The Cost to Come

If you have your Bibles, we will be in Luke 14. She can go ahead and start flipping there. And then always as a remember, if you don't have a Bible, at the black tables in the back of the worship center on the floor, those Bibles are for you as a gift. So please take that. We'd love nothing more than for you to have a copy of God's Word if you do not have. So just personally about me, there's nothing I really despise more than a bait and switch. As a college pastor, we often go on campus, and I tell college students all the time, try to put it down into them. I'm not a bait and switch guy. If we're giving away coffee, if we're not giving away donuts, or whatever it is, it's not a hey, get a donut. If you fill out this form, that's not my vibe, I hate that. It's just hey, take a donut. And if you want to stay in talk, great. If you want to fill out the form, cool. But we just want to give you something. Because I remember being traumatized as a middle schooler walking through and some mall seeing the iPhone, probably four being given away or something. And it's saying free chance for winning an iPhone four. I call, I want to do this. And then they go and ask for, I didn't know my address, low loan, my social for this, random cellphone carrier that probably no longer exists. There's this bait and switch. I want to give you something, but really, this is what I'm going to demand of you. And these are extreme at times. Like it's a come win, a coupon for free, Chile's dessert. But first, watch this video of puppies getting abused with Sarah McLaughlin playing in the background. And please donate to PETA because we need your help. Bro, I just wanted to cookie skill it. Like, step back. You're asking me for much more than I'm willing to pay. This isn't worth it. It's funny as we look to this text, that is not at all what Jesus does. Jesus is not one to bait and switch his followers. He doesn't come offering life and life abundant and pleasure and no hardship. And then sneak back to the 12 and say, but what they don't know in the terms and conditions is that they're probably going to lose their lives, suffer a horrible death all for the sake of my name. Like, he doesn't hide that. No, quite the opposite from the onset. He makes it known. Almost in a way where I'm reading it, it sounds like he's trying to talk people out of following him. But instead, he says plainly, what the cost is for people trying to come to him. Which that is the title of our sermon this morning, the cost to come. And what I'm proposing is this. Jesus makes it clear what the cost of discipleship is. And this morning as we look through our text as to who the call is to, what it prohibits, and what it demands, we see the great calling that is to be a disciple of Christ. So what I want to do is read through all of our texts together and then we'll work our way back through it. Highlighting things, like I said, those three things that I just mentioned. But first, let's walk through God's Word together. Luke 14, starting in verse 25 and working our way through verse 35. God's Word says this. Now great crowds accompanied him. And he turned and said to them, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and his wife and his children and his brothers and his sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." For which of you, desiring to build a tower does not for sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it. Otherwise, whenever he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, "This man began to build and was not able to finish or what King going out to war to encounter another King were not sit down and first to liberate, whether he is able with 10,000 men to meet him who comes against him with 20,000. And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall it saltiness be restored? It is of no use for either soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. First, as we walk through this text and see the context of which it is brought to us, we see this blanket statement that I want to begin with, to believe in Jesus is to be a disciple. To believe in Jesus is to be a disciple. There is no other term, there is no other level, there is no other thing that he is calling us to a part from being a disciple of Christ. Look back again in verse 25. It says, "Now great crowds accompanied him." And then he turned and said, "Setting up the book of Luke, "we've seen this a couple times as Mary "s pulled parables out of here." Jesus here is on his path to Jerusalem. In Luke 9, he sets his eyes towards the city. And from Luke 9 to Luke 19, he is headed unsorvingly to Jerusalem, knowing that ultimately that will be the last place he is as he's crucified there. And we've talked about, as he gets closer and closer to the city, the more he is emphatic with his teaching, the more he is pointed with what he has to say. He sets his eyes on Jerusalem, knowing that he is ultimately going there to die. And here in our text this morning, we get a picture of what this journey looked like, not just a journey of him and his followers, the hours at times where it's just them exclusively, but journeys of great crowds. There was an amassing of people coming around him. And it makes sense, right? His teachings were profound. Quite literally, he was a miracle worker. And he was bucking, cultural, and religious norms that at the very least you wanted to watch and see, what is he going to say next? He has the masses around him. And that's the setting in which he speaks to all of them. What he says is to all of them. Numbers times we see in Scripture that Jesus is speaking simply to his 12, simply to the disciples. We see this in Matthew 5, as he begins to discern on the mount, the greatest sermon ever preached. Matthew gives the denotion at the beginning, that