Ask anyone looking for employment right now and you’ll find that getting hired is not as easy as one may think. There are many factors involved in the process that employers have to consider, as hiring someone new isn’t cheap. The cost of hiring involves much more than just determining the wages. Is health insurance offered or required? Is there any sort of retirement? Is the employee required to be in the office or can she work from home, or some sort of hybrid arrangement? Can AI carry out the work that some employees used to be responsible for? The hiring process is a lot more involved than it used to be.
Jesus’ teaching in Luke 14 almost sounds as if he’s sitting down one-on-one with potential hires, interviewing them to determine their qualifications and whether or not they’re well-suited to for the job. Honestly, if that were the case, his words would be much easier for us to handle – if only! If it was just a potential job, we would have the option of saying no to his ridiculously lofty expectations and continuing our job search elsewhere.
But Jesus is actually addressing a matter of far greater importance than simply getting hired for a job. He’s forcing us to wrestle with a much more serious question: how much is your salvation worth to you? This is a hugely important matter for us to consider! Because when you don’t value something, you don’t take care of it. When something isn’t worth much to you, you don’t really care what happens to it. So when Jesus invites us to count the cost of carrying the cross, what he’s asking is this: how much does your salvation really matter to you? How much do I really matter to you?
What hits home about Jesus’ teaching is that he’s refusing to let us off the hook by just paying him lip service. We can fool an awful lot of people with what we say, including ourselves. But we can’t fool Jesus. We can tell others how much he matters to us. We can say all the right things. But then when the sacrifices surface – and they will always show up for the Christian, because Jesus promised the crosses would come – is Jesus worth it or not?
Jesus’ pictures about a builder planning to construct a tower or a king planning for battle emphasize the point he’s making: think before you proceed. Did you do that before you signed up for this thing called Christianity? Do you still do it on a daily basis? As helpful as Jesus’ examples are, sometimes we’re so dull and slow that I think we need even more concrete examples of counting the cost of carrying the cross.
For practical purposes, let’s take that a step further and consider it in light of membership in a Christian congregation. When you became a Christian/member of a congregation, did you give much thought to what types of crosses you’d have to bear or what it might cost you? People will typically ask what sort of class or requirements are necessary to become a member, but Jesus pushes us to give much more thought to the matter than that.
For starters, did you know that you’d be expected to actually be involved in carrying out your church’s mission (ours is “Seeking the Lost, Serving the Found”)? Did you consider that disciples should actually read the Bible and study it? Did you know what you signed up for when you married an unbeliever? Were you aware how heavy that cross would be at times? When you took at job that you knew would involve working on Sundays, did you anticipate how heavy that cross would be over time without regular worship? When you racked up a mountain of debt and hear the words of Scripture calling God’s people to grow in the grace of giving, did you factor in the cross of how debilitating that debt would be? The cross of permitting kids’ schedules to put church activities on the back burner – did you count that cost? Friends choosing alternative lifestyles or just rejecting your beliefs in general – did you count that cost?
Our answers to those questions, and so many others like them, take on huge significance when we look back at the conclusion Jesus drew in his illustrations. What did he finally say about being the builder who blundered on the cost of his tower or the king who carried out a war without considering how the size of his army compares to the enemy’s? He said, “In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples” (v.33). Jesus didn’t say it would be tough or an uphill battle or the chances are slim; he said you cannot be my disciple! As in, it is not even possible! You cannot be unwilling to give up everything and call yourself a disciple at the same time. It doesn’t work.
And, if you didn’t notice, when it comes to counting the cost of carrying the cross, those examples weren’t the only ones Jesus used. Look at the whole list of disqualifications that Jesus provides to vet potential disciples. Look at the requirements. Don’t hate family? Can’t be his disciple. Don’t hate your own life? Can’t be his disciple. Don’t want to carry your cross? Can’t be his disciple. Not willing to give up everything you have? Can’t be his disciple. At this rate, it’s a wonder Jesus has any disciples!
Actually, something just like that happened during Jesus’ ministry. Luke introduced this section of his Gospel by pointing out that “[l]arge crowds were traveling with Jesus” (v.25). That was also the case in John 6, where Jesus gave what has become known as his “Bread of Life” discourse. Jesus had just fed the 5,000. Then he turned the concept of physical feeding into a spiritual teaching that essentially told the crowds if they didn’t fill up on Jesus and his Word, they would be lost.
