Luke 9:23-25 - The Cost of Discipleship

Well, church, how many of you, how many of us woke up this morning or yesterday, or any morning in the last week or so, and instantly remembered, hey, I'm just passing through this life.

I'm just here passing through.

This is not my home.

This is, I was not made for this.

Did that thought kind of come across your mind?

Or do you feel at home in this life?

Maybe you feel like this is comfortable to you, and you're just trying to squeeze every bit of pleasure or fun you can out of the days that you have here on earth.

Are you aware, as I'm sure most of us are, to some degree, of the emptiness of this world?

You know that it cannot truly and deeply satisfy you.

So what you do is you look to the hope that we have in Jesus, you look to the joy that we have in Christ, and you look to heaven, to glory.

I think it's easy for us, though, to say, I believe in heaven.

I think heaven's real, it's a real place, but we're not necessarily motivated by heaven, by eternity, by being with God forever.

We believe in it, and we can look at the world and we see the charades and all the kind of pie in the sky thinking.

We can dismiss all that.

We know Jesus is real, we're going to heaven.

Good.

Got that squared away.

But how many of us are really motivated by that?

Like we're excited to get to heaven, and we're excited to live for heaven.

It's one thing to be able to, again, identify the things of the world, the thinking of the world, but it's another thing to clearly fix our eyes and our joy and glory in going to heaven.

And what heaven means.

This unity now, no longer this separation between us and God.

We even know as Christians, we've been adopted in, but there is a better dwelling with God.

No longer having the sin nature, no longer battling sin, no longer contending, but just pure rest in dwelling with God.

The intention of this sermon this morning is to revive us in our following of Jesus.

If we go through this passage in Luke 9, we go through this passage, and there isn't some area of your life where you feel like you need to examine, or some areas, maybe even something you need to repent of, at least examine and look at.

If nothing, none of that happens, I'm not sure if I've done my job this morning.

And I say that, and this isn't a this isn't a gotcha sermon.

Okay?

This is a Hebrews 12, brothers and sisters, lay aside every weight and sin which so closely, closely runs or holds us, clings to us, let us run with endurance the race set before us.

This is a Hebrews 10.

Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good words, to work together as we see the day drawing near.

See, Christians, we have been called to follow Jesus.

Not to follow this world.

Rather, to live in this world, yes, but live with great intentionality for the kingdom to come, for heaven.

You see, following Jesus is costly.

But following Jesus, I would submit to you, is also joy-filled.

So if you just feel at home in this life, if you haven't kind of felt recently as you looked at the news or you looked at culture or people around you, that man, I'm not built for this, I'm not made for this.

If that hasn't kind of come across your radar recently, I want to encourage you to look again at what Jesus calls us to.

The cost he calls us to and the joy that he calls us to.

See, following Jesus is costly.

As we look this morning at Luke 9, 23, I want us to see the cost of following Jesus.

And there's verse 24 and 25, I want us to see the joy of following Jesus.

And I put a little note in your bulletin, which I usually don't do.

I'm not great about those things, but I just want to be clear as we talk about discipleship.

It's really helpful to have a definition of discipleship.

You know, this is our seventh anniversary, and we spent, man, I don't know how many meetings, uh, the three elders and wives talking about things and planning, and we it came down to like we've got to define discipleship.

Like if we're gonna make disciples, we should be able to define that.

And we were just like all over the map.

It's this, it's that, it's this, you know, all these things.

And it was, you know, looking back, it's comical.

It's like, man, it's this is a really easy answer, guys.

You know, but we are all over the place, and that's probably mostly my fault.

But here's how we define it: discipleship, or being a disciple, is being a follower of Jesus.

That's a disciple, a follower of Jesus.

And next week you'll see the definition of discipleship is helping others follow Jesus.

So disciple is one who follows, a discipleship is helping others follow Jesus.

That's what he calls us to.

To be a disciple.

Look at verse 23 of Luke 9.

And he said to all, If anyone come after me, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

So you've got three things going on.

We have following, we have denying, self-denial, and taking up this cross, which is gonna happen daily.

