The Cost of Discipleship:

Luke 14:26-27 “...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...”

How can you reconcile hating your father and mother with the fifth commandment?

• Exodus 20:12 “...Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you...”
• Ephesians 6:2-3 “...Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land...”
• Colossians 3:20 “...Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord...”
• Matthew 10:37-38 “...Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me...”

• The Matthew verse translates as loving more, not as hate.
• To love father, mother, wife, children, or even self more than Jesus, is to not love Jesus properly.

What can’t happen when Jesus isn’t loved correctly - the most?

• A person can’t be a disciple of Jesus.

Is it possible to think you’re a disciple when you’re not?

• What does it mean to “...take his cross and follow me...”? 
• The cross was an instrument of death that prisoners were forced to carry.

Does following Jesus require enduring whatever is burdensome, or trying, or considered as disgraceful?

Does following Christ require an instrument of death? [death to self, to flesh]

Did Jesus carry a cross to accomplish the will of the Father?

How can family misinterpret a person’s love for Jesus?

• A person who follows Jesus can be accused of abandoning family - hating them.

Luke 14:28-30 “...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? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish...”

Why is it important to count the cost of building a tower?

• A tower is built up into the air for all to see.
• If completed, all will see and many will admire it.
• If not completed, all will see, and most will consider the builder a failure.

Why is it important to count the cost of following Jesus?

• Following Jesus creates changes that all will see.
• If completed, all will see and many will admire them.
• If not completed, all will see, and most will consider the person a failure.

Luke 14:31-32 “...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? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace...”

Why is it important to deliberate before going to war?

• It is obviously unwise to go to war if there is little chance of victory.

Why is it important to deliberate before following Jesus?

• There are consequences to discipleship that people must be willing to face.
• Discipleship involves spiritual warfare, which requires discipline and determination.

Luke 14:33 “...So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple...”

What does it mean to “...renounce all...”

• All means all, and that’s all all means.
• We must be willing to leave everything, to endure anything, and to persevere in our walk with Jesus. 
• If we are not willing, we “...cannot be (His) disciple...”