Counting the Cost of Total Devotion

Well, let me invite you to turn in your Bibles this morning to Luke chapter 14. Luke chapter 14 for our time of study and God's word, this morning. How many of you took the time to read Luke 14 over the last few days? Praise God.

Thank you, and you still came. So that's wonderful and speaks volumes about you. Luke chapter 14, as we continue in our total devotion series, I want to speak this morning on counting the cost of total. Devotion and we'll look at quite a number of verses, verses 16 to 35 today.

back in July of last year, 2017, Sarah Cummins, and her fiance were all set for their wedding ceremony that they had been planning for two years when one week prior to their wedding date, They broke off their engagement. the breakup was painful enough for both of them, but to add insult to injury when Sarah Cummins called the Ritz Charles in Carmel, Indiana to try to cancel her $30,000 reservation. They refused to refund her deposit and let her out of the contractual obligation.

that she had with them for the wedding and the reception.

So Sarah decided to do something unusual. She decided to still have the reception and have it serve another purpose. She contacted local homeless shelters and through that means, she was able to find over 150 homeless people who would attend the reception. Her former fiance pitched in and paid for more than half of the cost, and other family members contributed as well.

Some charities pitched in and donated suits for the homeless men and dresses for the ladies who would come to this reception. On the day of the reception, Sarah sent two buses. to the homeless shelters to pick up the guests and bring them to the event, and Sarah welcomed her guest as they arrived and tried to visit with each one of them. She became attached to the guests who came and now she volunteers her time at one of the homeless shelters where she enjoys an ongoing relationship.

With some of the guests who had come. To the reception On a couple of levels, we find something similar happening in our passage today and before we are done with our message this morning, we will all realize that God has done what Sarah Cummins did, but on an infinitely higher level. God has taken a painful situation and turned it to our advantage. And invited us to his banquet that others were refusing to attend.

And you and I are the homeless people in the story. In Luke chapter 14, Jesus finds himself at the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees for a dinner. And Jesus begins talking to the host. And tells him that a future, that at future receptions, he should invite the poor and the lame and the blind who won't be able to pay him back.

And Jesus says in verse 14, if you do this, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. And then look at what happens next, as soon as these words come out of Jesus' mouth in verse 15. We read that when one of those who were reclining at the table with him heard this, he said to him, Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God. It was a popular and accurate notion among the Jews of this day that when the kingdom of God arrived in its fullness, it would feature a great and a perpetual feast for everyone in God's kingdom to participate in.

And there are numerous passages that would affirm this. We read some of them earlier in our service. So this man's exclamation. is a good one.

But who will eat bread in the great banquet of God? That is the question. Whoever it is, will indeed be blessed, but will you be among them? Will you be one of the guests at the banquet that will happen when Christ returns to earth at the culmination of history?

Or will you be among those who are excluded from the banquet? If you think that you would like to be included in this. Banquet to be ushered into kingdom glory. And to be one of the guests in the great banquet of God, then the things that are said by Jesus and the rest of Luke chapter 14 should be of interest to you.

It turns out that not everyone is going to make it. Into the kingdom of God, and there are some conditions for making it that you need to calculate up front, and that's what Jesus wants to help us with in these verses wherein he gives us, as we'll see today, 8 truths that challenge us to count the cost of following Him all the way to the great kingdom feast. Truth number 1, that Jesus gives us is that the kingdom of God is a feast that many are invited. To attend and Jesus teaches us this in the form of a parable.

Look at what he does in verse 16. says, but he, Jesus said to him, the man who had just made this exclamation. A man was giving a big dinner and he invited many. Notice that this is not just a dinner but a big dinner.

And the man doesn't just invite a few people, but many. And you could paraphrase that last clause as he successfully invited many. In other words, this man sent out invitations in advance and many people RSVP'd and gave every indication that they would attend when the time Had come Eventually, the man of the house gets the big dinner prepared and has everything arranged for the guests who had said that they would come. And then look at what happens in verse 17.

And at the dinner hour, he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, come, for everything is ready now. So he told the slave, go out and announce to those, that have previously been invited, say to them, come, for everything is ready now. This would amount to now the 2nd invitation. And here's Jesus' point, and it'll become evident as this unfolds.