When Jesus called his disciples, the apostles, in Luke 5 and Matthew 4, and Matthew 9 and John 1, we see Jesus again and again calling them to follow him.

And they followed him.

That's what they did.

And almost every time there is some kind of acknowledgement, this wasn't just a teacher, this wasn't just a prophet, this was the Messiah.

And it's odd because they make these statements early on where this is the Messiah, he's come.

And then later on they're like, you know, who is this guy?

Right?

There's this identification that he is the Messiah, and there's this literal following that happens.

Like they just left their boats, they left their nets, they left the tax booths, they followed Jesus.

A literal following.

This wasn't just a mental ascent and acknowledge him in your mind that he's God.

This was a physical, literal, they began to follow him.

And this was costly.

You've probably heard this before.

They left their trades, they left how they provided financially, most of them, and they followed.

It was costly socially.

They were to be outcasts, they were to be despised, looked down upon.

Eventually, they were to be killed for their following of Jesus.

It was also costly religiously for them.

In following Jesus, they were saying, no more to the traditions, no more to the way they were raised religiously.

They're following Jesus.

It was costly.

That's this following.

It sounds silly to say it, but it needs to be said.

You can't follow Jesus.

You can't be a follower of Jesus if you don't follow Jesus.

Amen?

That's how it is.

And what's that look like?

Well, Jesus says, well, self-denial.

This was real.

They didn't to deny themselves.

We have to deny ourselves.

If we're going to follow Jesus.

The problem is, I want to be the king in my life.

I want to sit on the throne and make all the decisions.

And this runs against what Jesus calls us to when he says, follow me, he's saying, you have to die, your desires, your dreams, those things in you to follow me.

This self-denial.

See, there's areas of self-denial kind of categorized into three.

There's pleasure, and I want to feel good.

Well, you've got to deny yourself if that's sinful.

If what you're indulging in to feel good is sinful.

You didn't deny that.

You'd say, no, I can't keep doing that.

Which means that you can't make a practice of pleasuring in sin and say, Yep, I'm a follower of Jesus.

You can't do both those things.

Now I'm not saying you can't fight sin.

Everyone fights sin.

All the apostles were fighting sin until they died.

There's a difference between saying, I'm holding on to my pleasures, and they're coming with me, and I'm going to follow Jesus.

It doesn't work that way.

You deny yourself those pleasures that are sinful.

Another thing that we have to think of is security.

I want to feel safe.

I want to be safe.

I want to feel safe.

I want to keep my kids safe.

I want to be in a safe area.

Safety.

Maybe you have to deny that.

And you look at church history.

Christians typically do not choose safety.

They choose following Jesus, even when it means going to dangerous places and hard places.

For some of that, that's physical safety.

I want to be safe.

I want to make sure my house is safe.

Or I live in a safe neighborhood.

Or I have enough guns to keep my family safe.

Or whatever it is.

For some of us, it's finances.

I need to have enough money.

I gotta be safe.

What if the economy tanks?

What if I lose my job?

What if these things?

Another is image.

I want to feel loved.

I want to feel admired by people around me.

So you go and you do those things that you think people will love you for or admire you for.

And so you're chasing after those things.

All these things we have to deny.

We can't say, listen, I'm gonna follow Jesus, but I've got to be safe first.

Once I have enough money, or once I live in a nice neighborhood, then I'll follow Jesus.

It's not, it doesn't work that way.

He's calling you out to trust him.

You can't say, well, once I'm secure enough in my own identity, once I'm loved for who I am, then I'll follow Jesus.

Once I have the affirmation of my friends or the love of the world, then I can follow Jesus.

No, you cannot.

Jesus says if you come after him, deny yourself.

And so easy it is for us to look at these things.

Pleasure in the right context isn't a bad thing.

Security in the right context isn't a bad thing.

Even wanting to feel accepted and loved isn't a bad thing in this right context.

But so quickly, so quickly, those things become the thing that we're after.

And even as Christians, we know the word.

If you've grown up in church, you've heard the sermons, like we're serious about Jesus.

But man, I really want what I want.

I really want that pleasure.

