Anush A. John Podcast
Anush A. John Podcast
Pros and Cons - The Cost of Discipleship
There are costs and consequences to every decision. The decision to follow Christ is not one of blind faith. This sermon explores the cost of following Jesus.
https://www.anushjohn.com/post/pros-and-cons
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Good evening. I'm very grateful for this invitation to come here this weekend. Thank you to Vinu and the elders of this church for inviting me at a great time today. Thank you for all the friendship and the welcome that you gave me over the last day, day and a half.
Speaker 1:September 3rd 1967 was an important day in the history of Sweden. You see, on that day the country would align itself with the rest of Europe. They used to drive on the left side of the road, but most of Europe used to drive on the right side of the road, and so they had problems with their neighboring countries, where one country would drive on the one side and then, when they came to Sweden, they had to drive on the other side. So they undertook a project called Dagen H or H-Day, in which they were about to switch their driving habits. They set September 3rd 1967 as a day when this change would happen, but a significant amount of planning had to be done, otherwise there would be a lot of fatalities and accidents. This is 1967, before social media and cell phones. So the Swedish government undertook this huge project of letting people know that on this particular day we are going to change our driving sides. They had huge public meetings and informational brochures On the day that this change was going to happen. There were thousands of volunteers that showed up early in the morning. Cars were banned from driving on the roads. Early in the morning All these volunteers showed up and they were going to change the road signs, repaint the roads and switch the traffic lights And then later on in the day the cars were allowed to come in.
Speaker 1:When we go to India and come back, we always wonder am I on the right side or the left side of the road? And then we just follow the traffic. But when the whole traffic itself is going back and forth, then there can be a lot of accidents. But fortunately, because of the extensive, meticulous planning, there were very few fatalities and accidents. Any decision requires planning and cost analysis to find the pros and the cons of each decision.
Speaker 1:This evening, in a sermon entitled Pros and Cons, i want to look at the cost of discipleship. Our text is Luke, chapter 14. If you will, please sign your Bibles to Luke, chapter 14, verses 25 to 35. Luke, chapter 14, 25 to 35. And let me read these 10 verses for us Now.
Speaker 1:Great crowds accompanied him and he turned 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, and 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 a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying this man began to build and is 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 still 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.
Speaker 1:Verse 34,. Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has years to hear, let him hear.
Speaker 1:I have divided the sermon into two broad parts. In the first half of the sermon we will look at what it means to follow Christ, and then the second part, we will look at the cost of discipleship. And each of these two parts have three subparts in them, and we will go through them one by one. First, let's look at the issue of following Christ. The first thing that I want to tell you about following Christ is that we need to know the cost. Let me read verses 28 to 30 again, 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 is laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying this man began to build and is not able to finish. Now, when Jesus said this, he was on the road to Jerusalem, and earlier on it says that when Jesus was on the road to Jerusalem, he set his eyes towards Jerusalem, and that meant only one thing That meant that he was going to die in Jerusalem. But that is not how the people interpreted it, even his disciples. Until the last day, they were fighting about who was the greatest amongst them. They thought that Jesus was going to establish a victorious kingdom in Jerusalem, but for Jesus, he knew it was suffering and death.
Speaker 1:Every decision carries a cost and a consequence. Every decision, no matter what it is. Some are big costs and consequences, some are small costs and consequences. So let's say that you're planning to migrate to a country And, just to be completely random, let's say you're trying to migrate to Canada. So you will evaluate the pros and the cons. If you're migrating to Canada, you look at the economic possibilities, the educational possibilities, the safety of a country, the quality of life, the standard of living, the cost of living. You will look at if there's any language that you need to learn. So if you had to learn French, for example, in order to move to Canada, you may think twice about it. Or if it's a country that has very high crime and terrorism, then you may think twice about it. So when you make the decision to migrate to Canada, you sat and looked at the pros and the cons.
Speaker 1:Following Jesus has a cost. Now, when I moved to the US from India, there are some consequences that came out of it. Back in India it's a much more laid back lifestyle. Everything is at a slower pace. Everybody is rushing around, we're not working our tails off all day, every day, and then somehow get to the weekend, like we do in America, and then, before you know, the weekend is gone and we are back into the grind again. That's not how it is in India. So when I planned to come to US, i had to weigh the pros and the cons, and the cons were that well, i won't be able to see my family as often, i won't be able to meet my childhood friends as often, and I won't be a part of that laid back lifestyle as much as I would like to.
