The Cost of Discipleship

Amen.

As we continue now in worship, I'd encourage you to turn to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 14.

Luke 14 · chapter mention

I will be reading verses 25 through 33.

And if you're here this morning, you uh don't have your Bible with you, I'd encourage you to take the Pew Bible in front of you and open it up and follow along.

And if you're here this morning and you don't own a copy of God's Word, I'd encourage you to take that pew Bible and take it home with you as our gift to you so that you can read and study it and grow in your understanding of who God is and the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.

Luke chapter 14, beginning in verse 25.

Luke 14 · chapter mention

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost?

Whether he has enough to complete it.

Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him.

Saying, This man began to build and he was not able to finish.

Or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000.

And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.

So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

What does it mean to be a disciple?

We may think this is a straightforward question.

We see it all throughout the gospel accounts.

In fact, when we get to the end of Matthew and the Great Commission, we find that the call of the church is to make disciples.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.

So that discipleship is the call of the church.

According to Matthew, it precedes baptism.

What does it mean to be a disciple?

Well, the word itself means a learner or a follower.

In fact, if we were to trace this out through the gospel accounts, we would see that John the Baptist had disciples as well.

In fact, in Matthew 11, 2, you remember John the Baptist's disciples come to Jesus.

We see this elsewhere.

They ask questions.

And so the term itself means a learner or a follower.

What's shocking, though, when we look at the gospel accounts of disciples, is that Jesus at times challenges disciples to become real disciples.

In fact, look in John chapter 6.

John 6 · chapter mention

I want to show you a passage that is shocking in the clarity of the context in which it is.

John chapter 6, beginning in verse 52, and I'll just read 52 through 59 to set up the context of what follows.

John 6 · chapter mention

John chapter 6, beginning in verse 52, it says, The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

John 6 · chapter mention

If you remember, Jesus was talking about being the bread of life, that it's true uh true nourishment.

He says, So Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

Talking about, giving the analogy of eating as reception of Jesus, just like we would eat food and be nourished by it, we take Christ and his life nourishes us, gives us life.

Whoever feeds in my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.

So we're talking about coming to faith in Christ, and I will raise him up on the last day.

For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.

Whoever feeds in my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.

And he's giving an analogy not of the Lord's table, but of coming to faith in him.

As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.

This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died, talking about the manna.

Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.

Jesus said these things in the synagogue as he taught at Capernaum.

Now look at what follows, though, in verses 60 through 66.

It says, When many of his disciples heard this, when many of Jesus' disciples heard this, they said, This is a hard saying, who can listen to it?

So here were those that the Bible calls disciples of Jesus.

And they hear what Jesus is saying, and they said, This is a hard saying.

Who can listen to it?

Who can truly accept it and receive it?

Verse 61 says, But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, Do you take offense at this?

And so now Jesus turns to his own disciples, those who the Bible calls followers of Christ, and he asks them, Do you take offense at this?

Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?

It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh is no help at all.

He's saying this is spiritually discerned, this isn't something that just human reasoning, apart from the working of the Holy Spirit, you can come to understand.

The word that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

And now look at what he says in verse 64, and talking to his own disciples, he says, But there are some of you who do not believe.

For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.

So it says, John, in commentating about this, says, Jesus knew those who were of his disciples, but they did not believe those who did not believe, as well as the one who would betray him.

And he said, This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by him by the Father.

That it is a work of God in the heart of a person, that a person comes to faith in Christ.

And then he says in verse 66, after this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.

The reason they no longer walked with him is because they had never been true believers in him, even though they had been followers of him.

And this is important to realize as we're coming to passages like Luke's gospel, because the question we have to ask ourselves is who is Jesus talking to in this?

And what we find, it's shocking that there were disciples who were not true believers.

And the call to become a disciple is a call to come to faith in Christ.

It is a decision, yes, but it is more than just a decision.

It is a call to follow.

And so Luke here differentiates, as John does, between those who were superficially disciples of Christ.

They would have counted themselves as disciples of Christ.

They may have been labeled disciples of Christ, but they were not true believers in Christ.

And so the Bible warns us that there can be people who on the surface look like genuine followers of Christ, but do not have genuine faith.

In fact, the Bible goes so far as to say that there can be people who become a part of the church, who enter into membership, who even rise into leadership, who even may become an elder or a pastor in the church and not be a genuine believer.

In fact, we see this throughout the epistles, and particularly in the general epistles, we've been going over them uh in our seniors' Bible study, and what's shocking over and over again is the warnings not just of the threat of outsiders uh who can influence and teach falsely, but that those could rise up even from within the church.

