Luke, The Orderly Account of Truth - Counting the Cost of Discipleship - Luke 14:25-35

So we're going to jump right into it.

We're jumping right back into our series that we've been

in going through Luke, and we've titled this series Luke

the Orderly Account of Truth. In this series, we've been

following the carefully investigated account, the historical account about the

life and ministry of Jesus Christ and the purpose of

this gospel, as the gospel writer Luke tells us, is

that he wants the person who reads this gospel account

to have certainty, to have certainty about all of the

things that have been taught about Jesus. He wants the

person to have their faith built up. He wants them

to be confident in the truth concerning Jesus. And we

have that same goal in mind as we've been going

through this Luke text. We want to have our faith

built up and we want to have our assurance of

the truth built up. I don't know if you guys

know this, but truth, especially in today's day and age,

is very very important. And the reason is is because

out in the world, on our phones, maybe in our

own lives or our own thoughts, the question of what

is truth is a big challenge today to wrestle with

and so it's more important than ever that now we

know what the truth is, and so we look to

God's word to tell us the truth. We look to

God's word to help us be grounded and rooted in truth,

so that our sanity can be rooted and grounded in truth.

Also our hope, that we don't lose hope as we

look at a chaotic, crazy world around us, but that

instead we can look at each other and have hope

for the hours and years and months to come. So

we're going to be opening back up the Gospel of

Luke chapter fourteen. So if you would turn there with me,

we're gonna have it on the screen here. We're gonna

read it, pray and break break it down together. If

you do not have a Bible, please please go grab one.

We have some out in the lobby for you. Take

that so you can follow along. Luke Chapter fourteen's where

we left off last week.

Starting in verse.

Twenty five, says, now great crowds accompanied him, and he

turned and said to them, if anyone comes to me,

it 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 costs

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 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 ten thousand to meet him who comes

against him with twenty thousand. And if not, while the

others yet afar or 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. Salt is good, But if

salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?

It is of no use either for the soil or

from the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who

has ears to hear, let him hear. This is God's word.

I'll just pray Lord, we ask for ears in this

moment as we open your word as we hear it's

spoken to us. We asked that it would not just

go in one ear and out the other, but it

would go in our ear and down driven into our hearts,

that would see the necessity and the importance of the

text that you have for us today, that.

It would be a timely word, Lord God.

So I just asked that your spirit would be here

among us, that you'd be clearing distractions.

You be clearing distractions from me.

You'd be clear distractions from our thoughts as we're listening

to your word and what.

You have to say. So God, help us be focused so.

We can bear fruit for your kingdom, that we can

look more like you and follow you as you've called

us to.

So we submit these things to you. We submit this

time to you and all for.

Your glory and Jee's name. Everyone said amen. All right,

So we're at the beginning of the year, right, I

think this is like week three. So how many of

you started a new Bible reading plan for the beginning

of the year.

Did anyone do that?

Yeah?

A couple of people.

Okay, did anyone start in Genesis kind of at the beginning?

All right?

How about did anyone start in a gospel. Hey, I'll

take that.

So that's awesome.

We should be doing that reading our Bibles, having reading

plans to help guide that along. But now that we're

a couple weeks in and hopefully hanging on to those

reading plans for dear life, I'm sure that you were

starting to get to how I phrase it, is just

the crazy stories, especially if you're in Genesis. You start

reading and you go oh ooh ee, yikes, right like,

and it kind of just keeps doing that, you know,

Like you keep going like, well, maybe this next guy

is gonna kind of get it better, and once again

he maybe does something a little bit worse or a

little bit more wacky, or his cousin does, or his

nephew does or both, and you're kind of like, you know,

and you're like, what am I reading right now? But

we don't only find those in the Old Testament. We

also find those in the New Testament. And I actually

believe that there's a purpose in that. And I think

it's something amazing about the Bible, and that is that

it does not try to sugarcoat the sinfulness of man.

As we go through the story where.

God creates everything, he makes everything good Man messes it

all up.