Speaker 1:Jesus wants us to count the cost when we follow Him. He wants us to evaluate the cost and the consequence. People think that when you follow a religion it is just a mindless thing. You just have to have blind faith. But that is not what the Christian faith is about. The Christian faith is about considering carefully the consequences, considering carefully the cost. The word count that is used here is actually from the word pebbles, because in those days they used to count with pebbles. And the only other place in the New Testament where this word count is used is in Revelation, chapter 13, when it says calculate the number of the beast. It's a human number. Calculate the number of the beast. His number is 666. So it is a calculation that we need to do when we decide to follow Christ. And Jesus gives his followers the option to choose him or leave him.
Speaker 1:Turn your Bibles, if you will, to John, chapter 6 and verse 60. John, chapter 6 and verse 60. Let me just set the context of this verse. Earlier on in this chapter, jesus fed 5,000 men, with women and children, with five loaves of bread and a few fish. And then, later on in the chapter, he talks about how he is a bread of life. And when you come to the end of the chapter, this is what happens In verse 60,.
Speaker 1:When many of his disciples heard it, they said this is a hard saying. Who can listen to it? But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them do you take offense at this? Then what of you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before Verse 66,. After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve do you also want to go? What could Jesus have done? He said hey guys, sorry, i am so sorry, i didn't mean to be so offensive Come back, let me revise my sermon and give you an updated, cleaner version. No, he turned to the twelve who were his disciples and said do you also want to leave?
Speaker 1:You see, the Christian faith is a calculated decision that we make. Following Christ is a calculated decision. It's not about emotional energy and somehow you are coaxed into making a decision. No, it is a decision for the long haul and there is a cost to it and each person should carefully consider the cost. Second, there is an option for peace. There is an option for peace. Let's read verse 31 and 32. Or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able, with ten thousand, to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a long way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. There is a cost to following Jesus, but there is also a cost to not following Jesus, and in each instance we have to evaluate the pros and the cons to following Jesus and the pros and the cons to not following Jesus. So in this case, a king considers the option of facing another king, but when he finds that he is not able to overcome him, there is an option for peace.
Speaker 1:Every human being can have an encounter with God and every human being is given the option of making peace with God. But it is up to the human being to decide to make peace with God. Every person has the chance to see if it's reasonable to oppose God. Is it worth it to oppose God? And if it's not worth it, then they can make peace with God. It is in our best interest as human beings to make peace with God. If only we knew what it meant to oppose an omniscient, omnipotent being, we would beg to make peace with God.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's say that when you're driving out from here tomorrow morning, just as you get out from the side road into the main highway for a flash of a second, you don't pay attention and you hit somebody, and that somebody dies in hospital. And now because of this mistake, which is now a crime, you are looking at 20 years in prison. That can happen in a flash. If you had the option to avoid prison, would you take it? Absolutely, we would take the option. We don't need to be told twice. If we had the option to take peace with God, we would be begging. We should be begging. The thing is we don't know how much it involves in opposing God, and so many people oppose God.
Speaker 1:There are numerous examples in Scripture of people opposing God and it does not work out well for them. From the Old Testament there is the account of Pharaoh in the book of Exodus where God tells him where my people go. He says no, and so the waters turn to blood. No, and then the 10 plagues happen and God brings him down to his knees until when his firstborn son dies. He wakes up in the middle of the night, wakes everybody up and says please take your people and go. And then we come to the New Testament where we see the story of Paul In Acts, chapter 9,. It talks about how Paul was converted, but there are two other accounts of his conversion. So turn your Bibles to Acts, chapter 26. Acts, chapter 26 and verse 14. Acts 26, verse 14. This is Paul talking to King Agrippa in Caesarea. Acts 26, verse 14.
Speaker 1:And when we had all fallen on the ground, i heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language Saul, saul, why are you persecuting me. It is hard for you to kick against the goats. What are the goats? The goat is a sharp stick that is used to spur an animal to go faster. It is a sharp stick that the rider of the animal uses behind the animal and pokes it every now and then to stimulate the animal to keep going. The worst thing the animal can do is to kick back against the goat, because the only thing that's going to happen with it is that it's going to get hurt. There is nothing else. You can be as angry as you want, but if you kick back against the sharp stick that's poking you, then you will get hurt, and humans have the option to make peace with God, and fighting against God is not in our best interest.
Speaker 1:Thirdly, a follower needs to be a disciple Verse 34. Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. Now I'm going to make some loose terms here with follower and disciple. I'm going to say a follower is a person that is a Christian but doesn't follow Christ closely, and I'm using the word disciple to show a person that follows Christ closely. This separation in language is not made in the Bible. The Bible doesn't make that distinction. But I'm using that distinction just for us to know where we are in our following Christ.
