"Counting The Cost"

(Luke 14:25-32)

Rev. Billy D. Strayhorn

INTRODUCTION:

I saw a Ziggy cartoon a long time ago that showed Ziggy reading a list on a bulletin board which says: "Things to do today." The list contains only one item: "#1) See: things you should have done yesterday." (1)

Most of us can identify with that character, can't we. Sometimes it seems that the only thing we get accomplished is adding things to our do list. And sometimes in our Christian life, it seems like there are more than our share of crosses to bear. It's in reading passages like this that we realize that being a Christian and living the Christian life is hard work.

I. GIVE UP - EVERYTHING:

A. Jesus doesn't let anybody off the hook does he? His popularity was growing and the crowds were growing. He was really packing them in. And then He goes and tells them all this stuff about bearing your cross; hating family, and even hating life itself. You begin to wonder how he kept the crowds coming with all this talk about sacrifice.

Nobody talked much about sacrifice because it was unpopular, but not Jesus. He laid it right on the line. He wants us to know the high cost of being a disciple. He doesn't want us to get confused by what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called "cheap grace." Jesus makes it very plain that there is nothing "cheap" or easy about being a Christian. It is easy to accept the forgiveness which God offers through Christ, but it is hard work to live the life of one who has been forgiven.

God paid the highest price there is to pay for our salvation. The Son of God, gave his very life. God gave his only Son, so that we could be forgiven. That's the high cost of our salvation. Jesus wants us to know, not only the high cost of our salvation, but the high cost of discipleship, too.

B. That's why he says what he says here. The people have seen Jesus perform miracles. He has healed the sick, the blind, the deaf and the lame. He has taught with authority, he even fed 5,000 from five small barley loaves and a couple of fish. The crowds kept coming. They got bigger and bigger but it was beginning to be a little like a circus. The people weren't hearing what he had been saying. And so he told them to calculate the cost, just like you would do if you were building a tower or as if you were a king and an enemy were on the borders of your country.

Jesus says we have to consider the cost of our discipleship before we jump in feet first. The rich young ruler did that, and he couldn't pay the price. He was too bound to the things of the world. He couldn't sell it all and give the money to the poor and then follow Jesus. He walked away.

None the less, Jesus calls us to put our lives in His hands. Jesus calls us to trust him and to put Him first. Jesus calls us to give up everything that would distract us from living the Christian life and follow him. Why? so we can experience God's great love for us. And so we can be on the "same page" (as the saying goes) as God. Lives that are going in a hundred different directions at once aren't likely to go in God's direction at all. That's why Jesus says our focus has to be Him.

Two colleagues had worked together for years and became friends. They had lunch together every week. They even went out socially on occasion with their families. One Sunday Bill visited his sister's church to hear his nephew in the youth choir. He saw his friend. The next morning at work Bill confronted his friend and said. "I never knew you were a Christian. In all the years I have known you, not once did you mention that you attended church." (2)

That's sad, but we all know people like that. Closet Christians. Being a modern day disciple of Jesus Christ involves more than just going to church. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is more than hymn singing and good will toward our neighbors. Being a disciple is a way of life! In saying this to us and the crowd is saying that God wants us to be coworkers with Christ.

II. COWORKERS:

A. As disciples, and as coworkers with Christ, we are called to ministry. Each of you is already performing the ministry to which God has called you. You are carrying out that ministry in your day-to-day work place. You are serving Christ as you live your "Vocation." You see, the word vocation, literally means, "that which we are called to do." I believe that God uses us in our daily work to touch the people around us. Sometimes God even uses us when we are unaware. The more aware we are, the better able we will be to fulfill God's CALL in our lives.

B. In his book, The Power Of Holy Habits, Dr. William Hinson tells of his boyhood experience of growing up on the farm. His family raised some hogs and part of the spring chores was rounding up all the hogs and treating them with some awful concoction to keep all the critters (fleas, ticks, lice etc.) off. Every year his father told them the same thing, "Now boys, remember there'll be some of them that you can't catch, so put an extra dose on those you do catch. Sooner or later they'll rub up against the others." (3)

It's just as true for us in the Church. We are conduits of God's grace for those who aren't here. We're called to go into the world. We're called to proclaim the Good News of new life through Christ. We do that by rubbing elbows with those around us. And maybe, the dose of grace we have received, may rub off onto them.

III. GAIN EVERYTHING:

A. Now, like some of the folks in the crowd, some of us may balk at this thing called discipleship and the cost of discipleship. We're not too keen on the idea of giving anything up or hating anything for the sake of Christ. Here it is the fall and you start asking SOME folks to participate in something and their first response is: "That won't interfere with football, will it?"

We're not keen on sacrifice. Especially when the cross is involved. But that's the cost. But the rewards are great. When Christ becomes the most important thing in our life. When Christ becomes the focal point through which all things are seen and judged, then giving up everything is almost like nothing and everything in the Kingdom of God is yours.

The cost of discipleship may seem high, AND IT IS, but it is nothing when compared to the cost of our salvation. And it is nothing compared to the life of hope and encouragement we receive when we put our lives in Christ's hands and seek to serve him.

CONCLUSION:

President Harry Truman once made a trip to the old west town of Tombstone, Arizona. Ghosts of the famous and notorious alike crowd the streets of Tombstone -- people like Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. When Truman returned from Tombstone, though, he didn't talk about the legendary heroes. Instead he recalled the words engraved on the headstone of a simple man buried at Boot Hill. The inscription read: "Here lies Jack Williams. He done all he could." (4)

That should be every Christians epitaph. We are called to take up our cross and follow Christ. We're called to put Christ first in our lives and serve him to the best of our abilities. Being a Christian and living the Christian life is hard work but basically we're just called to do all we can, in the name of our Savior.

As you come to the Lord's Table this morning, put your life in hands of Christ. Feed on a banquet of God's loving grace. But as you leave to go out into the world and into your work place, take up the cross of Christ. Do all you can to glorify God through Christ.

This is the Word of the Lord for this day.

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1. Ziggy, by Tom Williams & Tom II (I don't remember the date)

2. From, "A Faithful Follower I Would Be" a sermon by Rev. Timothy J. Smith. Published in Dynamic Preaching, (July/August/September 1992).

3. William Hinson, The Power of Holy Habits, (Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN, 1991) pp. 22-23

4. Rev. Timothy J. Smith