I want to eat that food.

I want to watch that thing.

I want to feel this way.

And Jesus says, You must deny yourself.

Take up your cross.

And this does seem like a hard teaching.

Take up your cross.

You know, in some sense, there's a littleness because for the apostles, they would be killed, they would be martyred.

This idea of day after day, and that's where it gets really tough.

Right?

If Jesus said, hey, take up your cross on Sundays.

On Sundays, be good, deny yourself, talk nice, have good thoughts, you got this.

Just do it on Sunday.

I think we could all do that, right?

One day a week, surely, we could do that.

We could pull that off, I think.

It's this daily thing that gets us.

When your spouse is frustrated with you, when your kids don't want to talk to you, when you you're waiting for your spouse and you've never met them, when you're you've just lost your job.

Whatever the thing is, when that thing happens, when you feel like you're getting the flu, whatever's going on, daily we're to follow after Jesus.

You can say, well, if Jesus was wanting to grow a following of people, why didn't he, you know, why did not he not like make this a little bit easier?

But it's interesting in Luke 9, the context of what's going on around Jesus' words matters.

So what's going on in this?

Jesus is doing miracles, and he's kind of revealing and his power, and all these things are happening, and he's feeding thousands and thousands of people, and people are excited.

Hey, something's going on.

You know, you listen to him, he feeds you, he you can see him heal some people.

This is pretty cool.

Even Herod is interested, like, man, what's Jesus?

Who is this Jesus?

What's going on?

Jesus makes it clear.

Sure, there's food, there's miracles, there's healings, all that stuff.

But you can't you can't say I'm a follower of Jesus if you're just sticking around for those things.

You're a follower of Jesus when you submit to him, when he becomes the Lord of your life.

See, Jesus miracles feeding people, great.

But he would go on to be crucified on the cross, to suffer and die for our sins, to fully atone, fully redeem his people.

Listen, if you're a Christian, that's you.

He's done this for you.

He's come for you.

And so when he does feed, he takes care of like physical needs, like, hey, you need some money for clothes, you need some money for a meal, the Lord provides those things.

Great, that's cool.

But more than all those things, what you need is salvation.

You need forgiveness for your sins.

You need a way to be made right with your creator God.

And that's what Jesus has come for.

And so when he says, come and follow me, and he says, deny yourself.

What he's saying is, come that you might have life, that you might know him.

When he says, take up the cross, he's not saying, take up the cross daily, that you might earn your ticket to heaven, that you might earn forgiveness.

That has been purchased for you.

That's done, Christian.

That has been accomplished.

We now live as Christ.

We deny ourselves, we follow after him because that's the way of life.

And that is the way of joy.

We're not living for pleasures here and now.

We're not living for security here in this life.

We're not living for affirmation here in this life.

We're living for eternity.

And so we live differently as disciples.

We follow him.

We look like him.

So Jesus comes and he gives this clarifying instruction.

Don't follow me because I'm doing all these miracles or feeding people.

But if you're gonna follow me, this is gonna cost you something.

You're gonna die, die to yourself, deny yourself, and you're gonna take up your cross and you're gonna follow me, and you're you're gonna do it day after day after day after day after day.

But again, this wasn't just pull yourselves up, people.

You got this.

That's why we read Joshua 24 this morning.

This covenant, and the people are excited, and they say, like, we're choosing God, like we're his ways, we're going that direction.

As for me and my house, we're gonna follow the Lord.

And they meant it.

But what did they need?

They needed a better covenant.

They needed a better Joshua, they needed the Messiah, they needed Jesus Christ, who would come and redeem them, make them right with God, and enable them.

When they say, as for me and my house, we will follow the Lord, well, now they can, because they've been made right with God.

Now they can, because the Holy Spirit is in them, permanently, dwelling richly in them, as Colossians says.

See, this is what Jesus is doing in the new covenant.

So when he says, Come and follow after me, he's saying, There is life here, and there is joy here.

There is joy.

I love how Hebrews 12 puts this.

It says in 12 verse 1 in Hebrews, therefore, surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, pause there.