Sin enters the world after that.

It's just broken, broke and broke and broke and broken.

It shows us who we are, how life really can be.

It reveals how much we really need a savior. Sometimes

we don't like that we read this. We read it

and we go like, I can't believe this guy, what

a knuckle ahead. But I think part of that is

because we try to sugarcoat our own lives. We try

and sugarcoat our own sinfulness, our own stories, rather than

being honest about our problems, which would then drive us

to the feet of a savior. But like I said,

the Old Testament isn't the only place that does that.

There's the New Testament as well. And I remember that

the first time I was really reading through my New Testament,

I was reading through the Bible, but I was in

the New Testament. And I remember distinctly that the Gospel

of Luke specifically and uniquely shocked me, not in one place,

many places, but specifically.

I remember that the text that we're going.

Over today stopped me dead in my tracks. I read

Jesus say that unless I hate my own family, I

cannot be his disciple. I'm probably seventeen at the time,

and I've grown up in church for most of my life,

and Jesus just told me to hate someone. That's what

I just read in my Bible. I'm thinking to myself,

this can't be right.

Jesus he's like literally the love guy, right, He's the

embodiment of love, He's the preacher of loving one another.

And now Jesus tells me to do what if I

want to follow him? It shook me.

How can Jesus be saying this or worse? Isn't this

a contradiction in the Bible? Seems pretty glaring, right if

you have Jesus, who everyone's like, this is the love

guy being like unless you hate, maybe it's not problematic

for you guys, but it was problematic for me. But again,

as I said, this was my first time trying to

really read through the Bible and take it seriously, so

that meant that I also was learning how to read

my Bible. Learning how to read my Bible, that is,

learning how to understand what's really being said, and also

being challenged in the preconceived ideas.

Because here's the thing.

We all come to the Bible with preconceived ideas with

things that we prop up in our heart as of

first importance, and the Bible has this crazy, crazy well,

it's alive, it's active, and it knocks them down. It

cuts them down, especially and mostly if they're wrong, which

is ironic to me because most of my favorite places

in scripture are the places that stopped me dead in

my tracks. And that's why Luke is one of my

favorite gospels. And it's also why Deuteronomy is one of

my favorite Old Testament books anyone else? Yeah, right, I'm

not kidding, by the way, it really is one of

my favorite and part of it is because it challenged me.

It was some of the laws and commands on his

people that God gives to his people. It challenged my

way of thinking, my understanding. But it ultimately led to

my submission and my humility that God is the judge.

God is the law giver, not me. It shows He

shows me right and wrong. It isn't something that I

get to decide for myself. I am to use his standard,

not prop myself up as God and try to create

my own. Well, now, today Jesus is going to set

a standard. He's going to give a command in a sense,

as to what is required if you are going to

follow him, what it's going to cost you, what it

must look like, and how you must consider and accept

those terms if you're gonna follow him. So, if you're

taking notes, today's message is called counting the cost of discipleship.

Counting the cost of discipleship.

Now, I'm gonna make it nice and upfront with the

cost is so we don't have to wonder, we don't

have to guess.

It's everything everything.

Now, this should not become or this should not come

as a big shock to us, especially if we've been

here the last couple of weeks. So, if you've been

here for the last couple of weeks, honestly, you're just like,

welcome back once again.

It's night three of fight night.

Okay, jeez Us has just been like delivering blow after

blow after blow to our selfishness and to our wrong priorities.

And now here we are putting it all together. We're

not doing it. Jesus is.

Jesus is putting it all together. The gospel writer of

Luke is putting it all together. You remember, two weeks

ago Jesus puts on blasts the Pharisees for the self exalting,

self centered behavior. They live like life was all about them,

but we were reminded that life isn't about us. We

are not the main character of the Bible of history

or even our own life, but that Jesus is.

That was two weeks ago.

Last week, Jesus continued in his teaching by putting the

Pharisees on blasts about their wrong priorities. He warned that

the wrong priorities would cause them to make excuses when

the time came to follow Jesus.

