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For Our
Good
We are in a time when great
business concerns are busy reevaluating the cost, making
sure that the manufacturing of their product, the cost
of manufacturing, is not greater than the price they
sell it for. Any manufacturer who would make a product
that would cost him five dollars to make, and sell it
for four dollars and fifty cents, would be out of
business in a very short time. Too many would-be
Christians go out of business for the same reason: they
fail to stop as often as they ought and reevaluate the
cost of being a disciple of Christ, and reevaluate what
it brings in return. It is definitely necessary that we
do this.
If we will honestly and sincerely
[according to the Bible] count the cost of being a
Christian and pay the price, we will definitely come up
with the answer that the benefits of true Christianity
far exceed the price it costs. Oh yes, it will do away
with discouraging feelings. It will put an end to that
old giving-up business. I am here to tell you, you are
getting much more out of it than you are putting in. If
you are not getting anything out of it, it is because
you are not putting anything into it!
Jesus wants
us to know that discipleship has been designed by God
with our best interest at heart. The minds of men have
been affected by the enemy of souls today and their own
human nature, causing them to feel that all they are
doing is giving up for God and not getting anything in
return. I want you to see that God has designed
discipleship for our best interest. The requirements in
God's Word, the price we must pay, the conditions we
must meet to be a true disciple, were designed to help
us, not God. God was getting along fine before we ever
came along.
Everything in the Bible is to help
us. This is God's plan of real living. It is God's plan
to help His people so that they would be able to live
righteously here. Too many people get the idea that God
has set this up for His good and our suffering. No, He
set this up by His suffering for our good. Never forget
it and never allow the enemy of your mind to think
otherwise. True discipleship is designed to give us the
help we need. If we do not stay close to the Word of God
and stay close in communion with God, the enemy of our
souls will get us to thinking
otherwise.
Giving Up To
God
Many who know the way are not
serving God because they are not willing to pay the
price. The reason they are not willing to pay the price
is because the enemy is making them feel that they can
get more blessing at a cheaper price, some other way;
but everyone who knows the Bible knows that that is a
deception of the devil.
I read one time about a
man, his wife, and two children who were traveling
through Georgia, driving all night, and a hard rain was
pouring down. As they turned a curve, the lights fell on
a man and a woman walking in the rain, carrying a little
baby. Well, the people in the car went right on by. They
said, "We cannot pick them up. We are in a
Volkswagen--four of us and all the luggage--we cannot
pick them up." The man drove on another mile and became
troubled. He said, "Those people are in trouble. I do
not know what it is, but have to go back." So he went
back and asked them.
"Yes," they replied, "we are
in trouble. We live 'way out here,' miles from nowhere,
and our home just burnt to the ground. We lost
everything, and we are walking seven miles to my
sister's to stay with her until we can gather some
things together and find another home." So the man
reached in his pocket and gave the woman twenty dollars,
then went on feeling pretty good. But he got down the
road and was troubled again. He said to his wife, "Do
you have any money?" She answered that she had a little.
He then asked his children if they had any money and
between the four of them, they came up with ninety-eight
dollars.
He turned around and went back up the
road and stopped again where the man and woman with
their child were still walking. He said to the lady, "Do
you still have that twenty dollars I gave you?" When she
answered, "Yes," he asked her to give it back to him.
With an astonished look on her face, she reached into
her pocketbook and gave it back to him. He said, "I just
wanted you to give it back so I could put ninety-eight
dollars more with it."
Now this is exactly how
God works with us. Anything you have that is worth
anything, whether you are sinner or saint, God gave it
to you. You are not as rich as you think you are.
Anything you have at all, God gave it to you. All God
asks us in discipleship is to give Him back what He gave
us. Then He adds infinite power and glory with that to
make you able to be everything you need to be in every
way.
Too often, we hang up. We do not want to
give back what God has given us in the first place. God
wants to bless us individually and collectively. He has
chosen a way to work, and He knows it will work. It is
the right way, and it is the only way. If we will submit
to it, we will be blessed by Him. I say again, God comes
to us and asks us to give to Him what He has given us.
