The Cost Of Discipleship - Chris Osburn

Now it happened as they journeyed on the road that

someone said to him, Lord, I will follow you wherever you go.

And Jesus said to him, foxes, have holes and birds have the

air of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to

lay his head. Then he said to another follow

me. But he said, Lord, let me first

go and bury my father. Jesus said to him, let the dead

bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.

And another also said, Lord, I will follow you, but let me

first go and bid them farewell, who are at my house.

But Jesus said to him, no one having put his hand to the plow

and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.

So we have three questions that we want to ask based on these

verses. Question number one.

Are you going to choose the comfort?

Or are you going to choose the cross?

In our life, we're sitting here. Are you going to choose Comfort

or we going to choose a cross is a congregation here going to

choose Comfort or are we going to choose the cross?

The first man here and verse 57, and I want to make note that

these are not Parables. This was something that actually

happened while Jesus was traveling to Jerusalem.

So these are not Parables. These are actual events that

happened in Matthew's account of this first, man.

In verse 57, Matthew describes the sky as being a scribe.

Scribes in those days were known to attach themselves to an older

gentleman that maybe a teacher that travels and the Scribe

would learn under these teachers and grow up and hope to create

some sort of stature with themselves and make themselves

known, kind of like what we see today, when younger men go to

work and study under a gospel preacher these days I'm kind of

the same thing. So this man came and says to

Jesus Lord, I will follow you wherever you go.

We'll look at Jesus's response to this guy.

He was expecting to make himself known by following Jesus.

No, Jesus says Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests,

but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.

This in this response that Jesus had, Jesus made it very clear

that Christianity is not a path to more Comforts to higher

status, or to have a life of Greater ease.

The road and following Jesus is not paved with self-advancement.

It actually starts with self-denial.

If we go back to verse 51 of Luke chapter 9, it says there.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

Now it came to pass when the time had come for him to be

received up that he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem,

that's talking about Jesus. So Jesus was heading to

Jerusalem to the Cross to die on the cross.

Earlier in the chapter and verse 23, read that it is to take up

our cross and verse 23. It says then he said to them.

All if anyone desires to come after me let him deny himself

and take up his cross daily and follow me.

So today we have somewhat of a respect for the image of the

Cross and we have to understand, you know, that sometimes we wear

it around our neck or it's put up in our home or we see it on

buildings, but we have to understand the view that the

first century Christians. Saw the cross is being the

cross. Was a symbol of death.

It was used as a means of execution.

So we have to thank, you know, if we had, I'd be the kind of

the, the same example, as just putting an electric chair

around, our neck, or putting it up on our manual, or are seeing

someone on a building that that represents death.

So, we have to think that when Jesus said this to take up your

cross, the meaning he had and said to these people meant

something extremely significant to those people in those days.

So we have to die to our self. That is the initial invitation

of following Jesus. Everything, we talk about here

in these next. Few verses is not really, you

know what's not specifically for mature Christians, if we want to

call ourselves that this is basic initial stuff.

And what we choose to do when we follow Jesus, We choose the

cross over the Comforts of this world.

Let's look at some passages that call us away from the comfort of

this world and dying to ourselves.

In. Luke 10 verse 3, it says their

Luke 10:3

turn over there, go your way, behold I send you out as Lambs

Among Wolves, you know, a lamb doesn't go into middle of wolves

expecting to live. The lamb goes into the middle of

wolves expecting to die and that's what Jesus was doing.

doing just as Jesus was sending out the 70 men here telling them

you are going to be have a potential of dying for my cause

Further in the chapter of 10 and Luke and verses 25 through 27,

it says there and behold a certain lawyer stood up and

tested him saying teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal

life. He said to him what is written

in the law? What is your reading of it?

So he answered and said, You shall love the Lord, your God

with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your

strength, and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself

and directly after this, this leads into The parable of the

Good Samaritan. A story about loving, the least,

likely of people to love loving the people who sometimes it's

hard to love. Also, in Luke 11:42.

Luke 11:42

It says there, but woe to you Pharisees for.

You tithe mint and Andrew and all manner of herbs and passed

by Justice and the love of God, these you ought to have done

without leaving the others undone.

He's basically telling the religious leaders here that they

are following the religious practices that at that time, but

they still sit back and settle for Injustice around them and do

not recognize love of God. That is needed to show the

people around them. They were not showing the love

of God. Their heart was not in what they

were doing religiously. Basically, they were just going

through the motions. Also, in Luke 12 verses 15

Luke 12:15–21

through 21. It says there and he said to

them take heed and beware of covetousness for one's life.