So we learned that Jesus.

Must be our first priority, lest we choose a lesser

thing instead and lose out on the blessing of salvation

and following Jesus.

So they've been.

Heavy weeks, all right, So apparently it's what we need

this new year. Knew me and Jesus' likes not about you,

It's about me. So I think it's actually really cool,

really fitting. But now as Jesus speaks to the crowds

that are around him, He's going to put it all

together and make it crystal clear what it truly means

and is required if someone is going to follow him.

So the first part of the text that we're looking at.

I would simply call the cost. Jesus is gonna tell

us the cost of following him. Starting in verse twenty six,

he says, 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.

So here we are again, with this difficult text, this

difficult statement. Jesus is telling me to hate my family

and even my own life if I want to be

his disciple.

How can Jesus tell me to do that? Well, I

actually think it's.

It's probably silly to say it's smart of Jesus to

do something right, but it is. I think it's intentional.

These Jesus here is using very black and white language.

I think it's meant to shock us. It's meant to

wake us up and go, wait, what did he just say?

This guy I've been following, what did he just say?

I have to do?

It calls us out of our sleep, It calls our

attention to the severity of what he's speaking to. I

don't know if you've I don't know if you've ever

read the letter of First John. Pretty short. But if

you read the first letter of First yeah, you read

First John.

Yeah, it's all right. He is.

He speaks in very matter of fact language, black and white.

A couple examples, he says, if anyone says, I know

him talking about God, but does not keep his commands

or commandments, let me read that again. If anyone says

I know him but does not keep his commands commandments,

he's a liar, and the truth is not in him.

Do not love the world or the things in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father.

Is not in them.

He's also the one to go on to say in

chapter four, if anyone says I love God and hates

his brother, he is a liar.

For he who does not love his.

Brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he

has not seen. And this commandment we have from him,

whoever loves God must also love his brother. So we're

not to love anything in the world, yet we are

to love each other. John, who is a disciple of Jesus,

is very explicit, and Jesus is very explicit to those

who would follow him, and I don't actually think that

these things are very hard to reconcile with one another,

especially when given the context that we've been speaking to.

Jesus has been harping on how people make life all

about them, that they get their priorities wrong, and here

he makes it clear who life should be about and

who their priority should be. So this word for hate here,

not only in this context but in other context, can

be shown to mean to love less or I think

it's even more helpful for this definition of or giving

preference for one thing over the other, which fits really,

really well with the context of where we're at in

the Gospel of Luke. Whoever gives the preference to these

other things? If you know your gospels at all. Matthew,

we see him record similar at Counts. He echoes a

similar sentiment like this text, where he says.

He needs to come first, and though he doesn't use

the word hate here.

He kind of says that, probably more in a more

friendly manner. We see in Matthew ten he says, whoever

loves father and mother more than me is not worthy

of me. Whoever loves son or daughter more than me

is not worthy of me, And whoever does not take

his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Right,

very very similar, but as I said, like very similar,

but one definitely feels more palatable. Right, whoever loves anyone

else more than me is not worthy of me.

Over here Jesus and Luke.

I don't know what it is about Luke, but apparently

that was the language he wanted to record to make

a little extra punchy. Whoever does not hate, But that

once again is to give preference over something them instead

of Jesus. So Jesus is touching here in Matthew the

similar point, Those who want relationship with Jesus and the

blessing that comes with him need to pick up their

cross and follow him, not give preference to anything else.

So Jesus says, in all your relationships, I must come

first and be the most important. And just as an anecdote,

I wanted to say that I believe that I've seen

it that the best relationships.

Aren't the ones where the.

People chase each other, but it's two people who are

chasing Christ together. And I think it's the same thing

with our families. The best families aren't the families that

chase each other. And the families that chase Christ together.

So that was I'm talking about our relationships. So then

here he comes for you in your life, your.

Own He says, I'm.

I must be more important than your very own life.

