It Will Cost You Everything - Steve Lawson

well what a special place this is today to be together with so many like-minded brothers and sisters and the Lord to have heard what we heard this morning in the unfolding of Isaiah chapter 53 and what I want to do now is to stand on the shoulders of that message that we heard from Isaiah 53 which so powerfully and passionately proclaimed the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ upon the cross and I want to ask you where do you stand in relationship to the cross it's one thing for you to be in this building and it's something else for you to be in Christ it is one thing for you to have gotten in line outside to come in and it's something else for you to be in line behind Jesus Christ and following him and so today I want to stand at the gate I want to stand at the narrow gate and urge and call many of you to come through the narrow gate and I want us to look at a text of scripture today that will outline for us and speak very directly to what it is to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ not to be merely a church member and not to be merely a conference attender but what does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ every true Christian every born-again believer is a disciple of Jesus Christ today I want to clarify what is it to be a disciple and a follower of Jesus Christ and I want to urge you and call you if you've never yet become a disciple of Christ to come to the cross and to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ probably most of us here today have already surrendered our lives to Christ and I want to urge us who have come through the narrow gate and who are going down the narrow path I want to encourage us to be all the more resilient in our faith and all the more radically committed to the lordship of Christ there's not a one of us in this room today who are too committed to Christ every one of us who have already surrendered our lives to Christ need to be even more resolved to follow Jesus Christ and so my Texas Scripture that I want to begin by reading is in the Gospel of Luke if you would take God's Word and turn with me to Luke chapter 14 and today I want to speak to you on the cost of discipleship or it will cost you everything Luke chapter 14 I want to begin reading in verse 25 and I want to set this before your eyes and before your heart and I want you to be engaged with what our Lord Jesus says in these verses Luke 14 25 now large crowds would be like what we find ourselves in today large crowds plural it speaks of just hundreds and hundreds if not thousands we're going along with him and he turned and said to them 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 the one who issues the call sets the terms and we are not allowed to negotiate on the terms he says in verse 27 whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple for which one of you when he wants to build a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it otherwise when he has laid a foundation it is not able to finish all who observe it will begin to ridicule him saying this man this man began to build and was not able to finish in a former life many years ago I used to play college football I played college football for four years at Texas Tech University it's nice to know who the elect are after all Bobby Knight is our college coach in basketball so we have very high spiritual standards and I remember during the spring of my senior year in high school I was given a full football scholarship which paid for everything the only person happier than me was my father for the next four years everything was paid in full my tuition was free my books were free as many tutors as I wanted for four years were free my room was free my meals were free my laundry was free every plane flight to an out of town game was free every bus ride to a stadium was free my Corvette was now they didn't give me a quarter I feel like I'm CJ now you know and for the next four years everything in my life as it related to college was paid in full it didn't cost me a cent all my laundry was free as many stakes as I could eat were free everything was free and for the next four years it cost me everything it began with two day practices in August and it would be a hundred and five degrees in West Texas we had just put down an artificial grass field and you could stand on one end zone and 105 that that gridiron became like a skillet you could stand on one goal line and look at the goalposts on the other end of our stadium and you could barely even see the goalposts for all of the heat that was rising offseason conditioning was was was was mind-boggling the coaches would literally kill us if you never miss class you were there at 6:00 a.m. in the morning you're running the stadium stairs every kind of weightlifting every kind of gymnastics in fact we even fought with each other and climbed ropes and and on and on in two days and in spring training and then coming out early and and the easiest part of those four years was during the season and you would just give yourself to completely I even went to the doctor last week I lost my voice and he numb my nose and put a like a telescope down my nose look at my vocal cords and as he did it he said well your nose is broken and I said my nose has never been broken he said trust me he said your nose is broken and I thought back to those many practices and how many times I was hit so hard that I was just numb that I couldn't even feel another hit and and who knows I spent one semester on crutches there was a there was a semester I couldn't even go to class Sundays because I was so hurt and and so banged up in my education everything for four years was paid in full it was free and the fact of the matter is it costs me blood toil sweat and tears it cost me everything that was in me as I would sacrifice and radically give myself to this cause a football I want you to know that's exactly the way it is to be a Christian that's exactly what Jesus is saying here that when