Counting the Cost
Discipleship • Sermon • Submitted
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The invasion of Japan promised to be the bloodiest seaborne attack of all time, conceivably 10 times as costly as the Normandy invasion in terms of Allied casualties. On July 16, a new option became available when the United States secretly detonated the world’s first atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert. Ten days later, the Allies issued the Potsdam Declaration, demanding the “unconditional surrender of all the Japanese armed forces.” Failure to comply would mean “the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitable the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland.” On July 28, Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki responded by telling the press that his government was “paying no attention” to the Allied ultimatum. U.S. President Harry Truman ordered the devastation to proceed, and on August 6, the U.S. B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing an estimated 80,000 people and fatally wounding thousands more.
After the Hiroshima attack, a faction of Japan’s supreme war council favored acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, but the majority resisted unconditional surrender. On August 8, Japan’s desperate situation took another turn for the worse when the USSR declared war against Japan. The next day, Soviet forces attacked in Manchuria, rapidly overwhelming Japanese positions there, and a second U.S. atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese coastal city of Nagasaki.
Just before midnight on August 9, Japanese Emperor Hirohito convened the supreme war council. After a long, emotional debate, he backed a proposal by Prime Minister Suzuki in which Japan would accept the Potsdam Declaration “with the understanding that said Declaration does not compromise any demand that prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as the sovereign ruler.” The council obeyed Hirohito’s acceptance of peace, and on August 10 the message was relayed to the United States.
on August 14, Emperor Hirohito declared that peace was preferable to destruction. He ordered the Japanese government to prepare a text accepting surrender.
Discipleship will cost Complete Surrender- Without Complete surrender you will have no peace, only utter destruction!
Discipleship will cost Complete Surrender- Without Complete surrender you will have no peace, only utter destruction!
A. Expound- To surrender means to give in, to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand. Jesus gave in and offered complete surrender to the cross to pay for your sins, for your lifestyle, and for your bad decisions. He knew what was coming, He is God in the flesh and this is why he held such a high cost for discipleship. We must learn complete surrender if we are to follow Jesus like we are called to do.
B. Application- So where then do we surrender?
You must be willing to surrender your spiritual life-
And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?
This means giving up your selfish desires-
All the worldly desires, greed,
lustful wants and covetousness,
the desire to dislike someone because they are different,
the envy that builds up against those who are doing better, and the pride that keeps you from getting better
all these need to be nailed to the cross that Jesus says you need to take up daily.
If they aren’t in line with what God desires for your life then they need to be nailed to the cross. Meaning you need to nail them to that cross daily!
Self-interests- concern only for getting what you want or need and not about what happens to other people.
Your own agenda
Your own gratification- pat on the back
Doing something for others because you have something to gain from it.
Promotes discord and not unity
When you start thinking about others first, you are beginning to understand what complete surrender means in the form of self-denial. Jesus thought of us first. He put our eternal needs first before his human interests. Physically, he didn’t want to go to the cross, but what he wanted was to follow what the father said. So he denied himself and went to the cross!
Denying yourself means you choose to no longer live for you but solely for Jesus.
If that makes you a sell out to the people who are lost, then so be it! I would rather be sold out for Jesus than to be sold out to the world!
You must be willing to completely surrender your physical way of life-
18 And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.
19 And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
20 And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.
Luke
And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.
When Jesus called the apostles out, he said come follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
Their response was this: complete surrender to the master. They didn’t have to debate it. They didn’t vote on it, they didn’t even think about it. They dropped their nets and immediately followed Jesus. James and John left their father to follow.
We may be called to make some decisions that seem crazy to us, but when we are completely surrendered to following God, then we will be willing to follow wherever he leads us.
You must be willing to completely surrender all you own-
18 And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
19 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God.
20 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother.
21 And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up.
22 Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.
23 And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich.
24 And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!
25 For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
God has blessed you with much, he wants to know how faithful you will be.
It’s not that Jesus disliked money or those with money. It’s when we are unwilling to give up our material wants and desires for the desires of becoming a disciple that Jesus had a problem with.
You can work everyday and say you don’t have time for Jesus, or I don’t have time to worship, but at the end of your life, everything you have worked so hard for stays right here.
God wants to know how far will you go and what will you be willing to give up to be a disciple of Jesus Christ!
Conclusion: When the day had come for the Japanese to surrender aboard the USS Missouri surrounded by over 250 Navy warships in the Tokyo Bay, General Yoshijiro Umezu stuck out his hand to General Douglas MacArthur and MacArthur told him “I can not shake your hand until you surrender your sword.” We as disciples of Christ try to shake hands with God while still holding on to our swords. We need to completely surrender our swords, being our will to God in order to be close enough to shake His hand and be in complete fellowship with Him.