Pentecost 15 Luke 14:25-35 Cost Counting
Deuteronomy 30:15-20 Philemon 1-21 Luke 14:25-35
There was once a dog that was living a very happy life. Unfortunately, the man and women who owned him were going through a terrible divorce. After many months of bickering over who would get what possessions, they had everything worked out, everything that is except for their dog. The woman had always loved the dog. She picked him out as a puppy, brought him home, fed and cared for him every day. She played with him at every opportunity and taught him obedience and tricks. At night the dog would lay next to her on the sofa and they were pretty much together all of the time.
The man however paid little attention to the dog. In fact, he hated it. But just to spite his wife, he was bound and determined to fight for ownership of it in court. So the judge decided to schedule a day to have someone hold the dog and have both people call it. The judge would grant custody to the person the dog went to. While the man thought that would not be fair, the woman was overjoyed with the plan. She knew that the dog loved her much more than the man and looked forward to the upcoming day.
When the day came, a courtroom aide led the dog to a corner, the man and the woman stood in the room and called the dog. To everyone’s surprise the dog with his tail wagging, went directly to the man. The dog licked the man’s hand and pretty much completely ignored the woman. The woman of course was heartbroken and left the courtroom in tears. The man left the courtroom happy and with the dog.
Later the man confided with his friends that right before he entered in the courthouse he had placed a pork chop in his pants pocket. That is the only reason why the dog ignored his ex-wife and headed straight for him. He also told his friends that he did not care what happened to the dog. In fact he kept the dog chained up outside all year long and paid little attention to it.
So the poor dog that once had it so great was separated from the one who truly loved him because of a poor choice he had made. It’s not that the dog didn’t love the woman; it’s just that he didn’t think of the consequences of his actions. He did not count the cost of that pork chop, and the judge made his determination as to whom the dog loved the most, by the dog’s actions.
My friends, there is a bitter custody battle going on between Satan and God. The war has been won and Satan has surely lost but there is still a battle raging for your souls. Satan wants to keep you apart from the love of God, so he entices you with worldly temptations. The question I set before you today is “Do you, with little regard to the consequences, go after the pork chops in this life; all those pleasures that the world has to offer or do you go to Jesus when He calls?”
God gives you a choice. As Our Old Testament lessons states, “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.” Proverbs 16 gives you a warning however, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” There is a cost for what seems right in the eyes of the world. Those sinful pleasures that we indulge in lead us down the path of destruction and away from our Loving God.
Remember that Satan does not care for you or your welfare at all. He gleefully tempts you but do not be deceived. Satan would have you in the chains of hell rather than in the comfort of heaven just to spite God. And the world is against you as well. The world will not treat you with honor and respect for becoming a disciple of Christ. There is a price to be paid, a cost of discipleship for following Jesus. In the book of Luke Jesus mentions three entailments: hating family, carrying the cross and leaving possessions behind.
In our Gospel, Jesus said, “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. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” In other words if someone lets his family and friends stand in the way of His following Christ, then he is not a disciple of Jesus.
When someone lets his possessions or his work prevent him from following Christ then he is not a disciple. And when someone refuses to repent of their sins or denies their sins rather than asking for forgiveness, then they cannot be a disciple of Jesus either.
Bonhoeffer calls this kind of wrongful thinking, cheap grace. He defines cheap grace accordingly: “[It] 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.” (The Cost of Discipleship)
Just as there is a price to be paid for following the ways of the world, there is a price to be paid for following Jesus. Moses tells you, “If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess.”
As Christians you already possess that land; you are living under His grace even as I speak. You can take comfort that you are under God’s love and protection. But if you chase after the pleasures of life, you can become lost and you will no longer live in His kingdom. A wise person does not rush out in to the world and into Christ’s war thinking that he can win it himself. Our enemy the devil is fierce and has been tempting people since the fall of mankind. The only way to win is to carry the cross of Jesus and follow Him.
Christ’s command to carry the cross is a sentence of death to your old way of life. Each person must bear one’s own cross in preparation for one’s own crucifixion and death. You cannot say that you believe in Jesus Christ and live out your life as if you do not.
You cannot continue to live in sin and apart from God’s means of grace and expect to be with Him in eternity. You cannot deny the love of Christ by following Satan or blindly giving in to his temptations.
Believing in Jesus Christ entails knowing the pain and suffering that He endured on the cross for you was very real.
Rather than being cheap grace, it is with His costly grace that you follow Jesus Christ. It condemns sin and justifies the sinner on the basis of the great cost of the life of Jesus Christ given for you. It is not an encouragement to live a sinful life because all will be forgiven anyway, but gives both the comfort of forgiveness and the confidence to live a new life in Christ. Knowing the love of Christ and the sacrifice that He made helps you to be obedient to His word out of love and respect for the sacrifice that he made.
John the Baptist proclaimed that you, “Repent and be baptized,” and He said “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” (Luke 3:8) And Jesus said to the Church in Revelation, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” (Rev 3:15-16)
The disciple builds his life on the firm foundation of the catechetical teaching of Jesus and the church. Through Baptism he enters into a new family, the family of God. When one sees his heavenly family as of first importance, than one can fear and love God and rightly love and honor fellow Christians and his human family, in keeping with the Lord’s word: “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” (Luke 8:21)
As your understanding of the love Jesus Christ has for you grows, you begin to hate yourself for the sins that you commit that caused Jesus so much pain and suffering. But you can also take comfort knowing that when you sin, you can come before God in faith confident that God is willing to forgive your sins for the sake of His Son.
Then as you put your love for Jesus Christ above all else in your life, then you can take pleasure in the godly gifts of this world including house and home, food and clothing, daily bread and even the money that you have. But even if you would happen to lose all the things of the world you still have the riches of heaven awaiting you. It is really a small price to pay to be with God for all eternity.
Saint Paul sums it all up beautifully in Romans. He says, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."
And Saint Paul adds, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:31-39 (ESV) In Jesus’ Name, Amen.