And to show that he gets graphic and says says,

you must bear your own cross back in our Luke texts.

And this was before Jesus had even gone to the cross.

Think about that. Jesus says, if you want to follow me,

you must pick up your cross come after me. At

this point, no one except for God probably Jesus, know

where he's headed. But for Jesus to tell others to

pick up their cross, to bear their cross and follow

him would also have been shocking to hear to people

in that day because death by crucifixion, that's what a

cross was. Right in today's day and age, we can

feel a little bit different about a cross that we see.

Maybe we have more warm and fuzzies about it. We

wear it around our neck. Not hating on you for

doing that, but right. But the thing is, it's a

torture device that ends in your death. Death by crucifixion

was one of the most painful and humiliating ways to

die in the ancient world.

Pick up your cross.

You would slowly die as you hung on wooden boards

with your arms and legs pierced through to hold you

to those boards.

Pick up your cross and follow me.

You died slowly and on display for everyone to see.

Pick up your cross and follow me. You died slowly

and on display, which I was thinking about. That's actually

a really really great picture of sanctification. You die slowly.

You're slowly putting your sin and your old self to death,

and it's on display. People notice. Jesus says, you have

to put yourself to death if you want to follow me,

if you have to die to yourself and follow me,

if you want to be my disciple. In every step

in my own personal life, my own growth in Christ

has been when I've taken something and put.

It to death.

That he's called me to, not just anything, but any

sin in my life. Anything he's called me out of

that I've been holding on to, refusing to let go

of until I nailed that thing to across. I was stuck,

so what it felt like? So I learned to make

repentance a regular part of my life, Confession a regular

part of my life, life. But what that took and

still takes is killing my pride, putting myself to death.

I already gave the example of reading my Bible. How

could God think this is right, putting my pride to death?

So Jesus makes it clear to those following him he

what the cost is, and then he makes another shocking statement.

He tells them, this is what it costs to follow me,

so count the cost. Do you realize how crazy of

a statement that is. We thought it was crazy Jesus

telling people that, you know, hate their families and whatnot.

Now we kind of understand that a little bit better.

He was trying to say what he was saying.

But now Jesus says, count the cost.

And I was reading in my commentaries this week they

pointed out the fact that we so often will try

to convince people why they should follow Jesus. That's a

good thing. We should convince or try to convince people

to follow Jesus. But usually we try and do that

by trying to make it easy, palatable, friendly, non intrusive,

and Jesus literally just does the opposite. Jesus does the opposite.

He's crystal clear on what the ask is it feels

like he's making it hard, and honestly, you read your

gospels and you realize that not more than once.

Is there huge.

Crowds following Jesus and he'll give him a hard teaching,

and everyone's like, who can follow this guy?

He's crazy? And it shrinks.

He says, this is what it's going to look like

to follow me, And I actually want to say something

about that. I believe it was right after feeding the

five thousand, Jesus gives a hard teaching and basically everyone

of these huge multitude is pieces out, and Jesus turns

to his disciples and he's like, you going anywhere? Like

why you guys still here? But the response I think

showed everything. They're like, like, where else would we go?

You have the words of eternal life. He says, this

is what it looks like to follow me, So before

you do, make sure to count the cost. And he

gives two kind of examples, starting verse twenty eight, says,

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 is laid

a foundation and is not able to finish, All who

see it begin to mock him, saying this man began

to build and was not able to finish. Or what

king going out to encounter another king in war will

sit down first, or will not sit down first and

deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet

him who comes against him with twenty thousand, and if not,

while the other is yet a great way off, he

sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. Now,

I think this is huge because Jesus wants it to

be crystal clear what the call is on the life

of a person who wants to follow him. It's awesome

he doesn't hide it, right, that's a There's a lot

of people in life, a lot of maybe if your salesman,

I'm not hating on you unless you do this.

There's a lot of people who want to bait and

switch you. Right. They promise you one thing.

And then when it arrives in the mail, it's completely

different or much much much smaller than what was promised.

Jesus isn't trying to sell you something.

