Lord, we are reminded this morning that it is not common for believers to gather without fear of persecution and hear your word preached, to hear the word proclaimed. It's not necessarily normal for many Christians in many contexts to have Bibles at home readily available that they can go to and they can read. And so, Lord, we thank you for that grace this morning, that we can sit, we can gather that we can hear, that we can meditate, and that we can be changed by your words. Your words that give life, your words that reveal Jesus to us. Lord, we also want to remember our brothers and sisters around the world, those who do not have access like that, those who are suffering and afflicted, those who are facing the loss of jobs, the loss of homes, possibly even the loss of life because they proclaim the name of Christ because they have taken on the title disciple. We're reminded this morning watching that video that there is a cost to discipleship. It is not a surprising cost. Jesus taught us, we will see in Luke, He predicted that there would be a cost to all who follow Him. Right now, Lord, I pray that you would open our eyes and our hearts to see the nature of that cost, to count that cost, and to consider carefully the nature of that cost as we look at the call of discipleship. But also, Lord, right now, on the— at the outset, I pray that you would extend your grace to all of those who are acutely experiencing the cost of discipleship. We lift up churches and pastors and believers in places in this world where they face danger and even death for the sake of Christ. Strengthen them, Lord. Strengthen weak knees. Help them to see Jesus with fresh eyes and send the encouragement of their spirit that they would know they are not alone, that you are with them even to the end of the age, and that their brothers and sisters in Christ join with them in prayer. We pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen.
You can look with me at Luke chapter 14, starting in verse 25. This is what Jesus said: Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned to the crowds 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, even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. 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 the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 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 first 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 asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
As I said earlier, we're looking at part 1 of a 2-part miniseries called 'Count the Cost' within our series about making disciples. And as we look at this passage and drop into Luke, We want to get a bearing of the context. And the context actually helps us to see the point Luke is making. Immediately in the section preceding this, we see the classic interaction of Jesus with the religious leaders. And He's interacting with them, and as is common in the Gospels, He's arguing with them and He's disputing their claims. And now, in our text, verse 25 says, 'Now great crowds accompanied Him.' And it signals There's a change that's happened. The interaction with leaders has now turned to a gathering of people, not just even followers and the disciples, but a gathering of crowds, the people who have come to see who this Jesus of Nazareth is. And there's a question that's now hanging in there. They've seen Jesus engaging in debates with their religious leaders, which begs the question: If our leaders aren't right about what it means to follow God, then what is required? And it's to that question that Jesus turns his attention.
He says this: disciples count the cost. Disciples count the cost and they make Jesus their first priority. So we're gonna see as we work our way through this text this morning, And so as we begin, I want to look at the two illustrations He gives us in the text about counting the cost. He gives us two parables that actually mirror each other, and those parables are meant to drive home the price of discipleship for us. The first is about a man who builds a tower. And the sense of this tower is that this tower is a defensive structure. So you might build a tower for your city. More likely here is that he's building a tower for his own home to defend his home and his field and his vineyard. And so he looks and considers building the tower, and Jesus talks about the wisdom of anyone who starts a building project at the outset of the project considering, 'Do I have enough capital to actually complete it?' Because if you lay the foundation, if you start the project and you don't, you'll become a disgrace. You'll become mocked. The point of the parable that Jesus is making is pretty obvious. The cost of following, Jesus says, is not primarily in beginning. The cost of following is in concluding to the end. Starting is the easy part. Discipleship is marked by much deeper demands when we consider what it costs to finish. We'll see in this text, and actually we see it in the preceding context as well, Jesus isn't like a lot of pastors today. Jesus isn't driven by numbers. He doesn't want a ton of people following Him. Not opposed to it, but that's not what drives Him. What drives Him is He wants committed followers. He wants people to assess the personal commitment and sacrifice required to be one of His people. The point of the text is that discipleship is demanding. Those who fail to count the cost at the outset, they risk looking foolish. I mean, this foundation, there's this foundation of the tower that everybody who walks by your home is going to see. There's the fool who didn't count the cost. And for us, that doesn't necessarily settle in the way it would for the original audience. The original audience lives in an honor and shame culture. Honor and shame are paramount. They're a way bigger deal than we make of them today. And so it's a big deal for the community to think, 'That is a shameful fool who didn't finish what he started.' Now, Jesus has showed us multiple places in the New Testament, at multiple places in the gospel, that His kingdom, the kingdom that He has established, that He is bringing to completion, that is a kingdom that's filled with grace. And we're going to hear Jesus say some hard things this morning. And these hard things aren't meant to overshadow the reality that grace is foundational to His kingdom, that grace is seen everywhere in His kingdom. And so as we consider these hard sayings, don't mute your ears to everything that's already been said about grace. His followers find limitless mercy in His Kingdom. But what we see in our text this morning is that the limitless grace that is afforded to believers is most certainly not cheap grace. Consider Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his Classic book, Cost of Discipleship. Cheap grace is the enemy of the church. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth. An intellectual assent to the idea is held to be sufficient to secure remission of sins. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without repentance, grace without discipleship, grace without a cross. Costly grace. The grace that we see fleshed out in this passage is the gospel of the church. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly. Because it cost God the life of His Son. It is grace because God did not reckon His Son too dear a price to pay for our life. Costly grace is the incarnation of God. And so when Christ calls a man, He bids him, 'Come.' and die.
