Disciple // The Cost of Discipleship // Pastor Josh Evans

In Luke chapter number 14, and I do want to use this as just a plug, I want to thank all of you for just your faithfulness to give. Faithfulness to give, not only of your tithes and offerings, but also your giving to things like missions and forward in faith and some of these extra things that we believe God is calling us to as a ministry.

I'm always reminded, you know, people like Heidi, she said this, but she can't do her ministry without the faithfulness of God's people to give. And so it's super important that you continue to do that. And in a couple of weeks, we were going to do this next week, but I'm going to be out of town all week. And so we punted this a week to the second week in August. We're going to present the budget for the upcoming year and looking forward to that.

Our fiscal year starts August the first. And so we'll be presenting that. We'll be sharing a little bit about how we did this past year. And so looking forward to that.

So that's not next Sunday, but the next. And so I want you to be a part of that. If you call our church your home church, you'll be able to come and then everybody can come and you'll be able to get a budget that day.

And just to be able to see a little bit about the financial aspect of our church. And I'll just say this, I'm excited to be able to talk about it because God has been so good to us. And, and I just, he's really used you guys to get us to where we are at today. So I'm super excited to be able to share a little bit more about that in a couple of weeks, a Luke chapter number 14 here today, Luke 14, this is week number three of our series entitled disciple B one, make one.

In fact, I was explaining this to somebody this week about the reason why this series kind of came about. I think when we think of the great commission as a church, it's easy for us to look at that and say our job, our commission, what God has led us to is to go out and to tell people about Jesus and share the gospel. And it is, and that's a big part of it. So I'm definitely encouraging that that continued to happen. But what we learned in week one of this series from Matthew chapter 28, if you look at that passage in the Greek, here's what it says is that the main objective of the church, the main objective that we have, the main commission that Jesus left to us is this is to make disciples or to teach all all nations. And that's why we are supposed to be doing this. And so a disciple was someone that would learn from a rabbi.

We looked pretty deep at that. And it was more than just knowing what the rabbi knew. It was doing what the rabbi did. And so when Jesus came about and said, Do you want to be disciples of me?

Do you want to follow me? He basically was saying that being a disciple of Jesus is more than just knowing what Jesus taught. It is living as Jesus lived.

It is living as Jesus live. In other words, you would take what Jesus the master communicator, the master teacher, you would take what he's saying, and you would abide and live and pattern your life after it. And I'll say this by way of introduction, we are all called to be disciples. But we are also all called to make disciples. If you're a Christian in here today, this is a commission that is for you. If you're a follower of Jesus, this is for you. And here in Luke chapter 14, I'm just going to be honest with you, it's going to get kind of real for us today. In fact, Jesus is going to say some things that I'm going to help you try to understand, but he is going to really push the envelope a little bit to kind of weed out some that really aren't that interested in following Jesus too much. And I'll tell you this by way of just introduction. I just want you to buckle up today, okay? Look at your neighbor right now and say buckle up.

And for introverts, that's the worst time of the entire morning, okay? But listen, Jesus is going to challenge you. We've been in this series so I didn't want to lead with this, but Jesus is here going to be challenging us about the cost of discipleship. The cost of discipleship. In fact, many of us, we see the things, you know, that we've celebrated, you know, Lomax, we had him up on stage and what he's doing in Andy's life and so on, and we celebrate that and those things are good and we want it, but I'll tell you this, what Jesus is about to tell all of us is that following Jesus will one day cost you something. It will one day cost you something and the question that you need to ask yourself is this, what is following Jesus really worth to you?

What is it worth to you? Here in Luke chapter 14, Jesus is surrounded by a large multitude here in verse 25 of Luke chapter 14 and he says this, the Bible says, there went a great multitudes with him and he turned and said unto them, now I want you to understand Jesus at this point in his ministry, everywhere he went, large multitudes followed. So everywhere that he went, everywhere that he walked, people came and here's what attracted people is they had heard that Jesus could heal sick people, all right?

