Sermon Text: Luke 14:25-33
Count The Cost!
Dog owners often post signs on their property saying, “Beware of dog.” A friend of mine had one of those signs on his fence. The only problem was that his dog didn’t fit the warning. His dog was a lazy, old hound that barely moved. If anything you had to watch out so you wouldn’t step on the dog.
Have you ever felt like that old family dog – sleepy and worn-out? Jesus has called us to be his disciples, to make a difference, to be salt in a world of bad taste, to snatch people from the jaws of spiritual death, but, sadly, we are tempted to just lie there as if we’ve lost our bite.
A disciple is a student. Christ Jesus, the master-teacher, had challenged his students to give up the comfort of the family, a sheltered life, even all the possessions of the world, in order to join him in the school of discipleship. Jesus used the word “disciples” three times to challenge all his followers – you and I included. He challenges us to COUNT THE COST. Christ urges us to do this: 1) Without Regretting the Loss, and 2) Without Rescuing Ourselves.
1) Without Regretting the Loss
We’re told that many crowds had gathered around Jesus. These large crowds had followed Jesus to see what miracle he would do next, how he would restore Israel, and when he would usher in his kingdom. Quite honestly, many people were in those crowds, not because they were following Jesus, but they were following each other. They were there because everyone else was. Many in those crowds were looking for the next great thing.
Instead of tickling their fancies, Jesus gave these fair-weathered crowds a warning. “Count the Cost!” he says. Christian discipleship is about individuals. “And turning to the crowd, Jesus said: ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple.” Notice that Jesus did not ignore those who were clamoring around him. He turned to the crowds, but he didn’t really speak to the crowds. He spoke to the individual. “If anyone comes to me…” he says. Count the cost. Realize that discipleship means we must lose something.
First, we’re to lose the crowd mentality, so we don’t get lost in the crowd. Are we here today because we are part of the “Lutheran crowd” as opposed to some other denominational crowd? Do we go to church just because everyone else seems to be? If that’s the case, then we are in danger of getting lost in the crowd, of becoming apathetic and losing our bite. Perhaps we feel safe and secure in a crowd. It’s easy to follow everyone else and not be singled out. It’s convenient, not much is expected. Yet, Christ urges us to count the cost of being part of the crowd.
Jesus does not speak to crowds. He speaks to hearts. And so, to learn from Jesus means that he must speak to us as individuals. Understand that the Lord is speaking to you individually this morning. He is not speaking to us as a nameless, faceless mass; he is speaking to us as individuals whom he knows, as his disciples. That’s not comfortable. There is a cost involved.
Christian discipleship means losing our comfort zone. It means stepping out of the crowd mentality. Even if the crowd we’re in has it right, that doesn’t mean a thing. We cannot save one another. Your faith cannot make me right with God. We need to learn from Jesus ourselves. And what do we learn? We learn to count the cost and to not regret what we lose. That’s exactly what Jesus had in mind when he said what he did: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple.” Those seem to be harsh words. It seems that Jesus is really contradicting himself, for he also said, “Anyone who hates his brother is subject to judgment.” Now, Jesus is not saying that it is noble to hate our loved ones. We need to compare these words with something else Jesus says, “If anyone loves his father or mother more than me he is not worthy of me.” To hate in this sense means to love less. What it really means is to put Jesus in the proper place.
Count the cost without regretting the loss. That means brothers and sisters, mother and father, spouse and children, take a lesser priority than Jesus in our lives. Let me explain it this way. Pediatric nurses will tell you that they have the worst job in the world. They’re the ones who have to come in with needles and poke helpless babies, making them cry.
Why do they do it? It’s obvious the child doesn’t want the shot. Yet, the nurse’s priority is to administer the medicine regardless of how the child feels about it. Nurses don’t hate little babies, but they are loyal to a priority, which is greater than any child’s feelings at the moment.
Count the cost without regret. Give up on feelings or emotional attachments that cannot save. As much as families love one another, no one can save anybody. A parent’s love is a special thing -- both tender and powerful, but can a parent’s love safe his or her child’s soul? No. And yet, we come down very hard on Christ as if he is asking too much. And why? It’s because we are sinful and unwilling to count the cost. After all, who would dare hate his own family? And, yet, don’t we? How many children haven’t said, “Mom, dad, I hate you”, how many spouses haven’t fought or argued and said unloving things; how many brothers and sisters haven’t felt resentment or jealousy towards one another? Then there are those who hate themselves, who think they are worthless, who look in the mirror and cannot bear what they see.