he went to the cross as CJ so wonderfully laid out for us he went to the cross God took our sins God transferred them to the innocent lamb of God and he bore our sins in his body and the father crushed him upon the cross and Jesus shed his blood and made an atonement for our sin and at the end he said it is finished to tell us die and he paid in full the entirety of our sin debt and there is not one thin dime you can bring to the cross and contribute anything to your eternal salvation but you need to understand the terms for receiving the free gift because if you are to receive the free gift here's what it's going to cost you it's going to require the total commitment of all that you are to the Lord Jesus Christ and there are some of you here today who think you are saved and the fact is you are really not and all you've done is walking I'll raise a hand sign a card show up at a Bible study show up at a conference but the fact of the matter is you've never done business with God and you have never come to the intersection of life and have never come to the place where you're ready to give the entirety of who you are to Jesus Christ and it is only then that you are able to receive the free gift and for those of you here today who have not yet become a true bonafide disciple of Jesus Christ I want you to see what Jesus says regarding how to enter into the kingdom of heaven and for the rest of us who are who have come through the narrow gate and we have committed our lives to Christ we need to understand that as we walk in a manner worthy of our calling it requires that we deepen our commitment to Christ that's precisely what Jesus is saying here and what Christ says in verse 26 and in verse 27 these terms are non-negotiable these terms are absolute these terms are fixed and set these terms are unalterable and they are the same for every one of us Jesus never tried to induce the crowd to follow him Jesus never tried to manipulate decisions jesus never sugar-coated the message Jesus never kept the hard part in fine print where we couldn't locate it jesus never softened the requirement jesus never marked down the price for following him and every one of us here today need to do some serious soul-searching is verse 26 and is verse 27 true of my life and so this morning I want us to consider what it is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ in verse 25 if he says large crowds were going along with them these were huge crowds and one thing we need to understand it's easy to be a part of a crowd it's easy to get in line in fact the larger the crowd the easy it is to be inconspicuous and to just blend in and the easier it is to simply just ride the wave and ride the momentum without ever having to make an individual personal commitment to Jesus Christ with your own life and our Lord understood that there is a crowd mentality there is a movement mentality people want to be where people are and the bigger the crowd the more other people want to be in that crowd and how easy it is for people to come be a part of a crowd and the crowds here with our Lord in verse 25 they are growing they are swelling they are exploding they are multiplying but our Lord is not deceived because he does not measure success in the ministry by the size of the crowd and our Lord now stops and does something that no doubt to the disciples was shocking in verse 25 it says large crowds were going along with him and he turned the ideas he stopped and he turned around and spoke to them and he knew now that the crowd had become a mixed bag even within his own 12 disciples it was a mixed bag that there was one who has not converted Judas and with a crowd this large our Lord knew that not only were there those who are committed but there were others who were merely curious and there were others who were merely coming along and so our Lord turned to face them directly and what our Lord is doing is saying in essence stop and he cysts through the crowd and periodically our Lord would do this as if to say the crowd is getting too big it is becoming too easy to jump on the bandwagon it is becoming too easy to be swept up in this movement of following me and as our Lord says this he brings it down to an individual basis and he puts it before them and calls for the total commitment of their soul the key word in this text you'll find it is the last word of verse 26 and it is the last word of verse 27 and it has also found the middle word in verse 33 and it is the word disciple not an attender but a disciple and what our Lord is longing for and what our Lord died for he died only for disciples of Jesus Christ not one drop of blood was shed beyond the disciples and it is only for his own people that he has died so what is a disciple it's very important for us here to know what a disciple is because it is only a disciple who is in line and following after Jesus Christ a disciple a true disciple is a true believer in Jesus Christ it is a a Greek word that means a learner it is one who has come to sit at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ and to be taught by him and become a follower of Jesus Christ in Matthew 28:19 go therefore into all the world and make disciples our Lord could care less about attenders our Lord is after disciples and a disciple is in these early chapters is a true believer in fact the word Christian and was not even coined and used in Scripture until later in the book of Acts in Acts chapter 11 and at that it was a term of derision and it means a little Christ and so our Lord now is issuing what are the terms of being a disciple of Christ and what are the terms that would allow one to get in line and to follow after him and so what our Lord says now is is is shocking what our Lord says is jolting to the crowd and what our Lord said had such impact upon their lives and today I want all of us in a sense to be shocked as we are reminded again of what are the terms that our Lord has issued for anyone in this building to take one step in following after him it is a free gift