He then combines it with His unlimited resources and
gives it back to us.
What is real discipleship?
It is an opportunity to tap in on the infinite resources
of God. There is a difference between a Christian and a
real disciple. A man or woman can come as a sinner in
real repentance, old-time confession of sin, and be made
a Christian in a second of time, but discipleship takes
time. Christianity is a free gift of God, but
discipleship costs. This is why we have too many who
want to be Christians, but the cost of becoming a
disciple seems too much.
In Matthew 28:19,20,
where He instructed the disciples to go into all
nations, He actually was saying to go make disciples.
Discipleship involves teaching, lining up with teaching,
squaring up. All you have to do to become a Christian is
really be sick of your sin, ready to turn from it, and
confess. God will change you, but discipleship is
molding a Christian life by the teaching of God's Word,
being willing to hold still while God lays down the
price, the cost.
Discipleship, from the very
depth of it, is an opportunity to tap into the infinite
resources of God. It is a chance to give our lives to
real significance rather than to mediocrity. There can
be some real significance in your life. You will never
again say, "Why was I ever born?" If you will adhere to
this message, you will not wonder why you are here. You
will not wonder what is going on. You will not be
wondering what your future will be. Life will bear a
deep significance to us in true discipleship.
We
are not doing God a favor. He is doing us a favor. We
need to grasp this truth. Too many think they are doing
God a favor. No matter how you live, no matter how much
of yourself you give, no matter how much you pour your
efforts out to God, you are not giving God anything: He
is giving you something. Jesus warns us in the latter
part of this fourteenth chapter to weigh the cost. Think
on it; make sure you are ready to pay the price of being
a disciple before you ever start for Christ. Count the
cost of finishing before you ever
start.
Gazingstocks
Let's read Luke 14:1
again: And it came to pass, as he went into the house
of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the
sabbath day, that they watched him. They watched Him
because He claimed to be different. They watched Him
because He claimed to be the author of a brand-new way
of life. His words in John 10:10 tell us, ...I am
come that they might have life, and that they might have
it more abundantly. They watched Him to see if He
was genuinely what He claimed to be. You and I are His
disciples, church, and they are going to watch us. You
may as well get rid of this idea that it is nobody's
business what you do. It is everybody's
business.
They watched Him, and they will watch
us. Why? Because you claim to be in touch with reality.
Right in the midst of a supposed-to-be Christian nation
that has fallen to a level of false, ceremonial, fake
religion, you claim to be a true disciple of Christ. You
claim to be genuine; you claim to have the real goods,
and they are going to watch you. Not only will they
watch you: God has ordained for them to watch you! Paul
said to the church, "...ye were made a gazingstock..."
(Hebrews 10:33). God has put you here for people to
watch. They watched Him (Jesus) there, and they are
going to watch you and me now. We need to be very
careful, very careful, right here since a world out
there is watching us. There are more victories lost and
more souls lost by the world watching some
supposed-to-be Christian doing what he should not be
doing than by any other means the devil uses. We need to
be careful and prayerful how we live.
Our Lord
lived by principle, not circumstance. If we are going to
be true disciples, we have to get some things settled
and fixed in our hearts and minds. We must start living
as Jesus did, by principle, not circumstance. People
change the standard of their lives too much because of
circumstances. You do not have any control over
circumstances; they are going to arise. The devil works
through circumstances, but you do have some control over
how circumstances affect you. The Lord lived by
principle, and a true disciple of Christ lives by
principle. Circumstance is not allowed to change that
principle.
Let me illustrate: the old car gets
worn and you think it is time to trade it in because it
has so many things wrong with it. The dealer goes out to
appraise it: "What about this car? Anything wrong with
it?" Right there, you are going to make a decision to go
by circumstance or by principle. By circumstance, you
will try to be a half-Christian: "Well, he is a man. He
knows cars, let him find it out." If he did that to you,
you would sue him and claim to be a Christian all the
time. Right here is where we are losing out: living by
circumstance. The enemy is right there in the
circumstance.
