The Cost of Discipleship

Hey guys, let's try this.

Well, I'm glad everybody, I feel like one of the things I forgot last week,

we were packed out, but I forgot to say that we were meeting here again this week.

And so I was like, oh man, and I hope no one went to Cyberport or one of those other places.

So we're meeting here this week, okay, just so if you don't know that.

And next week we're at ISF, so the school right by Cyberport.

So we won't be here next week, but we're here this week.

Okay, so if you're here this week, you're in the right place, okay?

You can tell what the sermon's going to be like today, right?

Hey, what I want to do is I want to bring all the kiddos down here,

so we're going to dismiss the kids, but I want all the kids who are about to go off to class,

can you come join me for one minute?

And we're just going to pile right around here.

Hey, you.

Hey, why don't you guys sit down?

And I'm going to ask Aaron and I, come on, to come up here and baby Jackson, all the kiddos.

And let's scoot aside, let's scoot just right there, yep.

Okay, everybody here, almost?

Okay, how you guys doing?

Toby, how you doing?

Good.

Good, okay.

Okay, I have a hard question for you, a trick question.

Can anybody tell me what this is?

A baby.

A baby.

A baby.

A baby.

You guys, man, you're with it this morning.

Okay, so I need your help today.

If you're new to Watermark or this is your 10th time but you've never seen a baby dedication,

here at Watermark we dedicate babies with the hope and prayer that they would come to know

the Lord at a later age and they would make a profession of faith on their own and then

enter into the family.

And so dedication is a time when we bring the parents up, we ask them a lot of hard questions

and then we let you see baby Jackson and we're going to pray for him and we're going to pray

for everybody, okay?

Can you guys help me do that?

Yeah.

Yep.

Okay, good.

Okay, so Aaron and I and grandmother, so thank you Marie for coming all the way from, yeah.

Nana.

Okay, Nana.

Okay, Nana.

Everybody has their special names.

We have a Nana too.

We have a Mimi and a Nana, I think, right?

Okay, so Nana, Marie, thanks for coming all the way from Arizona to be a part of this.

And so Aaron and I, I'm going to ask you the questions we ask everybody.

You are so cute, dude.

That brings a child here today, in coming today and bringing baby Jackson, do you, because

this is your family, right?

This is your church family.

And you're going to make me cry.

That's good.

I love it.

In coming today and bringing baby Jackson, do you confess your faith and your belief in

Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?

And is it your desire to raise up Jackson in a home that always knows him, that always

points him to Christ, filled with love and grace and God's mercy?

You will.

Okay.

And then I'm going to ask, can I hold on to him?

Dude, you are a chunkola.

Hey.

Hey.

Oh.

And I'm going to ask you guys, in bringing baby Jackson today, guys, this is your brother,

right?

This is your brother?

Yeah.

I'm going to ask all the church family, do you guys covet to take care of baby Jackson,

to guard him, to protect him, to pray for him, that when you see him getting in trouble,

which happens all the time, I know you guys never get in trouble, but when you see him

get him into trouble, would you promise to gently correct him and show him the right

way?

Will you guys do that?

As a church family, will you do that?

Say, we do?

Okay.

So let me pray for us.

Father, we just thank you for this day.

We thank you for this precious young boy, and we thank you for this precious family, for

Aaron and I, and we just pray that your blessings would be upon them.

We pray that they would know your presence, they would feel your mercy and your grace daily.

We pray for Jackson, Lord, that he would come to know you at an early age, that he would

do mighty things for your kingdom.

And as we look at Jackson and all these other little kids around here, Lord, we just thank

you that you are doing something in our midst, and you're giving us these precious, precious

gifts.

I'm just mindful of so many kids you're bringing to us, even without their parents.

Help the rest of us.

Help the singles, and help those without kids, and help those not married, and help those

married.

Help us all look at these kids as our kids, and help us to be good stewards of them.

So Father, we love you, and we pray these things in your son, Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

So Watermark kids, find your teacher with your sign, and you are dismissed.

We're going to turn now just to praying for Watermark, for Hong Kong, and for the world.

This is our privilege to talk to our Heavenly Father.

So as we lead, just please pray along with us.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you so much for being our loving Heavenly Father.

Father, we thank you so much that because of Jesus, that we as Watermark can be a family.

We thank you that you've made us a family, and that we pray that you would help us to

live and reflect you as the family that we are.

We pray, Lord, for our community groups, that you would help us to have Jesus right at the

center of them.

We pray that you would teach us how to love one another, how to serve one another, how

to encourage one another, how to forgive one another, and how to point each other back

to you.

We pray that you would amaze us so much by your grace, by the sacrifice that you've paid

for us, that we also would be willing to lay down our lives for each other.

Father, we pray that we would also be a family that looks outward to those who don't know

you, that seeks to love our neighborhoods, that seeks to care for the broken, that seeks

to serve the poor and reach out to those from different backgrounds, whether cultural, social,

economic, or racial.

We pray that we might be a people who speak your good news to them.

And Father, we pray that you might become greater in our lives, and we would become

less, that we would treasure you more dearly, and that we would delight in you more fully

as you lead us on this journey as a church.

Thank you so much for all you've done.

Thank you for all you are going to do.

And we pray this in your wonderful name.

Amen.

And pray for Hong Kong.

Our faithful Father, thank you for your mercy and grace and your love for Hong Kong.

We will sing of your love and justice.

To you, Lord, we will sing praise.

Let the Spirit of the Lord rest on all the saints in Hong Kong, because the Lord has anointed

us to proclaim good news to the poor, to bind the brokenhearted, and to proclaim freedom

for the captives.

