Matt Sturdevant: Let’s pray. Father, thank You that regardless of what we think or feel in any given moment that Your Word is a lamp to our feet. It’s a light to our path. It corrects us when we’re wrong, and it teaches us to do what is right. Your Word is true, and it will stand forever. Please open our hearts and our minds and show us what You want us to see from Your Word today. Please give us the courage to take the next step You show us. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
We’re in the middle of our summer series, called Parables: Stories to Live By. Each week, we’re taking a look at a different parable that Jesus Christ Himself taught his disciples and the crowds that followed Him around more than 2,000 years ago when He walked on this planet. We’ve got a working definition of a parable that we’ve been using, and it’s this. A parable uses a natural object of human circumstance to convey a spiritual or moral subject. Also each week, we’ve been considering how for us that parable might be acting like a picture, a mirror, or a window. What I mean is this. When we see something beautiful that we want to remember, what do we do? We take out our phone, and we take a picture so that we can remember it. We see the thing now; we understand it. The parables can act like that for us.
Mirrors reflect truth back to us. If my hair is messed up and I look in the mirror, I’m going to see truth whether it’s what I want to see or not because mirrors reflect truth. Oftentimes, a parable can reflect truth to us about ourselves. They can also act like windows because we look out a window and we have a different perspective than what we see in the room that we’re in. The parables can do that for us. As a result of reading and studying a parable, we may have a different perspective about God—who He is or how He operates—or a different perspective about what God wants or intends for me as a human being.
This week we’re going to take a look at a parable that looks at the counting of the cost to follow Jesus. This parable is found in Luke chapter 14 and starts in verse 28, so let’s jump in and take a look at this parable. “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 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 ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 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.”
Now in this passage of Scripture, Jesus is talking about some different costs. He, first, looks at the counting of the cost of building a building. Then He looks at a king counting the cost to go out and wage war. So today, we want to look at some lessons we can find in this parable that we can apply to our own lives here and now. Have you ever started a project, but yet you were not able to complete it? I’m not talking about those projects where you think you have everything you need, and then you discover you’ve got to go back to the store. Then, you think you have all that you need, and maybe you need to go back to the store again.
I recently was working on a project with my two year-old son, and I took him to the store with me to get some supplies that we needed. Then, we got home, and we started working on this project. Then, I realized I didn’t have everything that I needed. That time I left him at home with my wife to go back to the store I hoped was what I needed so that I could come back and could finish this project. Fortunately, it was just a total of two trips to the store that time. But you see with those projects, we are able to ultimately complete them. It just may take longer than we think or expect.
What I’m talking about is you start a project, but you’re not able to complete it. Awhile back, businessinsider.com ran an article about the ten tallest buildings never completed. Take a look at this picture. It shows all of the top ten buildings all lined up. The tallest one is of the Nakheel Tower in Dubai. The plans were for this tower to be 3,300 feet tall. If you take a look at this next picture, you’ll see a picture of what it would look like for this tower to be there in the skyline. It’s massive compared to the other skyscrapers. They are all honest-to-goodness skyscrapers, and this one would be twice as tall as the rest of them. Then the next picture I want you to see is what it looked like ten years later. It’s just a pile of dirt.
Now, it’s really embarrassing if you start something and you’re not able to finish it because you didn’t plan well, especially if that something is as ambitious as the tallest tower, the tallest building, in the world. This is the image that Jesus gives us in counting the costs of being His disciple, counting the costs of following Him. Jesus wants us to be His followers. Jesus has already died on the cross to pay the penalty for my sins and for your sins. He’s already done His part for us to have a right relationship with God. He wants us to follower Him, but He wants us to count the costs before we choose to follow Him because He doesn’t want us to say “yes,” but do “no.” He wants us to count the costs and really, truly follow Him.
The first lesson that we find from this parable is that Jesus encourages us to count the costs of following Him. Let’s take a look again at the parable one more time. I’m going to read it again, and I want you to have in your mind that what this is really about is counting the costs of being a follower of Jesus Christ. Again starting in verse 28–“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 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 ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 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.”
Here Jesus is talking about it’s wise if you're going to build a building or wage war; it’s wise to count the cost. He says again in verse 28: “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?” If you’re going to build a building, you need to make sure to have enough—enough money, enough supplies, enough workers. You have to actually sit down and estimate what it’s going to take to take this drawing, this architectural drawing of this building, and actually turn it into a reality of a physical building. Because, you don’t want 10 years, 20 years, or 30 years later to just still have a pile of dirt after you’ve already started.
As verse 29 says, “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 was not able to finish.’” If you go after an ambitious project and you haven't calculated rightly, then people might mock you.. There could be articles written, and you could be in the list of the top ten tallest buildings that were never finished. The same is true as Jesus talks about kings who are going to go out to war. War costs lives, and a king needs to sit down and consider if he does have what it takes to win. If you know you can’t win going into war, what do you do? You go before the other army gets there, and you try to negotiate terms of peace.
