Morning Gathering

this morning I am just starting off a little bit different this morning. I want start with a quote a quote from a man named Dietrich Bonhoeffer actually wrote a book called the cost of discipleship. I thought it was a very fitting quote to bring in to partner with the text today. He writes cheap. Grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly Grace. And we are fighting today for costly Grace. We're fighting today for grace. That means something for Grace and discipleship that changes our lives inside and out. We're going to be reading from Luke chapter 14 starting a verse 25. And it's going to find out just how much it cost to be a follower of Christ the passages on page 1048 in your bibles. If you'd like to turn there now, I'd like to bring Dad's. Yep. It's already all over it. So read the passage for us.

So will read from 25 to 35 large crowds were traveling with Jesus and turn into them. He said if anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother wife and children brothers and sisters. Yes, even their own life such a person cannot be my disciple and whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple suppose. One of you wants to build a tower won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it for if you lay the foundation on not able to finish it everyone who sees it was ridiculous you're saying this person began to build and wasn't able to finish or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king won't he first sit down and consider whether he's able with 10,000 men to oppose the one coming against them with 20,000 if he's not able he will send a delegation what while the other is still a long way. I will ask for terms of Peace in the same way those of you who do not give up everything you have kind of be my disciples salt is good. But if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is $59 for the soil North for the manure Heap. It is thrown out Whoever has ears to hear Let Them hear.

Thank you. See a very quickly adjust to address who is Jesus talking to at this moment in time. He sees the large crowd around him. He has his disciples walking with him. There are probably plenty of the spectators around and it certainly there are people there who mean to oppose him. Jesus takes this moment with this audience to say what it takes to follow him. He's talking to people who are already following him. He's talking to people who are thinking about following him. He's talking to people who have no interest whatsoever and following him. He speaking to everybody. The same is true today. These words are not mad just for those people, but they're Meant For Us. These are Christ's words dusk today.

Whether you believe in Christ already whether you thinking about following him or whether you have no interest at all. These words are meant for you. Not mentioned at the beginning and bonhoeffer's quote cheap Grace. I'll turn to him again. And he's for a nice explanation of what cheap Grace is cheap Grace means the justification send without the justification of The Sinner let the Christian live like the rest of the world. Let him model himself on the world's standards and every sphere of life and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin and quote cheap. Grace tells us that everything is fine. Everything's okay that I'm forgiven and I can just keep on sinning all the more. I have my fire insurance card. I will cash that in when the time comes

I just want to keep living. However, I want to live I want to keep living for myself.

Christ's Words In this passage, it state that this very clearly and very strongly that this is not the case. Chrysler has laid out the cost and very strong terms. You've got to hate your family. You got to hate yourself.

strong words Know when you hear these words, do you think I actually have to hate your family? I would hope not it becomes very tricky to honor the Commandment honor your father and mother if you hate them and the Commandment to love your neighbor takes on a whole new meaning if you hate yourself.

Know what Christ is getting at here. Is he better love him way more than anything else. You better put him so far above everything else above everyone else. It looks like you hit those people. Your Allegiance to Christ needs to be higher than your allegiance to your family your friends your allegiance to Christ needs to be higher than that your allegiance to yourself and to your own goals and your own desires following Christ to take some very serious commitment following Christ is not something to do lightly. I'd like to take us back to Luke chapter 5. Who wrote this a long time ago? And it was when Peter is called by Christ one of the very first disciples and followers of Christ is called. And this happens in a very unordinary fashion. Christ gets in a boat with Peter and they go for a fishing trip. And this fishing trip is so successful that they have so many fish that are caught that two boats begin to sink. They can't handle it. There's so many fish. They don't know what to do.

The first Peter is not a fan. He doesn't want to follow Christ. He's terrified. He says get away from me. Jesus though does not take no for an answer and Peter Comes Around by the time they get back to shore Peters willing to leave everything and follow Christ. He walks away from his boat. He wants away from his net see walks away from the fish he has a giant pile of money behind him instant success.

He says you know what Christ is worth more than that. Price is more important to me than that. He suddenly got it. He went from get away from me to I'm All In.