We pray for all the saints in Hong Kong to arise and shine, for your light has come, and ask the

glory of the Lord to rise upon you.

Hong Kong will come to your light, and the government and leaders of Hong Kong to the

brightness of your dawn.

Father God, we ask for your gift-giveness, for the disobedience, the pride, and the idolatry

in Hong Kong.

We pray that the Spirit of God hovers over our fragrant harbor, and fill Hong Kong with

the presence of your Holy Spirit.

Hong Kong, if you obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands, the Lord

will set you high above all the nations and all earth.

All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God.

The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land, and the young of your

livestock, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.

Your basket and your kneading trowel will be blessed.

The Lord will grant the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you.

The Lord will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to.

The Lord your God will bless you in the land he has given you.

The Lord will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the

commands of the Lord your God and walk in obedience in him.

The Lord will open the heavens and the storehouse of his bounty to send rain on your land in

season and to bless all the work of your hands.

We ask, Lord, that you pour out your blessings on Hong Kong, and especially on the families

of those who died from the Lamb of the Fairy accident.

We pray peace and love upon them and help them to grasp how wide and long and high and

deep is the love of Christ.

We lift them up to you, for you are able to do more than all we ask or imagine.

Thank you, Heavenly Father, to you and be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout

all generations forever and ever.

In Jesus' almighty name we pray.

We pray for the world.

Father God, we want to lift up all nations around the world.

We pray for the elections in the U.S.

We pray that whomever you elect to become the next president and that individual would

have a Christ-like viewpoint and make godly decisions.

Father, we also ask that your hand of mercy be upon the many Christians in the U.S. who

are praying for their country, praying for the nations around the world, and for the

lost.

Father, for China we pray for the political changeover and ask that the Holy Spirit would

inspire the new leaders in China.

We pray that you would bring up leaders within the government that are followers of Christ

and that through these godly leaders you form a morally courageous culture that permeates

all areas of society in China.

We pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are on the ground laboring for the lost

in China.

May your presence always be with them.

Father, for Europe, even though the situation appears challenging at this time, we believe

that through this your mighty hand would touch these individuals who are crying out.

And we pray, Lord, that through this time more people would find you.

God, we pray for the lost sheep in the Middle East.

We pray for our Jewish brothers whom you appointed to be your chosen people.

We also pray for our Arab brothers as well.

Through conflict and fighting, joy, happiness, we pray that more people in the Middle East

would come to know you as their Lord and Savior.

Father, even though we don't have time to recite a prayer for every nation around the

world, we are thankful for your provision for each country.

And we ask that you continue to bring more people around the world into the kingdom of

God for your glory.

We pray this in your son's name.

Amen.

The scripture reading today comes from the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 14.

Luke 14 · chapter mention

Please follow along in your bulletins.

Now large crowds were going along with him.

And he turned and said to them, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother,

wife and children, and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

Whoever does not carry his own cross and comes after me cannot be my disciple.

For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost

to see if he has enough to complete it?

Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him,

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

Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider

whether he is strong enough with 10,000 men to encounter the one coming against him with 20,000,

or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.

So then, none of you can be my disciples who does not give up all his own possessions.

Therefore, salt is good, but even if salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned?

It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile.

It is thrown out.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

This is God's word.

I'm going to do something that you're not ever supposed to do, right?

So I'm going to change the teaching area just because we lost our kiddos.

So if you guys are behind me, I'm going to force you to get out of your comfort zone

so you can't make faces at me as I'm up here.

And we're going to continue on.

How are you guys doing?

This is better, I think.

Hopefully I won't spit on Jason, Emily, or anybody like that.

Hey, we are in an incredibly long journey as we're looking at the book of Luke.

We are in chapter 14.

I've got to be totally honest with you.

As I'm doing something else you're not supposed to do is turn your back to the congregation.

I've got to be totally honest with you.

I think Luke 14 is an incredibly difficult passage.

It's one of those passages where you kind of feel like, should I even teach this?

Because it's hard, it's difficult, and it's not necessarily fun.

When people hear Luke 14, they're like, wow, Luke 15 is going to get fun.

We're going to talk about lost things and found things and things like this.

So when you get to Luke 14, I think we've been at it now for four weeks.

We've been on this journey for two years.

We will probably finish Luke in 2014.

When you get to Luke 14, it's just, oh, wow, it's intense.

I've been trying to figure out how to present it.

When I get up, every time I get up, before I get up, Christina always says to me, smile and have fun.

Because she says, okay, relax a little, you're too intense.

And sometimes when you get to Luke 14, I think it is a very intense passage of what God is calling us to do.

I've been praying about how to present this because I look at our world and I look at Jesus' world.

I look at disciples and following Christ today and following Christ in Jesus' time.

And I realize that even as I look at my journey, that sometimes as a church, not necessarily this church, but the church,

that we tend to sugarcoat certain things as we come to church.

We sugarcoat what does it mean to walk with God.

We hide things.

I wouldn't necessarily say maybe it's false advertising, but maybe it's not false advertising, but it's extra.

To give you an example, I think our world is full of things like that, isn't it?

Today, I take some medicine, and so I went into the cabinet because I ran out of medicine,

so I went to get some new medicine.

And in the box, I opened up the medicine.

And so I opened up the medicine.

This was the instructions in the box.

Okay, so this part right here tells you what the medicine does and how to take it

and what it's made out of.

And all the rest is disclaimers.

All the rest talk about here are some studies, here are some things,

here are some things you might not want to do, here are some things you should do.

And it seems like, you know, there's a lot of hidden things here.

I mean, when you get that, who actually reads this?

Do you read this?

I don't.