In fact, counting costs is something that we do on our own automatically throughout our days. We do that with the resources that we have. Here’s a question for you: What are you going to do for lunch today? Now, you’re watching this, perhaps at home in your living room, and you could just get up a little bit later when you’re hungry and go to the fridge, and make yourself something, and eat right there. Or, you could get in the car and go to a restaurant, and one of the costs that you’re going to be counting and weighing is if I have the ingredients to make the lunch that I want here. Or, would I rather maybe save time but spend some money to go somewhere and have someone else prepare the meal for me? We do this on our own.
Also, we do this with our time. When different opportunities come up, we count the costs. we only have so much time. We have 24 hours in a day; we have 168 hours in a week, so we only have so much time. We’ve got to decide how we’re going to use that time. Here’s the thing, though. The bigger the impact that something has on our time or our finances, the more time we spend counting the costs of whether we should do it or not. the reality is I don’t give the same time and attention to what coffee I am going to order from my favorite coffee shop as I would if I’m about to purchase a house or a car. That’s a lot more resources involved in the purchase of a house or a car than it is with a cup of coffee, so I’m going to spend more time on it.
Jesus is using these two huge examples of building a building or waging war to compare for us to say we’ve got to count the costs in choosing to follow Him. It’s important to count the costs because of our second lesson which is following Jesus costs us everything. In Luke 14:33, it says, “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” The word, disciple, here means “learner,” and Jesus’ followers were called disciples because they chose to make Him their Teacher. They chose that this is the Man that we are going to follow, and we’re going to learn from. What He’s saying is that if you’re going to learn from Me, you’re going to have to be willing to renounce everything. Not just some things, not just maybe some things that you don’t want or don’t need, but everything, so we’ve got to count the costs.
If we would take time to count up the costs for something that impacts one area of life, we desperately need to take the time to count the costs for something that’s going to impact all areas of our life. A picture of a pie can help us understand what it means to say that following Jesus costs us everything. No, not that picture of a pie, but this is the pie I’m talking about, the Lordship pie. You see, this is a picture that shows key areas of life as a different slice of the pie. In the Lordship pie, we can see that our career, our family, our church, our school, our community, our money, etc. are all slices of the pie. In the center of that is our self. That’s the way that every one of is naturally. That’s the way that we’re born. Jesus is not just a slice of the pie, but really what it looks like to follow Jesus is that He is in the center of the pie. He touches every aspect of our life. He is Lord over every aspect of our life. This is what it really means for Jesus to be the center of our life.
Another way of looking at it, going back to that pumpkin pie, is that if our life was a pumpkin pie, Jesus would be the pumpkin—the key ingredient that is in every slice. The Lordship pie is very helpful in helping us count the costs of what it means to become a follower of Jesus Christ. That’s a big cost to count. It’s so simple to think about Jesus being in the center of our lives, but He’s really in the center of our lives. He really touches every part of our life and really expects to be Lord over every part of our life. So if you are a follower of Christ, I want to ask you a question: Is there any area of your life that you’re trying to keep away from Jesus?
Maybe over time you’ve sort of developed a little wall in an area that He can be a part of all the other areas but this one you’ve built up a wall, and you don’t want Him to be in that part of your life. So think about it; is there any area of your life that you’re not giving over to Christ? If you're not yet a follower of Jesus Christ, I want you to use this picture to help you count the cost. As a pastor, I’d like nothing else than for you to become a follower of Jesus Christ. As I mentioned a moment ago, Jesus has already done His part. He died on the cross to pay the price for your sins and for my sins. What we need to do is we need to choose to follow Him. We need to repent; we need to say, “I’m sorry,” and turn from going our own way to going His way. We need to make life not about me and my ways but about Him and His way. We make Jesus our Lord and our Savior.
I would like nothing more than for you to make Jesus your Lord, but you really need to count the costs. Here are a couple of examples of what it practically means to count the costs. Let’s talk about money for a minute. We might as well get real, really fast. We believe, as followers of Jesus, that God owns everything and that our role is to manage or be stewards of the resources that He’s given us. In fact, we’ve looked at that previously in another parable, the Parable of the Dishonest Manager. God owns 100% of everything that I have, and as His follower, He asks me to give Him the firstfruits of what He’s given me, to give Him the tithe, the first ten percent of what I earn and what I make. As a result, I keep 90% for myself to provide for my family, to meet the needs that we have, to be able to bless others that I interact with.
The Bible makes it really clear in both the Old Testament and the New Testament that the people of God support the work of God. The use of finances and money and resources is one of the costs that we have to count. We need to actually think about that. What would God want with our money and with our resources? But here’s the thing: it’s not about the money. It’s not that God needs your money, and it’s not that we at the church are trying to get your money. What God is really after is our hearts. He’s after our whole-hearted devotion in following Him. In fact, a few chapters earlier Jesus Himself says this in Luke 12:34. He says, “ For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” So where your treasure, there your heart will be also.