Guess what happened once Jesus used his physical miracle as an introduction to a deeper spiritual truth? “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him” (John 6:66). The crowds dwindled. The followers said farewell. It would have been a noticeable difference, too, going from a crush of crowds to just a trickle of disciples.
But it isn’t as noticeable today, is it? Because today it’s much easier for us to fake it without making any real sacrifice. Today we know how to look the part well enough for others, and the more we focus on looking the part instead of genuinely carrying the cross, we actually start to deceive ourselves as well. So who is worse off – the crowds who visibly demonstrated their decision to no longer follow Jesus by turning away, or those today who are good at giving the external appearance of following, but are unwilling to make any real sacrifice (and only end up fooling themselves)?
We can pop in at church occasionally, which of course looks the churchgoing part. Or, we can be sure to let others know our “thoughts and prayers” are with them, which sounds spiritual enough. We can slap a few Bible passages and spiritual-sounding stuff on our social media here and there. We make sure to sign up or participate in stuff at church once in a blue moon, just enough to add to the appearance of being active and engaged. We do these things and “Voila!” – we look just like Jesus’ disciples.
But all of that misses the point of Jesus’ vetting process: his disciples make sacrifices. Where, in the examples just mentioned, is there any real sacrifice?
Let’s consider a pretty impressive record of someone who counted the cost of carrying the cross. “I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked” (2 Cor. 11:23-27). You know those words as the words of the apostle Paul. Paul didn’t just pay lip service to being a disciple of Jesus; he displayed it sacrificially with his whole life.
Let’s be honest – there are a lot of Dollar Tree Disciples today, aren’t there? Now that’s not a knock on Dollar Tree as much as it is a harsh reality we need to own up to. You know why anyone shops at the Dollar Tree. They want something for almost nothing. They want a certain item or product, but it’s obviously not something they’re willing to spend a lot on, so they shop at the Dollar Tree to get it.
Isn’t it possible that a lot more of us are Dollar Tree Disciples than we think? We want something for almost nothing. We want all the good Jesus stuff, the forgiveness and grace stuff, the salvation stuff – we want all of that, but we don’t really want to have to give up much to get it. That’s the mindset of a Dollar Tree Disciple.
And you know what makes that mindset so dangerous? It’s actually on the right track.
We want something for nothing, and that’s exactly what we have through Jesus. What Jesus came to bring couldn’t be bought or purchased by you or me. There was no price tag that would ever make salvation affordable for us. There was no option for bartering or working out a deal with him.
No, what Jesus came to bring is entirely free to us. It is a gift. We can’t buy it or earn it – it can only be given. It cost us nothing. So if we want something for nothing, we’ve come to the right place. Forgiveness and salvation doesn’t cost us a dime!
But all of it came at a price. A hefty price. And the price tag is so out of reach for us that only God himself could pay it. And Jesus did. You think Paul had an impressive list of crosses that he bore as Jesus’ disciple? None will ever compare to the literal cross Jesus bore. Consider that the whole reason we even use that term – bearing our cross – is but a poor reflection of the unbearable cross that Jesus bore in our place. Talk about sacrifice – literally! How much did Jesus have to give up? Everything. So he alone has the right to demand the same of us – “those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples” (Luke 14:33).
But unlike Paul, Jesus was not just an example to imitate. Jesus didn’t come to show us how to be good disciples and then plan to seek out those who met his impossible standards, because he wouldn’t have found any – not a one!
No, Jesus came so that only through and in him, we could be perfect disciples. Here’s how Paul described it taking place. “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8). Jesus came to make us what we could never be on our own: perfect disciples. He sought out everyone, including Dollar Tree Disciples, and by grace he made us his own devoted and dedicated disciples.
Do you see yourself that way? He does. Because of Christ, God sees his church filled with devoted and dedicated disciples. And you know what devoted and dedicated disciples do? They count the cost of carrying the cross. They think differently about priorities. They make sacrifices that others wouldn’t fathom making in a million years. Counting the cost, they embrace the cross in this life because they know they are guaranteed the crown of life at the end of their race, through faith in Christ Jesus.