this, he gathers the 12 around him and speaks to them. This is for his followers. And the others just get to listen in. Here we see that it is not the denotion of, hey, this is just for you. No, this is for the crowds. This is for all of them. It makes it plain that anyone who is in any way interested in his movement, he needs them to know what it means to be a disciple. See in we too have made tears of Christianity. And that's not what he's longing for even in this moment. You cannot say, I'm a Christian, but I'm not a disciple. I haven't gotten there yet. You can't say I'm a believer, but I don't believe all of that. Like there's tears to this. You can't say I'm nominal. You can't say, well, I'm just not that advanced. I'm not this thing like, Jesus says you are either everything or you are nothing. Christianity is not a buffet. There is not a term in which we walk through the line, pick what we want, pick what we want to leave behind and say, this is the plate that I'm serving for myself. No. Much more so, Christianity is your mother's table. This is what you have to eat, either eat it or get up and walk away hungry. Something that I've learned is very hard to do as a parent, but that's what he lays out. You either have what I have for you or you have nothing. There's no beat, there's no taking just part of what I'm having to say. So, he says, clearly from the onset, this is the standard. Take it or leave it. And we see that the standard is high. As the text we've already read, like these are things that are very demanding and friends from the beginning. There is perhaps not a harder text to bring before you this morning, not hard in a way that Jesus is hiding what he has to say, quite the opposite. He is very blunt and friends I will be as well. And I don't say that to make you feel small. I say that because this is what Jesus has done for us. So, let's have some fun. What does it mean to be a disciple? First we see this, you cannot be a disciple if. If what? Let's read verses 25 and 26 again. Now great crowds accompany them and he turned to all of them and said, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Jesus starts here with a pretty startling statement. This is something that would have made the crowds step back and say, okay, you're coming in a little hot here. And we have to remember like, Jesus is human. He's allowed to use illustration, he's allowed to use allegory, he's allowed to use hyperbole. But he intentionally tried to shock his listeners here because at the very least he demanded and long for them to actually think. Everything he adds, he's wanting them to walk through this in their mind. He doesn't want them to just hear the greatness of what it is to know him and it is great. But he wants them to hear the full story. He is not a man with a bait and switch. Note, he makes it plain. What this will cost. So what is he saying? In some ways, it kind of seems like he's contradicting himself. Like he said before, like Jesus, you're this guy who's preached love time and time again. Love your neighbor as yourself. Are you telling me I need to hate my brothers and sisters? You told me in Mark 10, honor that father in, or Mark 7, honor that father in mother. But now you're telling me to hate them. And if he's in five, love your wife as Christ's love the church. But now you're telling me to hate her. This doesn't seem to add up. My friends, whenever we come to God's Word together, seeing it and all of it, we see what he means. Now let me walk in this very carefully. Friends, all of us should be very careful. Anytime we begin with the statement of what Jesus really meant is this. We do not have the authority to change his words apart from what he meant them to be. God's word has one meaning. It is means what it meant back then whenever he wrote it. Now he has given us the entirety of his word to help us find that meaning. And that's what I want to do this morning. But no, I'll walk into this humbly. I'm not here to lower a standard for us. Because Jesus does not lower it. And friends, we cannot change the words of Christ to fit our narrative. He does not allow us that pleasure. I think he's arguing for a comparative love. What our love should look like for Jesus should look radically different than our love for anything else. Which brings us to our first point. You cannot be a disciple. One, if you love something more. If you love something more. One of the best examples of this we have in Genesis 29. Jacob, the patriarch of the faith, he runs away from his brother. He saw and he runs into a foreign land. He finds a woman in which his soul just longs for. Lusting after her in a way, but also desiring for her. So he works and he's one up. And he gets married to her sister, actually, named Leah. And then he eventually marries Rachel. In Genesis 29, we see the Lord look on their marriage and see the truth that it's Leah that he hated, but Rachel that he loved. Now, did Jacob actually hate Leah like we picture hatred? No, not really. He didn't despise her. He didn't look at her with disdain or disgust. No, he took care of her. He brought her into his fold. He fathered her children. He gave her the life. Like he provided for her in every single way. But it did not compare to his love that he had for Rachel. Rachel was whom his soul longed. Rachel, there was no one else that could compare to her. We see this even as Paul talks about Romans that Jacob, he loved, but he saw he hated. It's not that he despised one brother. No, it's he chose to use one. This is a comparative love. One that is saying, no matter what, I will love Jesus more. I love them more than anything else that I could ever love. In Matthew's account of his gospel, he tells us this same truth, but in different wording, which I think helps us see the truth of it clearly. Jesus says in Matthew 10, 37, whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And friends, this is radical. Remember the culture in which Jesus lives. It's an Eastern culture. Eastern cultures even today. The family unit means everything. You do not marry someone. Now or then, that was outside of your family's wishes. You do not leave your family behind. No, you stay with them under the patriarch of the family. Still following after them. In this time, in this age, the family unit was the thing in which everyone surrounded. Friends, even today in modern America, we see the family unit, especially in Christian circles, is elevated and probably rightfully so. In secularism, we've began to diminish the family. What does it matter, do whatever you want, don't let your kids pull you back from the life that you want to live, who needs a husband, whatever that may be. Forget your parents, the nursing home can take care of them, live your life. And we in the church, again, rightfully so are trying to buck that narrative, saying, no, we must care for our spouse. Like we love them more than ourselves, our children, our parents, like all of these things are still true, but yet we've begun to elevate it past the point of where Jesus is saying that it cannot compare to me. I don't want to be in the same playing field as anything or anyone else in your life. And friends, this seems radical. Jesus is saying, I should be your superior love. John Bunyan was a pastor in England in the 17th century of his best-selling book, The Pilgrim's Progress, is the best-selling book, number two, all time behind the Bible of just the most purchased book and history, and Merrick mentions it often. This idea of Christian, what it looks like to live his life, to go to this celestial city, and the journey that he takes. But John Bunyan, alongside being a great author, was a pastor. And as he lived in England, he preached a gospel that was contrary to the religion of the state. And he was told by English authorities that he could not preach such gospel. And whenever he refused, and he went right on preaching, they put him in prison. He told them that he would let go if he would simply swear on the Bible that he would not preach this gospel anymore. But he could not. So there he stayed in prison. And his heart tore out. He wrote in his journal, this. Note, John Bunyan was not a bachelor. He had a wife and children. And this is what he pins on his journal as he sits in prison. The parting with my wife and poor children has often been to me in this place as the pulling of flesh from my bones. I'm aware of the many hardships, the miseries, and the wants my poor family meets because of my imprisonment, especially my poor, blind child who lay near to my heart than anything else on this earth. The thought of what my precious blind one is going through shatters my heart to pieces. But yet I must venture all with God. Though I feel like a man who is pulling down his house upon the head of his wife and children, yet I must do it. I must do it. I must obey Christ. Most of us hear that and think, man, John, you're being a little extreme here. Do you not realize that God has called you to lead? To be the spiritual leader of your family and you're abandoning them? Do you not realize that God is calling you to be provider and you're making them go with want and need? You have a blind kid completely reliant on you. Do you realize what you're doing to them? We look at John's example. John Bunyins example him, he is taking this too far. But friends, my argument, I think Jesus's argument here is he is not taking it far enough. For the sake of Christ, all other things should be sacrificed. For the sake of what he is calling us to, we should be this extreme. What does this look like for us today? Do you give generously to the church as above or beyond, even maybe what you're called to? Or do you set us out money for your child's college fund? Not saying that's one bad every high school student in the room, please begs their parents, don't do this. But are you forsaking one for the sake of the other? Or maybe you know the Lord is calling you away from this place, calling you to the mission field, calling you to go with a church plan, whatever that may be, but your kids about to enter their senior year, I can't just uproot them. I can't change their life radically. Like it's not fair to them to do that. Do you forsake one for the sake of the other? Kids in the room, it looks similar for us, college students. Do I take the job in the city hours away? Do I go to school at the school hours away? 'Cause this is genuinely where I feel like the Lord is leading me. Knowing that my parents would be very sad that I'm not able to spend every holiday, every long weekend with them. Knowing that it's sad that I'll be homesick, that I'll do all of these things. Knowing that it makes my parents uncomfortable me making this sacrifice in this way. Or do you take the job that is not what the degree that your parents bought for you is? You do something radical, something crazy. Like go into full-time vocational ministry and not use that accounting degree that you work very hard for. It seems so silly. But these are the arguments that we make. Parents remember the top five reason that keeps believers from the mission field are Christian parents, not lost ones, believing ones. Because they pulled their kids back saying, "I am more important than you're calling." Friends, this cannot be so for the disciple of Christ. And if you are a disciple of Christ, it must not be so. What our loved ones need more than us, that's the beautiful paradox of this, is they need for us to elevate Christ above them. They need for us to elevate the Lord Jesus above them. Our spouse does not need to be our Lord and Savior. They can never