Have You Counted the Cost?

Today we will look at Luke 14:25-35.

At this point in Luke 14, Jesus has left the home of the leading Pharisee with whom he had a Sabbath meal.  Although multitudes are following him, Jesus takes time to make it clear what it really takes to become his disciple.  Just being in the crowd was not enough to make someone a disciple.  Jesus was headed somewhere that their flesh would not want to go.  Only a strong submission to the leadership of Jesus could carry a person through the challenging times ahead.  The same is true today.  Have you sat down and figured out what it may cost you to remain faithful to Jesus and who He truly is?

Our Primary Relationship

Who is the most important person in your life?  It can change depending upon your age and experience.  However, Jesus puts the challenge to those following him.  If you want to be my disciple then I must be the primary relationship of your life.  You see, up to now Jesus has been a bit of a novelty.  People would go out to see him because it was interesting.  Others went out because the hoped to be healed.  But no one understood that to follow him would require them to put their life on the line.  The discipleship of these people would not last past the cross if Jesus doesn’t begin to open their eyes to what it means to follow him.

Thus, Jesus walks through those most important relationships that we tend to have: parents, a spouse, children, siblings, and even our self.  No matter how we prioritize those relationships in our life, Jesus must now move to the top- that is if we think about it in authoritarian terms.  If we think about it in foundational terms then he must become the foundational relationship of our life.  Now, lest we protest to greatly, it is good to notice that following Jesus will enable us to love each of these relationships in truth.  Without Christ we find difficulty in sacrificially loving one another.  But with Christ, our relationship with Him is threatened when we do not lay our life down for each other.  Staying with Christ becomes more important than getting what we want out of our relationships.

Yet, Jesus uses the word “hate.”  How can this be that we should hate our parents?  Elsewhere he tells them to love their enemies.  Now, we can write Jesus off as a teacher of contradictions, or we can lean in and try to understand what he is talking about.  Clearly there is some shock value to this statement.  The crowd is following Jesus without thought to what it will cost to follow Him absolutely.  Thus he shocks them out of their lethargy. 

However, Jesus is not using hate in the sense of anger, detest, and desire to tear down.  There is a cultural usage of this term that we do not have here in the United States of America.  When hate is used in the context of choosing one thing over another, it rarely means the kind of hate that we think of.  Let’s go to an example that is found in Genesis 29:31.  Here Jacob has been tricked into marrying Leah and her sister Rachel.  Jacob only wanted to marry Rachel, but her father manipulated him into marrying Leah too.  The Bible tells us that, “When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb.”  Most modern translations will moderate this word to “unloved.”  Now it is clear that Jacob didn’t hate Leah in any active way.  In fact they would have children.  We would not have used the word “hate” in this context.  But, if someone followed Jesus at the expense of their family, many would be left shaking their head wondering what the person was thinking.  Perhaps to best understand this use is to see it from the view point of the person not being picked.  When you are not chosen, you don’t simply feel unloved.  In a sense, you feel rejected and hated.  Jesus is not calling his disciples to quit loving their friends and families.  But if they had to choose between a relationship with Jesus or with anyone on that list, they must choose Jesus.

Jesus then brings up the image of the cross.  The disciples of Jesus must follow him by carrying a cross.  This image is intended to point out our readiness and determination to die in order to follow Jesus.  The cross represents all the things I am going to have to die to in order to be a disciple of Jesus.  Jesus himself had a choice.  He could follow the plan of the people to make him king and conquer the Romans.  Or, he could follow the plan of his Father.  He had a choice to make.  To many of the Jews, his choice was a rejection of them.  But in reality Jesus loved them and wanted them to all become his disciples.  However, he could not reject his Father.  Thus we will find ourselves in situations where Jesus wants us to do one thing, but our family may want us to do another.  We must be willing to sacrifice everything in order to have Jesus.  This may sound hard, but it is the teaching of Jesus.

