THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP, Luke 9:51-62

The question I want to pose this morning is what does it mean to follow Jesus?  What is the cost?  Is salvation free?  A related concern is who owns my life and what does that mean?

We are use to thinking of salvation as the free gift of God that costs us the saved nothing.  Certainly from the perspective of initial outlay salvation is absolutely free.  My sin has separated me from God and I am in every real sense dead to sin.  In the Bondage of the Will, Luther makes it very clear that I can do nothing on my own not even turn to God in repentance unless the Holy Spirit moves upon me and opens my dead eyes.  Jesus said, “Unless a man is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  It is clear that unless God moves upon us we as humans have no chance of salvation and it is also clear that our salvation is not dependant on anything that we do.  Salvation is free.  It is also clear that on the cross Jesus purchased us for God.  We are not our own we have been bought with a price; therefore we are to glorify God in our bodies.  Purchased and set free to serve God with our whole being.

This leads to another question, why are we here?  If we have been brought back into a relationship with God through the cross of Jesus Christ and we no longer belong to our selves but to God for his glory the question becomes what is our purpose on this earth.  Many, if not most people ask this question.  The whole idea of mid-life crisis is one of questioning what is the purpose of my life and how have I spent my time here?  People leaving college or high school and entering the job market question how they are going to spend there time.  What job does one take and how much personal satisfaction will one derive from it is an important concern?  We all want to feel satisfied with our lives.  No one wants to get to the end of their life and have regrets.

There are a whole series of questions that one asks and answers throughout life.  Our goals and worldview, the paradigm we use for our life, the presuppositions that we carry effects the choices that we make and determine the direction of our lives.  Even decisions about what we do as a church are often determined as much by our values, both social and ethnic, as they are theological in nature.  Why is it we gather with people like ourselves more often than not when the Bible tells us to break down the walls that divide us?

In our text this morning Jesus points out that there is a cost to following him.  The road of righteousness is one that forces a person to make decisions.  You can’t serve two masters.  Jesus and this world stand in opposition to one another because of the question of sin and so a person has to decide.

We want a world without suffer and self sacrifice.  If we could have a stress free world where everything was simple and uncomplicated we could choose all the things that we like but we can’t.  The word of God defines for us the parameters of our existence.

Jesus becomes for us an example to follow.  We find him in our text at the end of his earthly ministry.  He has completed all that he was to do and was headed to Jerusalem to die.  Luke tells us he set his face toward the city.  He was not to be deterred or side tracked.  The disciples were sent ahead into the cities of Samaria to make preparation for him but the people of the cities did not receive him because, in the plan of God, his destination was Jerusalem.  The will and purpose of God was his priority and nothing could come in the way of his carrying out God’s plan.

The disciples had plans for Jesus.  Go into the cities and find a place to stay.  Take it easy.  No rush, move as things come up.  It is how they had operated up until this point.  So when the people are not open to receive Jesus, James and John want to go to war to stop them.

We all have had the experience of realizing that the plans we have will not and do not always pan out.  We set goals for ourselves and plan out our lives but things happen, things beyond our control.  Often times as did the disciples we lash out and come against those people or situations that we believe are side tracking our plans.  We oppose those who oppose us.  We try to reconfigure our plans in the immediate future to reach our goals in the distant future.  We are determined to make our goals happen.  Many times frustration leads to depression and we blame God for the fact that we can’t do what we want.  If we don’t blame God we blame the devil for our lot in life.  Someone has to be responsible for the fact that we cannot do what we want when we want to do it.

Paul learned to rely on God.  He tells us that he had to learn to be content in every situation whether good or bad; hungry or well feed, naked or dressed in the finest of clothing Paul learned to be content.  Job questioned whether he could only receive good from the hand of the Lord and not evil.  His conclusion, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Like Jesus we need to come to the place where we make a commitment to the will of God however it plays out in our life.  James instructs us to begin each plan with the words, “If the Lord wills I will…”  The Samaritans rejected Jesus and the disciples because God would have Jesus get to Jerusalem.  Jesus understood that and told James and John to chill out and they would just move on to another city.

There is a cost to following Jesus.  Salvation might be free but once saved you belong to Jesus and he sets the agenda for you life.

Jesus is an appealing personality.  People who see and meet him want to follow him.  What was true when he walked this planet is still true today.  Even people who have no place for the church are struck by the life of Jesus and many want to model their lives after him.