Hebrews 12 comes right after Hebrews 11.

Hebrews 11, the famous hall of faith passage, by faith, by faith, by faith.

All these things happened.

If you read that and you think, wow, how did those people get that faith?

That's amazing.

Tell me where to go to get that faith.

That's Jesus working.

They didn't muster up the faith.

God gave it to them.

They trusted in him.

By faith, these things happened.

So therefore, that's what the therefore in 12 is, verse chapter 12.

Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud, such a testimony of the faith and the power of Jesus, let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely.

And let us, Christians, run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, the joy for him, he endured the cross, despising the shame and seated at the right hand of God, the throne of God.

There was joy for Jesus as he looked to the cross, saying, He knows what's coming, but there was a joy he was willing to endure the cross, despise shame, because he would be sitting at the right hand of the throne of God with his redeemed bride.

Amen.

Church, this is what the Lord has done.

There's a joy here.

Jesus went to the cross for us, and there was a joy set before him.

And part of that joy is that you would know his joy.

The joy he had is that God would be united with his people again.

You, church, are his joy.

That's what I'm saying.

You're the joy set before him.

This is amazing.

What the Lord has called us to.

So he's saying, deny yourself.

Pick up your cross.

Why?

For this joy that God has given to us that we will be partakers of salvation, that we will be united with Jesus.

So if you're a Christian and you hear this cost, denial, take up the cross daily, and you're burdened by that.

You're wearied by that.

It's understandable if you don't understand the joy.

But there is great joy.

Yes, our emotions are up and down, our feelings betray us, all those things.

But Christian, there is a joy for you in following Jesus.

Let's look at verse 24 and 25.

For whoever would save his life will lose it.

But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

Again, remember the context.

People interested and elements, parts of Jesus' ministry.

But few understand what he's calling them to.

And it's interesting how Jesus calls into question a couple things here.

How serious are they about saving faith?

As Jews, they would have known the Messiah was coming, they would have known the promises of a kingdom to come and a salvation to come.

But how serious are they about this?

Saving faith.

Another thing that Jesus calls into question is how deceived they are about this world.

You know, you say that you want life.

Well, how badly do you actually want life?

Something really important is happening here in verse 24, really powerful, okay?

The question reveals where is your faith?

Because this only works if Jesus Christ is real and if we believe in Jesus.

Let's read verse 24 again.

Whoever loses his life, excuse me, for whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

For my sake.

If Jesus had said to his listeners, whoever loses his life for the law will save it.

Right?

The Jewish law.

Whoever loses his life for the Jewish law, he will save it.

Well, the audience would have heard that and they would have understood that.

Yes, okay.

I'm gonna lose my life for the law.

I believe in the law and it's gonna save me.

That's not what Jesus said, is it?

If Jesus had said, whoever loses his life for being a good person will save it.

Well, that makes more sense in our culture, in our day and age.

If you're a good person, you'll make it.

But also, that's not what Jesus said.

See, he just cuts right to it.

He gets right to it.

He did this, he gets right to the point.

In order to have life, your faith must be in Jesus.

No system, no tradition, no ideas of the culture or ideas of your own making in your mind.

None of that will work.

None of it will work.

Only faith in Jesus.

You and me, see, you and me, we're in a situation.

Whether you fully agree with it or not, we're in a situation where our only hope is in Jesus Christ.

And that our hope is that Jesus will come through for us.

He is who he says he is, he will do what he says he will do.

That's our our situation.

Whatever opinion you have, that's the sum of it all.

So here Jesus is saying, Come and die, and you have life.

Well, how's that possible?

Well, it's only possible if Jesus is who he says he is.

If he is the Messiah, if he has the power to bring life.

But you must believe.

Faith is essential.

And think about this for a moment.

How many people seem to be shallow in their faith?

I mean, it's really not that hard to be a Christian here and where we live in the West.

It's not that hard to kind of be a Christian.

It's hard to be a Christian in your heart, right?

Where judgment and envy and lust and anger and all those things live.

It's hard to be a Christian there.

But publicly, it's not that hard to be a Christian.

Listen, uh, don't get drunk.