We see that in the passage today. We see it in the first parable that highlights the cost of discipleship, but we also see it in that mirror parable. And they almost sort of seem synonymous when you first look at them. First one talks about building a tower and counting the cost on the front. The second one talks about a king who's preparing to go to war and he's gathering his troops and there's some sort of conflict and the other king is coming and he's getting ready, and Jesus says, 'No king who has any brains whatsoever, who has any sort of cabinet and counselors who have any sort of wisdom considers going to war without first considering what are the nature of my forces and what are the nature of the forces I'm about to encounter.'
I remember my senior year in college, I had an opportunity with the other seniors on the football team to sit down with a man who was a retired general in the Marine Corps, and he had worked in the Pentagon. It was just a leadership opportunity for us to sit down and engage with him. And it was fascinating to listen to him describe his duties in the Pentagon. His final duty in the Pentagon was this, at this key juncture in U.S. history. When the Twin Towers were assaulted and crashed, and the Bush administration started to consider war, they went to the Pentagon, they went to the Department of Defense, and specifically they went to this man and the other generals in his department and said, 'We need to count the cost. Do we have what it takes to go to war?' And it was his job to consider specifically, do we have the capabilities of going to war on two fronts? Already being engaged in a war in Afghanistan, can we engage in war in Iraq? But it was just so It was fascinating to listen to this man whose entire job was just to consider and count tanks and count troops and count helicopters. Count infrastructure. To look on the front end. Not just should we go to war, but can we win this war?
6 · Unpacks the crucial difference between the two parables: the tower warns about starting what you can't finish; the king warns about fighting an unwinnable battle against Jesus Himself, revealing that rejecting discipleship means becoming His enemy
That's what's happening here. Jesus says it is wise when we consider discipleship to be like a wise king, a wise president, a wise general. And to look at the cost. But notice the situation. Upon counting the cost in this parable, what does the king realize? He can't win. He counts the cost and he realizes his adversary isn't just more powerful, he's twice as powerful. And so being a wise ruler, he doesn't just count the cost, he realizes his need and his desperation, and he sues for peace. He sends out his emissaries to establish peace while the other general is still a long ways off. The assumption being, let's go establish peace hopefully before the other guy's advance scouts realize he can crush us. And that highlights a subtle difference in the parables. They both talk about counting the cost, but in different ways. The first parable of the tower talks about counting the cost of starting what you can't finish. Here Jesus warns us in a very subtle way to count the cost of starting a fight that we can't win. Jesus is warning us. The tone in this second parable is a warning not about counting the cost of becoming a disciple, but a warning about the cost of not becoming a disciple. The costs of discipleship are steep. You need to consider before you enter into this kind of relational commitment that encompasses all of your life and will mark you, if you're serious about it, for the rest of your life on earth, for all of eternity. Will you count the cost of discipleship? But also, Jesus warns, Will you consider the cost of what it means if you decide not to become my disciple? Because if you aren't my disciple, you're my enemy.
7 · Direct address to non-disciples in the congregation, warning them that Jesus calls for serious consideration rather than flippant decision, while clarifying that rejecting discipleship has eternal consequences
You need to realize my army is just a little bit bigger than your army. And so if you're sitting here this morning and you wouldn't describe yourself as a disciple of Christ, I want you to know Jesus desires for you to become a disciple. But he doesn't want you to do that flippantly. He's not looking for a quick and easy decision. He's not looking for, for you to sit down with somebody and pray a quick prayer and walk out the doors and keep living like you've always lived before. That's not what he's looking for. But he also wants you to be aware that there is much at stake.
8 · Specific pastoral address to teenagers, distinguishing between being a child of Christian parents and becoming a disciple oneself, urging them to count the cost personally rather than merely accepting or rejecting parents' faith
I think especially of the young people, teenagers that are here this morning. Have you counted the cost of what it means for you to become a disciple? Not just the child of a disciple, but one who will follow Jesus yourself. Maybe you've already counted that cost and you've already engaged and repented and brought your life under the Lordship of Christ. But if you haven't, Jesus calls you to count the cost, but he calls you to recognize this isn't merely as simple as rejecting the faith of your parents.
9 · Summarizes the ultimate stakes of the discipleship decision: becoming a son of God or standing as an enemy to the returning Judge, framing discipleship as an eschatological choice with eternal consequences
What's at stake for every person when they consider discipleship with Christ or not is a decision about whether to be a follower of Jesus and a son of God, or ultimately to be put at odds with the returning judge of the universe. Those are the costs of discipleship.
