Following Christ Is Costly — But How Do You Count the Cost?

00:00:00.000 | Welcome back to a new week on the Ask Pastor John podcast, answering your very tough theological

00:00:09.400 | and ethical questions from scripture.

00:00:11.880 | Well, following Christ is costly and Jesus warns us to count the cost first before we

00:00:17.740 | follow him, which of course raises the big question, how?

00:00:21.420 | How do we calculate the cost of following him?

00:00:24.000 | A listener named Sally asks it like this.

00:00:26.240 | Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for the podcast.

00:00:28.480 | Christ tells us to forsake everything to be his disciple right after saying this, for

00:00:33.320 | which of you intending to build a tower does not sit down first and count the cost, whether

00:00:38.440 | he has enough to finish it.

00:00:40.640 | Lest after he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin

00:00:44.200 | to mock him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish.

00:00:49.560 | That is Luke 14 verses 20, 30.

00:00:53.180 | Within the call to be his disciple, how do we discern the cost and count that cost in

00:00:57.920 | each of our individual callings?

00:00:59.840 | Most significantly, how do we count the cost in advance when we do not know what cost will

00:01:04.320 | be exacted from us in the end?

00:01:07.660 | The problem here is that the verses which Sally refers to, Luke 14, 28 to 30, are sandwiched

00:01:18.820 | between the very verses that answer her question.

00:01:24.120 | So to give Jesus' answer, let's back up two verses and go forward three verses.

00:01:30.600 | So that's what I'm going to do.

00:01:32.840 | Now let's just remind ourselves of the situation.

00:01:35.720 | Jesus is calling people to follow him in discipleship, and then he's reminding them that it's like

00:01:43.360 | building a tower that you don't want to leave half finished because you don't have enough

00:01:48.500 | commitment or enough resources to finish it, and it's like going to war and realizing you

00:01:54.960 | don't have enough soldiers to win the battle and defeat the enemy.

00:01:58.920 | So he says, be sure to count the cost before you sign up for discipleship with Jesus, because

00:02:07.320 | it's costly, and I don't want you to sign up naively and be surprised later when the

00:02:12.720 | cost is very high.

00:02:13.960 | That's the gist of the situation she's pointing out, and that's right.

00:02:18.600 | So Sally's asking, how do you count the cost when you don't know what's coming in your

00:02:24.640 | life?

00:02:25.640 | The answer is that Jesus requires up front a commitment to the highest possible cost.

00:02:33.760 | Got that, Sally?

00:02:35.000 | He requires commitment to the highest possible cost, and nothing later is going to surprise

00:02:42.660 | you then, because you've already totally sold to the highest, most excessive cost.

00:02:50.760 | In other words, you don't need to know the specifics of the cost in your own particular

00:02:56.960 | case if the agreement you sign is, "I'm yours at any cost."

00:03:02.920 | That's exactly what these verses say, isn't it?

00:03:06.100 | Let's back up now.

00:03:07.200 | So here's verses 26 to 27, just before the unit she cites, and he says this, "If anyone

00:03:14.540 | comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers

00:03:19.200 | and sisters—yes, even his own life, the word was hate—he cannot be my disciple.

00:03:26.080 | Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, he cannot be my disciple."

00:03:31.900 | Now this is extreme language, the most extreme that he could use, I think, to show that the

00:03:41.860 | degree of the cost we may have to pay is extreme.

00:03:48.480 | So the first extreme language is, "I am calling you to something that is going to

00:03:55.960 | look like hatred of wife and children and parents."

00:04:00.700 | And the second extreme language is, "I am calling you to get on a cross," which means

00:04:07.560 | a willingness to die an excruciating death.

00:04:09.880 | It's not just a metaphor.

00:04:11.760 | This is cross, meaning, "Join me on the way to martyrdom."

00:04:18.240 | So counting the cost of discipleship means realizing that authentic discipleship may

00:04:26.680 | exact from you the highest price relationally and the highest price physically.

00:04:35.360 | Now let's go to the other side of the text and jump forward three verses.

00:04:39.920 | Here's Luke 14.33, where Jesus ends the paragraph like this, "So therefore, any one of you

00:04:48.640 | who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple."