I start thinking, well, maybe I should start reading this because it has all these studies

from Harvard and Yale and different demographics and age groups.

And it seems like there's all these hidden things, but it's all around us.

You know, when you go buy that $99 airplane ticket, and it ends up being $300 U.S. dollars.

But online, it's advertised as $89.95.

But when you buy it, it's $300.

I kind of go, what happened there?

And you go get a hotel room, and it's advertised as $44.88.

And when you leave, it's like $80.

And when I subscribed to my telephone provider, I got the best deal I thought I could get, right?

I got the best deal, and it's like, you'll never pay more.

This covers everything.

But every month, my bill is different.

And I'm trying to figure out what is going on there, and why is it so different?

What's happening in our world?

And we get to these stories in this passage that Christ talks about.

And he's very clear about what it means to walk with him.

I mean, there's no hidden agenda.

There's no fine line.

There's no things that you've got to learn later on.

In this Luke passage, remember, he just got out of this story.

He got out of this dinner with these Pharisees, and the Pharisees tried to set him up,

and he basically knew their heart.

Luke 14 is all about your heart.

I mean, if you want to wonder how your heart's doing, you start reading Luke 14,

and God kind of rips your chest open, and he shows you your heart.

And in Luke 14, he's at this meal, and he just goes after these Pharisees.

And it always seems like every time that Jesus does that, that his crowd gets bigger.

I mean, every time he goes after the authorities, more and more people follow him.

And so he gets to his place, and we read in the passage, it says a multitude is this massive number of people

who are following Christ, and they want to be with him.

They want to get things from him.

They want to be an influence with him.

They want food.

Some of them want to be healed.

Some of them want to see miracles.

Some of them want power.

Some of them want positions.

I mean, they're all coming to Christ for different reasons.

And I thought about that.

You know, I've thought, what if Jesus was beside you right now?

And he turned to you, and he asked you, why are you here today?

He turned to you and says, why in your business place do you call yourself a Christian?

Is there an expectation in this to get something more than me?

Than Jesus.

And Jesus is incredibly bold.

Because he has these massive, he has like, he has 10,000 people in a way.

He has automatic church following him.

But he knows people's hearts, and he doesn't want us to get lost.

He doesn't want us to make the wrong choices.

He doesn't want to do these things.

And so he does something that no one could ever accuse Christ of false advertising.

You can never say in the Bible, well, Jesus didn't say that.

Or, you know, you might say, my church didn't say that.

And that is something that keeps me up late at night.

I worry about what people hear when they come away from this, and what do they think?

And will someone say, well, I never heard that the gospel was the only way?

But Jesus in his passages, he's very clear, and this passage is incredibly difficult.

You know that because at the end of it, he says, he who has ears to hear, let him hear.

That's a Hebrew idiom.

Whenever you hear that, it means the passage you just heard is incredibly difficult.

It means it's not at face value.

It means there's something else going on there, and you need to be careful.

I've grown up my whole life, after I became a Christian, involved in communities and churches.

And really early, I had this thought in my mind that there's super Christians, and then there's normal Christians.

And I've been watching those.

I watched the super Christians, right?

Because I was just a normal Christian.

And the super Christians are the people, they come to church every Sunday.

They do all the right things.

They study the Bible.

They serve.

They pray.

They take the 2-7 classes.

They take the Crusade classes.

They take the BSF classes.

They tithe their money.

They're the super Christians.

And then they're just people like me.

I'm a normal Christian.

And I just come whenever it's convenient.

Or I come whenever I didn't stay out too late Saturday night.

Or whenever it was easy, and I always prayed.

But I usually prayed when I needed something.

But in this passage, Jesus talks about discipleship, and he's basically saying there's not different levels of being a disciple of Christ.

He's saying to all of us that there's only one type of Christian.

There's only one type of follower.

There's not super Christians and Christians.

There's not those who know the secret handshakes and know the secret books and know all the secret things.

And there's not those who don't.

And I worry sometimes as a church because we go on this journey.

And sometimes I get these messages from people like, I want to go into this class because I want to learn more.

I want to study more.

I want to get deeper.

I want to learn the things that I don't know, the secret things, the hidden things.

And I need to tell you that as a staff person, as elders, we don't sit back and go, okay, now this is the really good, good stuff.

This is the really hard stuff.

We don't want to tell this to people until they get to this age because if we tell them and they're too young, it will freak them out.

And they'll leave.

But there's nothing like that in Christianity.

Christianity, I was talking to a guy who's following and he's in a cult.

And he came to us and he started asking about Christianity and why is it different than what he believes.

And so as I started to talk to him, I started to say some things that were secrets within his following.

And he looked at me and goes, how do you know that?

Like, well, I have a friend who used to be in that kind of church and they left.

And he goes, wow, they're not supposed to say those things.

And we talk a little while longer and I say something a little more secret.

He goes, how do you know that?

That's a secret.

You're not supposed to know that.

I said, well, I have a friend and he's got out of it and he's in a Christian church now and he told me all these things.

But what Jesus is saying here is that there aren't any secrets.

That this is what it means to follow the Lord.

I mean, he just lays it straight out.

And what I want to look at this passage really briefly because we got to fly is that there, I want to see in this passage, Luke 14, 25 through 34,

there's two things that we're going to learn.

I think you're going to be locked.

Okay, you got it.

There's two things that we're going to learn.

We're going to learn these things about discipleship.

We're going to learn the demands of discipleship and we're going to learn the decisions of discipleship.

The demands of discipleship are found in verses 26 and 27 and verses 33.

And then we're going to look really briefly at the decisions of discipleship and see what we have to learn from that.