If you remember in 1 John chapter 2, verse 19, uh John is talking about these people who left the congregation, who left the faith, and he said, They went out from among us, for they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us, but their going out proved that they were none of us.

1 John 2:19

Uh, even in the book of Acts, as Paul is warning the Ephesians, uh, the Ephesian elders about uh the danger of false teachers in the church, people who looked like they were genuine followers.

Uh, he says in Ephesians chapter 20, beginning in verse 28, pay close attention, pay careful attention to yourselves and all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.

And then in verse 30 of Acts chapter 20, he says this, and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

Therefore be alert.

So that there could be even within the professing church those who uh claim to be disciples, claim to have a relationship with Christ, and yet are not genuinely converted, have not truly been born again, even those who come into membership of a church, even those who may rise into leadership of the church.

And so Jesus here is challenging those who are following him to understand what it means to truly follow him.

In fact, we saw this earlier when we looked at the parable of the soils in Luke chapter 8, verses 4 through 15, and we won't turn there and examine it again.

Luke 8:4–15

But if you remember, there were four soils that were there, and it was really the soils that were in view.

And he said that there was the hard soil, and this was the one uh who was uh fleeting, and even what was sown was taken away.

There was the shallow heart, and that was the fickle follower that did not have uh genuine saving faith.

It was not lasting.

We had the warning of the crowded heart, uh, this was the fooled follower, the one uh who thought he had something that he didn't have, but time and pressure bore that out.

And then we saw the responsive heart, the one that was faith-filled, who was a genuine follower of Christ, and uh that fruit lasted.

And so we we see here that Jesus is warning, he's now turning to the crowds, verse 25.

The crowds that are following him, many of whom would have thought that they were disciples of Christ, but he's warning them that they're self-deceived, that they think they have something that they don't have.

That there's no real faith, but they're following Christ as an external following.

They're self-proclaimed disciples, but they don't genuinely trust in Christ.

They do not have eternal life.

And he contrasts that with those who truly reckon Christ, who truly reckon the call of the gospel, who truly understand that when a person comes to Christ, he's indwelt by the living God, the Holy Spirit, and that when God comes into that person's life, that is the beginning of a lifelong relationship of learning and following Christ.

Some people, when they look at the word discipleship, see this as a second level or a second-tier Christianity, and they would say, Well, you become a believer at one point, and then later you become a disciple.

But if we were to trace out what Jesus says about discipleship, discipleship coming to Christ is the entrance into a life of discipleship, and he calls people not to become decisional followers of Christ, but to place their faith in him in a life-changing way that God begins to work in their lives and they begin a journey of following Him.

So let's look at this passage now and unpack it, and then we'll add some comments and flesh it out a little bit of what it looks like.

We see next, the next verse, this shocking statement that Jesus says in verse 26.

In fact, I'm sure when I read it to you, even if you've read it before, the the weight of it, the shocking nature of it, arrests our attention.

If anyone comes after me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brother and sister, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

Well, what does Jesus mean here?

Well, what is he saying here?

Does Jesus mean here that in the absolute sense of the word we must hate our parents and our children and our brothers and our sisters and our spouse?

Well, I think that Jesus here, and I'll explain why, and I think it'll become apparent, that Jesus is using hyperbole.

It is an exaggeration for effect, like Jesus says, if your if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.

And what Jesus is saying there isn't that you should self-mut mutilate your body, but that sin is so serious you do whatever it takes to get sin out of your life.

And in the same way here, Jesus is using this hyperbole, this exaggeration for a fact, to contrast the comparative worth of following Christ.

In fact, if we were to turn to Matthew chapter 10 in a parallel account of this, a parallel, a similar statement, Matthew chapter 10, verse 37, Jesus says this whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention Matthew 10:37

So Jesus is saying, comparatively speaking, your love for me, your desire for me, should be more than even the good things in your life that God has given you.

That the comparative worth of the gospel, the comparative worth of Christ, is of more value than the things of this world.

And that there's a recognition of the value of the gospel.

In fact, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for uh, in essence, mistreating their parents, violating the fifth commandment in Matthew chapter 15.

Matthew 15 · chapter mention

And he tells them they break the commandment of God by not honoring their parents, loving their parents.

So Jesus is not saying in the absolute sense that we hate everyone else, but he's saying comparatively, we love God so much so that by comparison, every other love, if we were to put them side by side, would seem like hate, because our love for Christ is of this superlative nature.