Does not consist in the abundance of things.

He possesses, then he spoke a parable to them saying the

ground of a certain rich, man, yielded plentifully.

And he thought within himself saying, what shall I do since I

have no room to store my crops, so he said, I will do this.

I will pull down my Barns and I will build greater and there.

I will store all my crops and my goods.

And I will say to my Soul soul, you have many Goods laid up for

many years. Take your ease eat drink and be

merry. but God said to him, Fool this night, your soul will be

required of you, then who's Will those things, which you have

provided so, is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not

rich toward God? So how do we become rich towards

God? Further down in the chapter 2,

verses 32 says, do not fear Little Flock for it, is your

father's, good pleasure, to give you the kingdom, sell what you

have, and give alms provide yourselves money bags, which do

not grow old and treasures into heaven.

That does not fail where no Thief approaches nor moth

destroys for where your treasure is there.

Your heart will be also. So this is extremely clear to us

what it means to follow Jesus, to become a Christian to die to

ourselves, be willing to sell up.

Resist, possessions to give away.

One of our means to love our neighbor as ourself and to die

to self. You know there was some research

done recently about some Villages some remote villages in

the Himalayan Mountains and what they found there in these remote

Villages extreme poverty. They mentioned that.

Half of the children died before their 8th birthday.

I have three kids and I can't imagine.

They have those kind of odds stacked against us.

They were dying of preventable, diseases cuts that led to

infections that ended up taking over the entire body.

You know, they would drink a little bit of unclean water.

You know, they get some sort of disease from drinking unclean

water and it can create an entire outbreak.

One Village had an outbreak that over the course of two days,

killed, 60 people. It was reported, that one mother

had 14 children. but only two made it to adulthood Severe

poverty. And on top of that.

They mentioned that men from the valley floor.

Would come up to these Villages and offer, young girls, a good

paying job in the city. Trafficking of children.

Terrible. Absolutely.

Terrible stuff. That was going on.

Can we imagine if that was our own daughters?

How we would handle that situation?

If we were going through this, do you think that we would not

have a change on our perspectives in life?

So how can we read that? We need to love our neighbor as

ourselves when we hear about these things going on.

If we are caring for the poor, as we care about ourselves,

would not the world be changed. If we are not careful, we can

create a very comfortable life in our state of Christianity

Today here, turning a blind eye to what is really happening in

some parts of the world. You know, I get it, it's easy to

put our head in the sand about these things.

Sometimes, you know, we want to not really recognize that these

things happen in the world. We don't want to hear about it.

It's easy to turn the channel so you can easy to turn the radio

station when we don't want to hear about these things.

You know, we can sit in our hair conditioner and you know,

air-conditioned building today on our patented pews and when

we're done here, we'll get into our comfortable cars.

Drive to our comfortable homes, sit in our comfortable, easy

chairs or couches. Put our feet up, fill our

bellies with food that is in a refrigerator.

Cook on gas stoves fire up the barbecue sit down.

There are tables of plates and silverware and eat our food

which is mostly processed. Anyway, You know, tomorrow

morning we can wake up and pretend like we don't hear a

message like I'm trying to give today, you know, we can forget

about it, it's easy to do. I've done it.

We're doing it all the time. It's are comfortable.

Way of living that we have let ourselves be used to So we

cannot let conform Comfort Define Our Lives.

I don't want Comfort to Define my life.

Do not let that be the story of Our Lives.

Let's be encouraged when we choose to follow Christ.

It is a call that we must be willing to give up the Comforts

of this life to die to ourselves and to live for others.

So, are you going to choose the Comfort or you going to choose

the cross? Our second question.

We want to. look at Are you going to settle for maintenance?

Or are you going to sacrifice for the spread of the Gospel?

the second man here and Luke chapter 9, In verses 59 and 60.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

It says, then he said Then he said to the other two, another

follow me. But he said, Lord, let me first

go and bury my father. Jesus said to him, let the dead

bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.

It is unknown. Whether this man's father was

already passed or was going to pass shortly, the scholars kind

of go back and forth on that, but this guy wanted to go back

and either spend a couple days with you know, final days with

his father or give him a A proper burial, taking care of

the things that need to be taken care of.

When there is a death of a family member, you know, this is

something that all we all would do this is all something that we

expect to do. It's somewhat of an obligation

to immediate family members to take care of the Affairs of

somebody who has passed. Unfortunately, I still have both

of my parents. Thankfully and but I know

there's some here who don't some may have lost one or both plant

parents. And I can say that.

I Philly fully don't understand the loss of a parent, but a lot

of you do but think about those feelings we you had when you

lost your parent, think about All the emotions that you went

through, and the urgency that you had to take care of the

Affairs of him of, whoever it was, you know, you got to get,

you got to get the funeral arrangements.

You got to get, you know, the life insurance worked out.

You got to get, take care of this.

You got to take care of that, whatever it may be.

There's a list of things that are need to be taken care of.

Now, could you imagine Jesus turning to you and saying let

the dead bury their own dead? But you go and preach the

kingdom of God. How would we react to that?

You know, you're here and you're on the fence about following

Jesus. I want to kind of explain, you

know, what God has done for us. Even if we are a Christian, we

need to listen. Sometimes we need to be reminded

what is God has done for us. So the good news of the kingdom

of God is this? We have a God who it rains, all

and created, all who loves us? The reason we are here right now

is because he has breathed life into us as humans.

You know, God could call in into it all because he is the one who

makes that decision But we have all sinned against God and we've

created a separation between us and God, we've all sinned in

different ways. If we die in this state that we

are in right now, but as state of Separation, then we will

spend eternity. Separated from God, we can hear

so many different ways of a multitude of religions, nowadays

of how to get back to God. You know, say a prayer so many

times, do these religious You know, examples of do these steps

and you can get back into good graces with God, or just believe

it in your heart. You know, the good news is that

we do not have to do anything to earn our way back to God, we

cannot earn our Salvation. There's not enough we can do in

this world to earn our way back to being in.

Good graces of God. We have a God who is merciful

and graceful, but God sent his son to us.

To this earth. And he lived a perfect life and

he had no sin. And Jesus chose to die.

Not for his sins because he had no sins.

So, if he chose to die for sins, whose sins that he died for, for

our sins. He chose to die for our sins, he

chose to pay the price for us. But not only that three days.

After his death, Jesus rose from the dead and had victory over

sin because of that sacrifice. We here can have them

forgiveness of our sins by believing repenting confessing

and being baptized into Christ. And being reconciled to God.

After that, we have an awesome privilege to be able to be

forgiven of our sins. Each time we mess up or slip,

you know, we have an opportunity to go to God in prayer and

convince confess our sins to God.

God, and he will forgive us every single time.

And once we get through this life, whether by death or by the

return of Jesus, we will be with God in eternity in heaven.

That is the greatest news in the world.

That is the good news of the Gospel.

The decisions we choose today can have an impact on where we

will be in eternity from now. That is a privilege.

The king. Has come to us to save us from

our sins in that is Jesus. So when we have to make that

news known to the entire Community, to this town and to

the world, Jesus told us to go and we need to do exactly that.

It has been said that the man who did that research in the

Himalayan Mountain Villages that when they asked if some of those

villagers, if they knew who Jesus was Their response was,

who is that? They had no idea.

I have no idea who Jesus is. This picture here.

And I'm going to do try to do justice in describing this

picture for some here. This is a picture of the

Himalayan mountains. The beauty that is there.

It's just breathtaking at the bottom of this valley floor.

It's green. You can see a couple of hikers

down here on the bottom. Midway up starts to Brown a

little bit where there's no growth of vegetation and then

above that, you have the snow-capped mountains with just

such a vertical face on these mountains and the blue sky

above. Now, these guys here in this

Valley are said to be at 12,000 feet elevation Could you imagine

being there and looking up another 15 plus thousand feet to

the peaks of these mountains? That is an awesome.

Awesome thought. The beauty of The Majestic,

Majesty of the Majestics of these mountains are just so

beautiful. In Romans 11 verse 20.

Romans 11:20

It says for since the creation of the world his invisible

attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things

that are made even his eternal power and godhead so that they

are without excuse. Also in Isaiah 6 and verse 3 it

says and one cried out to another and said holy holy holy

is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his

glory. We can read in these verses and

we can look at these mountains and we can see that there's

places on this Earth. That the, that the glory of God

is shown in his creation. People can look at these

mountains and say there has to be a Creator.

There has to be somebody who has created these things.

That, you know, there is a God. That's what Romans tells us.

Romans tells us there's no excuse for someone to recognize

that there is a God now think about this.

So if there's people in the Himalayan Mountains that or

anywhere in the world, who have not heard the name of Jesus, but

yet the Bible tells us that they can recognize that there's a

God. Why do they not recognize that?

Why'd you that I recognize this? You know, these mountains have

been been proclaiming God's glory for thousands of years.

Well, the privilege comes to us from the mountains.

Do not teach about Jesus mountains, teach about God, the

Creator. So it comes on us.