And these are the relationships we would hold above Christ’s. What horrible creatures we are to hate those whom God has given to us and then to despise God when he tells us to love him more than these! It’s all because we are creatures of sin. We hate those closest to us, especially Jesus himself.
So what does Jesus do? He counts the cost for us without any regret. He becomes the solution to our worst problems; fulfilling promises only he can keep. When we realize how empty and helpless we are, then we can begin to understand to count the cost our Savior paid. Jesus was willing to become our brother so that he might save us. He counted the cost without regret. In fact, he was willing and able to count the cost. He considered it a joy to become our brother, so that by his life, death, and resurrection, we might become his family.
And once Jesus cleanses our hearts, what does he do? He leads us to appreciate the cost. He leads us to realize that we have new brothers and sisters – a family in faith -- who count the cost by listening to his Word and growing in faith. Jesus also gives us back to our own families and our lives with grateful hearts. No longer do we look at a father, a mother, a wife, a child, a brother, a sister, in the old way. We don’t look at them, and say “they belong to me, to serve my needs.” We look at them and say “I have been given to them, that I might serve them in their need. Jesus leads us to count the cost by repaying all he takes from his own fullness.
2) Without Rescuing Ourselves
Only Christ can make us his disciples. And Jesus brings this point out when he says: “You cannot be my disciple”. What Jesus is pointing to is the impossibility of becoming a disciple on our own. We may think we can. We may even convince others that we are disciples. But the fact remains that we cannot be disciples all by ourselves. Again, we count the cost by realizing we cannot rescue ourselves.
Jesus illustrates this by talking about building a tower. First, he says, you sit down and calculate the cost to see if you can complete the project. If you can’t complete it, you don’t start it. Now, the tower is a picture our discipleship. We want to become disciples all by ourselves? Well, we had better sit down and see first whether we can do it. We had better count the cost of discipleship in terms of putting everything else in your life second to Jesus Christ. What we discover, of course, is that we cannot by our own reason and strength consistently put everything else second, no matter how hard we try. We will fail. Apart from God we cannot build a tower of discipleship.
The second illustration Jesus gives is a king who is about to wage war against another king. Before he rushes into battle, he needs to consider whether his ten thousand troops are an adequate match for the twenty thousand troops of the other king. If he cannot win the battle, he doesn’t begin it. Instead, he sues for peace. You are the king of your own life, so to speak. The other king in this case is God. Unless you can wage a successful war to establish your own discipleship, you had better yield before God. When we admit to God that we cannot make ourselves perfect and worthy, then we appeal to him for terms of peace.
Both of these stories illustrate Jesus’ point that you cannot be his disciple on your own. You cannot be his disciple by working at it. To count the cost means that we give up all ruthless efforts to claim this for ourselves. Only then are we a true disciple.
Lifeguards know that it is extremely difficult to save a person who is drowning if that person keeps trying to save himself. The person in the water cannot swim, and so he begins to flail his arms and legs in an effort to stay above water. Even when the lifeguard comes near, the victim continues to thrash and strike out. If the lifeguard is not careful, he can be injured by the victim or dragged under the water. The lifeguard will find it impossible to save the victim unless the victim stops trying to save himself. The only way for the victim to be rescued is for the victim to give up and go limp. Then the lifeguard can put his arms around him and pull him to safety. As long as the victim thinks he can save himself, he is destined to drown. Faith in Jesus is what carries us when we cannot. He makes us into his disciples by forcing us to relinquish all claims to self-righteousness and self-salvation. He equips us by rescuing us from ourselves. The cost for this is free to us.
Many of us have heard how much we are going to have to increase our nation’s defense budget in light of the recent events. The estimate is in the billions of dollars. That’s what it’s going to cost for us to feel safe. As disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, we have defense system that far outweighs any worldly protection.
We have the God’s Word, which the apostle Paul refers to as “the armor of God.” This weaponry protects us from the enemies of the soul. And it is what equips us to be disciples of our Savior. The Word of God works a resilient faith in our hearts, as it reminds us of God’s faithfulness to his promises. That faith leads us to trust that Jesus has paid the price for our salvation. We have boldness to follow Christ, as his disciples, to our heavenly home. Amen.