And Jesus has communicated this in other ways. In the Gospel up to this point, the Jews throughout the centuries, said that they longed for the kingdom of God, which would come when the Messiah arrived, even the Jews who lived in Jesus' day. All would have said that yes, I'm eagerly waiting for the kingdom of God to come, but now that God has sent forth his servant, Jesus Christ, who has been going around saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand. God's doing that now.

Jesus is making that announcement now. And he's basically been saying, come for everything is ready now. Yet how is everyone responding to Christ's invitation? This brings us to the second truth that Jesus gives which challenges us to count the cost of following Jesus all the way to the great kingdom feast.

It's a sad truth, and that is people are declining. The invitation to the kingdom feast for lame reasons. Keep in mind guys that in Semitic cultures of this day, hospitality was a highly prized virtue that was fraught with meaning on both the giving and the receiving end. Speaking of the customs of this day, AT Robertson says that to refuse a second summons would be an insult, which is equivalent among the Arab tribes to a declaration of war.

Yet this is exactly what happens in Luke chapter 14. Look at verse 18. But they all alike, Jesus said, began to make excuses. The first one, said to him, I have bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it.

Please consider me excused. What a lame excuse. Who buys a piece of land and then can't go to a banquet because they need to go look at the land that they bought. If the land is yours now because you've bought it, You can go look at it anytime, like after the banquet is over or the next day.

There's no rush, right? Yet this is the excuse that he gives. Verse 19, another one said, I have bought 5 yoke or 5 pairs of oxen and I'm going to try them out. Please consider me excused.

Normally, you test drive your oxen before purchasing them, right? It's what we all do, of course, but this person says that he needs to do that now. That he has purchased them. Also, again, if the oxen are now his, he can try them out anytime.

There's no need to miss this feast. Clearly, this is a man more excited about his oxen than he is about coming to this banquet. And receiving the hospitality of this man who had provided the banquet. Look at verse 20 another one said, I have married a wife, and for that reason, I cannot come.

This is no excuse either. If you read Deuteronomy 24:5, you would read that a man who marries a wife is excused from military service for the first year of his marriage, but that exclusion does not include banquets. Bringing your wife to a feast is precisely the thing you would want to do. With your wife during the first year of your marriage, and yet he says, I can't, I've married a wife.

Jesus gives 3 examples here, but it's not just a few people evidently who are responding in this way. In verse 18, at the beginning of all of these excuses, he says they all alike began to make excuses. And the 3 examples that Jesus gives here are just a sampling. It turns out that no one is coming to this banquet now that it has been made ready for them and their excuses are all weak.

Which all adds up to a huge insult to this generous host that has provided this feast. And Jesus' point, guys, is that this is what's happening with the kingdom of God. The Jews said that they were anxiously longing for the kingdom of God, but now that it is prepared and Jesus has been going around inviting people into the kingdom, people are making excuses not to come. They were too caught up and busy with the cares of this world and too comfortable with the status quo, too comfortable with their religion.

And they were simply not interested in the kingdom that Jesus is talking about and inviting them into. Guys, what ought to sober us. is how seemingly innocent these excuses are. These people don't say, oh I'm sorry I can't come because I'm gonna go commit adultery.

I gotta go rob a bank so I can't make it to the banquet. No, they're just too busy with their land, their oxen, and their marriage to attend the banquet. It turns out that what keeps a person from the kingdom, and from the kingdom banquet may not be sexual sin or stealing. But simply the fact that someone is too busy with Facebook.

Or fantasy football. To get around to accepting God's invitation to the kingdom banquet. or too busy with their occupation. are too busy with the pursuit of their education to accept God's invitation, or they're just too busy with one worldly preoccupation.

After another to mess with this business of Coming into the kingdom. Regardless, any excuse that anyone gives to decline God's invitation to the great kingdom banquet. is a lame excuse. So guess what God does in response to those Jews who were, were rejecting his invitation to the kingdom banquet.

This brings us to the 3rd truth which challenges us to count the cost of following Jesus all the way to the great kingdom feast. Number 3, God is extending his Invitation to the kingdom feast to unexpected people. Look at what happens next in this banquet story that Jesus is telling. Verse 21, and the slave came back and reported this to his master.

Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame. Notice that the slave is not told to simply invite them, he's told to actually bring them. Many of these people could not come on their own because they were blind and lame, so the slave had to actually bring them to this banquet. Much like Sarah Cummins had to send buses to bring her homeless guests to the reception.