Jesus is trying to be very clear and very upfront

with what the call is. They're gonna go buy a

house right before you ever, anyone hands you any keys

at all, they sit you down and say, all right,

what's your price point?

Can you afford it?

What are the pain Like all those things, there's a

lot of work beforehand. Here, Jesus uses the illustration of

a tower those who began to build but didn't count

the costs and so weren't able to finish. That is,

Jesus doesn't want those who are going to follow him

to be unaware of what the call is on their life.

He doesn't want them to start following him and then

realize what the cost of discipleship is going to be

and then abandon shit. I got this thirty year mortgage

and then all of a sudden payments start coming. I go, oh,

I can't keep up with this. He wants well informed,

committed disciples, those who are all in at the outset,

and he does so by saying, you need to be

all in at the outset, those who have counted the

cost and aren't surprised once they jump in do because like,

if you think about it, if you know what's coming,

that's really helpful. It's really helpful to be all in

at the beginning. Jesus shows the importance of counting the

cost beforehand, and that is whether or not you will finish,

whether or not you're going to make it to the end.

He says, count the cost beforehand to see if you're

able to finish what you start, or.

Else you may begin to start, and once you realize

the costs halfway through, abandoned it all together.

He says.

Other people are gonna take notice of that, and we

especially if you've been a believer, or maybe even if

you haven't been a believer. You've just seen Christians or

people who put their faith in Jesus and are on fire,

and you're like, no one loves Jesus more than this

guy who heard about him yesterday. But as soon as

hardships come because of Christ, or their cares and love

of the world start to pull on them, they abandon him.

They didn't count the cost. Maybe they didn't know what

the cost was. Maybe someone tried that Jesus will be

your best friend and your life is gonna be amazing

forever and nothing will ever go wrong ever, And then

it does.

But Jesus has shown us in the parable of the soils.

You remember that there's the different soils that get the

seed there's different results. One's choked out, one dies. Jesus

says up front, you should know what's coming. Hardship, persecution,

self denial, love of God and what he offers over

love of the world and what it has to offer.

If we start this way, it's gonna be really helpful

because we know what to expect at the outset. We

know that when those things come and won't be a

surprised because we're prepared and prepped for them to come.

I think it's a big reason why the disciples, who

after seeing Christ die and were sad and then saw

Christ risen, we're happy, could go be whipped and tortured

and put to death joyfully singing and praising God after

being beaten. Here's only one way that they could do that,

knowing that their Christ had risen and Jesus already told

them what was coming.

It wasn't a surprise, and as we're gonna see a

little bit, they were able to walk in.

They expected it. They expected persecution. Most of us spent

a lot of our Christian life going like, oh, I

would love to I'm following Jesus, and I really hope

no one does anything about it. I really hope. No

one has anything to say about that. It would be

really dope and really awesome. And none of the disciples

expected that. They expected the exact opposite. They knew people

would be one to Christ because God had a plan

he was gonna accomplish it.

They also believe the other part where they were told

they're gonna have hardship.

So he uses another example of a king going to

war and seeing if he has the means to actually

win the war, and if not, he finds another means

of making peace. He accounts the costs and acts accordingly.

And then Jesus gets to summarizing everything he's been saying.

Verse thirty three.

So therefore, any of you who does not renounce all

that he has cannot be my disciple. Salt is good,

But if salt has lost its taste, how shall it

salting us be restored? It is of no use either

for the soil or for the manure pile. It is

thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Now.

The word to renounce means the forsake, or to give

up all that you have. The word, when used in

a literal form, is to say goodbye to I liked that.

I feel like that's really helpful for handlebars. It's to

say goodbye to it's a metaphorical sense. It's to bid

farewell or farewell, take leave of to forsake. And we're

familiar with the word renounce, like someone who is going

to renounce their citizenship of a country. You ever heard

that before? People are going to renounce their citizenship of

a country. But here Jesus says, you need to renounce

the citizenship of the world of your life if you're

gonna follow me. That is, we no longer are marked

for love, obedience, to servitude, following this world and our stuff,

or we're instead marked by our self denial of ourselves,

self denial of this world towards stuff, and instead we're

following Jesus. He gives us a parable at the end

to say, you're closed to say what good is salt?