Now, we do not all lose the same things in following Jesus.  In fact, many families have been saved and have had long traditions of serving Jesus.  Thus there was never a choice to be made between Jesus and family.  However, some have had to.  When it comes to relationships, the disciple of Jesus is to love everyone, even his enemies.  Yet, sometimes those we are in relationship do not like our relationship with Jesus.  If they ever lay down an ultimatum and require us to choose then we must choose Jesus.  We see this with the apostles in the book of Acts.  They were pulled in before the authorities and told to stop preaching about Jesus.  These guys were not trying to be rebels against the government, but they were trying to follow Jesus.  Thus they say, “You must judge whether in God’s eyes it is right to listen to you and not to God.  We cannot promise to stop proclaiming what we have seen and heard.”  Jesus had commanded them to preach the good news about what he had done and accomplished.  But the legal authorities were commanding them to disobey Jesus.  Thus the response is that they will not make such a promise.  However, later when they are apprehended they submit to the persecution and even loss of their lives because these are the very things Jesus promised them would be.  So it is not that I will have to choose between relationships, but I must have decided already in my heart that Jesus is Lord and Master.  Jesus doesn’t want to rid you of any relationships with people.  But he does want to rid us of our relationship with sin in our life.  Thus the disciple is a person who allows the Lord to prune their life in order to become more fruitful for God.

We Must Count The Cost

Starting in verse 28 Jesus gives two illustrations of counting the cost.  Following Jesus is costly and a wise man will sit down and think it through first.  Can I pay such a price?  The first illustration is building a tower.  To begin such a project and then fall short would cost a person financially and socially.  I would be wiped out financially and people would mock me and lack any trust in my future endeavors.  Now this is a good illustration because God wants to build in us the character and person of Jesus Christ.  He wants to make us be like Jesus.  That kind of work will cost us in a lot of different ways.

Likewise, he uses the illustration of going to war.  It would be foolish to persist in a war that you cannot win.  Rather, you would stop and seek terms of surrender.  This is also a good illustration because we are in a battle.  The devil does not want anyone becoming like Jesus.  He works day and night to trap people in bondages that keep them from seeing Christ and especially becoming like him.  So here Jesus puts his terms on the table.  He will not settle for anything but the primary place in your life.  He will not share your allegiance with the devil.

It is possible that you could lose everything in this world to follow Christ.  Of course the odds go up or down depending on where you live.  At this point in America the odds are not very high that you will lose everything.  But, they are increasing every day.  In fact, this has been the normal in many countries of the world.  Even historically it was the norm in Europe.  That is why our ancestors left Europe seeking the New World.  They were fleeing tyranny in order to be free to serve Jesus.  They had to be willing to let go of their denominations, their relatives, even their nation in order to have Jesus.  Yet, today the New World has become the Old World once again.  To where will we flee?  At some point it is time to stop running and simply stand no matter what comes.  Jesus and I must stand as one regardless of the ultimatums the world may hurl at us.

To Become Like Him

Jesus ends this section with the imagery of salt.  His disciples would be the salt of the world.  Salt affects whatever it touches because of its nature.  If we follow Jesus he intends to change our nature to where we will affect the world around us.  Like salt, our commitment to living out the godly life of Jesus will slow down the moral decay of the world around us.  Also like salt, our faith in Jesus makes us desirable to God.  In and of ourselves we are like bland food that few want to eat.  But with Jesus we become tastier, not just to God, but some people in life are drawn by the “flavor” of a person following Jesus- the sacrificial life.