There is never a time when it is
better not to tell the truth than to tell the truth.
Why? You are to live by principle, not circumstance.
Sure, there are corners you can cut and there are ways
of cutting them that will never be found out before you
die. You may think that nobody knows, but God does. A
true disciple is one who determines from the Bible what
is right and lives it consistently. He does not allow
circumstances to shape his
conduct.
Others
We find another mark
of discipleship in Luke 14:2, which reads, And,
behold, there was a certain man before him which had the
dropsy. A true disciple is one who is in constant
touch with people in need. Jesus went to a Pharisee's
house to eat, but there was one before Him. Brother,
when you are where God wants you to be and you are a
true disciple, the needs of others will be before you
all the time.
Why are we here? Some will tell you
that it is a selfish gospel: "If you serve the Lord, the
Lord will give you a new home and three new cars." Too
many are trying to be disciples of Christ, and all they
want to hear is a message of how God will bless them.
Brother, a real disciple will always place the needs of
others before himself.
Somebody might remind you,
"The poor you always have with you." Jesus implied that
there are people that you definitely cannot help.
Certainly, it takes discernment, but we are here in
Christ's stead. He said, ...the works that I do shall
he do also; and greater works... [not in kind, but
in number] John 14:12.
A man with dropsy was
before Jesus. Before He could eat, He had to help a man
with dropsy, and He had a tough time doing it because
there was a lot of supposed-to-be religious folks there.
He knew what they were thinking: "Watch Him now! If He
heals this man on the Sabbath, He is not of God!" Jesus
turned around (He knew what they were thinking) and
said, "Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen
into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the
sabbath day?" (Luke 14:5) They could not answer Him
becasue they knew if they said, "Sure, we would take
care of that temporal need," He would say, "Is that
temporal need greater than this man's need? He is 'in
the ditch' with dropsy, and I merely reached in and got
him out."
The whole turn of the age is toward
selfishness, Brother. We have people crooked as a snake,
draining the many funds of the government. It is not
coming to them, but by hook or crook, they are getting
it. They could not care less if the nation goes broke,
just so they can get what they want. That is the spirit
that is out there, and it is abounding and will get
right in the work of the church if we are not careful.
The very things of God that bring us to the vital place
of real Christianity are being looked upon as
foolishness. The reason for it is that we are using the
natural mind to weigh things. True disciples are in
constant touch with people in need. Why are we here? To
help the world.
Keys of
Christianity
In verses 8-11, He talks about a
man being bidden to a wedding. Because this man feels he
is really somebody, when he goes in he takes the
uppermost seat, the seat where the host or the guest of
honor was supposed to sit. So when the host comes in, he
comes over and says, "Sir, would you mind getting out of
that seat and taking a lower seat?" Then that man is
ashamed in front of everybody. We are instructed by
Jesus to hunt for the lowest seat. Then when the host
comes in, he will say, "Why are you sitting 'way down
there?" Jesus made the lesson plain in verse 11: For
whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that
humbleth himself shall be exalted.
Our
appetites and innate desires are not wrong in
themselves; they only become wrong when we seek to
satisfy them in an unscriptural manner. There is nothing
wrong with wanting to be a leader. There is nothing
wrong with you wanting to have the cleanest house on the
street. There is nothing wrong with you trying to keep
your clothes better than anybody else. Humility is not
shown forth in unpressed trousers, dirty dresses, or
houses that stink. You show me somebody who is what they
need to be and I will show you somebody who wants to be
a leader. I believe every Christian ought to want to be
the best Christian who ever walked. Too many today are
satisfied to ride the caboose instead of trying to get
up to the locomotive. There are good desires, good
drives, good appetites. God put them in us, but we get
in trouble when we try to satisfy them in an
unscriptural manner.
- The key
to being first is being last. This is what Jesus
taught, and that is not last in service. Jesus set up
some keys to discipleship. If you want to be first,
you must be willing to be
last.