So if you take out your bulletin and you look at verses 25, 26, and 27, and we can read that.

And I think I can even read it without my glasses here.

Now, the large crowds are going along with him and he turned to them and he said,

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father, mother, wife, and child, and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own wife, he cannot be my disciples.

Now, the word disciple there just means follower.

It's not super Christian.

It's not a special Christian.

It's a follower of Christ.

And so Jesus lays out this demand for us as Christians.

And when, I don't know how you feel when you heard this, but when Jesus said this in his culture,

everybody would have been very, very, very upset.

They would have been very upset because a family was everything.

And to say you hate your family was, man, that's really hard.

Now, in Hebrew and in the Bible, did Jesus mean hate your family?

In Hebrew, in Scripture, and in Greek, there's two words for hate.

The first word is just you hate.

Like, I hate cats.

Well, I'm not, I'm just, that's an example, okay?

Don't, all you cat lovers, I have had cats and I do love cats, okay?

But, so you can say I hate cats.

But you can also say I hate cats when I compare my love for dogs for my love for cats.

That my love for dogs are so much greater than my love for cats that if you were to look at me,

you would say that guy really hates cats.

But I don't hate cats.

I love cats.

But I just love dogs a lot more.

And so when Jesus talks about this, he's sharing these thoughts and these ideas about family.

And these, these, these ideas are all through the Bible.

We get to the story of Jacob.

And Jacob is working seven years to get a wife.

And when it's come time to get the wife from the father, the father tricks him and he gives him Leah.

Now, Leah, we're told is weak, has weak eyes.

In Hebrew, it actually means she's not very attractive.

But, but, but Jacob marries her and he works another seven years for Rachel.

And so we're told in this passage that Jacob looks at them and he loves both of them,

but he, he loves Rachel and he hates Leah.

And what we're told there is when you compare Jacob's love for Rachel,

it's, it's so much more than his love for Leah.

And Jesus says to you and me as followers of Christ, as followers of him,

that that's how our love should be for everybody else.

That's how our love should be when we compare our love for God,

for our love for our family and our friends and our family.

In the church, that our love for God should be so huge, so massive.

That everybody to look at will say, wow, he, they really hate, hate those other things.

My friend, Francie, when I was in high school, she was Jewish.

And she came to know the Lord.

And we're in youth group and she said, I really feel like I need to get baptized in obedience to God.

Will you pray for me?

And so our whole youth group prayed for her for a long time

because her father was a well-known businessman in Montgomery.

And so it came down to the time where she went to share with him

because she was going to be baptized that Sunday.

And she went to her daddy and she said, Daddy, I'm going to get baptized

because I'll become a Christian.

And the dad's response immediately was, what have I done?

How can you hate your mother and me so much?

How can you do that?

How can you just despise us so much?

And Francie goes, I don't despise you.

I love you.

But I love Jesus more.

And so she went ahead and she got baptized.

And that Sunday afternoon when she came home, she walked in the front door

and the pictures of the kids were on the table and her picture was face down.

Which meant that her father, in his eyes, that she was dead.

That she no longer existed.

And for as long as I remember when I walk into their house, her picture is face down.

And Jesus says, your love for me should be so great, so intense, so massive

that it pales your love for everybody else.

Again, when they heard this, they would have been freaking out.

Because a family was responsible for your status.

A family was responsible for your security.

You know, you didn't really worry about your money.

You worried more about your family in Jewish days.

Because through your family, you had security.

Your family was responsible for your salvation.

You were a child of Abraham.

Through your family, you became saved.

It was everything.

And Jesus looks at them and he looks at us and he says,

hey, you cannot depend on your family.

You can't depend on them for your status.

You can't depend on them for your security.

You can't depend on them for your salvation.

You have to depend on me totally.

That is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

That's what it means to be a follower of Christ.

You have to love me and your love for me in comparison to everybody else has to look like hate.

A disciple, a Christian, is one who follows Christ and is totally dependent upon him.

So the question for us today is what are we dependent on?

Be honest.

What are you depending on in your life?

What is there in your life that if it was taken away that your life would fall apart?

Is it your reputation?

Is it your job?

Is it your family?

Is it your health?

Is it your kiddos?

What is it that if it was taken away that you would crumble?

And if it's not God, then we need to recheck our hearts, Jesus says.

Does that make sense?

So a question would be like this.

What does it look like for me to love Jesus more than my parents?

What does it look like for me to love Jesus more than my family?

What does it look like for me to love Jesus more than my job?

What does it look like for me to love Jesus more than my stuff?

What does it look like for me to love Jesus more than everything else?

I don't know how you answered that.

But this passage beckons us, it begs us,

it tells us that as Christ's followers,

we have to answer that.

He who has ears, let him hear.

And the demands for following Christ are huge.

The demands are you have to love God

more than everything else.

In verse 27, he gives another demand,

and this demand is incredibly hard.

When everybody in Jesus' congregation

following him, it says about 20,000 people

were following him, when they heard him say

that you have to pick up your cross and carry it,

everybody would have went,

because the cross was terrible.

No one wanted to see the cross.

The cross was a death sentence.

The cross, if you carried the cross,

there was only one outcome.

The minute you picked up that beam,

you were stripped naked, and you were walked

through your city or village,

and you were totally humiliated.

And carrying that cross meant that you were

under judgment, you were under submission

to the authority, and that there was only one outcome

that was going to happen with that cross.

No one picked up the cross, and as they're walking

to Calvary, you say, oh, this is uncomfortable.

I can't do this.

Sorry, I'll see you later.

And Jesus says for us as followers of him

that when we come to him,

we need to pick up the cross and follow him.

Everybody would have been freaking out.