And that's a thing, like there's sick people in the community and so they're flocking to the audience to get around Jesus because they've heard that Jesus can heal them and so there's people like that, there's people that, you know, have never walked before, that are paralyzed and they hear Jesus can heal them, that Jesus can, you know, cast out demons, they've seen all these miracles and because of that reason, his audience was really formed, there were some followers there but there was also some people in the audience that the only reason that they were there was to watch Jesus do another miracle or to watch Jesus just do another trick. In fact, I'll tell you this, there's a lot of people in our churches who only come for gimmicks and for different things that are happening and you got to kind of pump everything up and stuff like that and Jesus is going to challenge those who are only coming for the miracle or only coming for the trick or only coming for the gimmick and he's going to peel back some of those layers and talk to them about the cost of following Jesus. He says in verse 26, if any man come to me and listen to this, hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

Listen, we're going to get to this here in a minute because here's what Jesus is saying, you have to hate your father, mother, family and you got to even hate your own life if you want to follow Jesus. Now that's wild, that's far-fetched, we're going to get to interpreting what he's saying here in a minute in that verse but he goes on and whatsoever, verse 27, doth not or whosoever, doth not bear his cross and come after me or follow me, cannot be my disciple. In other words, Jesus is saying only those willing to be cross bearers can follow me. Can you imagine the audience? Like, there's a large group of people following Jesus and Jesus is saying, hey, if you want to follow me, you got to hate your family, you even got to hate your own life and not only that, you got to take up your cross if you want to be my disciple.

I can imagine some people getting uneasy, right? Getting uneasy in the audience, you probably had, I mean, if there's a large number of people, there's probably some people like, we're out, let's head home, this isn't what I expected, I just wanted to see, you know, water turned into wine again or I just want to see that person that couldn't walk, I wanted to see them but this whole thing about following Jesus and costing me certain things, costing me family, costing me my own life, costing me all this, well, I don't want no part of that. Verse 28, for which of you intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first and counteth the cost whether he have sufficient to finish it, lest happily after he hath laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him. In other words, he says, there's a cost to following Jesus and he says, you wouldn't go out and build some tower or build a house and not kind of count the cost to make sure that you have the proper funds in order to build it, right?

Everybody's like nodding at that point because Jesus was speaking directly to what some of them had experienced and they're like, of course, and then he goes on in verse number 30 saying, this man began to build, was not able to finish or what king going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first and consulteth whether he be able with 10,000 to meet him that cometh against him with 20,000 or else while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambesage, that's like a letter and desireth conditions of peace. So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. He's basically saying that building and battle, going to war with another king, he's likening this that, hey, those things are costly.

Building something's going to cost you something and going to war with another kingdom's going to cost you something. Verse number 33, I'll read this again. So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. Salt is good, but if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall be season.

In other words, salt with no savor is of no use. It is neither fit for the land nor yet for the dunghill, but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. I'll tell you this, that's 10 verses and there's a lot to unpack there.

There's a lot to unpack that we're going to look at here today. And if I was to summarize what Jesus is trying to say here in these 10 verses, and I want you to get this, and I'm going to say this numerous times here today, and this is what it is, is this. Salvation, and I'm grateful for this, salvation is free.

If you're thankful for that, can you say amen today? Listen, you did absolutely nothing to get it, right? We did absolutely nothing to get salvation. In fact, your good works, the Bible says, are as filthy rags.

They could never reconcile your life to a righteous, heavenly, perfect Father. There's nothing that you could do to get it. Salvation is free. It's a free gift.

All we have to do is be willing to accept it. It cost us nothing. But what Jesus is saying is that following Jesus will eventually cost you something. He's saying that, listen, salvation is free. The free gift of eternal life is free. But when you choose to follow Jesus and to give him your life, I'm not going to sugarcoat this for you, Union Grove Baptist Church.

I'm not. I'm just going to stand here and say that sometimes following Jesus will cost you something. Perhaps we can look throughout church history, we can look throughout the apostles life, and perhaps it could cost you everything to follow him. Now, I'm grateful that where we live today, I'm grateful that we have the freedom to worship here today.

If you're thankful for that, can you say amen? Listen, we have the freedom to do that, but even though we live in a little bit of a different context than what they were living at, the commitment should be the same. The commitment should be no different. The commitment should be that you are willing to step out and follow Jesus with your whole life, understanding that it will cost you something. That's what Jesus is saying. And so in week three of our series, I want to see just a couple of things here about this idea that following Jesus will eventually cost you something. And we see a few things here about disciples. And many of you have indicated you want to be disciples. In fact, we have celebrated this many times. We have 13 different people who in the last three weeks of this series have stepped forward and said, I want to be discipled. Let me tell you this, I am so proud of every single one of them for doing that because the first step to getting help is recognizing the need for help.