stand up there. They can't handle the weight of our expectations. They can't handle the weight of these things. Only Jesus can. And we put them on a chopping block to be taken down if we put them in a place for their not meant to be. Our kids need for us to realize that we love Jesus more than we love them. That's good to say. That's good for them to see. Kids, our parents need for them to see. I'm committed to the Lord before I'm committed to you. If it's leading me in two different directions, you cannot be a disciple of Christ. If you love anything more than Him, the way that we show them, the love that they really need is by loving this, her Savior. Jesus pulls no punches. He makes no exceptions. This must be true for you, if you call yourself a believer of Christ. But he doubles down in verse 27. He says this, "Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." You cannot be his disciple one. If you love something more or two, if you live for something else. Jesus gets more radical here. Not only do you know You need to hate your entire family. You need to pick up the government's most gruesome form of execution and come along. Can you imagine if this is the political like party's invitation to vote for them? Hey guys, I've got some lethal injections in the back. We're all going to grab it as we head to the voting booth to vote for me. Like literally, that's a call. We've seen that play out time and time again. Like, it does not make sense for this to be his calling, but this is the calling that he makes. See, we've come too familiar with the cross in a lot of ways. For the first century, Jew, for the audience in which Jesus was speaking, the cross was no symbol of religion, no peace of jewelry, no type of artwork. It was the most gruesome, humiliating form of death. And even the people in which Luke was writing to, the first century church letting them know the works in the life of Christ, they had already fully witnessed what the cross they were to bear if they came to Jesus, knowing friends and probably loved ones who had been crucified, who had been publicly humiliated, who died a slow and painful and agonizing death. The cross is not something that is just thrown out willy-nilly, no, Jesus says plainly, come and die. The cross is a public shame of torture and execution. And Jesus is saying, this is what you're signing yourself up for. See, we've lessoned it. Oh, this is just the cross I bear talking about some frustrating in-laws or talking about a trickney that we have that we just have to work through. It's not nearly that simple, not nearly that light, my friends. It is a total death to self. And that is what Christianity is. It is nothing less. It is a death to self. This is why even in the verse before, he says, you must not even love your own life more than me. Paul talks about something similar in Galatians 2.20. He says this, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Paul understood what Jesus is saying. Jesus had to have complete control over my life. I've died to my former way of living. I no longer live for myself anymore. I can't, if I claim to be a disciple of his. I can't, if I claim to be a Christian, everything in my life has to line up with him, with his mission. He must have complete control. And I do so willingly in the faith that he has done and died for me as he died I have died. Jesus knows, like, let's not remember, as he's telling people to carry their cross, he knows what he is headed for. As I mentioned, he is headed to Jerusalem. He knows that he will not leave that city once he enters it. He knows he will die a death that he does not deserve. He knows why he is doing it. To fill his purpose, to be the penalty paid for the lost. And inviting us to carry our cross, he is inviting us in with him on his mission. Even in this passage, like I said, he knows that the cross will achieve his purpose. To be a disciple of Christ, you must be about his mission. It's not about what you are leaving behind. It is about what you are taking up. A true disciple of Christ cannot live for anything else. It's about solely the mission of Christ. In 2 Peter 3, 9, he tells us that it is not God's will that anyone perish but that all come through repentance and faith through Christ. That is why he is slowing his returning so that we may be his mouthpiece and making his gospel known. This, his will must be ours. And if it is not, we are not his disciple. If we live for anything else, we are not his disciple. I was reading this week and J. D. Greer makes this plain an example that he shared as he was riding on this passage. He writes of a man who lives in San Francisco. As he was driving early to work, still dark outside, he feels the rumblings of an earthquake. So being an astral, just a grown, born and raised San Francisco, he pulls over the car and waits for the rumbling to stop. As the rumbling comes to a halt, he gets back on the road and he begins to drive. He comes up to this bridge and he notice something odd. As he looks to the car in front of him, he sees their tail lights just disappear in an instant. So he presses on the brake, he begins to slow down and he says, "What is happening here?" And as he gets closer, he realizes, in the midst of the earthquake, the bridge has failed. This is John hole in the, and now a car sends just plummeting into the waters. He's blown away and he looks behind him and he sees four more cars, one after another, just go into the water, go into the water. Often to a distance, he sees a bus and he says, "What am I going to do?" So naturally, he does is probably we all do. He takes off his shirt, I don't know if that's what I would do. And he begins waving it around, standing, making a fool of himself. The biggest scene that he could make saying, "Stop the bus." The bus is