10 · Signals structural shift from exposition of the parables (cost) to exposition of the explicit requirements Jesus lists in verses 26 and 27, explaining the rhetorical strategy of handling cost before requirements
In the text, In addition to those costs, Jesus talks about the requirements for discipleship. I actually reversed the order intentionally. But He lays out with these two parables that there is an inherent cost to what it means to follow Jesus. And He does that because He wants us to understand when He talks about the requirements of what it means to follow Him, that we shouldn't be flippant about it.
11 · Introduces the first requirement of discipleship — prioritizing God above family — by unpacking the shocking nature of Jesus' call to 'hate' one's closest relationships, emphasizing that this command appears in Scripture and reflects Jesus' true teaching, not a sanitized version
And so for the remainder, I want to look at the two requirements of discipleship that we see in the text as we consider the cost. Now, the first requirement we see is right at the very beginning of the passage, this startling statement. We can summarize this first requirement as simply, you must prioritize God above family. You must prioritize God above everything you love and hold most dear. So all of your loved ones and even your own life. Real discipleship entails a commitment to Jesus that supersedes every other commitment. Look in verse 25. Jesus turned to them and said, 'If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, hate even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.' It's funny sometimes if you don't read the gospels, You can kind of start to have that blurry vision of Jesus as this really irenic figure. And then you come to the Gospels and you read statements like that and you think, Jesus said that? I remember sitting in a class in seminary once and there was a quote of something from the Bible. And there was a woman in the class who just blurted out after the quote was read, that's in the Bible? Yes. This shocking statement about disciples being required to hate what they love most is in the Bible. Jesus doesn't just say prioritize God first, He says hate your loved ones. That's a startling statement both in its content and in its context.
12 · Highlights the shocking context of Jesus' statement — delivered to uncommitted crowds rather than the Twelve — revealing Jesus' deliberate strategy to combat easy-believism by demanding serious counting of the cost, while noting that His desire for a full kingdom never overrides His demand for genuine commitment
Now, the call to hate your family, that's bold enough, right? But get this, He's not just sitting there with the 12 and just saying, hey, Boys, you've given it up to follow Me. And that means you've made sacrifices. And so, Peter, you're with Me at the cost to what you do with your family. That's not what He's doing. He's sitting there in front of the crowds. He's sitting there in front of people who are kind of trying to weigh, who is this Jesus guy? What should I do with Him? To people who aren't even committed to following Him yet, He says, just so you know, To follow me means you love me. You love me so much that you hate your family. Now, obviously we see in this text Jesus hasn't read a lot of the books on church growth strategies. He obviously hasn't gotten a D-Min in that sort of topic. That's not how you impress people. That's not how you you make friends, you win friends and influence people. That's not how you grow your movement, right? Hey, if you want to come with me, you have to hate those you love the most. What he's doing is very specifically and strategically combating easy believism. And folks, we live in a place that just has easy believism in the air. That's what it means to live in the Bible Belt. Yeah, there's a lot of people that talk about Jesus and are comfortable talking about it and the gospel's out there, but a lot of it is easy-believism. Jesus is against easy-believism, decision-oriented Christianity. I prayed a prayer, I'm good to go. He wants you to know what's at stake. Just before this, He talks about the banquet and the fact that He's inviting people and they've got these excuses for why they can't come. And in the excuses, He shows us misplaced priorities, but He also shows us His heart. While He's not doing the things you'd expect if you want to have a big crowd and lots of followers, that previous parable shows us He's also not trying to exclude people. When people make excuses, what does He say to the servants? 'Go out and bring in more. Find anyone you can and bring them to Me.' Jesus wants a full kingdom, but his primary goal is not a million Facebook friends. It's committed followers.
13 · Draws the ecclesiological implication: the church's mission to make disciples must follow Jesus' model — clear communication of the gospel and the cost rather than gimmicks, resulting in God-dominated rather than self-centered priorities
Our mission to make disciples is shaped by the way Jesus understands discipleship. It's not about gimmicks. It's not about flashy things to draw people in. It's about communicating clearly the nature of the good news of who Jesus is and what he has done and what it looks like to be called into his kingdom and to live with his people and to grow in maturity, to reflect his character, and then to go out into the world sacrificially to mature and multiply disciples. It's fundamentally a call to God-dominated allegiances and priorities.
14 · Brings in Luke 9 to show Jesus' pattern of confronting would-be followers who allow even good things (burying parents, saying farewell to family, hospitality) to compete with absolute allegiance to Him, demonstrating that Jesus consistently demands total priority over all other loves
Consider Luke 9, previous to this. Luke writes, 'As they were going along the road, someone said to Jesus, 'I will follow you wherever you go.'' Must have been a cousin of Peter. Jesus said to him, 'Foxes have holes, Birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.' To another He said, 'Follow Me.' The man replied, 'Lord, let me go first and bury my father.' What's wrong with burying your father, right? That's a noble thing, especially in that culture, to bury your father, to show respect. To your father? That's one of the highest ideals. That's to show character. Jesus said to him, leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Yet another said, I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home. He's expressing hospitality. That's what you do. You see what Jesus is doing? He's picking at good things, things that aren't bad. But these good things have become ruling things in the hearts of these men. Let me go say farewell. Let me be a good host. Let me be hospitable. Your word, the Old Testament, says we need to show our ability and our willingness to host the sojourner and the alien, right? Jesus says, no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. The claim of following Jesus, the first requirement of discipleship, is absolute. It encompasses everything from love of family to love of our own souls. Love Jesus and hate the rest, he says.