So if I were to paraphrase what Jesus was saying here, I would be this your love for me must be greater than your love, even for the good things of this life.

By comparison, your love for me is so much greater than your love for others that it is akin to hate.

So we see here, Jesus opens this by the comparative worth of following Christ, and he's talking to those who are presently following him.

And now we see the rest of this passage, the comparative cost of following Christ.

Notice what he says in the next verse.

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

One man has said, when Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die.

Coming to Christ is the entrance to life.

If you were to see somebody, if you were in first century Israel and you saw somebody carrying a cross, you knew that they were on their way to execution.

You knew they were on their way to die.

The Christian life is a life of dying to ourselves, and it's a life of dying daily, but the entrance into our relationship with Christ is also symbolized by dying.

In fact, in the second service, if you were to come back, we're going to have a baptism.

And in that baptism, uh they would stand in the water and we would read a passage of scripture, and then they would go under the water and they come back out of the water.

Well, what is the symbolism of that?

The symbolism of that is that we have been united with Christ in his death and resurrection.

And when we go down, we're united in his death.

It's as if we have died to our old way of life and died to our sin, died to ourselves, died to everything.

And then we come up and there is this decisive break, and there is a newness of life.

And it is the beginning of an ongoing, daily dying.

And in fact, that's what Jesus said earlier, if you remember, in Luke chapter 9, verse 23, he says, and he said to him, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily.

Luke 9:23

So it is both a dying and a continual dying.

It is both repentance and a life of repentance.

It is both having initial faith in Christ and a life of faith in Christ.

It is both entering into and becoming a disciple and a life of discipleship.

It is not an either or, it is a both and, and coming to faith in Christ is the beginning of all of those.

And so we can make the distinctions between these, but we must not separate them because coming to Christ is the entrance into this life of repentance and faith and discipleship and walking with Him.

Notice what Jesus says next.

He gives two analogies now to explain this.

And there's some implications here.

Notice what he says next.

He gives an analogy of somebody building a tower, verse 28.

He says, Does he not first sit down and count the cost whether he has enough to complete it?

Otherwise, when he's laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to mock, saying, This man began to build and was not able to finish.

So he gives us illustration of a man who desires to build a tower.

And the question is, is it a rash decision if he doesn't first consider the cost of what it means to make this decision?

A superficial decision may look good on the outset, but it will end up looking foolish if it's an uncritical decision, not weighing what the decision actually means, what it entails.

And so the question then becomes what are the implications of making this decision?

We need to tell people that when a person places his faith in Christ, that is the beginning of a lifelong relationship with God.

That when a person comes to faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit Spirit will come in and live in you.

And it is a new beginning.

It is a decisive reality of what it means to place your faith in Christ.

It is a decision, yes, but it is more than that.

It is a life of ongoing relationship with the living God.

And I think sometimes for fear of turning people away or wanting more quick decisions, we minimize the reality of what it means to be a Christian, of what it means to place your faith in Christ, this life-changing reality of being a believer.

And so the question here in this first analogy, or what are the implications, and that ought to be weighed.

There's a second uh question, and Jesus says it, it's not redundant.

It may seem so similar that we wrestle with how do these fit together, but notice what Jesus says next in verse 31.

And what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able to with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000.

Well, the question here then is, what does it mean if I don't accept Christ?

The first question is, what does it mean if I accept Christ?

What are the implications if I accept Christ?

But here, what are the consequences if I don't?

The first illustration gives an illustration of a person who has a desire to build but needs to figure out what it really entails.

What are the real costs of going forward with this decision?

In this second illustration, uh the option isn't there.

It is a call that the king has to make a decision.

That indifference and inactivity are not an option.

By not choosing, the person chooses.

If the person doesn't count the cost and make peace, notice what the reality is.

There is a king that is coming against.

There is going to be a battle.

The question is, is how are you going to deal with it?

How are you going to handle it?

It says the king has 10,000.

Is he able to come against the one with 20?

In other words, the king has an invading army.

That the reality is coming that there is going to be a battle.

And if he doesn't count the cost and make peace, the judgment will come on him once the enemy arrives.

And in the same way, when we talk to people about Christ, not only ought we to tell them what it means to follow Christ, but we ought to tell them what it means to not follow Christ.

What does it mean to not come to faith in Christ?

And the reality is that there is a judgment that is coming.

The reality is that when somebody does not come to faith in Christ, when somebody rejects the gospel, that he stands accountable for that decision and will be judged for his sin and face a Christless eternity in hell.