Don't be addicted to things that you can't hide and keep private.

Don't sleep around.

Go to church functions and learn the Christian lingo.

Right?

It ain't hard.

You just do that, and you seem to be, according to our standards, a Christian.

And one of the reasons I think the majority, or the one of the reasons I think we see this diminishing of Christianity in the West so rapidly is because there's so many people who don't actually want to follow Jesus.

But yet they're called Jesus followers.

See, you can look like a Christian, you can act publicly like a Christian, and you don't have to be born again.

That regeneration, that new creation, 2 Corinthians 5.17 talks about, that doesn't have to happen in your life for you to just kind of fit in in the church and fit in amongst other Christians.

You just kind of clean yourself up, learn how to talk, and you're on your way.

But if you are a Christian, there's gonna be signs that you're a Christian.

I mean, open your bank account and look.

Where does your money go?

Where does your money go?

Look at your calendar.

Where does your time go?

Open up your to-do list.

What are your priorities?

Are those just gonna tell people, this person must be a Christian?

The way they're spending their money is not how regular people spend their money.

The way they spend their time is not how regular people will spend their time.

The things they prioritize in their weeks and their days and their year, that's not what most people will prioritize.

Is that what would be said of us if people were to examine our money and our time, our to-do lists, our priorities?

How different! I mean, honestly, how different is your life from your Republican neighbor who loves Christian America, who goes to church, but who has no plans or intention of praying for terrorists or praying for those who kill children or welcoming in refugees.

He spends more time complaining about the conditions of this world than he does proclaiming the glories and the excellencies of the world to come.

See, we we we live here, we all live here in a context where it's easy to say, yeah, I follow Jesus.

I'll take up my cross, I'll follow him.

It's easy.

Then you realize what Jesus is really calling us to.

He's calling us to life, but that does require death.

I think it's easy for us to just assume everyone's a Christian or everyone's heard the gospel.

But if you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, I want to encourage you to look to Jesus, find your encouragement in Jesus for salvation.

Stop looking to other things in the world or your own ideas, and trust in Him.

Repent of your sins and trust in Jesus.

But maybe you're a Christian and you're just you're worn out, you're tired, you're exhausted.

Maybe you honestly believe Luke 9, 24.

But it feels like a lot of death right now in your life, and not a whole lot of life.

You know the promises of Jesus, you trust them, but in this season, man, where's the joy?

Where is the life?

This fun, adventurous, sacrificial, awesome life of following Jesus.

Like, where is it?

Maybe that's how you feel.

There could be a couple reasons for this.

It could be because there's sin in your life.

We say regularly, sin brings death.

It kills our desires for the Lord, it kills our desires for the things of the Lord.

It could be sin in your life.

It could be that you're in a season right now of suffering.

You're just in a season of unusual and extremely difficult suffering.

Seasons that come in the lives of Christians.

Could be because you've allowed the busyness and the things of life to crowd in and stifle your love for the Lord.

It's not even sinful things.

There's just things that come in, it's busy and all these things, and there's kind of a stifling.

So either way, whether it's sin or suffering or stifling, the response is the same.

It's to draw near to Jesus.

To draw near to him and remember again, or to learn the joy that comes in following Jesus.

We don't trust our emotions.

They are not the guide for us.

They tell us where we're at, they're our gauge, they are not our guide.

So if you're in a season of suffering, a season of discouragement, do not trust your feelings to be the truth.

At the same time as we have all through the Psalms, take your feelings to the Lord and declare to the Lord, where are you, Lord?

Why do I feel this way?

What's going on?

The Lord can handle that.

I promise you, He can handle all your emotions, all your feelings, all of your doubts.

Take those to the Lord.

Draw near to him.

Be reminded and renewed in him and the joy that comes in Jesus.

See, we know again that disciples of Jesus follow him.

And there's joy in following him.

But it does not just happen in a moment.

It's not like a one-to-one ratio.

Right?

There's a reality to the fact that Jesus gives us all these promises, but they're still, in a sense, shadow and shadow form until we get to heaven.

