The Real Cost of Discipleship?

Last weekend I had the privilige of preaching at Good Samaritan Anglican Church in Summerville, SC. The gospel reading was Luke 14:25-33 and the heading in most Bibles for that section is “The Cost of Discipleship”. It was a great experience preparing and delivering the sermon. This particular reading is a difficult one to navigate until we dig into other passages relating similar teaching and use of phrases. Luke records Jesus as using the word “hate” in a way that we in the western world are not used to. Yet the parallel teaching in Matthew 10 and the story of Jacob in Genesis 29 give us clarity as to what this passage means.

Yet the more interesting aspect of the passage is the way we view what is going on. In this context, Jesus has a significant crowd that is following him. The next several points of teaching are intentional about how difficult it is to be a disciple of Jesus. It is almost as if he is intentionally trying to scare them off. When we think about how we approach evangelism in America, we tend to want to draw in as many people as possible. We don’t want to scare people off. We want to cast a wide net and invite lots of people to follow Jesus. Yet Jesus seems to make it really difficult to be his disciple.

The great commission calls us to make disciples. Is there any higher calling for the church? When we study this text, we see Jesus clearly indicating that our love for him must be greater than even our closest family. We are urged to count the cost both in terms of whether or not we can/will continue to grow as disciples and whether we can face the opposition that will inevitably come our way.

Do we count the cost of discipleship in the church? Do our church budgets reflect a priority of making disciples within the church and beyond? Are our people sacrificing their time to disciple others? Are we creating a culture in our congregations whereby disciple making is generational? Engage Discipleship would love to help your congregation to become equipped and empowered to disciple others.