What Will it Cost Me to Follow Jesus?

“What will it Cost Me to Follow Jesus?”

Pastor Jerry

Luke 14:25-33

————————————- Message Synopsis ————————————-

How many of you like to shop? People seem to either love to shop, or, they hate it. More people are turning to online shopping to avoid the difficulties of going to stores. My wife does not enjoy shopping. She avoids it as much as she can.

One of the most deceptive things in our society is keeping people from knowing the true cost of an item that is being sold. Have you ever received a bill in the mail which gives the basic cost but there are twelve different categories on the bill that list different fees and charges and taxes and you are trying to figure out what it all means and none of it makes any sense.

Well, it is this very kind of confusion that Jesus wanted to avoid when he called persons to follow Him. Following Christ is costly. And Jesus warns us to count the cost first, before we follow him. How do we calculate the cost? Christ gives us an answer. And the answer is not complicated and it’s not confusing. This is His answer: forsake everything to be his follower. His answer is clear…but, it is costly!

Jesus turns to the crowd and tells them, “Unless you’re serious about following me, you might as well go home!” Jesus knows that some of those following Him are only tagging along to see another miracle. So, Jesus says, “Do you really want to follow me? OK then, forsake everything else!” It almost sounds as if Jesus is trying to get people to stop following him! But Jesus is not trying to get rid of followers. We need to know what we’re getting into when we say we want to follow Jesus, because the cost is high.

What will it cost you to follow Jesus? Salvation is free to receive but costly to live out.

Notice that I am not talking about salvation here. I am talking about discipleship. Jesus wants to do more for us than save us from our sins, as crucial and as important as that is. Jesus wants to give us abundant life, to deepen our relationship with him as we grow in faith. Jesus wants us to be his true disciples.

What I’m going to do in this message— is share what it will cost you to follow Jesus.

(1) You say yes to the Cost without looking at the Price Tag

Jesus is calling people to follow him in discipleship, and then he’s reminding them that it’s like building a tower that you don’t want to leave half-finished or like going to war and realizing you don’t have enough soldiers to win the battle and defeat the enemy.

So, he says, “Be sure to count the cost before you sign up for discipleship with Jesus because it’s costly. I don’t want you to sign up naively and be surprised later when the cost is very high.” That’s the gist of the situation Jesus’s pointing out, and that’s right.

So, when we ask, “How do you count the cost when you don’t know what’s coming in your life?” The answer is that Jesus requires, upfront, a commitment to the highest possible cost. And nothing later is going to surprise you then because you’ve already totally sold to the highest, most excessive cost.

In other words, you don’t need to know the specifics of the cost in your own particular case if the agreement you sign is “I’m yours at any cost.” And it’s exactly what these verses say.

(2) You say Yes to the Cost even if it is the Highest Price

In verses 26–27. Jesus 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.” Now, this is extreme language. The most extreme that he could use, I think, to show that the degree of the cost we may have to pay is extreme.

The first extreme language is “I am calling you to something that is going to look like hatred.” And the second extreme language is “I am calling you to get on a cross,” which means you will suffer. So, counting the cost of discipleship means realizing that authentic discipleship may demand from you the highest price relationally and the highest price physically.

(3) You say Yes to the Cost with no Negotiating

Jesus ends the paragraph like this: “So, therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). Now, there are two absolutes in that sentence. One is found in the phrase any one. This applies to every disciple: “Any one of you who does not renounce all he has.” The other absolute is found in the word all. “You must renounce all that you have’ to be my disciple. You must be ready at any time to let go of everything for Jesus’s sake.

So, when we ask, “How do we count the cost in advance when we don’t know what the cost will be in advance?” The answer is, you assume the cost could be total. All possessions given up, all relationships given up, all of life given up. That’s expectation that Jesus calls for.

There’s no calculating. There is no saying, “Well, if the cost reaches this, then I’m not interested in Jesus anymore.” Because Jesus says, “You can’t sign up that way.” That’s not what disciples say.

You say Yes to the Cost and receive a Rich Reward

Disciples are all in, or they’re not in. That’s what the text is saying. But let’s make sure that we get this in right perspective, because just a few paragraphs earlier — in this same chapter — Jesus said, after he laid down some pretty high costs, “You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:14).

In other words, “There is no cost that you can pay in following me that won’t be made up to you a thousand-fold in the resurrection.” And we need to remember Matthew 13:44, which says, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” A man sees and sells everything he has to get that treasure. In other words, all the so-called costs and all the so-called losses — everything — are nothing compared to the gains of having Jesus, the greatest treasure.

So yes, we must count the cost in order to be a disciple. The cost is total in principle and may be total in actual experience. In the end, having Jesus means gain, like Paul says: “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8).

When we say “yes” to following Jesus, when we surrender our will to his will, something amazing happens. Bit by bit, we are changed. Each time we keep saying “yes, Lord, I leave behind everything to follow you.” We are transformed, becoming more and more like Christ. We experience abundant life, by God’s grace. And we discover that the cost of following Jesus, that we thought we couldn’t possibly afford, is worth it all. Because the price has already been paid out of God’s deep love for us, and when we give our all to Christ, we receive so much more!