honking, the bus is just parling towards him, but he will not falter, he will not fade. Eventually the bus driver slams on the brakes, gets out of the bus, starts cussing the man, but then he sees what the man was saving him from. The driver turns his bus and stops it to where no mother drivers could do. Friends, this is the mission of Christ. We know what the world is headed to, and a bus that can only bring death, but yet so often we stand on the side of the road with an Instagram, in our Instagram bio of verse that says that Jesus is the way. And we think that that's enough. That we share a post on Facebook that has religious means and we hope that the people see it and respond rightly. That we're just kind to our neighborhood. That we do nice things and think that that's good enough to make them stop where they're going. That we just wear a West Side shirt or a religious shirt and I'm public thinking that they'll ask me, that we live a good enough life that we preach the gospel with our lives and if necessary, use words. Friends, Jesus does not allow us to sit back. The gospel has to be the purpose of our lives. We ought to be jumping up and down because we know the reality of the loss and where they are headed. We should know. We should know what it looks like to follow after the mission. So we can't be advancing our own. It can't be just if I get this career or this house or this status or this spouse or these kids, if I just get this aspect of my life, then I'll be good to do whatever. Now, that's living for yourself and you cannot be a disciple of Christ if you do not embrace his mission. It's plain. He says it here. You die to self. That's the only means to come to me. He gives us one more reality. It's giving you a few verses that will come back to you but looking at verse 33. So therefore any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. If you love something more, if you live for something else, or if you hold something back, it's funny. Jesus almost gives a catch all here. He says it may cost you absolutely everything. I love that word renounce because I think it gives us the picture of what it looks like and it's coming to Jesus with open hands saying you can take this if you need it. You can have this if it's your will. Is he telling you that this is something that you have to do? No, maybe not necessarily. We do see that this is the call that he gives to the rich young ruler, which is in a few chapters later. In Luke 18, this man who comes to him saying, "Lord, I've done all the things. I've been about what you're about. I'm trying to do what you want me to do, but Jesus sees, but you're not really giving me everything." Maybe this guy can answer the first two questions well. I don't love anything more and I don't live for anything else, but I want to leave my wealth behind. Jesus says you're not allowed that pleasure. Give everything up and we see the man walk away sad because it's an ask that he won't do. Are you willing to pay the cost? It's funny that right after this, he talks about two, right before this, and the session we're going to come back to in a second, it's two people who maybe started on that road, but they found the price that eventually was too high. See, this is what we do. I don't know about what drivers' head fully looks like here in Kentucky. It's much different than even for me. In Louisiana, once you turn 15, you have your drivers permit. That's whenever you have to spend that unreasonable amount of hours behind the wheel that I don't know if anybody has ever driven that. But underneath a licensed driver to say I've got enough practice in, I remember vividly with, in Louisiana, you can turn up for public drivers' head and coach Burton drove me along with Seth Davenport and we would go driving for hours on end in some beater car that because they know what we're about to do to it. We're driving around rusting Louisiana doing all the things. It's a pretty normal car. As the driver, I have full authority. I can go where I want to go. I can go as fast as I want to go. I can stop when I want to stop, but there's one added specification to this vehicle. And coach Burton's side on the passenger seat, there's a break on the floor. See this is often what we come to Christ with because me, as a 15-year-old doing something stupid, coach Burton will tap that break. You sure you want to do this. We may sit and say, "Jesus, you have the driver's seat, but I'm going to keep the break." And as he gets close to asking for something that I'm not willing to pay, tap that break, Jesus is sure. We can't go here. What Jesus is saying is you're not allowed that pleasure. You're not allowed to say that that cost is too much. Everything must align with Him. Our beliefs must align with Him. We must draw the hard lines where He draws them, knowing that He is the only way for truth and life, knowing the standard that He has called us to live. In every aspect, whether it seems outdated, whether it seems bigoted, whether it doesn't fit the culture of 2025, we must hold fast to it. Though the world may say that it's wrong, we must see Jesus' words as truth and hold to them. We must hold to them whenever our kids begin to live in opposition. Though we raise them up in Christ, they're choosing the things of the world. You identify as what now you're doing, what now? See, this is our temptation to begin to erase those lines and smudge them in. Jesus says, "No, you're not allowed to pick what beliefs you want. You have all of me or none of me." You can't come to Him and say, "You can have anything you want. Just don't take this." That is not making Jesus Lord, but rather the thing you say, "Don't take this." That is the Lord of your life. You must come to Him willing to forsake all comfort for the sake of what He is calling you to. In a