Hard to Believe: Count the Cost of Following Jesus

With a second part in a new series called Hard to Believe, dealing with the gospel.

And we left off with this. If you try to hold on to you, your plan,

your agenda, your success, your self-esteem, you lose forgiveness in heaven by doing that.

And in John 12, verse 24, John 12, 24, someone has that. Why don't somebody

John 12:24

read that out for us if you've got it quickly.

John chapter 12, verse 24.

John 12:24

I tell you the truth, unless the kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone.

But instead, it will produce many new kernels, multiple harvests, and a new life.

Yes. So unless a grain of wheat and shearing red falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone.

But if it dies, it produces much grain.

In other words, if you're going to be fruitful in following me,

Jesus says, it's going to cost you your life.

And I'll explain that in a minute, okay?

It's going to cost you your life. You're going to have to die, in other words.

Verse 25 in John 12 says that he who loves his life will what?

Lose it. And he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

So the path that Jesus was going down was the path to persecution and death.

So you wanna follow Jesus, do you?

It'll cost you absolutely everything. Now, again, I want to pause here a minute

and say, how many times when we hear the gospel call today, do we hear that

kind of call where you have to count the cost?

Most of the time, it's like, come down this aisle so Jesus can heal your marriage

or, you know, do this so you can feel better about yourself, right?

But the Lord here might not take your life physically, necessarily.

He might not take all your money in this world he might not take your family

or your spouse like we talked about last week,

he might not take your job but you need to be i need to be willing to give it

all up in other words if that's what he asked in other words it's total surrender,

remember that him that old him i surrender all.

Man, a good friend of mine is talking about was every time we sing that,

it's hard to sing that song, right?

Hard to sing it because if you mean it, that is Lord, I surrender everything.

He may not ask, like I said, for all of it, and he may, but we need to be willing.

That should be the posture of our heart is to give it all up.

We need to be desperate enough to embrace Christ no matter what the price,

in other words. That's the kind of desperation.

And most of the time we we see in our culture today people don't come to jesus

with that mentality a lot a lot of times it's to come because,

you know they have an appeal like jesus can make my life better which is true

to a point but by better you better count the cost because that means you're

going to have trials tribulations persecution all that coming in as well,

but you do have the joy of the Lord through those trials? Absolutely.

But if you want to follow Christ right into heaven, here's the message again,

as we look over these few weeks, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him.

That means deny yourself, refuse to associate with any longer that old person you were, right?

Take up your cross. That means you're willing to die. It's a call to die and follow Jesus.

Y'all remember that verse that Jesus talks about following him and I will make you fishers of men.

Used to have a good old boy say one time, you know, if you're not fishing,

that just means you're not following, not following him.

Because part of following Jesus is that he will make you a fisher of men.

But we don't hear that in the contemporary gospel many times, do we?

Do you ever hear that in a message a television preacher and evangelist gives?

Probably very few and far between, right?

Do you ever hear anybody stand up in a crowd and say, if you want to become

a Christian, slay yourself.

Refuse to associate with any longer with yourself. Reject all the things that

yourself longs and wants and hopes for.

Be willing to die for the sake of Jesus, if required, while living slavishly,

if you will. We're bondservants of Christ. We're slaves of Christ.

Submit in obedience to Jesus Christ. In other words, he is Lord.

He is our boss. He is our master.

That's what it means to follow Jesus. We don't hear that as often as we should.

That doesn't sell, does it?

That's not smart marketing. It's

a message that's hard to believe because self-denial is so hard to do.

It just happens to be the truth, though.

And that's why he says broad is the way that leads to destruction.

Many there be that go down that path, they find that path.

But narrow is the way that leads to eternal life. And so that's what we're going

to talk about a little bit tonight is that narrow gate.

So what do you want to do? You know, according to lots of churches and preachers,

the answer is to popularize the gospel.

Get rid of all that slaying yourself stuff, right? And carrying your cross stuff.

People don't want to hear that. And get a decent band up there on the stage.

Tell everybody God wants him to be happy and successful and full of self-esteem.

Feel good about yourself, right?

The only problem is that saying those things gives people who don't know any

better the illusion that they're saved.

And they're not according to Scripture.

And someday when they face Christ, they're going to say these words.

And y'all remember these from Scripture. Lord, Lord.

And he's going to say, depart from me. I never knew you. Matthew 7, 23.

So what's a good band worth then? about as much as healthy self-esteem, right?