And what Jesus is saying to them,

and what he's saying to us is that you need

to understand, and you need to identify with me

and who I am, and you need to realize

that I've taken the cross for you,

that I've died on Calvary for you,

and that you need to walk with me.

You realize that your acceptance is based on Jesus

and nothing else.

You realize that because of what Jesus has done,

you have nothing to prove.

You realize that what Jesus has done,

that you have nothing to lose.

To take up the cross meant to totally identify

with Jesus and his death and resurrection.

So when we do baptisms, we see buried in Christ's death,

resurrected in Christ's life.

It's his total symbolism.

It's his idea of identifying with Christ

in everything we do.

So again, Jesus gives us this demand.

We're following him.

So what does it look like for you

to take up your cross at your work tomorrow?

He who has ears, let him hear.

What does it look like for you to identify with Christ

and to take up your cross and to love Jesus more

when you go to your next family reunion?

Then everybody's mocking you because you're a Christian.

What does it look like to take up the cross,

to follow Christ, to love him more

when you go to the ceremony and you're sweeping the tombs?

What has Christ called you to do?

How are you to love him more when that happens?

What does it look like to love Christ,

to take up the cross when you went into your office

and your boss is a total jerk?

What does it look like to love God more than your job?

And what does it look like to take up that cross

and to hold it in front of your boss

and to identify so completely with Jesus

and everything that he's done?

What does that look like for us?

I don't know what it looks like for you.

I don't know what it might look like.

What does it look like when you walk into your marriage

and you...

I think the kids are gone.

You haven't had sex like in two years

because your wife hates you

and you've been treating her like crap.

And so every time you think,

well, let's spend some time together,

she's like, no way.

There's no way I'm going to do it.

You don't deserve that.

What does it look like as a man when you do that?

Or what does it look like as a woman

when you're looking like

and your husband's been treating you like crap

for two years and he wants to...

In my family, we say, get busy.

He wants to get busy with you.

We'll erase it from the tape.

And you're like,

there's just no way I want to do that.

There's just no way I want to give myself to that person.

There's just no way I want to love that person.

There's no way I want to care for my husband

because he's been treating me terribly.

What does it look like to do that?

Because in all those settings,

Jesus says that we have a responsibility to him.

And the responsibility is to walk with him,

to love him,

and to point people to him

and to realize that he's in control of all those things.

So we have the demands.

The demands are to love your neighbor

and love everything else less than you love.

Love God, love God for everything.

The second one is demand,

is to pick up your cross and carry it.

And then the passage says

that we have a couple decisions we have to make.

A couple decisions.

And you see that in there.

He gives these two stories.

The first story is of a guy who's building this tower.

Now everybody would have caught on to this.

Everybody would have understood what he was saying

because they're being built everywhere.

The second story was of this king

who's about to go to war.

And all of these stories have layers upon layers

of meaning and understanding

to everybody in Jesus' audience.

Two years before Jesus shared this,

this huge coliseum collapsed

and over 50,000 people were killed.

That year that Jesus shares this,

King Herod went to war with a king

that he should have beat,

but he got destroyed

and made a laughing stock

and a mocking stock of everybody

around the Middle East.

And so the minute Jesus shared this,

everybody would have connected with this

and understood what was going on.

And what you see about these stories is

within these stories,

these guys had decisions.

They had decisions.

They were free to choose or not to choose.

They needed to count the cost.

They needed to understand

what they were going to do.

Did they have the resources to do that?

That they needed to spend

careful time reflecting.

Is this is what God wants me to do?

They needed to understand

that if they didn't do it,

if they started it and they stopped,

that they would look really bad

and be ridiculed.

And the master's name would be shamed.

And Jesus is warning them,

he's warning us as we look at this process,

as we make these decisions,

as we walk with him,

that counting the cost is everything.

We're not going to ever do this,

hey, if you want to know Christ,

come on, now's the time,

come on down.

Because sometimes people just get caught up

in emotions and they just,

they go with their emotions.

But we want you to understand as a church

that it's a massive choice

and responsibility that you're making.

But it will affect everything that you do

as you follow God.

And we're called to do that

and realize that as we choose him,

it's going to affect everything.

It's going to affect our family,

our job, our security,

our egos, our new homes,

all of these things.

And if there's anything in front of us

that says, I can't do that.

Because if I did this,

my family would disown me.

Then what the passage says

is that you're a disciple of your family.

Because we're all disciples of something.

We're all followers of something.

If you come to this point and you say,

well, I just can't do that because I like the money,

I like the lifestyle.

Christianity doesn't say that you have to be poor.

You don't, you know,

there's all these things in there

that there is a responsibility for all those things.

But if you say, I can't do that

because I like the lifestyle,

I'm saying, then what you're saying is,

I don't want to be a disciple of Christ.

I want to be a disciple of my lifestyle.

Or my work.

Or my wife.

Or my kids.

And so Jesus is saying here to everyone

and to you and I,

be really careful of what you're a disciple of

because what you're a disciple of,

that's going to enamor you,

that's going to control you,

that's going to be everything.

You see how easy this is?

You see how hard it is?

Man, I'm like,

again, you're hearing it for 10 minutes

and you're going to go home

and you're going to forget about it.

But I've been thinking about this

for like four months.

And I still realize how bad

and how poor of a follower of Christ I am.

I want to share with you

three really quick points

that have been coming into my head

over and over and over

and then we're finished.

When you came in,

you had a cross on your chair.

My hope is that you pick that up right now

and you hold that

because we're going to do something with it.

Hopefully your kids didn't take it away.

They're spread everywhere.

Here's what I want us to think.

Here's what I've been learning.