And I celebrate that. We have people in churches, our church, every church in this community that are worshiping here today who need to be discipled, but they're afraid of what everybody's going to think the minute they come out and say, I need to be discipled. And let me tell you, our church, Union Grove, we can create this kind of culture. And this is what I want in our church.

I want those who need help and those who want to be helped. I don't want us to look down upon any of them. I want us to celebrate that because we should rejoice with them. That's the kind of culture that we have here and that we want here.

So I'm proud of them. But let me tell you this, if you are wanting to be a disciple, many of you have indicated even through show of hands and stuff like that in this series that you want to be, Jesus would tell you this, salvation's free. It costs you nothing. But following him and giving your life to him, it could eventually cost you more. Number one, disciples prioritize Jesus above everything else. If you want to be a disciple, you have to prioritize Jesus above everything else. This large crowd had gathered together and they were all around Jesus. And remember, Jesus had attracted crowds because of his miracles, because of the different things that he had done. And if I was in the audience, you know, and I was kind of right there as one of his apostles, I would probably think, Whoa, Jesus, you're getting a little too little too direct, you know, like the thing that I mean, because we think about crowds in churches, we look at the success of a church by how big it is and what their their role is like and their attendance on Sunday.

I'm a pastor and I'll tell you, I'm guilty of that same thing a lot of times. And so if we were there with Jesus and all these people had gathered, they gathered around the idea that Jesus could heal people and Jesus could do all of these different things. And now Jesus is saying some far fetched stuff about following him. If I was one of the apostles, I would pull them aside and be like, Hey, Jesus, listen, going on a little strong.

You're not all these people aren't going to come back next Sunday. If you keep preaching like that, we probably need Hey, can you go back to that whole thing about prayer and then maybe at the end, can you heal somebody and then everybody will come back next week gives a reason to come back. And Jesus is laying it on thick here. When he talks about following Jesus, he's speaking in a penetrating way.

That saying that it's costly, and he mentions just a couple of things. Verse number 26. He says, you got to hate your father, your mother, your wife, children, brothers, and sisters, and your own self. If you want to be my disciple, here's what it means when Jesus is saying put him above everything else. Disciples put Jesus above relationships. Disciples put Jesus above family, home, familiarity, comfort, they put following Jesus obeying Jesus wherever God leads them to go.

They put Jesus and his will over everything that they are leaving behind all the relationships that they are leaving behind. Another thing disciples put Jesus above personal interest. He says whosoever does not bear or take up his cross and come after him, and follow him cannot be my disciples. Listen, disciples put Jesus above personal interest. There's probably coming a day we're following Jesus and a dream that you have might not intersect together. And what he's saying is you are faced with a choice. Are you going to choose to be a disciple and to follow him and just take the cost and run with it?

Or are you going to choose to do what you want to do and follow your dream? There's a lot of people who talk to me over the years who say yeah, I remember I met some guy from the church that I grew up in. Met him for dinner a couple weeks ago. We met for dinner and he was sharing with me some struggles that he's having and he was telling me you know like he was called to ministry when he was a teenager.

I'm thinking, thinking what, what happened? Listen, there's people like that all in our churches and they cut the cost and they're saying that their dreams or their comfort, their family, all of these things are going to be a little bit more important than following whatever Jesus wants for my life. Disciples put Jesus above possessions, verse 33. So likewise whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he has. He can't be my disciple. In other words, Jesus is saying that following him, being his disciple, you have to put him and his will, his way above money, above things, above possessions and stuff like that.

In other words, that sometimes Jesus tells you to do something and maybe leading you to something and it's going to affect the amount of stuff that you have over here and you make a decision like, hey well I really value this stuff and these possessions and all the stuff that I can accumulate so I'm just going to dabble a little bit over here and Jesus is saying listen that is not being a disciple. The point that Jesus is making here is that Jesus should be your top priority in all of life. He shouldn't just be a priority on your list, he should be at the center of your list.

In fact, when you list your priorities out and you think okay, everything that you're responsible for, you're a husband or a wife, right? And Jesus should be at the center of that. You're a parent, Jesus should be at the center of that. Your profession, Jesus should be at the center of that. What he's called you to your career, all that, Jesus should be at the center of that. What you dabble with in the weekends, Jesus should be at the center of that. What you do in your free time, your hobbies, Jesus should be at the center of that. Jesus is saying that he wants to be at the center of everything but here his audience, here's why that was a struggle because many of them had only gathered there to see the latest trick, the miracle. Like we only want Jesus when everything's going good. You ever met a Christian like that? Everything's going well, they're excited, they're rejoicing, life's good.