At the Ritz Charles. And telling this part of the story. The lame and the crippled and the blind are people in Jesus' mind who are Jews, but they are not accepted by the religious society of Israel. They are the religious outcast, the lowly esteem, the spiritually broken, they are the tax collectors and the sinners and the prostitutes.

So the slave goes and finds as many of such physically broken people as he can find and he brings them to the banquet. Then observe what he does when he's finished with that task. Verse 22, and the slave said, Master, what you commanded has been done and still there is room. And the master responds with a final instruction.

And statement Verse 23 and the master said to the slave, go out into the highways and along the hedges and compel them to come in so that my house may be filled. The people along the highways and the hedges, who they are? In Jesus' mind? They're the Gentiles.

You and me. And the master tells his slave, compel them to come in. Compel. Not because they would have been hostile to the thought of coming to this banquet, but because they would have not believed that this invitation was actually for real.

They would have felt unworthy and unsure and would need to be persuaded that yes, this invitation is for you. Please come to the banquet of this man. Who's provided a meal for you. The heart of the master of the house is stated in the words, so that my house may be filled.

He has a generous heart and wants his house filled with guests who are enjoying his dinner. But there's another reason he wants his house to be filled. And wants every seat to be taken up. It's because he knows that at some point, those who made excuses are gonna change their mind and they're gonna want to get into the party.

And when such a moment arrives, the master of the house wants every seat in the house taken up. He wants his house to be too crowded for those excuse makers to get in at a later point. In verse 24, he says, for I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner. Jesus' point is this, when the kingdom of God arrives in all of its glory, Only those who accepted the invitation will be given a seat at the great banquet of God.

Only those who made it their most important priority, more important than their marriage. More important than their oxen, more important than their land, will be able to feast at the banquet in the kingdom of God. In that future day. A self-righteous Pharisee will find that the seat that could have been his has been taken up by some gentile prostitute.

And he will be cast out forever. Perhaps you at various points have felt the Spirit of God stirring in your heart and inviting you Into God's kingdom. Maybe you feel that now. I plead with you to accept his invitations.

If you refuse those invitations, And persist in that refusal, the day will come when it will be too late. The door to God's kingdom. will be closed And the God Who earlier had graciously been inviting you. will now make it his aim to forever bar you and keep you out of his kingdom.

That's what Jesus is teaching here. And so the question is, will you make it? To the dinner Or will you fall short of the kingdom because there's something else of greater importance in your life? At this point of the passage, there's one thing that we would know for sure, and that is that the kingdom of God belongs to those who esteem it to be more important than anything else in their life.

It's at this point that the passage, the emphasis of the passage shifts. Anyone who understands the story that Jesus is telling. would suddenly feel good about the fact that they are following Jesus. They would think, well, I'm among the smart ones who have accepted the invitation to God's kingdom feast.

I'm following Jesus, which means that I'm gonna make it to the kingdom banquet. On the surface, it would seem that Jesus is being very successful in getting people to come to the kingdom banquet with him. In fact, in the very next verse, verse 25, the text says now large crowds were going along with him. And all of those who were following him were following him because they knew that he was on his way to kingdom glory.

And they were ready to enter that glory with Him and be one of the blessed ones who would be eating bread with Jesus in the kingdom of God. But they have little idea of what will be entailed in the journey that Jesus is taking to that kingdom banquet. It's gonna be a dangerous journey. Suffering and crucifixion lie between where Jesus is now and the great kingdom feast.

Jesus will have to carry his cross and he will have to suffer and die to get to the kingdom feast, and anyone following him will have to do the same. And this brings us to the next truth that challenges us to count the cost of following Jesus all the way to the great kingdom feast. Number 4, to follow Jesus to the kingdom feast, you must hate everything compared to Jesus. That's actually what Jesus says.

Look at what happened starting in verse 25. Now large crowds were going along with him and he turned and said to them, stop right there for a moment. Notice this guys, Jesus is not content to just have people follow him and go along with him. He turns to them and speaks to them words that they have to reckon with.

And the same is true for us. If you wanna follow Jesus, you have to know that you will be following someone who talks to you, who speaks to you, and you have to listen to what he says, even when what he says hits you like a thunderbolt and cuts you through and through like a knife. To these followers, Jesus turns and says, verse 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.

