The cost of Discipleship
Today I will be looking at discipleship and particularly the cost of discipleship. The first thing to say is that being a disciple and being a christian are one and the same thing, you cannot be a christian without being a disciple of Jesus Christ.
In many circles today the christian faith is being proclaimed regarding all the benefits it can bring to a person without any emphasis on how costly it can be to be a follower of Jesus.
For example christianity, a relationship with Jesus can bring salvation, eternal life, the forgiveness of our sins, the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives in overcoming our sinful nature, however in the case of many people who were former muslims, it can mean that their families completely disown them and in many cases threaten to kill them. So in Islamic countries it can be very costly to be a christian as christians are also discriminated against in many cases.
In our own country christian standards are being challenged such as the sanctity of marriage, the rights of unborn children, the place of christianity in schools and christian standards of morality. Christians can be made fun of in the office or workplace by people who do not know any better. It takes courage to stand up to this.
It is with this mood and movement of logic, that we approach the gospel lesson for today. Jesus told us to count the cost of discipleship before we take it on and make a commitment and discover that perhaps we are unwilling to afford the cost of being his follower.
The opening line of the gospel lesson for today is that “great crowds followed him,” and those words always signify a problem. Whenever there are great crowds following Jesus, you immediately understand that these are not disciples. Jesus’ popularity was running some 95%. That is, if you had a backache, Jesus would heal it. If you had a headache, Jesus would heal it. If you had heartache, Jesus would heal it. Jesus was the great physician who would heal all your problems and therefore Jesus was enormously popular to the crowds. Hordes of people were joining the Jesus bandwagon.
Looking at the mass of would-be disciples, Jesus said, “Whoever does not hate his mother & father, brothers & sisters, spouse, & his own children (& I would add grandchildren), whoever does not hate these people cannot be my disciple.” “What? How outrageous,” the people thought. Jesus continued, “Whoever does not pick up & carry his cross of suffering, cannot be my disciple.” “What? Outrageous! Who does he think he is?
Jesus continued, “I want to tell you a story. A man wanted to build a tall watchtower so he could stand on that watchtower and look down on potential thieves who may want to rob his crop from his fields. The man started to build his watchtower, ordering the lumber and the rocks, and began building the tower. But the costs of the building the tower quickly escalated and he ran out of money. He hadn’t anticipated how much the building project would cost. How embarrassing.
Do you people get it?” No, they didn’t get it. Jesus then said, “I will tell you another story. There was a king who had ten thousand soldiers and he was planning to wage war against a king who had twenty thousand soldiers. The king had better figure out the cost of this war because the ten thousand soldiers will lose to the twenty thousand, and the king with ten thousand better sue for peace immediately, or he will lose the war. Do you get it? You need to calculate the cost in advance?” No, they still not get it.
So Jesus finally said, “Unless you renounce all that you have, even life itself, you cannot be my disciple.” And the story ends with the famous line, “And very few followed him.” You would have expected Jesus to say to those massive crowds: “Come, come, come. Come to the waters. Come to the Spirit. Come to the kingdom.” Instead Jesus said to the crowds, “Count, count, count. Count the cost. Count the expense to you. Count the price of being my disciple.”
As Jesus looked over the great crowds following him and listening to him, you would have thought he would have enticed them into discipleship. You would have thought he would have made it easy; that he would have put the bar of discipleship very low. You would have thought he would have said, “It is easy being a disciple. Love your wife. Love your kids. Show up to work on time. Be nice to the neighbour next door. Go to synagogue. It is easy to be my disciple.”
But Jesus did not want a large number of “little bit” disciples who had a “little bit” of prayer, a “little bit” of commitment, a “little bit” of dedication, a “little bit” of love. Jesus didn’t want one hundred and twenty “little bit” Christians but he wanted twelve disciples who were truly committed to prayer, to discipleship, to being ruled by Jesus as their king. And with these twelve dedicated disciples, Jesus would change the world.
A small-dedicated cadre of people can change the world, for good or evil, and Jesus wanted a small number who would transform the world positively. Today, more than a billion people gather to worship Jesus, not because of “little bit” Christians but people who pay the high cost of discipleship. So discipleship can be costly, we preach and teach that God has a plan for our lives, but part of that plan could be suffering. For example God had a plan for the apostles Peters life, but that plan involved being crucified on a cross upside down.
It takes humility today to surrender to Jesus. You cannot be a disciple unless you are willing to give up control of your life to Jesus. And that can be hard to do but it is well worth it because Jesus can run our lives better then we can ourselves.
I once read about a lifeguard on a beach who saw a drowning man. He walked into the surf but didn’t go out to rescue him. People gathered on the beach and yelled and screamed at the lifeguard to go out and rescue the drowning man. The lifeguard waded a little deeper, and kept his eye on the drowning man, but the yells and screams of the onlookers didn’t motivate him to swim out. Just when it seemed the man was going down for the last time, the lifeguard swam out with strong strokes and grabbed the man and brought him back to shore. After some spitting and coughing, the man was conscious. But rather than hailing him as a hero, the onlookers were angry at the lifeguard and said, “You coward! You saw he was drowning, why didn’t you go out sooner?”
The lifeguard patiently explained, “You can see that he is much bigger and stronger than I am.” If I had gone out sooner, he was thrashing and kicked so violently that he would have probably drowned both of us. As long as he was trying to save himself, I couldn’t save him. But when he got tired, and gave up, then I knew I could save him.”
That’s a great lesson about salvation. As long as you think you are strong enough to save yourself, you won’t surrender to Jesus. It’s only when you give up and realise you are hopelessly lost, that Jesus can come and rescue you. Have you ever come to a place in your life where you have surrendered everything you have and everything you are to Jesus? I think real discipleship is coming to Jesus and saying, “Jesus, I give up. I give up control of my life.”
A very important component of discipleship is spending time with Jesus, spending time with the master. Do we have a regular quiet time with God where we spend time in prayer and our daily devotions of reading the bible ? Jesus had his regular quiet times with God our heavenly Father during his ministry, so also should we too.
To conclude all christians are called to be disciples of Jesus, it was not just the 12 apostles. It is a great privilege to be a disciple but it takes total commitment and a willingness to continue to learn about Jesus and the christian life.