I'm not knocking that. I love music, y'all. I love all, probably I have,

I don't know, I'm probably weird

in the fact that I have such a wide appreciation of all genres of music.

About the only little piece of genre of music that I have, you know,

I have to discipline myself more is with some of the really operatic stuff,

even though I have an appreciation for it, and then some of the just, you know.

Out left field, you know, it's just like crazy, you know, screaming where I

can't hear anything, right? There's no, I can't even tell the message,

those type things. But mankind wants glory, don't we?

We want health. How many of you here want health?

We want wealth, right? To a point, right?

We want happiness. We want all of our felt needs met.

All our little human itches scratched, so to speak, right?

We want a painless life. I don't know anybody in this room, if you could have

it, wouldn't choose a painless life.

Man, I'd love for my ankle not to be killing me. Some of y'all sitting here

would love for maybe something else on your body not to be killing you.

Not to be giving you problems.

And sometimes, you know, we want the crown without the cross.

We want the gain without the pain.

We want the words of Christian salvation to be easy.

In other words, and then that's how people think, but that's not God's instruction to us, is it?

According to Hebrews chapter two, verse 10, it says these words,

it says, suffering made perfect, the captain of our salvation.

And so we also will go through the crucible of suffering.

What we suffer, first of all, is the death of all hopes, all ambitions,

all desires, all longings, all needs that are human, right?

And when you listen to a seeker-sensitive evangelical preacher today,

we're likely to think that it's easy to be a Christian.

Just say this prayer after me. Y'all have heard that a million times,

haven't you? Just say this prayer, you know, just say this prayer.

And I don't know if y'all realize this, but,

But we call that usually the sinner's prayer, right? And really the only sinner's

prayer I see in the Bible is truly, you know, that beating of the chest saying,

Lord, be merciful to be a sinner, right?

And that's just calling out for his mercy. But literally, y'all,

there really is no magical formula, no words you say to become a Christian in

the sense of a sinner's prayer that you repeat after somebody.

It's all about the posture of your heart before God.

When you're in this, it's what he's called us to, saying, Lord,

I am willing to surrender all.

I submit to you, Lord, completely, fully, totally, no strings attached. Forgive me, Lord.

You know, when we come to him, total surrender, we've counted the cost.

But just saying a prayer after somebody coming down an aisle,

that's why you see a lot of youth camps. You know, people flood the aisle sometimes

on the last night, you know.

And there are people who are saved at youth camps. Don't get me wrong.

I have seen some. I've seen God do mighty things.

So I'm all for youth camps. But just like with Billy Graham Crusade or any other

event, there are always people who flood down and just think that all they got

to do is say a little prayer.

Maybe God will help them have a better week, right?

Maybe God will help them to make more money this week, okay?

Pray this little prayer and poof, you're in the club.

But according to the Bible, it doesn't work that way.

In fact, in Matthew 7, 13, if y'all remember this, during the Sermon on the

Mount, Jesus admonished his followers and he said these words.

He said, enter by the narrow gate.

The connotation of narrow there is constricted, right? It's a very, very tight squeeze.

Is so tight that we can't carry anything through it. We come through it with

nothing, in other words, according to Scripture.

So a wide religious gate, like I mentioned earlier, also exists.

And I'm saddened to think that so many preachers and so many churches are leading

people through that gate.

They're saying you don't have to do all that hard stuff to get into heaven.

And what I mean by hard stuff is surrender all, right? Lay it all down before Christ.

We're open-minded, we're inclusive, and we think everybody who wants to should get saved.

And so it's kind of like, y'all have heard this terminology, easy believism, right?

We've actually come to the point where people who call themselves Christians

have actually apologized on behalf of all of us hopelessly inflexible nitpickers,

so to speak, right? With the nitpicking on the gospel.

Those who hang on, though, to those old, outmoded ideas that Christianity should

be biblical, exclusive, inflexible, and inconvenient.

If Christians don't acknowledge and preach the fact that salvation is through

Christ alone, they're actually hurting unwitting people through that wide gate

that leads to destruction.

Yeah, and I also think, you know, just thinking about denying ourself or slaying

ourself in that respect, it's kind of like, you know, we have a hard situation, let's just say.

And God has told us in his word to do this.

We see it plain as day. Maybe it's like, I'll throw this one out.

Maybe somebody has offended you.

And God's word says you should go to that person, right?