That expression cannot be my disciple, can literally be translated, he is not able or capable of being my disciple.

Jesus' purpose here is not so much to tell people who is permitted or not permitted to be his disciple. His purpose is to help his listeners determine whether or not they're gonna be capable. Of being his disciple the full distance. To the kingdom glory that he is heading toward.

And Jesus starts off by laying down a challenge in the most shocking way possible, telling us that we must hate our father and mother, our children, siblings, and even our own lives if we want to succeed in being a disciple of Jesus all the way to the great kingdom feast. Now is Jesus telling us to loathe and detest our family? No. Consistent with other places in scripture, Jesus is using hate as a comparative term here.

He's saying if you come to me and think that you're going to follow me to the kingdom where I'm going, then you must love me. And love my kingdom more than anything else in your life. So much so that your legitimate loves for everyone and everything else looks like hatred by comparison. That's what he's saying He's saying the kingdom of God belongs only to those who value it far and away above everything else.

And if you value anything or anyone over me, and over my kingdom, trust me when I tell you that the day is going to come when something is gonna happen that will expose that idolatry in your heart. And when that moment comes, you will start making excuses and choose that other thing over my kingdom. And you will find yourself unable. To be my disciple the full distance to kingdom glory.

In practical terms, what do Jesus' words here mean for us? Certainly, we are called in scripture to love our family members. But Jesus is saying, If any such family members ever try to hinder us from following Jesus, or try to persuade us away from doing what Christ calls us to do, Then we should follow Jesus. And our family members should be left feeling stung by the fact that we love Jesus so much more than we love them.

Parents, if your children Ever are trying to get you to compromise the truth and compromise your convictions and agree to something that is wrong, your children ought to know by your response that you love Jesus so much more than you love them. Young person, if you're dating someone who is trying to get you to compromise your purity, With them. That person should know. By your response that you love Jesus so much more.

Then you love them. If your friends or co-workers, or even your parents. Ever are trying to get you to disobey Christ's call on your life, they should all be left feeling stung. By the fact that you love Jesus so much more.

Then you love them On top of that, Jesus says, That we are to love Jesus. To the point of hating our own life. Which means that if there's anything in your life that stands contrary to Jesus, you Identify that and happily part with that. If you have opportunity to suffer and die for the cause of Christ, you embrace the opportunity to lose your life for Christ's sake.

Obviously, we all love our lives. Jesus' point is you need to love me and my kingdom so much more. That the love that you have for your life looks like hatred by comparison. This actually leads us to the next truth that Jesus gives to challenge us to count the cost of following him all the way to the great kingdom feast.

Number 5, to follow Jesus to the kingdom feast, you must carry your cross and come after him. In verse 27, Jesus says, whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Again, he's not able to succeed, he's not capable. Of being my disciple the full distance to kingdom glory.

Jesus is saying, if you don't have a cross on your back, you cannot succeed in the business of being my disciple. And the cross that Jesus is talking about is not a cross that you're gonna have to go looking for. It's the cross that the world is going to put on you. The world, if you follow Jesus, is going to reject you.

At many points, the world will hate you and revile you. The world will put a cross on your back, just like they did Jesus. And if you aren't willing to carry that cross and keep coming after Jesus, even when the world is persecuting you for that, Then you're not gonna find yourself able to be Christ's disciple. As we talked about a few weeks ago, When a person is carrying their cross, they are on their way to their death, which means that Jesus' daily agenda for each of us is our dying.

Jesus isn't promising here that everyone who's a Christian is gonna be killed for following Christ, but he is calling every Christian to a lifestyle of dying to self and dying to the world. Rightly lived, the Christian life entails 100,000 moments of dying. And then finding true life on the other side of those layers of dying. Notice Jesus' words though.

To any would-be follower of Him, Jesus. Doesn't say carry your cross and go that way. No. He says, let such a person who wants to follow me and be my disciple carry his own cross and come after me.

Implied in what Jesus is saying here is the promise that he himself will be carrying his cross, and he will be going to his death. And if we intend to follow him to the great kingdom feast, We must be willing to carry our own cross and head toward our own crucifixion as well. Evidently the kingdom feast comes after crucifixion. After Jesus' crucifixion and after our own.

