March 4, 2001

Luke 14:25-35

How to Count the Cost

Introduction

Illustration – Did you hear the one about the shoplifter who became a Christian? He wrote to a department store – "I’ve just become a Christian, and I can’t sleep at night because I feel guilty. So here’s $100 that I owe you." Then he signed the note and added this postscript: "If I still can’t sleep, I’ll send you the rest."
Context – All of us have a price, a point at which we’ll sell out. Now whether or not we sell out to Jesus depends a lot on our counting the cost. Let’s read what He has to say about counting the cost.

Scripture Passage

Luke 14:25-35 - Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: ²⁶"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. ²⁷And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. ²⁸"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? ²⁹For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, ³⁰saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ ³¹"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? ³²If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. ³³In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple. ³⁴"Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? ³⁵It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

This is one of those passages where things just don’t seem to go together. I mean, how do you compare hating your family, carrying a cross, building a tower, a king going to war, and tasteless salt? There is a connection here, and that connection is what we’re going to take a look at today.

Hating your family

Verse 26 contains a real problem for us if we don’t read it right. Jesus says that if you come after Him and don’t hate your family and even your own life you can’t be his disciple. How can you hate your family when Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves? On the surface, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But if you look at this verse in light of the whole of Scripture, what you see is not a command to hate, but a vivid word picture. What Jesus is telling us is that we have to love Jesus so much more than our immediate family, and even ourselves, that our love for our family and self pales by comparison. It’s kind of like comparing a dump truck to a Geo. Or Hoover Dam to a beaver dam. Our love for Christ must dwarf our love for our family and ourself. We have to love our family intensely and be willing to die for them, and our love for Jesus must be even greater than that.
So Jesus says to love Him much, much more than our families and ourselves. Then He says that anyone who doesn’t carry their cross and follow Him can’t be His disciple either. Carrying your cross meant that you were walking the road to crucifixion, with a slow and painful death immanent. But Jesus isn’t asking us to carry His cross; He’s telling us that we need to carry our own cross. He’s saying that we have to be so committed to Him that we are willing to die a horrible death for Him. He’s saying that even if our family leaves us and our enemies are trying to kill us, we still have to love Him and follow Him in order to be His disciple. Even if it costs us everything.
Illustration – Ruth Tucker wrote about Dr. Eleanor Chestnut, who arrived in China in 1893 under the American Presbyterian missions board. She built a hospital, using her own money to buy bricks and mortar. The need for a surgeon was so great that she performed surgery in her bathroom until the hospital was completed. In one operation, she had to amputate a common laborer’s leg, and complications that required skin grafts arose. A few days later, another doctor asked Chestnut why she was limping. "Oh, it’s nothing." Finally, a nurse revealed that the skin graft for the patient can from Dr. Chestnut’s own leg, which she took using only a local anesthetic. During the Boxer Rebellion of 1905, Dr. Chestnut and four other missionaries were killed by a mob that stormed the hospital. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, The cross of Christ destroyed the equation "religion equals happiness." I doubt that many of us will be required to give our lives for our faith like Bonhoeffer and Chestnut, but we have to be willing to give whatever it takes to follow Jesus. He goes on in this passage to talk more about the cost of following Him.