Speaker 1:Jesus is not making a scientific statement here because, honestly, salt cannot lose its saltiness. It is impossible for salt to be unsalty. So what is Jesus saying here? He is saying that the salt is less effective because of contamination. You see, in those days most of the salt came from the Dead Sea and it was contaminated with carnalite and gypsum And it needed to be purified. And if it wasn't purified, it was contaminated and therefore it was less effective. What is Jesus saying in this passage? He is saying if you are salt, be salt. If you are salt, be salt. If you are a Christian, be a Christian, go all in.
Speaker 1:Peter was a follower of Jesus and he followed him closely for three years. Let's read a verse Mark, chapter 14 and verse 54. Mark 14, 54. And Peter had followed him at a distance right into the courtyard of the high priest And he was sitting with the guards and warming himself at the fire. About six months ago I had the privilege to go to Israel and see the courtyard at the palace of Caiaphas. This is where this happened, where Peter denied him, and you can actually see the original stone pathway that Jesus and Peter and everybody came up. And the courtyard is there. It's cemented over right now, but you can see where Peter was, as Jesus was in the palace of Caiaphas. Peter followed Jesus from afar. He wasn't supposed to follow Jesus from afar. He had told Jesus if you die, i'll die with you. He had made promises to Jesus. But now Peter was following Jesus from afar And he was trying to fit in with the crowd. That was not part of Jesus Warming himself outside and, as it turned out, peter denied him.
Speaker 1:Many of us follow Christ from a distance. We are followers in that sense and not disciples. It's actually easy and convenient to follow Christ from a distance. If you stay far away from Christ and Christ is there you stay far away. You can come close to Christ on Sundays, you can come close to Christ on days of camp like this, and whenever you want, you can back off, back into your world and back into your secular situation. So it seems convenient to be a follower and not a disciple. But how do you know if you are a follower and not a disciple. How do you know if you're a follower and not a disciple? Let me ask you a question How many people in the places where you work, live and play know that you're a disciple of Christ, not a generic Christian? How many people know that you are a disciple of Christ, a Christ follower? If not many people know, then it's possible that we are staying afar, we are playing the far game. We are playing the follower game and not yet a disciple, because it is risky to be a disciple, because you will get ridiculed at work. You will get ridiculed in your school Because people are talking trash about Christians and Christianity and Christ all the time.
Speaker 1:So what is the cost of being a disciple of Jesus? And that's what we will look into the cost of discipleship. Everything has a cost. If you're in the healthcare field, if you're a nurse, for example, there are some benefits to it. You have job security. You know that, no matter how bad the market is. you have job security. But it comes with a cost. And what is a cost? You've got to work nights, you've got to work weekends, you've got to be on all kinds of odd shifts. You've got to work with all kinds of patients. Those are the costs that come with it. Anything that's worthwhile has a cost, and Jesus gives three conditions in this passage that says these are the three costs that you will have to pay if you want to be my disciple.
Speaker 1:The first one is relationships. Love for God should supersede any other love. Love for God should supersede love for anything else. Read verse 25 and verse 26. Now great crowds accompanied him and he turned 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, and, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Now this phrase can get lost in translation. Is Jesus telling us to hate our family? No, because according to the Hebrew idiom of comparison, it is a comparative kind of language that Jesus is using. Your love for God should be so much that your love for anything else feels like hate.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you a question. So, brother, what's your favorite color? One of the worst questions to ask an adult is what their favorite color, but I'm going to ask it regardless. What's your favorite color? Blue, Blue, okay. What's your favorite dish that you would like to have any day? Biryani. I love biryani too. Thank you. So okay, now I'm going to ask a really insulting question. Okay, do you like the color blue or your daughter more? You see, don't answer that. See, this is an issue. It is an insulting question because there is no comparison. The color blue is nothing. That's what Jesus is saying here. Our love for Jesus must be so much that any other love seems ridiculous. It's like the color blue. How much do I love the color blue more than my daughter? There is no comparison In comparison. It should feel like hate, and that is what Jesus is saying.
Speaker 1:If Jesus asked you to choose between your family and him, who would you choose? One of the things, in the US at least, is where parents build memories for their children. That's like this huge thing. You're building memories All the time. They're talking about having memories with their children building memories, but a lot of time goes into that. And then the argument usually is well, god gave me a family, so I'm going to spend all my time and energy and money on my family. But does that argument work in terms of your profession? If God gave you a profession, is it OK to spend all your time on your profession? Is it OK to be a workaholic, so that argument doesn't really work. Love is measured in time. What do you spend the most time on? The time you spend on an entity will show you the priority that you've put on that entity. It's good to spend our resources on family, but there needs to be a balance In your own mind. What does it mean to love God more than family? How would we act if our love for God was so much that our love for family felt like hate?