It's our responsibility as Christians to spread the gospel

about Jesus to teach those about Jesus.

That's not the mountains job, it's not the Landscapes job.

That's privilege. Is ours.

What an awesome awesome responsibility and a great

privilege. We get to do something that the

mountains cannot do and we get to Proclaim Jesus.

So it is estimated that there are 2 billion people.

Two billion that have little to no knowledge of God or Jesus in

this world right now to billion, that is a huge number.

That's about if my mind serves me correct.

That's about a quarter. I think there's almost seven

little over seven billion people on this Earth right now.

So how come 2,000 liters with all the technology we have?

The speed in which information is shared, how come we, they're

still two billion. People that have not heard about

God or Jesus. I think there's two reasons.

Of course, in these places, there's resistance to the

gospel. There are leaders of villages

that absolutely reject, anybody wanting to bring in the gospel

of Christianity. There's governments that are

against these places that don't let you bring in Christianity

because They have their own Gods, that they serve that they

don't want anything else in there.

But I think the other reason is as we have settled for our own

maintenance. You know, we have created a

picture of Christianity. We were we are content with the

state that we are in coming to three-time worship three times a

week. Singing, his Praises commuting

and all those things that we do without giving second thought to

those who may be in need of hearing the gospel.

This congregation here is supported for and worked for

many, many years. In many ways financially and we

also send Frank to the Philippines every single year,

and that's great. But why do we think it's only

one man's job? Why do we sit here sometimes?

And think that one guy can spread the gospel throughout the

world that, you know, do we get comfortable?

Just just giving are giving of our means, just once a week.

We think that we think that justifies us You know, there's

so much untapped potential in this congregation here that not

only to send people to the Philippines, but more

importantly to get the gospel out in this community in this

town but not that's not going to happen if we settle for our own

maintenance. So we have to get out of our

comfort zone. So this is this Mike, you know,

I was putting this together as a very convicting sermon, very

convicting makes you self-reflect pretty hard on

yourself and we might think it's too much for us to do or too

uncomfortable for you and I to do, but this is basic

discipleship, that Jesus called us to basic stuff.

I Converse 14:33. Says so likewise, whoever you

does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple.

So if we're not willing to give up everything we have, Jesus

says, we can't be his disciple. That's scary stuff to think

about. In 1958.

My grandfather along with my grandmother and four children

left the Comforts of the United States, to travel overseas to

Africa, to help with the start of the work there in

establishing congregations and spreading of the Gospel there

along with a few other preachers.

My grandfather, decided to give up all the Comforts of this life

here in America to go live. In a hut basically with a dirt

floor with four kids and I couldn't imagine the

conversation maybe that went on with him and my grandmother on

deciding to go back to Africa to do this.

And in 1959, He was in a very terrible accident.

He was. On a Saturday night.

He was preparing for the next day.

For the Lord's day to work to go to worship.

He was filling up, fueling up to the vehicle for the next day and

honestly, husbands and Men. I think that is a great example

for us, that we can how we need to prepare our families for

worship on Sundays, you know, we need to prepare the day or the

night before and able to make it to where ever, we need to be to

be able to worship. You know, whether we would be

traveling or whatever we need to make preparation to be in a

certain place so we can worship with fellow Christians, make

those preparations filling up the car the night before you

know, whatever we do Sunday morning, making sure that we

have plenty of time to be at services on time when they

start. But when he was preparing or

filling up the fuel, he would take a lantern.

This is an actual picture of of an outhouse, an outbuilding that

they had on their property. And this this 55-gallon drum

here about three or four feet, high was full of the fuel.

And there's a valve on this drum And as he was going out in the

evening, he took that Lantern and he hung it on that shed out

there, which was looks like, maybe I don't know 15 to 20 feet

away and as he was fueling up the vehicle, you know, being out

in the open air. He didn't realize that the fumes

could go all the way to that Lantern and they did and they

caught fire. And those fumes came all the way

over to the car and to that barrel.

And that valve ended up sticking open on that Barrel.

And he got burned. He caught fire is what he says.

He tells you he caught fire. I can't remember how much

percentage of his body was burned, but he was in the

hospital for nine and a half weeks.

And the nurse told him the night, they brought him in that,

they didn't think he was going to live and because they think

didn't think he was going to live.

They didn't give him any treatment for that entire night.

Burned, as he was, they gave him zero treatment.

This is the this is the picture of him holding the shirt that he

was wearing during that time. I mean, they're it's barely

hanging on there together. The nurse told him after.

It was all said and done that. He was America.