And we are so concerned about not offending people and about encouraging people to make a decision that we minimize the true reality of what it means to follow Christ, and we minimize the true reality of what it means to reject Christ.

So the message here really is a message for everyone.

Is this a call to someone who has never come to faith in Christ, or is this for those who are already Christians?

To them, my answer would be it is to both.

Because it's an ongoing reminder of the reality of what it means when we came to faith in Christ and were made disciples.

It is for each one of us to consider and to continue to consider over and over and over again what it means to follow Christ.

As I said, coming to Christ is the entrance into a life of following Him as a disciple.

We cannot separate the two.

We repent of our sins, yes, but the Christian life is a life of daily repentance.

We come to Jesus, we place our faith in him, in his person and his work.

That's what it means to come to Christ.

We come to a person, the person of Christ, and what he has done for us on the cross, but the Christian life is a life of focusing on the gospel every day.

We come to Christ, we have died to our old way of life and are raised in newness of life, the Bible says.

But the Christian life is marked by a dying to sin and a living for God each day.

It is both a time in the past and an ongoing reality in our lives.

And let me bring this home by uh sharing a concern that I have uh in regards to when we talk to people about what it means uh to come to genuine faith in Christ.

And that is what I will call decisionalism.

And I don't mean, and this may challenge some of our thinking of what it means for a person to come to Christ.

Uh, coming to Christ is surely a decision.

It is an act of the will.

It is a decision to accept and embrace the reality of what God has offered and what the Holy Spirit is uh impressing upon our hearts and minds by the conviction of the Spirit and by the Word of God.

And it is a decisive decision to place your faith and trust in Christ, which involves both repentance and faith.

Those are two sides of the same coin.

It is a turning away from sin and self, even as you are turning to Christ in genuine faith.

And it is not the amount of faith that is in view, but the sincerity of faith that is a genuine trusting in Christ and his finished work on the cross.

But here's the danger that we have, and this is, and it may be a shock to some of us.

Um never in the New Testament does it explicitly say that we pray to receive Christ.

Is that a shock?

Never in the New Testament does it say that one must pray.

It does say we confess with our mouth Jesus is the Lord and believe in the hearts, God raised him from the dead, and you shall be saved.

Um, and so it is perfectly appropriate to pray to receive Christ, in the sense of it becomes the verbalization of my genuine faith in Christ.

Somebody could come to faith in Christ and genuinely realize their sin and their need for a savior and the offer of the gospel and Christ's death on the cross and desire and want that, and the Holy Spirit's working in their lives, and they say, Yes, that's what I want.

And they may do that without ever having prayed.

Because coming to Christ is placing our trust in Christ alone for salvation.

But what is shocking here is that when we think about what it means to come to Christ, we think in terms of merely a decision.

But it is more than just a decision, it is a decisive act of the will to trust, to stop trusting in yourself, and to trust in Jesus Christ alone for eternal life.

And sometimes we mistakenly think that if we can just get somebody to pray the prayer, if we can just get somebody to say these words, that that in and of itself automatically means that that person is a Christian, that that person is a believer.

And there's a danger in that because we can give people unintentionally and unwittingly a false sense of security because they may have said it with their lips, but their heart is far from Jesus, and so they've gone through the motions, and the motions alone, without genuine faith, is not saving faith.

And there are times when we have loved ones or family members or children that at one time they said a prayer.

And we think that even though there's been no signs of the reality in their lives following that prayer, but then we hope that that, uh, and we say that, well, that, but at least they said this prayer.

But the question is, is that genuine?

And at sometimes we don't know.

We can't read people's hearts and minds, but there is this recognition of reality.

If there are no signs of life and no reality of the living God in that person, then perhaps that means that we need to go to that person in love and say, perhaps you have not understood what it means to come to Christ and let me share the gospel with you.

Genuine saving faith involves several components.

It involves knowledge.

In other words, they must hear the gospel.

They must hear the message of Jesus Christ.

A person cannot come to faith in Christ without the knowledge of the gospel.

But beyond that, a person must ascent to the truth.

They must recognize that this message of Jesus Christ is in fact true.

And so they ascent to the truth, but but mental ascent or head knowledge in itself is not saving faith.

And sometimes we think that if somebody acknowledges just acquiesces to the truth of what you're saying, that that in and of itself means the person is a believer.

But the difficulty with that is the is James reminds us in James chapter 2, 19, it says, you believe that God is one, you do well, even the demons believe and shudder.

James 2 · chapter mention

The demons have an absolutely accurate acknowledgement, mental assent of who God is, of what Christ has done.