Jesus lays down the gauntlet with this crowd.  You either move forward and become like Jesus, or you shrink back and fall away as salt that has lost its saltiness.  I doubt you have ever bought salt from the store only to find it useless.  But this was not rare in the days of Jesus.  Such salt is useless and thrown away.  When the Spirit of God takes up residence within us and makes us over to be like Jesus, we become spiritually “salty.”  Many people like the idea of following Jesus, but the reality causes them to shrink back.  At this point some completely fall away.  However, others simply redefine Jesus to fit what they now believe.  Later they may step further back away from the True Jesus and yet redefine him again.  All along they tell themselves that they are disciples of Jesus, yet they have never died to anything in order to follow him.  How about it, have you counted the cost?  Do so today and choose to follow Jesus no matter what.

counted cost audio

Stepping In His Steps

This weekend is Father’s Day and so I want to look at several verses in Psalm 37:23-24.  When Jesus called his disciples he used a certain phrase, “Come, follow me.”  Those who responded became his disciples.  Notice that this same thing is happening today, 20 centuries later.  Of course, Jesus is not physically here calling people.  But, the Holy Spirit is speaking to the hearts of individuals and through the lives of believers to call out to this world, “Come, follow me.”

Yet, this call to follow Jesus would be like asking a child to follow a professional rock climber.  Without help we are unable to follow Jesus.  Today’s passage makes it clear that those who respond to the call to follow Jesus are not left to do it in their own strength.  Rather, they are helped by God Himself.

The Good Man Fights the Good Fight

Verse 23 starts out by referring to a “good man.”  The word translated as good is a term that can also mean strong, as in strong for battle.  Because the context is not about physical strength it gets translated as “good” as in morally strong.  Perhaps it may be better to see it as strong in faith because that is what is in contention.  It is clearly a righteous man who trusts in the Lord that is in view.  In fact the whole chapter is a treatise regarding the righteous and the unrighteous.  So this is a good man, a man strong in his faith toward God. 

We see the Apostle Paul speaking of this in 2 Timothy 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”  He has been a strong warrior for the Lord.  The good fight is not fought with physical strength, but with spiritual strength.

Our battle is not with atheists and other religions.  Rather, our battle is first of al with our own self.  The flesh has a powerful way of justifying its lusts and desires.  If we do not restrain it, it will pull us down into a quagmire of serving self.  We also battle against the corrupting influence of this world.  Its culture, institutions, systems and powers are difficult obstacles to overcome in the arena of faith.  Also, we have a spiritual enemy in the devil and his evil spirits.  They operate mainly through deception and temptation.  These three areas of Self, World, and the Devil take a man who is strong for battle.

Of course, none of us are able to conquer these three areas.  Only Jesus has been able to do that.  He is the ultimate warrior.  He has done what none of us could do.  However, this enables us to follow him.  When we stick close to Jesus and put our steps into his steps we will be able to have victory in these areas.  We will talk more about this later.

The Good Man Gets Direction From The Lord

Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.”  So in Psalm 37 we are told that the Lord “orders” the steps of a man who trusts him.  Our paths or steps are a picture of the decisions and actions that we do in life.  Put in order we walk a certain way.  Now there really are only two ways in life.  God’s way will lead us to life. But “my” way will lead me to death.  Even if “my” way involves following someone that we look up to, other than Jesus, it is still headed in the same direction.  Yet, believers find that when we try to follow Jesus our way becomes a mixture of veering off the path of Jesus and then course correcting to get back in line.  This may seem futile, but recognize that God is able to direct us through it all.  He is not trying to control our every step so much as inform our every step.  Do you get your directions from Jesus?  Perhaps you wonder how that is possible.

We have the commands and example of Christ given to us in the New Testament.  We also have a powerful instructive picture in the Old Testament that helps us to understand who Jesus really is.  Thus his directions, in general, are given in the Bible.  As you read the Bible you will see that Christ does not call us anywhere that he hasn’t gone himself.  So if we cast off his commands and example we are trusting in our own thinking or the thinking of someone else.  The problem here is not that we are thinking.  Note in Proverbs 3:5-6 that we are only warned against leaning (i.e. putting all your weight upon) on our own understanding.  Yes we have questions and fears.  But we shouldn’t put our weight upon those things.  Instead we should trust the lord.  If we are truly listening, God will lead us and give direction to our path.  He will not force us.  He wants us to follow out of our own heart.  But know this, His direction will give you sure footing on treacherous ground.

