want us to respond to His Gospel message immediately? The answer is yes, but not without full consideration first.
Jesus gives two examples in Luke 14:25-33 from both a construction and military standpoint on the importance of evaluating all the facts to make a wise decision after careful thought, consideration, and discernment.
From a spiritual perspective, this helps ensure our salvation decisions are well-informed, authentic, and built upon the proper theological foundation.
The bulk of the passage is two parables about making plans, about counting the cost.
One is a king going to war or preparing for a war that is coming and deciding whether he can wage this war or he needs to sue for peace.
The other is a construction worker who is building a tower and needs to know whether he has the means to finish it.
Jesus is clearly asking the large crowd behind him whether they really want to make this journey, whether they want to fight the battle that is coming, and whether they want to build the tower that he wants them to build.
Are you in or not?
And let’s be clear, it isn’t going to be a walk in the park.
This is a battle for your own and everyone else’s soul; this is nothing less than the construction of the kingdom of God going on within and around you.
Are you committed to this transformation?
Are you willing to invest the blood, sweat, and tears it is going to take?
# 3. OBEDIENCE to the Work
Make no mistake, the mark of a disciple is not devoid of trials and persecution, which is why Jesus warns us to count the cost before blindly deciding to follow Him. For if we decide to follow Him and not align our hearts and minds with His Word, we do more harm than good for the kingdom of heaven because it paints a distorted picture of Christianity that does not honor God.
Keep in mind that spiritual discipline is a process of training the heart and mind to submit to God’s holy standard of righteousness. And the best way to build discipline is through accountability, which means we gather in the community to study God’s Word, pray together, and help one another apply what we’re reading so that we grow in knowledge, discernment, and wisdom.
When it comes to discipleship, it’s easy to point the finger and blame the local church or pastoral leadership for not equipping the saints properly.
However, we must take personal responsibility and own our role in the body of Christ to be faithful disciples unto God’s sovereign authority and help make disciples by shepherding other believers to do the same.
The church today is in desperate need of devout followers of Christ who take their faith seriously enough to discipline themselves in the knowledge, understanding, application, and defense of God’s Word.
We have far too many self-proclaimed Christians in the world today who think they know what it means to follow Christ, but unfortunately, they have no idea never disciplined themselves spiritually by surrendering their heart, mind, and soul to the authority of God’s Word and obeying its commands.
Therefore, spiritual revival is required now more than ever, and that begins with the local church refocusing its efforts and investing substantial time, energy, and resources in training shepherds and equipping believers with the tools necessary to know what God’s Word says.
Every disciple of Jesus must be able to confidently articulate and defend (apologetics) the reason for the eternal hope they have, and discipleship is how we train the body of Christ for battle in a lost world devoid of hope and salvation.
