The Cost of Following Christ, Part 4a

Turn with you once again in your Bible, if you would, to Luke chapter 14. And if you have not been with this for any of those previous messages, I would encourage you to get the tapes because you need to have all of them and tonight's to be able to get the whole picture. So many times you listen to a tape or you hear one part of a sermon, you don't get the whole idea, and you end up conjuring up in your mind something that really isn't true or something that never really was said or you think was said.

And so it's important for us to digest the Word of God. And so many times it's impossible. Not so many times. It's impossible every time to be able to cover every point of doctrine in every sermon. You just can't do it. But you want to be able to portray the truth of God's word in its entirety as clearly as possible so people will know exactly what God says in its word.

So our desire was to do that for you. Some of you've asked a question concerning our topic of counting the cost. how was it we're going to tell children about this? How do we tell our children in our children's ministry? What must they do to be saved? How do they come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, our Lord? We think about that and we listen to what has been spoken about and our temptation is to streamline the gospel or to abbreviate the gospel or to oversimplify the gospel, thinking that somehow these little minds need to be able to get it and so we won't say everything they need to hear, just enough truth.

So many times we think that we need to tell as little of God's truth as we can in order to get a conversion. So many times as parents, we are excited about our children coming to faith. And so we begin telling them at a very early age, which we should do, before they can even walk about the salvation plan of God. And the moment they can say their first words is they say God, we are so excited that we think that they've accepted God.

And we want to call our parents so they can talk to their grandparents and say, I ask Jesus to come into my life and so forth down the road. And sometimes our parenting zeal causes us to, what's the word I want to use, mistakenly think that their profession was genuine. You need to be careful about that, right? The Bible is very clear about our presentation to children. Number one, it must be thorough.

Number two, it must be diligent. The Bible says, in those very familiar words, in the book of Deuteronomy, the sixth chapter, Here, or Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one.

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I am commanding you today shall be in your heart. And you shall teach them diligently to your sons. and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

If you get anything from Deuteronomy 6 verses 4 to 9, you must be diligent in your presentation of God and you must be completely thorough in your presentation. of God. That's what Moses tries to explain to us. Children, as most of you know, cannot be saved before they are old enough to understand the gospel. They can't make a profession of faith about that which they do not clearly embrace. And so they have to be of age to be able to do that. You say, well, what age is that? I don't know. It's different for each kid.

Some kids are are, I don't want to use the word smarter than other kids, but some kids just get it faster than other kids do. But I think that it's important to understand that the children must understand the difference between good and evil. They must understand the difference between sin and punishment of sin. They must understand the essence of repentance. They must understand faith. They must understand Jesus Christ as God. Those things are all important. In our efforts to share Christ with children, specifically our children, we tend to jump the gun, thinking that they're saved when a reality they might not be.

So our job as parents is to continue to teach them. We should never soften the passages in the Bible to make them palatable to their ears. We should never soften the effects of sin in the ears of our children. We should not gloss over the blood of Christ. We should not gloss over the sacrifice for sins. We must give the full gospel to our children. That's important. And we also must help our children to understand the whole issue of surrender. Why is that? Jesus said in Matthew chapter 18, truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven, whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Christ helps us understand that there's something about child likeness in Christianity, and that is the ability and the willingness to surrender their lives. Children must understand the whole issue of surrendering their lives and submitting their lives to a superior being that is God himself. We must explain that to them. Not everything you tell your children they're going to completely understand. In fact, when you came to saving grace, you didn't understand all the doctors of the Bible either.

So you're not going to be able to have your children sit down and say, okay, I need you to give me an eschatological chart of the book of Revelation in order for you to really understand the love of God, the grace and God, the mercy of God, so you can get to heaven. No, that's not what it's about. But you must realize that God does the work in salvation. So when you go to a passage like Luke chapter 23, and you had the thief on the cross, and the Bible says this in verse number 39, and one of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling the abuse of him saying, are you not the Christ?

Save yourself and us. But the other answer, rebuking him said, do you not even fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving what we do. deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong. Remember, this other thief was part and parcel to the abuse. The other one was handing out. They both were hurling abuses at Christ, but something changed in one of the thieves' lives. Something happened. This one thief realized that the one hanging next to him was the Lord.