We meet three people in our text, three people who want to follow Jesus.  Unlike us who are at times desperate to have people come to church Jesus gives them reason why they might not want to follow him.  Jesus sets before them the cost of discipleship.

The first person approaches Jesus and declares, “I will follow you wherever you go.”  Be careful what you commit yourself two.  Jesus tells them that the animals have homes but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.  In a time where home ownership is a major priority Jesus reminds us that we are aliens in a strange land, a people looking for a city whose builder and maker is God.  Where you live and how you live are a major concern for Americans.  Someone I read recently made the point that we look back a hundred and fifty years ago in judgment of the Christians who were committed to Jesus and yet owned slaves.  We ask how that could be.  The writer wonders in a hundred and fifty years from now people will judge us for living in huge homes that are way bigger than our need demand while untold numbers of people live on the street.  Our possessions are so important to us that a whole industry has spring up around storing our goods. 

We pray give us today our daily bread.  Our hope and confidence for the future is not on what we own, but on the one who supplies our needs.  We worry about our future about sustaining our lifestyle.  Jesus focus was on doing the will of his Father.  Remember the rich young man who wanted to be saved but his clinging to his possessions got in the way of his following Jesus.

Following Jesus demands that we consider how we live.  We are not our own.  We have been bought with a price.

The second person to approach Jesus acknowledged that he too wanted to follow him, but he wanted to first go and bury his father.  The idea is not that his father was already dead and he wanted to attend the funeral.  His father was elderly and he was saying to Jesus that his father’s care was timely and that as soon as his father passed away he would be freed up to become a disciple.

Throughout life we are confronted with all kinds of demands that we use as excuses to postpone committing our lives whole heartedly to following Christ.  Our children are too young, work is too demanding right now, I have family responsibilities.  We make the claim that we are committed to following Christ but…  There are an untold number of reasons why we can’t do things at the moment.  Once this present situation passes through we are selling out for Jesus.  The problem is that there is always something else.  Jesus understood that and told the man to let the dead bury the dead and he should commit to following him.

In our list of priorities Jesus must come first.  That being the case there will be times when other important responsibilities will have to take a back seat to Jesus.  We make value judgments all the time.  We do or don’t do things based on what we think is important, like taking care of elderly relatives.  Jesus said that even this important responsibility has to take second place behind our loyalty to him.  We say Jesus is first but is he.

The third person to approach Jesus simply asks if he could first go home to say good-bye to his family.  His question is really, can I go home and tie up some loose ends and than I will be free to follow you Jesus.  We want to negotiate our terms of commitment to Jesus.  We want Jesus and our own set of priorities. 

When you emerged from the waters of Baptism you entered into an open ended agreement with Jesus.  You signed the bottom line and he is free to fill in the rest.  There was no negotiated agreement of what you would or would not do.  You died to sin and rose again in newness of life, but you belonged to Jesus.

When a farmer stands at the edge of a field and looks out everything looks good.  Because of the vegetation that is growing in the field he fails to see the rocks and the ditches and all the obstacles that he will encounter as he plows the field.  All he sees is wide open field.  Once he lays his hands on the plow and sets out he is unsure of what he will encounter until he begins to turn over the soil.  He runs into uneven land, rocks buried beneath the surface, fallen trees, and all kinds of obstacles.  If he decides it is more than he bargained for and turns back, the land will not get plowed, the seed will not get planted and there will be no harvest.  Once you start out you have to finish.

The same is true of us.  Once we put our hands to the plow and begin to work God’s harvest field.  We will run into obstacles we had no idea existed.  We like the farmer have preconceived ideas of how hard the work will be and what needs to be done.  We make our plans to serve God and we make our own plans for our life and it all kind of fits together until we start to plow along.  Every obstacle is an opportunity to determine our commitment to Jesus.  When faced with a decision will I serve the Lord or will I serve my own desires.  We stand in the place of the rich young man and have to decide.  The arguments about how good we have been all of a sudden seem hollow.  The question is always will I hold unto my life and what I think is important or will I let go of my life and cling to Jesus.

Salvation is free.  Dead in my sins at one time I have been made alive in Jesus through his death on the cross.  I have decided to follow Jesus.  The question is will I daily make the choice to follow him?  Having put my hand to the plow will I press on?  Or will I choose to hold on to what is important to me, and decide that where I live and how I live, that other priorities in my life that demand my attention, or that my personal plans are more important than Jesus in my life?  Jesus is calling you to follow him.  Will you leave your nets, your father and the hired hands in the boat and follow him?