John Gunter: Jesus challenged a group of people with a story about being invited to the feast. And if you remember, some of those who were invited to the feast had some excuses. Either I just got married, I just bought some land, or I just bought some oxen. Remember those? And as we talked about those things, we talked about how normal those were that in that culture at that time, those would have been very excusable, understandable things, understandable reasons why you would have gotten out of coming to the the feast as you were invited.
But even normal, excusable things can be bad for you, right? And so Jesus encourages them to go out and and to encourage people to come in. There's still more room. There's still more room. We've invited.
Continue inviting and so that's what we talked about last week and but today, Jesus kind of switches gears. Last week was kind of the door is open. There's plenty of room and today, Jesus encourages them to count the cost and so that's what we're gonna talk about today. Have you ever signed up for something that you really didn't understand what you're getting into? Yeah.
Whether it's a new car that I had to have and all of sudden that first bill comes and you think maybe I didn't have to have it that bad. Certainly our house payment. You ever signed up for I cannot relate. I've got a buddy of mine who goes out and runs marathons. You probably never see John Guenter with the 13.1 or 26Point2 on the back of my vehicle as if I've done something.
But I can only imagine, you know, signing up for something that requires a lot and not knowing what I'm getting into. You've probably been there before. Now, I think this is a great idea but as it comes, well, maybe not so great and so that again, that's what we're gonna talk about this morning. Still in Luke chapter 14, that's where we were last week. So, this is the the second part of this chapter.
We're gonna start reading in verse 25. It says 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 wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Now, that seems very harsh, doesn't it? What we need to know and what what is not completely apparent in English is that is a Hebrew idiom, the the word hate there.
That doesn't mean what I need to do is hate Katie and Evan and Logan. But what it what it means is I need to prioritize them in relationship to god, okay? So, I need to rank them lower than I rank god. That make more sense? Okay?
So, we started last week with very excusable things and today, we hear you need to hate all these Well, all that means, even your own life, is I need to rank them accordingly. How many times do we get our priorities off? Yes. Amen. And that's what we're talking about today.
We, we need to count the cost and again, prioritize things in a way that that says, okay, I am living this life for god and and notice it says, that even yes, his own life. So, there are no exceptions. Now, how much do you look out for you in your life? Yeah. Heath already made the comment this morning.
He's thinking about lunch. What what is that? That's thinking about, well, I need to care for myself. Right? I'm not picking on Heath.
I'm kinda thinking about it right now. That's what we do. Right? We care. We have the feelings.
We internalize. We know what is good for us or feel like we do, right? And so we think about that all the time and and what Jesus is saying here is, yes, you should do that. Jesus never said you shouldn't care for yourself, right? If you don't care for yourself, you can't care for others, okay?
What he's saying is, you need to make sure that that has not gotten out of sorts with your priorities and and so, the he ends with whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Now, I would venture to guess that when we read that, we read it a little differently than they would have read. Do you think they had not seen an actual cross? They had seen it and so when Jesus uses this language, it is not, oh, you know, bear my cross. I I missed out on that parking spot at Walmart.
Now, I have to walk an extra 50 yards but I'll bear my cross lord for you. It was a very serious thing, wasn't it? They understood what it meant to to take up a cross that they had seen people carry their cross into crucifixion So, this was not just some kind of minor inconvenience. This is, I'm going to do all of this for you, lord. Notice that when, we read through this, notice what's not on the list.
Notice what is on the list and what isn't. We don't read about enemies. We don't read about vices. We don't read anything like that. When we read through that, it is about family.
It is about ourselves. Those things are the things probably easiest get our priorities off, aren't they? Now, I don't think, I may be wrong, I don't think that anybody in here sits down with their calendar and said, you know what? I need to make sure that I have this so filled up that I can't serve god. I don't think anybody sits down to make that decision.
What I think we do is we make a lot of little decisions that at the end of the day, we look and we go, oh, I don't have time for. You see how it's different? I didn't set out to make the decision. I just made a lot of these that ended up with, oh, now I can't. And that that's I've talked about it a lot but casting crowns as a song, it's a slow fade till you give yourself away.
It's a lot of those small decisions that add up and put you in a place you don't want to be. Now, what if when we looked at our calendars, we said, we're gonna circle this. I'm gonna be here on Sundays. I'm gonna make time for small group. I'm even gonna be here on Wednesdays.