- The key
to living is dying. If you really want to live, come
to the place where you die at an altar of prayer.
Completely die out to your own will so that you can
truthfully say, "From this point forth, not my will,
but Thine be done." That is the key to real living.
Too many today want to live, but nobody wants to die.
People say that they want to live and do right, but
they are not willing to die out to their own selfish
will and way, where they can say, "For me to live is
Christ." The only way to live is to
die.
- The key
to being free is becoming Christ's slave. Paul was a
prisoner of the Lord, and he was the freest man who
ever walked on earth. Real freedom is not being able
to do what you want to do, but being able to do what
you ought to do. Real freedom is being able to be what
you ought to be, and that comes about by a real
submission to Christ. So the key to being free is
being Christ's slave.
- The key
to being a leader is to be willing to be a servant.
Jesus taught that the greatest among you is servant of
all. The key to being exalted is to be humble, but the
sad part is, too many are only interested in being
served, not serving. Too many only want "master"
positions--they are not willing to be servants in
order to learn what they first need to
know.
- The
key to getting is giving. It is God's way of doing it.
There are many people today who want to get more, but
they do not want to give. The key to getting is
giving. We read in Luke 6:38, ...For with the same
measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to
you again.
This is
where so many run into conflict with God. God is not in
Heaven thinking, "I wonder how I can make life more
miserable for My creatures on earth?" A lot of people
evidently have that attitude toward God. They think He
is out to make us miserable, binding us with statutes
and commandments. No, God's thoughts are this: "What are
the guidelines that I can give My people so that they
will know how to find life at its fullest?" This is the
way God is thinking.
God's
Guidebook
The laws of the New Testament are
made to help us, not hinder us. God's New Testament laws
are meant to make us happy and to help us find the real
fulfillment of life. They are written to us to keep us
out of trouble, and they will work. If we as God's
disciples could learn this one lesson, many of our
problems would be solved. What lesson? Why Verse 11:
For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and
he that humbleth himself shall be
exalted.
God created the world. He made us.
He made life. He made the rules that we must live by to
find life in its blessedness. God knows more about life
than all of us put together will ever know. He created
life, and He knows what rules you have to
follow.
If you buy a new lawnmower, they give you
a book with it telling you how to start it and how to
keep it functioning. Well, that is what the Bible is: it
tells us how to get this life started and how to keep it
functioning. It even shows us how to trouble-shoot when
it misfires. God's Word is to help us. I pray that we
understand that point: He made the rules by which we
ought to live our lives. It is sad today to see so many
who want the results, but will not pay the price.
Whether it is consistent living with power in your life,
living an overcoming life, having revival, or whatever
it is, if we are not careful we are going to be pleading
with God to give us the results when we will not pay the
price.
Brother, I am here to tell you, if you
will pay the price, you will not have to plead to God
for the results. I have learned a couple of things. One
of them is that I am the biggest fool on earth if I try
to have prayer meetings and pray to God to send down the
results if I am not paying the price. Christian life can
be more simple if we will allow it. Let us not want
results and not be willing to pay the price. Let us not
allow our little scheming minds to think that surely it
would be possible for me to get without giving. This is
what your mind will do to you, but you cannot truly get
without giving. Your little scheming mind will tell you
that there must be some way to be first without having
to be last, so you go to tromping on people. No, the way
up is down. If you want to come up to a higher level of
living, get down in humility with much prayer before
God. The more you get down, the higher you
get.
We cannot get around God's law. When we
endeavor to take shortcuts on God's rules, we
short-circuit the system and it will not work. I am
telling you about a system, God's system, for real
living; God's system for being effective in your
witnessing life and helping others. God knows what will
work, but when we try to shortcut it, we short-circuit
it. The power is not there, and we wonder why. The true
disciple is one who has learned this great truth: there
is no way a person can truly get without giving, or
truly live without
dying.