Speaker 1:One of my very good friends is a missionary. I was a missionary in Africa for a couple of decades. He has three children And he came to the US for 10 years while his children went through high school and college And after those 10 years they went to high school, college and then some of them got married And this brother went back as a missionary. So he spends his time between the Republic of Georgia and Thailand and Kenya where he's a missionary. Two of his children stay in the US. One child stays in Thailand. Would he like to see his US children more Absolutely? But you see, he loves Jesus more. He loves the Gospel more, so he's willing to let that go so that he can spend more time doing the Gospel. Each of us need to figure out what it means, what decisions we need to make, how much time and money and effort we need to realign to show that we love God more than our family.
Speaker 1:The second cost of being a disciple is possessions, possessions. Let me read verse 33. So, therefore, if any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. I wish this verse was phrased a little differently. It's so direct. Therefore, if any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. The desire for things is an old desire. It's not a new desire And it's not related to whether you have much or you have less. Those days, those people were so poor they had nothing. And yet Jesus says if you can't renounce everything, you cannot be my disciple. And it's not just this random statement that Jesus said.
Speaker 1:I'm going to ask you to turn to two more verses that says essentially the same thing in the book of Luke. Turn to Luke, chapter 12 and verse 33. Luke, chapter 12 and verse 33. Sell your possessions, give to the poor, provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old, with the treasure in the heavens that does not fail where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. And another verse Luke, chapter 18, luke, chapter 18, verse 22. This is Jesus talking to the rich man. When Jesus heard this, he said to him one thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me. So when Jesus says, anyone who does not renounce and that is in the present tense, which means that is a ongoing thing It is not OK one time renounce and then we can do whatever, but it's an ongoing thing. So we need to strike a balance between earning and working and making money and loving God more than our possessions. How do we know if we love God more than our possessions? Well, let me ask you a couple of questions. If tonight you got a notification from your bank that you have a zero income, you have zero balance in your bank and you lost everything you lost your house, your car, your bank balance how much would that change your devotion to God? If it's going to change, then there is a chance we love God for the benefits. Let me ask you another question How much money do we spend on ourselves compared to what we spend on God and the things of God.
Speaker 1:My brother and his wife are in California and 20 years ago they started a ministry called Life Challenge International where we do rehabilitation for drug and alcohol addicts. The first center was in Bangalore and now we have about seven centers in different parts of India. We also have a home for HIV kids whose parents were drug addicts and they got HIV. They were both engineers who were in California and they decided to start this ministry. So my brother decided not to do his engineering job, started this ministry and about I think it's about seven years ago, they came to a decision that his wife also would leave the job, and so, to make sure that it was not just this random emotional decision, they fasted and prayed for 40 days, 40 nights, and then they came to the decision for her to leave her job.
Speaker 1:But when they decided to leave the job, that means that from now on you're going to live on the free will offering, isn't it? You have essentially given up your desire for possessions. I'm not asking you all to quit your jobs. I'm not asking you all to sell your possessions. I'm asking you to find out where your heart is Because, like this verse says, if any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. There is no ambiguity in that statement. The third cost of being a disciple is the self, the denial of self.
Speaker 1:Let's read verse 27. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. What does it mean to carry your own cross? In this day and age, we refer to it as anything that bothers us. We are carrying our own cross. If my taxes went up by 2%, oh that's my cross I'm going to bear. Or if the neighbor is a problem, oh that's my cross I'm going to bear. If I've got heartburn, oh that's my cross I got to bear. But what did his listeners understand it to be? When Jesus said whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple, what did his hearers think about it? There is only one thing that his hearers thought about it, and the only one thing that that could mean is that they died a painful, excruciating death by crucifixion. For Jesus, that is the only thing that means. It's a person who was going to be crucified that carried his cross, just like Jesus did on the way to the crucifixion. So Jesus is saying if you want to be my disciple, you should be willing to die in the worst way possible. Not die by death of old age, but die in the worst way possible.