Extra bonus points, right? What if we did that and then said everything else works around that? Is that a different way to look? Yeah and so, there are ways in which we can look at our lives. We can examine our priorities and say, okay, this is what I want to be at the top of the list because if I ask you this morning, priority number one, who is it?
We'd all be good Christians. We say god, right? Thank you. Yeah, that's right. That's right.
I appreciate that. Yep, we would but if we audited our calendar, what would we say it is? Right? If we, however you want to, accrue time or points or effort or whatever, and what if we had to show that on the screen afterward? Like, hold on just once I'm gonna run the bathroom.
We hear you get in your car and leave, wouldn't we? Right? Because that's how it goes. It's I I know intellectually, I love God and I do, and I wanna serve him, and I wanna give time and effort to him, but it's all those little decisions that kind of take over our lives. All of a sudden, if we really looked at the math, if we really added up what's what we're doing and how we're spending our time and money and energy, something else might end up at the top of that list, wouldn't it?
You ever had a priority reshuffle moment? I talked with it last week or week before about every time I tell somebody to do a budget or when we do a budget, they're always surprised by what comes to the top. I think it was last week because I talking about, you you get to the end of that and you go, oh my goodness, I would have had money but I'm eating it all. Yeah. I'm going out to eat, I'm buying groceries.
Anybody just happy with that line item that you've got in your budget? No? But what if you did that with your priorities? Again, to to budget and to look and to see, okay, where is that going? And to start spending those in different different places.
In verse, 20 don't know why we skipped 28. I did I just missed 28? Oh my goodness. Let me read it for you. 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, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock them. Saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down and deliberate whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and ask for terms of peace. And so Jesus in these, few verses here, he uses two illustrations, but it's kind of the same math. It's kind of the same, same thought, right?
I'm gonna build and, we got a king here. And so for them in this culture, if I was going to build a tower or build a structure, it was a very visible thing, right? And so, if what I built was an incomplete thing that everybody had to look at all the time In a culture of honor and shame, you would be shamed because you didn't or were not able to finish what you built. So, it wasn't some kind of hypothetical theoretical thing. It was basically you were building your own monument saying, I can't handle my business.
Wouldn't that be fun to build, right? Some of us feel like we're walking around like that all the time. I can't handle my business. Everybody knows it. What if you actually built something that said that, right?
Oh, I'm on the phone right now. I'm walking by Rebecca's thing she almost built, right? And so that's what that's what he's talking about here. That that would have been a very real example for them. And also, the thing about the king here.
That's a brutally honest thing. If we're gonna go fight and I've got two ten thousand, I look out. Oh, they've got 20,000. Let's talk about peace, right? Let's talk about whether we ought to do this because it's just smart.
Do I want to with my pride and ego? You'll have everyone killed? Or do we want to talk this out and and maybe have some peace, right? And so, both of these are about counting the cause. The danger here is we can commit too fast.
We cannot think things through. Do you think about your Christian walk as something that is worthy of commitment? Let's say it that way. Is it worthy of commitment, church? Well, I don't know.
I hadn't heard a word here. Is it worthy of commitment? Yes. Yes. I don't like this sermon.
Let's get back to sunshine and rainbows or something. Blue sky. It's worthy of commitment, isn't it? But you do have to count the cost. Does it cost you something to live the Christian life?
Need to ask that again. Let's think about it just one second. Breathe. Does it cost you something to live the Christian life? Yes.
It better. Or you may be in danger of not living the Christian life at all. Now, we live in an area of our of our world, in our country, and even our state where it is easy to call oneself a Christian. It is just as easy to call oneself a Christian and not live a Christian life at all. Yes.
There are a lot of people using the name of Christ and doing things that are completely against the name of Christ. Yes. And so what we don't want to be is that. And so we want to truly count the cost that we're not going to, give in to this other thing and allow priorities to shift or something like that. We want to be people who actually live Christian life.
Right? We talked about how we can be excited about things. What comes to mind for me is preseason football. How many of you right now, you may know that your team's not that great, but right now, July, it feels like there's hope. There's a chance we might be able to do it.
If everything lines up, it might be a good year. But then three games in, everybody on the staff is worthless, the players are worthless, you could come out of retirement and do it better. Yeah? And so that's what I think about when I think about part of counting the cost and we can really get excited over something without seeing, hey, this is gonna cost something. This is gonna be hard.
This is gonna be difficult. And what what what we see in this is if nobody is failing for actually trying to to build or something. They're failing because they never counted the cost in the first place. We can, I mean, that's a very easy application for us as a church, right? We have a land.