Preoccupation
Let's read Luke
14:15-17. And when one of them that sat at meat with
him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed is he
that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. Then said he
unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade
many: And sent his servant at supper time to say to them
that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready.
And they all with one consent began to make
excuse...
Verses 15-24 deal with
preoccupation. Those people were tied up in
insignificant things, so tied up that it was impossible
to bring priorities where they ought to be. Many cannot
be a good disciple because they are too preoccupied.
Preoccupation is ruining lots of peoples' Christian
experience. Preoccupation, regardless of what it is,
will not and can not take priority over your service to
God.
Ephesians 2:8 tells us, For by grace are
ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves
[God furnishes everything]: it is the gift of God
-- but discipleship costs. What does it cost to be a
disciple? It costs becoming involved in God's things
instead of your own. It costs working at reaching the
goal that God has set in your life, not a goal you have
set. It is very easy for believers to become preoccupied
with their own dreams and aspirations and miss God's
perfect plan for life.
I want to tell you with
kindness, you need to listen along these lines. God
rarely shouts at a person who is being led away. No, the
Holy Spirit will usually deal in a slight, inner
prodding. While the believer reads the Scriptures and
communes with God, there will be a stirring down inside
to reveal your error to you.
This is why the
devil tries to hinder your prayer life. He tries to
hinder you from reading the Bible as you ought. If you
do not read and pray, you will not get any proddings
from the Holy Spirit, so you feel that everything is all
right. We need to get back to where God speaks. True
disciples are ones who are in tune with the voice of the
Spirit of God.
Counting The
Cost
Let's read Luke 14:25-27: And
there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and
said unto them, If any man come to me, and hate not his
father, and mother, and wife, and children, and
brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he
cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his
cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
Then Jesus began to talk about the man who started to
build the tower but could not finish it because he had
not counted the cost. He also spoke of one king going
out against another king. The odds were great against
him, and without consulting, he went out and was
overpowered; he had to make a treaty with the
enemy.
In verses 25-35, Jesus was laying down the
law of true discipleship. When He turned around, the
Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the professed religious
folks were gone. All He had to do was lay down the law
of discipleship, what it costs, and they were not
willing to pay the price.
Luke 51:1 tells us,
Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners
for to hear him. It was just like the multitudes are
today who claim to be with Him, who are not with Him at
all. When Jesus lay down the law of true discipleship,
the professors of religion left, but when the professors
ran, the sinners drew closer. There are many who claim
to be with Him today who are not with Him. How are you
going to know where you are? If you are having
difficulty with this message, perhaps you need to
honestly try to determine if the problem is with the
message, or ask yourself, "Am I falling
short?'
We have two kinds of people: some who did
not want to hear and some who did. Luke's Chapter
Fifteen pictures those sinners and publicans who wanted
to hear Him. It is always this way because true
Christianity is a religion of rescue. It is designed for
the desperate, for those who have a craving to do more
than they can do by themselves. It is designed for
people who are weary with the kind of life they are
living, who want to live a different life.
That
is what Christianity is for today. It is not to appease
those who are not being truly honest -- those who know
they are just professing. It is for people who are
desperate about their condition; people who can say, "I
know I am not right as I ought to be. Can't you tell me
something that will change me? I want to know what life
really is."
Counting the cost starts with a
willingness to renounce all other loyalties in place of
Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "If any man come to me, and
hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children,
and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also,
he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26) The word
hate here simply means to come to the place where
you love God supremely. Your love for Him will make you
a better husband to your wife; a wife will be a better
wife; children will be better children, and parents will
be better parents. The point is, in order to be a true
disciple, you have to come to the place that you
discount everything else. If you do not, all those other
things will hinder
you.
Commitment
In Numbers 13 and 14,
we read of the children of Israel standing right on the
promised ground, Kadesh-barnea. There was no stream to
cross. They went right in on dry ground, but after they
set their feet inside Canaan, unbelief rose up, doubt
and fear. When ten of the twelve scouts returned with an
evil report, they felt the cost of entering Canaan was
much too high. In that moment of terror that came upon
them because of unbelief, they decided to turn back. Not
a one of them but Joshua and Caleb ever got in; they
died in the Wilderness of Sin.