Minute trials come, you don't see them. They come back when everything's good and vice versa and here's the thing, Jesus is saying no, I need to be the top priority of your life. If you stripped everything else away from your life, Jesus is saying this, if you took it all away, took away your family, took away your possessions, took away your hobbies, took away all your money and took it all away and you still had me, would that be enough? If I was to tell you today, hey we're going to have a sign up sheet for those willing to follow Jesus and if you want to come sign it after this service, you can come put your name down but it's going to cost you your family, it's going to cost you your life and it's going to cost you all your possessions and what you're familiar with and your comfort and your homeland, who's willing to come sign it? I don't know.

Me and my wife, let's pray about this, I don't know. It's a lot. Jesus is saying to his disciples and to all these followers who have gathered that day, he's saying listen, just going to tell you, following Jesus, it's costly and we in our modern church, we put all these things above Jesus all the time and Jesus is saying if you want to follow me, you got to leave some of this behind. Tim Keller said it this way in a book he wrote, King's Cross, it's a commentary on the book of Mark and he said this, if you ever say, get this, if you ever say I'll follow you if, what's on the other side of that if is your real master, your real goal and I will not, Jesus says I will not be a means to an end, I will not be used, if you're going to follow me, I must be the goal. That's in essence what Jesus is saying here, is he's saying listen, if you're out there and you say man, I'll follow Jesus, I'll give him my life, if this is good, then whatever's on the end of that statement, that's the master of your life. That's the leader of your life and he's saying the goal is not to use Jesus as a means to an end, the end is Jesus, the end is Jesus and so what Jesus is saying is if you strip it all away and you have me, that's enough for you, that's enough for you, he's the treasure that we get as a result, he's the goal.

Disciples put him above everything else because he is the goal but number two, disciples are passionate about their love for Jesus. He says here in this verse, I want to unpack verse 26 a little bit so that you understand a little bit about what Jesus is saying, he says if any man come to me, hate not his father, mother, wife, children, brethren, sisters, in his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Now Jesus does speak very pointedly and directly and Jesus is not saying to hate these people in the way that we determine our hate for them and here's why is because we know that Jesus cannot contradict his word and Jesus says that if we get closer to Jesus, that in fact our love for others like the people that he mentioned here in verse 26, our love for them will increase. So what's Jesus trying to say and what is Jesus trying to mean with using such direct language like hate them in order to follow me?

Well Jesus is using this teaching method we would call hyperbole. This just means that he's exaggerating a point that he is trying to make for them but here's what he's saying. He's saying that if you want to love him and he's saying there is a love that you can do this, to love him, he wants you to love him in such a way, in such a devoted way that your love for him is so strong and so good that all your other relationships, your love for them looks like hate in comparison to the love you have for him. That's what he's trying to say. So he mentions mother, father, spouse, children, brother, sister. He's saying that Jesus is saying listen, if you want to follow me, there's a love that comes with following Jesus that transcends all other types of love that you have with anyone on this earth. That he wants you to love him more than anything else.

I'll illustrate it this way. How many of you own or you have a pet at home, a pet of some kind, okay? And we have a couple pets in our house. We have a dog and you'll see a picture of my dog. I think we have a picture of my dog. There's my dog. Anytime I can share my dog up here I'm all in on it, okay? There's some people in here you know who you are who make fun of the small dog that I have at my house.

That's one of the reasons he doesn't come to the church very often is because some people really just make fun of me and make me feel terrible about my dog. But I'm obsessed with my dog, okay? If you know me, I'm all in on my dog and we can talk about that another day.

How many of you love your pets? Okay, raise your hand, okay? My hand is there.

Gray Folk, was your hand up? Okay, I know it better be, man, because I know you love your dog like I love my dog, okay? We love our dog. And so I should say this because we do have a guinea pig. I don't feel as strongly about the guinea pig as I do our dog, okay? We have another pet in the house, all right? I didn't even mention our other pet, but we do. And so we have a guinea pig in my house and you might have a pet in your house and I don't know, it could be a dog, it could be, God forbid it be this, but it could be a cat, I don't know. And so if it is, and so that's a joke. Josh, you shouldn't have said that.

