The Cost Of Discipleship Series

The Cost of Discipleship

Luke 14:25-35

Does the prize you win worth the price you pay?

To truly follow Jesus Christ, we must consider the cost and put Him above everything else.

Salvation is both absolutely free and yet it costs you your very life. You receive it freely as a gift from the Lord, but once you receive it, you have just committed everything you are and have to Jesus Christ. You may protest, “That’s a contradiction! How can something be both free and costly at the same time?”

Jesus Christ freely offers the water of life to everyone who thirsts. But, we need to understand that when we receive His free offer, we are no longer our own; we have been bought with a price. Thus, to truly follow Christ, we must consider the cost and not begin to follow Him superficially, only to turn back later when things get tough. That is what Jesus warns against in our text.

At the outset I need to point out that there are many who draw a sharp distinction between salvation and discipleship. Salvation, they say, is God’s free gift, but discipleship is costly. They would also say that while every believer ought to pursue discipleship, it is not linked to saving faith. In other words, there are some who are truly saved, but who never commit themselves to being disciples. They say that it is possible to receive Jesus as Savior, but there is no need to follow Him as Lord.

I cannot find any basis for such teaching in the New Testament, and I can find many Scriptures to refute such teaching. To believe in Jesus Christ as Savior necessarily entails following Him as Lord. Salvation is not just a decision that a man makes, but it is the mighty power of God in raising a dead soul to eternal life.

If a person claims to be a believer, but he isn’t seeking to grow in obedience to Christ, he is fooling himself. In Paul’s words, “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient, and worthless for any good deed” (Titus 1:16).

Thus it is possible to follow Christ superficially and it is to such followers that Jesus lays out the cost of discipleship. He knows that the battle will be intense and He doesn’t want to recruit anyone under false pretenses.

Verse 25 is crucial for interpreting our text today. “Great multitudes were going along with Him.” Almost every pastor would love to have that kind of congregation Why because we measure success by numbers.

But Jesus was different. Large crowds did not fool Him. He knew that many were following Him for selfish or superficial reasons. It was the exciting thing to do. Maybe you or someone you knew would be healed. But Jesus was not a false recruiter. He wanted to weed out those who followed Him for superficial reasons. So He turned to the great multitude and laid out these demands of discipleship.

Jesus first lays out two of the costs of discipleship (14:26-27); then, He gives two parables (14:28-32) that make the same overall point, namely, that a person must give careful consideration to the cost before he rashly jumps into any project. Then He states a third cost of discipleship (14:34-35) . He concludes by warning, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

We do not know exactly where Jesus was, but we assume that He was continuing to press on toward Jerusalem (cf. 9:51; 13:22). The Pharisees, who were in focus around the dinner table in the previous section (14:1-24), are now left behind, and the focus is on a large crowd of people following our Lord as He traveled. Maybe these people knew who Jesus was, but did not understand the rigors of discipleship. And I am inclined to think of these people as merely curious caught up by Jesus, His miracles, and His teaching. They hardly realized, in my opinion, that they were following Him.

Our Lord cites two illustrations of those who commenced a project without counting the cost . The first is that of a man who purposes to build a tower, but did not calculate the total cost, and so the tower was never finished. This “unfinished tower” became a monument to this man’s folly. What the man thought would bring him fame, brought him shame.

The second illustration is that of a king, who goes to war against another king, but without calculating whether or not he had the manpower to win. Because he was outnumbered two-to-one, he had to humble himself and surrender to his enemy, entirely at his mercy. Again, he was put to shame because he commenced without counting the cost.

In thinking about both of these illustrations, I believe that what they have in common is the key to understanding what our Lord meant to teach us by using them: