Vision Sunday 2010
Counting the Cost of Following Jesus
Luke 14:25-35
25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. 27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. [1]
Wow!!
We all know that there are some people that really put it in when it comes to serving Jesus.
There are people who give up a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of energy and so on in the way the serve God. There are people who sacrifice time with family and friends. There are people that sacrifice careers and lifestyle. They are the 20% of people who do 80% of the work. That’s the standard rule in any volunteer organisation. It’s always the minority of people who do the majority of the work. There’s always a huge gap between the truly committed and the crowd.
Today we’re going to be talking about what God is doing in our church family, and how we need to respond to that. We are going to be very up-front about the cost involved in following Jesus as He leads us.
One essential thing that we need to notice in this text is who Jesus is talking to. He turned not to the disciples - not to those who had already given up their homes and careers to follow Jesus - He turned to the large crowds travelling with them. He turned to people who are following Jesus out of curiosity, or out of a desire to receive some sort of blessing, or out of a genuine spiritual hunger. He makes the cost of discipleship clear to the crowd, not just to the already committed.
I want to be very clear this morning that Jesus is speaking to you and to me in this passage. Jesus never intended the Church to be like every other volunteer organisation. He never wrote the 20/80 rule. In His Church, it is commitment or nothing. You either accept Jesus as Lord or you reject Jesus as Lord, you don’t accept Him as anything less. That is not an offer that is on the table. How offensive it would be for anyone to say to Jesus – I’ll have you as saviour, friend, helper, provider, healer, comforter, counsellor…. but not as my Lord, not as the boss of my life. That’s my job.
I don’t think so, and neither does Jesus.
I don’t want anyone to get the impression today that I am asking them to do anything more than what they already do in the life of this church. I especially don’t want those people who are already working hard to feel that way. But at first glance that doesn’t seem to be what Jesus is on about!
Jesus goes on to say “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. 27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
There’s a real danger that people who are already sacrificing time with family and friends as well as time for themselves will hear this and think “You mean I’ve got to give my family even less of my time and energy so that I can pay the price of following Jesus? You mean I have to not care about them at all? You mean I have to sacrifice absolutely everything and everyone I care about in the name of serving Jesus?”
I believe that one reason we see so many churches operating by the 20/80 rule is that too many people think that this is what Jesus is saying, and feel they can’t live up to it, so they miss the point of what He is really saying.
Jesus is using comparative language here. He is not saying that we should literally hate our family and our own lives. He is saying that in comparison with our priority of following Him we should hate our family and our own lives.
Let me give you some examples of what that looks like:
- Your son or daughter gets into some trouble and they want you to lie to cover for them. Jesus says not to. Who will you follow?
- Your parents have invested a lot into your education and want you to go down the pathway of getting a reliable and prestigious job, but you feel God calling you to missionary service or theological study. Who will you follow?
- You are watching a movie with friends that contains things that Jesus tells you not to have anything to do with. Who will you follow?
- You feel that God wants you to practice hospitality by inviting people for lunch on Sunday, but your family just want to veg out & watch footy after church. How do you deal with that?
- Your boyfriend or girlfriend loves physical intimacy and so do you, but you know God wants you to be sexually pure. Who do you follow?
We could go on and on listing examples of how following Jesus can be in conflict with what we or others want us to do. Far too often it seems like an even battle, sometimes we opt for Jesus, sometimes for our own desires, sometimes we give in to others.
Jesus is saying that our commitment to others and even ourselves cannot be in the least bit comparable to the depth of our commitment to Him.
To be a disciple in those days meant that you needed to follow your teacher around. Rabbi’s were constantly on the move and their disciples went wherever the Rabbi went. They might have had other plans and other desires, but that was not the point, if they wanted to be a disciple they would need to follow their Rabbi. It didn’t matter what their parents, spouse, children, friends or anyone else wanted for them – either they followed the Rabbi or they didn’t. A choice needed to be made.
In fact Jesus made it even clearer for the crowd. Not only was it like someone choosing to follow other rabbi’s like the ones these people were familiar with, but following Jesus would even entail picking up a cross and following Him.
These are people who would have seen criminals hanging on roadside crosses. They knew what the cross was about. They saw the suffering involved.
The cross was a symbol of death, of suffering, or rejection and of humiliation. To pick up your cross was an acknowledgement that all of these things were coming your way. To pick up a cross voluntarily is craziness, but that’s the only way to follow Jesus.
In Luke 9:22-26 we read:
[Jesus] said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
23 Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? 26 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels
Whoever loses his or her life for Jesus will actually save it. Chris is going to unpack this idea some more for us over the next few weeks as he looks at the teaching of Jesus in John chapter 3. Jesus is talking about eternal life here. He is talking about eternal life after death and eternal life before death. He promised abundant life in this life and even greater abundance in the life to come. But that abundance does not come from seeking it. It does not come by working for it. We must give our lives away in order to receive life from Him.
But I want to stress something very important, and I fear it is something that does not get said and practiced anywhere near enough in most churches.
You need to lose your life to Jesus and for Jesus. You do not need to lose your life to this church and for this church.
If Jesus has called you to this church you need to take your place in the body and serve according to His will for you and for this church. You need to be part of what God is doing.
But you don’t need to do other people’s work for them.
Sometimes people do things because they feel the church needs them to be done. Sometimes people do things because leaders in the church ask them to. Sometimes they need to say no.
Jesus has called most of us here today to be part of this family and play our part in this family. He has also called us to be part of our natural families. He has also called us into friendships. He has also called us into workplaces. He has called us to look after our own bodies and minds. He has called us to follow Him in every single part of our lives.
Sometimes people are so busy in the church that they can’t follow Jesus in other parts of their lives.