He leaves it and he follows Christ Peter realizes in that moment. That Christ is more important. Are we willing to do the same? Are we going to say that Christ is much more important than anything else. Are we willing to say, you know what this giant pile of money behind me is actually not worth it. Can we say no to a fortune if Christ asked us to honestly we picture it all the zeros and our bank account on our phones.

imagine giving that all the way Is he following Christ requires a deep level of commitment? Not only should our allegiance to Christ be above everyone else and everything else. But Christ also includes this neat little caveat as well. includes necessities of carrying your cross

carrying your cross. I'd like to clarify really quickly. Then what carrying your cross means? It is not I got this really Don Cheney and that's just my cross to bear. Am I a key back? And that's just my cross to bear?

This image that Christ use as a very severe one at the time. It's not a fashion statement or fashion accessory. No the cross and those days is an instrument of execution. It's very clear. What carrying your cross means? People who carry crosses back in those days there. They're murderers the thieves they're Scoundrels. They're the lowest of the low those people carry the cross and they carry the cross to go and die on them. That's what carrying across this means. It's your instrument of execution.

Carry, your cross means you need to be willing to die for Christ. Are you willing to die for him? Are we willing to lay down our lives? Are we willing to lay down our dreams are we willing to lay down our desires or wants our goals? Christ is calling us to follow him. And the cost of following him is to die to our dreams are goals our own life plan. But he's also calling you to die to your fears your failures your heart breaks your tragedies or mistakes your regrets.

Not only that. He doesn't want you to leave just to get stuff behind. He wants you to leave everything behind.

Because in Christ we find satisfaction we find joy we find love for film ants have peace. We find life and life to the full. The follow Christ means to crucify your desires and your wants and to trade them in for Christ desires. This is costly Grace.

This is the grace that costs and I once again turn to Bonhoeffer for a bit of a better explanation of costly Grace. He says such Grace it's costly because it calls us to follow and it is Grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it cost a man his life and it is Grace because it gives them and the only true life. It is costly because it can dents in. And Grace because it justifies the center. Above all it is costly because it cost God the life of his son. And what has caused God much cannot be cheap for us above all it is Grace because God did not reckon his son to Dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. God gave up nothing too dire to give up for us. God counted the cost and saw us as worth it.

False the office now to count the cost. What is too much for us? What is too dear to belong to let go off for Christ?

Have we counted the cost?

Christ gives two examples in this passage of counting the cross cost counting the cost.

Kind of odd and are they in h building a tower? And the King going out to face another Army very foreign to us. We don't really have an army at our Command. We don't really have a lot of money to build a tower.

But he says one thing clearly is that there are real implications for not counting the cost. That's a build the Tower and actually not have enough money to finish it. You're mocked and your scorned and it reminded me of this thing that happened in real life. This is a really lovely cathedral in Liverpool the Metropolitan Cathedral. I took this picture. This is a huge Tower. It is 85 meters high. massive this is not the intended finished product. This is forced choice. This is what they could afford. They ran out of money see the Catholic Church wanted to build one of the largest Cathedrals and all the world. They want to build something massive. They wanted to show the world how much money they have and so they start building and they build the foundation and what happens is World War strike and they run out of money and this is a model of what it was supposed to look like. It's easy. The tower was supposed to be a hundred and fifty-five Tall. The Dome was supposed to be one of the largest in the world that 51 meters in diameter. It was going to be huge. It was going to be like a little city, but it's a cathedral. That's what they wanted. Get this unforeseen tragedy occurs War happens, they run out of money and they settle for this. And this is Mott's today. They call it Patty's Wigwam. They call it the mersey funnel. It kind of actually looks like an upside-down funnel if you flip it over the locals Market all day long. This is not what they wanted. They did not count the cost.

They were unable to finish what they started. So before we get started following Christ, we need to count the cost. Are we going to follow Jesus no matter what?

No matter of some unforeseen tragedy strikes us. No matter the hardships that may, are we going to still follow Christ and put him above everything and everyone.

Now these last 10 minutes or so have been filled with some very hard truths with such a high standard. Who could follow Christ? Certainly, not many people are around that aspired to this standard. Not many people meet these requirements from day one. I'd like to encourage you with this. But this is not the entry requirement, but this is the cost to continually following Jesus Christ. Like to show you that with another Peter example Peter.

Follow Christ the same guy who left a giant pile of money on the beach to follow Christ wasn't ready to die for him. Cuz when Christ goes to the Cross Christ picked up his cross to go and die on it. Peter is not having it. He wants nothing to do with Christ. If you would ask him as he was asked three times. Do you know this guy? You know, Jesus you don't go out with him for all those years.

Wasn't me I don't know him and Peter denies Christ at the most pivotal moment of Christ's life.

Peter wasn't willing he wasn't ready.