that he alone has purchased upon Calvary's cross and he gives it to us without price but he requires of us that we come to a place of total complete and radical submission and surrender of our lives to him or according to our Lord's words he cannot be my disciple our Lord puts it in the negative to have more of an impact upon our hearts as if holding up his hands and saying you cannot be one of my followers unless you come to this place so I want us to walk through this text and for some of us here today this will be what God will use in your life to come to the place where you are more than a mere attender where you are more than simply in a crowd where you are more than simply one who is going along coming along on the periphery where you actually become a true blood-bought follower of Jesus Christ and so in I want to begin now in verse 26 and I want you to note in verse 26 a supreme devotion a supreme devotion in order to become a true follower of Jesus Christ one must love him more than anyone or anything else in life there can be no competing affections there can be no competing allegiances Jesus Christ must be number one in your life or you cannot get in line and follow after Christ so notice what Jesus says in verse 26 if anyone and when he says if anyone he is saying there are no exceptions to this if anyone comes to me and to come to Christ is a synonymous phrase for saving faith and it inevitably leads to what we read in verse 27 to come after me all who come to me on his terms will inevitably come after him and this is the inevitable connection between justification and sanctification and true saving faith will be a lifelong commitment to follow after Christ and so in verse 26 he says if anyone comes to me if anyone commits their life to me if anyone becomes a true believer in me in verse 26 this will inevitably lead in verse 27 to a lifetime of coming after me there will be no aborted disciples once entering in who will cease to follow after and now in verse 26 he sets the terms and we need to be reminded of what these terms are this in verse 26 is our Lord's clarification of true saving faith it's not all that he has to say about true saving faith there are so many other texts but this is part and parcel of true saving faith at the beginning as well continuation of one's Christian life if anyone comes to me and does not hate and that word just leaps off the page does it not it sounds so harsh it sounds so offensive it sounds so fanatical and yet it is so true because it is spoken from the lips of the one who died upon the cross to purchase and secure our eternal salvation if anyone comes to me and does not hate and he begins now by speaking to those relationships that are the closest to you those relationships that where your closest allegiance and your closest loyalties will lie he begins with the inner concentric circles in your life those people who have most loved you and those whom you most loved if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters he cannot be my disciple listen Jesus if he ever spoke what he intended to say this was it and what does this mean hate other passages of Scripture say that you are to honor your father and mother Exodus 20 verse 12 and the Bible says we are to love even our enemies how much more those members of our own family of what does he speak well this is a Hebrew figure of speech that we even use in our English culture that is called hyperbole an exaggerated statement to make a point in which it is used to set love and hate side-by-side in order to convey this point that you must love me so much more then you love the people you love the most in this world and you must love me so much more than the things in this world that you love the most that what you feel for me and what you feel for them if you are in right relationship to me the love that you have for me would cause the love that you have for them to appear to be as hate in comparison to the supreme surpassing devotion and allegiance and affection that you have for me and we have our Lord's uninspired interpretation of this in Matthew chapter 10 and in verse 37 Jesus puts it this way he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me unquote see the issue is who you love the most and to love the Lord Jesus Christ is not merely feelings it requires the totality of who you are mind emotion and will to love Jesus Christ supremely it begins with the mind you can't love someone whom you do not know you cannot love someone whom you have not drawn close to and gotten to know more about them and it begins with the mind and it begins with sound doctrine and theology and the presentation of Christ in the Word of God and in order to love Jesus Christ your mind must be enlarged and filled with the knowledge of Jesus Christ love for Christ never happens in a vaccum love for christ never happens in a mindless mystical experience it is with the mind that all love begins you cannot love in a vacuum and then it involves the heart the affections as you come to see the person in work of the Lord Jesus Christ you behold his his infinite holiness and his unrivaled love that he has demonstrated at the cross for us and that he has given himself for us your heart comes under the influence of this and your heart is drawn and you love him with the depth of the feelings of your heart you cannot be a stoic you cannot be clinical you cannot be cold towards Christ and you're on the depths of your soul there is drawn out of it passion for Christ affection for Christ and then it involves the will and Jesus said if you love me you will keep my Commandments if you say you love Christ and do not walk in obedience to him hey it's just religious talk in your life if you truly love Jesus Christ your mind is inflamed your heart is enlarged and your will is engaged to commit your life surrender your life and trust your life to Jesus Christ and it is a decisive choice of the will when you get down to the bottom and when I met my wife and we got to know each other there was mentally