Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Is Jesus Worth It? | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 14.25-35

Episode Date: May 13, 2020

Before you answer that, think about it carefully. That's what Jesus wants. He doesn't want a quick answer. Listen to https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/keith-simon/ (Keith) cover some of the costs listed in https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+14%3A25-35&version=NIV (Luke 14.25-35) and discuss they're such a big deal as he continues our series on https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcast-series/how-to-follow-jesus/ (Learning to Follow Jesus). Interested in more content like this? Listen to this interview with Matthew Bates: https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/what-it-means-to-pledge-allegiance-to-king-jesus-a-guest-interview-with-matthew-bates/ (I Pledge Allegiance to King Jesus). Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TheCrossingCOMO (Facebook), https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ (Instagram), and https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO.  Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10 minute Bible talks where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now, we're learning how to follow Jesus by working our way through the Gospel of Luke. After I became a Christian in college, I ended up spending a summer on a mission trip in the country of Hungary. Now, this is back when the Berlin Wall was still up, and Hungary was part of Eastern Europe, part of the Soviet Communist bloc. And the Soviet government, of course, was very hostile to faith. It was very difficult to be a Christian.

And so we were part of a mission team that was kind of undercover that we were traveling on student tourist visas. But we were talking to people about Jesus. Now, this was a really important summer in my life in so many ways. One is just I grew in my faith as I trusted God to raise the money and just to be with me in this foreign country talking to people about Christ. But it's also the place that I developed a relationship with Christine, who eventually became my wife. And it was important because I was really challenged by a lot of people that I met there. My faith was challenged as I saw people in Hungary in a lot more difficult circumstances than I lived in, either believe in Christ or try to follow him.

So there's one set of college girls that kind of exemplifies this. And Christine and some of the other people on the team had talked. to them about Jesus and had thought that these girls were going to put their faith in Christ. And so they had these girls, they were from Czechoslovakia, which was a lot like Hungary, a part of the Soviet Empire. And they had them over to their house for dinner, and they were just going to talk and kind of follow up and process with them this new faith they were beginning. But when the girls got there, these Czechoslovakian girls, it was clear that they had decided that they weren't sure if they were going to follow Jesus. And so as Christian,

and some of the other people on their team started to ask them questions and figure out why, it became clear that there was going to be a really high cost if they became Christ followers. See, they explained in Czechoslovakio, if you submitted an application for housing or submitted an application for a job or to go to a university, there was always a question, do you consider yourself a Christian? And if these girls put their faith in Christ, they knew that they were bound to check that box. Yes, I am a Christian and to publicly identify with Jesus, so they knew that there was a chance that they weren't going to get a good apartment, that they weren't going to get a good job, that they weren't going to get into the university that they'd hoped to. And so they had to

wrestle with the cost of following Jesus. They had to really count the cost. I'm afraid that a lot of us don't count the cost when it comes to following Jesus. It's relatively easy in our culture, at least it has been to this point to follow Christ, and so we haven't sat down and assess what does it cost to follow him, and what are the benefits? Are the costs worth it? It might surprise you to know that Jesus encouraged us to count the cost of following him. In Luke, chapter 14, verse 25, there are large crowds that are beginning to follow Jesus, and I always think it's interesting to really pay attention closely to what Jesus says to the crowds. because it always seems the opposite of what I would say.

I would want large crowds, and so I'd try to make the message conducive to gathering a large crowd. But Jesus, when he sees large crowds, he doesn't mind challenging them. And that's exactly what he does. In verse 26, he says, look, if anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes, even life itself, such a person cannot be my disciple. and whoever does not carry their own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. You can see that Jesus is not very seeker friendly. And then he goes on to tell him a story. He says, look, imagine if you were going to build a tower.

Wouldn't you first sit down to kind of estimate the cost to make sure you had enough money to build it? If you don't and you run out of money before it's done, isn't everybody just going to make fun of you? Or he says, imagine if you're a king and you're going to go, out and wage war against another king. Don't you first kind of sit down and make sure that you've got enough troops to fight that king? If you don't have enough troops, you better seek peace instead of war. And then he ends it with this in verse 33.

He says, in the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples. Those Czechoslovakian girls, they intuitively knew what Jesus taught. here. That you've really got to count the cost of what it means to follow him. And the first thing Jesus says, to follow me, it might very well cost you some important relationships. Now, Jesus isn't telling us here to literally hate our mother, father, brothers, sisters, children. In the original language, it literally means to love them less. So in other words, to love them less than Jesus. But he goes right after these key family relationships.