15 · Clarifies the hyperbolic nature of Jesus' 'hate' language — not literal hatred but a call for such overwhelming love for Christ that by comparison all other loves appear as hatred, a qualitative and quantitative gap that makes Christ's priority unmistakable to observers
Now, that hate language should kind of be making us uncomfortable. I see guys that have their arms around their wives. Are you hating your wife if you have your arm around her? What does Jesus really mean? Well, the hate language, it is hyperbole. It's a poetic device. Jesus is overstating things to make a point of emphasis, to drive home the point he wants to make. He's not literally calling us to hate our loved ones and to hate our own life. That would actually contradict other things He says in Scripture, right? Talk about brotherly love. Love one another as I have loved you. Talking about love for enemies? Well, that makes no sense if He's really literally saying hate your loved ones. The point is this. Jesus is saying when He talks about hating your loved ones and hating your own life is that there should be such a quantitative and qualitative difference and gap between our love for Christ and our love for others that the latter, our love for others, looks like hatred when it's compared with our love for Christ. Does that make sense? There is so much difference between the nature of your commitment and affection and treasuring of Jesus that when you compare that, when you compare how much and how deeply you love Jesus that when you look at the other things in your life that you would love most, the gap is so massive that your love for others is actually closer to hatred. That's the point he's making. He wants to so capture our hearts and our affections that it is clear to anyone who sees us, that woman, that man, that teenager, They love Jesus.
16 · Explains the historical context: Jesus knows His followers will face family rejection after His crucifixion and the Jewish leaders' opposition, so His call to prioritize Him above family prepares them for the reality that families may disown them for Christ's sake, and that unity/peace must never override allegiance to Him
In the context, it makes sense. Because in the first-century world, Jesus knows following him in a little bit of time will probably mean that their families would reject him. If you follow me, After I'm crucified, after I'm shamed on the cross, after the synagogues and the Jewish leaders turn against my followers, if you follow me, if you really count the cost, then you need to realize your families might hate you. Jesus predicted it in Luke 12. Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. They will be divided, father against son, son against father, mother against daughter, and daughter against mother. You get the point. This is helpful for us when we think in terms of unity at times, peace, making sure there's no strife. Those can be good goals if they're for the right ends. But Jesus makes clear, Unity and peace are never good goals if it diminishes our commitment to Him.
17 · Contemporary example of missionaries in North Africa and a believer beaten by his family for refusing to renounce Christ, making concrete the reality that discipleship still costs some believers their family relationships and physical safety
I pray for some brothers that I know who are working with Sovereign Grace Ministries in a context in North Africa. That is a hard context. You want to talk about hard soil in which to labor to sow the gospel, that is hard soil. They know they could possibly be expelled. They are under this context we have seen in the last couple of years of this rising messianic Muslim hope in that part of the world. So there is rising tensions against believers and anyone who is not a Muslim. So they know the nature of what is at stake and they see it in the few converts they know. The few people who are disciples of Christ. They see it in the man who they saw a week prior, and in a recent dispatch informed us when they encountered him again, he was covered with bruises, and they asked why. He said, 'Well, my family is convinced that because their pleas didn't lead me to reject Christ, now they should beat me. That will get the point across.' That man knows the nature of what it means to love Christ above everything, even the relationships he holds most dear.
18 · Applies the principle of prioritizing God above family to the church's child dedication vows, where parents surrender all worldly claims on their children to God, demonstrating that even parental love must be subordinate to God's ownership
And we try and push that sort of mentality into our church when we consider the vows we make at a child dedication. You ever listen to those? We're not just reciting things. We're vowing, we're pledging our children before God. The second vow that we make when parents stand up here and pledge to dedicate their children as the church pledges to stand with those parents in raising those children, the second vow is this: Do you now dedicate your child to the Lord who gave them to you, surrendering all worldly claims upon their lives in the hope that they will belong wholly to Him? God. It's a recognition that not even our own lives belong to Jesus, but even those of our children. The first requirement is that we would prioritize God and loving God over all other affections.