understanding who she is and what she is and what her background is and what her strengths are and then there was the response in my heart to her as I was drawn to her and appreciated all of these beauties about her but I didn't truly say that I loved her until I stood at the front of the church and she walked down the aisle and as a choice of my will I surrendered my life to her and she to me that's what it is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and how easy it is Jesus understood to just be in the the anonymity of the crowd and to be caught up in the sensation and the emotion of the moment and our Lord brings it down here to the individual and to the specific and he calls for their absolute total allegiance to him that's what our Lord is doing here today God is speaking in his son and God is speaking to you and God is calling you out individually and he is calling for you to love him more than your father more than your mother more than your brother more than your sister and then he goes for the very jugular vein in verse 26 yes and even his own life and how we become so many times and we become self focused self-motivated self-reliant and Jesus said you're going to have to love me more than you even love yourself and he puts up his hands and he says or you cannot be my disciple you can still be a part of the crowd and walk on the perimeter but you cannot be one of mine that is the supreme devotion that our Lord calls for and as graphic as it sounds the greatest joy and the greatest pleasure in any person's life is to love the Lord Jesus Christ with all of their heart and all of their soul and all of their mind and all of their strength and to enter into a personal relationship with Christ where you talk with him where you walk with him where you fellowship with him where you commune with him it is the greatest experience in life now our Lord in verse 27 goes yet further and our Lord follows up with this statement in verse 27 verse 26 is a supreme devotion verse 27 27 is a self-denial and Jesus understands how easy it is to be self deceived when you are in the midst of a crowd how easy it is to be a counterfeit disciple how easy it is to be swept up in the moment of the larger crowds and to feel like yeah I guess I really am rightly connected with Christ when in reality it is not so so he follows up in verse 27 with yet another shocking statement we have heard it said so many times and quoted so many times that it has really lost some of its Thunder but look at verse 27 and see what it says whoever and when he says whoever that's like anyone in verse 26 that there is no other way there are no other terms to be a follower of Jesus Christ whoever does not carry his own cross and the emphasis here his own it is so individual it is so personal you can't carry anyone elses cross and no one else can carry your cross for you this is something that only you can do this is a decision that only you can make whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me it is an active faith it is a dynamic faith it is moving out going with the Lord Jesus Christ it is getting in step with the Savior and moving out in life and as he says this he is not speaking of physically taking a step and moving out he is talking about here spiritually within one's own heart and soul the direction and the movement of your inner life whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me and then Jesus repeats again at the end of verse 27 what he did at the end of verse 26 it is a double stop sign it is a double blinking red light he is calling us off at the landing can not be my disciple who are any of us here today to argue with the Savior about the terms that he sets for following him who is any of us here today to try to soften or lessen what the Savior is saying does it mean to carry one's own cross it certainly is not talking about wearing a necklace around your neck that's fine no one in the Roman Empire New Testament times and certainly no one in Palestine missed what our Lord was saying here because the cross symbolized the extremes of excruciating pain and a heartless cruelty that was always ending in death to carry one son cross was the dreaded death march where one would stand before the judges tribunal can be declared guilty as a criminal before the judge and as a public display of one's own guilt one would be forced to carry their own cross bar from the judgment-seat all of the way to the site of execution and it was publicly humiliating and as one would carry their cross bar on their own shoulders it was a public testimony of being under the submission of the higher authority of the judge you are saying I agree with the judges condemnation of me and I now yield my life and confess my my guilt to having breached the law of the higher authority and publicly and openly with all of the shame that is involved in the admission of my own guilt and sin I now carry the cross beam all the way to the point of the execution in the streets of Jerusalem would be filled and and people would line up along the Via della Rossa as the executed criminal the condemned criminal would carry his cross beam and everyone would see that Rome is in charge and Rome has brought Judea into subjection and Submission and this is yet one more example of one who is under submission and is dying to self this is precisely what Jesus is saying in verse 27 and what he is saying in verse 27 is that we must stand before the holiness of God in our own heart and agree with God's own estimation of us that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God we're just going to have to choke that down and if we are to be saved we must agree with that and come into a place of submission under the lordship of Christ and come under the higher authority of Christ and to carry ones uncross is to make an open and public statement to the world that I am guilty as charged before a holy God and my life has come under the government of God and it has come under the lordship of Jesus Christ and I have come to the end