Here's three ideas

that have been going through my head

over and over and over again.

Number one,

this passage tells us

that Jesus wants us to be aware

of being a Christian.

There's a huge cost.

That there's a cost of following Jesus

and it's not the cost of being a disciple

because the word in Hebrew and in Greek

is the same word

and it just means being a follower.

And so Jesus wants us to know

that there's this massive cost

of following him.

The cost is really high.

Again, he tells his crowd

and it's probably the last thing

you do as a pastor

because what you would probably do

when you had a crowd of 20,000 people

is you'd have a barbecue

and you'd tell really nice jokes

and you would say,

hey, if you want to be a good Christian,

you do these three things

and at the end of these three things,

God's going to bless you

and your life's going to be great

and you're going to get a Rolex

and all these great things

and that's what the Christian life

is all about, right?

But Jesus says no.

And Jesus wants us to know.

He doesn't want to false advertise

and we as a church

don't want to false advertise.

We want you to know

that there's this incredibly high cost

for following him

and all the crowd didn't realize that

and in football terms,

what we call is a gut check.

It's like your opponents

are about to score.

You can do it in rugby

and in soccer

and you're the defense

and this is where you figure out

what you're made of

and you're like,

okay, now we got to stop these guys

and so Jesus says,

this is what it means.

It means here's the cross.

I got to follow the cross.

I got to be identified with Christ.

When I go out to the emperor club

and all my friends are getting drunk

and playing with the women,

what does it look like

for me to identify with Christ there?

When I go out

and everybody's cheating

on their receipts

and sheets to put in

for per diem

and things like that

and they're making a lot of money

and I have these choices,

what am I going to do there?

What does it look like for me?

This is a gut check time.

Am I going to falsely advertise

who I am and what I do

or am I going to follow Christ

and say this is what it means

to be enamored with Jesus

and love with him

more than the money

that I get from my per diem

and identify with him

as I carry my cross?

Jesus doesn't have

false advertising.

The second thing

that I've been learning

is that when we choose

to follow Christ,

we really have to contemplate

what that means.

I mean, there's things

that we need to consider.

There's all these other options

we can do.

We can become a Buddhist.

We can become a Hindu.

We can become a materialist.

We can become an atheist.

We can become an agnostic.

I would encourage you

to look at all those views

and see what do they do?

How do they view man?

What is the problem of man?

Is there a God?

Why do we need to come to God?

How does God relate to us?

All of these things,

if you're an adult

and you're in this age

and you're struggling

through these things,

please, please look at those things

and read those things

and talk to people

who are Christians

and see where their hope is found

and see if their life,

see if their life is different.

I have so many friends

and acquaintances

who've given up on Christianity

because the life

of the people

that they were around

were no different

than the life

of everybody else

and they just realized,

why can't I just be

like everybody else?

It's because the Christians

around me

aren't living like that.

And Jesus says,

you need to be careful

before you make these choices.

You need to understand

what it costs

to follow Christ

and when you follow him

and you say,

I'm going to follow him,

you move towards him

very deliberately.

That's why baptism

is the first thing

that Christians do

because it's a step

of taking this step of faith

and saying,

this is who I am,

this is who I'm being identified with,

and this is why

I need Jesus desperately

and I want to give him everything.

And Jesus is saying here,

be careful.

I'm not preaching to you guys,

I'm preaching to me.

Jesus said,

be careful, Tobin,

because you can fool yourself.

You can say you've given

everything to Christ,

but what you really mean

is you've given everything

to him that you feel

comfortable giving to him.

But there's other things

you don't want to give to him yet.

Be careful.

Examine your hearts.

Ask God what's going on there

and try to figure out

what's happening there.

And finally,

this is,

I've been praying

about how to say this,

I don't know how to say this.

This is what I would say

to myself.

This passage,

I think,

teaches us over and over

that Christ is not looking

for people who have

the right stuff.

Christ,

when he yells this out

to everybody around him,

he's not looking at,

I'm looking for super Christians.

If you're a super Christian,

will you follow me?

He's not saying that.

I mean,

I think in the stories

and in the passages

and you read other parts

of scripture,

it's really clear that

everybody who comes to Christ

doesn't have the right stuff.

They know that they need God.

And it's not just

they need God for salvation,

they need God

for every day of their life.

So don't enter into a Bible study

and say,

I want to get smarter,

I want to get stronger,

I want to get all this information,

I want to get all these things

so that I can be the type of Christian

that God wants me to be.

The Pharisees had all that down.

But they're exactly the opposite

of what Christ wanted them to be.

Am I saying Bible studies are bad?

No.

Am I saying discipleship is bad?

No, I'm not.

I think all those things are great.

We do them here.

We're going to encourage you

to do them.

But we want you to understand

that it doesn't make you

a better Christian.

It doesn't make you holy.

It doesn't make God

more happy with you.

And I think it's a church,

the church,

universal church,

we've really done

a terrible job with this.

But what Jesus wants to do, guys,

is he wants us

to take us to a place

where we understand

how desperately we need him.

When Gideon went to battle,

he had a lot of men.

He was going to fight 30,000 men.

Do you know how many men

God left him with

to fight 30,000 men?

300.

Why do you think God did that?

Because God wanted Gideon

to realize that he desperately,

desperately needs Jesus.

I think what Jesus

is trying to share us

in this passage

is that none of us

have the resources

to walk with him.

None of us have the resources

to be a good Christian.

None of us.

And none of us

are going to get those resources

no matter how hard you work,

no matter how hard you study,

no matter how devoted you are,

no matter how much you pray.

Those things cannot come

in and of yourself.