19 · Introduces the second requirement — bearing one's cross — by contrasting 'coming to' (entering relationship) with 'coming after' (maintaining ongoing pursuit), then exposits Luke 9's parallel teaching to show that cross-bearing is not a one-time decision but a daily, ongoing pattern that marks true faith and reorients all values around the cross
And the second is this: The second requirement we see in the text, the second way in which the cost of discipleship comes home, is that we are called specifically to bear our cross. In verse 27, we read, 'Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.' Now, before we look closer at that actual requirement, I want us to consider how it complements the first one. First, Jesus says, 'If anyone comes to Me,' Now he says, 'If anyone comes after me.' The first one is stressing entering into relationship. This one is now stressing maintaining the ongoing pursuit of relationship. You see the difference? The faith that marks disciples is a relational trust in Jesus. It's not just a cognitive assent. It's not just mentally saying, 'Jesus is God's Son and he died for my sins and so I believe in him.' It's that, but that believed in such a way that it engages our hearts and brings us and pulls us and compels us into relationship with our Savior. Literally, the Greek preposition that's often used with the call to believe in Jesus, you could literally translate it a call to believe into Jesus. We don't translate that way in English because it kind of sounds strange, but that's the sense behind it, that you would be believing into relationship with Jesus. That's the point he's making here. The faith that marks disciples is a relational trust, a trust in Jesus' words, in his saving works, and in his promised kingdom. But faith, Jesus shows us here, does not stop with a simple decision. Faith commences. With the decision. It's not like you make a decision and now you're good. You make a decision and now you've entered into faith that will mark the texture and tone of your life. Those with real faith and in a real relationship with Jesus, the text says, will bear a real cross. Luke 9 again, commentary: preceding this. He said to all— so again, sense of crowds— if anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. Cross-bearing isn't just about how we start as disciples. It's about how we continue in that process. In fact, the present tense of the verbs that we see in this could actually be translated, whoever is not bearing is not coming. If you're not bearing currently the cross, you're not coming after me. There's this ongoing sense, this continual nature of bearing the cross. The requirement entails a total reorienting of our values. In Christ's kingdom, the cross isn't just the means to salvation, and that's not to minimize the cross as the means to salvation, but it's to recognize that because the cross is the means to salvation, the cross also now becomes the very texture of how we live. It defines what we cherish.
20 · Unpacks what cross-bearing means: inevitable suffering ranging from acute persecution (imprisonment, torture) to the daily battle against sin, with the key that disciples must willingly embrace this suffering because following Jesus means walking the same path He walked — a path that led to the cross and thus involves rejection by the world
Cross-bearing highlights this inevitable process of suffering. This reality that if you are called into discipleship, if you count the cost, you need to recognize a requirement of discipleship is that there will be a process of suffering down the road. Some of it will be acute suffering like in the video we saw. There will be individuals who know 10 years of imprisonment and solitary confinement and thumbscrews, shackled ankles, starvation. Some of us, it won't be as acute, but it will be suffering. Suffering in smaller ways, not the least of which the suffering in the manner that a true disciple battles and struggles against their own flesh and their own sin. I don't think that's a suffering that's excluded from this text. Real disciples suffer just even as they engage their own hearts, battle to keep Jesus as their reigning affection. It's also a call that disciples embrace a willingness to endure such suffering. Not just a recognition it's going to come, but a willingness to endure it. To come after Jesus is literally to follow his path. That's the notion the text carries. If you're coming after Jesus, it's not just he went first and now at a later time you're coming. It's, it's he went first and he walked along this path, and now you as his follower are following him along that same path. And so because his steps were ordained and led him to a cross, Jesus reminds us and tells us here, God has ordained for all those who are his disciples who follow after him that they will follow a similar path and it will involve our own crosses. The image is a blunt reminder that allegiance and obedience to Jesus will involve rejection by the world. Remember Jesus saying, 'If they hated the Master, they'll hate His servants as well.'
21 · Extended application to the American cultural moment, arguing that recent election results (abortion rights victories, traditional marriage defeats) reveal a fundamental moral shift making evangelicals a minority who will face increasing cultural hostility, and thus cross-bearing is arriving in new forms on American shores as believers must hold to unchanging biblical truth in an increasingly hostile context
I don't want to politically charge this message, but I think the context that we're in right now bears some application. This election marked a shift in America. I'm not pretending to be prophetic here, and I think it's really just going to be one of those where we see the shift that was already taking place. The shift kind of became more visible. I think we've tangibly turned a corner. In fact, one commentator, very wise man that I respect a lot, not someone prone to overstating things, not a talking head who gets overly excited, said, 'What we saw is an example of the changing moral landscape of our country.' In fact, we saw campaigns whose strategy was specifically, 'The way that I'm going to win this campaign is by making the central tenet of my campaign abortion rights.' Several candidates did that, and they won resoundingly. Four different states voted on issues related to traditional marriage. And for the first time in our elections, the first time that those kind of votes went to the people, Every time, the biblical definition of marriage lost. The idea that hell is real and that Jesus is the exclusive way to salvation, that is unpopular. And it's even unpopular in some pulpits. Polls show, multiple polls show, that for the first time in the history of the United States, Protestants do not number above 50% of the population. Now I should clarify that, practicing Protestants. So these polls that