Sermon Tone Analysis

The Cost of Discipleship

Introduction:

I used to think that the more keys someone had, the more power and influence they had.

I thought this because in the corporate world, the people that had more keys were in the management part of the business.

The time came when I became one of those with more keys, power, and influence but I found that the power and influence also came with more work hours, more responsibility and just down right more hard work.

Have you ever wanted something that someone else had, but then discovered that it came at a higher price than you thought?

It used to be a joke with me and friends that the more keys you

In our story between Elijah and Elisha, Elisha requests a double portion of Elijah’s spirit.

Elijah responds “You have asked a difficult thing.”

To others, it would appear that Elijah had a lot of glory and prestige as the famous prophet, but what is unseen is the difficulty that was experienced in all that “glory and prestige.”

It would not be easy to look out at all those prophets of baal and challenge them by himself.

No one knows the difficulties another faces in their lives no matter how glorious their life may appear.

As Christians, we all have a call on our life and it is never easy.

It is what we refer to as the cost of discipleship.

It is important that we each find our own call and fulfill it and not try to live into the call of another.

I am sad to say that I have met too many failed pastors who have learned this the hard way.

Instead of finding their own call and path, they have followed family traditions to be pastors instead of following God’s direction.

It is difficult enough to follow our own call without trying to live the call of another.

In the case of Elijah and Elisha, Elijah did not know if it was right for Elisha or not.

He just knew that Elisha had no idea what he was asking; the hardships that came with that kind of request.

However, Elijah left it up to God to give Elisha the answer to his request.

Elisha was evidently up to the task as God gave Elisha what he requested.

Today, we will get a glimpse of the heavy burden Jesus carried as he fulfilled His call.

We will also see Him teaching others about the cost of discipleship.

Stand with me as we read from this passage of Luke today.

Pray

As I was studying this passage of scripture this week, I found three costs of discipleship.

They are...

I. Humility, Love and Sacrifice

On the surface, they do not sound so bad, but when you live them, you find just how difficult it can be to live a life of humility, love and sacrifice.

Today’s story is a key turning point in Jesus ministry.

Up to this point, He has been traveling around Galilee teaching and healing.

His main goal at this point has been to teach and prepare His disciples for the time when He is no longer with them.

They have not understood that they will have Jesus only for a short time.

In fact, they must have been a trial to Jesus at times as they were so slow in understanding.

Their thoughts and actions were influenced by years of Jewish disobedience and wrong actions and beliefs.

Their disbelief continues to be a problem.

Their lack of faith caused fear in the storm on the Sea of Galilee and just shortly before today’s event, nine of them had tried to cast out a demon and had been unable to do so.

To which Jesus responds,

Once again we can feel Jesus frustration with them.

Warren Wiersbe states, “ You might expect that lament to come from an overworked kindergarten teacher or an impatient army drill instructor, but it was made by the sinless Son of God!

We are prone to forget how long suffering our Lord had to be while He was ministering on earth, especially with His own disciples” (The Wiersbe Bible Commentary, 168).

After Jesus delivers the boy from the demon, He tells them,

Jesus is running out of time.

He still has so much to teach them and they are not helping.

I think we all can relate to a time when we were trying to accomplish something and were running out of time.

We get tense and become intense with those around us as we try to achieve our goal.

We see Jesus feeling this in .

Notice that Jesus attention is focused on His ascension, not His arrest.

This demonstrates once again Jesus focus on us and not Himself.

He was not concerned for the moment with what He will suffer, but instead what will happen to those He leaves behind when the time comes for Him to return to the Father.

However, He cannot stall the inevitably.

It has to happen within a certain time frame in order to fulfill scripture.

So he “determinedly” sets out for Jerusalem.

It is at this point we find the first of our three hardships of discipleship.

To be a disciple is to experience and live with...

A. Humility ()

Jesus is making His way to Jerusalem.

The shortest distance is through Samaria.

However, there is a longstanding feud between the Jews and the Samaritans.

It began with the kingdom division of Israel.

Upon Solomon’s death, his son Rehoboam became king.

However, Rehoboam was not a wise king like his father.

He listened to bad advisors and out of greed continued and increased taxes making hardship on the people (sound familiar?).

So ten tribes split from the kingdom forming the northern kingdom under the kingship of Jeroboam.

Jeroboam, in an effort to maintain his kingdom, provided new worship locations so the northerners did not need to go to Jerusalem to worship.

One of the more major sites was on Mount Gerizim in Samaria.

Years later, the Assyrians hauled the best of this group off and brought in foreigners to replace them in the land.

Over time, the remaining Jews intermarried with these foreigners and set up their own religious system with a temple on Mount Gerizim (Remember Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal where the blessings and curses were cried out?).

The Jews never acknowledged this temple and the Samaritans no longer recognized the one in Jerusalem.

So there was bad blood between the Jews and the Samaritans.

Now for Jews traveling between Galilee and Jerusalem, Samaria offered a shortcut.

It was the most direct route.

The Samaritans tolerated it for the most part, but at times of travel for religious reasons, they got their dander up and would most inhospitable.

This is one of those times.

Jesus is heading to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles.

Most likely due to the large number of people traveling with Jesus (Jesus rarely traveled with only 12, there were usually large crowds that followed Him), He sends messengers ahead to make arrangements.

I am sure the Samaritans were not thrilled with the number of Jews that were with Jesus also!

So they have no desire to put Jesus and His entourage up for the night.

Upon hearing what the messengers report, James and John (Sons of Thunder) get really irate.

Now remember, they have just recently been with Jesus up on a mountain top when He was visited by Elijah and Moses.

This is probably still on their mind as this was such an unbelievable event.

Elijah and Moses would be heroes to them.

Men long gone from earth and they had seen them personally.

It is no surprise that what comes to mind was Elijah’s response to men who oppose God’s work in .

He literally called fire down upon two companies of 50 soldiers and their Captains.

So what does John do?

He suggests the same thing for the Samaritans.

However, Jesus does not respond as he expects.

Instead, Jesus rebukes him and they go around taking a longer route to get to their destination.

Humility is a characteristic of Jesus followers!

Their are times we wish to call down hell fire on people that seem to be in our way of achieving what we feel God is calling us to do, however instead at times, we are instructed to step aside and go a different route, sometimes even creating more work for us.

John Tillotson was the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury from 1691 to 1694 and he is known for saying,

“Let us never do anything for religion which is contrary to religion”

[WEBSTER and WILKINSON].

That is not the only humiliation we face.

We face being rebuked at times.

We may be saved and sanctified, but we still are human with human tendencies.

We are called to be teachable.

We never reach the age where we know it all or understand it all.