That's what the nurse told him. In other words, God had a hand

in him, not dying that night. You know, he gave all he gave

everything he could and he almost lost his life for moving

overseas to Africa, to spread the gospel.

So do not fool ourselves into thinking that the mission of

spreading the gospel, does not come without a cost.

Not only that but living a life of following Christ has not come

without a cost as well. So are we going to settle for

maintenance? Or are we going to sacrifice for

the spread of the Gospel? Our third question.

Will your life be marked by an indecisive mind or undivided

heart? Back in Luke chapter 9.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

The last man that Jesus runs up on and verse 61.

And another also said, Lord, I will follow you, but let me

first go and bid them farewell, who are at my house.

But Jesus said to him, no one having put his hand to the plow

and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.

This last guy wanted to follow Jesus.

But first, he wanted to go back home and say goodbye to his

family. You know, Jesus was telling him

and he's telling us as well, that if we're going to follow

him, we are to fix our eyes upon him and not look back.

You know, these are tough, tough things that Jesus is telling us

to do. I mean, he is, he is really

getting to the core of our heart.

Are we going to follow him? Are we going to give everything?

We have be willing to give everything away, turn our back

on on all that we've ever known to follow him.

So an intersect indecisive mind. You know, I think of this as all

of us have a tendency to think this way, you know, we can hear

this message and we can think to ourselves, man, I really need to

do something. You know, I need to do something

for Jesus. I need some for the congregation

you some for the church, you know, and then then a few days

go by and I still need to really need to do something week, goes

by a month, goes by and we're still thinking, man, what in the

world? Can I do to help the

congregation or to help the church?

Then a year goes by. By the time, the years of all

gone by we have done nothing. This is not the type of life

that Jesus called us to live. He wants us to live with an

undivided heart. Look at the language in Luke

chapter, 14 and verse 25. It says there now, great

multitudes went with him and he turned and said to them.

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother

wife and children brothers and sisters, yes, his own life also,

he cannot be my disciple. What in the world is at all

about? What?

Why would he tell us to? If we don't hate our family that

we can't be a disciple. Now we know we can read other

places in scripture. We were taught to love our

wives, love our children honor, our father and mother, you know,

that's not what Jesus was talking about here.

Jesus was saying, That when we choose to fix our eyes and give

our entire heart to Jesus and love him.

All other close relationships look like hate in comparison to

what our relationship should be to him.

So, Do we love him with everything?

We got. So, the key question really is,

where's our heart? Where's your heart is Jesus

enough for us? Do we treasure Jesus, the

automatic Matthew 13, verse 44, the parable of the hidden

Matthew 13:44

treasure says there. Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is

like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid and

for Joy, over it. He goes and sells all that he

has and buys that field You know, this, this this guy found

something in this field that he thought was more valuable than

everything that he had. This is the parable 22 verse

Parable, very short. You know that is and it says

that he joyfully sold all that he had to buy that field.

You know, that is a picture of him loving Jesus.

With all, he's got billing being, you know, for the

furtherance of the kingdom of God, that that that is, that is

a picture of the church and Jesus, you know, he is the one

who can save us, he's the Alpha and Omega the beginning, and the

end, our comforter, Our Redeemer, Our Savior, the bread

of life, good shepherd, our great high priest, the king of

King Kings, and the Lord of lords.

He's all these things. Things.

So the real question is, does your heart belonged to him?

Does your heart belong to Jesus? Because when it does these

questions that we've asked sort of seem inviting, don't they?

I think they're inviting when if we can really say that our heart

belongs to Jesus, you know, when we choose the cross over the

Comforts of this life, the life we have in Christ is far better

than all the Comforts of this world.

Yes, when we when we sacrifice, when we should we should

sacrifice for the work of the church and spread the gospel.

We don't want to waste our life. We don't want to make a few

short years here, count for eternity for nothing.

You know, we will speak spend eternity, lost or saved and

that's just determined on the decisions we make today we don't

want to get to the Judgment Day and stand before Jesus and have

Jesus asked us to ask us, you know, all those good intentions

that you had all those things that you wanted to do to spread

the gospel. Have you done them?

You know, I don't, I don't want to stand there and, and respond

to that. Well, I thought about doing

them, well, thinking about doing them and doing are two different

things. I think all of us here can say,

That. That we trust Jesus to save us

for eternity and if that is the case, then why can't we trust

him to lead us here in this life for just a little while?

You know, when we truly understand who Jesus is and what

he does for us, it is not dangerous to surrender to him on

the opposite. It is dangerous to not surrender

to him. We thank you for listening to

our podcast. Put on by the Church of Christ

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