don't just ask, 'Are you a Christian?' You know, and everybody raises their hand, and some of these people are living just profane lives. These are polls that associate questions with how often do you read your Bible? How often do you go to church? How often do you give? Those sorts of things to measure the level of commitment. And in those polls, for the first time ever, men and women who believe the Bible is God's word, who believe Jesus is the exclusive way to heaven, now measure in the minority of our country. The game has changed. And let's be clear, it didn't change because God was asleep at the wheel. That's significant. God saw it, and in His plan He controls it, and it is His intention to use it for the good and glory of His name. Listen to this helpful quote by Al Mohler. This is in the New York Times 2 days ago. The New York Times running an article on basically the fact that evangelical Christians got their butts whooped in the election. I love Mohler because he's not a spin doctor. Millions of American evangelicals are absolutely shocked by not just the presidential election, but by the entire avalanche of results that came in. It's not that our message— here's the message: we think abortion is wrong, we think same-sex marriage is wrong— it's not that our message did not get out. It did get out. It's that the entire moral landscape has changed. An increasingly secularized America understands our positions and has rejected them. Now, I'm not trying to have some, like, gloom and doom sermon. I'm just trying to help us to see rightly what's going on around What's going on around us is the illusion that the Christian 'we' and the American 'we' were the same 'we.' That's being exposed. That illusion is being shown for its falsehood right in front of our eyes. Here's what that means in the context of this text. It means that cross-bearing is coming to the shores of America in new ways. I believe we are gonna face a brave new world as disciples of Christ in a culture that now doesn't just reject our beliefs, the majority rails against them, hates them, considers those who believe like us to be hate-filled bigots. You've heard that language, right? Here's the thing: Christ's message will not change. In fact, I just read from a text where Jesus acknowledges the fact, right? If you're ashamed of my words, then I will be ashamed of you. Jesus is saying, my words will not change. Who I am will remain established. The words of God, the word of God, is a reflection and extension of the character of God. And so because God's character is unchanging and because God's His holiness is unflinching because the nature of who God is and the nature of His name and all that that entails does not change and has not ever changed. God's Word won't change. What that means then for us as believers is that we should not change. Now it doesn't mean that we don't need to continue to be conformed to the Word of God and convicted by the Word of God to extend grace and love to those who disagree with us more appropriately, more accurately, more compassionately. But it does mean that we will be now living in a culture where more and more we bear our cross like the prophets of old. More and more we will be lonely voices crying out in a wilderness.
22 · Concludes the exposition of cross-bearing with Carson's call to trust and obey while leaving results to God (since faithfulness may bring either awakening or persecution), then moves to Jesus' summary statement requiring renunciation of all possessions, supported by Keller's framing of cross-pattern values as the inversion of worldly power, status, and wealth
But cross-bearing means that no matter the pressure, no matter the persecution, no matter the powers against us, we must still stand firm for Christ and embrace him and embrace the cross that comes to us because of him. D.A. Carson— D.A. Carson, anything he writes I would encourage you to read. A wise man wrote this in a book called Christ and Culture Revisited, prophetic book written in Several years ago, he wrote this: We must learn to trust and obey God's words— who he is, what he says, how we should live— and leave the results to God. For we learn from both Scripture and history that sometimes faithfulness leads to awakening and reformation, and sometimes to persecution and violence, and sometimes to both. Verse 33 sums up the final cost and requirement of discipleship for us. So therefore, any of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. The all that Jesus refers to is just that— everything, everything that we might value as much as Christ or more than Christ. Jesus says, renounce it, remove it. It's It stands at a cost to your discipleship. It's an impediment to your ability to follow me, and so it is eternally dangerous. Tim Keller writes helpfully, the pattern of the cross means that the world's glorification of power, might, and status is exposed and defeated. On the cross, Christ wins. He wins through losing. He triumphs through defeat, and he achieves power through weakness and service. He comes to wealth via giving all away. Jesus Christ turns the values of the world upside down, and he calls his disciples to embrace wholeheartedly those upside-down values. As an expression of their embracing of him.
23 · Culminating theological claim declaring that discipleship means absolute hierarchy with Jesus as Lord over all — His cosmic reign established at the Father's right hand grounds His right to total lordship over every area of life, from family to finances, because His complete salvation demands complete lordship
Being a disciple of Christ means there is an unwavering hierarchy in your life. Jesus must always be first. Nothing is more valued. Nothing is more defended. Nothing is more proclaimed. Disciples have one reigning loyalty that subsumes or expels or transforms all other loyalties. And it is summed up with one declaration: Jesus is Lord. He is Lord. He reigns. He is seated in the heavens at the right hand of God and extends His reign and His rulership from there. The world is His. The universe is His. He holds it together by the word of His power. We breathe. We have life. The planets spin in orbits because Jesus Reigns as Lord. And what he calls disciples to do is to recognize that reign and to live in light of it, not to cover their eyes and to pretend that it's better to live as if family is Lord or finances are Lord or entertainment is Lord. No, Jesus is Lord. Christ has not come to save a part of us. He has come to save all of us, and because his salvation is complete, his lordship over our lives is complete. And so it is his right to choose, not a mother's. It is his right to define marriage, not ours. It is his right to demand allegiance and priority over our spouses and our children. It is his right to be the first consideration in our finances and not just the leftovers when there's a little left in the budget.