And you should talk to them and try to win your brother or sister.

But maybe we have it to where we're like, hey, I don't want to do that.

You know, I don't want to follow God's word in this area. So in other words,

what we're saying in that particular area is I don't want to deny myself and

take up my cross, die to my selfish desires because I don't want to do that.

And you can apply that to so many different areas. That's, you know,

what it means to really follow Christ is that we submit to his word and we lay

it all, we surrender it all.

When we don't feel like it, we die to self.

Right? And we refuse to associate with our old ways of thinking any longer.

And that's not my opinion, by the way, that's the word of God.

And people who are breezing through those wide, comfortable,

inviting gates with all their baggage, their self-needs, their self-esteem,

their self-desire for fulfillment or self-satisfaction, so to speak.

And the most horrible thing about it is that they think they're going to heaven.

And somebody thinks he's done them a big favor by coming up with this consumer-friendly

gospel about which everybody just feels good.

Y'all, it really is hard to believe, like I said, but also, yes,

there is joy in following the Lord, but there are some days that,

y'all, it's truly about surrender.

Some days in our flesh, we don't want to do what we should do.

Paul talked about that struggle, right? I want to do this, but I end up doing

that, right? There's a war that goes on.

But that gospel there that leads to the wide way is a false gospel,

and it's a treacherous lie.

And that easy access gate doesn't go to heaven.

It says heaven on it, but it ends up in hell.

Because narrow is the gate, Jesus said in Matthew 7, 14, and difficult.

Y'all hear the words of Jesus here?

Difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

According to Jesus, is it easy to be saved?

Not according to him. It's difficult to find the way that leads to life,

and there are very few that find it.

I agree that we have a hard time finding it, especially today,

you could go to church after church after church sometimes and never find it.

It's a very narrow gate.

But the same teaching appears in Luke 13. We keep going back to Luke a little bit. Luke 13, 23 and 24.

Somebody have that one that can read real quick? Luke 13, 23 and 24.

Y'all can give me a break here for a second.

Luke 13, 23 and 24.

Just read it nice and loud for everybody luke 13 23 and 24 lord someone asked

him are your few being saved,

he said to them make every effort to enter the narrow door because they tell

you many will try to enter and won't be able yeah so,

lord are there few who are saved what did he say again to them.

Yes. In fact, the literal word translation, strive to enter through the narrow gate.

For many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

It's hard to find and it's hard to get through.

Requires humility. It requires surrendering ourselves, our wills, all of it.

Requires a complete surrender, not halfway.

And why is it so hard to find today? Why is it so hard to get through?

It's hard to find because so many

churches, I think, have strayed from teaching the truth of the gospel.

And it's even harder once you've heard the truth to submit to it,

right? Because why? Man worships who naturally?

Himself. He's his own God, right? He calls the shots.

When we need to tell people, what we need to tell people is not come to Christ

and you feel better about yourself, or Jesus wants to meet whatever your needs

are, and that's it. That's all we say.

Jesus doesn't want to meet our needs, our worldly, earthly, human needs, so to speak.

Not firstly, right? He wants us to be willing to say, I will abandon all the

things I think I need for the sake of Christ, because he's really all I need.

Now, granted, he takes care of his children. We know this from scripture.

He will meet your needs, right?

But we don't come to him for that. We come to him for him.

There's a lot of difference there. It's hard to get through the narrow gate

because it's so hard for us to deny ourselves.

Jesus' first requirement in Luke 9 was for Christians to deny themselves.

But that's just about impossible to do.

Self-importance, by the way, is the reigning reality in human fallenness, right?

Man is the master of his own soul, the captain of his own fate.

We've heard it. The monarch of his own world, right?

To say that he has to deny and slay himself is just simply too much to swallow.

Preach a gospel that doesn't include that, and people's going to flock around

to get out of hell and into heaven.

But start preaching the true biblical gospel, the hard words of Jesus,

the call for total and absolute self-denial, the recognition that we're worthy of nothing,

commendable for nothing, and that nothing in us is worth salvaging,

then there's a lot less popular. It's a lot less popular.

Take it for somebody who, hey, we preach that gospel. Sometimes you're targeted,

right? You're targeted.

And so that brings us to counting the cost and that's where we're going to pick

up next time in luke 14 28 through 30 because jesus remember these are jesus's words,

not me not something judd said or made up or james these are jesus's words about

counting the cost when coming to him for salvation.