Jesus is saying

that this passage starts

and begins with this idea

and I think that's why he says

you have to hate these things

because he's trying to knock away

everything that we're going

to rely on.

Knock away your family,

knock away your money,

knock away your status.

Finally, he says,

knock away yourself.

Why does he do that?

Does he hate those things?

No.

He wants us to realize

how desperately we need him.

As we walk with him,

he's the only choice,

he's the only hope

and if we don't have him,

we're lost.

Jesus isn't trying to get us

passionate and on fire

and doing these retreats

and we come back and say,

okay, I'm ready to do everything.

Jesus wants us to get to a place

where we say,

man, this stuff is incredibly hard.

He who has ears,

let him hear.

There's no way I can do

these things on my own.

He who has ears,

let him hear.

I desperately need God

in my life.

If I'm going to make it,

if I'm going to be the type

of person that God wants me to be,

God is going to have

to do it through me.

I'm going to have to surrender

my life to him.

I'm going to have to say,

God, I cannot do these things.

I cannot be a follower

or a disciple

or the way this scripture says,

I need you.

And that's what Jesus is saying.

Let me say it one other way

and we'll close.

I think that sometimes for me,

I want to train myself up.

I want to take all the courses.

I want to get all the knowledge.

I want to do all these things.

I want to get the skill

and the ability

so that I can be the type of person

that God wants me to be.

And then I come to a passage

which is the most basic passage

of discipleship.

Love the Lord your God

with all your heart,

mind, soul, and body.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

I've been a Christian

for 28 years.

38 years.

How am I doing in that passage?

How am I doing

with loving the Lord your God

with all my heart, mind, soul, and body

and loving my neighbor as myself?

I've done all the studies.

I've done all the curriculum.

How are you guys doing

with that commandment?

That commandment is so huge

and heavy

that if you try to pick it up,

it'll crush you.

Jesus says,

to be my disciple,

to walk with me,

to follow me,

that you surrender your life to me.

You trust me.

I'm good.

I want your best.

I'm there.

I'm walking with you.

You're right, Tobin.

You're never going to have the power.

You're never going to have the knowledge.

You're never going to be at that place

where you've arrived

and you are the super Christian.

Don't ever fool yourself

in thinking that.

But there's one standard for all of us.

As we walk on a journey as a church,

as we trust the Lord,

as we walk with him,

we realize that the key to discipleship

is not knowledge and growth

and learning Greek and Hebrew,

but the key to walking with God,

the key to being a Christ follower

is dependence.

dependence.

So my question for us today

as a church and as individuals

is how dependent are we

on Jesus?

What does it look like for us

to really depend on him?

What does it look like for us

to really trust him?

What does it look like for us

to understand that without him,

we can do none of these things?

We are nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

I love how the passage ends

and we don't have time for it,

but he talks about salt.

And salt is amazing

in Eastern, Middle Eastern terminology.

It has so many purposes,

but one of the big purposes

is it gives flavor

and it gives life.

The other thing I think

is interesting about salt

is it only takes a little salt.

And sometimes we think

we need this massive amount of salt.

We need these huge churches.

We need all these things

to make a difference.

But guys,

in the history of the world,

large churches

and large congregations

have done very little

for the call of Christ.

What's changed the world,

what's changed people's lives,

what's started revivals

are a few individuals

who are very salty

and they understand

that as a disciple

they can't do anything

unless they depend on Christ,

unless they trust him.

Giving you this cross

is not expensive.

My prayer for you

is that you would carry it

in your pocket this week

and that you would do

a little exercise with you

as you walk into your work.

Maybe touch it

or hold it

or look at it.

Before you walk

into your office this Monday,

say,

what does it look like

for me

to carry the cross

of Christ here?

What does it look like

when things get really difficult?

What does it look like

when everybody's getting fired?

What does it look like

when everybody is

biting each other's backs

and there's a lot of

power plays going on?

What does it look like

for me to carry

the cross of Christ?

What does it look like

for me to be salt?

What does it look like

for me to love God

more than anything else?

When you go home tonight

and you're walking

into a family

that maybe is hostile

or indifferent

to the call of Christ,

remember this cross

and ask the question,

God,

what does it look like

for me to be here?

What does it look like

for me to honor you?

What does it look like

for me to trust you?

What does it look like

for me to be salt

and light here?

And realize

that God doesn't want you

to be a super Christian there.

What you need to say

right after you say that

is you need to say,

God,

I realize

I cannot do that.

Will you do that

through me?

God,

I realize

I can't be the father

that you want me to be.

Would you do that

through me?

God,

I can't be the husband

or wife

that you want me to be.

Will you do that

through me?

I know that I'm called

to be here.

I know I'm called

to be salt.

I know I'm called

to be light.

I know I'm called

to carry a cross.

I know I'm called

to love you more

than all these other things.

I can't.

But you can.

Will you do that

through me?

Jesus calls this mass

of people together

and he basically says

this is the essence

of being a Christian.

Not a super Christian.

Not a disciple disciple.

But a Christian.

A Christian is a person

who loves the Lord

their God

with all their heart,

mind,

soul,

and body

who loves God

more than their neighbor,

their family,

their friends.

What does it mean to love?

It means to think

less of them

compared to your love

for God.

I asked Kip last night.

I read the passage

to my son,

10 years old.

I probably should have

just said that

because it would have

been the whole sermon.

I said,

Kip,

what does this mean?

He goes,

don't put anything

before God.

I'm like,

you're right.

So what happens

if I put you

before God?

He goes,

well,

ultimately you're not

going to treat me

very well.

because you're

going to expect

things from me

that only God

can give you.

That's pretty good

for a 10-year-old,

isn't it?