But Peter is an apostle. He writes scripture. He's the rock that Christ built his church on he is stand out But he wasn't ready he grew into that Peter's life doesn't end with him picking up his cross and dying for the sake of Christ.

He said he grew into that and we can grow into these requirements as well. We can grow we can learn we can realize that Christ is more important than anything else. It's a it's a daily battle to choose Christ first. We must die to ourselves daily. We have to carry that cross and choose Christ every single morning every single moment. To truly put Christ first is a daily Endeavor to say that Christ is more important than my family my job my home.

Now, I'm sure the question y'all having right now just before I move on his how do I put Christ first? How do I know if I'm putting Christ first and I have no slick answers for you. I can only tell you what I do. So, I'll tell you what, I do have a series of questions. I'd like to ask myself. That lets me know where my priorities lie. Ask myself the question. How am I spending my time? Look back on my way, I spend my time. Did I develop enough time to prayer and reading my Bible and sharing the good news of Christ with others?

How am I spending my money? Have I set aside money for the poor for the church?

Who am I serving? Am I serving myself? Am I serving? My wife? Am I serving others am I serving Christ? Who am I serving? What am I praying for? My praying for success and I praying for Relief and I praying for myself for my praying for others.

And now I know what you guys are thinking while those questions are rubbish. And I can only tell you what I can do for myself what I do, but I'd like to offer you right now. I would love to sit down with you have a coffee have a beer have you into my home for dinner and talk to you about what it means to follow Christ about the cost find me after this Gathering asked me. Are you serious about that a hundred percent? Let's find a time. Let's meet let's talk. Salt is good. Yeah, I know. It's a it's an Abrupt transition, but Christ uses it and so I'm going to use it to

Jesus says if salt loses its saltiness what good is it? You know Christ here is talking about what it means to be a saltless disciple. Disciple that has lost his salt. I explained this and my video on Facebook earlier this week, but just to recap it briefly here. Salt the chemical name for salt is sodium chloride. This week so sodium chloride. It's actually quite hard for it to lose its saltiness property. Have to do something to it. You have to alter it in some way. You have to change it.

You know today we have salt and it sits on our shelves for Years. It'll still be salty. What does Christ mean salt losing its saltiness? It's completely unheard of to us. I bet you I bet you know this they didn't have refineries back in those days. So they didn't have refineries and instead they gathered their salt from the evaporated pools around the Dead Sea. They would gather this white powder salt is sodium chloride there but then there was also other things present like gypsum in other impurities. So you gather up this white powder which has sodium chloride you take that home. I have some self the thing though is if it condensation or evaporation what happened to your pile the first thing that leaves it is the sodium chloride So it nothing's really happened to the pile. But you still have this white powder that you think is salt but when you go to use it is not at all. There's no saltiness to it. It cannot it's not going to flavor your food. It's not going to help the manure pile. It's not going to do anything. It is useless because it is actually just dust. But you think it's don't.

Such a b saltless disciple frankly is to be useless. Lost yourself.

Jesus Christ what makes the disciple special it's the power of Christ in us that changes who we are that allows us to grow that alters our perspective to focus on the Heavenly Kingdom instead of our own kingdom to be a saltless disciple means that Christ is still distant from you.

To be a solid sample means you aren't really a disciple at all.

When the salt has lost its saltiness it ceases to be salt. All that's left is dust.

Don't Lose Yourself don't be distant from Christ. Don't Shear the teachings and Words of Christ and choose to stay far away. Don't choose to walk away.

walk towards Christ put him above everything. and everyone buy a lot.

Because that's the way to follow Jesus.

Because there is a cost to following Christ. He has to come first over everything. Nothing can be too dear to us. Nothing can take its place. Nothing to take his place as our number one priority and our lives hard to hear and it's harder to accept but hear this God did not see a price to Dear to pay for our forgiveness for our Redemption. God did not leave a message to our sin. God did not leave us in our Darkness. No cost was too great for God to pay for us. Is there a cost too great for us to pay for God? I'm depressed.

Father God. Thank you so much for sending your son Jesus Christ. To free us from our sin to make us righteous. Thank you for calling us to follow you. Thank you for inviting us to be a part of your family to be welcomed in. Got to pray that you would strengthen us and encourage us as we strive to follow you that you would open our eyes this morning to see you and know you more. In Jesus name I pray amen. And now before we break into questions, let's just take a minute. We're going to close our eyes and just reflect what we heard this morning.