This one thief realized that Jesus Christ was hanging there was sinless. He was a sinner, but this one was sinless. How did he know that? How did he come to that conclusion? Why would he say, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom? He recognized that this one next to him was a king because he had a kingdom. How did he know all that? Like the Lord told Peter, flesh and blood has not revealed unto you, but my father who was in heaven. God had changed his heart. God had done a work in his life, just like God wants to do a work in the lives of your children, like you did in you, to change your heart that you might come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

A number of years ago, I was talking with an elder of a church and explaining to him the essence of salvation and what it means to know for certain you are saved. And he said to me in no uncertain terms, he said, I want to let you know. that I don't want my son looking at his lifestyle to determine whether or not he is saved. I want him to be able to look back at a time when he was a child and say this was the day he gave his life to Christ, and that's all the assurance he needs. I said, show me chapter and verse.

Do you have a Bible verse for that? He said, well, no, I don't. I said, then we have a problem. Just because your son, when he was four years old, made a profession of faith, is no guarantee. that that profession was a genuine profession. The only way you know it's a genuine profession is because, number one, the Romans 8 says that God's spirit's going to bear witness with his spirit.

And if he is walking away from God, if he today is not walking with God and showing the fruit of the gospel in his life, you can bank on one thing. He's not saved. You don't want to confirm him. You don't want to give him a confirmation about something that isn't true. I said, you've got to be careful. That's why when we teach our children the truths of God and our child makes a profession of faith, every one of my children has made a profession of faith except for AJ. He just turned two today. He can barely say anything, let alone make a profession of faith.

He can say amen at the end of a prayer, but that doesn't make him save. But just because my children have made a profession of faith is no guarantee that they are saved. My job as a father is to teach them the truths of God's word. And as they grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, as they begin to grow in their years, then the confirmation of that is seen in their lifestyle, and they come to a full realization of who Jesus Christ is and what he's done. My job didn't end when they prayed a prayer and said, I want Christ to come into my life.

No, my job continues on to help them understand what that really does mean, right? They need to understand that. We should never help a person understand he has saved just because he said a prayer when he was four, five, six, or seven years of age. A lot of children do that. Children are easily swayed. We all know that. And so you know the genuineness of that conversion as they get older and you begin to explain to them all the essence of the gospel and even go into greater detail about counting the cost.

And the believer is going to say, yes, yes, that's what I want to do. because when Christ gave them the essence of the gospel in Luke 14, he says, listen, if you come after me, this is the way it's going to be. This shows you what salvation is all about. This is what my people want to do. And those who are believers say yes. Those who are unbelievers say, no, I don't want to do that. And so you help them understand the truth of the gospel as they grow in their years so that when they're 18, 19, 20, 21 years of age and they go out on their own, they're able to stand on the faith of what they believe to be true because, as they read it in the Word of God, and they believe it, and they understand it.

Even today, we don't understand all the doctors of the Bible, but we study them, we teach them, we learn them, and we grow in the knowledge of them. And for our children, we must patiently, and we must persistently, and we must diligently teach them over the years, so that as they grow into their teenage years, there was a complete realization of what they have done and an assurance based on what the word of God says is the truth of conversion in their lives.

So we should never dilute the gospel to children. We should not be in a hurry to get them converted because conversion happens because of God, not because of us. We should be planting the seeds. We should be throwing the gospel out there continuously, bringing it before our children, that they might understand it. And when God calls them, they will respond. right? And I think that we need to be more interested in giving forth the truth instead of trying to get them to respond to that truth. Our job is not to get them to respond.

That's God's job, right? It's our job to give it. It's our job to live it that they might in turn see it, understand it, and by the grace of God, accept it into their lives. Okay? So I think it's important for us to realize, you know, I was reading about one guy who went to a church and he said, you know, I was looking at all the different tracks there and they all went down in order. It went from six steps to peace with God to five things God wants you to know, to the four spiritual laws, to three truths you can't live without, to two issues you must settle, to one way to heaven.