very similar passage, earlier in Luke, he says this to someone who comes to Him in Luke 9 and 57 and 58. As they were going along the road, someone said to Him, "Bing Jesus, I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to Him, "Foxes have holds and birds of the air have their nest, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head." Let's assume that He's not using illustration here. Quite literally, we be homeless. We put your kids in a box because that's what Christ is calling you to. Braden, that's radical. That is what Jesus is saying. You can hold nothing back. We live in a house that's much smaller than what you can afford so you can regularly give to your local church. Will you drive a bitter car that barely gets you from A to B so that you can continue serving the Lord in financial means? Or will you live your life for your own means? Don't get me wrong. There's no way that we'll know exactly from the onset. What He is calling us to. Sadly, we don't get that pleasure. But He's calling us to faithful obedience. Pastor Craig Blomberg puts it this way. He says, "If we are not at least prepared in principle, to surrender every area of our lives throughout our entire lives, then we are not making Jesus our Lord, our master above all human masters, including ourselves. In short, we are not becoming Christians." This is contrary to what we hear so often. And friends, this is hard. If you love something more, if you live for something else, or if you leave something back, Jesus's words are clear, and I'm not here to lighten them for you. And I'm sorry, because hear me, friends. I stand here on a stage thinking, I don't want to fully come to terms with this text, for it demands of me. I'm not perfect here. I want to change Jesus's words to make it easier for you, so it's easier for me. But we can't do that. You cannot be a disciple if you're not willing to pay the price, to count the cost. But now we'll see what the disciple must do. We'll see that Scripture, section of Scripture that we jumped from. Starting in verse 28, "He says, for which of you? Desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost." Whether he has enough to complete it. Otherwise, whenever he has laid the foundation, is not able to finish all who see it begin to mock him. Saying, "This man began to build, but is now not able to finish." Or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate, whether he is able, with 10,000 men, to meet him who comes against him with 20,000. And if not, while the other is a great way off, he sends out delegation. And asks for terms of peace. A disciple must first count the cost. We must count the cost before you ever embark on this journey. He would rather you not come than come and turn around. That is what he is saying. And it's funny that even in the way as we look, finally to the parable of the story, the way Jesus sets it up, he sets it up in a way that is foolish if you don't agree with him. Whenever you are sitting in class and you are talking to friends after the test or even worse the teacher, and they come through and they said, "Oh yeah, inter-sea was a giveaway." Who would ever put that inter-sea is the right answer? And me sheepishly laughing in the back. "Oh yeah, dummy, who would ever put that?" Like Jesus is setting them up to where they see the foolishness. Who would ever begin building what they can't finish? Who would ever go to war with they don't think that they can win? He's making them see in almost a comical way that it is silly, foolish, to not count the cost before you go. Friends, this is what disciples must do. Before you ever enter in with Christ, you must decide, is it worth it no matter what? But in college ministry here at West Side for five years, and one thing I love about college students is they tell you how it is. Whether it's their brashness or their ignorance, one of the two, I don't know. But they don't hold punches. I sit with numerous college students weekly that I tell, like this is the call of Christ, and they're pretty plain to see. So this means my friend group has to change. Yes. So this means my life has to change. Yes. Does this mean I can't do that anymore? Yeah, that's what it means. I have to break up with that girl. Yes, it's funny almost because they understand a lot of times. You're calling me to a lot more than something I'm willing to pay. But in much rather, me to person like that, then me to person give me lip service saying, yeah, I want to do that, yeah, I want to do that, but not mean it. Like that brings nothing to me. I remember so much, so a specific conversation a year or so ago, where a girl sat in front of me and I was telling her all of these things. And I said, but promise, hear me whenever I say that Jesus is worth it. He's worth leading these things behind. I said, you just kind of have to trust him in it. She says, that seems a little front loaded. I said, yeah, it kind of is. Like it's still faith. Like, and she deliberated for weeks whether she was willing to pay that price. This is why even the parable of the soil. This is why we're very willing to say, don't make an emotional decision because it's one that your emotions will fade eventually or he's still worth it. You can spring up to life quickly, but whenever the Lord asks for too much, we wither away or whenever the world chokes it out of you, we fall back. This is what Jesus is saying before you ever start, count the cost. Give me a blank check. That's what he is saying. For you, Jen Zeeers and Janoffa's in the room, a blank check is a thing. Where you put a price, you sign it. It's kind of like vinmoing someone without vinmo money in your bank account and it comes straight out of your bank account. But we understand what that is. You've probably given someone, maybe trust someone enough, give