of myself I do not have a life anymore and I am now dead to self and dead to sin and I surrender my life to Jesus Christ and I now am a follower of Jesus Christ and I am carrying my cross every step of the journey as I follow Christ and I am in submission to his lordship and I confess my sin and I am willing to go wherever and whatever he calls me to do it means to walk as he walked to live as he lived to speak as he speak as he spoke to rejoice in what he rejoices in and to weep over what he weeps over because I am now one with Jesus Christ I am now identified with Christ and I am now a follower of Christ and in Luke 9 verse 23 he puts it this way if anyone shall come after me he must deny himself and take up a cross and follow after me that is what Jesus is saying here in Luke 14 27 that is another way of saying follow me there are no qualifiers placed upon this statement he will not tell us where he is leading us he is not going to give us a five-year plan a ten-year plan all you need to know is Jesus Christ and to follow him he calls us to follow him unconditionally he calls us to follow him in good times and in bad times he calls us to follow him volitionally and in intentionally solely exclusively there is no one else to follow there is no other agenda for our life there is no other purpose for our life no other passion our entire life is centered on Jesus Christ he is the sum in the substance of my life and as I follow him I must follow him step for step and stride for stride and I must keep up the pace with Christ and I cannot lag behind him and I cannot jolt ahead but I must always stay in closest relationship and closest association with Christ that is the issue at every point in the turn of life am i following Jesus Christ and that's how we come into the kingdom is by becoming a follower of Christ and this is how I grow in the Grace and knowledge of Christ I grow closer to him and I follow him wherever he will lead me and we cannot follow Christ in anything else it is in all or nothing proposition we cannot follow Christ and anything else and I cannot follow Christ and love my job more than Christ I cannot follow Christ and love school more than Christ I cannot follow Christ and love pleasures more than Christ I cannot follow Christ and love this world more than Christ what he is calling for here is absolute radical allegiance to Christ and it involves my own self-denial and that's why the whole crowd never buys in because it calls for our own death listen you can't live until you die and you cannot live for Christ until you have died to self there cannot be a resurrection until there is first a crucifixion and there cannot be a resurrection unto life until there has been a crucifixion of your old life I want to ask you very personally I want to single you out in the myth to this crowd whether you're up in the upper balcony the middle back balcony are down here on the lower floor I want to single you out within your own heart have you taken up a cross in order to follow after Christ have you recognized your own sinfulness before a holy God in heaven have you acknowledge that God's judgement of you is true have you acknowledged the right of Christ to rule over your life have you surrendered and submitted your life to the lordship of Jesus Christ have you really come to the end of self because Jesus does not begin until you end this is the self-denial that he calls for and how easy it would be to be a part of a religious crowd just like that crowd that followed after Christ and to be swept up in the moment and to fail to individually die to self it's so important in fact in verse 28 Jesus says that it calls for a sober calculation no one just comes into this on a whim the stakes are too high it requires too much of you and no one would just glibly take this up Jesus calls for a sober calculation that every one of us would undertake in our own hearts and lives and so beginning in verse 28 Jesus gives two parables you know what a parable is it's a earthly story with a heavenly meaning he paints two pictures upon the canvas of our minds so that we could see what it is that he is calling for and rather than our Lord backing off on this and softening the terms our Lord is actually upping the ante and saying listen don't buy into this yet until you have really thought this through because this will be the biggest decision of your life and this will affect the entirety of your life for the rest of your life and this will affect where you will spend all eternity all the chips are on the table on this hand you need to really count the cost and so parable number one begins in verse 28 and he says for which one of you and when he says for which one of you he is looking into the eyes of the crowd and he is sifting through those who have made a genuine commitment to Christ and those who are really counterfeit disciples those who are really just the curious who are swept up into this movement and so he says for which one of you when he wants to build a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it any wise builder no one would go into a building project without first having some idea of what this is going to cost me how foolish it would be to just rush into a construction project and then once you are into it then scratch your head and give a second thought and go wow this really was far more than I ever initially thought about or really intended to take up and then you begin to Waffle and then you begin to waver and then you begin to pull back and then to pull away and go you know I'm just my heart's really not into this and determine not to finish because you don't want to any up any more how easy it is to start something and how hard it is to finish something how easy it is to launch into a project how costly it is to complete it and so Jesus says in verse 29 otherwise meaning if he does not count the cost if you do not count the cost when he has laid a foundation so you've gotten into this and this is someone again who is just made up an easy decision for Christ and is not able to finish is not able to go all the way all who observe it will begin to ridicule him and you know what and rightly so every time you walk down the street and you see that piece of property there at the corner and you look and you see how everything had been cleared out in the trees brought down and the vines cleared out and you see this foundation that has been laid and you see the front door that is put on top of the foundation but nothing else ever surrounds the door and is put on top of the foundation and day after day after you walk past this you look at this at this project and you just chuckle on the inside and you realize and you say to yourself this fool never really audited the cost and how many people there are whose lives are just like that and they may even come to a conference like this and be swept up with the music and swept up with the preaching and swept up with the the genuine love that is being shown and it is a feel-good place and then begin to build and you go back home and you go yeah I need to do this somewhere I need to go to church next week and you go through all of this without ever making Jesus Christ number one in your life and so you plug into a Bible study when you get back and you begin to go through a few spiritual motions and pretty soon those old friends come around and pretty soon those old temptations come and you fall by the wayside you are just like this man who began to build but never counted the cost that it will cost you everything to be a true follower of Jesus Christ and with resolve in your heart that you would have had to have crossed the line and burned the bridges behind you and there is no turning back and in your heart of hearts it is whatever it takes along the path I will give my life to Christ relentlessly let me tell you don't know what this will be in specifics next week and next month and even next year but you need to make a sober calculation right now that it's going to cost you everything it's going to determine who you marry it's going to determine what kind of family you raise it's going to determine what kind of work ethic you'll have is going to determine where you worship it's going to determine really the following of all of the rest of your life and nothing is outside of this commitment and your entire life lived under the lordship of Christ you need to think about that and you need to weigh that in the balances of your mind so that you don't make a quick decision and go back home and fall away Jesus then gives a second parable he is the master teacher he is the master expositor in verse 26 and in verse 27 he has played hardball with us and he has every right to for he has died for us and he is Lord and now in verses 28 and following he paints these pictures and in verse 31 he gives us the second parable the first is you need to weigh in on the cost factor and count the cost of being a disciple of Jesus Christ it will cost you popularity it will cost you promotion perhaps at times it will cost you an easy life you will have to discipline yourself you will have to buff at your body you will have to say no to temptation you will have to say no to this world you will have to break with the crowd you will have to be willing to stand alone for Christ you will have to be willing to walk to the beat of a different drummer and to to step out of the crowd even if no one follows after Jesus Christ you'd be willing to stand if you're the only person in the world for Jesus Christ that's the cost factor you would have to be willing to suffer persecution for Christ and let me tell you it will come it might even cost you your life but now the second parable in verse 31 and her Lord is like he is like painting us into a corner where there is no way out but to surrender your life to Him and with this second parable the assumption is well what if you're not willing what if you're not willing to pay the price is that going to be an easy way for you out are there any ramifications are there any implications are there any eternal implications for you if you don't step up to the table and say yes by the grace of God I am willing to pay the price to be a disciple of Christ and so in verse 31 jesus said or what king when he sets out to meet another King in battle we see the picture here here are two competing kingdoms and here are two can p-ting Kings and here are two competing armies and only one will win and the other will lose and the one who lose loses will be slayed the one who loses will be subjected for the rest of their days to slavery to the greater King so there is a lot on the table here as to which King or what King when he sets out to meet another King in battle will not first sit down and consider and again this is the counting of the cost there needs to be contemplation and calculation whether he is strong enough with 10,000 men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand men and as he says this he is saying to each of the people you are this king with ten thousand soldiers and you find yourself in a conflict there is opposition that is being brought against you and there is another king who is coming against your kingdom and this other King has 20,000 soldiers and when you come into direct conflict with this coming other coming King he will utterly destroy you he says in verse 32 this is the only reasonable decision to which you could come or else while the other is still far away while this King with 20,000 fully armed soldiers that is marching against your kingdom with lesser defence well the other King is still far away any sane human being would respond thus he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace you who want to meet this other King who is coming with 20,000 soldiers he is not coming to play games he is not coming to be docile he is coming to dominate and he is coming to slaughter this other greater king is none other than the one who is telling the parable for he is the king of kings and he is the Lord of lords and at the end of this age he will bolt out