If it has lost it saltiness, Well, it's not completely worthless.

It's good for nothing except to be thrown out. So

he ends by saying, he who has ears, let him hear,

And that's Jesus is speaking of something very important.

He's saying, hear it. Those who have ears, those who

are discerning those.

Listen up, I'm saying something here, and he's saying that

the only disciple that is worth his salt is the

one that denies himself entirely and follows Jesus.

This is a very important thing for us to consider.

Needs to understand that to be a disciple of Christ

is to be a Christian. Right, some people want to

separate that, it's not. It's the same thing. Jesus' disciples

got the nickname Christian for following Christ. That's what Christian means,

follow Christ, but a disciple. It's also very important that

we understand what that is. A disciple is a learner

or a pupil of someone, to the end that they

are learning from that person so that they can learn

from and become like that person. Jesus says in Luke

chapter six, a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone.

When he is fully trained, will be like his teacher.

Now in the text today, Jesus says, you need to

deny yourself and count the cost if you want to

follow me and be my disciple. That those who follow

Jesus are trying to be like Jesus. That's what that means.

So what does that mean Jesus is telling us here? Well,

Jesus says, if you want to be like me, you

must deny yourself. If you want to be like me,

you must deny yourself, You must give up everything. Why

is that's what Jesus did. Jesus isn't calling us to

do anything he hasn't done himself. Jesus, if you want

to be like me, you will bear your cross?

Why?

Because they're going to follow the one who bore his

What's amazing is he didn't bear that cross for his sake.

He bore that cross for our sake. To tone for

our sins. He gave himself up. He laid down his

life and served us by dying on the cross in

our place. Also that we can be made right with God.

For anyone who puts their faith in Jesus and his

finished work on the cross they're going to do, they'll

be saved from the wrath judish sins.

They'll be saved from hell.

And it said they will receive what they don't deserve,

that is eternal life. Jesus gave up everything so that

we can have everything in him. So we're gonna follow him.

We are to give or We're called to give up

everything for him. That is weird, to put him first,

love him first, and follow him first. So we've been

seeing these last several weeks, but now I want to

put some real handlebars on this thing. You might say, well,

I'm not Jesus, and I will tell you are correct.

You're right, you are not Jesus. We might say the

cost is too high, the cost is too much. How

can I possibly do this? And so that's what I

want to spend the remainder of our time considering together.

Jesus asks everything of you, but a lot of us

don't want to give up everything. A lot of us

don't want to give up anything, which is pretty much

the whole problem. We love our stuff, we love our

life and relationships more than Christ.

That is our problem. So how do we do this?

And I want to be fair to both sides because

I do think that there's two sides. There's one side

of people who are like, he told me to do it,

I'm gonna do it.

There it is, he can't. He commanded it, he said it.

I believe it. I'm gonna do it.

But I believe even in that kind of duty sense

or that sense of duty and being ready and willing

to just believe whatever he says, which is good.

You should do that.

I do think that there's still the underlying reason that

supports both or anyone who would be willing to do

this in the first place.

Our mission here at the roots is that it's all

about Jesus. It's not by accident.

We love God, we love people, we reach the loss,

we make disciples. This order is not an accident. It's

taken from God's word. And when Jesus was asked what

is the greatest commandment?

What did he say?

He said, you shall love the Lord your God with

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

your mind. This is the great and first commandment. What

was he going to say is the second? The second

is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

First we are to love God with everything and more

than everything. And second we are to love others like

we love ourselves. But as humans, we get this backward.