The Cost

Have you ever noticed how much of the time Jesus uses word pictures to convey His message? He continues His thought with a couple of rather confusing ones. He’s been talking about loving Him and being committed to Him, then He starts talking about a tower and armies. It’s a bit confusing at first glance, but we can make some sense of it if we look at it more closely.
Jesus talks about a man estimating the cost to see if he’s got enough money to build a tower. The Greek means to "count" or "calculate." The root word means "a pebble used as a counter." When they were counting or calculating, they would move pebbles from one hand to the other in the process of counting. This word was also used in voting. As least with pebbles you wouldn’t have a problem with chads! Seriously, Jesus was saying that you must give carefully calculate whether the cost of following Him is worth the rewards. Then He adds that, if you start to follow Him and then find following Him eats up too many of your personal resources, you will be mocked, made fun of, taunted, and ridiculed. The idea is of not being about to bring to completion or to finish successfully. If we start on the journey with Christ and can’t finish, those around us will have the right to make our lives miserable. Not to mention the eternal consequences. Jesus is telling us that following Him is a decision not to be made lightly.
Then He talks about a king. Another king is coming with an army twice as big as his to fight with Him. Jesus says that it only makes sense for the first king to sit down with his advisors to decide if he can win the war. And if he can’t, then he’ll send ambassadors to ask for terms of peace. In other words, what will it take to keep you from wiping me out? Kings would send just about every ounce of gold and other treasures they possessed to keep from being conquered. Why? Because you can’t be a king without a kingdom. We all have our own kingdoms. Our kingdoms are those things we treasure above all else. Jesus says, "in the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple." It’s going to take everything you value to keep the king with his huge army from wiping you out, and that’s the same thing that Jesus requires of those who follow Him.
But then Jesus talks about salt losing its flavor. He’s continuing His thought about the futility of beginning to follow Him and then dropping out of the game. Ultimately, we’re going to have to choose between ourselves, our families, our stuff, everything we value, and following Jesus. Because if we let anything get between us and Him, we lose our saltiness, our ability to impact the world for Him. We lose the ability to be useful for His kingdom. We cannot follow Him, because we will not pay the price.
Illustration – Clark Cothern writes about one Christmas when his family had an unexpected guest. A squirrel had fallen down their chimney into the wood burning stove in the basement. I thought if it knew we were there to help, I could just reach in and gently life it out. Nothing doing. As I reached in…it began scratching about like a squirrel overdosed on espresso. We finally managed to construct a cardboard box "cage" complete with a large hole cut into one side, into which the squirrel waltzed when we placed the box against the wood burner’s door. We let it out into the safety of our backyard. Later, I thought, Isn’t it funny how, before its redemption, our little visitor had frantically tried to bash its way out of its dark prison? It seemed that the harder it struggled in its own strength to get free, the more pain it caused itself. In the end, he simply had to wait patiently until one who was much bigger – one who could peer into his world – could carry him safely to that larger world where he really belonged. That is what we need the Lord to do for us. When we decide to allow Him to do that for us, no matter what the cost, He will do awesome things through us.

Counting the Cost

You know, when we think about it in those terms, counting the cost becomes a simple thing. We have ourselves, our families, our stuff, our kingdoms on the one hand. We have Jesus and following Him on the other hand. Which do we choose?
Giving up everything means "bidding good-bye to" everything. It all is placed before Him. Whatever He chooses to take, He takes. Whatever He chooses to leave in our lives, He leaves. We give up all of our rights when we choose to love Him much more than our families, take up our cross, and follow Him. If we let Him have it, we say bye-bye to it and place ourselves totally at His disposal.
On the other hand, if we count up the cost and decide it’s too much, then we lose out on the rewards of following Christ. Eternal life, the Holy Spirit within us, peace, fellowship, love, and knowing we are within God’s will for our lives. In following Jesus we pay a tremendous price, but in not following Him we pay a higher one. Refusing to follow Jesus costs us our soul.
Illustration – John-Roger wrote – The master addiction is control. It is not a lack of courage that keeps us from moving forward, as most people think; it is the fear of losing control. Are you letting the fear of losing control of your life keep you from following Jesus? That’s the battle I fought for years. I didn’t want to be a pastor. I didn’t want to live the kind of life that would be necessary for me to become one. An occasional drink wouldn’t hurt me. And, hey, everybody cusses from time to time. And what’s wrong with putting my wants and desires ahead of everyone else’s. I don’t want to give up control of my life to God. I’m comfortable where I’m at and I don’t want to change.

That’s what I told myself. Actually, the cost was much higher than I had figured. Where does having peace because you know you’re finally in God’s plan factor in? Where does slowly beginning to overcome sinful habits come in? And where does finally having no doubts that you’re going to heaven because you’re trying with everything you are to walk as Jesus wants you to factor into that equation? Living outside of the will of God is no picnic! It’s not worth it! If you’re where I was, count the cost of not following Him and you will find it is a much steeper one to pay!

Conclusion

Is there an area of your life in which you’ve considered the cost of following Christ too high? Think about the great cost of not following Him. You’ll eventually either figure out that the cost of following Him is worth the sacrifices you will have to make, or that following Him at all was a mistake in your life. That may seem extreme, but if you keep saying no to God in your life, eventually you lose your ability to listen. I’m not trying to use scare tactics; I’m just telling you what the Bible says.
With every head bowed and every eye closed, if there is an area you’ve been saying no to God in, and you want to give Him permission to work in that area, please raise your hand now and we’ll pray for you. God will take that sincerely raised hand as a sign of commitment and begin to work in you. If you want to follow Jesus no matter what the cost, and you haven’t been, please raise your hand now.
Let’s pray.