of heaven on a white steed and his garments are dripped in blood the blood of his own enemies and he is coming back to conquer and to damn you need to make terms of peace with this coming king or you will be subjected in damnation forever and Jesus Christ has made terms of peace you need to settle out of court with him you do not want to go into that final day of conflict with Christ for he will be ruthless in the execution of his justice but he offers you mercy today he will agree to terms of surrender he will agree to terms of peace but they are his terms of peace not ours and his terms of peace are very simply this you must hate your own father and mother and brother and sister and even your own life more than me or you cannot be my disciple and you must take up a cross and follow me or you cannot be my disciple and if you do not you will meet me in the final judgment and it will glorify God in your destruction these are the two parables our Lord told and in verse 33 he brings it to the bottom line he brings it forward to the bottom line he is the master evangelist he's calling for the verdict he's calling for the decision in your heart he is pressing you for a decision he will not be put off you cannot hit the mute button any longer in your heart you must answer to him in verse 33 so then conclusion none of you can be my disciple he is saying none of you can be a true Christian none of you can be in my kingdom none of you can be in right relationship with me or the father none of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his own possessions was her Lord saying he's not backing off he is he is increasing the commitment that he is calling for with every line of this section he's not saying that you have to buy your way into the kingdom of heaven for none of us have enough gold and none of us have enough silver to ever remove the stain of sin that has defiled our inner soul what is he saying who does not give up all of his own possessions well this must be taken in context with other texts of Scripture and let me just cut to the bottom line of the bottom line you must transfer the ownership of all that you are and all that you have to all that he is that's what he is saying your life is no longer your life it is now his life your time is no longer your time it is now his time your possession are no longer your possessions they are now his possessions your future is no longer your future it is now his future your treasure is no longer your treasure it is now his treasure and you have transferred all that you are and all that you have to all that he is that's what it is to meet his terms of peace someone is envisioned it this way a conversation someone wanting to buy a pearl from a pearl merchant I want this pearl how much is it well he'll the seller says it's very expensive how much well a very large amount do you think I could buy it of course anyone can buy it but geez didn't you say was very expensive yes how much everything you have and so we make up our minds all right I'll buy it well what do you have the merchant says let's write it down well I have $10,000 in the bank good $10,000 what else well that's all that's all I have nothing else nothing more well have a few dollars here in my pocket how much well let's see 30 40 50 60 hundred dollars hundred twenty dollars that's fine what else do you have well nothing that's all where do you live well in my house the house you have a house give me your house and he writes down house you mean I'm going to have to live in my camper oh you have a camper I want your camper to well if you do that I'm gonna have to sleep in my car oh you have a car give me your car well I have two of them well you already have my money my house my camper my cars what more do you want are you alone in this world well no I have a wife and I have two children yes I want your wife and your children I have nothing left I am all alone fine now you may have the pearl that's something of what Jesus Christ is saying to you yet the exchange is not bartered or bought with real money but it is purchased with the total complete surrender of your life to Christ that's what saving faith is it is coming to the end of yourself and completely and entirely and trusting all that you are and all that you have to all that he is finally a searching examination verse 34 and you would think at some point in this Jesus would bring out the benefits Jesus would soften up Jesus would lighten up Jesus but you know what this is too important this is your eternal soul this is the only life you will ever live this deals with the only eternity you will ever have and so our Lord says in verse 34 therefore pulling everything forward from verse 26 therefore salt is good and yes salt is good it preserves good meat it prevents spoil it imparts flavor salt is good but even if salt has become tasteless with what will it be seasoned you see we need to understand that not all salt is salt and some salt has a mixture in it some salt in this part of the world had Jibson in it and it will eventually show it looks like salt but it does not taste like salt and it does not work like salt it is a fake counterfeit salt and what our Lord is with this metaphor is intending is to make the comparison between a true follower of Christ and a false follower of Christ a true believer in the Lord and one who is merely a part of the crowd and so he says salt is good but if even salt has become tasteless meaning it gives evidence that it was never true salt to begin with with what will it be season and the answer is nothing verse 35 it is useless either for the soul or for the manure pile it's just no good to anyone not to God not to Christ not to the kingdom not to the movement you're just taking up a seat for someone else there are other people who are trying to get into this it is useless either for the soil you're not even worth the toilet spiritually speaking because you have not come to the place a total surrender of your life and supremely gence and supreme loyalty to Christ you have