That is part of our fundamental problem is we get

this twisted. We love everything but God more than anything,

and with everything. We'll give ourselves to so many different

things before we'll give ourselves to God and then when

we're bored, may we'll give ourselves to God. Even here,

we're still showing that we're supposed to love people, but

our love for them come secondary. Like we spoke about

last week, we take too many secondary things and make

them first rather than putting God as the first thing

first in our life. But I do agree that on

its face this sounds like a high cost, and it

is a high cost. Just say like it is, which

had me thinking, in what case would you give up

everything for something? And I need the band to come

up please, In what case would you give up everything

for something?

I was thinking about it today that we live in

a reality.

TV world where people will give up some things for

some things. People will give up a month and go

live on an island and.

Being filmed for a million dollars.

People will participate in game shows, do Mister Beasts challenges.

They'll do all these different things, but most of those

things come at some kind of cost.

They have to give up something in order to do that.

Live in this.

House for one hundred days and for each day, I'll

give you ten thousand dollars. Right, there's a cost, But

there's also something on the other side. So in what

case would you give up everything for something? What I

was thinking about this week is that the only way

you would give up everything for something is you would

have to be convinced that the thing is worth more

than everything you have. We give ourselves to so many

things in this life, but Jesus calls us to give

the entirety of our lives to him. But we will

never do this until we see Jesus as the most

supreme thing of value in our life, because you'll only

give everything for something you believe is worth everything. And

this is what Jesus tells us in the Parable about

the treasure Parable of the great Pearl. You remember that,

let's look at it. Matthew thirteen. The Kingdom of Heaven

is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man

found and covered up. Than in his joy he goes

and sells all that he has and buys that field again.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant in search

of find pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value,

went and sold all that he had and bought it.

And Christ is that treasure. Christ is that pearl. Christ

is that thing that is worth more than everything you have.

And so it's easily worth it to give up everything

because he's giving you, not something of equal value to

what it's gonna cost you, to what you're letting go of.

He's giving you something of infinite value, worth more than

everything that you have.

To follow him and be.

He is is of more value and worth than anything

your family, your job, or this world has to offer.

But it's in view of who Christ is and what

he offers that Christ becomes our greatest treasure, our greatest joy,

our greatest hope, our greatest love. What God offers you

in following Christ is worth more than all you.

Could possibly have.

He offers you salvation from the wrath, do your sin,

and eternal life with him forever.

It's a free gift that he is giving. It's a

free gift that he's offering.

And you're like, didn't you say it's a cost, there's

a cost. Well, yes, but you aren't the one who

purchased it. He's the one who purchased it. He's the

one who gave up everything, and he offers it to you.

It's free because you don't deserve it. It's free because

you did nothing to accomplish it. But it is what

God offers to you if you forsake your rebellion and

instead treasure Him as everything, putting your trust in love

and Him instead of yourself and the world. What it

costs you are all the things that keep you from

His grace, your pride, your rebellion, and what it costs

us is nothing in comparison as to what's being offered.

That's why Paul, speaking of knowing and following Christ, puts

it like this in Philippians three says, but whatever gain

I had, I count it as lost for the sake

of Christ. Indeed, I count everything is lost because of

the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For his sake, I have.

Suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish,

that's garbage, in order that I may gain Christ and

be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my

own that comes from the law, but that which comes

through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends

on faith. That I may know Him and the power

of his resurrection, and may share in his sufferings, becoming

like him in death, that by any means possible I

may attain the resurrection from the dead. I count it

all as loss for the surpassing warth of knowing Jesus, Christ,

my Lord.

That's what we're talking about.

Until we see Christ as the most important, we will

never follow him fully. We will never give ourselves to

him fully. And Jesus is calling all of us to

count the costs, and if we're going to follow him,

to put him first in everything. That means dying to yourself,

your plans, your desires, and surrendering your entire life to Christ,

submitting everything with open hands and in every area of

your life, saying thy will be done. He's calling us

to obey the greatest commandment and love him with everything,

to put him first, and do so with joy because

of his supreme value. First, John, we're told that we

love because He first loved us, and he loved us

by dying on the cross on our behalf. He died

so that we can live. And it's in view of

that that we lay down our lives to serve him.