Speaker 1:How much do we love ourselves? There's no quantifying number we can give. We love ourselves a lot, in fact. Most of the decisions that we make are related to our comfort. Let me ask you a rhetorical question. You don't need to answer this. How many of you would be excited if I said that yesterday, a village in North India, they completely converted and they all became Christians. Don't raise your hands. How many of you would be excited if I said that yesterday, a village in North India who were Hindus before now the entire village converted and became Christians. Most of us would be happy. Let me ask you another question. What have I said? Every time a village converts and becomes a Christian, you lose a finger. How many villages do you want to see coming to Jesus? You see, we are happy with God and the ministry as long as we are comfortable. We want the glory of God as long as it doesn't touch us. But the moment it touches us, we ask Lord why Many times our love for ourselves is way more than our love for God, and Jesus is clear. If our love for Him is not more than our love for ourselves, we cannot be His disciple. Jesus is not asking us to do anything that He didn't do Himself. He gave up everything to be our Master and He expects nothing less. He gave up His relationships, he gave up His possessions and He gave up Himself, and He expects nothing less from us. Let me end with the story.
Speaker 1:On January 13, 1982, air Florida Boeing 727, flight number 90, took off from Washington National Airport in Arlington, virginia, with 74 passengers and five crew members. The plane had flown into Washington DC earlier that afternoon from Miami and it was trying to go back as soon as possible. But there was snow and icy conditions in Washington DC, and so the airport was shut down for a few hours. But the pilot wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. So as soon as the airport opened up and the runway is opened up, they quickly did a de-icing of the plane and he started to take the plane out. But they had to stop at the gate because the weather was bad again, and so for about 45 minutes he was waiting for takeoff with these passengers inside the plane, and then, about 45 minutes later, when the conditions opened up, what the pilot, larry Wheaton, should have done was go back and de-ice the plane. He didn't go back to de-ice the plane, he didn't even use the de-icing system of the plane itself, but he wanted to get out as soon as possible.
Speaker 1:By the time the plane reached the takeoff area, it was so bogged down that it could achieve only a few hundred feet of elevation, and about one mile away from the runway and two miles away from the White House, it plunged into the 14th Street Bridge and down into the icy Potomac River. Four motorists were killed on impact when seven vehicles were destroyed on that 14th Street bridge. Of the 79 passengers, 73 of them died on impact. But there were six survivors of the plane. But they had to now survive the icy, cold waters of the Potomac River. And as they were trying to struggle to stay alive, the people on the bridge were standing there. They could do nothing. They were literally watching these people die in front of their eyes.
Speaker 1:There was a terrible traffic in Washington that day that made it difficult for the rescue helicopters to come. But finally the horrified silence of that moment was broken by the helicopters that came and hovered over the water And, in a risky move, they tried to rescue these six people that were dying of hypothermia and drowning in the icy waters. They let down a rope and the rope fell into the hands of a bank employee by the name of Arland Williams. Arland Williams got the rope and he gave it to the next person. That person got up and the helicopter took that person away and kept them safely. The helicopter came back and threw the rope down. Arland Williams got the rope again and he gave it to the next person. This happened four more times And each time Arland Williams got life in his hands and he could have escaped and he could have gone away, but he didn't. When the helicopter came back the last time to get him, the fatigue of what he had done and the debris that he was hanging on tipped over and Arland Williams drowned. He was the only passenger on that plane to die by drowning.
Speaker 1:Ladies and gentlemen, jesus gave everything 2000 years ago his relationships, his possessions and his life to save you and me. I'm going to give the opportunity for us to respond to this sermon. I'll ask you two questions Are you following from a distance? Are you following from a distance And secondly, do you love any of the following more than Jesus Relationships, possessions or self? Now, i'm sure you've heard a sermon similar to this before, so I don't want this to be just another sermon that you heard.
Speaker 1:I'm going to give an altar call and I want you to have an altar, in your mind that you're going to put something on the altar. What is it that you love more than Jesus? You're going to put that on the altar. If you love yourself more than Jesus, put yourself on the altar. If you love possessions more than Jesus, put possessions on the altar.
Speaker 1:I'm going to pray now, but I want you all to think on what you are going to put up on that altar, because if we do not put up everything on the altar, we cannot be his disciple. That's clearly what the Bible says. So I'm going to ask people to stand up. If you have put something on the altar, i'm going to ask you to stand up And then you're going to pray. If you love something more than Jesus that you put on the altar, you can stand up and then we'll pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what you have given us. Thank you for giving us everything. Thank you that you didn't hold back in your love for us. Lord God, i pray that you would help us to be disciples that follow you closely, no matter what it means, no matter what it takes. Help us to give everything that we have so that we can follow you. In Jesus' name, i pray, amen, thank you.