I don’t want that to happen on my watch.
If you are feeling like that’s happening to you I want you to know that you have my support to do something about it.
I don’t want you doing other peoples work for them, I want you following Jesus in every part of your life. I want you losing your life in Him and for Him, and experiencing the abundance of His life in you. You won’t experience abundant life by burning yourself out for the church.
For those of you who are not playing your part at this point in time, I want to challenge you to think about that and let Jesus guide your actions.
Some of you are just settling in to this church family or considering whether this is where God has called you. To you I want to extend a very warm welcome to be involved and to serve God in ways that honour Him, bless you and bless others.
Others may have been here for a while and not felt invited to be involved in service. It’s easy for that to happen – the same people tend to keep doing the same jobs without thinking about who else would like to help out. Leaders tend to ask people who they already know are willing to do things. I want you to know that we need you and we will help you find the area of service that God has prepared you for, and we will help you to grow in that service. We will not expect you to serve in the same way that others have done, but will recognise and respond the work of God in you and through you.
Others of you have valued family, work, leisure, pleasure or other things more highly than you have valued following Jesus Christ and doing whatever He tells you to do. Some of you have allowed problems, difficulties and even divisions to become more important to you than following Jesus and doing what He tells you to do. Some of you may have felt unappreciated or disrespected. Some may have experienced other barriers to getting involved or things that have caused them to cease being involved.
I want you to know that we value every part of your life. I want you to know that we recognise that every person is different and contributes in different ways. I want you to know we recognise that there are seasons in life that we need to be sensitive to. I want you to know that we do not judge people according to how much they do or don’t do in the life of the church.
I just want you to be faithful to Jesus and do what He wants you to do.
I want you to realise that if you hold yourself back from involvement and service you make other people’s lives harder and poorer. You have been shaped by God for acts of service, and some of them are meant to be done as part of the life of this church family.
We are not the church of the 20/80 rule. We are the church of Jesus Christ
I am excited by the fact that right now we have people asking to be involved in areas of service that we are not yet set up to provide. We have more people wanting to be involved in some areas of ministry than can fit on the roster. We have people waiting to be trained in areas of service so they can get involved.
This church will experience the excitement of seeing God work powerfully in and through us not as a minority of people do even more than they are doing now, but as each one of us takes personal responsibility to follow Jesus Christ wholeheartedly and as we learn to work together ever more effectively.
In my early teens I was part of a bible study group that met at the church about an hour before the service began. That group was led by one of my friends’ dad. He owned a small business that kept him busy, but he could do something Sunday mornings, and he did. That group was a great support to me during my school years.
In my later teens I was part of a bible study in a lady’s home on Saturdays. She was not very confident teaching us – in fact some of us older guys played more of a role doing that at times – but she could open her home and love us; and she did. That group played a big part in fanning the flame of a desire to teach the bible in me.
A friend was telling me during the week of a lady in her 80’s who is not able to get out and about very much. She asked God to show her how she could serve Him, and God reminded her of all the cards and letters that she had kept from people over the years. He prompted her to write to all those people and share her faith with them, and that’s what she’s doing.
Last Sunday at Nollamara Church of Christ a missionary told about how God was preparing him and his wife to serve in a country where you need to be very careful about sharing your faith. It was exciting for those people on Sunday to hear that this man's first experience of Church was in a kids programme run by the Nolla church. Carolyn’s brother was in his class at school, and her family invited him along to the Sonseekers club. Several of his family members have since had the opportunity to become followers of Jesus also.
Lives are changed when all God's people do their part. God has entrusted every one of us with opportunities for the gospel to impact others through us.
I don’t what to be in a church where a few people are doing a lot. I want to be in a church where we are all doing only what God wants, nothing more and nothing less.
Listen to Jesus as He continues to speak to the crowds…
28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29 For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’
31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
What Jesus is saying here is pretty simple – you don’t start something without counting the cost and being sure you can complete it. To start something and not be able to carry it through is foolishness.
You might say “What about faith? What about depending on God to do what we can’t?”
That actually isn’t an issue in this passage, because Jesus is talking about making the decision to be a disciple. He’s telling people that if they can’t commit their whole lives to it then they cannot follow Him. He’s not asking for anything we don’t have, He’s asking for everything we do have.
God is growing our church. In order for that work to continue we need to make room for it. Our carpark and building are too full on most Sunday mornings and that limits how much growth God can produce.
In many ways, it feels best to leave things the way they are. It feels good to have a full building when we come to worship God, it feels good to have lots of voices joining together in song and to see familiar faces each week.
Good for us, but what about for those God wants to reach through us?
Jesus told us to make disciples and so that’s what we are going to work hard at doing.
We need to make some decisions about how we are going to create an opportunity for our growth to continue. None of the options before us are as easy as doing nothing. But listen to the words of Jesus as he continues to speak to the crowds.
34 “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.
“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Do you know what happens when churches stop doing the things that Jesus tells them to? They die. The people don’t lose their salvation, but they do lose to joy of serving Jesus, and the church becomes stale and lifeless. That’s not what we want for our church.
Church is not about programmes or about facilities, it’s about people coming into and living in right relationship with God and each other.
Will you play your part in making that happen?
Today is Vision Sunday. It’s all about answering the question “What is this church going to look like”. We answer that question not by imagining what it is that we want to see, but by listening to Jesus tell us what He sees and what He wants us to do about it.
Jesus sees a church that is not stale and lifeless; a church that does not follow the 20/80 rule. Jesus sees a church that is committed to Him; a church that He is working within; a church that is alive; a church where every part does it’s part.
Is that the church you see?
[1]All Scriptures taken from The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids
