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Aug 25, 2019

First Things First

Passage: Luke 14:25-33

Speaker: Brian Land

Series: The Parables of Jesus

Category: Grace Brevard

Keywords: disciple, cross, follow, cost

We often see and treat Jesus (and our faith) as a helpful supplement to our lives without realizing or accepting that Jesus insists that he is the sole King on our Hearts and Lives, refusing to be relegated to divine butler, co-pilot or handy accessory. Jesus has given us everything, every breath and every benefit of heaven, and it cost him everything, his very life.  In return he insists that we “forsake all others” as we trust Him and His Kingship over our own. (This is written to the “Great Crowds” surrounding Jesus...those who wanted the self-glorifying benefits of what Jesus was offering without the sacrifice -- we want both: to be saved and have the promises and blessings of God; be self-consumed and pursue what I deem best -- we want “cheap grace” which (according to Bonhoeffer) is “the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”)

Order of Worship

PRELUDE: The Hobbit 

CALL TO WORSHIP: Hebrews 12:1-2a, 28 ESV 

READING: Matthew 16:24-26

MUSIC:  

CONFESSION OF SIN & ASSURANCE OF PARDON: 

Confession of Sin:

ALL: Almighty God, you love us, but we have not loved you.

You call, but we have not listened.

God of grace, help us to admit our sin,

so that as you come to us in mercy,

we may repent, turn to you, and receive forgiveness;

Through Jesus Christ our Redeemer. 

Assurance of Pardon: Psalm 103:10-12

LEADER: 10 He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. 11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.  

MESSAGE:  First Things First

CENTRAL TEXT: Luke 14:25-33

25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 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? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 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? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

ILLUSTRATION: Whatever...the Cost

BENEDICTION: Philippians 1:6,11  

ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES:

  • Luke 9:24–25 
  • Matthew 13:45-46 
  • John 15:18-21
  • 1 Peter 1:3-7
  • John 6:68-69
  • Matthew 4:20
  • 1 Corinthians 15:58
  • 1 Corinthians 13:12
  • Isaiah 53:6,11
  • 2 Corinthians 5:14-15

MEDIA:

8.25.18 Album

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. If the Gospel is free, why is Jesus now talking about a “cost”?
  2. How could the traditional marriage vow of “forsaking all others” be an explanation of the “cost” Jesus is referring to?
  3. He gives three general categories where our allegiances need to be under our allegiance to Christ:
    1. People: When Jesus says to “hate” those closest to us, he is saying that our Love for God is to be so much MORE that, in comparison, it will look like hatred. How and why do we so often put others before God? Our kids, parents, spouse, friends etc.
    2. Pride: “take up your cross” Carrying a cross was the ultimate public shame. How is the Gospel a clear and bold attack on our own personal pride (our own goodness and personal righteousness)? Do you have a hard time admitting your vast neediness? Do you struggle with thinking that others seeing you as “less”?
    3. Power: Building a Tower and Waging War. We all want to be king as we try to build up our own name, our own kingdom. How is this is total war against Jesus and His Kingdom?
  4. How are these three categories “costs” of following Jesus?
  5. Compare that to the:
    1. Cost Jesus paid to bring you in.
    2. Blessed banquet Jesus has prepared for you.
  6. In the end you’ll find that it cost you nothing. You merely  spent that which is temporary on that which is eternal.

QUOTES:

  • “I gave up all for Christ, and what have I found? I have found everything in Christ.” - John Calvin
  • “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” - Jim Elliot
  • “Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'Ye were bought at a price', and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship) 
  • “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” (Bonhoeffer - longer quote found below)
  • “Fruit is always the miraculous, the created; it is never the result of willing, but always a growth. The fruit of the Spirit is a gift of God, and only He can produce it. They who bear it know as little about it as the tree knows of its fruit. They know only the power of Him on whom their life depends.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship)
  • “The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with His death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow Him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship)
  • “You know, it’s possible that God’s plan for us is littleness. His plan for us may be personal failure. It’s possible that when another door closes, it’s not because he plans to open a window but because he plans to have the building fall down on you. The question we must ask ourselves is this: Will Christ be enough?” - Jared Wilson (You’re Going to Die)
  • “Discipleship is a process of paying more and more attention to God’s righteousness and less and less attention to our own.” - Eugene Peterson
  • “What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.” - Albert Pike
  • “But there must be a real giving up of the self… The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” - C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)

BOOKS / ARTICLES 

SERMONS / TALKS: 

How Do You Count the Cost - John Piper

Luke 14

Counting the Cost - Charles H. Spurgeon

Luke 14

How to Find Yourself by Timothy J. Keller

Matthew 16:21-27