We'd love to build, right? But what we don't wanna do is just go ahead and build something and realize, oh my goodness, this cost money every month, right? I didn't even think that it's gonna cost several thousand dollars a month. I just didn't think about that. Now, let me say something real quickly.
If you have the money to go ahead and pay for a building, see me after we'll we'll talk about that too. That way, it's not costing a thousand dollars a month, you know, several thousand. But that's why people are failing not because they're building because they haven't counted the cost in the first place. So, now, the scripture actually put up on the board. In verse 33, so therefore, any of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
Now, people have misread that just like they've misread the hating thing. Does this mean that you need to get rid of every single thing you own and just follow Jesus? It does not. What it means is you need to prioritize everything you own, everything on your calendar, everything within your life to be able to be a disciple of Christ. Now, that is costly, isn't it?
Because if you are serious about that, it does cause something. I have to say no to things I might wanna do. You ever had to do that? Oh, You may have to attend things you you're not really in the mood to attend. You may have to skip things you don't want to skip.
You may have to act in a way that you might not normally act because I'm giving up that old self to follow Jesus, and that is costly. What is it that you are giving up right now to follow Jesus? Are you giving up anything? No, let's start there. Are you actually giving up something to follow Christ?
Because again, if we're not, who are we serving? Ourselves, right? If we are not giving up a thing to follow Jesus, all we're following, all we're putting at the top of that priority list is me, myself, and I. And we already talked about how easy it is to follow me, myself, and I. I'm worried about that all the time.
And so that's easy to creep up there. In Matthew 16, for whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? Boy, those hit home today with this, doesn't If you would save your life, you need to lose it.
Well, that didn't make any sense, Lord. I need to give up my life to be able to follow him. That makes sense. Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. But if you do that, the promise is you're gonna find only your life, you're gonna find eternal life with Christ.
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? How many of you you've heard that a thousand times over your life? Yeah? It's easy to read and go, yeah, yeah, I believe that. What's harder is to put that into practice and go, okay, what am I pursuing?
What am I spending my money on? My wife is on me all the time. I love I love buying stuff at auctions. Anybody else? Yeah?
Amen? And she has this crazy question like, where are you gonna put it? Now, I don't normally think about that. I think about the deal I'm getting on the thing, not where it's gonna go. But again, that's part of counting the cost.
Where does it go within my life if I do this? Yes. And so it's a great question to ask, where is it gonna go? What am I pursuing? What am I chasing?
Is it me? Is it what I want? Or is it I desire a life after Christ following god and I'm going give my life for that. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Part of my love of going to auctions, I love estate sales.
Anybody else there? But it's always it's always a question of when I walk into someone's home and I see all of this stuff. And a lot of times because we are different people, I look at all the stuff and I'm like, why did they accumulate all this junk? Yeah? But I also know in the back of my mind, if they walked into my area and looked at my stuff, they would have the same thought.
Yeah? Because we all like what we like, right? But then when you know someone has passed in the family and they're having that estate sale, it's kind of sad because it's okay, what is all this stuff worth? Not that we can assign judgment to this person, but you think about all the things we collect and buy, and at the end of the day, what value is that when you compare it to life with Christ? Amen.
Okay? And so, I think a lot of times we don't even have the thought. It's just I like this, I wanna buy it, and then somebody annoyingly ask you where you're gonna put it. Right? But we wanna pursue something greater.
That, okay, what will it profit in a man if he gains the whole world? If he gets all this stuff, if he gets all the things he wants, yet, he loses his soul. Why did he lose his soul? Because he pursued all the things of the world. Instead of the things of Christ or what shall a man give in return for his soul?
And that's he's just rephrasing what he's saying there. It's what you are giving, you are trying to trade or or say, this is as valuable as my soul. Is it church? Say no. And so that's what Jesus is saying here.
In Philippians, Paul says it this way, but whatever gain I had, I counted as lost for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as lost because of of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my lord. Somebody say amen. Amen. Paul's got it right in this, doesn't he?
I count it all off. I count everything as lost because of surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my lord. I know how valuable it is Nothing is more valuable than that. He said, for his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. Boy, that's what I'm talking about.
If I'm doing well spiritually, this is where I am, right? All this stuff that I'm pursuing, I'm going to count as just, he says, rubbish, trash, nothing of value. When I'm comparing it to life in Jesus. He says, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Yes.