I have him

preach the next sermon.

God has called

all of us here

at Watermark

to be his followers

and his disciples.

He's called

every one of us

here to love him

more than other things

in our life.

He's called

every one of us

in here

to walk

in the shadow

of the cross

and identify

with him

so closely

and so perfectly

that we walk

and when God

looks at us,

he sees Jesus.

And as he shares

those with us,

he says,

you're right,

it's impossible

to be my disciple.

You have to depend

on me.

He who has ears

let him hear.

Father, we thank you

for this day.

We thank you

for your goodness

in our life.

We thank you

that your mercy

that is new

every morning.

We thank you

that you put

these passages in us

and you show us

and you laugh

when we first start

to understand them

and get our hold

on them

because they always

come out centered

on me

and centered

on Tobin

and centered

on what Tobin

needs to do

and centered

on how well

Tobin does

and how well

we do as a church

and you look at us

and you say,

no, no, no, no.

It's about me.

It's about Jesus.

It's not about your church.

It's about Christ.

No, no,

it's not about you

doing all these things

well and doing them

great.

That's great

unless you do them

in your own power.

Lord, I pray

even as I know now

there are some people here

who have no idea

what I just said

and I pray

that you would

open their hearts

and their minds

and their eyes

to your son Jesus Christ

and just as we

walk in faith

as his disciples

I pray that they

would walk in faith

as his new children.

Help them, Lord,

not to leave here

without asking questions

and to ask questions

of me and the others

around here

or the people

that brought them.

Lord, I know

there are some of us

in here right now

who have been living

a life that is so

self-centered

and yet we claim

to be Christians.

Lord, I just repent

and I confess that

in my life

and in the life

of my brothers

and sisters here.

Lord, change us.

Show us.

Don't let us

go to sleep tonight

without understanding

how much you love us,

how much you care for us,

how much you want

the best for us

and that best

centers upon us

being dependent

on you

and not on ourselves.

So Lord,

we come before you

and we are needy

and we are hurting

and we are broken

and we are not super

and I don't feel super

but I feel loved

and I feel your grace

and I understand

how amazing you are

because you don't give up

on any of us.

and so we come before you

and we just worship you.

May you change us.

May you change this church.

May you change

these community groups.

May you change

this city

as we just walk

with you

in dependence

and trust you

to be God.

Father, we love you

and we pray these things

in your son Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Hey, next week

we are not here.

We're at ISF, okay?

So make sure you go there

and so we're kind of

traveling as nomads,

you know,

and we did that

for the first 10 years

at Island ECC

and we're doing that

for the first two years

so you can always pray

for us as leaders

trying to figure out

what to do

and we have a couple videos.

So Millen,

you're going to show

videos that say better

than I do.

Please be seated.

Okay, so you heard

the most important videos.

It's a,

every day,

every Sunday

before,

even on Saturday night,

a group of us

are in here setting up

and so it just doesn't happen.

You know,

it's not like a little fairy

goes doop

and it pops up here like that.

So we need your help

if you want to serve

in that way.

Community groups

have been serving

in that way

and so if you're interested

in learning

the technical side

of everything

and how to use

all these things,

please contact Millen.

The Marriage,

Love and Respect course

actually started

last Tuesday

but we're at a place

where we can still

invite a couple more couples.

It was actually,

I thought it was great.

Married 15 years

and it's one of the best ones

we've ever done, right?

And so that was,

so please sign up

on the table out here.

Also on November 1st,

so that last week

of October,

a guy kind of mentored me

and we were talking

about the Israel trip,

Dr. Hannah,

John Hannah

and his wife

are going to be here

and that Thursday night,

November 1st,

Colin,

write this down

for your wife.

Okay,

we're having a date night.

So it's anybody,

everybody,

Aaron,

everybody,

all the guys,

we need help

and so it's November 1st,

it's at the Cricket Club,

it's an all-you-can-eat meal,

there's a program involved

about marriage

and Hannah's been married

for over 30 years

and talking about raising kids

and it's going to be

a fun time

so we want to encourage you

to do that.

That's actually me dancing

and Christina,

that's,

yeah.

Anyway,

so it's going to be

a great night.

It's one of those

money-back guarantee things.

If you come

and you don't feel like

this really built into us,

then we'll give you

your money back,

okay?

Seriously.

Okay,

and the final thing

is just the cross.

I didn't give it to you

just so to give you something

but I really want us

this week as a church

to come before the Lord

and say,

what does it look like

for me to hold this cross

up in my work?

What does it look like

for me to hold this cross

up in my marriage,

to sacrificially give

to people around me?

What does it look like

for me to love God

more?

And I think that's

very comforting,

right?

It's like Kip said,

if Christina loved me

more than she loved God,

I would be terrified.

I feel very comforting

to know that she loves God

more than she loves me

because she's going to do

the right thing

if she loves God.

She's not if she loves me

more,

right?

What does it mean

for us to love God

as we walk around

Hong Kong this week?

By the way,

we thank you for this day.

We thank you for my

brothers and sisters here.

We thank you for your word

even though it was

incredibly challenging

in chapter 14

where we pray that we would

never not look at our hearts.

We would never not examine

our motives.

We would never not examine

our love for you

and our service

to those around us.

And so on this journey,

we just thank you

that you take us

baby step,

baby step,

baby step,

baby step.

You're not asking us

to be perfect.

You're not asking us

to be super.

You're just asking us

to surrender to you

and baby step,

baby step,

baby step.

He who has ears,

let him hear.

Lord, we love you.

We pray these things

in your son Jesus' name.

Amen.

God bless you.

We'll see you next week

at ISF.

Take care.

Thank you.