00:04:53.920 | Now there are two absolutes in that sentence.

00:04:56.360 | One is found in the word "anyone."

00:04:58.720 | This applies to every disciple, not just a select few.

00:05:03.520 | Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has.

00:05:06.440 | That's the first absolute.

00:05:08.520 | The other absolute is found in the word "all."

00:05:11.880 | You must renounce all that you have to be my disciple.

00:05:17.360 | Your resources may stay in your sway as a manager, a steward, but you must be ready

00:05:25.160 | at any time to let go everything for Jesus' sake.

00:05:31.880 | So when Sally asks, "How do we count the cost in advance when we don't know what the

00:05:38.520 | cost will be in advance?"

00:05:41.680 | The answer is, "You assume the cost could be total."

00:05:48.000 | All possessions given up, all relationships given up, all of life given up.

00:05:54.360 | That's the expectation that Jesus calls for.

00:05:57.600 | In other words, there's no negotiating here with Jesus.

00:06:00.560 | There's no calculating.

00:06:02.160 | There is no saying, "Well, if the cost reaches this, then I'm not interested in Jesus anymore."

00:06:09.400 | Because Jesus says, "You can't sign up that way.

00:06:12.080 | Nobody signs up for 70% of what I require."

00:06:15.520 | That's not what disciples say.

00:06:17.640 | We don't talk like that.

00:06:20.760 | Hypocrites talk like that.

00:06:21.760 | Well, no, hypocrites don't.

00:06:22.760 | They lie.

00:06:24.140 | Disciples are all in or they're not in.

00:06:27.400 | That's what the text is saying.

00:06:31.160 | But let's make sure that Sally and the rest of us get this in right perspective, because

00:06:39.880 | just a few paragraphs earlier—this is the same chapter, 14, verse 14—Jesus said, after

00:06:46.640 | he laid down some pretty high costs, he said, "You will be repaid as the resurrection of

00:06:52.320 | the just."

00:06:53.320 | In other words, there's no cost that you can pay in following me that won't be made

00:07:00.040 | up to you a thousandfold in the resurrection.

00:07:03.800 | And we need to remember Matthew 13, verse 44, which says that the kingdom of heaven

00:07:07.880 | is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man sees and sells everything he has—everything

00:07:13.880 | he has—to get that treasure.

00:07:16.160 | In other words, all the so-called costs, all the so-called costs, like everything, all

00:07:24.200 | the so-called losses, everything, are nothing compared to the gains of having Jesus, the

00:07:32.040 | greatest treasure.

00:07:34.280 | So yes, we must count the cost in order to be a disciple.

00:07:39.180 | The cost is total in principle, and may be total in actual experience, and in the end,

00:07:50.120 | having Jesus means gain.

00:07:53.480 | Like Paul says, "I count everything as loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing

00:08:01.040 | Christ Jesus, my Lord."

00:08:03.600 | Amen.

00:08:04.600 | So, costs and losses are nothing compared to the gains of having Jesus Christ as our

00:08:10.440 | final treasure.

00:08:11.660 | That is pure gold, Pastor John.

00:08:13.200 | Thank you.

00:08:14.200 | And, Sally, thanks for the very good and very specific question.

00:08:17.360 | It's wonderfully articulated here.

00:08:19.920 | And thank you to everyone who listens.

00:08:21.840 | Regular listeners will already know this, but if you're new, you can subscribe to our

00:08:25.600 | audio feeds and search our past episodes in our archive.

00:08:27.800 | You can reach us by email with a question of your own.

00:08:30.060 | You can do all that through our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:08:36.060 | On Wednesday, we return to talk about the fight against lust, a lifelong struggle for

00:08:41.700 | many listeners, the strongest temptation many of you face in life, and by far the most common

00:08:47.140 | ethical question we get in the APJ inbox.

00:08:51.140 | Next time, we're going to talk about two strategies for winning the war against lustful temptations.

00:08:55.680 | You won't want to miss it.

00:08:56.680 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:08:58.460 | I pose the questions, longtime pastor and author John Piper answers them.

00:09:03.060 | And together, we'll see you on Wednesday.

00:09:04.500 | [end]

00:09:08.500 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Following Christ Is Costly — But How Do You Count the Cost?

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