That is where Paul has it right, that by any means possible, I may attain this resurrection. That I have set priority one is I wanna live my life in Christ. And in Romans twelve one and two, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Now, what we're answering with these couple of verses here is what does this look like? Because we have, I think, a lot of probably differing views.
What does it look like to give your life to Christ? What does it look like to prioritize over everything else, life with Christ? And that's what Paul is answering here. Okay? I appeal to you.
Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to god, which is your spiritual worship. So, what is worship? Is worship just what we did earlier when we were singing songs? Absolutely not. What is worship, church?
Everything I do. Everything I do is spiritual worship to God. Now that can be a something that looks that doesn't look like worship at all, doesn't it? Couldn't it be? Because if what I'm prioritizing is not god, then what you see is not spiritual worship.
But your spiritual worship is living a life for god. He said, do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. And I would say that this needs to renew every morning. Every day, have this question, what is good and acceptable to God? Because if you don't, that's when all of those small decisions tend to take over.
Yeah. When you haven't run the audit, when you haven't done the budget, when I haven't thought about it in a long time, that's when all of a sudden you realize, oh, this thing has taken over my life and I didn't even see it because I didn't pay that much attention to the little thing. And again, I I firmly believe that nobody this week said, you know what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna schedule my calendar in such a way that I don't even have time to think about God. I don't think any of you did that. But what we did was we said, well, I know I got to do this, and I know I got to do this, and I need to do this.
And all of a sudden at the end of the week, go, oh, I'm full. Because I didn't think, I didn't budget, I didn't plan, I didn't I didn't count the cost. And so here's one thing I want you to walk out with today. As we read last week, there's still room. There's room for every single one of us but we've gotta count the cost.
We've gotta look at our life and say, I want to give this to you, lord and so, maybe this morning, you've never counted the cost. Maybe it's something where I just haven't thought of it. I know I wanted to to follow Jesus, but I didn't really know what all it would mean to me. Back in verse 33, one more time. So therefore, any of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
And so we all individually, as different families, and as a church, need to come to this conclusion, what will we give to follow God? I think we try to follow God in every single thing we do. You want to build something? Sure. But let's follow God in building it.
I want to accomplish something within my personal life. Let's follow God while we do that. I'd love for my family to attain or to do this. Well, the first thing I'm gonna do is follow God's leading in that. Ask the question, does this thing honor God?
I've even heard of people who, did kitchen remodels. This may seem silly to you, but I love the thought. And in that kitchen remodel, what they said is, Lord, we are we wanna keep you first. We are gonna give this kitchen to you. And so they called their kitchen the Lord's kitchen.
And so what they did out of that is is like, this is open to anyone. We're gonna make sure we've got, we're gonna have plenty of events that we wanna serve people. We want to we want to make sure that this church is is cared for. We wanna make sure other people are cared for. We are giving though we're spending this money on our kitchen.
We want to give this kitchen to god. You ever thought about it like that? Because it changes the focus. Now, you might say, well, they still get this nice kitchen. Yeah, they do.
What if they're serious about that? What are the next vehicle you get? You think, alright, how can I how can I use this in service to god? Because often all we're thinking about is does it have seat coolers or not, right? Or am I the only one that thinks that?
Have ventilated seats. I was upset. My vehicle, they didn't offer a model that had that. Like, this is Houston, Texas. There'll be a Texas edition where it's got this big old hole just blowing your my hair, I don't even have hair.
It's just hair waving in the wind. It's blowing so hard. But what if that next thing, I'm gonna give to god. Some of us are involved in a lot of different activities. I need to rethink those activities at a time and say, how am I giving this?
How am I giving the glory to god through this thing? I I'm involved in soccer. I wanna bring glory to god through that. Some of you are involved in baseball or or softball. How can I bring glory and honor to god?
How can I open up the gospel to other people through this thing? You see how making god the very first thing and then everything else filters through that. Instead of filling up all these other things and going, alright, well, how does god fit in? Now that I've filled everything up. And so this morning, we're going to offer an invitation.
We'd love to pray with you. If you need to get back on the right track, if you need to reprioritize or this morning, you know, today is the day I want to be baptized into the name of Christ. I want to begin that walk with him. I'm telling you, we're going to do that as a family. It is not you against the world.
It is us against everything else, right? That Satan wants to throw at it and so if you want to begin that walk with him and and join a group that that loves Jesus, would you do that this morning as we stand and as we sing?