COUNT THE COST
By Pastor Jim May
Luke 14:28-33, "For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold 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, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace. So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple."
Everything in life that is worth having carries with it a price tag. If you want a new house, the price tag can easily become $1000 to $1500 per month for 30 years even for a modest home. A new car can easily cost you $500 or more each month. And who can deny that the cost of living has risen to the point that we can fully understand what John said in Revelation 6:6, when he spoke of the cost of wheat and three measures of barley for a day’s wages. Nothing is free and nothing is cheap, at least anything that’s worth having.
People have tendency to buy cheap, just to say that they have something they want, but they will often regret it when whatever they purchased won’t last.
Just last summer I was involved in the purchase of some audio-visual equipment for one of our local school systems. We purchased some projectors at a very reasonable price. Oh, they looked good, worked well and did just what we wanted them to do – for a little while. But it wasn’t long until major problems began to arise and now, their weaknesses have surfaced and nearly half of them are already unusable. We got just what we paid for – junk at a cheap price.
That’s the way it is in our walk with the Lord as well. We need to count the cost and decide right now just what kind of walk we want with Jesus. Do we want a cheap gospel? Do we want an easy relationship? Do we want a surface faith? Or do we want to hear the truth of the Word of God; a close and strong relationship with the Lord; and a faith that is unshakeable?
In one of our nation’s parks there is a place called the Bridger Wilderness Area where hikers and campers are allowed to freely roam the wilderness and experience nature first hand. But before you go, I would suggest that you count the cost of being alone in the wilderness for several days better than some of the people who have been there already. There is a suggestion box at the trail’s end where visitors can voice their opinion on how the wilderness experience can be made more enjoyable. Here are some of their actual suggestions.
1. Trails need to be reconstructed. Please avoid building trails that go uphill.
2. There are too many bugs, leeches, spiders and spider webs. Please spray the wilderness to rid the areas of these pests.
3. Please pave the trails to make them easier to walk on and some places need to have Chair lifts so that we can get to wonderful views without having to hike to them.
4. The coyotes made too much noise last night and kept me awake. Please eradicate these annoying animals.
5. One night a small deer came into my camp and stole my jar of pickles. Is there a way I can get reimbursed?
6. Escalators would help on steep uphill sections.
7. A MacDonald’s restaurant would be nice at the trailhead and at regular intervals along the way.
8. There are just too many rocks in the mountains making the trails hard to negotiate. Please remove the rocks.
Can I tell you that none of these folks counted the cost of living in the wilderness before they began their journey? They obviously didn’t know what a wilderness area is.
I am convinced that a lot of people are very eager to be called Christians. They really want to obtain eternal life. But they don’t have a clue of the real cost of being a true disciple of Christ.
All the cheap Christians are looking for is a church where they can hear a positive, uplifting message that makes them feel good in the midst of their sin, but no condemnation or conviction for that sin.
All the cheap Christians are looking for a preacher with a degree in psychology, or marriage counseling, or theological understanding who can help them get their relationships right or teach them some “new thing” about the Bible that no one else has ever taught, but don’t give them anything that will make them shake in their boots and change their lifestyles.
All the cheap Christian cares about is to get just enough spiritual food to get them to the next Sunday, enough watering of the Word to quench their thirst for the next hour, and enough easing of their conscience to allow them to sleep peacefully one more night.
Let me tell you that most of the church world is looking for a cheap gospel, preached by cheap preachers, that won’t have enough power and anointing in it to heal the headache of a flea.
That’s the kind of Christianity that most of the church world of today has. It’s a cheapened and watered down version of the gospel that cannot save a soul because it’s not anointed by the Holy Ghost; it’s a cheap Christianity that is Christian in name only, but certainly not in practice; and it’s a Christianity that will leave the soul wallowing in the pits of sin and death because it has no power to deliver.
The cost of being a true disciple of Christ is not cheap – not if you want the real thing, something that will last for eternity.
It’s not cheap when you must force yourself to pay the cost; when you throw yourself out of bed, or pick yourself up off that easy chair, when you’re hurting, when you’re sick, when you’re tired; or when you just don’t “feel like it”. It takes a true commitment and that’s not cheap. But, if you want to the real thing baby, like the old Coca Cola commercial once said, then that’s the price of the real thing.
I’m convinced that the majority of the church world today, and perhaps even a few of those who attend this very church are living a cheap Christianity and they are just getting by as cheaply as they can, with little or no real commitment to ministry, with little or no personal relationship with Jesus and with little or no concern for the church or their brothers and sisters in the Lord.
The cheap Christian lifestyle reminds me of a man by the name of Gangarm Mahes that I read about.
Mahes doesn’t make his living by paying the price like most people. Though he lives a fairly decent lifestyle according to his own mind, he doesn’t pay the price for that lifestyle like most people would do. No, he has his own cheap way of making it through life.
Mahes has been arrested nearly three dozen times, but you probably wouldn’t be frightened by his presence. He’s known in New York as the "Serial Eater." Mahes is an emigrant from the nation of Guyana who has developed a love for elegant dining. The problem is that he just doesn’t have the budget to support his taste.
So rather than deny his expensive taste, he simply treats himself to some of the finest of restaurants, where he orders fine cuisine and expensive liquor. He then sits there and really enjoys the meal until the check arrives.