them a blank check. We know what it is. Really with this cost, I'm going to sign this and you just pray that your brother-in-law is trustworthy enough to write down the right number. That your student, that your kid, maybe if you're really bold, he's smart enough to know where the decimal needs to go. That's very important. But so often we come to Jesus with gift cards. I'll start with a $5 to Arby's. Whenever I see you spent that well, maybe I'll give you a 25 to burrito check. That's, gets you a couple meals there. Maybe we get to this point where it's okay, a hundred to the nicest restaurant in town, 10,000 to Amazon. Jesus, you can get whatever you want. But as he swipes and swipes and swipes and he declines that balance more and more, eventually it comes back void and he asks for more. And he gets to a point where he says, "Now, you've had enough." That's not what Christianity is. You must count the cost from the onset. Is it worth it? You must realize the ramifications. At a cycle you must count the cost and you must realize the ramifications. See, both the abandoners in the story had something to lose. Both of them, ultimately, it cost them something to turn back. Read again in verse 29 and 30. It says this. Otherwise, whenever he has laid the foundation, is not able to finish all who see begin to mock him, saying this man wasn't able to build, or wasn't able to finish what he began to build. Laughing at him, mockery and ridicule. Like we see this often, whenever we see a person turn back from Christ. Often, sadly, it's we the church, rather being broken over a person who deserts their faith, we heap insults at them, mock them. Well, I knew they weren't serious. I knew they weren't these things. But even worse, it brings mockery to yes the abandoner, but it brings mockery to the one that they abandoning. Finally, they realized that God's not worth that. Finally, they came to their senses and realized he's not worth everything. They saw him finally rightly. Mockery not only in the one building, but the one of whom they were building for. Makes the onlooker see and believe that God is not worth it. But the second, I argue, is even worse, in verse 31 and 32. It says, "Or what King?" Going out to encounter another King and were not sit down first and deliberate, whether he is able to win or not. with 10,000 men against 20,000 coming against him. And if not, while the others yet a great far way off, will he send delegation to ask for terms of peace? This guy is not just risking mockery, this guy is risking death. Death of people who have nothing to do with this decision. Death of the innocent lives in which he leads. Death in which the people that he's leading into battle are at the very least loss. A surrender here that the people knew, this isn't just, oh, we're going to leave peacefully. No, now it's under the rule and reign of the opposing king. See, this looks like what death looks like whenever the person turns back, their kids see that, "Mm, Jesus isn't worth it." My parents left it, so now I can't do. And they stay in death away from their sins because my mom and dad already tried it. What do I need to do? The people around us, seeing that it is not worth the call so they stay separated from their Lord to ultimate death. Your kids, your family, your loved ones, the people looking at them and abandon it. They call so much more, the ramifications are so much deeper than even just you. This is why he says, "Don't come at all if you're not willing to come the whole way." From the onset, count the cost, it's foolish if you don't. John Stott, fame pastor of a previous generation, says this, "The Christian landscape is strewn with the wreckage of derelict half-built towers and ruins of those who began to build but were unable to finish. For thousands of people still ignore Christ's warning and undertake to follow Him without first pausing to reflect on the cost of doing so. The result is the great scandal of Christendom today, so-called nominal Christianity. In countries in which Christian civilization has spread, large numbers of people have covered themselves with a decent but very thin veer of, veneer of Christianity, but they have loud themselves to become what somewhat involved, enough to be respectful, but never enough to be uncomfortable. Their religion is a great soft cushion. It protects them from the hard unpleasantness of life while changing its place and shape to suit their conveniences, no wonder the cynic speak of the hypocrites in the church and dismiss the religion as escapism. Friends, why should the outside world desire what we have if it leads them to the same place? You get your stuff from Christianity, I get my stuff from this. What if we lived for something more? What if we lived the life that was for ultimate joy? Because of abandoning Him just so much more than just hurt you? As a disciple, you must count the cost and you must realize the ramifications. And we see how He is this passage. It's the last thing we must do. In verse 34, verse 35, "He says salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall it saltiness be restored? It is of no use, either for soil or for the manure power. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let Him hear." As a disciple, you must count the cost, you must realize the ramifications, and you must seek to remain useful. At the end of the section of Scripture, Jesus again says something that's kind of confusing. "Consult really, lose its saltiness." In one way, no, for you chemical buffs out there, salt is a stable compound. Apart, chemical reaction, it will not change. You can dilute it, you can do all of these things, but salt is salt. That's where we get our core value of living missionally. You as a believer in Christ, you are salt. It's not your coming, it's not your eventually will be there. No, you are seasoning, you're flavoring the water much you live in. So we live in it missionally, so because we know that's our calling. That's why we base this with one of our core values. A believer in Christ will not become unuseful. If he does, then we see that one, it was never really salt in the first place. He's saying, "You who have ears here, hear what I'm saying, if you're running and being perverted by all of these things, like, is that true? You're not a disciple. You remain useful if you are." But there is a way in which I think this does affect the believer. Talking to the Palestinian culture in which he lived in, they knew what fake salt or even perverted salt was. They got salt from the dead see often. And they knew that there's salt, the more chemicals or the more other objects that were mixed in, the contaminations that were mixed in with it, the salt could eventually become unpear. It would no longer be able to preserve, it would no longer be able to season. Ultimately, something that was once good was no longer useful. It's not saying that it lost your salvation, but how sabbatical it be to look back on your life and says, "Jesus says, I can't use you anymore." A disciple must fight tooth and nail against that. Fighting contamination from the outside world that wants nothing more than to contaminate. This is what a disciple must be. This is the call. Abandon everything. Your family, your friends, your ambitions, your possessions, take up your cross, be willing to die, go as far as Christ calls you to go. Take it or leave it. And friends, for the past 45 minutes, I've been trying to lure you out of this call because that's what Jesus does. My friends, there is grace even in the midst of his calling. He calls us to the cross because that's a slow death. A person who carried the cross beam, there's a long walk wherever they had to go to wherever they were going to be publicly executed. Death by crucifixion took days. The beauty is, Jesus says, at the beginning, pick it up and I'll walk with you as you go. Are there going to be times where you stutter in your steps? Sure, I'll hold your hand. You haven't walked a road that I have not walked before. He comes alongside you ultimately to lead you to a place where the sacrifice is worth it. Friends, Jesus is still the treasure. He's still the pearl of great price. It's still worth everything. So let me close with this, that a disciple of Christ surrenders everything to gain infinitely more. Another section of scripture in which Jesus says, "It's a very hard truth to the crowds in John 6." This is right after he feeds the 5,000. And basically, these crowds are following after him because they get pretty good meal out of it. And the following after him, he hears their grumbling, and it's, "When is this guy going to feed us again?" He gets so fed up with it that he turns to them in John 6 and the latter half says, "I'm not feeding you anymore. Either eat of my flesh, drink of my blood or you have nothing. It's me that you get or you get nothing." They said, "This is a hard teaching." He says, "It is. He doubles down. Eat of my flesh, drink of my blood. I'm the only thing that can satisfy. It's me or nothing. You can't pick and choose what you want." John 6,66 says, "Many of his followers at that point turned and followed him no more." But then he looked to the 12th. This is what he says, in 66 to 69, or 67 to 69. So Jesus said to the 12th, "Do you want to go away as well?" But Simon Peter answered him, "Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." And we have believed. See, we have come to know that you are the Holy One of God. Friends, is this a radical calling? Absolutely. But is it a calling that is so worth it? Please see that it is. There's nothing else in this life. Your spouse can't satisfy you like Jesus can. Your kids can't satisfy you like Jesus can. The life that you want to live can't satisfy you like Jesus can. The possessions that you gain can't satisfy you like Jesus can. Your way of living cannot satisfy you like Jesus can. And he writes with a check that can give much, much more. This is what the disciple said. "There's nowhere else that we can go that can give us what you give us, Jesus." So we come to you in our joy, laying our lives before you because you have the words that lead to life. The cost is before us, friends. Are you willing to pay it? If not, friends, that's okay. I'd much rather you count and decide is this worth it. But if it is, hold on. Because the Lord may bring you through a lot of hard things, but he'll bring you into something incredible. Would you bow with me? To the person in this room who maybe sits here thinking, "Is this really what Jesus is calling me to?" Who sits here frustrated at me personally because this seems to extreme. Friends, in the kindest way I can say it, this is what Christ calls us to, everything. All or nothing. Is that a price you're willing to pay? I can promise you this that Jesus will give you a measurably more, infinitely more. But there is a trust dying to self saying, "Lord, I will come to you." No matter what it costs me now, no matter what it costs me then, be pleased. Count the cost and realize he's worth it. For the believer in this room, where have you began to study your step in carrying it? Where have you began to be contaminated by the outside of world, losing your usefulness? Repent? Turn back to the Lord and continue walking in his will for your life. Lord Jesus, I do ask that you bring conviction, or convictions needed. Lord, you bring encouragement and comfort to the person who has done this, and they see the life that they now have in you that far away, and through everything they lead behind. Lord, please, burden our hearts and show us the step we need to take.