And this is why as Christians we should be so excited and motivated about glory and being with Jesus, is all the promises that are kind of in shadow form now are complete in glory.

See, Jesus says in verse 25, for what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

This verse tells us how precious our life is, how precious our soul, our being.

It reveals how massive eternity is in comparison.

Think about this.

If you could have all the pleasures of the world, nobody can, but if you could, if you could profit and gain the whole world, can have all the pleasures of the world, and if you can live to be a hundred, that's nothing.

That's nothing compared to being with Jesus forever.

I mean, you can't even enjoy a fraction of a percent of a fraction of the pleasures of this world.

You can't.

But even if you could, even if you could have all the pleasures, guilt-free pleasures for a hundred years, all the things you wanted, whatever it is, to the max, it's nothing.

It's so empty.

It's so little compared to being with Jesus forever.

You gain nothing.

You chase after whatever small amount of pleasure you can have, but lose walking with Jesus.

You know, this doesn't matter if eternity isn't real.

If heaven and hell aren't real, if if all dogs go to heaven and then cats and all of us, this doesn't matter.

But if there is a heaven and a hell, if eternity is real, then what Jesus is saying is you can have eternity with God forever.

And what you have to do is follow Jesus.

The Lord of the universe, the one you're created to be with.

Follow him.

Don't look to the things of this world.

As a testament to the power of this, a testament to the power of this, I think is the church.

Christians who spent their life dying, suffering, so that others might know Jesus.

They spent their life living in such a way that they would prioritize their relationship with Jesus above everything else.

And it caused them, it motivated them to then take this love to other people that they might know Jesus.

And what better way to spend your life?

What better way to spend your days, whether you have lots of them or a few of them, than looking at the excellencies of Christ, proclaiming the excellencies of Christ, sharing the love of Christ with others.

I mean, there's nothing this world can offer like that.

I know we feel at times tempted regularly.

Man, it looks like the world's having a pretty good time right now.

That would be fun.

No, there is life in Jesus.

We see this in the church.

Think about this.

2,000 years of data is what we have roughly of the church.

A people who were always denying themselves, were almost always suffering, they were oppressed, they were living for a kingdom to come, and it worked.

I mean, here we are, thousands of miles away, generations and generations later.

And people are taking this message of go and die to yourself and follow this guy, Jesus, and you'll have life, and it worked.

It's working.

It's worked in my life.

If you're a Christian, it's working in your life.

And that's the amazing thing.

It works.

Year after year after year, the Lord provides.

Generation after generation after generation.

Nations come and go.

Kingdoms, powers come and go.

All those things.

Doesn't matter.

Jesus is redeeming his bride.

He's declaring to the nations who he is.

The church is a part of that.

It's not our big marketing schemes, it's not our cool AI tools or whatever.

It's just Jesus, man.

It's his love, it's his power.

So when he says to you, come and die, and you have life.

There's evidence for this.

We're here.

You can, there's people I will introduce you to this morning who have gone through horrendous things in their life and they have joy.

They've suffered things that's hard to comprehend and they have joy.

Why?

Because they're just, they've watched enough like self-help videos on YouTube?

No.

Because they have Jesus as their Lord.

So when Jesus says, count the cost, remember there is a cost to following Jesus.

But in denying those things, in turning away from those things, there is life.

And this isn't something you muster up.

If there's something in your life that's keeping that grip on you, get rid of it.

Throw out your TV, get rid of your phone, give away$10,000, whatever you need to do, to just make a radical statement that I'm not living for this life.

But go to Jesus.

Go to Jesus.

Flee these things.

As Brother Jordan said last week, flee these things and cling to Jesus.

Now, if you're not a Christian, this is what Jesus said in Luke 9 22.

Speaking of himself, he says, The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed.

And on the third day be raised.

He came and he died so that you might be saved.

So that you might know what it means to be forgiven of your sin, to be loved by your Creator God, to be united with the one who made you.

And he made you to be in relationship with Him.

This is what God has come to do.

So flee those things and trust in Jesus.

Yes, there is a cost to be paid.

Yes, there is a joy, church, to be had.

Let's pray.