Journey from Religion to Relationship

Finding Your Spiritual Journey

“Journey from Religion to Relationship”

by Pastor Jerry

March 29, 2020:

(Selections from) Luke 19 28-47

———————–Sermon Synopsis————————-

In late October 1991 a storm was brewing and the crew of the fishing boat Andrea Gail had taken their boat five hundred miles out into the Atlantic Ocean. The forces of nature converged on the helpless Andrea Gail creating the “perfect storm.”

Let’s compare that storm to the storm in the last days of Jesus’ life on this earth. That perfect storm came to a head as the Passover Feast approached in, probably, AD30, in Jerusalem. The “perfect storm” into which Jesus rode into Jerusalem that day. It is one of the few scenes described in all four Gospels in the Bible. That event is called the Triumphal Entry, and it has been celebrated by churches around the world as Easter approaches for the past two thousand years.

Jesus’ entry into the city of Jerusalem at the beginning of that fateful week can supply an illustration of three things that change when Jesus enters our lives. Salvation comes to the human heart, not as a result of religion and self-effort—but as a result of relationship, as a result of the living presence of Jesus Christ coming into your heart and taking up residence there as Savior and Lord. And a true, living relationship with Jesus brings about things that no amount of religion could ever do. One of those things is this:

When Jesus enters my life, forgiveness comes to me.

One of the elements in that perfect storm that eventually swept Jesus up to Calvary was the Sadducees. The Sadducees were the priestly party that were the elite caretakers of the Temple. The high priest was a Sadducee. The high priest represented the people before God, interceding with God on behalf of the people. The Bible says Jesus is himself both high priest and the once-for-all sacrifice for sin.

Jesus said to the Father, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” And the Bible says, “by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Hebrews 10:1–10, NIV). Jesus came, a high priest above all high priests, and did not offer a bull or lamb as a sacrifice—he offered himself.

And so, when Jesus comes into my life, when he takes up residence in my heart, his saving and healing presence brings forgiveness and cleansing that no religious act could ever bring about. I don’t have to take a precious offering to a priest to have my sins forgiven; I can have the high priest actually living in my heart, and when I have him, I have complete forgiveness and cleansing through His once-for-all sacrifice for me.

There is another way in which a true, living, relationship with Jesus brings about far more than religion could ever do:

When Jesus enters my life, righteousness comes to me.

Two parties objected to Jesus’ actions on that triumphant entry into the holy city. One was the Sadducees: who were “the chief priests and the scribes” (Luke 19:47). The other is: “the Pharisees” (v39) who were the “teachers of the Law,” the rabbis who relied on obeying the Law of Moses in every detail to try to gain favor in God’s sight.

As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; all have sinned…” (Romans 3:9b NIV). Despite all the Pharisees’ efforts, no one—not one soul—had manage to keep the Law of God … because the Law was not given to make us righteous. The Bible says the Law was given to show us our sin. Romans 3:20 says, No one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin (NIV). In other words, the Law exists so that you and I, and all of us, will know we are sinners. Why? So that we know we need a Savior. And that’s where Jesus comes in.

He is the fulfillment of the Law. He said: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17, NIV).

Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law. So when he enters my life—when I by faith enter into a relationship with him—the fulfillment of the Law takes up residence within me! When he enters my life, righteousness enters with him …because he is righteousness.

The Bible says: God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV). When Jesus enters my life, forgiveness comes to me because of the sacrifice He made for me as my high priest. When Jesus enters my life, righteousness comes, too, because he is the fulfillment of the Law.

And there is yet one more way in which a true, living relationship with Jesus brings about far more than religion could ever do:

When Jesus enters my life, a new power comes to me.

After Jesus was arrested, and placed on trial, He was shuttled between King Herod, ruler of the people of Palestine, and Pilate, the governor of Jerusalem, These earthly rulers supposedly had the power to pardon or sentence Jesus. Yet the whole time Jesus stood before these human rulers, the true power was in his hands, not theirs: “Are you the King of the Jews?” asked Pilate. “You have said so,” Jesus replied (Mark 15:2, NIV).

And so he is. This is why, after Jesus had died and rose from the dead, his closest followers asked him, “Lord, are you now going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” In other words, “Are you going to take your throne and exert all your power … and, of course, share it with us?”

They still didn’t fully understand that Jesus was a different kind of king and his kingdom was a different kind of kingdom. But he knew what they were asking, so he answered, “You will receive power …” But it would not be political power, temporal power. He told them that theirs would be a power of a different kind.

And that power is yours, too, if you accept the king because when Jesus enters your life, a new power comes to you because he is your king. All the power of the kingdom comes when the King enters in. That’s what Jesus meant when he told his first followers, Anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these … (John 14:12, NIV 1984). Jesus asked those who were praising him as he entered Jerusalem… will you follow me? Jesus asked those who wanted a changed life …will you follow me? Jesus asks you the same today …will you follow me?

Religion isn’t enough to give you what it takes to follow Jesus. To follow Jesus you must make a commitment to a relationship with Him. And you can have that relationship this coming Easter …you can have it now … you can come today and begin to follow Him.