We, as humans, tend to think about and dwell on and meditate on and fall on all of the stuff that we have. So where the treasure is, there our heart is. Ultimately when we give of our treasure and when we give of our resources to God, we’re showing HIm that that is where our heart is, that our heart is invested in the things that are important to Him. So it’s not about the money; it’s about our hearts. This is why Jesus wants us to count the costs, because it actually does cost.
One more area that you count the cost in is work. Work is the means by which most of us get money. Work is one of those things that we need to have a different standard. We need to have a different perspective on the work we do, and Ephesians 6:5-8 talks about the different standard. I want to just look at Ephesians 6:7; it says, “Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men…” Again, we see that we’re working wholeheartedly to obey our earthly bosses. It’s saying that what we do, we don’t just work well when the boss is right there, but we know that we’re actually working for our Heavenly Boss. He sees everything that we do; therefore, we have a different perspective on work. We have a different work ethic that we work by.
Counting the costs means that Jesus is in control of all of the different areas of our life. The truth is that it’s worth it. It’s worth it in the end because the third lesson that we gain from this parable is that we gain everything when we choose to make Jesus Lord. I want to walk you through a series of slides that uses the word, “Lord,” to make us understand what exactly it is that Christ has done for us. The Bible says that God loves you and wants you to experience abundant life. But rather than turning to God, every one of us began to sin, going our own way, trying to be our own bosses. The result is our separation from God.
The Bible says that sin has cut us off from knowing God personally. Instead of experiencing the life and the freedom God desires for us, people are dead spiritually. That means cut off from God and actually in bondage to the enemy. To remedy the situation, God sent Jesus Christ, who died on the cross, to pay the penalty for our sins, and He was raised from the dead. All people without Jesus are destined for hell. But those who repent, that is turn around and yield their life to Jesus as the Boss of their life, they will become children of God and experience life and freedom that God desires for them.
Yes, there is a cost to be counted in becoming a follower of Jesus, and we must count that cost. We don’t want to say, “Yes, we’ll follow Jesus,” and then 10 years later have a life that is amounted to a pile of dirt that nothing has been built on. That’s why we want to count the costs. To be a Christ-follower, you have to choose to follow God and do life His way. When you make that decision, you’re no longer destined for hell. You’re destined for an eternity with God in heaven. God promises to give you all the tools and the resources that you need so that you can follow Him and live life here and now on this planet.
Life is difficult. In fact because of rebellion, sin entered this world, and we live in a broken world. We feel the effects of this broken world everyday throughout our days. But when we choose to follow Jesus, He gives us the tools and the resources we need to overcome the obstacles that are in our way because of this broken world. Yes, there is a cost to choose to follow Jesus. It costs everything. Here are a couple of examples of some real costs that you might experience. You might have family or friends who decide that they want nothing to do with you because you have decided to be a follower of Jesus. Society will often ask you to do things that look cool and look really good in front of others but actually go against God’s ways.
You may be under an increased level of spiritual attack because we have a real enemy who doesn’t want us to be successful. He doesn’t want us to follow God and act in line with His ways. Often he does everything he can to make it difficult for us. You will still have problems. That’s one of the things Jesus told us that in this world we would have problems, but He overcame this world. When we experience the problems of this life, we’ve got to choose a new way to respond. We’ve got to choose a way to respond that loves God and loves people. That might be different from the old ways that we’re used to. We’ve got to choose God’s ways, so there are real costs that must be considered before choosing to follow Jesus.
If we’re willing to pay the price, then here’s what we receive. We receive a restored relationship with God, our Creator. Our sin problem is dealt with. We get to spend eternity in heaven with God, and we have a new family—a family of believers, who believe and follow the Lord Jesus. We have the resources provided by God through the Holy Spirit that we need in this life to hone or God. I want to encourage you today to take this parable seriously. Count the costs, and when you’re ready, I want to invite you to make Jesus your Lord. Again, it will cost you everything, but He will give you everything that you need to honor Him. If you’ve already counted those costs and today is the day you’re ready to say, “Yes, I want to follow Jesus,” I want to invite you to do that today. Put Him at the center of your life.
If you say, “I’ve got questions. I need to continue to count those costs,” I want to invite you to get your questions answered. We would love to be a resource to you. We would love to help you get your questions answered, but please get your questions answered. I want to invite you to count the costs and choose—although it will cost you everything—choose to follow Jesus Christ.
Would you bow with me in prayer? Father, thank You that while we were sinners You made a way for us to be reconciled to You. Lord Jesus, thank You that You loved us enough to pay the ultimate price for us, to die in our place. As a result of Your death and resurrection for those of us who have asked for Your forgiveness and who’ve said You are Lord, You are in control of our lives now. Thank You that You give us the help and the resources we need to honor God with our lives. Please help us to count the costs well and to keep you at the center of our lives. I ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