They have a belief in that sense of head knowledge, but clearly we know that demons are not believers on their way to heaven.

And so what makes the difference?

The difference is this: transferring our trust from ourselves genuinely and sincerely to Christ alone for eternal life.

Of recognizing our sin, of recognizing our need for a savior, of asking Christ to forgive us, renouncing all of our self-effort and self-worth and good deeds and everything else that we thought might get us into heaven, and realize that none of that is of any value for eternal life, and instead say, Jesus, you died for my sins.

I am turning from myself and everything, and I am turning to you, realizing the beauty of the gospel of what you have done.

And so, in sincerity, it is not perfect faith, it is not absolute faith, but it is sincere and genuine faith.

I know the time is ticking away, but let me share two short stories to kind of illustrate what I'm saying here.

When I was in Fort Myers, I was uh at uh I attended this singles group, and uh I was talking to this man.

There was a large group, it was May, and uh there were about 20 of us that had gone out to a Chili's restaurant, and uh while we were there, there was only one person in this whole group of 20 I had never met before, I'd never seen.

And so it was about 10 o'clock, and everyone was getting up to leave, and so I walked up to him and said, Hey, I'm sorry, we were sitting way on the opposite side of the table.

I didn't have a chance to meet you.

My name's Dave, and he told me his name.

And uh we began standing there and talking.

Next thing you know, we were sitting down and we're talking uh together, and I began to share the gospel with him.

I'd asked him if he uh if he knew that he had eternal life, if he was going, if he knew that if he died, he would go to heaven.

He said, No.

I began to share the gospel with him, and we talked for about an hour, an hour and a half.

And I and so I asked him at the end of this, I said, Well, does that make sense?

He said, Yes.

And I said, Well, would you like to receive the gift of eternal life?

And he said, No.

And I was absolutely shocked.

I couldn't, I mean, we were having such a great conversation, and I said, Why not?

And he said, I'm just not ready.

And I said, Okay.

And so we stayed there and we talked for probably another two hours.

In fact, it was about two o'clock in the morning when we finally left there and we got up to leave.

And as we're walking out of the restaurant, he turns to me and he says, Well, I'm ready now.

And so we walked outside and we sat down on this cement bench in the front of Chili's in Fort Myers, Florida, and I asked him if this is what he wanted, and I say, Well, you can tell God what you told me, and you can place your trust in Christ.

And we prayed there, and out of his heart, he confessed his trust in Christ alone for eternal life.

I had that happen another time.

A friend of mine was dating this girl, and they were serious about getting married, and he asked me if I would perform their wedding, and I said, No, I won't because she's not a believer.

And he had admitted that she had never made a profession of faith in Christ and went to a mainline church that didn't preach the gospel, and so he said, Well, Dave, will you come and talk to her?

So I said, sure.

And so I we got together, the three of us, at her apartment, and we and we talked, and I shared the gospel with her.

And as I'm talking to her, she is weeping and weeping as I'm talking to her and sharing the gospel with her.

And I get to the end and I said, Well, does that make sense?

And she says, Yes, it makes sense.

I said, Well, would you like to receive the gift of eternal life?

And she said, No.

And we talked for a while, and the answer was no.

And so I thanked her, and and um about two weeks later I get a call from Dan.

Um, and Dan calls me up and he says, he says, Dave, you'll never you'll never believe this.

That and his girlfriend at the time, they're now married, but his girlfriend at the time, Betsy, he's like, Betsy just called me.

And she said that this morning she was just thinking about it, and she realized that she wanted Christ, and she she she knelt down beside her bed and she prayed to receive Christ.

Now, on both of those, I could have forced the issue and tried to get a decision.

I could have picked unripe fruit, but I needed to wait until God had so worked in their heart and mind, and they had seen the gospel and the offer of salvation truly and sincerely, and place their faith in Christ.

And a recognition of counting the cost is what it means to be a disciple, what it what it means to live the life of discipleship.

We're gonna watch two videos.

There's a baptism following the second service.

I apologize for going long, um, but I wanted to share those two stories with you.

And let's watch these two videos and then we'll conclude.

Um well in China, I have no idea about the Christian people.

But after I came to America and Julie and Hying, they introduced me to this church and to the uh people here, and they all work, and I met him and they teach me about the Holy Bible, and uh about uh Jesus Christ and how the stories.

And I bet you know further about Jesus Christ and the God and the plan and how the action and all the same.

So I think for me, for me, for me, I think oh.