Dying This leads us to the next truth that Jesus gives us, to challenge us to calculate the cost of following Jesus all the way to the great kingdom feast. Number 6, to follow Jesus to the kingdom feast, you must count the cost of that endeavor. You must count the cost. Look at the example that Jesus gives in verse 28.

He says, for which one of you when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it. According to Jesus' words here, when a person wants to build a tower, he shouldn't just start building, he should first sit down and calculate the cost, and then look at his resources to see if he has enough to bring the project all the way to its completion and then begin. Jesus continues in verse 29. He says otherwise when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it began to ridicule him saying this man began to build and was not able to finish.

And I want you guys to really look carefully. At verse 29. And notice what Jesus is assuming here. And if you missed this, you missed the whole point of this analogy.

Jesus is assuming here that the tower builder does not have enough to finish the project. In fact, the tower builder doesn't have enough to even get past the foundation. Jesus' analogy here teaches us that following Him. Into the kingdom of God.

is like building a tower in full view of a watching world, and we don't have enough to complete the project. In fact, we don't even have enough to even get past the foundation and get this thing above ground level. That's Jesus' point. Look at his exact words and you get an idea of what he's calling us to do here.

He says, sit down, calculate the cost, and see if you have enough to complete it. And the truth is, you don't. And it's not even close. Guys, what response is Jesus wanting from his listeners?

Imagine that someone is listening to these words by Jesus, and they say, Jesus, I, I hear what you're saying. I get the point of the analogy, and I want you to know that I've just now calculated the cost of following you to the great kingdom feast, and I then looked at myself and I've decided that, yep, I got it in me. I have what it takes to follow you all the way to the finish. Is that the response that Jesus is wanting?

Not hardly. In fact, what I just said is how Peter talked. The night that he fell flat on his face and denied Christ three times. He basically said to Jesus, I've counted the cost, and I got it in me, and even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you.

That made for a bad night for Peter. The response that Jesus is wanting from his listeners. is for them to say, Jesus, I'm counting the cost here. And I don't have what it takes, which means that I am so out of my league and following you to the great kingdom feast.

You see this in the next example that Jesus gives. Look at what he says in verse 31. He says, or what king when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with 10,000 men to encounter the one coming against him with 20,000. Or else while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and ask for terms of peace.

Clearly, Jesus' use of a war analogy here alerts us to the fact that following Jesus puts us in a war. And it's not just war, but it's war against an enemy who's twice as strong as we are. Notice that king number 1, that is in our position, has 10,000 men and king number 2 who's coming against him has 20,000. Obviously, in the analogy that Jesus gives here, the king who's making war against you, if you're following Jesus is Satan.

And Jesus has already done. The counting of costs for you. He says Satan in the metaphor here has 20,000 men, and you only got 10,000, which means that you in and of yourself are outmatched and you're not strong enough to go against him. This means that if you went by reckoning only the resources that you have in and of yourself, guys, then you should just make peace with Satan and not bother with following Jesus.

That's Jesus' point. The task of following him to the great kingdom feast is greater than what you have resources for, and the enemy is too strong for you to go up against him. Following Jesus will put you up against an enemy who will require more from you than you have the resources in and of yourself to handle. So what do we do?

Where do we go from here? I don't have what it takes to follow Jesus to the kingdom feast. I look around at all that I am. In and of myself and all that I have and I see that I don't have sufficient resources to follow Christ.

So now I'm feeling silly standing here with the luggage. The suitcases of resources that I've packed to bring with me and following Jesus. Look at the moral that Jesus draws from the two analogies he's given. This leads us to the 7th truth that should challenge us to count the cost of following Jesus all the way to the great kingdom feast.

Number 7, to follow Jesus to the kingdom feast, you must give up all of your own resources. You must give up all of your own resources. Look at what Jesus says in verse 33. So then, None of you can be my disciple.

who does not give up all his own. Possessions. We all have possessions, and I think our English word possessions may throw us off track a little bit. The Greek word that is translated possessions literally speaks of things that you begin with.

Write down that word if you're taking notes to begin with. Because that word begin, launch out is actually this word. It's inside of the word possessions. It's resources that you have ready at hand at the beginning of a journey because you think they're useful.