Repent at the end of the service. But it could be a cat, it could be a hamster or whatever. But whatever you have, you have a pet and we love our pets. We love our pets.

In fact, we're going out of town this week to camp and somebody came to our house who's going to stay there with our dog and the guinea pig. And I mean, I was very serious. I was like, this dog means a lot to me.

I mean, give him the whole spiel, right? And my kids would sometimes say that I love my pet more than them, okay? And here's what I'll tell you. We love our pets and we are committed to our pets, right? We're committed to them.

But if any of us are really honest, our love for our pets does pale in comparison to like our love for our children, right? Okay, some of you are looking at me like, I don't know. All right, let me illustrate it a little bit better for you. In the Old Testament, there's a story, okay? And you would know this story. This is such a good story in the Old Testament by the man named Jacob. And you remember Jacob when he was a trickster and all that.

And so Jacob, when he steals the birthright, he leaves and he has to leave and go back to this other place. And when he was there, he met a girl, okay? He met a girl by the name of Rachel, right? And Rachel was beautiful. And he knew, it's like Rachel is the one.

If you've ever been there, you know what I'm talking about. It's like, man, I know for a fact that that's the one, right? And that's what he felt. So he went to Rachel's father, Laban, and he went to him and he said, hey, if you will give me Rachel, I will work seven years to get Rachel.

You remember that? Man, that's true love, man. And so he's like, and I'll work seven years. I'll give my life if I can spend this little seven years of working to get my whole life in front of me with Rachel. And so Laban agreed.

That's a pretty good deal. And so he said, sure, seven years go up and we know the story that Jacob, and there's a lot of details that I kind of am wondering about this story. It's kind of weird in some ways. But Jacob wakes up after that first day of spending the night with his new wife, and it's not Rachel. Talk about a scary story. It's her sister, right? What a weird messed up. You think your family's dysfunctional? Read the book of Genesis, all right?

And you'll be like, whoa, I'm feeling pretty good about my crew right now. And so Leah, he's like, what? This is not right.

This is wild. And so he leaves and he's like, Laban, thought we had a deal, man. I don't really like the way you joke around, man.

That was a weird joke. Okay. And he says, hey, I will work another seven years to get Rachel.

Okay. By the way, those seven years, that extra seven had to be weird. It's like you're married to Leah, but you're really working. Leah, back away.

I'm really trying to get to your sister here. And seven years go by. So that's 14 years. Finally, he gets to marry Rachel. And you know what he says? He says something that I think Jesus is kind of somewhat applying here in Luke chapter 14 is he says, Rachel, have I loved Leah? Have I hated?

Now here's the thing. He had no reason to hate her. He didn't just like show up at her house and say, Rachel, I can't stand your sister, right?

Can't stand. No, he had no reason to hate her. But the point of that story and the point of that statement of what he makes is this. He was saying that my love for Rachel is so great and so good and so perfect and so unconditional that my love for Leah looks like hate in comparison to how great my love for Rachel is. You see what Jesus is saying here? He's not saying go out and hate your family.

He's saying go out and love me with such a devoted love, a love that's willing to leave everything behind and follow him with everything that you have. And when you love him the way that he wants you to be loved, every other relationship that you have will look like hate because it pales in comparison to the love that you have for Jesus Christ. You see, that's what he is telling us here. You know what the problem is with us? And this is so true.

If you forget anything I say, I want you to get this. Our problem, and I've thought a lot about this before saying it, but I believe this to be true. Our problem is that it's not that we love people or things too much.

You've probably heard it said, you know, love things too much. Our problem is that we love Jesus too little. That's the issue. The issue isn't, man, I've got to go out and stop loving my hobby or stop loving my career or stop loving my spouse or stop loving my family or stop loving... The issue isn't your love for that.

The issue is much deeper than that. The issue is that your love for Jesus is so little and that elevates your love for that. Jesus is completely flopping that on its head and saying my love or your love for me needs to be so great that every other love you have and relationship you have pales in comparison.

In fact, it's so strong, your love for me, that all of this looks like hate compared to how devoted you are to me. That's what he's asking of you. Number three, disciples are willing to surrender everything in order to follow him.

He makes this crazy statement. Jesus is making tons of statements here that are wild and he says, verse 27, whatever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. In other words, you have to bear your cross, you have to take up your cross and follow him. Now for us, and I want to be very respectful to this, but this is just true.