And he says that our love for Christ should be so great that it looks like, at least in comparison, that we hate our parents, hate our children, hate our siblings. See, he challenges this idol of family and says that our love for God has to be greater than our love for our spouse or kids, our families. I read a story by a pastor who now was a person. works in Texas, and he was on a missionary trip in East Malaysia, probably one a lot like the one I told you about I was on in the country of Hungary. And he's there attending a small church, and in one of the worship services, a teenage girl had come forward to announce her decision to follow Jesus and to be baptized. And during the service, this pastor notices some worn out luggage leaning

against the wall of the church, and so he asked the Malaysian pastor about it. And the Malaysian pastor pointed out that the girl who had just been baptized had brought that luggage. He said, her father told her that if she was baptized as a Christian, she could never come back home. So when she came to be baptized and to follow Jesus, she brought her luggage with her. So following Jesus can cost you some really important relationships. It can also cost you your own life. That's what Jesus was getting out when he says, whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. The cross is an instrument of execution. And so what he's doing is saying that those who follow him must consider their life dead. Their life to themselves, their life to their

agenda, their life to their plans. Well, that's all dead now. Now the life we live, we live by faith in Jesus. We are his and we want to accomplish his will in our life. We want to follow his path and his plan. We also see that following Jesus might very well cost you your possessions. He says in the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciple. So how much does it cost to follow Jesus? Will it cost you everything? It costs you the approval of people. It costs you a life of ease, it cost you your favorite sins, it cost you your possessions. We have to be willing to lose all of that to follow him. When we find out how much it costs to follow Jesus, the obvious question is, is it worth it?

I mean, that's what Jesus is telling us do when he says to count the cost. He tells the king to count the cost before he goes out into battle. He tells the builder to count the cost before he starts building to make sure he has enough. funds to fund the whole building or enough troops to defeat the other king in battle. So now he's telling us, look, count the cost and decide is this really worth it? Well, we know what Jesus said it may very well cost us to follow him. What do we gain? We may lose everything in this world, but we will gain Jesus.

We'll gain eternal life with him. See, what would it be like if we gained everything in this world but lost our soul? Jesus said, what can you give in exchange for your soul? Your soul is worth far more than anything this world offers. So even if we lost every pleasure, every comfort, every relationship in this world, but if we got to follow Jesus, it would be worth it. Following Jesus in this life may cost us the approval of other people. they may not be okay with how we act or the choices we make,

but we will gain the praise of God. And wouldn't you rather have the praise of God than the praise of people? If you follow Jesus in this world, you may very well encounter significant difficulties that you wouldn't normally encounter if you didn't follow Jesus, but it will be well worth it. The Apostle Paul says our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

If we follow Jesus, we might miss out on treasures on earth, but we will gain treasures in heaven. Jesus says everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. Maybe you're listening to this podcast, but you don't really consider yourself a Christian. First of all, thanks so much for listening. What I want you to see here is that Jesus encourages you to count the cost of following him. Jesus is not begging people to become Christians.

He's not looking for quick decisions or somebody to raise a hand or to walk an aisle. What Jesus is telling us to do is to really think it through. Think about what you'll be giving up, but also, think about what you'll be gaining. I promise you that what you gain in Jesus will far outweigh, will far surpass anything that you have to give up in this world. Maybe you're kind of a new Christian and you're listening to this and you're encountering costs of following Jesus for the very first time. And maybe you're interpreting that to mean that God isn't with you or that the Christian life isn't working for you. I hope you see that's not true at all, that Jesus told us from the very beginning

that following him would be costly. It might cost us relationships. It might cost us our life. It might cost us comfort. It might cost us our possessions. To follow Jesus is to encounter costs in this world. That's the normal Christian life. God will walk through it with you. And remember, that the reward of Jesus is far greater than anything you'll give up in this life. Maybe you're a veteran Christian. You know, you've been at this a while. You've made sacrifices. To be honest, you're just tired.

You're tired of serving and giving and sacrificing. You've paid your dues. And you're wanting someone else to further the mission. You're wanting someone else to go through the hard stuff. You're just kind of wanting a break. But let me ask you something. Jesus told us to take up our cross. Has he given you permission, anyone permission, to lay their cross down?

Your labor and the Lord is not in vain. Your race isn't over until you've drawn your last breath and see Jesus face to face. When you see Jesus, when you're with Jesus, all the things that you thought of as sacrifices and hardships and hardships and labor and. in Christ. It's just going to pale in comparison to his beauty and to his glory and to the joy that you have in his presence. It's not that all those sacrifices weren't really painful maybe at the time. All the trials you went through, I don't want to minimize them at all. I just want to say that Jesus is so great. Jesus is so glorious. Jesus is so beautiful. Jesus is so wonderful that when you're in his presence, well, it's all going to have been worth it.

more than worth it. So don't give up following Jesus. Keep your eyes fixed on him. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.