Imagine that you're going on a trip and you sort through all of your possessions, you pack for the trip, putting items that are essential for the trip in your Luggage It's the stuff in your suitcase that Jesus is referring to here. And shockingly, Jesus tells us, we show up to follow him and we got all our luggage and stuff we think we need. And he says, you got to lose the luggage. You got to let it all go.

You have to surrender everything that you thought was most needful for the journey of following me. You see, we think that we wanna follow Jesus to the great kingdom banquet. So we calculate what we need, we pack up everything that we need for the journey. We have our money and our possessions that we think are helpful for the journey.

We have our willpower and our determination and our zeal and our resume. And our intelligence and our wisdom and reasoning that have always served us so well in past ventures. And we show up for the start of the journey. With all of that, and Jesus says you got to give all of that up.

That's crazy. And guys, why Jesus calls us to give up? All of our luggage. All of our resources like this.

As one commentator, Lensky says, the reason we give up all of our possessions is because however much of our possessions there may be, it will never get us beyond the foundation of a tower. Or beyond 10,000 against 20,000 troops. We give up all of such luggage because as Lensky says, discipleship and salvation are such great things that nothing of our own can avail in securing them. And we lay aside all of our luggage and resources, because when people come to Jesus, empty handed and absolutely empty of anything in and of themselves, then they can truly be his disciples.

Then he, Jesus can fill them with his possessions. And with them, with his possessions, the tower can and will be built, and the battle can and will be won. Jesus gives one final truth to challenge us to count the cost of following Jesus all the way to the great kingdom feast. And that is this, we'll just look at this quickly, failure to follow Jesus to the kingdom feast makes you worthless in God's kingdom.

Look at what he says in verses 34 and 35. He says, therefore salt is good, but even if salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown out.

He who has ears to hear, Jesus says, let him hear. In this analogy, Jesus gives, every person is viewed as salt of some sort, and the person who chooses to follow Christ, is salty and useful in God's kingdom, and the person who chooses not to be Christ's disciple is like salt that has become tasteless and therefore worthless. And Jesus' point is that as long as that person is not following Christ, there's nothing. That could ever make him salty again.

Tasteless salt is useless even to enrich the soil, and it's even useless for the manure pile, which was the lowest use of salt in Jesus' day. And Jesus' point to all of us is this, if you choose not to follow me, Then you are worthless and will forever be worthless in God's kingdom. Worthless even for the lowliest of purposes in God's kingdom. If there is such a thing as a manure pile in God's kingdom, Jesus is saying, you're not even worth the manure pile.

Some of you may be investigating God's kingdom to see if it's worthy of you. Your concern should be the opposite. The problem is that you're not fit for God's kingdom. And neither are any of us in this room in and of ourselves, and only following Christ.

Can season us and render us fit for usefulness in God's kingdom. And Jesus says you better listen to what I'm saying here. He who has ears to hear Let him here. Here's the big takeaway.

For today God has prepared a sumptuous feast. That you should want to be at. And he has sent his servant Jesus, His Son. To say, come, it is ready and to invite you.

And Jesus through many means is inviting you into this kingdom feast. And to get into God's kingdom feast, there's only one way you absolutely must follow Christ. And when you count the cost of following Christ all the way to the kingdom feast, You arrive at a cost that's more than you could ever pay. Those who keep following Christ and Luke's Gospel are gonna learn soon enough that the cost for entry into the kingdom banquet is the life blood of Jesus.

The payment required is Jesus laying down his life for us. And guys, Jesus was willing to do that. And everything he tells us to do in this passage in order to be his disciples, he did in order to be our savior. He loved his father so much that he was willing to let go of all other attachments and lose everything.

He carried his cross, he died on that cross in order to purchase our way into the great kingdom banquet. You see, Jesus is the ultimate cost counter. He took full measure of the cost of us getting into the kingdom banquet. And he was willing to pay that cost for us at the cross.

But make no mistake, guys, following Jesus to the kingdom feast is gonna cost you and me everything as well. But should we balk at that? Think about Sarah Cummins and her reception for the homeless last July. She and others were willing to count the cost and pay the cost for the reception that the homeless were invited to.

As for the homeless, their cost, was to give up their clothes in order to wear the new clothes provided for them. And to give up the homeless shelter's food. In favor of the fine dining at the Ritz Charles. Wow, what a huge sacrifice those homeless people made.