I think it's important to recognize the contextual difference here. The cross in that day was way different than like a religious symbol or something you wore around your neck, like a necklace. And so when you see the cross, it is the symbol of our faith. But I want you to understand that for them, it meant something so much more significant. For Jesus' audience there, they saw the cross as a symbol of torture and a symbol of execution.

So when Jesus comes out and says, you know, like, take up your cross and follow me, that really hit something deep into the heart of every listener that was in the audience. Because for them, the cross was a symbol. In fact, the cross, if you look throughout ancient history, the cross was actually a punishment used primarily in Rome. And what they would do is they would lead, they would crucify people on crosses if they did not conform to the Roman ideas and their form of government. And if you didn't submit everything you had to them, they would crucify you.

And here's what they would do. They would leave people on crosses sometimes for days at a time. So as you're walking throughout the city, you would see somebody and it's a constant reminder that if I don't conform to all of what Rome is telling me to conform to, then I could very well end up on that cross. And now Jesus is saying, he's saying, hey, you know, there could have been crosses on their way to follow Jesus that day.

I don't know. But I'll tell you this, it meant something so much more direct than what we read this as. And now Jesus is saying, hey, you want to be my disciple, take up your cross. You know, those people that you passed along the way as you came to gather in the audience that were up there, hey, I want you, if you want to be my disciple, hey, go ahead and grab your cross, start carrying it, because that's what it's going to be like it be, you know, I was trying to think of what it would be like to us, it'd be like this, if Jesus was telling you today, hey, you want to follow me, you want to be my disciple, hey, come down front and strap yourself to the electric chair and let's do it.

I don't know how many of you would come down for that, right? But that's equivalent to what Jesus is saying. And what he's saying is disciples, you want to be my disciple, you got to be willing to surrender everything in my life in order to follow him, you got to be willing to lay down your homeland to follow me, you got to be willing to lay down your family to follow me, you got to be willing to lay down your hobbies to follow me to lay down your bank account to follow me to lay down what's comfortable and what's easy for you to follow me, you got to lay everything down and surrender it all to him to follow him. You see, I don't think we in the modern church get that.

Because many of us we follow Jesus when it's convenient, when it's easy, when it kind of fits with our ideas, when it fits with our vision, when it fits with our dreams, then it's easy. But for a lot of us, we have things we're holding back. We have things we're holding back, you're holding back your kids are holding back your grandkids, you're holding back your homeland, God's telling you to go and do something. And perhaps he might be telling some of you to leave your whole family behind and go across the world and share the gospel in the Dominican Republic or in Papua New Guinea.

Listen to this. Many of you know we sent missionaries Nate clutch, our music guy's son is in Papua New Guinea has spent four and a half days trying to get there just to follow Jesus. And some of us here in America, we're not willing to lay anything down to follow Jesus. Listen, following him is costly. And it's going to cost you something.

Perhaps everything. John Bunyan, who's famous for writing one of the best selling books of all time, the pilgrims progress and many of you have wrote that or read that. And he was an English writer, and living in the 1600s. And he's a Puritan speaker. And he was told by the government there in England, he was told that if he continued to preach the gospel of Jesus, that he would be thrown into prison.

He'd be thrown into prison. And, and so one day, he just couldn't stop preaching the gospel of Jesus. So one day while preaching, he was arrested, just like they told him, and he was thrown into prison.

And here's what they told him. They said, if you'll stop preaching in the name of Jesus, and stop speaking in the name of Jesus, then you can be released from prison. But you have to swear on the Bible that you wouldn't preach again in the gospel of Jesus. John Bunyan, he said this, you'll see it up on the screen, he said this quote, he said, if, this is so good, he said, if I were out of prison today, I'd be preaching the gospel again tomorrow, by the help of God.

So sure enough, he didn't get out of prison. And he wrote in his journal while he was in prison, about surrendering everything to follow Jesus. And this is what he said, the parting with my wife and poor children, as he's sitting in prison there, you know, at home, the parting with my wife and poor children has often been to me in this place is the pulling of flesh from my bones. I am aware of the many hardships, miseries and wants that my poor family meets with because of my imprisonment, especially my poor blind child who lay near to my heart than anything else on earth.