And that's what Romans twelve to one is all about.

We love to quote it here says I appeal to you, therefore, brothers,

by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as

living sacrifices. Holy and acceptable to God, which is your

spiritual worship. It's by his mercies, it's in view of

his mercies as we look to his surpassing worth.

It's what spurs us to do, what.

Give our lives to Him as a living sacrifice. And

his sacrifice is something that you would normally give up

or put to death. But we're to be living sacrifices,

those who have denied themselves and are following him. We've

given up everything, but we live as though we have everything.

Every breath we have.

Is for him, every act of services or opportunity is

for him. Because we want to follow and be like him.

We want to be a livering, a living offering unto Him.

And it's easier to give up these things that have

captured our heart, that are worldly, when we look at

the surpassing worth and let those things capture us instead.

The more we look to the cross and dwell on

what Christ has done for us, the greater our love

enjoy to surrender it all will be when we look

at the sin and shame that the Lord has taken

away in Christ, when we see the undeserved mercy and

grace poured out on our behalf, that should move up.

Us.

Living our lives in view of the cross is what

motivates and allows us to give up everything for him,

because again, it's what He did for us.

And if we truly dwell on that, what wouldn't we

give up? What wouldn't we give up? Easy? I know

it's in my future.

It's guaranteed by him, eternal glory, life spent with him,

free from my sin, No more shame, pain and hurt,

but life everlasting. That's way better than anything this life

has to offer. We're pretty much what this world. It's

funny because what this world has to offer is ways

to help us escape. That's what the world offers, things

that dule us put us to sleep.

Until we wake up in hell.

So really that this life isn't trying to help us

here either, But Christ gives us something that does give

us hope now helps us endure whatever we're going to

go through. And then once he shows up, everything's good.

Christ does tell us to come to him, but he

tells us to count the cost. So we need to

examine our lives. What are we putting first? Our spouse,

our job, our children, our dreams. Have we counted the cost?

We call ourselves a Christian that is to deny ourselves

and follow him. Is my life marked by self denial

or self indulgence? Who comes first? And we need to

take this seriously here and count the cost. Have I

renounced and denied myself? Or am I living lukewarm, neither

hot nor cold? Where Jesus says if you're hot or cold,

or if you're neither hot or cold, but you're lukewarm,

I'll spa you out of my mouth, just like the salt.

If we don't put ourselves to death, our walk.

Is going to be very hard as Christians, trying to

live a double life, trying to put ourselves to death,

trying not to And it's why I think most of

us struggle as Christians to obey what Christ has called

us to. And I think if we are struggling, it's

because we need to identify the thing that needs to

be put to death. There's something that's keeping us from

that obedience. There's something that's keeping us, and it needs

to be put to death. Jesus already tells us your

focus can't be divided.

No one can serve two masters.

And I know, just even as an example, marriage is

going to teach you to die to yourself. And most

of my problems in my own marriage is when I

don't want to I don't want to die. I don't

want to give that up. I don't want to be

like that. Me me, me, me me. But if there's

anything that we've gotten out of the last couple of weeks,

I hope that we realize.

I hope that I realized that life is not about me.

My life is to be put to death and offered

as a living sacrifice to my Lord and Savior. So

we need to count the cost and then live accordingly.

Jesus is worth more than everything. So my encouragement to

every believer is we need to grow our affections and

treasure Christ as of supreme worth in our life.

And that is going to remind us to.

Encourage us to die to ourselves and give ourselves fully

to Him. We do that by looking at the cross,

remembering the gospel. For those who have yet to the

costs and step out and follow him. I promise you

it's worth it. It's worth more than anything this world

has to offer eternal life, salvation from the wrath to

your sin, and not only that, but freedom from your sin.

But to follow him.

Is going to require you to put him first, which

means dying to yourself, picking up your cross, saying farewell

to what you used to treasure, and treasuring Christ instead

he who has ears Let him here.

Would you guys please stand