24 · Brief rhetorical question transitioning from theological assertion about Jesus' lordship to personal pastoral reflection on what complete lordship looks like in practice
What does that look like?
25 · Vulnerable pastoral moment where the preacher confesses his own failures and shares Piper's struggle with doubt over sanctification rates, then pivots to introduce the concluding illustration of William Borden as a grace-gift example for imitation rather than discouragement
I look at my own life, wow, I'm more aware of my own failures. I'm helped in that by a conversation John Piper had. Talking with other pastors, they asked him, 'When do you doubt?' He said, 'I've never looked at the Bible.' and doubted, doubted God's existence. I've never looked at the arguments against God's existence and doubted. He said, when I am tempted to doubt is when I look at the own rate of my sanctification. That's when I'm tempted to doubt. Well, the Word of God encourages us. This is a careful text. It's a hard text. It's meant to lay out very carefully and very clearly There is a path to discipleship. It is a narrow way. It's a narrow door, right? But it's a path filled with grace. And so for men like me, men like Dr. Piper, God gives us examples. He gives us Jesus, but He also gives us only human individuals, that we might imitate them. Paul saying on numerous occasions, 'Imitate me.' Paul's not being cocky. He's giving us grace. Well, for your encouragement, I want to conclude by considering a man worthy of imitation. A man who counted the cost.
26 · Opens the William Borden illustration by establishing his extreme wealth (dairy empire fortune), precocious spiritual maturity (16-year-old freshman at Yale who saw the world through Christ's lens), and his classmates' recognition that his full surrender to Christ made him solid as a rock
The man's name was William Borden of Yale. Maybe some of you have heard of him, maybe not. I don't think he's actually as familiar as he should be. William Borden was born just before the turn of the century, the very end of the 19th century, and he was born into extreme wealth. His family had a massive entrepreneurial empire. It was actually a dairy empire, which kind of makes you think, a dairy empire? Well, people evidently drank a lot of milk in that day, and there was a lot of money in milk. So the Borden family was Kemps and Land O'Lakes and Blue Bunny and all of those combined. It's a massive fortune. And he was a millionaire in a day when millionaires are like billionaires are today. They are rich and they are rare. In fact, for his high school graduation at 16— he was obviously a bright guy as well— His parents gave him a ticket to tour the world. This is a time before airplanes, so it's expensive to tour the world today, much more so in Mr. Borden's day. His parents send him out as a senior, graduating senior, to tour the world. But he was a different man. He didn't just tour the world. Because of the way that Christ had a hold of William Borden, Borden's heart. William Borden's heart. He toured the world and saw the world through the lens of Christ. So upon returning from the trip, he enrolled at Yale and arrived at Yale University. And even there, as a freshman, a 16-year-old freshman at that, his classmates noticed this man is different. And not just really rich different. One of his classmates wrote about the unusual nature. He came to college far ahead spiritually of any of us. He had already given his heart in full surrender to Christ, and he had really done it. We who were his classmates learned to lean on him and to find in him a strength that was solid as a rock just because of this settled purpose. And consecration.
27 · Borden encounters humanistic philosophy and unbiblical lifestyles at Yale in 1906 and responds by starting a prayer meeting that grows from a handful to 150 by year's end and eventually 1,000 of 1,300 students by graduation, changing the campus culture through his leadership and the Spirit's work
He gets to Yale and he starts sitting in classes and he realizes this bastion of intellectualism, you know, Yale and Harvard, you know, one of the cornerstones of education in the United States. He's sitting there at the turn of the century, 1906 I think is the year, and he realizes this is a campus rampant with humanistic philosophy. And with that humanism, he saw in his peers this total lack of biblical ethics, lifestyles just unhinged. He came to Yale and seeing this he wrote in his journal entry. This journal entry defined what his peers were encountering. He said, quote, 'Say no to self and yes to Jesus every time.' Well, here he is as a freshman and he sees this campus that's just overrun by secularism, one of those campuses that's setting the pace for why we are where we are today as a country, right? And he doesn't just lament the reality, he responds to the reality. He says, okay, this is where the campus is at, I'm gonna start a prayer meeting. And so he starts praying with a few individuals, a couple of his friends, and And by the end of his freshman year, that little prayer gathering of a 16-year-old freshman at Yale is 150 people. 150 people are now gathered in prayer. And it continues and it expands because of his vision and his leadership and what the Spirit was doing in that meeting. So by the time Borden graduates from Yale, out of 1,300 students, 1,000 students come to the weekly prayer gatherings. The campus is changing.