not yet come under the lordship of Christ and taken up a cross to follow after him and then he says he who has ears to hear let him hear you need to give strictest attention to what God has said in his son for God has spoken in his son to us in this conference and God has brought every one of us to this place not one of us is here by accident or by happenstance and it is the goodness of God and the mercy of God that has brought you to this place where you have heard of Isaiah 53 you have heard of the suffering Savior the Lord Jesus Christ who upon that cross became sin for us upon that cross he died to self that he might live for us and that he might bear our sins and iniquities upon that tree and purchase our salvation and there is salvation in no other name for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved jesus said I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the Father but through me and he is calling out to you today come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden and I will take you in and receive you unto myself take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest for your souls for my burden is easy and my yoke is light it is it is you will have the weight of sin lifted off of you and you will have now the yoke of Christ upon you and he gets into that yoke with you and he pulls with you but it will require the total commitment of your life to him oh how we ought to search our hearts here today have I come to this place of total commitment in my life have I yielded my life to the sovereign lordship of him who died upon the cross for me I want you to know that the gates of paradise have been swung open to you and the narrow gate is open and if you will take a step of faith and come through this narrow gate and commit your life to him despite the strength of his words he also says him who comes unto me I will in no wise cast out he is calling you today to come to come to him to take a step of faith and to come to him but if you come to him don't play games you must surrender to Christ someone has written the following and I close with this entitled I am a disciple the die has been cast I have stepped over the line the decision has been made I am a disciple of Jesus Christ I will not look up let up slow down back away or be still I no longer need preeminence prosperity position promotions plaudits or popularity I don't have to be right first tops recognize praised regarded or rewarded I now live by faith love by patience lift by prayer and labor by power my pace is set my gate is fast my goal is heaven my road is narrow my way is rough my companions view my guide reliable my mission clear I cannot be bought compromised deterred lured away turn back deluded or delayed I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice I will not hesitate in the presence of adversity I will not negotiate at the table of the enemy I will not ponder at the pool of popularity nor me endure in the maze of mediocrity I will not give up back up let up or shut up until I have prayed up preached up stored up and stayed up the cause of Christ I am a disciple of Jesus Christ I must go until he returns given till I drop each until all no and work until he comes and when he comes to get his own he will have no trouble recognizing me my colors are flying high and they are clear for all to see are you a disciple of Jesus Christ it will cost you everything let us pray father we thank you for a savior who tells it like it is we thank you for a savior who speaks straight words we thank you for a savior who has undertaken our salvation and entirely purchased it on his own we thank you for a savior who has carried our sins far far away and who has sprinkled the mercy seat with his blood and has appeased your righteous anger we thank you for a savior who has reconciled us to yourself we thank you for a savior who issues invitations and who issues summons and calls we thank you for a savior who has thrown open the gates of paradise that we might enter in and be a true bonafide disciple in his kingdom we thank you that it means something to be a disciple that it's not a mere tag-along follower disconnected from the Savior we thank you that you require the complete and total sacrifice and surrender of our lives to King Jesus and father we are aware of who we are and what we are and we are this king with ten thousand soldiers and God forbid that we not make terms of peace with him for he is coming the king is coming and he is coming with ten thousand of his angels and he will destroy his enemies and cast them into the bottomless pit where there is the weeping and the gnashing of teeth for ever and ever and rightly so father thank you that through the cross he beckons us and he calls us to himself and so Lord we count the cost we examine ourselves we agree with your verdict of us that we are guilty as charged and we come under that verdict and take that cross beam and embrace the Lord Jesus Christ and now step into this long line of followers and we follow after Christ the Lord we don't look to the left or to the right to see who else follows or does not follow we care not for what others will say or not say we simply desire Christ and to be rightly related to him and lord I pray that in this moment in this hour there would be many who had crossed the line there would be many who had cross over from darkness to light from just the crowd to being a true disciple of Christ I pray that many would cross over from unbelief to true saving faith that many would cross over from the world through repentance and live for another world to come father thank you that you would interrupt our lives with the truth of your word in Jesus name we pray amen

Channel: Descyple91

Views: 169,678

Rating: 4.8648539 out of 5

Keywords: It Will Cost You Everything, Steve Lawson, Sermon, Preaching, Exposition, Bible, Scripture, Discipleship, Follower, Jesus Christ, Gospel, Luke 9:23

Id: VxnCD-yffWo

Length: 75min 1sec (4501 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 05 2012