The Good Man Is A Delight To God

You may not be particularly excited about your life right now, but God is.  He delights in our trust even when it is the trust of a spiritual babe.  He knows that it will grow and become the trust of a strong man of faith in time.

He also delights in the future to which He is bringing us.  He is leading us to a wonderful goal both in this life and in the life to come.  He sees the end that we cannot see yet and He is delighted in anticipation of the joys we shall have together.  Even when we are told the end goal, we cannot truly grasp how it will come about and what it will be like.  Thus it is our joy to delight in the discovery and realization of those things along with Him.

What about our failures?  Surely God doesn’t delight in us when we have failed.  The reality is that none of us will make it into eternity without having failed.  Only Jesus is the perfect warrior against sin.  God can see over the top of our failures to the person we are going to become.  He loves us, not just in spite of our failures.  In fact, our trust and love become more precious and more of a delight because it is over the top of cuts and bruises in this life.  Our trust becomes that much more precious, which brings us to the point of verse 24.

The Good Man Is Supported When He Falls

God promises to help us when we fall morally.  He knows that our frame is frail and that we are but dust.  This is precisely why He has pledged Himself to help us.  If you put your trust in Jesus, you will make it, period.

We might ask our self why we fell.  Did I fall because I desired sin?  Or, did I fall because someone else sinned against me and I couldn’t let it go?  Perhaps I merely lack skill in a particular area that he enemy is attacking and I am learning to follow Jesus.  Whatever the reason, Jesus knows your difficulties.  If you look to Him and cry out in the time of need, he will help you.

Notice verse 24 says that though a man fall, he will not be cast out.  It is one thing to fall, but quite another to never get up again.  Everyone who has fallen reaches that moment when they realize that they have survived and need to get up, and in fact must.  Can you imagine if the first time you fell off your bicycle you just quit trying ever again?  Though it sounds silly, what if you never got up off the ground and continued to cry and get angry for years on end?  Things that don’t happen in the natural often happen spiritually.  Many people are still laying in the road of some misfortune long ago and, instead of getting up, they just lay there refusing to move on.  Please know this, God is not looking for an excuse to get rid of you or throw you away.  He knows you will fail and He is committed to helping you get up and keep riding until you get it.  However, you must want to get back up and keep trusting Him.  People may cast you aside, but Jesus has pledged, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  And, that means even when you fail.

In fact, the Lord promises in verse 24 to support us by His own hand.  Allstate insurance can only do so much for you.  But there are far better hands in this world and they are God’s.  The support or bracing of the Lord holds us up so that we do not fail beyond recovery.  Of course we may not want to fall and wish God would keep that from happening.  However, we will never learn if God protects us from the effects of our decisions.  The hand is the symbol of power.  The power of God is Jesus.  He is the hand of God that has come down to save us.  When you trust in those hands they will lift you up through this life and through times of failure and bring you out the other side.  Jesus does this through the work of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit’s purpose is to come alongside of us and provide the help that we need.  If this is His purpose then He is also working in believers to be such a help to other believers.  I point this out because in engineering bracing is always done through triangles.  Thus God supports us directly by his Holy Spirit and indirectly through other believers.  This triangle of God, You, and Other believers is magnified by the multitude of relationships we can have with other believers.  Let the Lord support you.  If you aren’t a part of a group of believers that are trusting God and helping each other through life then you are missing a great part of how God intends to support you.

Now, the enemy wants you to stay down and refuse all help when you fall.  If you let him, he will get in your head and poison your thinking.  He will lead you to believe that it is impossible for God to love you because you have failed so badly.  In fact he only needs to insert the idea and walk away.  You will do all the work for him by trusting in what he says.  Don’t do that.  You will never recover from failure until you reject the lies of satan and believe the truth of God.  “Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholds him with His hand.”  It is not over.  God is not done with you yet.  Trust him.  Rise up and walk!

Stepping in His Steps Audio