You see, we try to bring in the lowest common denominator to simplify the gospel as much as possible. And in so doing, we leave out a lot of what Jesus Christ has told us to say. Number years ago, we did a series about taking God's word to God's world, God's way. As a result of that, we put on a bookmark the presentation of the gospel. And in this presentation, there is over 75 different verses that explain the gospel of Jesus Christ in succinct order. So people will understand how they will present the truths of the gospel so that when they're done, someone has an understanding of what and who Jesus Christ is and what he did for them, you see?

And I think that if you've never seen one of these, I think you need to get it, not because we put it together, but because it's truth. And it's put into an order that helps people understand that this is what it means, that in there, in that gossip presentation, is the whole element of Luke 14. what it means to count the cost when you give your life to Christ. What's the statement to this question? Some have said, well, Christ gave a parable about counting the cost, but is that what he did all the time?

I mean, every time he presented the gospel, did he tell people, listen, you've got to count the cost, weigh it up, consider what you're doing here. Is that what he said? I thought about that, and I thought, well, you know, that's exactly what Jesus did. Let me show you.

Turn with me in your Bible to Matthew chapter 4. I guess it's a good place to begin at the beginning, beginning of the ministry of Christ. And so after Christ was baptized, he went through the temptation there in the wilderness, comes down a scene in verse number 17, having quoted the Old Testament, talking to people who were in darkness, he was the light of the world, so people who were in darkness, who didn't know the truth, he would say these words, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Now, if the preacher is going to come and tell you to repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, he's already quoted to the Old Testament that talks about his people being in darkness, there is something that must happen. There must be a change of life. Because repentance deals with a change of the mind that affects the opinion, that affects the direction of the life. So much so that when a person repents of a sin, he is going this way, turns around, and goes the other way. Now, for someone to repent and believe the gospel, for someone to repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, would cause them to consider their darkened state, and to count the cost, do they really want to turn around and change directions?

So Christ, in his offer of repentance, would call people to consider that. And if you read on in Matthew 4, it goes down to verse 18 about Simon Peter and Andrew, and of course, James and John. And he would call these men to follow him. And you will note that the Bible says in verse number 22, and they immediately left the boat and their father, and followed him.

These men would understand that when Jesus Christ came and beckoned them to follow him, that they would have to leave behind that which they were presently doing to follow him. That would cause them to count the cost. That would cause them to consider, is this really what I want to do? And you will note that of the 12 disciples, only seven of them, we have a detailed or semblance of a detailed description of their conversion. The other ones, we don't. But that doesn't mean that Christ didn't call them in the same way.

He did, because they would have to count the cost to follow Christ. So if you go over to Matthew chapter 5, the very next chapter, Christ begins to preach a sermon. Why? Because he's concerned about all these people who have been healed, and they are so excited about what this Messiah is doing that they were once blind but now can see, we're once death, but now can hear, we're once mute, but now can speak, they can walk, they can run, everything is happening. This guy is fantastic. We've got to follow him.

Christ says, let me tell you something. He begins to preach the longest sermon he ever preached in the Bible. Matthews 5, 6, and 7. And how does he close his sermon? He closes them with those familiar words. Enter by the narrow gate. Verse number 13, chapter 7, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction. And many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life. And few are those who find it. And then it goes on and talks about false teachers.

false prophets. It goes on that say that there's going to be many people who are going to come to me and say, Lord, Lord, did we not do this in your name? Did we not do that in your name? He's going to say, depart from me. I never knew you. Listen, if you're in the audience and you're hearing those words, you're thinking, wait a minute, maybe that's going to be me. I've got to consider what's going on here. I've got to count the cost. I've got to realize what Christ is saying, and is this what I want to do?

So in the summation of his sermon, he would give them the whole realm of, listen, this is what it's about. Don't be deceived. Because many will say to me on that day, hey, Lord, we were your friends. We did things with you. I never knew you. And that's why he says about the two men who built their house, one up on the rock and one upon the sand, right? And when the rains came down, the house on the sand fell apart, but the house on the rock and stood firm. And it says to the very end the sermon of the Mount, Verse number 28, the result was that when Jesus had finished his words, the multitudes were amazed at his teaching.