What does that
have to do with forsaking father, mother, and so on and
so forth? God never promised there would not be giants.
He never promised that there would be no giants,
mountains, or hard places but He did promise to assume
the responsibility for a safe survival into the promised
land. He has promised to take me to Heaven, to let me
plant my feet on Heaven's shore. He accepts the
responsibility of protecting me and fighting my battles.
All I have to do is make and keep a full commitment of
my life to Him; He will do the rest.
Well, what
does that have to do with children? Those Hebrews hid
behind the women and children. They were not worrying
too much about their wives and children; they were
worrying about their own necks. They hid behind the
women and children--how many hide behind them today? God
sees the real reason, that we do not have that
willingness we must have and keep to eat of the good of
the land.
Verse 28 talks about somebody starting
to build something and not being able to finish it. Have
you ever started something and could not finish it? Do
you ever get an impression that God called you to do
something, but you have never done it? Ecclesiastes
5:2-5 gives us solid admonition. It tells us to not have
many words coming out of your mouth when you are not
sure what you are talking about.
Maybe you felt
the Lord was definitely leading you to do something, or
to some field of labor, but you have not gone and years
have passed. If God is in it, it will work out. Nothing
can hinder God's will being done. When you misfire and
misfire, people do not place much confidence in your new
ideas because they simply think it will be another
misfire. I dare say, we have all started something we
could not finish. God only asks us to be humble enough
to own up to it.
Our
Will
Ability in our Christian life is
through the resources of Jesus Christ. The only factor
we need to add to the resources of Christ is our will.
We read in II Peter 1:2,3, Grace and peace be
multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of
Jesus our Lord, According as his divine power hath given
unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness,
through the knowledge of him that hath called us to
glory and virtue. God, through Jesus Christ, has
given all things, everything, we need for godliness, to
live in this real life. We need to add to that our will.
God will not force you or make you serve Him. There has
to be willingness on our part.
Let's read Luke
14:34,35. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his
savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is neither
fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast
it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
These verses picture a believer who refuses to be a
disciple, one who goes back on his own commitment. He
made a commitment, perhaps even started out, to be the
salt of the earth, but he has backed off. Jesus said
that it is good for nothing.
He is picturing you,
if you are in that shape: you believe Christ, you have
made a commitment, but you have not been willing to hold
to your commitment. There you sit; you are a believer
you say, but you are not a disciple. You are in a
betwixt-between position. A person like that cannot be
saved. Oh, what a shape you get into by being a
believer, but not a real disciple. All messages on
salvation will never reach you. You will never get saved
because you are not lost.
Jesus used the
expression, "good for nothing". You cannot use that
individual because he is unavailable, tied up. As a
believer, he keeps right on going to church and becomes
an example of what not to be. Every one of us are
examples of something. Some of us are examples of what
people ought not to be. So people who will not hold to
their commitment come in the midst. It is necessary for
parents sometimes to tell their children that he (or
she) is an example of what not to be.
When Cortez
landed to begin his conquest of Mexico, he only had
seven hundred men. When the soldiers had all set their
feet on the land, he sent one soldier back to purposely
set fire to the seven ships. He told the soldiers to
watch as their only chance of retreat burned. He said,
"There is no way to go backward. Let us go forward," and
they took Mexico.
God is trying to help us today.
As it was in the example of Cortez, there cannot be any
means of retreat. There is only one way to go--forward.
I ask you, have you burned the bridges? Do you have a
way of retreat in your life? If you have held to some
reserves and if you have a ready way of retreat, you
will be retreating. If you will come clean with God and
burn every bridge to where there can be no thought, no
way of retreating, there will be nothing left to do but
go forward with God and press the battle on. True
disciples have destroyed all avenues of
retreat.
A true disciple's attitude is to go
forward, whatever it costs. We must give up all.
ALL is a big word and it lasts a long
time. |