The thought of what my precious blind one is going through shatters my heart in pieces. But yet, I must venture all with God. Though I feel like a man pulling down his house upon the head of his wife and his children, I must do it. I must obey Christ. That's the kind of surrender that Jesus is asking for. That's the kind of commitment that Jesus is asking for.

That's the kind of life it takes to be a disciple. So I ask you this, what's following Jesus really worth to you? What's following Jesus worth? For some of you, it's not worth the time. For some of you, it's not worth comfort.

For some of you, it's not worth whatever. And listen, whatever you say it's not worth, that is on the throne of your heart. Jesus is saying to follow me, I want it all.

So much to the point that you're so devoted to me that everything else pales in comparison to your love for me. And if you lose your family, you lose your stuff, you lose your hobbies, you lose what's fun to you, you lose all your money, you lose it all, and you still have Jesus, guess what? You got all that you ever need. That's what Jesus is saying. So I want to remind you, salvation is free.

It costs you nothing. But following Jesus will eventually cost you something. What's interesting about this passage is the context. If you look at the rest of chapter 14, before the end of the chapter, this is coming on the heels of what Jesus used a parable about a king. And the king was having this huge feast. He was having this huge feast, and there was this feast, and he was inviting a bunch of people, very important people, to his house to participate in this feast that he was having for the community. So he invited all of these people. And you think, an invitation to the king's house? Who wouldn't want that?

We get to go to the king's house, and we get to partake of this feast that he made us. Man, that would be amazing. It'd be like you getting to go to a king's house somewhere.

That'd be huge. We would all sign ourselves up. What do we have to do?

Let's do this. Hey, RSVP our family. And Jesus in the parable, here you can read about in Luke 14, this invitation, he sends it out, and all these people started making excuses. In fact, the excuses were so far fetched that people were getting an invitation, a personal invitation to the king's house for a meal, and here's what they were saying. One person said, hey, I just bought some land. I got to go check out my land, and so I'm going to have to decline the king's invitation. And then another person said, I just bought all this oxen, got all this cattle. And so, you know, because of that, I'm going to have to decline the invitation. In fact, it gets as crazy as this. One person said, hey, I just got married.

We need some alone time. So the invitation to the king's house, it's going to have to pass away because all of these things were worth more than the invitation that the king had. So the king turns around and he says, hey, if they're not going to come to my house, and this is a parable Jesus is speaking, he says, if they're not going to come, hey, I want you to just go out and get the poor people, get the homeless people, those who really realize they don't deserve it and bring them in. And the whole point of the story, and this is coming off the heels of this parable Jesus just told, the point of the story is how foolish were those people in rejection to the invitation that the king offered. And I'll tell you this, some of you, you're rejecting the offer. Some of you might be rejecting the offer of salvation. You don't know Jesus as your savior, and you put it off, put it off, put it off, put it off. And Jesus is saying, how foolish. The king has offered the free gift of salvation. It's for all that believe.

How foolish are we that we turn it down. And right after this, Jesus begins to say, hey, you want to be my disciple? Here's the invitation. Lay it down and follow me. So much to the point that it's like take up your cross, bear your cross, get ready, strap yourself to an electric chair type of life, and follow me. So I ask you, who wants to be a follower? Who wants to be a follower? Because it will cost you something.

So what's it worth to you? Would you pray with me? Bow your heads. Listen, I'm not going to do a real formal invitation. I just want you to stand.

Nobody's looking around. If you're in here today and you say, pastor, I want to follow Jesus no matter the cost. I want to surrender my life, no matter family, no matter whatever. All I'm going to do, I'm going to ask you to raise your hand. I'm going to pray for you. And I want you to join me down front and we can pray together and say, I'm willing to leave it all out. You say, pastor, I want that kind of life. If that's you slip up your hand, don't delay. If you're like, hey, I need that.

I need that, pastor. I want to lay it down. I want to surrender it all.

Hands going up throughout the place. Listen, balcony, whoever. Say, that's me. Include me in your closing prayer. Then listen, right now in this moment, I want you, if you had your hand raised, I want you to come. I just want you to come. This is an altar.

It's open. And I want you to come and say, hey, listen, I'm done holding back. If your hand was raised and you say, I want to give my life to him. I want to give everything that I have to him.

I don't want to hold anything back. I want to give my life to him and be his follower, to be his disciple. If I have to lose my family, so be it. If I have to lose my kids to move them across the world that I won't see him, but maybe once every couple of years, so be it. Listen, be a disciple. Give your life to Jesus.