They were amazed. Because never a man spoke like this man spoke. When the rabbi spoke, they quoted somebody. They quoted a rabbi so-and-so, and then they quoted rabbi so-and-so, and then they quoted rabbi so-and-so. But Jesus, he didn't quote anybody, except himself, because he was the word, and he would begin to speak the words of God. And they were amazed at his teaching. Go into Matthew chapter 8. What do you have? Verse number 18. Then when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to depart to the other side, and a certain scribe came and said to him, Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.

And Jesus said to him, the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. The guy says, I'm going to follow you, Lord. And Christ says, okay, I only know something.

Animals are more comfortable than I am. Ooh, wow, I'm not sure I want to do that. So you see, in Christ's presentation of truth, there is that element of consideration, of counting the cost. If I follow him, what's going to happen? I might not have a place to lay in my head. The bears in the forest, the mountain lions are more comfortable than the son of man is. Goes on a saying, another other disciples said to him, Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father, but Jesus said to him, follow me.

A lot of the dead to bury their own dad. Ooh, I'm not sure I want to do that. Wait a minute here, Lord. You see, he talks to somebody and says, listen, you've got to realize that relaxation in the kingdom is not necessarily at your disposal. You don't need to understand that riches are not at your disposal, and relationships with your family members are not necessarily at your disposal. Here, there's one that says this. He says, and when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him, and behold, there arose a great storm, and he goes on and talk about how, this man, the Lord Jesus Christ, would calm the storm.

See, the point being is that Christ, whenever he spoke to people, there was in essence in his presentation a consideration that these people had to decide, is this something I really want to do? Is this the place I really want to go? If you go on or read in Matthew chapter 9 and you got the conversion of Matthew, remember back in John 6.53, Christ says, except you eat of my flesh, eat.

to the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. And what's the saying in John 666? That many people left him. They left him. Why did they leave? Because they considered the cost. And they weren't sure they were up for it. They weren't sure this is what they wanted to do. So they left. And so when you go to Matthew chapter 9 and he had the conversion of Matthew, what's he do? He leaves his table. Christ says, follow me.

He gets up and follows Christ, knowing that he loses his job if he follows Christ. He understood the cost. He'd have to consider it to leave behind his money-making business to follow Jesus, the Messiah. You can go on to read in Matthew chapter 10 when Christ would give the direction to his disciples and what they must do when they go into each city. And upon going into each city and preaching the gospel, how people are going to respond or not respond. Why? Because those people are going to have to consider the cost of the message that's been given.

Go on to Matthew chapter 11. And what do you have? He had the testimony of Jesus on John. the Baptist, there was a man who counted the cost. There was a man who preached about counting the cost. And you go on and read in Matthew chapter 11 about that great condemnation of those unrepentant cities and how it would be more tolerable for Sodom and Gabor than for those studies on the day of judgment. Do you think that would cause them to consider the cost? Absolutely. Absolutely. Of course, in Matthews chapter 12, what do you have?

You have the unpardonable sin by the religious leaders who attributed the works of Christ to Satan. And Christ would then stop his public ministry and go more to individuals throughout the remaining part of his ministry as he then would begin to speak also in parables. And the very first parable is a parable to sow in the soil, right?

And he would give that parable to a group of people, not just the disciples, but Matthew 13 tells us in verse number one that there was a great multitude.

who gathered to him so that he got into a boat and sat down, and the whole multitude was standing on the beach. He gave in a parable to sow and the soil and the soil. And if you've been with us, you know about that parable, and there'll be people who will get on the Jesus bandwagon, but because of the deceitfulness of sin and the deception of riches, they will fall by the wayside. And those will be people who didn't count the cost, you see? So Christ, in giving the parable, would help them understand, listen, make sure.

This is what you want to do. Make sure that following me is what really is important to you. It would permeate his ministry. All that to say is that it is so easy for us to look at the gospel and try to minimize the gospel in our presentation because we so badly want this person to come to Christ.

We so badly want them to pray the sinner's prayer. We so badly want them to come to church with us. But realizing that everything that God does is his work and not ours. We just need to be faithful at doing what it's called us to do. So the seed, spread the word, help people know the truth, and then God will work in their hearts. The Spirit of God will draw them. He'll do the work. We just need to be responsible to fulfill our responsibility. Let's pray.