And guys, it's the same with us. We sacrifice our rags. For Jesus' righteousness, we sacrifice the toxic banquets of this world for the wholesome feast that he provides. We let go of the luggage that we packed and we rely on him instead.

And guys, when we look at everything that Jesus gives us in this life and in the life to come and return, there's no such thing as sacrificing anything for him. So if you want to count the cost, Of total devotion, here it is. It's more than you can pay. It requires more currency than you have.

In fact, your own currency couldn't even get you above ground level. And it requires a greater might than you can muster. Whatever resources you wanna bring with you and following Christ, they count for nothing and should be given up and surrendered for that reason. Pick up your cross and follow Jesus, Love Him first and foremost, and surrender all your luggage to him.

For the journey of following him to the great feast. That's the message of Jesus in this passage. And I'll share this in closing, you might be Listening to these words that Jesus has spoken and you might be thinking this is all so demanding. Who would ever want to follow Jesus after hearing what Jesus has just said?

You might think that only the super spiritual and godly would want anything to do with Jesus anymore. But guys, just the opposite is true. Look at the very first verse of Luke 15. In verse one, it says now all the tax gatherers and the sinners were coming near him to listen to him, and both the Pharisees and the scribes, those are the super spiritual, began to grumble saying this man receives sinners and eats with them.

Well, after talking the way that Jesus has just talked, sinners are flocking to him. And the religious elite were left grumbling. On the outside. Do why this is so?

Does that surprise you? This outcome The reason this thing happens is because what Jesus has said in Luke 14, is especially good news for people who have nothing to bring to him. All they have to do is give up their broken life as they now know it and love Jesus first and foremost. All they have to do is agree with him that they don't have enough to even get past the foundation of following him and admit that they're outmatched by Satan.

And to admit that they've lost their saltiness and cannot regain that saltiness through any other means than following Jesus. It's easier for them. To admit that Such people are especially suited. To come to Jesus and say to him, and I hope, I hope that you could say this with them this morning.

Saying to Jesus, Lord, I'm gonna follow you. All the way to the great kingdom feast, not because I think I have what it takes to do so. But I'm gonna follow you the whole way because I need you. Because you're the only one who can render me fit for God's kingdom.

I've counted the cost like you told me to in this passage, and I don't have what it takes to follow you. Which is exactly why I will never stop following you, Jesus. You have the resources I need to build the tower, you have the might that I need to overcome my enemy, and you alone are the one who can make me worthwhile in God's kingdom, and for that reason, Jesus, I will never, ever leave your side. That's the way I think Jesus wants us to respond.

To what he teaches here. Today. Let me ask you to bow your heads. There's a lot for us to be pondering.

And I pray that God will give you wisdom as you ponder and these things in the hours and days to come, and as you process these things in your care group. Discussion times later today and this week. But do you have ears to hear? And if you do Are you hearing what Jesus is saying today?

If you're here today and you have never Officially responded to his invitation. To the kingdom feast, which is salvation. Respond and say yes. Today, as Jesus stands before you and says, will you follow me?

Let me bring you to this feast. Will you say yes to Jesus? And will you hear Jesus when he says, hey, I've counted the cost. You don't have what it takes to make it to the kingdom banquet, but I do.

And I'm calling you to follow me and I will take you there. Lay aside your righteousness. Your own wisdom, your own resources. And follow me And I will take you there.

Lord, we just come to you this morning and And acknowledge to you that we, we need supernatural help to process your words as you have spoken them in this passage today. And may we not allow the birds of the air to come and pluck them away, but may We, Lord, think. Long and hard about what this means for us. About the path of following you and what is entailed in that.

There are strongholds in all of our lives, Lord, that need to be torn down, and I pray that you would use the words you've spoken today to just start busting up those strongholds. Such that Strongholds would fall. And new things would be built in their place, and we, we see in 2018. New habits forming, a new lifestyle emerging.

That is consistent with what we hear from you. In Luke 14. Make us doers of the word and not just merely people who hear and agree and say amen. But we thank you for words like this that help us to see our bankruptcy.

All of us should be on the floor before you saying, we don't have what it takes. And then to hear you say to us as we lie before you, you're exactly where I want you. Now follow me. Help us to do that, Lord.

We thank you for this opportunity to give of our offerings to you, receive these funds, do much with all that is given in this offering today for the glory. Of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, and all God's people said,