Welcome back to a new week on the Ask Pastor John podcast, answering your very tough theological and ethical questions from scripture. Well, following Christ is costly and Jesus warns us to count the cost first before we follow him, which of course raises the big question, how? How do we calculate the cost of following him?

A listener named Sally asks it like this. Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for the podcast. Christ tells us to forsake everything to be his disciple right after saying this, for which of you intending to build a tower does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it.

Lest after 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. That is Luke 14 verses 20, 30. Within the call to be his disciple, how do we discern the cost and count that cost in each of our individual callings?

Most significantly, how do we count the cost in advance when we do not know what cost will be exacted from us in the end? The problem here is that the verses which Sally refers to, Luke 14, 28 to 30, are sandwiched between the very verses that answer her question.

So to give Jesus' answer, let's back up two verses and go forward three verses. So that's what I'm going to do. Now let's just remind ourselves of the situation. Jesus is calling people to follow him in discipleship, and then he's reminding them that it's like building a tower that you don't want to leave half finished because you don't have enough commitment or enough resources to finish it, and it's like going to war and realizing you don't have enough soldiers to win the battle and defeat the enemy.

So he says, be sure to count the cost before you sign up for discipleship with Jesus, because it's costly, and I don't want you to sign up naively and be surprised later when the cost is very high. That's the gist of the situation she's pointing out, and that's right.

So Sally's asking, how do you count the cost when you don't know what's coming in your life? The answer is that Jesus requires up front a commitment to the highest possible cost. Got that, Sally? He requires commitment to the highest possible cost, and nothing later is going to surprise you then, because you've already totally sold to the highest, most excessive cost.

In other words, you don't need to know the specifics of the cost in your own particular case if the agreement you sign is, "I'm yours at any cost." That's exactly what these verses say, isn't it? Let's back up now. So here's verses 26 to 27, just before the unit she cites, and he says this, "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, the word was hate—he cannot be my disciple.

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, he cannot be my disciple." Now this is extreme language, the most extreme that he could use, I think, to show that the degree of the cost we may have to pay is extreme. So the first extreme language is, "I am calling you to something that is going to look like hatred of wife and children and parents." And the second extreme language is, "I am calling you to get on a cross," which means a willingness to die an excruciating death.

It's not just a metaphor. This is cross, meaning, "Join me on the way to martyrdom." So counting the cost of discipleship means realizing that authentic discipleship may exact from you the highest price relationally and the highest price physically. Now let's go to the other side of the text and jump forward three verses.

Here's Luke 14.33, where Jesus ends the paragraph like this, "So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple." Now there are two absolutes in that sentence. One is found in the word "anyone." This applies to every disciple, not just a select few.

Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has. That's the first absolute. The other absolute is found in the word "all." You must renounce all that you have to be my disciple. Your resources may stay in your sway as a manager, a steward, but you must be ready at any time to let go everything for Jesus' sake.

So when Sally asks, "How do we count the cost in advance when we don't know what the cost will be in advance?" The answer is, "You assume the cost could be total." All possessions given up, all relationships given up, all of life given up. That's the expectation that Jesus calls for.

In other words, there's no negotiating here with Jesus. There's no calculating. There is no saying, "Well, if the cost reaches this, then I'm not interested in Jesus anymore." Because Jesus says, "You can't sign up that way. Nobody signs up for 70% of what I require." That's not what disciples say.

We don't talk like that. Hypocrites talk like that. Well, no, hypocrites don't. They lie. Disciples are all in or they're not in. That's what the text is saying. But let's make sure that Sally and the rest of us get this in right perspective, because just a few paragraphs earlier—this is the same chapter, 14, verse 14—Jesus said, after he laid down some pretty high costs, he said, "You will be repaid as the resurrection of the just." In other words, there's no cost that you can pay in following me that won't be made up to you a thousandfold in the resurrection.

And we need to remember Matthew 13, verse 44, which says that the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man sees and sells everything he has—everything he has—to get that treasure. In other words, all the so-called costs, all the so-called costs, like everything, all the so-called losses, everything, are nothing compared to the gains of having Jesus, the greatest treasure.

So yes, we must count the cost in order to be a disciple. The cost is total in principle, and may be total in actual experience, and in the end, having Jesus means gain. Like Paul says, "I count everything as loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord." Amen.

So, costs and losses are nothing compared to the gains of having Jesus Christ as our final treasure. That is pure gold, Pastor John. Thank you. And, Sally, thanks for the very good and very specific question. It's wonderfully articulated here. And thank you to everyone who listens. Regular listeners will already know this, but if you're new, you can subscribe to our audio feeds and search our past episodes in our archive.

You can reach us by email with a question of your own. You can do all that through our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. On Wednesday, we return to talk about the fight against lust, a lifelong struggle for many listeners, the strongest temptation many of you face in life, and by far the most common ethical question we get in the APJ inbox.

Next time, we're going to talk about two strategies for winning the war against lustful temptations. You won't want to miss it. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. I pose the questions, longtime pastor and author John Piper answers them. And together, we'll see you on Wednesday.