At that point he informs the waiter that he can’t pay the bill. The police then arrest him and Mahes ends up in jail where he has at least a few days of regular meals at the expense of the taxpayers.
What does Mahes say about all this? He just says, "I like to live decent." His "decent" lifestyle has cost New York taxpayers more than $250,000. His cheap lifestyle isn’t cheap at all. It cost something, but it’s not a cost that he is paying right now. But in the Day of Judgment, Mahes will pay the ultimate price, and it’s a price he definitely can’t afford to pay.
That’s the kind of thing that is in every church today. There are a lot of people who come to taste of the menu of the things of the Spirit in the church, but they don’t want to pay the price to get it for themselves. They just live off of the expense that others have had to pay.
Martin Luther once said, “A religion that gives nothing, costs nothing, and suffers nothing, is worth nothing.”
Let me tell you what James describes as a pure religion. James 1:27, "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."
Now most of us won’t have much of a problem with the first parts of James’ definition. We are willing to do, and to give, all we can to support orphans and widows who need our help.
But keeping ourselves unspotted from the world is another story, and a high price to pay. We forget that Jesus says we are to be a people separated from the world. We forget that our bodies are to be presented as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God in all that we do.
Some people call that legalism. I call it paying the price of true discipleship. We simply cannot live any way we want to, dress any way we want to, talk any way we want to, or go any where we want to, just to satisfy the desires of the flesh, and still call ourselves true disciples of Christ.
When Jesus called His disciples, he called them out of the world that they were living in at the time. They laid down their fishing nets, their tax collecting paraphernalia, and their medical practices, or whatever else they had going on – and said, “Come, take up your cross and follow me”. They couldn’t be His disciples without leaving all that extra, unnecessary and weighty “stuff” behind.
Jesus still requires that of us today. I’m not saying that you have to lay down your job where your income is produced, unless the Lord tells you to do that. I’m not saying leave your home, your family and everything behind and never do back, but stay close to Jesus, unless the Lord tells you to do that. I don’t believe that Jesus would require that of most of his disciples.
But understand this – He still requires all of these things in some of His disciples, and He requires all of His disciples to be willing to do all of these things if He asks us to. That’s a high price to pay for being a disciple of Jesus Christ and I don’t think that even 10% of the Christian world today has that kind of commitment when you can’t even get them to church on Sunday night or Wednesday night.
They are more committed to watching “Survivor Palau” on the TV than being in church to worship the Lord. They are more committed to keeping their lawn mowed, or their floors clean and sparkling, than to serving in some form of ministry to the lost.
They have not counted the cost of true discipleship. Instead they have chosen a cheap way out that simply won’t lead them to Heaven. I’m afraid that many will be left behind when Jesus comes. If they won’t even hear the call of God to be faithful in serving Him now, how do they expect to hear him call when the last trumpet sounds?
The scriptures that we read in the beginning ask us, what king will not sit down first and count the cost of the war that he is entering into? “Will he not count the cost – what he has to gain, what he has to lose, and what the cost of victory or defeat will mean to his kingdom’s economy and well-being?”
It would be a wonderful thing if every man, woman and child on the face of the earth would stop and ask that same question right now!
The fact is that we are all in a war. We began to fight from the moment we took our first breath at birth, and we will continue to fight until we leave this world and enter eternity. We are fighting a spiritual warfare against all the powers of darkness that hell can muster. We are fighting for our eternal soul and the hearts of men and women around the world. It’s a war that is far more devastating and costly that all of the wars of mankind for earthly territory, earthly wealth and earthly power, that have ever been fought since the world began. More than WWI, WWII all others combined. It’s a war for the priceless eternal soul of mankind.
What’s the cost of that war – eternal life or eternal death! What’s the cost in terms of our commitment to the Lord?
The cost is measured in obedience, prayer, study, faithfulness and love for God and his kingdom, and His Word. The cost is measured in service to our King and perhaps even in persecution, suffering and giving of our lives, our fortunes and our trust to God to fulfill the duties that He appoints to us. That cost is high indeed, but it is nothing when compared to what we have to lose and what we have to gain. We will gain eternal life, blessings beyond measure and the knowledge that we are truly the Children of Almighty God and victors in the end.
What’s the cost of serving the devil? It’s eternal death.
It’s spending eternity in the pits of hell, screaming and ever dying in the flames of hell, but never really dying at all.
It’s spending an eternity with every demonic spirit laughing in our face.
It’s an eternity in utter, complete, absolute darkness and despair, locked forever in a prison where there can never be any parole or escape.
It’s an eternity, time without end, with no love, no light, no pleasure, no joy, no friends, no happiness, nothing that makes life worthwhile –ever again.
That, my friend is a price that is far too high to pay, and yet it is the price that most people are choosing to pay, just to have the pleasures of sin in this life for a short time.
I hope and pray that you will stop to count the cost of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. I hope that you will see the price that must be paid to gain the victory.
Have you counted the cost? Have you totaled the sum of it all? Have you seen the end result of the life that you are living right now? What is that cost? Will the eternity you get in exchange for the life you are living right now be worth the cost?
Make sure that you’re paying the right price to get the best thing and that best thing is an eternal reward in Heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ. No matter what the cost – the price will be worth it.