28 · Borden ministers nightly to the destitute in New Haven slums, then after graduation faces a close friend who tells him pursuing ministry would be 'throwing himself away' and turns down multiple lucrative job offers to pursue his calling
His classmates talked about this millionaire that you would see in the evenings out in the slums of New Haven ministering to widows and drunks. He established a mission to destitute people around him. One classmate wrote, he might often be found in the lower parts of the city at night, on the street, in cheap lodging house or some restaurant to which he had taken a poor hungry fellow to feed him, seeking to lead men to Christ. Well, pretty clear he's a gifted man. He's a bright man. He's a driven man. And so he graduates, he goes to seminary and feels called into ministry. Commits himself to that path. Upon hearing that he was going to go into ministry, one of his close friends wrote to him and informed him to take that path would be to throw yourself away. Away. Those aren't the wounds of a friend you want. He, in fact, turned down multiple lucrative job offers. He's graduating from Yale and he's becoming kind of well-known and he comes from an established family and so huge offers for great wealth come in and he turns them down.
29 · Borden's father offers him the family business empire with an ultimatum threatening permanent disinheritance if refused, but Borden — having counted the cost — refuses and pursues frontier missions to Muslims in northern China, stopping first in Cairo at 25 to learn Arabic
His father extends an opportunity to run the family business empire. And he says, 'No.' In fact, when he informed his father of the decision, his father responded and told him, 'If you say no to this opportunity, I will never offer you work in this company again.' An ultimatum and line in the sand that his father assumed would pull his son back in. But his father didn't realize was that William had already counted the cost. So he was unswayed. He was in essence cut off and he sensed a call in ministry to a Muslim people group in northern China. So he was going to go out into frontier mission work in northern China and spend himself for the sake of the Gospel. So at 25 years old, he left the United States and he went to Cairo, Egypt to learn and study Arabic so that he could go and work in this frontier context in China among this Muslim people group.
30 · Borden dies of spinal meningitis at 25 in Cairo before ever reaching China, prompting the preacher to voice the congregation's implicit objection — this can't be how the story ends — and note that by worldly standards (friends, family, nation), his death was a waste of potential
25 years old, gifted, massively wealthy, nothing but opportunities for him in the world, and he put it all behind him to go minister in poverty to people in poverty, both materially and spiritually. He arrives in Cairo, studying Arabic, and he contracts spinal meningitis. This is not how his story is supposed to end, Lord. This is one of those guys that you've clearly raised up for this generation to go do your work. You're going to do— how? That's not what happens in the story. He's counted the cost. Deploy him and use him. He's willing to suffer. Do much good through him, right? Contracted spinal meningitis at 25. In Cairo, before ever reaching northern China, he died. He's buried in a Christian cemetery in Egypt to this day. You can visit his grave. His closest friends had warned him His commitment to Christ was leading him to throw his life away. His father opposed him and threatened to disown him. The nation seemed to consider— he was that well known that the nation knew of his death. The nation considered his death a tragedy of wasted potential. Was his embrace of discipleship a waste? According to his friends, And his family? His family? The values of the world? Almost certainly.
31 · Resolution of the illustration: Borden's Bible reveals three dated entries — 'No reserve' when his friend called him wasteful, 'No retreat' when his father threatened disownment, 'No regrets' written in Egypt before death — proving he counted the cost and finished with no regrets
But not according to William. After his death, his parents received his Bible. And on the back page of his Bible, they found 3 entries. The first was dated the week that his close friend informed him that his radical devotion to Christ and renouncing of his fortune was a waste and throwing away of his life. Borden wrote the date and next to it in quotes, 'No reserve.' Second entry, dated shortly after his father told him, 'You will never take your rightful role in this company, and I will, in essence, I will disown you if you continue on this course.' Borden wrote the date and the phrase, 'No retreat.' Final entry. Written in Egypt. Right before he dies. Facing eternity. Borden wrote, 'No regrets.'
32 · Interprets the Borden illustration by asking if his sacrifice was a waste, answering that though the cost was everything (friends, family, fortune, life itself at 25), it was eternally worth it because the cost he embraced paled compared to Christ's cost at the cross, and standing at eternity's door he knew the reward that awaited him
Was it a waste? No reserve. No retreat. No regrets. Was there a cost? It cost him everything. It cost him friends. It cost him family. He left a fortune behind. It cost him his life. 25 years old, and he dies friendless, familyless, in the middle of Egypt, 1,000 miles away from anyone who knows him and loves him. Was it a cost? Absolutely. Was it worth it? Eternally so. William Borden could write, 'No reserve, no retreat, and no regrets' because he knew the cost he was embracing paled in comparison to the cost already paid for him at the cross. He knew that Jesus had embraced a cross of infinite more, infinite more pain, infinite more difficulty for his sake. So there were no regrets. Because on the precipice of eternity, he knew. He knew what discipleship required. He knew what the cost was. He knew what the cost was going to take from him. And he knew, because of Jesus, the reward that awaited him.
33 · Brief concluding charge echoing Borden's three phrases as the model for the congregation's own discipleship — calling them to count the cost and to finish their lives with the same unwavering commitment
Count the cost. And may we finish with no reserve and no retreat and no regrets.
34 · Closing invitation to prayer, bringing the sermon to a close in a posture of worship and response to God's Word
Would you bow your heads?